Her Latin Lover (Contemporary Romance) (12 page)

He looked around the church and was surprised to see that he and Isabella weren’t the only people who had come to pay their respects. At the front of the nave, was the Chief of the local police force. Paulo guessed that he had come in case there was any trouble and also to make sure that El Leon really was finally dead and buried. On the other side was Señor Marcos wearing a heavy black jacket that no longer matched his shiny black trousers. Paulo wondered what he was doing at the service, especially given all that his brother had done to him. He was just about to go and ask him when he spotted a woman with coarsely dyed hair and heavy make-up sitting on the far side of one of the back pews. There were black streaks down her checks where her mascara had run. Paulo walked round and offered her a handkerchief, but she shrank back.

“Here, take it. It’s OK.” He held out the handkerchief.

“Thank you,” she mumbled. She snatched the handkerchief and started rubbing her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I am Don Paulo de Castile. I am El Leon’s older brother.” For the second time in one day he admitted to being Leon’s brother, something that he hadn’t done for years.

“You’re the one whose girlfriend killed my Leonito.” She spat the words out at him like a fierce cat.

“And who are you?” was all that Paulo said in reply.

“Juanita. I am El Leon’s friend. His very close friend. I’m sure he’s told you all about me.”

Leon and Paulo might have been brothers, but it was many years since they had properly spoken to each other. In fact, the last time they had really talked together was the night of Clara’s death. Paulo tried to put the memory out of his mind and focus on the woman in front of him, though despite the hair and all the cosmetics, she looked more like a girl than a woman.

“Jaunita, how old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-one,” she replied mechanically.

Paulo raised an eyebrow.

“OK, I’m eighteen.”

Paulo raised another eyebrow. “Really?”

“Alright, I’m sixteen. What do you care?”

Paulo knew that after his wife disappeared, his brother regularly picked up young women in La Puesta and took them back to his house, but he didn’t know that Leon was involved with girls as young as sixteen. Paulo’s stomach turned. He wondered what had happened to Leon’s other girls. He hoped that once Leon had grown tired of them, he had at least taken them back to La Puesta.

“Where will you go now, after the funeral?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you go back to Leon’s house? Are his men still there?” Paulo didn’t like the idea of this girl being alone with Leon’s thugs, though maybe they had had her already.

“All his men have gone. They said that the woman who killed Leon was a spirit seeking revenge. They’re scared that she will come after them too. Maybe she’ll come after me. Since Leon’s died, I’ve heard noises and I think it’s her, looking for more victims. I put offerings outside my bedroom window, but you never know. Some spirits are hard to deal with. She killed Leon even though he was the toughest man in the whole country. Will she come after me and kill me too?”

El Leon wasn’t the toughest man in the country, but Paulo didn’t contradict the girl. However, he couldn’t reassure her that she was safe. Not because he thought that an evil spirit was going to get her, but because he was worried about burglars and other criminals breaking into the house and attacking her. It wouldn’t be long before word got out that there was a girl living alone in Leon’s house.

“Is there anywhere else you can go Juanita? Is there anyone else who can look after you?”

“You could look after me. I could come and stay with you.” She licked her bright red lipstick. “Leonito said I was the best girl he ever had.” She then whispered into Paulo’s ear a detailed description of a sexual act that she claimed to specialise in.

“We are in church and in front of Leon’s body.” Paulo reminded her. The girl must be desperate if she felt that she had to throw herself at a man in this way. “Take and sell what you can from Leon’s house and leave,” he suggested.

 “Leon’s men have stripped the house. There’s nothing left there, not even the furniture. They didn’t even leave me my bed. I’ve been sleeping on the floor.”

Leon’s house was on the opposite side of Corazon and Paulo hadn’t been there since the shooting, but he wasn’t surprised to hear that his brother’s men had stolen everything they could lay their hands on.

“Take this. Use it to go back to your family.” Paulo handed her all the money he had on him. It was quite a substantial amount. It was meant to be a gift to the church, but Paulo thought the priest would understand.

