“I hope I haven’t worn you out.”
“Not me. I’m the original trouper. I love a good long walk.”
“Well, you’re in the right place now. Living in New York, we’ve gotten used to doing without a car. Having one here would be more of a burden than a convenience. There’s nowhere to put it.”
“I noticed the house doesn’t have a garage.”
“Parking space is at a premium, but honestly, everything we need is within easy walking distance.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” I said. “I’ve been managing without a car my entire life.”
“So you have. Of course, it’s handy to have one from time to time, but if we want to explore a bit farther out, we can take a taxi, or one of our new friends will give us a lift. Everyone is so welcoming. We already have a wide group of friends down here. You’ll meet more of them later.”
Our walk ended in front of the police station, where we ran into a large, bushy-haired man with a broad grin on his face coming out of the building. Behind him was a stocky young man wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt. He appeared to be in his early twenties.
“Well, if it isn’t the gorgeous Mrs. Buckley. Fancy meeting you here, of all places.” His booming voice had people on the street turning to see who he was. The young man turned his back and pretended not to know him.
Olga cringed. “Hello, Woody,” she said, her voice distinctly lacking in enthusiasm.
“How’s the great white hunter? Ready for a little adventure?”
Olga ignored his questions. “Jessica, this is Woody Manheim and his son, Philip.”
Woody frowned. “Boy, turn around and say hello.”
“I’m not a boy, Dad.”
“Then act like a man. Don’t embarrass me.”
Olga interrupted the scolding. “Woody, this is our guest, Jessica Fletcher.”
Woody’s face lit up. “Sure, sure, I recognize you,” he said, pumping my hand. “Saw you on the
Today
show. Pleased to make your acquaintance. How’s that Katie Couric? Is she as nice as she seems on TV?”
I assured him she was.
“Pretty thing. Can’t compare to our beauty queen here, though, can she?”
“Dad,” Philip said with a groan.
“Woody, could you lower your voice, please?” Olga said in a hoarse whisper.
“Sorry. Was I shouting?”
Olga nodded, pulling the sleeves of her sweater closer.
“You’re impossible,” Philip said with disgust. “I’m outta here.” He walked away without acknowledging Olga or me.
“Kids!” Woody winked at me and shrugged. “Hearing’s not what it used to be,” he said, making an exaggerated effort to speak more softly.
I had a feeling Woody had been loud all his life regardless of the state of his hearing.
“I never met a real live celebrity before,” he said. “Not much of a reader. You know how it is—so much to do, so little time. But you looked great on TV.”
Olga was tall, but Woody towered over her. Broad in the shoulders, the waist, and the hips, he would have been intimidating but for the pleasant expression on his face. Evidently, he greeted everyone with the same hail-fellow-well-met gusto, and it was hard not to smile back, although I don’t think his son would have agreed with my assessment.
“Jessica, don’t let us keep you,” Olga said. “I’ll meet you over there when you’re through giving your police report.” She pointed to an ice cream stand on the corner of the park.
“Nice to have met you,” I said to Woody.
“Oh, I’ll see you later at the beauty queen’s party.” He cut a glance at Olga and guffawed.
“Woody, may I talk to you a moment?” she said, leading him away.
There was no door to the station house, only an arched opening leading to a flight of stairs. As I mounted the first step, men in brown uniforms, carrying rifles and with bandoliers crisscrossing their chests, clattered down the staircase. I flattened myself against the cool wall to keep out of their way, but there seemed to be unending numbers of them.
“Señora, Señora, this is not a good place to stand,” said a voice to my side.
“My apologies,” I said to a stern-faced man in a loose-fitting white shirt and a baseball cap. “However, I have an appointment with . . .” I held up the card provided by the officers who had rescued Juanito and me. “I’m to see Javier Rivera. I understand his office is up there.” I nodded toward the second floor. “Do you know him?”
“I do. Let me assist you.” He pushed past me, shouted something in Spanish, and the crowd of men stopped where they were and squeezed to the right to allow us to pass. We climbed quickly but faced a new squad at the top of the stairs, and my escort had to repeat his instructions so we could enter the hall. Once we were safely on the next level, the stairwell filled again with descending men.
