Текст книги "January Justice"

Автор книги: Athol Dickson

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

18

Forty minutes later, I pulled into the garage at El Nido and parked between the Bentley and the stretch Mercedes. I strolled over to the guesthouse, changed into a pair of swimming trunks, grabbed a towel and a pair of goggles, and then headed for the pool.

A couple of years before Haley and I met, she had installed the regulation twenty-five-yard, short-course-length pool, three lanes wide. I had always been a runner, but Haley loved to swim and usually did forty laps in the morning before breakfast, alternating between a crawl and a breaststroke. Watching her slip almost effortlessly through the water had gotten me interested, and after a while I learned to enjoy it almost as much as she did.

I stretched a little on the flagstone apron, then dove in and did one hundred laps. While I swam, I thought about the fact that the old men at the Guatemalan social club believed Alejandra Delarosa was still living in their neighborhood. I wondered if it might be true and decided it was certainly possible. After all, where better to hide from the law than in the most densely populated urban area on the West Coast, among several hundred thousand people who think you’re a hero?

When I was done swimming, I climbed the ladder to find Simon sitting in the shade of a market umbrella at one of the tables. He was reading the Times.

Toweling myself off as I walked over, I said, “What ho, Jeeves. Any news of Parliament?”

He stood as I came, looking at me over the top of his reading glasses. “I take your Wodehouse reference, Mr. Cutter. It is very humorous.”

He remained standing as I settled into a chair. On the table between us were two glasses of lemonade and two plates with ham-and-swiss sandwiches.

I said, “Is one of these for me?”

“Yes. While preparing a meal for myself, I glanced outside and noticed you were exercising. It seemed improper to consume food from your larder without including you.”

“It’s not my larder. It’s Haley’s.”

“As you say.”

“Let’s dig in.”

“As you wish, Mr. Cutter.”

He sat across from me, folded the paper precisely placed it on the table, then went to work on his sandwich. I couldn’t help noticing the paper was turned to the employment section of the classifieds.

I said, “Are you looking for a job in the UK?”

“I had considered it.”

The day was fast approaching when I wouldn’t see Simon or Teru anymore, when I wouldn’t live in Haley’s guesthouse anymore, when the connections to my life with her would be finally and completely severed. I couldn’t bear the thought of staying on, and yet, strangely, when I thought of Simon leaving, my stomach seemed to ball up into a knot. Haley had led a splendid life, a life of honor and integrity and courage, and I wouldn’t let her memory be tarnished, not for all the money in the world. But something about Simon’s newspaper made the coming changes seem more real. I felt a wave of loneliness. It was a dangerous feeling, which led back to dark and disconnected places.

To distract myself, I told Simon about my morning at Pico-Union. When I was done, he said, “What are your plans now?”

“I’ve spoken with her neighbors. I think the next logical step is to see what her victim has to say, but I can’t figure out how to get to Doña Elena. With my background, the congressman isn’t going to let me get within a mile of his wife.”

Simon took a small bite of his sandwich, chewed it thoughtfully, swallowed, then said, “Perhaps something could be arranged.”

About an hour later, after I had rinsed the swimming pool’s chlorine off in the shower and slipped back into my jeans and black-silk T-shirt, there was a knock at the front door of the guesthouse. When I opened it, Simon stood there in his perfectly tailored suit. He handed me a folded piece of cream-colored stationary. On it were his embossed initials centered at the top, and below that a handwritten address in Beverly Hills and the time, 2:30 p.m. The penmanship was impeccable.

I looked at him.

He said, “Mrs. Montes will be expecting you.”

“How’d you do this?”

“One does have one’s contacts.”

“Buttling contacts?”

He offered a slight smile, turned, and walked away.

I called after him, “You might as well explain this. I’ll find out how you did it sooner or later.”

Simon lifted one hand slightly to signify he had heard me and kept walking. I watched his back for few more seconds, suddenly aware of how much I didn’t know about the man. What kind of butler could arrange a meeting with one of Hollywood’s leading stars on an hour’s notice? I should have known Haley would never hire a butler who was simply a butler. She had always surrounded herself with interesting people, and it seemed Simon had more going on beneath the surface than I had realized.

