Death of a Siren Page 15

  Based on that revelation, I concluded that Doña María was prepared to tolerate me. At least as long as we were in Las Encantadas.

  While Don Vicente and his wife disappeared for a short siesta, a nap dictated more by habit than need since the weather remained bracing, Roberto brought the Ford around. “Bring your revolver,” directed Ana, the edge of tension now evident in her voice. “We’ll probably see wild pigs. The whale ships brought them, along with the goats and rats, more than 150 years ago. They turned wild and now tear up the planted fields whenever they get a little hungry.”

  I suspected that the pigs weren’t the only reason she wanted me armed, but I already knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t like being pushed. I simply had to trust her judgment. I returned to my room for the revolver. As I trotted down the veranda steps to the car, Roberto was asking Ana something. Ana, who was dressed for the expedition in a bush jacket and baggy pants, shook her head and smiled. She glanced at my revolver, hurried back into the house a moment, and returned with a shotgun, which she laid in the back seat.

  “Will that stop a wild pig?”

  “It will with these,” she replied, holding up a box of solid shot.

  “What about Rojas?” I asked as Ana started the big car, put it in gear, and headed down the driveway. “I haven’t seen him since Roberto dragged him off before lunch to talk about boats.”

  “I think Papa wants to show him his citrus tree grafts. He thinks Rojas will become somebody once he gets out of the navy. Otherwise he can amuse himself in the pool.”

  She paused a moment as she concentrated on driving. “It’s good you told Papa you don’t feel comfortable riding. Now we’ll have to walk a little, but if we were on horseback and something went wrong . . .”

  “What could go wrong? We’re going on a tour of your father’s experiments, aren’t we? Are wild pigs really that dangerous?”

  “In part,” she said as she tooled down a dirt road between two fields, one planted with corn and one with cabbages. Standing in the middle of the cabbages were two field hands. They waved us over. Ana stopped. “I’ll be right back.” She climbed out of the car and walked over to the hands. After studying the plants a minute or two, they all started laughing. It looked as if they were congratulating each other. Ana then waved at them and returned to the car. “Look carefully at those cabbages. Some are bigger than others, no?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s because Papa and I came up with a new fertilizer mixture. We can make them grow faster, and they taste just as good as the original. And the fertilizer is cheap.”

  Although I was truly interested in the cabbages—I was interested in anything involving Ana—it was time to get down to business. “Why did you send me that strange message?”

  Ana put the car back in gear before she replied. “Because your friend Herr Becker is here. About five miles away. I spotted him the day before yesterday. He was hiking around the sides of the volcano, collecting rocks and surveying. When I caught up with him, he was a little surprised but not upset. He has a camp set up and plans to stay a few days, then move on.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “Of course. I told you I’ve met him before, at Wreck Bay.”

  “Does Don Vicente know?”

  “No. He dislikes Becker and thinks he’s very dangerous. I don’t want to worry him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

  “Because I’m a little worried about it all. But I know we have to see him, to find out if he did kill the baroness and her two lapdogs.”

  “Did he say what he was doing?”

  “It was obvious that he’s collecting rock samples. He’s a geologist.”

  “What, exactly, is he looking for?”

  “He didn’t say, and I didn’t push him since he isn’t on our land. I do know that all sorts of minerals are associated with volcanoes.”

  “Whose land is he on?”

  “It belongs to the government now. Originally it was part of a big plantation that included our property back in the days of the penal colonies. The man who owned all the land was a brutal fellow who rented prisoners to work for him and abused them terribly. Then one night he just disappeared. When no relatives could be found, the government took the land and sold part to Papa. It still owns the rest, as far as we know, although it’s now occupied by a dozen or so squatters.”

  “Is Becker going to welcome us?”

  “I think he’ll be happy to see me again.”

  I wondered if he’d even remember me.

  19

  We continued down the road through the center of Don Vicente’s plantation, past an astounding variety of plants—everything from asparagus to garbanzo beans to artichokes. On the right a hill appeared. It was covered with vines on wires. “Grapes?” I asked.

  “Yes. I think they’re delicious, but Papa’s very disappointed with the wine he’s managed to make from them. See that low building over there? That’s his winery.”

  “I’d like to see it some day.”

  “Maybe tomorrow. You can try some of the product. I don’t think it’s that bad. We’ll also go to the greenhouse so I can show you some of my experiments on flowers.”

  I leaned back in the seat and tried to relax. Ana, the day, the gentle breeze filled with the good smells of growing things, the green forest and fields and the blue sky. The absence of López.

  I tried desperately to relax but couldn’t. Instead, I found myself trapped between two armies warring in my mind. My God, how I wanted to be part of all that surrounded me. To be with Ana, to hear her, to feel her, to help her grow the biggest damn cabbages in the entire universe. That was the army I wanted to join, but at the moment that army was only a dream. The other army marched under the flag of reality, and it was much closer, much more immediate. López, the baroness’s murderer, prison, and very possibly a miserable death. And closest of all was Becker. He was probably armed, he had a temper, and I felt certain he was a pretty tough fellow. Ana was obviously nervous, and she knew him better than I did. I hoped that we’d meet and chat and I’d get a feel for him and what he was doing. And what he might know about the baroness. I hoped everything would go smoothly, but hopes are very much like dreams. You can’t count on them.