“Soldiers,” he called over his shoulder. He led me past a series of offices and a huge magnetic board showing the police duty roster, with silver disks to represent officers and crisscrossing rows indicating shift times and areas of the patrols. It hung next to a map of the city marked with colored pins. At the end of the hall, he drew a ring of keys out of his pocket to unlock a door on which a sign read, EL JEFE DE POLICÍA. “Have a seat,” he said once we were inside. He hung his ball cap on a hook on the wall, revealing a salt-and-pepper crew cut, took the chair behind the desk, and dropped the keys into a drawer.
“Are you the chief of police?”
“Javier Rivera at your service,” he said. “Don’t look so surprised.” He caught my glance at his clothes and shrugged. “I’m usually more formal, but my son is playing baseball this afternoon and I’m leaving here”—he squinted at his watch—“in an hour. So whatever it is, make it quick.”
“I won’t keep you long,” I said. “I’m a little surprised to be reporting to someone as important as the chief of police. Is this standard procedure?”
“For the moment. My second and I are the only ones on the squad who speak intelligible English. Others say they speak the language, but you couldn’t tell it by me. Since the city has a sizable English-speaking population, we need to be able to communicate clearly. We’re setting up lessons for the officers, but it’ll be a while before that bears any fruit.” He sighed. “So tell me. Why are you here?”
“My driver and I were on the road from León to San Miguel when a
ban
—when a thief waylaid our car, took our money and some of my jewelry, and ran off.”
“A
bandido,
you were going to say. A familiar story.” He pulled out a blank form from a pile of papers on his desk and handed it to me along with a pen. “What time of the day was this?”
“Didn’t your officers give you a summary?”
“I’ll ask the questions. What time of day was this?”
“Actually, it was at night. I’d say around one or two in the morning.”
He tipped his chin down, raised his brow, and peered up at me through thick black lashes. “Don’t you know better than to travel at night in Mexico? You should be grateful you weren’t shot, or worse. That was a very bad decision, Mrs. . . ? I didn’t catch your name.”
“Fletcher. Jessica Fletcher. Yes, Chief, I understand that, but my flight was delayed, and the person who was supposed to pick me up at the airport—”
“No excuses,” he said, interrupting. “There’s no good reason to be driving around these roads in the dark. You appear to be an intelligent woman. You must have heard about crime in Mexico. Stories like this have been printed in every paper in the world. Tourism is down all over the country as a result. Why didn’t you just stay in a hotel overnight?”
“I was told the hotels in León were all filled.”
“They always say that, but if you’d gone to one, they would have found you something, even if they’d had to kick one of their staff out of bed. Who drove you, then, if your original driver never showed?”
“The son of one of the men who worked at the airport.” I felt foolish as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I knew he was going to pounce on that. I had taken a risk by trusting Juanito, but I’d thought it was a small one. That his father had awakened him at midnight to drive a stranded stranger struck me as a generous act, not a nefarious one. Still, I had given Chief Rivera something else to seize upon, another reason to scold me. I headed him off. “Now, I know what you’re about to say, but there you’re wrong. Juanito was not in league with the
bandido
. I’d bet my life on that.”
“Which was exactly what you did,” he barked.
“Please let me finish. He was a very reliable young man who watched out for me as best he could. In fact, he was very protective.”
“Driving a brand-new car, no doubt, with seat belts and air bags. Hmmm?”
“That’s an entirely different matter.”
A small smirk came and went on his lips. He waved at the form in my hands. “Just fill that out and we’ll see what we can do, but I have to inform you that we never find stolen articles. Whatever this guy took has probably been fenced three times by now. And the thief himself is likely to be miles away.”
“I wasn’t expecting that you would recover my belongings. But it might be helpful to you to have a description of the robber. Do you do any investigation at all, or am I wasting my time?”
“Now don’t get your back up. We’ll check into it. Just stating the facts.”