But a 2:30 appointment didn’t leave much time to consider Simon’s background, so my thoughts shifted to strategy. I decided not to bother changing into something more formal. During my time as a chauffeur and a bodyguard, I’d found the well-to-do in California often affect a casual wardrobe. Besides, there wasn’t time. I had to leave immediately to make the appointment. I set out across the grounds toward the garage. I decided to borrow Haley’s Bentley. Blue jeans and a black T-shirt were one thing, but it was Beverly Hills, after all. I was pretty sure it would help break the ice with the movie star and the congressman if I met certain standards.

I took the 5 to the Hollywood Freeway, then the Santa Monica exit. I bore right at the fork to cut over to Sunset Boulevard and then turned right again on Benedict Canyon to climb up into the hills. Rolls-Royces, Maseratis, Jaguars, Porsches, and Ferraris ebbed and flowed around me. The Bentley didn’t get a second look. There were no curbs or sidewalks, just the asphalt road winding up and up between ten-foot-tall stone and stucco walls and perfectly manicured hedges penetrated every two or three hundred yards by pairs of imposing gates. I took a hairpin turn to the right and then veered off the canyon road at Wallingford Drive. About five hundreds yards farther up, I reached the Montes’s estate.

There was the usual pair of gates with a speaker box discretely mounted on a post to the left of the driveway apron. I pushed a button marked “Call,” and a woman’s voice came on to say, “May I help you?”

I told her who I was. She asked me to wait. A moment later, the gates began to swing in, and her voice came from the speaker again. “Ms. Montes is looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Cutter. Please drive up the hill and bear to your right at the first fork. You’ll see a gravel area when you arrive at the house. Park there and come to the front door.”

Everything was exactly as the woman had described. When I got out of the Bentley, I was standing before a classic example of the fifties modern style of architecture: a sleek collection of sheet-glass panes and limestone slabs balanced on steel poles. I climbed seventeen steps to the front door. Before I could push the button on the jamb beside it, a spectacular young woman opened the door and smiled at me.

She was about five foot ten and slender in an athletic way. She wore a black blouse of some kind of elastic material that showed her figure to full advantage. The blouse was tucked into white slacks decorated along the sides with rows of botonadura, the silver buttons typically seen along the legs of mariachi trousers. On her feet were a pair of white leather boots. A pair of large silver hoops dangled from her ears. Around her waist was a black silk sash. My thoughts turned to Salma Hayek, whom I had seen with Haley at a party about a year before. But this woman was much younger than Ms. Hayek. I put her at about twenty-three or twenty-four, about ten years younger than I was.

“Mr. Cutter,” she said, “I’m Olivia Soto, Ms. Montes’s personal assistant.”

“What an interesting name,” I said. “I used to know a guy named Walnut Tree, but everybody called him Wally.” In Spanish, “Olivia Soto” meant “olive grove.”

She smiled at me again. Her teeth were flawlessly straight and perfectly white; her lips were succulently full. She wasn’t as beautiful as Haley, but it was a very close call. “You speak Spanish,” she said, offering her hand. “How nice.”

I took her hand and smiled. She gave one vigorous shake and then released me. “Would you please come this way?”

I followed her into the entry hall. It was darker than I had expected, what with all the sheets of glass I’d seen outside. The floor was a highly polished dark-blue stone of some kind, and the walls seemed to float on either side of us, set off along the bottom as they were by deep reveals.

As Olivia Soto led the way, I admired her black hair hanging in a loose french braid halfway to her waist. Her hips swayed seductively beneath the fabric of her white cotton mariachi slacks, but somehow I got the feeling she was unaware of that. She had the unselfconscious air of a girl next door who has somehow managed to grow up to become a beautiful woman without realizing it.

We stepped from the dark entry into a huge living room flooded with light from a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that overlooked Los Angeles far below.

“Ms. Montes, may I present Mr. Malcolm Cutter?” said Olivia. “Mr. Cutter, this is Doña Elena Montes.”

The woman rose from where she had been sitting and turned to face me. She was blond and barefoot, in a simple white cotton T-shirt and a pair of plain white trousers cut short at calve length. She could have been dressed in sackcloth and ashes, and I would still have recognized the iconic cheekbones, the perfectly sculpted lips, the arched eyebrows, and the flashing eyes that conveyed such passion in her close-ups. She was a small woman, but the proportions were exactly right in all regards. Doña Elena Montes was that rarest of Hollywood stars: an old-fashioned sex symbol in the tradition of Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren. At a time when nudity clauses were boilerplate in female actors’ contracts, Doña Elena could arouse any male audience while completely clothed from head to toe.