The girl looked stunned when she saw how much he handed over to her. “Maybe we can meet after the service and I can repay you.” She made an obscene gesture with her hands.

“No. Thank you. Now, if you will excuse me.” Paulo stepped away and joined Isabella in a pew many rows ahead.

He found it hard to concentrate on his prayers. He kept on wondering what would happen to a girl like Juanita. She was only sixteen, possibly even younger, and yet she was quite clearly already a woman, at least sexually. Maybe she was already corrupted when Leon picked her up. However, he was sure that whatever she was like before she met his brother, Leon would have made it worse and reduced her to new levels of depravity. How many other girls had suffered because of him and how many men too? Paulo looked at Señor Marcos in the pew in front of him. He leaned forward, tapped him on the shoulder and asked him why he was there.

“He was your brother, so I am here to support you. I am not here out of any respect for him,” he said pointing at the coffin at the front, “not after what he did to me.”

Paulo didn’t get a chance to reply as the priest, Padre Francis Caxinaua, walked in to begin the service. Everyone stood up. He quite understood why Señor Marcos could not forgive Leon. Paulo wondered if he himself had ever really forgiven Leon for what he’d done to him all those years ago. As the priest began reciting the prayers for the dead, Paulo’s mind drifted back to the night of Clara’s death.

That evening everyone had been rehearsing his and Clara’s wedding at the church, the very church where Paulo now stood, only then it had been full of flowers. Paulo hadn’t ordered any flowers for Leon’s funeral. He didn’t see the point. He remembered how the smell of dozens of roses at the rehearsal had mixed with the smell of stale church incense to become almost intoxicating as he walked through the wedding ceremony with a much younger Padre directing Clara and himself: kneel, stand, sit, kneel again. They had both taken it very seriously and at the end Clara had quietly requested if they could go through the service a third time, just to make sure that they knew what to do.

By the time they finished they were late for dinner at a local restaurant that they’d booked for the occasion. Leon acted strangely all the way through the service and barely ate anything at dinner, but Paulo didn’t notice at the time; he was too busy enjoying the festivities and looking after Clara who was embarrassed to be the focus of so much attention. One family member after another toasted their forthcoming union and Paulo drank much more wine than he should have. Before everyone finished the huge meal, Clara mentioned that she was worried about the preparations for the next day. She wondered if it were at all possible for her to go back to the house early to check everything. However, Paulo was already too drunk to walk straight, much less drive all the way back to the mansion. Leon, who was still sober, stepped in and offered to drive both of them.

Leon took Paulo’s car keys and helped him get into the back of the vehicle, while Clara sat in front. They were halfway home and driving through the hills when Leon started talking about how he should be marrying Clara the next day, not Paulo. He said that he loved her more than Paulo and he knew that Clara loved him too.

Clara tried to reassure Leon that she loved him as a friend and as a brother, but that it was Paulo she was going to marry.

“Marry him? Look at him!” Leon sneered. “He’s sprawled out drunk across the back of the car. He can’t even look after you on the night before your wedding.”

“All men get drunk sometimes Leon,” Clara answered.

From the back of the car, Paulo called out, “That’s enough Leon. Maybe you have been drinking too?”

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” Leon shouted back at him. “You’ve always had everything you wanted – lots of friends, fine horses, expensive clothes – but that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to take away the only thing I had as well. You had to take Clara away from me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous Leon. Clara and I are getting married tomorrow and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“That’s where you’re wrong brother,” Leon replied. “There is something I can do about it,” and he started driving faster through the dark.

“What are you doing? Slow down!” Paulo yelled as Leon sped round a sharp corner. Ahead of them was a large sign post. Leon seemed to be heading straight towards it. “You’ll get us all killed.” Paulo said.

“No Paulo, not all of us,” Leon said, pressing his foot down on the accelerator.

Paulo heard a click, which he later realised was the sound of Leon releasing Clara’s seat belt just before he rammed the car into the signpost. No longer fastened down to the car seat, the impact of the crash threw Clara through the windscreen and onto the road ahead.

