"I think so."
"Besides, I'm not exactly Spanish."
"Now I don't follow you."
"My father, the late great el Senor Doctor, had this thing about American stuff, okay? Everything from America was better: cinema, appliances, sporting arms, cars. When we went hunting, it was Remingtons all the way, and we were the only family in Candas, maybe in all of Asturias, that had a Cadillac. Yeah, he had a hell of a time getting that boat through the streets."
Cuervo made a hitchhiking gesture behind him at the photo of the house. "Even had to widen the driveway, keep from scratching the paint off. If we ever got snow – which thank Christ we never did, it's more like London weather there – he'd have wrecked it first time out, the way he drove. And when it broke? Good luck getting it fixed. But that didn't matter, right? My father wanted the best of everything, and the best was American, so I got sent off to school over here, and after my mother died he married the showiest American woman he could find."
"How old were you when your father married Maisy Andrus?"
"I don't know. I didn't even go to the wedding. What the hell does it matter?"
"Why didn't you attend the wedding?"
A smirk. "I think I had a track meet that weekend. Yeah, yeah, that was it. The team couldn't spare me."
"You get along all right with Andrus?"
"Get along? I barely ever saw her. You got to remember, I was in school over here. And Maisy went to live in Spain with my father only part of the year. I sure as hell wasn't interested in seeing Maisy over here, and I'll bet Maisy spent more time in old Esparia during those years than I did."
"You have a falling out with your father over Maisy?"
"Falling… you got a hell of a nerve, interrogating me like this."
I just waited.
"What right do you have, coming into my place of business and asking me all these questions?"
I hadn't checked in with the Sarrey police. "Only trying to do my job."
"Which is?"
"To eliminate as many people as possible from the list, and then focus on the ones who could be threatening her."
Cuervo started rotating the cup again. "Look, I don't have any bone to pick with Maisy anymore."
"Anymore?"
"My father… when he died, she got some things, I got some things."
I inclined my head toward the house photo. "She got the homestead."
"Yeah, which if she was able to use it would be a nice place. It sits on this bluff, kind of overlooking the bullring in Candas, near Gijon. When I was a kid, the family'd sit on the lawn, swilling sidra – new cider, sweet, a little alcoholic – and we'd watch the corridas – the bullfights. The bullring is built right along the beach, so when the tide goes out, they can have the corridas right there. Of course, sometimes the bulls, they notice the hole in the wall and they swim for it, but… look, what I'm trying to say here is, by the time it came to dividing things up between her and me, I did fine. I got everything I needed to come back here, go to college, buy a place on the water in Marblehead. My father was right about one thing. American is the best, and I got all I needed from him to have it."
"How did you feel about your father dying the way he did?"
"My father got sick. He was a doctor. I never thought much about him getting sick. When I was young, still living in Spain before he sent me… before I came over here for school, I thought he was like Superman, you know?"
"Invulnerable?"
"Right, right. Like God didn't let the doctors catch any diseases. That they always had to stay healthy to keep other people alive."
"And therefore?"
"When I heard about him… about him being sick, I mean, I didn't take it seriously. I couldn't even remember seeing him sick. When I finally realized how bad it was, I got upset, sure. But there wasn't anything anybody could do about it, so…" Cuervo shrugged.
"How did you feel about your stepmother helping him'?"
A quick breath, then he leaned back in the chair and got casual. "I don't think Maisy is my stepmother anymore. I mean, she got to be that because she married my father, but now she's married to somebody else, right?"
"Andrus injected your father with an overdose."
A philosophical smile. "Maybe what she did was the right thing. He was going to die anyway. Maybe Maisy was just making it easier for him, like we do with the stunner on the calves downstairs before they can see the knife."
"You get involved in any of the legal wrangle over your father's death?"
"No. Maisy got charged and I was supposed to testify, but they never – what do you call it?"
"Indicted her?"
"No, like when they… extradited her. They never extradited Maisy. This was all after Loredo Mendez – the prosecutor that let her get off to start with – killed himself. Barely remember old Luis now, but he was a friend of my father's from the university and had this young wife my father saved from dying during childbirth." The smirk again. "Younger wives were real popular in my father's crowd."
"You ever go back to Spain?"
"Me? No way. That's a part of the world I've already seen."
"Never get homesick?"
"For what? Candas hasn't been home since I was fourteen."
"What can you tell me about Manolo?"
"Manolo. He still around?"
"Yes."
"Well, I guess he would be. My father was a soft touch, John, a real soft touch. One day he comes home, I'm maybe eight or nine, and he's got this big, scared kid with him. Manolo's family was kind of poor, and his father was a drunk. You don't see much of that in Spain. The people learn to drink sidra and sherry young enough to handle it. But Manolo's father was the exception, and with Manolo not being able to talk or anything, I guess it got him frustrated, so he beat the kid. But el Sefzor Doctor took him in. Taught him sign language and turned him into a helper around the dispensary. Kind of a trained bear, if you ask me. But he was like my father's shadow. Wherever el Senor Doctor Enrique went, Manolo would be there too."
"How did Manolo take your father's death?"
"I wasn't paying much attention. But I'm guessing that my father must have made him understand that it was okay."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because I know Manolo. If he thought Maisy had killed my father? Hah, he'd kill her. No question. But then, Manolo's not your man."
"Why?"
"Well, he can't talk, can he? How's he going to make threatening calls?"
"I didn't say the threats came by phone."
"Oh," said Cuervo, shrugging again. "I thought you did."
18
I DROVE BACK INTO BOSTON, PUTTING THE CAR IN THE Trash-strewn alley behind my office building and grabbing a beer and burger at Friar Tuck's Pub. After lunch I called my answering service as I sorted through the mail. Four messages, one of which was from Inés Roja, asking me to reach her at the school by two.
My watch said two-fifteen. I tried anyway.
"Maisy Andrus."
"I didn't expect to get you directly."
"Who… oh, John." Her voice darkened. "Is something wrong?"
"Not that I know of. Inés left word for me to call."
"You just missed her. I can give you the number at the clinic?"
"Clinic?"
"Yes, she volunteers an afternoon a week, sometimes more."
"I thought Alec said Inés had to leave that?"
"This is a different clinic."
Recognizing the 269 exchange as South Boston, I did some paperwork first, then drove to it. The small parking area had one slot open, but there were plenty of spaces on the street as well. Just inside the door was a waiting area. An elderly woman had a wire carrying cage in her lap, a Siamese hunched down on its forepaws and looking out warily. Across from the cat lady was a fat man with a matched set of Airedales, straining at their leashes and licking their chops. The Siamese seemed pleased that the woman had remembered the cage.
I walked to the counter. A high school girl in a faded green smock and moussed hair asked if she could help me.