“Mr. Cutter,” she said, approaching me with her hand extended. “What a pleasure.”

She had a professional’s control over her words, speaking English without a trace of an accent, although I knew she had moved to the States only a decade before.

“It’s very good of you to see me,” I replied.

“Not at all. Would you like a drink? I’m having a glass of Chablis.”

“That sounds good, thanks.”

“Olivia, darling, would you please bring a glass for Mr. Cutter, and refresh mine?”

“Certainly,” replied her assistant, who picked up Doña Elena’s nearly empty glass, then left the room.

I turned toward the view. It was breathtaking. The house must have been cantilevered out over a cliff. The canyon floor was at least one hundred feet below the windows, and it fell farther away toward LA from there.

“Magnificent,” I said.

“Yes, isn’t it? I especially love it after dark. The city lights. The stars. It’s like hovering above the planet in a spaceship.”

I was glad it wasn’t after dark, glad I didn’t have to stand there and look down on the same city lights Haley had seen on her fall to the rocks. I shuddered. I turned away from the horrific memory as Olivia Soto came back in with the wine. She refilled Doña Elena’s glass, poured one for me, and then left the room again. The Chablis was excellent.

I said, “Apparently you know my friend Simon.”

“Such a remarkable man.” She gestured toward the seating area and a large white C-shaped sectional surrounding a white pine table covered with expensively printed photography books. She was on the cover of a few of them. “Shall we?”

As we sat I said, “Do you mind if I ask how you know Simon?”

“Didn’t he tell you? He and my husband met each other years ago, when Hector first started working for the State Department.”

“You’re talking about Congressman Montes? Him and Simon, Miss Lane’s butler?”

“Oh, Simon wasn’t a butler back then, of course. I believe Hector said he was with the British Foreign Office, or something like that, when they met. Anyway, Hector needed Simon’s help on some kind of problem in Africa or somewhere, and apparently it worked out well, and they’ve stayed in touch ever since.”

“I had no idea.”

“I know. Hector said it was strange to find out Simon’s been over here working for a movie star.” She leaned toward me suddenly, bending at the waist. I had to work hard to keep from staring down at her world-famous cleavage.

“Say,” she said earnestly, “do you think Simon might consider working for us, now that Haley’s gone?”

The desperate loneliness rose up. Of course the woman had no idea how it was for me to hear her speak of Haley being simply gone, but the severity of the word, the finality, coming as it did without warning… I looked away. I blinked a few times. I breathed in deeply, then breathed out and tried to think of what was excellent and good.

“I know Simon’s looking for a job,” I said. “You might want to call and ask.”

She sat back again. “Oh, that would just be marvelous.”

“Did he tell you why I wanted to come over?”

“He didn’t actually speak to me. He called Hector. But yes, Hector said it’s about Arturo. You’re some sort of investigator, apparently, and you’re looking into Arturo’s murder.”

I said, “Do you mind if we talk about it?”

“Whatever for, after all these years?”

Given her husband’s vehement condemnations of the URNG on Capitol Hill, I had a feeling it would be a mistake to explain that I was there to try to clear them.

I said, “There have been some new developments. But if you’d rather not, I can pursue other avenues.”

Half a dozen slender golden bracelets tinkled on her wrist as she waved her hand between us. “No, no. If Hector thinks we should discuss it, of course we will. I’d do anything to put that whore away.”

“You mean Alejandra Delarosa.”

She nodded, then drank deeply from her wine glass.

I said, “Can you tell me anything about what happened that might help me find her?”

“Nothing I haven’t told everybody else already.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Montes. I know this is painful. But sometimes it helps to hear details directly from the victim.”

She drank deeply again, almost finishing the wine. She swallowed, and I heard the liquid going down. Leaning back against the cushions, she sighed and then said, “All right.”

19

“I was at home,” said Doña Elena Montes. “I was sitting on the sofa reading, when someone came up behind me and covered my face with some kind of cloth, and then I passed out. The police said they probably used ether. I woke up again in a small room. It was made all of wood. Wood floor, wood walls, wood ceiling. I heard coyotes outside sometimes. And crows. They kept me chained to a hook in the floor beside a mattress. They gave me a bucket for a bathroom, and they fed me once a day. Horrible things from cans. They made me sit in front of a video camera a few times and recite lines. They gave me the lines about an hour ahead of time and told me if I got them wrong, they’d kill me.”