  “Hang on,” Ana said as she turned off the gravel road onto a much narrower and rougher track that led into the surrounding forest. She continued to slow, and the car shuddered and rolled as we wound our way forward and then up the sides of the green-dressed volcano.

  “Isn’t this hard on the car?”

  “If we break it Papa will just order parts and fix it. In the meantime he’ll make do with horses.” By this time we were creeping through stands of evergreens and oaks. As the track narrowed to a footpath, Ana braked the car. “This is it. From here on we do a little work.”

  “How far is his camp?”

  “About a mile.”

  We put the top up on the car, showers being frequent in the highlands, especially around the mountains. Ana grabbed her shotgun. “Every time I’ve seen him Becker has been civil, even enthusiastic, but no matter how he acts I can always feel a powerful sense of arrogance and anger. It shows in his eyes. There’s something not quite right about him.”

  “That’s the impression I got,” I said as I checked the load in my revolver. “Everyone says he has a very bad temper. Was he armed when you last saw him?”

  “Yes, a pistol. And several of the hands have heard what they thought were gunshots coming from there the past few days.”

  “OK, we’ve got to act friendly. Remember that we have these”—I pointed to our weapons—“because we’re hunting pigs. At the same time we can’t forget that there’s a chance this guy’s a very brutal murderer. Of three people.”

  “OK, Sheriff, I’ve got it. And if he can’t come up with the right answers are you going to arrest him?” She tried to sound light.

  “No. I want to talk to him. Size him up. He can’t go
anywhere until the next Guayaquil boat.”

  With Ana leading, we moved up the path, alert for ambush and saying little. I wondered briefly if I should have brought Rojas along but decided there was little he could contribute, although I assumed he knew how to handle a gun.

  The hike didn’t prove to be overly long, but it did prove challenging, since much of it was almost straight up. We were both huffing when we reached a small clearing on one of the overgrown ridges that stretched out from the volcano. “Somebody was obviously here,” I remarked as I looked down at the scuffed and trampled ground.

  “Damn,” mumbled Ana under her breath as she walked over to one side of the clearing. “We just missed him.”

  I joined her and found myself looking out over the Pacific, only a couple hundred yards away but hundreds of feet below. I wondered how the German had managed to carry all his gear down the steep trail that led to the small beach below us. A fisherman’s sailboat was clearly visible, headed west. And a launch was also there, fast disappearing to the south. Damn fast! In fact it wasn’t a launch, it was a speedboat. “Who does that boat belong to?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Ana, peering hard at it. “Fast, isn’t it? The Castros were talking about getting one, but I don’t think they have yet. They live on San Cristóbal.”

  “What about López? I hear he has his own boat at the governor’s mansion.”

  She paused to look again at the fast-disappearing craft. “You’re right. It might be his. I’ve seen it before, but I can’t be sure at this distance.”

  “Why the hell would he be here?”

  Ana just shrugged. “I’m sorry. I was sure I could deliver this guy to you.” To be honest, she sounded a little relieved.

  “You got me closer than I’ve managed to get on my own,” I replied as I stared out at our escaping quarry. The sailboat, I figured, must belong to Pepe Hernández, the fisherman Piers Hanson said was chauffeuring Becker around, and the speedboat had to be López. But why was the sergeant here? It had been obvious that Becker and López didn’t like each other.

  “Fred, look at these.”

  I turned but Ana was gone. “Where are you?”

  “Back here.”

  I followed her voice and spotted the indentation in an outcrop of dark volcanic rock. I walked into the shallow cave and found Ana on her hands and knees in the middle, scooping up some gray, metallic-looking stones. “Those look like the rocks I saw in the baroness’s living room,” I remarked, “the ones that disappeared while I was trapped in the cellar. Any idea what they are?”

  “Some sort of ore. When we get back to the house I can look in Papa’s books—he has thousands of them. Whatever they are, they do prove Becker’s a geologist.”

  “Yes, but why was he visiting the baroness just before she was murdered?”

  “Why did everybody visit the baroness?”

  “And what’s his connection with López? The one time I met him, he didn’t seem to like the sergeant.”

  “Undoubtedly political in some way.”

  From the tone of her voice, she was more interested in the rocks than in López. Whether the connection was political or criminal, it was now clear that it existed and that it explained, in some way, López’s determination to hide Becker from me.

  While Ana continued collecting ore samples, I backed out of the cave and walked around the clearing again, looking at the ground and listening to the birds carry on in the trees. After finding nothing of interest, I wandered along the face of the dark outcrop that rose from one side of the open space. There was, I realized, an even darker area on the cliff face, partially hidden by a tangled, light-green shrub. I forced my way through its branches and discovered another cave. Although it was deeper than the first, it wasn’t too deep for the green, tree-filtered sunlight to penetrate. I eased myself in and immediately tripped over a small circle outlined by stones. Within the circle, ashes were still discernible, along with what looked like fish bones. I continued my search and found little else of interest except a name, ORTEGA, scratched faintly on one wall. Who was Ortega? A hunter or fisherman or perhaps a prisoner from the old penal colony? I wondered if somebody had lived here for any length of time, or if Ortega had just been a casual visitor.

