Death of a Nationalist (15 page)

Chapter 15

T
ejada had passed a nearly sleepless night. He finally fell into an uneasy doze shortly before dawn and dreamed that Paco was being shot before his eyes. He killed the sniper as Paco fell, and when he reached the bodies he realized that the Red was a miliciana with Elena’s face, and then Paco’s corpse clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t feel badly, buddy. She’s just a Red whore,” and he turned on the corpse with ferocity and beat it until it lay still again as dead people were supposed to. He woke up sweating.

Tejada spent the morning doing paperwork and trying not to think about Elena. He tried to focus on what he had learned about Paco’s death instead, carefully avoiding any thought about the source of his latest information. He almost decided against going to question Alejandra Palomino. If Paco had never had her notebook in the first place, it was unlikely that she knew anything about what or who had drawn him into the black market. But Tejada was forced to admit to himself that if Alejandra had actually seen Paco’s killer, she might be in a position to give valuable information. After arguing with himself all morning, the sergeant finally set out for the Calle Tres Peces.

His first thought when he reached the top of the stairs and found Aleja in a crumpled heap was that Paco’s killer had struck again, to silence a witness. A quick inspection revealed that the child was still breathing. The door to her apartment was ajar, as if someone had left hastily without bothering to close it. Tejada picked up the unconscious girl and deposited her on the couch in the living room.

Aleja’s injury was fairly obvious. One side of her head was bloody. Tejada headed for the kitchen, searching for water to clean the girl’s wound, and found a sponge, lying by a pail of soapy water, in the middle of the well-worn tiles. Near the pail was a set of footprints, brown outlines against the newly washed floor. The heel of one of the prints was smudged, as if someone had slipped. Tejada looked at the footprints for a moment, and then raised the sole of his own shoe and inspected it. The outline matched the footprints too closely for comfort.

He washed Aleja’s face and, in the absence of ice, left a cool rag on her head to help reduce the swelling. Then he wondered what he should do next. The terrified woman whom he had interviewed the day before was not present. A quick tour of the apartment revealed that it had been searched. In the sergeant’s judgment, the searchers had been professionals. He thought about the footprints, which could so easily have matched his own soles, and unwillingly remembered Elena Fernández’s voice saying, “Her testimony implicates a guardia civil.” Elena would not lie to him. He winced away from the painful spot in his own brain and focused once more on Aleja’s. It occurred to him that whoever had visited the apartment earlier could certainly have made sure that Alejandra was dead. The blow she had received might easily have been fatal, and might still be, but a second blow would have finished her off and could have been delivered easily. Whoever had hit the girl must not have cared greatly whether she lived or died. Which made no sense whatsoever, if she had been attacked to prevent her from revealing a secret. But then the search and Señora Llorente’s absence made no sense either.

Tejada tried to recall what he knew about head injuries. The longer a man was unconscious the worse the injury, he knew, but he had no way of telling when the little girl had been struck. He was just resolving to take Aleja to the nearest hospital to ask for a professional opinion, when he heard her speak.

When she woke up, she was lying on the sofa and someone had placed a damp rag on her forehead. Her head hurt, worse than it had when she had had the flu a year ago. She tossed restlessly, trying to remember why her head hurt. “Mama?”

“Thank God!” It was a man’s voice, not one she knew. A face appeared, bending over the top of the sofa. Aleja blinked at him. Her vision seemed fuzzy, and he swam in and out of focus. She did not know him. She shut her eyes again. “I want Mama!”

“Ssh-ssh. Just lie quietly.” The man came around and sat on the sofa by her feet. He sounded like a teacher. Or maybe a doctor. Or like Señor del Valle, whom Mama had worked for.

“My head hurts,” Aleja told him, in case he was a doctor and wanted to know what was wrong with her.

“I’m not surprised.” Aleja had no word for irony, but she recognized the tone of voice. When the man spoke again he sounded grave. “Can you tell me your name?”

“I’m Aleja.”

“And what’s that short for, Aleja?”

“Maria Alejandra.”

“Have you learned to count yet, Aleja?”

“Of course!” Aleja had the feeling that he was making fun of her. “I’m not a baby!” She opened her eyes and glared at him.

He smiled. “Good. Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”

She squinted. “Three.”

