Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_05 Read online

  She glanced at the check in her hand, then moved heavily to a desk near the door. She opened a drawer, pulled out a ring of keys, thumbed through them, detached one.

  “Thank you.” I glanced back as I stepped out the door. I wished I could read the look on her face. Was it suspicion? Curiosity? Or something more? A quiet calculation, a conclusion?

  I didn’t like that last look she’d given me. But I was in a hurry to get into Iris’s apartment. I was walking swiftly up the second floor corridor when I realized that she had not asked me to return the key. Did that indicate a knowledge that Iris would not return and therefore would not protest this invasion of her privacy, or did it simply indicate indifference?

  When I reached the door, I knocked one more time, waited, then shoved the key quickly into the lock, turned the knob. As the door swung open, relief washed over me. The air in this small, scantily furnished apartment was hot, stale, and slightly sour, but there was no stomach-turning stench. Iris, dead or alive, was not here.

  But I doubted Iris’s apartment customarily looked this way. Books were tumbled out of their orange crate cases. The pink throw that no doubt usually covered the dingy mustard-yellow sofa straggled over one end. Sofa cushions were bunched on the floor, their covers unzipped, tufts of foam rubber protruding. Near the single closet, shoes and clothes were humped in an uneven mound. A black vinyl wheeled suitcase lay on its side, every zipper undone, exposing empty compartments. The dresser drawers had been dumped too, the drawers upended, their contents—lingerie, cotton tops, shorts—spilled onto the floor. The single bed along the back wall was askew. The mattress, stripped of sheets, lay on the floor. The box springs leaned against the metal frame. In the small bathroom, towels and washcloths made another untidy heap near the open cabinet. In the tiny kitchenette, cabinet doors were flung wide.

  I stepped inside, closed the door. Skirting the helter-skelter piles, I crossed to the window air conditioner and turned it on. It would take a while, longer probably than I would be here, for the room to cool. And that was all there was, the one room, now littered with the bits and pieces of Iris’s life.

  I stood with my back to the air conditioner, welcoming the waft of chill air, and surveyed the chaos. Chaos but no destruction. This was not wanton vandalism. Moreover, there were odd exceptions to the disorder. Spices sat in order in a spice rack. Photographs on a pine end table appeared undisturbed. A thick swath of paper with a half-finished watercolor was clipped to an artist’s easel. The box of watercolors was closed. Nearby, a small oil painting was propped in a wooden chair. When I walked close to the easel, I saw that Iris was copying the painting, a common-place exercise for budding artists.

  What is the children’s game? Smaller than a bread box, bigger than an orange?

  The searcher hadn’t been looking for tiny items—witness the undisturbed spices—or for pieces of paper that could be hidden, for example, behind a picture in a frame, or for anything larger than a suitcase might contain.

  I studied the open suitcase. A box, say, could be a maximum of four inches deep, twelve inches wide, eighteen inches across. A box or an object. Or objects.

  This was not the work of an ordinary thief. Such a thief, looking for items easy to pawn or sell, might have passed up the small oil painting even though it appeared to me to be out of the ordinary. But a thief would have taken the television set on a stand across from the sofa, the headset lying on the kitchen table, the mobile telephone, the computer on a card table. Or, for that matter, the answering machine. The red light winked on the answering machine. Fifteen recorded calls.

  When I punched “rewind” and listened, I recognized Gina’s voice on seven of the calls, but every so often there was a call and no voice; nothing, simply silence. Of course, it isn’t unusual for people to call and decide not to leave a message. But that many? Was someone calling to see if Iris had returned? I glanced around the room. There was only the one telephone and the inexpensive recorder. But no caller ID. How nice that would have been.

  I reached out, then let my hand fall. I must call Gina. But not yet. The news I could offer would only frighten her more. All I could say was that I’d not found Iris and her apartment showed the effects of a hurried but thorough search.

  There was one last hope. A slender hope, but it staved off the moment when I must place a call to Majorca. I found the telephone directory, looked up a number, dialed.

  “Tesoros. How may I help you?” It was a young man’s voice, well educated and pleasant.

  “May I speak to Iris Chavez, please.”

