But now, disguised as a man, all my femininity—so eclipsed in my normal life—seemed to come through.
I asked to see the manager and a balding man with sweaty palms and enormous spectacles came to greet me. After I mentioned I had a delicate matter to discuss with him, he hesitantly led me to his office. He was the nervous kind, the type of person who doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. One moment he was rolling a fountain pen on his desk and the next he was shuffling papers from one pile to another.
I introduced myself as Don Armand Lafont’s son-in-law. The news in Vinces traveled more quickly than I thought as he’d already heard about me. He stuttered his condolences on my wife’s passing.
“How c-c-can I help you, Se?or Balboa?” Through the glasses, his eyes looked monumental.
“I trust this conversation will remain private, Se?or Aguirre?” I said. It was remarkable how I was learning to control the low register of my voice.
“Of c-c-course.”
How on earth had this nervous little man climbed to such an important position in the company?
I removed the check from my pocket and placed it on the surface of the desk. For a moment, I hesitated. What if this man was friends with whoever had tried to kill me?
He looked at the check.
“Mr. Aguirre, I found this check among my wife’s belongings. I know it’s postdated to May and I don’t intend to cash it, but I’d like to know whose signature this is.”
Aguirre removed a magnifying glass from his top drawer and examined the penmanship for a moment.
“Mr. Balboa, this is Mr. Lafont’s signature.”
“Mr. Lafont? As in Armand Lafont?”
“The very same one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sir, I would r-r-recognize his signature anywhere. He was one of our most important clients for over t-t-t-twenty years.”
This made no sense. “Is there anyone else who can sign on this account?”
“I believe Don Martin Sabater has a power of attorney given to him by Mr. Lafont for when he could no longer make business decisions, but Mr. Sabater can sign with his own name.”
So, he wouldn’t need to sign under my father’s name. Unless he didn’t want anyone else to know he was the one signing. But this didn’t make him any more suspicious than my sisters. The only thing this proved was that someone had either forged the signature or that my father himself had signed a blank check and this person had stolen it. In either case, someone else was behind all of this because it made no sense that my father would send someone to kill me after making me his heir.
Frustrated, I thanked Mr. Aguirre and left. So, my murderer was a skilled swindler or a good thief—that was all I’d gotten from this meeting. What now? Was I going to hold calligraphy tests on all my suspects to know who had the ability to forge my father’s signature?
CHAPTER 13
I found a ride home on a carriage pulled by a donkey. His owner, a humble old man with scarce teeth and a straw hat, nodded repeatedly as I placed a handful of coins in his hand, flashing his gums without a hint of self-consciousness. Neither one of my sisters asked where I’d spent the night—one of the perks of being a man, I supposed.
Laurent and Angélica were playing cards in the parlor, while Catalina sat by herself with a book.
“Why don’t you join us, Don Cristóbal?” Angélica said. “We need a fourth player for Cuarenta. Poor Catalina never gets to play.”
Catalina raised her gaze from the book, expectant.
“Sure,” I said in a low voice. “But I don’t know the game.”
“Oh, it’s easy. Isn’t it, cher? My Laurent learned it in five minutes.”
Laurent nodded.
The four of us sat around the table and Angélica explained the rules. Cuarenta had a simple concept: the couple who reached forty points first won, hence the name. It was fast-paced and filled with colloquial terms. They said it was the most popular game in Ecuador, but Laurent reassured me that the aristocrats in the region called it a game for simpletons and drunks.
So odd to be playing cards in the middle of the day. I’d usually been frantic in the mornings: preparing chocolate for my customers, making sure the tables were set just right, paying my suppliers. Cristóbal often told me I worked too much. “At least take the weekends off,” he would say. But I told him those were the best days for business. Besides, I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to our empty apartment, void of children’s laughter and toys scattered throughout the parlor.
How different my sisters were. This life of luxury, of leisure, seemed to appeal to them very much. They probably wouldn’t give it up so easily.
After an hour of playing—Angélica and Laurent were the undisputed champions—Catalina excused herself and Laurent decided to go for a walk. I studied Angélica as she put the cards away.
Could she be the one who forged the check? Her husband? How to know what was in the heart and mind of someone else—what that person was capable of—other than by getting to know them.
“Have you ever traveled, Do?a Angélica?”
“Me?” She scoffed. “I’ve been to Guayaquil a handful of times and once to Quito for a wedding, but I was a child then.”
“What about outside the country?”
“Oh, no, never.”
I was shocked that someone who seemed so sophisticated, so at ease in her own skin, had been locked in this hacienda her entire life.
“I’ve always wanted to go to France, though,” she said.
“So do I.”
“You haven’t? But it’s right next to Spain.”
I shrugged.
“Why Don Cristóbal, I took you for a worldly man. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go there before you.” She winked.
“You should,” I said. “A woman like yourself shouldn’t be stuck in a small town all her life.”
She stopped her shuffling and looked at me as if I’d spoken in Polish.