Twenty Centavos: A Mystery Set in San Miguel de Allende

by John Scherber

  A large eighteenth century mahogany desk anchored the center of the long wall to the left of the French doors, flanked by display cases on both sides. The cases housed hundreds of small items; Mayan jade carvings and fragments of masks, three trays of gold and silver coins of the colonial period, a few spurs and ornate knives. A brace of pistols in wood, ivory, and silver mounts. In the center of one tray were earrings and pendants; I didn’t know enough to tell whether they were colonial or earlier. The only antique I had ever owned was my house. So much for seeing things differently, I thought.

  Two low piles of books and an angular Art Deco bronze lamp occupied the desktop. Large in format and glossy, the books were all devoted to Méxican antiquities. One on top was called Ancient Textiles of Oaxaca.

  The center drawer held a leather-bound notebook. Inside was a pad of good quality unlined paper. I flipped through the pages. All were blank. Holding it angled to the light revealed no impression of earlier writing. Next to it was a six inch round magnifying glass with an onyx handle and a small flashlight. In the front of the drawer a curved felt-lined tray held three expensive-looking fountain pens and a few pencils that looked like they hadn’t been used since they were sharpened. Maya and Marisol watched hand in hand. Their expectations were silent but unmistakable.

  A string of firecrackers erupted outside. They sounded like gunshots and Marisol flinched, although she must have known what they were. A chorus of dogs howled back in answer. Power outages are frequent here and dogs are the equivalent of burglar alarms.

  The upper left drawer held a tray of business cards, gray rag stock with a subtle brown fiber in it. They said Galeria Cruz, with the Umaran address. In the lower left corner they read, Tobey Cross; in the right, Antiquities. The next two drawers were empty, but in the bottom drawer on the right was a dictionary of Mayan hieroglyphics and a package of Galeria Cruz letterhead stationery in the same color paper as the business cards. Next to it lay a bundle of matching envelopes and three spiral notebooks. The top two had entries recording wages for cleaning and gardening help. The third was empty.

  In my role as instant detective I took out the blank spiral notebook and laid it on the desktop. When I came in I had imagined myself listing all the things I noticed, as if I possessed some system that would make sense of this. But what I wanted to do now was list all the things I didn’t notice; it was a much more telling group. I looked at Marisol; she watched me with raised eyebrows.

  “Is this where Tobey did his business?” I leaned back in his chair thinking that no one but Tobey ever sat there. “Because I don’t see any business here.” It sounded a little too final, even harsh, but there it was.

  Maya came over to the desk and looked over my shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know how my painting business is. I keep my sales files on a computer. I know where every one of my pictures has gone. There’s a Rolodex file of all my customers; and on the computer, what they own, what they’re interested in, and so on. I have my expense and travel records. I have my tax information for years and the galleries where I show now or have shown, together with what they’ve sold. I have a record of all the galleries I’ve approached unsuccessfully and what slides they’ve seen. Do you see? There’s nothing like that here. Where is Tobey’s business?”

  Marisol sat down in a leather chair opposite me and placed her elbows on the desk and her chin in her hands. Whenever I had seen her in the past she was nicely turned out, but tonight her face was puffy and her makeup smeared around the eyes from crying, although her hair, cut shorter than Maya’s and with the ends curled forward just under her ears, was still in place. I wondered if it made her uncomfortable for me to see her like that. Méxicans are private people and I didn’t know her well.

  “Did the police take away anything from the desk?” I asked.

  “I do not think so. I did not see them, but Tobey’s Rolodex is not here. It is usually by the books.”

  “Other than that, is this the way it was? Did you ever go in the desk, like to dust or put things in order?”

  “Well, to clean we have Luz, but the desk is never a mess. It is always like this, on the top. Just the books and the lamp, and the Rolodex. I think there was also an appointment book inside, but I am not sure.”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  My eyes traveled around the room. It was set up like the great room of a wealthy gentleman collector. Lit niches in the walls held important-looking Mayan clay figures and vessels. There was no gallery lighting from overhead, but with four sofas in the room and accompanying lamp tables and floor lamps the ceramics were all washed in a subtle light. Normally I would have examined them more closely to get a sense of the ancient artisans who made them, but tonight I was more interested in what might be missing.

  Maya was moving about among the cabinets, looking at the paintings, doing what looked like a mental recording of the room’s contents.

  On two tables against the wall were artful arrangements of massive colonial silver and religious figures. Spaced along the walls above hung religious paintings with costumes elaborately gilded, and portraits of early notables. I tended to think of these as the “brown gravy” school of art, but that didn’t do justice to the color designs. It was just that they took themselves so seriously.

