“Ay, Papá. Your Angélica is something else, isn’t she?”
I stood up, dusting the dirt from my trousers. I was not far from Franco’s house. It would probably take me about five minutes to get there. I plucked a daisy from the ground and set it on my father’s grave.
The burned-out house was larger than I remembered. There was no front door so I just stepped inside. It was hard to determine what I was looking at. Pieces of wood that must have belonged to the ceiling or a wall had collapsed on the floor and were now charred. Mountains of rubble filled what might have been, at one point, a parlor. The staircase was mostly gone, but surprisingly, the dining room was intact—an oval table with four chairs sat in the center of the room. It was incredible that among this destruction there were still discernable objects. Why hadn’t Soledad and her son claimed some of these things? Scattered across the kitchen floor were broken ceramic cups, tarnished pots, and silverware. The wall next to the stove was stained with smoke and there was a hole carved out of the wood.
I spotted the corner of a golden tin box inside the hole. It was stuck with a piece of brick that had fallen on top, but with some effort, I slid it out. The lid was somewhat mangled. I removed it. Inside was a notebook and some pencils. I looked through the pages. It seemed to be a calligraphy or spelling notebook, as there were simple words and phrases repeated throughout. I skimmed through the pages until something caught my attention: a name written with clear penmanship.
Catalina is my best friend.
The sentence was repeated several times across the page. Catalina? Franco’s friend? I couldn’t imagine a friendship between two more discordant people. She was so pretty and sweet, a lady. And Franco, a brute, a man with no morals willing to kill a stranger for money.
And yet, I was holding the evidence that there had been, at least at one time, a friendship between them—the only evidence connecting one of my sisters to Franco. I couldn’t just ignore it because it seemed improbable or ludicrous to me.
Could their friendship have evolved into something else—into a romance? Was she the woman who drove him crazy? I couldn’t picture her asking him to kill me. I couldn’t imagine her in a relationship with this man. What would she have seen in him? Unless she just used him to get rid of me.
No, this relationship must have started years ago. His handwriting seemed childish and so did the sentence.
I sifted through the pages, but couldn’t find her name anywhere else. I shoved the notebook inside my trousers and covered it with my waistcoat while I continued to look for further proof of her presence in his life. I walked to the other side of the house.
“Don Cristóbal?”
Startled, I turned around.
“Don Martin! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“I thought it was you in here.”
“I was just taking a walk and got curious about this place.”
Martin looked puzzled.
“For inspiration,” I said. “Did I tell you I’m writing a novel?”
“Many times.”
He looked around, resting his hands on his hips.
“Well, it doesn’t seem like you’re going to find a lot of inspiration here. Not a lot is left.”
“Yes. Poor family,” I said, studying Martin as he glanced around the debris. If he’d lived here so many years, he might know if Catalina and Franco were in a relationship. “I met Do?a Soledad, by coincidence, the other day. She’s desperate because her son has disappeared.”
He picked up a square object—it was virtually impossible to recognize what it had been. An ornament, a sewing kit, a jewelry box?
“Is she really?”
“Yes. She said that he was madly in love with a woman and she asked him to do something for him. After that, he never came back.”
Martin placed the strange object on his head, and took a step with his arms widespread, trying to balance it.
I laughed. What was it about this man that was so distracting? I could never get any information from him. After he was done parading around with the box on his head, I spoke again.
“Do you have any idea of who that woman might have been?”
He ducked his head forward, making the object land in his hands. Then he bowed down as if he were a grand magician.
“No.”
“You were not friends with him?”
“Why would I be? He worked for me.”
He had a point.
“Careful with that glass,” he told me before I stepped on a dozen pieces of broken glass. It could’ve been a bottle or part of a window. “Why do you care so much about this family?”
“Do?a Soledad asked for my help finding her son.” I averted my gaze. “I didn’t see you at the bingo last night.”
Martin waved his hand in dismissal. “Oh, Los Gran Cacao never invite me to those things. Not that I would go anyway.”
“Los Gran Cacao?”
He shrugged. “It’s what people around here call families with cacao money.”
I had to admit that I would’ve rather not attended, either. Angélica’s friends were a close-knit, arrogant crowd and they weren’t too welcoming. The good thing about them ignoring me the entire evening had been that I didn’t have to speak at all.
“Hey, what do you say we go to town and visit our friends tonight?” He winked at me.
Oh, not the prostitutes again!
I placed my hand on my stomach. “No, Don Martin, I can’t. I felt terrible doing that to my wife so soon after her passing.”
He stared at me with a mystified expression. Was I the only man ever to decline such an offer? The experience of going to the brothel had saddened me more than anything. Even though Carmela had seemed enthusiastic to offer her services to me, there had been a void in her eyes I couldn’t ignore. A painful resignation, if you will, that had broken my heart.
“I understand,” he said.
He did?
“Let’s go to town anyway.” He patted my arm. “There’s a place I think you might like.”