“Blue. It’s a nice bit of fabric. I’m almost done, a stitch here and there left. It should look good on her.”
“Everything you make looks good,” Marisol said, looking admiringly at her sketch.
The baker and his assistant were busy tending the ovens, and the bakery was deserted at that time of the day. The girls could chat by the cash register without interruption. Marisol cooled herself with a cheap paper fan in one hand and ran her fingers down the sketch, touching the sleeves, the skirt.
“What a lovely thing.”
“It’s a copy of a dress she saw in a magazine at Sarita Novo’s house,” Inés said.
“She’ll be the best-dressed woman during the festival. They’re saying GuadalupeLazcano bought fireworks from Tultepec to try to outshine Jorge Olvera’s fireworks, so it ought to be a fun weekend.”
A cot had been dragged into every available room in the guesthouse so each could fit two people rather than one. For a moment Inés had thought her aunt might order Ulises to decamp and sleep in her room during the three days of festivities, but he was not asked to move his things. When visitors streamed into their town like this, taking every bed, there was always a mountain of laundry to tackle and many dishes to wash. It wouldn’t be fun, although she supposed she would enjoy the dancing. She always did.
Inés grabbed the sketch and folded it, stuffing it back in her pocket.
“Did you hear about Cándido’s car?” Marisol asked. “A bull wrecked it.”
“What?”
Marisol grinned. She looked over her shoulder, to make sure that the baker and his assistant were still busy minding the ovens, and leaned forward on the counter.
“He went to demand payment from Filomeno for one of those loans he took from your aunt. Either Filomeno forgot to close the door to the bull’s pen or he left it open on purpose, but wouldn’t you know it, that mean old bull rushed out and gored that car.”
“A bull can’t gore a car!”
“It damaged it. And then Cándido panicked and tried to drive away and hit a tree.”
“He was in the car when the bull attacked it?”
“Must have been. He smashed a mirror and dented the front. He’s in a foul mood! Even worse than usual. Every time he comes in here, he snaps his fingers at me. And the other day he kept asking me about your aunt’s husband again, he wouldn’t let up.”
Inés swallowed, her fingers curling around the piece of paper in her pocket and crushing it into a ball. “Asking what?”
“You know how that man came in wanting to get directions to your aunt’s house, and we got to conversing. Cándido told me to repeat everything I’d told him. As if I could remember! He snapped his fingers, twice, you bet he did,” Marisol said as she finally placed the last bolillo in a paper bag and finished adding up Inés’s purchases.
“What did you say?” Inés asked.
“Same thing I told you that day: that the man asked about a Mr. Linares or a Mr. Lagos, and I told him Mr. Linares was married to Perla Inclán, but I didn’t know no Mr. Lagos. Say, did Ulises speak to that fellow?”
The cash drawer sprang open with a loud clang. The noise startled Inés and she almost dropped the coins she was holding in the palm of her hand.
“Oh…yes, they spoke. There was a misunderstanding, but it’s been resolved.”
She took her change and her bread and walked out of the bakery. Her heart beat fast in her chest, but then she forced herself to slow down. What was she afraid of? The investigator had left town, and he hadn’t even talked to her aunt. She was getting her stomach into knots for no reason.
Then, as she reached the gates of the house, she saw Cándido standing there and wondered if she could turn around and disappear down an alley. But he’d spotted her.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “You’ve come to visit my aunt? I can fetch her.”
“I’ve come to see Perla, but I also wanted to have a word with you.”
“With me?” She pushed open the gates, which groaned in protest. “I don’t know what you’d want to talk about with me.”
“Don’t play dumb. I gave you money and you provided nothing in return. You were supposed to find out something useful about Ulises.”
“I’m not sure what I could find out. It’s not like he talks much to me.”
The sound of the opening gates attracted Diógenes. The dog, which had been napping under a lemon tree, came rushing toward them and began to bark at Cándido.