“
Very
good.” He seemed as pleased as if she were a tiny baby who couldn’t be expected to count to three. “Have you studied geography, too? Can you tell me the capital of Spain?”

“Madrid, of course!” He was definitely treating her as if she were a baby. “It’s
always
been Madrid.”

“Close enough, I guess.” To her annoyance, the man sounded as if he thought she had said something funny.

Aleja decided that he asked silly questions. She asked one of more importance. “Where’s Mama?”

The man frowned. Then he asked another question. “Do you remember what happened before you . . . woke up here?”

Aleja strained to remember. Tío Gonzalo had left that morning, but she wasn’t supposed to say that to anyone, even a doctor. She knew that his leaving was important, though. After he had gone, Mama had been careful to put away all his things. Then they had cleaned the house. “I was dusting,” she said, fairly certain that it was all right to say that. “Mama was washing the kitchen floor.”

“Did you finish dusting?” the man asked gravely.

Aleja still had a headache, but it was receding now and no longer made her eyes swim when she opened them. She was able to focus more on the man’s face. It did not seem like a scary face. She wondered why she had been frightened, for a moment, when she had first seen him. “Someone knocked on the door,” she said slowly.

“What happened then?” The man had a red collar, and a khaki coat.

Something bad had happened, something to do with Tío Gonzalo, but Aleja stared at the khaki coat, and knew that she could not tell him about Tío Gonzalo, without knowing why. “I—I’m thirsty,” she said, because it was true.

“I’ll get you a glass of water.” The man stood up. Standing, he was very tall, and she saw that his coat and trousers matched, and that he was wearing a cartridge belt, and pistol.

The past came roaring back to Aleja, and as she remembered what had happened to her, she recognized the man’s uniform, and began to scream.

For a moment, Tejada had hoped that Aleja would be able to make sense of her situation for him. Then, at the crucial point in the story, she suddenly became hysterical. The sergeant was surprised, and somewhat concerned, by her transformation. She had been confused, and a bit wary before. Now she was clearly terrified and hostile. The maddening thing was that he had the feeling that she
could
have told him something, but that she was no longer willing to. After unsuccessfully trying to comfort her for a few nightmare minutes when he was unable to hear himself think, Tejada decided that she might need a doctor after all. He was, he realized, unsure of the way to the nearest hospital, and unwilling to leave Aleja alone to search for it. The idea of wandering through the labyrinthine streets carrying a screaming child to an uncertain destination was not attractive. It would be simpler to take her back to the post and telephone for a doctor from there.

Tejada realized, as soon as he scooped Aleja up, that he had been wrong to think he would have to negotiate the winding streets carrying a screaming child. He was going to have to negotiate them carrying a screaming and kicking and scratching child. With a definite sense of distaste, and a fervent wish that he had thought to bring along a subordinate, the sergeant started down the stairs, doing his best to cradle Aleja’s injured head in one elbow and keep his other arm clamped under her knees. She was too large to carry this way easily, but Tejada had a feeling that other means of transporting children involved their active cooperation.

A number of people were on their way home for the siesta and Tejada caught a few startled glances from them. The glances always darted away as soon as he was aware of them. Walking was tiring. Aleja was not much heavier than the regulation backpack of a guardia civil on mountain patrol but Tejada’s grip on her was awkward, and backpacks neither squirmed nor screamed. The streetcar on the way down the Calle de Toledo looked like the answer to the sergeant’s prayers. He hailed it, and shoved his way on board. It was crowded, but the other riders melted into each other to give him and his noisy bundle room. The stares here were more concentrated, and Tejada began to feel as if he were standing in a very bright spotlight, surrounded by accusing eyes. He could feel the expressions of sympathy being muttered under the cover of Aleja’s sobbing. “Poor little thing.” “It’s a real shame.” “She looks hurt.” “Poor dear.” He found himself wanting to catch someone’s—anyone’s—eye and say confidentially (but loudly enough to be heard by everyone around him), “I found her with this bump on her head. I’m taking her to the doctor.” But no one met his eyes and he faced row upon row of faces as shuttered as the city’s stores.