  It is well to listen to silences as well as speech. The pause pulsed with tension. I realized abruptly I should not have called first.

  His answer was stiff. “I’m sorry. She doesn’t work here anymore. Sorry I can’t help you.”

  The line went dead.

  two

  SAN Antonio’s River Walk is a place where dreams have been made and broken. It would be easy to dismiss today’s River Walk as a commercial lure, but the river, sweet product of artesian springs, made life possible ten thousand years ago, when the land knew the occasional nomadic Indian, and the water still makes life possible, though its function is as different now as a present day shopkeeper from a hunter and gatherer. Today’s River Walk, the creation of visionary architect Robert Hugman, hosts lodging, shops, restaurants and romance, drawing an unceasing flow of visitors who seek a glamorous respite from the everyday world.

  If any city represents the glory of Texas, it is San Antonio, where Spaniards, Indians, cowboys, and European immigrants created a multilayered culture unlike that of any other city. The mission San Antonio de Valero was founded May 1, 1718, the result of a missionary journey made by Father Antonio de San Buenaventura Olivares in 1709. Fifteen Spanish families from the Canary Islands arrived in 1731 to establish near the mission the town of San Fernando de Béxar, which became the town of San Antonio. In 1794, the mission was turned into a fort staffed by a Spanish cavalry company named for the town from which it came, San José y Santiago del Alamo. The fort became known by the cavalry name, shortened to Alamo. After Mexico achieved independence from Spain, Mexican armies and Texas colonists struggled for control of Texas. In a passage of arms celebrated forever in Texas, the 180 defenders of the Alamo refused to surrender and died to a man after a thirteen-day siege that ended March 6, 1836. Eventually, San Antonio, the heart of Texas, became a part of the United States and the lovely city by the river drew immigrants from Europe, especially Germans. San Antonio remains unlike any other American city. Some cities have elements of San Antonio’s intertwined culture, but none match it for sheer exuberance and colorful individuality, permeated by Hispanic grace, German industry, and Southern gentility.

  The River Walk is modern San Antonio’s heart, attracting well over a million visitors a year, just as the flowing waters in earlier years attracted, in turn, nomadic Indians, Spanish friars, and German immigrants.

  I sat at an outside table and sipped iced tea and looked across the placid green water, water that once ran red with blood. In the aftermath of the battle for the Alamo, Mayor Ruiz burned the bodies of the defenders. Charged with interring the bodies of Santa Ana’s slain, the mayor buried as many as he could and dumped the rest into the river.

  Today a barge glided past, the passengers smiling, taking pictures, welcoming the brief escape from the sun as they passed beneath the occasional arched stone bridges. I shaded my eyes. In a moment, I would cross the near bridge, my goal the three-story stucco building directly opposite. The river is bordered by wide sidewalks. Stone walls serve as the river’s banks as it meanders through the city. The restaurants and shops on the River Walk are the first floor of buildings that open to the downtown streets on their second floor.

  The breeze rustled tall cottonwoods. Sunlight striking through shifting leaves made filigree patterns on the buildings and the stone walk. Some of the buildings looked very old and some startlingly modern. The stuccoed structure directly opposite
was old, the walls probably a foot or so thick. But the curved glass windows that provided a magnificent display area were a renovation. The shining shop windows contrasted oddly with the ornate iron grillwork of the second-floor balconies, each with blue pots holding bright red canna lilies. A white wooden sign hung from an iron post. Gilt letters announced simply: “Tesoros.” At one corner of the building hung another sign: “La Mariposa.” An arrow pointed up the stone stairs. A glistening monarch butterfly was painted hovering above the arrow. Gilt letters beneath proclaimed: “The River Walk’s Oldest Bed & Breakfast.”

  A silver bell rang a sweet clear tone whenever the ornate carved green door of Tesoros opened. Customers were casually but expensively dressed. As I watched, a young man appeared in one of the windows, arranging a display of pottery. I caught quick glimpses of him, his face in shadow—shining dark hair, a fashionable goatee perfectly trimmed, deft movements. An older man walked slowly around the corner of the building, carrying a pail and a squeegee. His shoulders were bowed, his eyes downcast. The windows looked quite clean, but he walked at a deliberate pace to the near window, carefully put down his pail, then slowly began to wash the sparkling glass.