  Tobey could have been a curator of a small museum. The wall surface was rag rolled in shades of pale gold, and two huge wrought iron chandeliers hung on chains from the double-height ceiling. It was all about display. I tried to think if that had been my impression of Tobey as well, but this was one of a hundred things I couldn’t remember about him.

  “Marisol, is there an office in the house where Tobey did the routine parts of his business? I realize this room is mostly for display. But where did he do the paperwork? Perhaps the same place he kept his computer?”

  She shook her head. “He has no other room here for his business. And I don’t know of any other office somewhere else. I am sorry. We don’t have a computer here, but I have one in my office. Tobey always said a computer was too much of a concession to the twenty-first century.”

  I didn’t let my face betray it, but this statement had the sound of nothing more than a desire for concealment to me. Perhaps Tobey wished to make himself seem like an old-fashioned curmudgeon when it came to business technology, but there were no ink pots with quill pens, no ledger books.

  “When you went to the market this afternoon, what time did you leave?” I asked her.

  “Just after three o’clock, I think.”

  “Was Tobey here then?”

  “No, he had gone out earlier to meet a client.”

  “Did he say who he was meeting?”

  “No, and I did not ask.”

  “But when you got back the door was locked; there was no break in?”

  “No. And there are no windows on the street, as you know.”

  “Do you think any of the antiques might have been taken? As I look around, all the niches are full. But the cases of smaller things, the gold or silver...?”

  She shook her head. “It looks the same, and the pictures too. I checked these things with the police.”

  There were no obvious blank spaces on the walls. I looked at the phone by one of the sofas. It was the kind with a built-in answering machine. The cord on it was long enough to reach back to the desk. “Have you listened to the answering machine?”

  “No, and the police took the tape.”

  “I’m sure they asked you this, but was Tobey having any problems with anyone? Were any customers angry with him?”

  “He did not say.” She shrugged. “I don’t think he would tell me. He never spoke much about his business except to show me new things when they came in.”

  “Was there anyone who visited him often?”

  “None more than others. But I am usually not here during the day. I have my interior design studio to look after.”

  I tried to think how long had it been since I’d seen Tobey. Six
months at least. It could have been eight or nine. Brief conversations with him didn’t have much impact; the were too superficial. I tried to picture him, the way he dressed and carried himself, as if I were painting him. I was mainly panting nudes now, but I had completed a series of clothed figure studies a year ago and clothing had been a revealing part of the effect. All I could recall about Tobey’s clothes was the way he always kept his jacket buttoned. I hardly knew anyone else in San Miguel who wore a jacket.

  “I’d like to look at his clothes,” I said.

  We left Maya bent over the display cases, her arms folded as if to make sure she didn’t touch anything, and went up the stairs behind the fireplace. From the largest of the bedrooms upstairs Marisol led me into a long dressing room next to the bath. The walls were lined with shelves of dark wood. “I will go back downstairs,” she said, backing out the door, her hands palm outward to me as if I had been about to pull her in further. “I can’t look at his clothes now.” She left me alone.

  I ignored the neat stacks of underwear and the rows of shoes each racked with those wooden forms you stick in them to help retain their shape. I’d never owned a pair of them, most of my shoes had no shape. Nor did I bother with the ties. There were no jeans, which may have been a major statement about him. Or perhaps he stored them elsewhere, possibly with his computer. There was nothing in the pockets of his slacks and suit pants. I had gone through seven suit and sport jackets, all with American labels, when in an inside breast pocket of the eighth my fingers found a key. It was large with a circular top, but most interesting, stamped into the face on one side were the numbers 132. I put it in my pocket and continued to go through the clothes, but there was nothing more of interest.

  Downstairs Maya and Marisol were sitting together on one of the sofas, an arm around each other. I held out the key to Marisol. “Do you know what this one is for? Or what the number refers to?” She looked at it on both sides and shook her head as she gave it back to me.

  “I have not seen this one before. The other keys of Tobey are on a ring in the tray in the entry. The police asked me about all of them.”

  “Can I take this one? I’m not sure why, but maybe something will come to me. I’m just trying to think why he wouldn’t have it with the rest of his keys. He was methodical that way, wasn’t he?”

  “Always, like with everything else. Please, take it with you.”

  I slipped the key in my jeans pocket and sat down across from them on one of the deep armchairs. The notebook was on my lap. “I’m trying to remember when Tobey opened the gallery,” I said.

  “It was almost nine years ago. He had been living in Texas, in Austin, working for one of the big dealers there. That’s how we met. I was visiting my sister and we were out shopping and looking at antiques. I was hoping to find something for my business here. Tobey helped us in the store. He was very handsome.”