Tejada reached the post with relief. Aleja’s protests had subsided to dry, moaning sobs by this time. The sergeant found himself wondering how long children could scream before they went hoarse. Apparently quite a long time. Moscoso and a young man Tejada did not recognize were on guard duty. They saluted smartly when they saw Tejada and eyed the sergeant’s armful with some curiosity.

“Here.” Tejada thrust the child at Moscoso. “Be careful of her head. And follow me.”

“B-but, sir—” Moscoso stammered, and then clutched desperately at Aleja, who had revived enough to kick savagely while being transferred. “She seems kind of upset. Don’t you think maybe a woman would be . . . ow! . . . maybe better?”

“No doubt,” said the sergeant, heading for the infirmary. “But I don’t see one available, and I’ve carried her all the way from Tres Peces. She won’t hurt you, Guardia.”

Moscoso’s grunt of pain as Alejandra bit his hand seemed to contradict his commanding officer but Tejada paid him no attention. The guardia’s last comment had pulled away the dressing on a thought Tejada had been tending like a wound: Elena would know how to deal with her. When they reached the infirmary, Moscoso set the girl down on a cot with relief and backed away. Alejandra, realizing that she was free for the time being, made a spirited attempt to get up and flee. Her legs folded under her and she slid onto the floor. The two guardias civiles watched her from a safe distance.

“Call a doctor, Moscoso,” the sergeant ordered. “Tell him we have a girl, about seven years old, with a slight concussion and a bad case of hysteria. And ask Corporal Ventura if we have anything that will quiet her down.”

“Yes, sir.” Moscoso inspected his hand. A few drops of blood had beaded on it, and the palm bore a set of little teeth marks. “Umm . . . sir?”

“Yes, Guardia?”

“Umm . . . she’s not rabid, is she?”

“Not to the best of my knowledge, Guardia.” Tejada smiled slightly. “I’ll know more when you bring me a doctor.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.” Moscoso made a rapid exit.

Tejada inspected the sobbing lump of misery that composed his main witness to murder and wondered again what had provoked such a sudden and violent reaction. Was it something he had done or some private demon that she had remembered? She was wailing pitifully for her mother now. Where was her mother? Had the reticent Señora Llorente also seen more than was good for her? He was interrupted in his meditations by Corporal Ventura, a balding, cheerful little man, in charge of the post’s rudimentary pharmacy.

“Moscoso says you’ve got a rabid kid there, sir,” he said, pulling on a pair of dark leather gloves that contrasted oddly with the white jacket he wore over his uniform.

“Moscoso exaggerates,” the sergeant said absently, thinking, as he always did, that the white jacket looked silly.

“Oh, well.” Ventura cast a regretful look at the gloves, a sidewise one at the officer, and then left them on. “Anything I can do, Sergeant?”

“Would morphine calm her down?” Tejada asked.

Ventura cast a professional glance at the little girl, and then knelt beside her. “Oh, sure. Put her out like a light. But so would a shot of brandy, probably.” He gently picked up Aleja holding her upright but cradling her head. Tejada realized that it was a much more workable position than the one he had tried to carry her in. “All right, sweetie. All right,” Ventura murmured. “All right, I know. I know you want Mama. You just calm down, honey.” He gently set her down on the cot and this time she remained there, staring up at him, wild-eyed but relatively quiet.

“Well done,” Tejada commented softly.

The corporal shrugged. “She’s about my second boy’s age. Why’d you bring her in, Sergeant?”

“I found her unconscious in an apartment that had been ransacked,” Tejada replied, without mentioning that he had been looking for her. “She’d been given a tap on the head.”

“Mmm.” Ventura prodded one side of Aleja’s head with interest, and she whimpered. “You don’t want to add morphine to this then, sir. Not if you want her to wake up afterward.”

Moscoso returned at a run, managed to slow himself to a quick march, and stamped for decorum’s sake before speaking. “Sorry it took so long, sir. I had to call three posts. Dr. Villalba’s over at Coruña Road. I told him it was an emergency, sir, and he said he’d be here in half an hour.”

“Thank you, Guardia.” Tejada spoke without the hint of a smile. “Perhaps Ventura can clean your wounds and then you can go back on duty.” He thought a moment. “And send me Jiménez, if he’s on duty.”

“Yes, sir.” Moscoso happily gave himself into Corporal Ventura’s care.