  I spent half an hour at the café, taking the time to consider how I should approach the store. Sometimes frankness can be effective. Sometimes it can be foolish. I knew nothing about Tesoros, about the people who owned it, about Iris Chavez’s job there. In the years when I was a reporter, I prepared exhaustively for interviews, reading every bit of material I could discover about my subject. But I’d had no idea when I drove toward San Antonio that I would have any need for knowledge about the store where Gina’s granddaughter worked, other than its location. But when I telephoned and asked for Iris Chavez, the connection was broken. That was surely odd. Yet, during this short observation, I’d seen nothing remarkable about the store or its clientele, nothing that could even hint at why one of its employees had disappeared. If she had.

  I finished my tea, left a bill on the table, and strolled to the bridge. I stopped at the top of the bridge and looked at the green water and at the occasional palms and lacy ferns and bright flowers that promised a never-ending summer. The river curved lazily around a bend, creating an intimate pocket of stores and people enjoying a lovely Sunday afternoon in September. It was hard to connect this holiday picture with the shabby little apartment and Iris’s disarranged belongings and the blinking red light on the telephone answering machine, signaling calls for reassurance and calls where no one spoke.

  When I reached the front of the store, I glanced in the first window, the window even now being meticulously scrubbed by the stooped man who seemed oblivious both to its cleanliness and to the constant mill of pedestrians behind him.

  I’ve looked in many shop windows in far distant countries. I’m not a shopper. I have no desire to own treasures of any kind. But I appreciate beauty, even beauty priced beyond the reach of most and certainly beyond my reach.

  A magnificent glazed pottery jar dominated the display. Stylized birds, flowers and palms in gold and black glistened against a finely hatched background. Two glazed plates were to the left of the jar. One featured a woman villager, her hat filled with fruit, and the second a man gathering up the fruits of harvest while his donkey rested. On the right of the jar were two dramatic dinner plates with greenish and gold peacocks and flower motifs against a tomato-red background.

  A card announced in calligraphic script: “Tlaquepaque style, glazed pottery from the state of Jalisco.”

  The other window was as bright with color as a field of Texas wildflowers. The young man, arms folded, studied his arrangement of a dozen or so clay banks. The banks were created to hold coins, but now it would take a fistful of dollars to buy them. I especially liked the orange lion and pink polka-dotted pig.

  This card announced: “Santa Cruz de las Huertas, 1920-1930.”

  The silvery bell sang as I opened the door. I still wasn’t sure how to proceed, whether to be direct or oblique. Whatever I did, I hoped I made the right choice. I’d found nothing in Iris’s apartment to lead me to her. This store was my last hope. I stepped inside to coolness and quiet, to a sense of serenity. Classical guitar music played softly. The wall on my right held a striking Rivera mural, a surging crowd, yet each face distinct, the whole vibrating with passion, protest, and pride.

  I saw only one customer, a slim blonde with ash-fine hair drawn back in a chignon, who waited by the front counter. The woman behind the cash register was ringing up the purchase, a wooden bas-relief of a farmer leading a donkey laden with corn-filled baskets.

  I wandered among the display islands, slabs cut from big tree trunks that had been dried and glazed. The shiny, rocklike platforms sat on wrought-iron supports. Spotlights inset in the ceiling highlighted each display. There was a glorious diversity: three-dimensional clay figures including a set of Mexican presidents by the celebrated Panduro family, Talavera tiles, flower-decorated bowls by Enrique Ventosa. Several wall cabinets held ornate silver pieces, trays, candlesticks, pitchers. A bookcase contained Day of the Dead representations, including a skeleton poking his head out of a rocket ship. I wandered among the islands and knew that I was indeed in the presence of treasures. It was the same sensation I felt on a visit to a grand museum. It would take weeks to appreciate the collection here, a lifetime to understand the many kinds of art.

  I paused at a display of carved wooden animals from Oaxaca. If I were a tourist, here for pleasure, these works would tempt me. The brightly colored animal figures—pink giraffes, spotted rhinos, lemon tigers—spoke of a world of unleashed imagination, the artist’s ebullient recognition that the pulse of life is more than is ever seen by the eye alone, that the spirit of joy colors every reality.

