The maid never said a word. She opened a door, indicated with a nod that we were to enter, and then closed the door behind us. Lopez had let his master know we were paying a call.
Tiger-oak wainscoting was offset by a pale plaster wall. It was a spacious room, the north end in dark shadows.
“I get the sense we’re meeting the Godfather,” I said.
“Shush!” Tinkie warned, but she was too late.
“I can see your mind has been rotted by the film industry. I expect nothing less from an actress.”
The voice that came from the deep shadows was old and dry, like the touch of a frail decaying leaf.
“Mr. Gonzalez,” Tinkie said, unfazed, “we’re here to talk about Carlita and the house you built for her.”
“I wanted to know what you looked like,” he said. “Now I do. Get out.”
“Your granddaughter is missing.” Tinkie stepped forward. “Don’t you care about her?”
“Estelle was lost to me years ago. Her father saw to that.” The filtered light in the room touched his forehead, nose, and chin. The rest of his features were hidden.
“Mr. Gonzalez, Estelle left for the States a couple of days ago. No one has seen or talked to her since. Do you know where she is?” I asked.
“No.”
“Do you care?” Tinkie’s voice rose.
“It wouldn’t matter if I did. Federico took my grandchildren away from me. They never visit. I don’t know who they are.”
While another person might have felt pity for an old man mourning the loss of family, I didn’t. Estoban Gonzalez had done everything in his power to sabotage his daughter’s marriage and her self-confidence. From what Federico said, Estoban had browbeaten an already fragile young woman. No wonder Federico kept Estelle and Ricardo far away from their grandfather.
“You loved Carlita a lot, didn’t you?” I asked. My voice was deceptively smooth. Tinkie cut a glance at me.
“She was my light, the most perfect thing in my life.”
“And Federico took her?”
“Yes. He stole the thing I loved most. He took her and didn’t appreciate her.”
I didn’t know how deep his self-centeredness went, but I took a wild stab at it. “Carlita would have been happy here in Petaluma had she never met Federico. If Federico had never shown her the world of movie stars, she would still be alive.”
He leaned forward into a shaft of light that illuminated his face. He was old. His features had begun to fall in on themselves. “Federico tempted her with being a film star. He turned her into a whore and a fool. Men could pay five dollars and watch her strut across the screen in her underwear, showing off her body like a strumpet.”
“I see your point,” Tinkie said, catching on to what I was doing. “It must have been difficult for you, knowing that men everywhere watched her. And wanted her.”
“They never knew her, the sweetness and innocence. They saw only her flesh. It was obscene.” Estoban was deep in his memories of a young daughter who was his alone.
“When you built the house for Carlita, why did you put in the hidden passageways?” I asked. “You did it for her, but why?”
He gave a soft chuckle. “When she was a child, she loved for me to read stories. Her favorite was about a house with secret passageways and rooms. We must have read that book a thousand times, and she would always say she wanted such a house.”
“And you gave it to her because you loved her, even though you didn’t approve of her marriage.” Tinkie was leading him exactly where we needed to go.
“I took that storybook to Senor Lopez. He created the house exactly as the one in the story, or as exact as an architect could.”
“Ricardo told me there were games of hide-and-seek. Exciting times,” I said. “He spoke of it with fondness.”
He shook his head. “Ricardo was a dullard. He was never part of the secret. He never knew about the passageways and secret places. When I looked at him, I saw his father, and I told Carlita that she could never show him.”
“The house was only for Carlita and Estelle,” I said.
He nodded. “Those were the best times. Estelle was very clever. She was even better than Carlita at hiding. She could move around the passageways, slipping from one floor to another, hiding in the smallest corner. She was a beautiful child with such intelligence. The games we played.”
Tinkie and I exchanged a look.
“Sometimes,” he continued, “when there was a big dinner party, Carlita and I would move through the passages, listening to the gossip in different rooms.”
I kept my features blank. “You must have heard some interesting things.”
“People are not discreet when they think they’re alone. Especially not men who have power. There were women desperate to flaunt themselves in a movie and men who willingly took advantage of it.”
It appeared that Estoban Gonzalez may have set his own daughter up to witness her husband’s flirtations or even adultery. He had stopped at nothing to undermine the marriage he found unacceptable.
“Federico never knew about the passageways, did he?” Tinkie asked. “Carlita loved her husband, yet she never told him.”
“He wasn’t part of the family. He was an outsider. I told Carlita he would never be allowed to know.”
Poor Carlita. The man she loved wasn’t accepted, and so she was torn between her own feelings and her father’s harsh demands.
Tinkie was tired of his cancerous narcissism. “We got the architect’s drawings of the house, but there are other secret passages, aren’t there? That’s your specialty. Secrets among secrets. Layers revealed slowly, like peeling an onion.”
“Complexity makes life interesting.”
Tinkie walked to within a few feet of him. “Someone is hiding in that house. Someone dangerous. I was injured. Another woman was pushed down stairs. And your granddaughter is missing. If she’s in that house, she may need help. Can you step outside yourself long enough to realize that Estelle may be in danger?”
“If Estelle is in her house, she’s safe.” The hint of a smile touched his features. “In the last years, I’ve often had the sense that someone was watching me in that house. I walk down the halls and feel a gaze on my back. Sometimes I catch the tail of a red dressing gown going around a corner, but when I get there, nothing.”
His statement was like a shower of ice water. “When was the last time you were there?” I asked.
“Officially? That would be when Carlita died. There was a family service there, a wake.”
“And unofficially?”
“The house is empty. Sometimes I go there to look at the portrait of my daughter. I miss her.”
I knew exactly which portrait. The day was pleasant and warm, but my body had grown cold.
“I gather Federico doesn’t know you visit there?” Tinkie was having a hard time keeping her tone neutral.
“He doesn’t know I come back to Costa Rica at all. He said that to him, I am dead. He won’t speak my name.” He laughed. “Why should he care if I go there? I built the house for Carlita. It will pass to Estelle in a few years. If I go there, it’s none of his business. He drags filthy movie people there. He takes his whores there. No one in the movie business has morals.”
“That’s a blanket condemnation of a business you don’t know about.” I’d had enough. “A lot of people in film have ethics and-”
“And you’re sleeping with Graf Milieu.”
I didn’t deny it, and I had the most awful thought that perhaps he’d watched us from the peephole behind the portrait. It was a Norman Bates concept.
He laughed. “I haven’t been watching you, Ms. Delaney. But film crews talk in town, and eventually everything of interest filters back to me. My network of sources is impeccable.”
“I’m flattered that I’m of interest,” I said. “But does your network of impeccable sources tell you where your granddaughter is, or who’s in the house attacking people?”