I interrupted. “You keep saying ‘they.’ Was there someone in addition to Alejandra Delarosa?”

“There were men. I never saw their faces.”

“How many?”

“I never saw more than two at a time, but there might have been more outside the room. Maybe they rotated in and out. I couldn’t tell because they all wore masks.”

“And Alejandra Delarosa? Did she wear a mask?”

“Only when she was in the videos. There was no point in it the rest of the time. She knew I’d recognize her anyway.”

“How would you have known it was her?”

“She worked for Arturo for more than a year. I know her voice. The way she walks.”

“The way she walks?”

Doña Elena stood up and walked to the glass and back. Whereas before she had moved with great grace, now she seemed to lunge ahead, as if her feet hurt. “Like that,” she said. “I always wondered if she had bunions or something, but I never asked.” She sat back down.

Of course I knew the real reason Alejandra Delarosa never wore a mask. She hadn’t planned to let Doña Elena live. But there was no reason to explain that, so instead I said, “The things they made you read, were they handwritten?”

“They were printed out on paper, what I was supposed to say, what she was supposed to say, with my name and hers, except of course they called her ‘Comrade X.’ It was like a regular script.”

“That’s strange.”

“Not really. That Alejandra wants to be an actor. I always thought that was why she went to work for Arturo, to get close to me. She wanted me to help her get good parts, the little gold digger.”

I thought Doña Elena was probably just telling herself what she wanted to hear. A woman whose career had been built on her sex appeal might have more difficulty than most with the notion that her husband had bestowed his affections elsewhere. The theory that Delarosa planned to murder Toledo from the start made much more sense to me. But it was remotely possible Delarosa had wanted to get close to Doña Elena. And although it probably had nothing to do with Delarosa’s relationship with the URNG, at least the fact that Delarosa thought of herself as an actor was new information.

I said, “Did you help her get parts?”

“A couple of walk-ons, sure. I know how it feels to want it so bad, and I felt sorry for her. But she isn’t good enough for lines.”

“In the videos on the Internet, was that her standing behind you, in the uniform holding the gun?”

“That’s right.” Doña Elena picked up a small plastic box and pushed a button on it, then said, “I’ll just get Olivia in here for more wine.”

“The Delarosa woman is from Guatemala, isn’t she?”

“Of course. She’s from Cobán.”

“You husband, Arturo, was also from there, wasn’t he?”

“He was the mayor.”

“I’m sorry to have to say this, but I’ve heard he stole a lot of money from the people there.”

“That’s Communist propaganda. Arturo had very little money. He did his best to serve his people, right up until the moment the Communists drove him out.”

“I’ve also heard Alejandra Delarosa thinks your husband was responsible for her father’s death.”

“She did say that, but it wasn’t true. I mean, it may be true her father was among the disappeared, but Arturo certainly had nothing to do with that. He was a dear, gentle man. I kept trying to tell her that the whole time we were up there in that little shack, but she would never listen.”

I thought back to what I had learned during my two tours in Guatemala. I had my doubts that the mayor of a sizable town during the troubles there could have been a gentle man. But again, no good would come from saying so.

“When you were Alejandra’s prisoner, did you really think she’d shoot you?”

Doña Elena looked surprised. “You do know she murdered Arturo right in front of me?”

“I didn’t realize you saw her do it.”

“Yes. Right in front of me. As soon as she saw he had the money.”

“How did you escape?”

Olivia Soto entered the room, carrying a bottle. She said, “More Chablis?”

“Yes, dear,” said Doña Elena.

I watched the younger woman as she served Doña Elena. When she turned to me, I said, “No more for me, thanks. I have to drive.”

Olivia gave me a little smile, and again I felt honored just to witness the event. She was remarkably beautiful. But I sensed the same distance I used to feel around the beautiful people at Haley’s parties. It was as if I were watching the woman’s actions on a screen. Compared to Haley, every other woman lived in only two dimensions.

When Olivia had left the room, Doña Elena said, “Alejandra put the gun to my head right after she shot Arturo, but it didn’t work.”

“The gun misfired?”

“Is that the word? Yes, it misfired. So I fought with her and managed to take it away from her. I used it like a club, and I hit her and she ran.”

“You were still chained to the floor when this happened?”

“No, she had unchained me. I don’t know why.”

“She didn’t say?”

“No.”