  The flip of that coin reminded me that behind light there is dark, that I could not accept the serenity and beauty of this room as the totality of this place.

  I reached the back of the long, wide room and turned to face the entrance. The young man still worked in the display window. The woman behind the main counter finished ringing up the sale. “We’ll be happy to ship the panel. Please put your address on this card—” Her voice had the liquid grace of a speaker who also speaks Spanish. It is a melodious cadence familiar in San Antonio. The blonde gave a languid thank you and drifted toward the door. The woman at the cash desk glanced toward me.

  I had a sense of energy and vigor barely contained. Lustrous black hair streaked with silver poufed from a broad curved forehead. Deep set dark eyes glittered with restless intelligence. Her skin was smooth and creamy, her lips scarlet as a tanager’s wing. She wore a crisp white blouse embroidered with a peacock, its tail spread in iridescent glory. She might have been stunningly attractive, but deep lines bracketed her mouth, and her eyes were pools of sullen fire. One hand moved abruptly, rattling the silver bracelets on her arm.

  “May I help you?” It was a polite query, spoken with a perfect intonation for this expensive shop, a gentle offer but unobtrusive, undemanding. And, I would guess, at odds with this woman’s questing, rebellious nature.

  “Yes. May I speak with Iris Chavez?”

  Just for an instant, I thought her eyes flared in shock. Was she surprised? Alarmed? Angry? The fleeting expression came and went so quickly, I was unsure of its meaning. But I certainly read the meaning of the frown that pulled her dark brows into a straight hard line. “That girl! I’d like to talk to her, too.” Her voice was no longer melodious. It bristled with disgust. “Gone off without a word to anybody. No sense of responsibility. I thought she’d at least show up this weekend. She knows the weekend is our busiest time. And we’re in the middle of preparing for the auction. Well, she needn’t think she can come to work here only when it suits her fancy.”

  “It’s important that I contact her.” I spoke sharply. “When was she last here?”

  She looked at me icily. “Who are you?” The demand was just this side of rude.

  “Henrietta Collins. Iris’s grandm
other, Gina Wilson, is a close friend of mine. Iris customarily gets in touch with her grandmother every Saturday. But Gina heard nothing from her this Saturday. Moreover, Gina has heard nothing from Iris since last Wednesday. Gina is very concerned and I promised her I would find Iris.” I spoke pleasantly, but with intensity because I, too, was increasingly concerned. No answer at Iris’s apartment. The apartment searched. And now, a girl who had left her job unexpectedly.

  “Oh.” The irritation seeped out of the woman’s strong face, replaced by uncertainty. She lifted a hand to smooth her unruly hair and the bracelets jingled, silver on silver. “I called her apartment Friday. And again Saturday morning. There was no answer either time. I didn’t try again.”

  The front door opened.

  A middle-aged couple in polo shirts and Bermuda shorts entered. The woman made a soft cooing sound. “Oh, that air-conditioning. It feels wonderful.” I placed her accent somewhere near Montreal.

  The woman at the cash desk glanced toward the couple, then her hand moved swiftly. Faintly I heard a buzzer. She looked past me at the newcomers. “Hello.” A swift smile. “Bienvenidos a Tesoros. May I help you?”

  “Thanks. We’ll just look around.” The woman smiled. She stepped past us, then stopped with a delighted exclamation. “Oh, Johnny, look.” The woman grabbed his arm. “Those candlesticks are just what we need.” She pointed at a pair of cobalt-blue Talavera candlesticks.

  A brown door, almost indistinguishable from the wall, opened at the back of the store. The man who strode through, head high, dark eyes flashing, knew that he was handsome. Bold dark eyes dominated a long face that could have stared out commandingly from a thirteenth-century Spanish tapestry, almost oval, with a high-bridged nose and sharp chin with a deep cleft. But there was no gloom here, no somber soldier marching in a Crusade. His broad mouth stretched in a merry smile. He knew women responded to him, knew he was a hell of a guy. I’m not ordinarily impressed with cocky men, yet my mouth curved in an answering smile. Yes, he was cocky, but he brought with him an energy and enthusiasm that immediately charmed.