  Light and dark. The phrase popped into my head again.

  I wandered back across the clearing toward the opening that looked out over the ocean. Something on the ground glinted. I reached down for it. It was a shell casing from a pistol. And there were several more spread around in a small area. All fresh-looking. I wondered what my quarry had been shooting at. Probably frigate birds and seagulls.

  Having missed Becker, my first impulse was to get right back to the house and call for the gunboat to pick me up as soon as possible. I thought about it and knew that would undoubtedly be a mistake. It would tell López that I was, despite his orders, still chasing Becker rather than wooing Ana. Even more dangerous, it might tell him that I knew he was somehow involved with the elusive German. “Let’s go pig hunting,” I suggested. “We can look in your father’s books later.”

  After dinner that night, Ana disappeared into her father’s study. A few minutes later I followed. And Don Vicente followed me.

  Ana looked up from an opened book. Beside it were the rock samples she’d picked up at Becker’s camp.

  We both smiled.

  “This one,” she said, pointing at a sample that looked like a dull piece of metal, “looks like wolframite. And these,” she added, pointing at some crystals that looked as if they’d been coated with oil, “could be scheelite. Both are ores of tungsten.”

  “Indeed,” said Don Vicente, “tungsten. Everybody, the Germans, the British, the Americans, are desperate to get more of it. They use it to make steel very hard. To make cutting tools and armor. Where did you find them?”

  Ana looked up at her father, more than a hint of guilt in her eyes. “The German, Becker, had a camp on the side of the volcano for the past few days. We dropped by so Fred could meet him, but he’d already left.”

  Don Vicente looked at her a moment in silence. Then at me. I’m certain he was asking himself why he hadn’t left Ana with the nuns a little longer. “Just what we might expect to find in a German geologist’s camp,” he remarked with a sigh.

  I had as much of an answer for the commandant as I was ever likely to have, but I still didn’t know who killed the baroness, which meant I still had to find Becker. The impulse to call for the gunboat to pick me up the next day was almost overpowering. “When’s the next Guayaquil boat due?” I asked Don Vicente.

  “In a few days, almost a week. You still have time.”

  Ana seemed to realize that whatever her father thought, I didn’t think I had much time. Her face spoke of both worry and disappointment. I knew I should go, but I didn’t want to. I thought of the brilliant blue Pacific and the cool breezes and Ana. There was a good chance that once I left Santa Cruz I’d never enjoy any of them again, thanks to López. Since everybody thought I was on a short vacation, I might as well continue the deception. I’d still have time to find Becker.

  In the end, Rojas and I spent two more very happy days at Don Vicente’s personal resort and playground. We admired his projects, many of which involved either improving certain crops or getting them to grow where they don’t normally. I learned the most astounding things, like how to get one citrus tree to grow lemons, limes, grapefruits, and two different kinds of oranges, each on a separate branch. I tried my hand at tennis and played bridge for the first time. I received two riding lessons and learned that Rojas already knew a great deal about horses. The wild pigs proved too wily for us, so we soothed our bruised egos by playing in the pool. All the while I basked in the glow of Ana’s smiles.

  During that whole time, after I made the decision to stay, I managed to keep the baroness, Becker, and López banished to the distant edge of my thoughts. With one exception. Not having yet mastered the art of the siesta, I was sitting on the patio after
lunch on the second day, staring at the photos I’d found in the baroness’s room. Ana appeared and settled beside me. “Why aren’t you napping?” I asked.

  “I seem to have lost the habit. I must have been in New York too long. What are those?”

  I showed her the photos and told her where I’d found them.

  “Dios mío,” she said after leafing through them. “I feel like I know this woman now. If things had gone differently in Quito, I could have turned out like her.”

  I looked at her, waiting.

  “She was a happy kid, and then something bad happened to her family and she ended up with this pig in the Nazi uniform. Look at how she shoved a pencil or something through his face. God, how she must have hated him. And then she kept the picture to remind herself of her hatred.”

  “You couldn’t be like her. You don’t hate anybody.”

  “I don’t usually, except maybe López, but I can. Fred, we have to find who killed her!”

  “Yes, we do.” For more than one reason, I added to myself.

  The third and last morning, I woke up at dawn and walked out to the veranda, next to the pool. The blue-gray world was very quiet, the night mist that nourished all of Don Vicente’s experiments still dissolving. I thought of Héctor Echeverría’s words that things were happening in Las Encantadas. He was right—exciting things were happening here, even on the edge of the world. New people were settling, new languages were arriving along with new traditions and, if Echeverría and Don Vicente were successful, new agricultural practices. But things were happening everywhere. And many of the changes were far from positive. In Europe, armies were already marching.