When their father heard what Leon had done, he disowned him and refused to see him again, even on his deathbed a few years later. Paulo inherited everything from both their father and Clara’s father’s, while Leon went out and established a much bigger, more powerful empire of his own.

“Don Paulo, I am sorry to disturb your prayers.”

Paulo looked up from where he was kneeling with his head in his hands. It was the priest. Paulo hadn’t noticed that the funeral service was over.

 “Don Paulo, we need to proceed to the cemetery for the internment.”

“Of course,” Paulo answered. He got up and together with Isabella he walked out of the church and into the cemetery.

The old cemetery behind the church was almost all full and hardly ever used for burials, but Paulo’s family had a special section reserved for them. It was where their grandparents and parents lay, and where one day Paulo himself would be buried.

He watched as the large coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. The priest muttered some more prayers while the young girl sniffed into Paulo’s handkerchief.

“What an assembly for a funeral!” Paulo thought. “Just six people: me, Isabella, the Chief of Police, a whore, a man he had castrated and the priest.” But Paulo couldn’t feel sorry for Leon. It was no less than what he deserved.

When it was all over, the priest walked up to Paulo to speak with him again. “I am so sorry that it had to end like this for Leon de Castile. Perhaps now he will find peace.”

“Perhaps, Padre, how do I know?”

“And have you found peace?” the priest asked.

“Me?” Paulo did not know how to respond to the question. He looked around the cemetery. Isabella was by the side of the church talking to Señor Marcos. The girl had already gone. She left at the same time as the Chief of Police. Maybe she would offer him the same services that she’d offered Paulo. Knowing the Chief of Police, he knew he would probably accept. Paulo regretted giving her so much money.

“Don Paulo,” the priest persisted, “Have you forgiven your brother for what he did to you?”

“What does it matter? He’s dead now, shot by an English woman that everyone thinks is Clara’s ghost, come back to seek revenge.”

“The Church does not believe in such things and nor should good Christians. You don’t think she is Clara’s spirit, do you?”

“No of course not, though I was a bit surprised when I first saw her.”

“Me too,” the priest agreed. “She came into the church looking for guidance and when I saw her I could not help but think of Clara de Santa Maria.” The priest crossed himself. Perhaps he was thinking of Clara’s soul; perhaps he was safeguarding his own self from falling prey to local superstition and the beliefs of his Native American forefathers.

“But once you get to know Mary you realise that she is completely different. She’s nothing like Clara.” Unlike Mary, Clara would not have shot a man.

“She is different, which is good, just as it is good that she is here and staying with you.”

“Do you think it is good that she murdered by brother?” Paulo asked the priest.

“Was it murder? How can you say? You were out cold after your brother shot you. I saw everything from the steps of the church. You’re lucky that Leon didn’t murder you. I believe he would have done if his sight hadn’t been impaired by the injury that your friend inflicted on him.” The priest winced at the thought of Mary’s hard kick to Leon’s groin. “And if he hadn’t murdered you, he most certainly would’ve murdered Mary, who is but an innocent in all of this.”

“How do you know that my brother wanted to kill me and Mary?” Paulo asked. The priest sounded very certain.

“Leon was convinced that Mary really was Clara incarnate: back from the dead to seek revenge on him. He thought that the only way to thwart the spirit was to overcome it. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he argued that Clara’s spirit had helped you to win the poker game so that Leon couldn’t have her. Then, when Mary went to stay with you, he saw it as proof that Mary really was Clara and together you were plotting to kill him. Leon was determined to kill her first, if not both of you, before the pair of you killed him.”

“Leon sent me some horrible emails in which he threatened to do things, sexual things to the woman, but there was no mention of killing anyone.”

“Poor Leon. He still loved Clara and somewhere in his sad, confused mind he wanted to have her, almost as much as he wanted to kill her. He even thought that he might marry her first.”

“What kind of man marries a woman and then murders her?” However, Paulo knew the answer to the question before he finished asking it.

“It would not be the first time that Leon had done such a thing,” the priest replied in a voice that was little more than a whisper.