Isa sighed. “Lara, your knowledge of fashion is appalling. I really will have to take you in hand. G-U-C-C-I. Italian, trendy, expensive. Jonathan is unquestionably the best-dressed archaeologist I’ve ever seen. Even his casual clothes are Savile Row. He’s also the better conversationalist. Lucas isn’t exactly wordy, is he?”
“No, but he dresses like an archaeologist. I don’t suppose there is any point in asking who, where, or what is a Savile Row?”
Isa treated my question with the contempt it deserved. “I think we can safely assume Jonathan is not living off an archaeologist’s salary. He must be independently wealthy, upper-crust, Oxford-educated, old school tie, tea parties at Buckingham Palace, that sort of thing. I think we should make inquiries.”
Just then Norberto came over with a tray with two margaritas for us. “On the house.” He smiled. “Mother says to just get whatever you want to eat from the kitchen. She’s gone to pay her respects to Luis and Ricardo’s mother.”
“Have you heard anything more about the police investigation, Isa?” I asked after Norberto had gone back inside.
“The police are saying it was some kind of gang war,” Isa replied.
“That may be what they are saying officially, Isa, but as I told you, Major Martinez has hinted—more than hinted—that Don Hernan is involved.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Try telling that to Martinez. And Luis was found on the roof of the museo. How on earth would a gang war put him there?”
We both pondered that for a while.
“Isa, I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure.”
“I need an address and directions to the home of Diego Maria Gomez Arias.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“His name or rather the initials D.M.G.A. appear rather often in Don Hernan’s diary, if I remember correctly.”
“How are you going to—the tree!”
I nodded.
Later that afternoon she went out, and returned in an hour or two.
She handed me a slip of paper with an address and a hand-drawn route map. She also slipped me a set of car keys.
“You’ll need transportation,” she whispered conspiratorially. “My car will be on the side street by eleven p.m. I’ll go stay with friends for a couple of hours, then pick it up on the way home and drive it to the garage.”
The day dragged on after that, except for the time when Jonathan dropped in for a drink, “to visit die prisoner,” as he put it. We had a pleasant visit, but he couldn’t stay for dinner. He had work to do, he said. I looked at his shoes with new respect. Italian, trendy, expensive…
We watched the television news in the kitchen. The death of Luis Vallespino had caused an outpouring of rage and grief in the city. His funeral had made the news, and was obviously well attended. I scanned the crowd for signs of Alejandro, but did not see him.
Right after eleven, I turned out the light, put the dark pants and sweater on again, and crawled out through the bathroom window as I had previously.
I had to wait up in the tree until a couple out for a stroll passed by, then I was down and around the corner.
The Mercedes was there, as promised, and I pulled away as quickly as I could.
Isa’s directions took me north on the extension of the Paseo de Montejo to a part of town known to be the haunt of the nouveau riche and famous. When the henequen trade had dried up, victim of the arrival of man-made fibers, and the upkeep and modernization of the houses on the paseo became too expensive for succeeding generations, the rich moved north along the road to Progreso.
Indeed, if you take the Plaza Major as the heart of Merida, the farther north you go, the wealthier the residents. The Gomez Arias family lived well to the north, out beyond even the country-club set. The houses out here were enormous, and even though it was now about eleven-thirty, almost all were still ablaze, a testimony to the Mexican penchant for staying up half the night.
I was glad to have the Mercedes. There were several private security personnel on patrol, some in cars, some on foot with dogs. The Mercedes, in this neighborhood, raised no suspicions.
I had a little trouble finding my way through the winding streets, but eventually I pulled up at the gate of the palatial estate Diego Maria Gomez Arias called home. I pushed a button at the entrance and spoke my name into a little box, asking in what I hoped was impeccable Spanish for a brief meeting with Senor Gomez Arias. There was a lengthy pause, during which I got to consider how silly this all was. Of course they would not open the gates to a stranger at eleven-thirty at night.
I was about to give up and go back to the hotel, fearful the dogs had been called, when the huge wrought-iron gates began to swing open.
I piloted the Mercedes along a sweeping drive, the headlights illuminating bushes of hibiscus that must have been absolutely gorgeous in the light of day.
The house itself struck me as rather odd for Merida, its architecture more English or French manor house than traditional Spanish: portico entrance, leaded glass windows, none of the tilework or heavy wood carving I would have expected.
This impression was borne out when the door was opened at my ring, and I was ushered into a spectacular mirrored black-and-white marble-tiled foyer. The maid who opened the door was also dressed in black and white, and looked rather disdainfully at my attire. At least all in black, I, too, matched the decor. I was left to cool my heels for a while.
This gave me plenty of opportunity to gawk. A huge crystal chandelier graced the entranceway, a circular staircase curved up one side of the foyer, and to my right, a door led into what I was soon to learn was a sitting room.
The walls were all mirrored, and in a decorating affectation I have never liked, pictures were hung against the mirrors, held there by thin wires from the ceiling. The paintings were nonetheless impressive. One was, I was almost certain, a real Picasso, another a Matisse. Seflor Gomez Arias was obviously doing quite nicely, thank you. And he had good taste in art.
Another door to the left opened to a dining room, complete with another crystal chandelier. Both fixtures were so large I wondered if Don Diego Maria had borrowed a couple of spares from the ballroom of his hotel.
After a few minutes I heard someone descending the stairs. It was not Don Diego, but instead a smart-looking woman of about forty who clutched the banister in one hand and a martini glass in the other.
She made her way down the stairs with some care.
She was attractive in a kind of beige way: beigy-blond hair that she wore long and pulled back, a creamy beige sweater that I could only assume was cashmere, and a beige suede skirt.
“Sheila Stratton Gomez,” she said, addressing me in Spanish. “Diego’s wife. His third wife, to be precise. And you are… ?”
“Lara McClintoch.”
“With a name like that, you must speak English, thank God. Come in,” she said, beckoning in the general direction of the door to the right. She was wearing very high heels, the kind men love but give me vertigo. I couldn’t imagine how she could walk in them, even at the best of times. And judging by the martini glass and her general unsteadiness, these were not the best of times.
“You’ll have a drink, of course,” she said when we were seated in large crushed-velvet armchairs in front of a large marble fireplace of baronial proportions. I gathered she wanted another one.
The maid reappeared, and Sheila Gomez ordered a white wine for me, another martini for herself.
While she addressed me in English and was clearly an American, she ordered the drinks in formal Castilian Spanish, a language I find exotic when spoken by a native, but from someone like Sheila, who obviously learned it later in life, it always sounds affected. Her current tipsy state only exaggerated the rather lisping quality of her speech.