“Maybe it was the last straw, one insult too many, one salacious remark too many,” Mike said, meticulously layering jelly on his wedge of muffin. I knew he was leaning toward one of Guido’s workers.
I shook my head. “I know these guys. I can’t believe any of them could do this. A lot of them don’t even realize how objectionable Guido can be, because of the language difference.”
“You know them? Is that so? You mean like Hugo and Felix?”
He had me there. How well did I really know any of them? They came, they pruned, they left. They could all be mass murderers or nuclear physicists in their own country for all I knew. I was starting to worry. I hadn’t known about Hugo and Anna and I hadn’t been able to tell that Felix wasn’t a garden- variety leaf blower. And I hadn’t seen either of them for days. Were they really working elsewhere and managing the family fortune in Mexico, or were they hiding out?
“Speaking of which. Where are Hugo and Felix? You were joined at the hip a few weeks ago.”
Well, not quite, pal. Maybe O’Malley did know about that night in the green house. I mumbled something about the new office building, and steered him away from my missing workers.
“I just don’t see Guido enraging one of the workers this much. A good screw you maybe, but a knife in the back?”
He brushed the crumbs from his fingers, and smiled at the simpleton sitting across from him. “As I said, we’re following up on a few things.”
O’Malley got up to leave just as Babe returned with two portions of red Jell- O.
“Off so soon?” she said, putting the plates down. “This is my speci-al-ity.”
“Thanks for the muffin. She’s buying.” He turned and left.
Babe sat down and helped herself to one of the Jell-Os.
“O’Malley thinks one of the workers did it,” I whispered.
“What do you think?”
I tried to erase the image of Hugo’s purple face when he thought Anna had been attacked, and his anger over Guido’s racist remarks; I only hoped he hadn’t overheard any of the smutty comments that followed. And I hoped the rust bucket that had been spotted at Chiaramonte’s nursery hadn’t been Hugo’s.
“None of his workers stays with him long enough to hate him that much. But who else could come and go unobserved?”
She nodded in agreement as she sliced her spoon into the Jell- O. “I haven’t seen Felix in a while. You two have a lovers’ spat?”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.” I didn’t bother protesting, since Babe seemed to know everything and probably knew about our aborted roll in the mulch. “I think he’s in Mexico.”
“That’s a helluva commute.”
“I don’t know if he’s coming back.”
“C’est la vie. Stabbing,” she said, taking another poke at the quivering dessert. “That’s serious hate. That kind of hate takes time to develop.”
With the spoon halfway to her mouth, Babe stopped and stared right at me. We’d had the same thought.
“Maybe years. Maybe forty to fifty years?”
CHAPTER 28
I didn’t know how nervous to be. The next morning I got to Halcyon early. I jogged around to the back of the house and was relieved to find Hugo working on the pear trees near the stone wall. He saw me and waved me over, but I stood motionless, rooted to the terrace, watching the sun glint off Hugo’s shiny new coa.
He sensed something was wrong and started toward me.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Do you know about Guido Chiaramonte?”
“I do.”
“Hugo, where is Felix? And where were you yesterday?”
“I can’t. En boca cerrado.“
“Don’t give me the boca cerrado line. This is serious. Hugo, you might be in a world of trouble.”
He said nothing.
Hugo’s well- known dislike for Guido, his unfortunate display of temper in front of the cops the day he thought Anna was attacked, the money owed, and Guido’s salacious cracks about Anna. And now the squeaky- clean coa. I didn’t believe he was capable of it, but the cops were going to treat Hugo, and possibly Felix, as suspects in the stabbing of Guido Chiaramonte.
The three Springfield police cars pulling in to the Peacock driveway confirmed my suspicions. Mike O’Malley walked straight over to us, barely acknowledging me.
“Hugo Jurado? We’d like you to come down to police headquarters to answer some questions related to the attack on Guido Chiaramonte. You have the right to remain silent…”
He continued to read Hugo his rights, while I stood there in shock.
“Sergeant O’Malley, Hugo’s English is not that good. Is there any reason I can’t come along as a translator, before he retains counsel?” I asked.
O’Malley continued with his note taking. “Officer Guzman can translate.” He turned to face me. “If that’s even necessary. By the way, Mr. Jurado’s vehicle has been identified as the one seen near the Chiaramonte nursery on the morning of the assault.”
I was about to protest when O’Malley held up his hand to stop me, adding, “And his fingerprints were found on the weapon.” That silenced me.
Finally Hugo spoke. “Ms. Paula, I will finish the espaliers on the wall when I return. Some of the wires are coming down; you should take a look at them. And, please, let my Anna know that I am all right, and I will call her as soon as I am able.” Hugo was led away by the cops, and I was alone.
Not long after the cops left, I got a frantic call from Maybel Peсa, Ann’s daughter. I barely had time to scribble down her garbled directions before she ran back to her mother’s bedside. The Peсas lived in Somerville, a modest neighborhood of bodegas, hair salons, and storefront churches. Their apartment was in a tidy whitewashed building with colorfully painted iron gates on all the windows and seedlings growing out of lard cans on the steps.
Anna’s daughter opened the door. Maybel was every Japanese businessman’s dream date. Golden skin, soft curves, masses of ringlets, all wrapped in the white knee socks and seductive plaid uniform of St. Agnes’s Girls School.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you, Miss Holliday. My mother is very upset. She’s been like this for hours, and she won’t tell me what’s wrong.” The kid broke down. “She keeps insisting only you can help her, so that’s why I called-”
“You did the right thing. I’ll talk to her.”
Maybel led me through the kitchen, where her homework was spread out on the table, to a small bedroom in the back of the apartment. Anna was lying in bed, fingering a rosary and staring at the ceiling. I knocked on the open door, and she hoisted herself onto her pudgy elbows.
“Oh, thank God, you are here, Meez Paula. Maybel, sweetheart, go finish your studies. The grownups must talk alone. And close the door, like a good girl.” She waited until her daughter was gone before continuing.
Anna Peсa had just found the perfect lace mantilla when the cops walked into Dona Maxi’s Bridal Shoppe on Calhoun Street and escorted her to the police station for questioning. “Meez Paula, he didn’t do it. The police don’t believe me.”
She spit out something in Spanish. “Dios mнo, this will kill his mother. If I don’t do it first. That silly woman. He is so superstitious-they both are. And now that I tell the police, he thinks it will bring him more bad luck.”
“Worse than being arrested for attempted murder?” I asked thoughtlessly.
She rolled over and mumbled into her pillow, something I couldn’t quite make out.
“Anna, I’m sorry. That was insensitive. What did you tell the cops?” I asked.