“Did she unchain you before or after she murdered your husband?”

“It was before, I think.”

“Where were the other ones? The men?”

“I don’t know.”

“They made you say they were with the URNG. Did you believe that?”

“Of course.”

“Why, ‘of course’?”

“I heard them talking about la revolución.” Doña Elena spoke the Spanish words with a mocking tone. “Always la revolución this and la revolución that, as if their little war was all that matters.”

“Could that have been an act?”

“Why would they put on an act?”

“I don’t know. But you’re sure they were authentic?”

“Oh yes. Everything was very authentic. Including poor Arturo’s brains on the wall.”

She was obviously drunk. I said, “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head while taking a long drink of wine. She swallowed, put the empty glass down on the table, and said, “It doesn’t matter. I just want her caught. Do you think you can do that?”

“There’s a chance.”

A deep voice from behind me said, “Semper Fi, right, Gunny?”

I turned to see a man entering the room. He was almost as tall as I was, but not as wide through the shoulders. Still, he wore his suit very well. As he approached, he extended his hand but kept his elbow tucked against his side to make me do most of the reaching. It was an old trick, a way of saying, “I can make you come to me.” I didn’t mind. He was a United States congressman, after all.

“Hector Montes,” he said. “And you must be Gunnery Sergeant Malcolm Cutter of the United States Marine Corps.”

“I haven’t been a marine for a while, sir,” I said. I didn’t mention that I had been a private on the day they discharged me. I figured the congressman had looked into me and knew all about it.

“Nonsense. Once a marine, always a marine. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Something like that.”

I watched as he bent to kiss Doña Elena’s cheek, then said, “Hello, my love.” He turned to me without waiting for a reply. “It was quite a surprise to hear from my old friend Simon earlier. How’s old Simon doing?”

“He’s well, I think. How do you two know each other?”

The congressman flashed a set of thousand-watt teeth. “Oh, I think we’d better let Simon explain all that. He tells me you’re investigating poor Arturo’s murder?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Montes and I were just discussing it.”

“That’s fine. We’re both happy to help in any way we can, aren’t we, my love?”

“Of course,” said Doña Elena.

“Have a seat, Cutter. Have a seat.”

He settled in next to Doña Elena, leaning back against the cushions and crossing one impeccably garbed knee over the other before draping an arm across the back of the sofa behind his wife. There was something possessive about the gesture, as if he were staking a claim. The two of them looked too perfect somehow, as if they were posing for a publicity still. I got the impression that the only thing holding them together was the mutual gravity of their fame, wealth, and power.

Congressman Montes said, “I did a little checking up on you after Simon called. I hope you don’t mind. Very impressive record. Very impressive. Right up until the end.”

I said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Bosnia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan. Did I leave anything out?”

“I can’t really say.”

“Not even to a congressman?”

“Respectfully, no, sir.”

He laughed. “Absolutely right. Absolutely. Say, I want you to know I think it’s a real shame one of our finest warriors like you ended up driving limos and running interference between actors and their fans. Things would have worked out differently if I’d had any say in it. These pantywaist liberals just don’t understand the fog of war.”

“Thank you, sir, but I don’t mind how things have worked out. It’s a living.”

He smiled and leaned forward a little to adjust the cuff of his slacks. “Mr. Cutter is being modest, my love. I’m told he’s one of the best one can hire in the line of personal protection.”

Doña Elena’s eyes went wide. “But I thought you were an investigator.”

I smiled. “I’m sort of a jack of all trades, ma’am. I’m a chauffeur and a bodyguard most of the time, but I had a little law-enforcement training in the military, so sometimes I offer that to clients too.”

After a moment, Congressman Montes said, “Tell me Malcolm, who are you working for today?”

I had prepared myself for the question, since it seemed obvious that one of them would ask it eventually. There was no way they would continue the interview if I refused to answer, so my choices were to lie or tell the truth. I knew Valentín Vega would prefer that I not tell the truth, but then again Vega had hired me to get to the bottom of things as I thought best.

I looked up. It was important to watch their faces when I said, “The URNG.”

Doña Elena shot to her feet. “WHAT?”

She swayed a little, obviously feeling the Chablis as she stood there glaring down at me.

I said, “The URNG hired me to find out why the Delarosa woman killed your first husband, ma’am.”