“I wonder if could ask you a question?”
His eyes were wary. “Sure.”
“How did you know to address me in English when I was downstairs?”
“Easy. First of all, we have a very big expat community down here, which you must have noticed by now. Half of them are across the street in the park. Americans and Canadians are retiring here by the dozens. You’re blond, wearing a brand-new pair of Nikes, and carrying a handbag that wasn’t made in Mexico. Plus, you weren’t afraid to buck the tide of uniforms—a very American attitude—and you were trying to get into a police station, not out of it.”
“Interesting. Do you mind if I ask you another?”
“Shoot.”
“When did you leave New York?”
He snorted. “How’d you figure that one out?”
“Let’s leave aside your brashness for the moment.”
“What you really mean is rudeness.”
“Yes, well, you speak English with a New York accent. I used to live in New York City, so the sound of New Yorkers is not unknown to me.”
“No kidding. Where?”
“In Manhattan.”
“What were you doing there? You don’t sound like a native New Yorker to me.”
“I was teaching at Manhattan University.”
“Interesting. Where did you live?”
“I had an apartment at Penfield House.”
“Nice address,” he said.
“Nice way to change the subject.”
The smirk appeared again.
“If your accent were not enough,” I said, “your New York Yankees baseball cap over there was a sure giveaway.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing. A lot of people are Yankees fans.”
“Not where I come from.”
“Where’s that?”
“Cabot Cove, Maine.”
“Maine? They don’t even have a baseball team.”
“Not a major-league one. But Boston’s not too far away. And they do.”
“Who are you talking about? The Red Sox? No comparison. Not even close. Shouldn’t even say their name in the same breath as the Yankees.”
“When I left New York yesterday . . .” I paused.
My goodness, was it only yesterday?
I thought.
So much has happened.
“When I left New York, if I’m not mistaken—and I don’t believe I am—Boston had a three-game lead in a four-game series.” I smiled in triumph. “You can look it up if you don’t believe me. It’ll be on the Internet.”
Chief Rivera’s smirk faded. “They’ll make it up. It’s still early in the season. The Yankees have depth. They always come out on top.” He scowled at me. “Now who’s changing the subject?”
I nodded. “What did you do in New York, Chief? Were you a policeman there, too?”
His face relaxed. “Twenty years with NYPD.”
“I’ll bet speaking Spanish was a real help to you as a policeman in New York.”
“In the Latino neighborhoods. I speak Spanish with a Mexican accent, but I can put on a Puerto Rican, Dominican, or even Cuban accent when I need to.”
“How did you find a job down here?”
His expression became contemplative. “When I retired from the force, I couldn’t take the quiet. I was used to the action, you know?”
I nodded.
“The wife got disgusted, divorced me, and moved upstate with the kids. They’re in college now. I bounced around for a while. Then I read about a job opening in Mexico.”
“And you already knew the language.”
“Not only that. I knew the area, too. My parents were from Guanajuato originally. We used to come back for a family visit every couple of years. Anyway, at the time Mexico was hiring cops by the dozen to combat the increase in crime. When the tourists started avoiding the resorts, the government knew they’d better do something, and fast. I guess they must’ve run out of local talent and gave me a shot at it. But it’s no big deal in San Miguel. It’s relatively safe.”
I raised my eyebrows. Not in my experience, it wasn’t.
He noted my expression. “Well, there are always exceptions, but San Miguel is no Mexico City.”
“And you wish it were?”
“Not really. But I wouldn’t mind putting some time in in the big city. I don’t think there’s much of a chance of that. My wife, the new one, that is—I met her down here—she’d kill me if I even suggested it. It’s her little boy, my stepson, I’m taking to play baseball.”
“And I’m keeping you. I’ll fill this out right now.” I picked up the pen and started writing quickly. “Were you made police chief right away?” I asked as I recorded the details from the night before.
“No, not at first. But my predecessor got caught with his hand in the till, so to speak. He was moonlighting as a
bandido
.”
I raised my head, startled.