He wasn't a large man; but he was sleek, like a racehorse, and compactly built. Almost hidden behind the cloth of his unbuttoned shirt was a gold crucifix that glowed in the dim, overhead lights.
Gold again, I thought. That particular commodity seemed to be everywhere at the moment.
"Detective Sue Danielson and Detective J. P. Beaumont, this is Maria Hurtado and her brother, Lorenzo," June was saying.
Maria, seated beside her brother, rose to her feet and then tentatively shook hands, first with Sue and then with me. Lorenzo didn't move, and he didn't offer his hand, either. His eyes stayed full on my face.
"How do you do," he said formally.
There were only four chairs at the table. I rustled up a fifth and then sat in that one with Sue and June on either side of me and with both the Hurtados facing us. From the way he watched me, I knew it was no accident that Lorenzo had chosen the chair he was seated on. From that vantage point, he could observe the entire room. Whatever the real story behind his brother's death back home in Guatemala, it had left Lorenzo Hurtado a cautious survivor.
Still holding my gaze with his, Lorenzo used casual and unhurried movements to extract a package of cigarettes from his pocket. He offered the cigarettes around the table. When no one took one, he did so himself, shaking a cigarette loose from the pack, which he then returned to his pocket. He lit the cigarette with a steady, tremble-free match. June had told me Lorenzo was frightened of cops. If that was the case, he was doing a hell of a good job of covering it up.
Once the cigarette was lit, Lorenzo was the first to speak. He did so slowly and deliberately, as if taking scrupulous pains so as not to be misunderstood.
"I didn't do it," he said.
"Didn't do what?" I asked, playing dumb.
"I did not kill Senor Gebhardt, and I didn't see who did it, either."
"But you were there when he was killed?"
"Yes," Lorenzo said. And then, "No." And then, "Maybe."
"Look, you can't have it both ways," I insisted. "Were you there or weren't you?"
The lights around us reflected on the smooth, closely shaved skin of Lorenzo Hurtado's narrow face, capturing a slight involuntary tic. "I don't know for sure if I was there or not when Senor Gebhardt died," Lorenzo answered. "But he was still alive when I stepped onto the boat. I know that because I heard him."
"What exactly did you hear?" I asked.
Lorenzo closed his eyes and shuddered. He swallowed hard, then opened his eyes again and stared at me while a stream of ashes spilled unnoticed from the smoldering and forgotten cigarette clutched between his fingers.
"You are a policeman, Detective Beaumont." It was a statement, not a question.
The music wasn't playing, but even so, Lorenzo Hurtado spoke so softly that I had to strain to hear him. I nodded.
"Senora Miller says things are different here; that it isn't the same as it was back home in Guatemala when my brother died. So maybe you don't know what it's like. Have you ever heard the sound of someone being tortured?"
Suddenly, Lorenzo Hurtado was the interrogator and I the mere questionee. "No," I answered truthfully. "I have not."
His eyes narrowed. Although they appeared to be staring directly at me, I don't think he was seeing me so much as he was seeing something else, recalling a witnessed event from long ago-a terrible, intimate ghost from his own past.
"There is a time," he said slowly, measuring his words. "It comes almost at the end, when there are no more cries for help or mercy, when there is no more begging. I heard no words on the Isolde that night, only a groan. It is the nightmare sound of someone consenting to die, Detective Beaumont. Of someone wanting to die. It is the sound I think of now when the priest reads to us about Jesus ‘giving up the ghost.'"
Lorenzo Hurtado paused and shook his head. "Before that night on the Isolde, I had heard that sound only once before when I was a little boy of eleven. When it comes in my dreams, it keeps me awake even now. Because, Detective Beaumont, once you hear it, you never, ever forget."
"You're saying you came on the boat, heard this terrible noise-the sound of someone being tortured-and then you just left? You didn't even try to help?"
"I ran," he whispered. "I ran as far and fast as I could."
"Judge not, jerk," I berated myself, while a single tear welled up in the corner of Lorenzo Hurtado's eye and coursed a glistening track down his cheek. He made no effort to brush it away. For a time, no one at the table spoke, although Maria Hurtado was weeping openly.
"I know now that I should have tried to find help," Lorenzo continued finally. "I don't know what happened to me. Maybe if I hadn't run away, Senor Gebhardt would still be alive. I should have tried to help, but I didn't. I pray to the Holy Mother every day, asking for forgiveness."
Shoulders heaving, Lorenzo caught his breath, sighed, and looked away. Call it gut instinct, but there was no question in my mind that Lorenzo Hurtado was telling the absolute truth.
Clearly, although the man was right on the edge, someone had to keep asking questions, and I was elected. "After you heard the groan, tell us exactly what happened then."
Lorenzo shuddered and cleared his throat before he spoke again. "I guess I panicked. Maria's a nurse. She works at the V.A. Hospital. She says what happened to me is a flashback. You think what's happening now is what happened that other time. What is gets all mixed up with what isn't. I don't remember all of it. I think I may have hidden somewhere for a while. My shoes and clothing were covered with mud, but mostly I ran."
"Until you were hit by the car?"
"Yes. I don't remember that exactly, either. I mean, I don't remember how it happened, but yes. The car hit me."
"And then?"
"After I got away from the lady in the car, I went home."
"Where do you live, Lorenzo?"
"Capitol Hill. Maria and I share an apartment there, with our mother."
"How did you get home?"
"I called Maria from a pay phone. She had dropped me off for work, and she came back to get me."
"And bandaged your leg?"
"Yes."
Since Maria was a nurse, there had been no necessity for them to seek medical treatment for the cut on Lorenzo's leg. That explained why his description and the Identi-Kit sketch hadn't rattled any chains of recognition at the hospital emergency rooms where Sue Danielson had made inquiries.
"What were you doing on the Isolde at that hour of the morning? What time was it, four-thirty? Five?"
"Five. Senor Gebhardt asked me to come to work then. He said we had a lot to do that day, that we needed to get an early start."
"What exactly were you doing?"
"Getting the boat ready to go out. I was supposed to help him overhaul the engine starting next week, but he called me on Sunday. He said he had decided to put off the overhaul until later. He said while it was still good weather, he wanted to take the boat out for one last test before we started working on it. I did some other work on the boat the day before, on Monday, checking the equipment, fuel, and fluids-making sure everything was right. Mostly I helped him load stores on board. The next day he told me he wanted me to come help him load on everything else."
"What everything else?"
Lorenzo raised his shoulders and shook his head. "I don't know. He said it would be hard work, that it would take all day."
"There was a wrench," I said, "a small box wrench that was found near the scene of the car accident. The lady who hit you found it in the street after you left. Do you know anything about that?"
He nodded. "It was on the deck of the Isolde when I came on board," Lorenzo said. "I stepped on it and almost fell down. I'm sure it was one of Senor Gebhardt's tools, and I was afraid I had left it out overnight. He was careful about his tools. I was going to return it to the toolbox without letting him know it had been left out. When I picked it up to put it in my pocket, it felt funny, and I wondered why it was covered with paint."