“But… but… they killed him! She was one of them! Everyone knows that!” She turned to look down at her husband, who had remained seated beside her, legs still crossed, arm still draped casually along the sofa’s back. His calm expression never wavered as Doña Elena said, “What’s going on here? I thought you said he was coming over to help!”

“Please, dear. Sit back down,” said the congressman. “Let’s find out a little more before we lose our tempers, shall we?”

Still swaying slightly, Doña Elena stared from him to me and back at him before she settled onto the sofa.

I said, “The URNG deny that Alejandra Delarosa was a member of their organization or that they had any role in the kidnapping and murder. They want to clear their name. They’re especially interested in setting your mind at ease regarding this crime, congressman, so they asked me to try to find the woman responsible and bring her to justice.”

Montes said, “When you took this job, didn’t you realize they have a bad track record with the truth?”

“I have to deal with the facts in front of me. I know about your caucus on Central America. I know you’re working to cut funding to a few aid programs that benefit the URNG. I know they think you’re doing that for personal reasons, because of what the kidnapper did to Ms. Montes and her first husband.”

“Hector would never let his personal life influence his work in the Congress,” said Doña Elena. “He’s going to cut the budget because it’s the right thing to do.”

Montes smiled and patted her shoulder. “My dear wife is extremely loyal, as you can see. But I’m also loyal to her, and since it’s only the three of us here, I will say there is some truth in what you say. Part of my motivation for the upcoming reductions is my wife’s history with the URNG. It would be very gratifying to take revenge on them for her. But in this case, my personal and political duties coincide. After all, the United States doesn’t fund terrorist organizations, and what happened to Doña Elena and Arturo proves that the URNG are terrorists. Or at least they were terrorists before the end of Guatemala’s troubles.”

“You mean it’s proof if they really did it,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes, if they really did it.”

“Hector!” said Doña Elena.

“My love, stop to think a moment. There is so much resistance to what we’re trying to get done in congress. Our enemies will say what you saw and heard was an act intended to divert suspicion in the wrong direction. I’m sure that’s what the sergeant here has in mind, isn’t that right, Cutter?”

I said, “It does seem possible.”

Doña Elena shook her head, her lower lip extended in a pout. “On her very best day, that so-called actress wasn’t good enough to fool me. She might have fooled Arturo, but I always saw right through her.”

“Of course. Of course,” said her husband. “But you know the liberal press has always used this possibility against me, the idea that I’ve been swayed on Central American policy because of what happened to you. If Mr. Cutter can prove beyond all doubt what really happened, if he can even bring this woman to justice at long last and demonstrate that she was definitely acting for the URNG, it would completely disarm my enemies.”

“But he’s working for the ones who did it!”

The congressman looked from her to me and said, “Mr. Cutter?”

I said, “As far as I’m concerned, my job is not to clear the URNG; it’s to find the truth.”

“And you’ll bring that truth to light no matter what it is?”

“I will. I told that to my clients.” I saw no reason to explain that I would also like to find out who had tried to blow me to pieces, and there was no way I could mention the fact that Haley had been working on a Guatemalan project without getting into the reason why I cared about that coincidence.

He nodded. “I believe this man. Don’t you, my love?”

“Why should I?”

“Because my old friend Simon vouches for him, and I vouch for Simon.”

Doña Elena stared at me a moment. Then she looked away and said, “I suppose.”

“Good girl,” he said. And then to me, “Is there anything else we can tell you that might help?”

I stood. “No, sir. We’ve covered everything for now. But as new information comes up, I’d like to be able to check in with you if that’s okay.”

“By all means. Do please keep us in the loop.” The congressman pushed the button on the side table, and Olivia Soto came into the room. “Olivia,” he said. “Would you please help Mr. Cutter find his way out? And perhaps you could take his card?”

“Certainly,” said Olivia.

I followed her back out the way we had come. She opened the front door for me and stood aside to let me exit. As I passed, she spoke very softly. “What if Alejandra Delarosa didn’t do it?”

I paused. “Excuse me?”

“If you find out she didn’t do it, then what?”

I said, “Ms. Montes was an eyewitness to the murder.”

“Didn’t the killer wear a mask?”

“Is there some reason why you think it wasn’t the Delarosa woman?”

“I was only curious.”

I searched her face. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” She held out her hand, palm up. “The congressman wanted your card.”

I gave it to her, then walked down to Haley’s Bentley and drove away. The last thing I saw in my rearview mirror was Olivia Soto, watching from the open door.