  “And he wanted to have his own shop?”

  “Yes, one day. He was spending some time in Austin learning the business, he already seemed to know about the objects themselves. We went out a couple of times and then I had to come back here and he came down to visit me. It was then he got the idea to open a gallery here, because of all the gringos. He thought his business might fit well with mine. There is much money here, as I think you know.”

  “Do you know what he did before that?”

  “Something with money.” She shook her head. “Was it banking? I think I never knew exactly. He seemed to not want to look back on that time.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “It was mainly that he would change the subject if it came up.”

  “So you were married here?”

  “Yes. His family lives in Minnesota. They came down for the wedding, and then once again, later.”

  “And did he have the money to open a gallery?”

  “Oh yes, he didn’t have to get a loan, like from his family.”

  “Did you work with him in the gallery?”

  “Well, at first I did, but I had limited time because of Estilo San Miguel, my studio.”

  “You already had this when you met him?”

  “Yes, for two years already at that time. He thought he could be a source of antiques for my clients.”

  “And did it work out that way?”

  “Very much. I would tell him that this or that client wanted a particular look and often he was able to find things that worked. It was a good connection for him when he was getting started and later as well. There was no other place like this in San Miguel.” Her hand made a sweeping gesture that took in the space. “The Fabrica Aurora hadn’t opened yet. Having his gallery available helped my business grow more because I always had first choice of the better things, even before his other clients saw them. After a while I was so busy I had little time to help him.”

  “But he didn’t hire anyone else, did he?” asked Maya.

  “No.”

  “What sorts of things did Tobey supply to your clients?” I said.

  “Mostly pictures, but sometimes ceramics and silver as well, like the tall candlesticks you see here. They are very popular.” She gestured to the display table against the wall.

  “I don’t mean to suggest there was anything wrong with your business, Marisol, but were any of your clients unhappy with things that were furnished by Tobey?”

  “No. Never.”

  I had no follow up question after that. “Marisol, thank you. That’s about all for tonight. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow after I think about this for a while. I have a friend who is a retired detective from the States. I might ask him to help us with this, if that’s OK with you?”

  She nodded.

  Maya asked if Marisol wanted her to stay, but she said she just wanted to try to sleep now, and thanked us for coming. When we got back home it was after midnight. We sat in the loggia for a while, not ready or able to sleep.

  “I don’t know that I can be much help,” I said. “I’m sorry, but this is so far out of my depth.” I gave her my best Méxican shrug, which in its nuances can express anything from the most minor of uncertainties to the complete incomprehensibility of the universe. It’s much in use here.

  “Just to come with me is a help to her,” said Maya, who had a way of embracing another person’s problems with an iron grip. It didn’t happen often, but I could see that she was taking this case seriously. “Now she feels it isn’t only the police working on it. She said before she was afraid the police wouldn’t try very hard because Tobey was a gringo. Sometimes it seems like they don’t try very hard at anything. Aside from that key, did you get any ideas?”

  We had turned the lights on in the garden, mostly small wattage ground level things that lit the bottoms of the leaves. You didn’t notice them in the day.

  “Well, what we have is a business that’s just a facade. No customers, no records, no accounting. I was struck by what she said about Tobey’s view of computers, and I didn’t buy it. There was also no appointment book for today’s meeting with whoever killed him. Just inventory, and from the look of it, first class inventory. Where does he get it?”

  “Marisol has said he is gone a lot either on buying trips or to see clients.”

  I put my feet up on one of the wicker chairs next to me. I had no idea what time it was.

  “Of course the 132 must be an address,” I said. “I suppose in the morning we should start looking, but I’d like to paint a bit first. If it is an address it’s going to be on the edge of el centro, so let’s walk the town afterward.” Street numbers radiate outward from the Jardin, but by the time they reach a point halfway between one and two hundred, the street name is often changed and they start over at one. “We can get a duplicate made and I’ll take east/west and you take north/south, trying the key in any door with a 132 number.”

  “And if someone comes to the door?”

  “Act confused and say you are looking for someone. Say you met a guy who gave you a key last night in a bar but you f
orgot the street name.”

  “And is that something I would do?” She folded her arms.

  “No, but people might like to think that about you. They won’t argue if you say it.”

  We got a late start in the morning. Maya was a little weepy when she realized that the nasty reality of the night before was still with us, but I got her seated on the hassock and finished her face and began working on her body. The line of her back was not right so I had to pull that in a bit and I’m not sure I was at my best either. Neither of us had much to say, which is good for painting because for the artist at work the conversation-making part of the brain is mostly shut down anyway. After I got her back right I didn’t have the momentum to go on to her shoulder, which requires a lot of subtle shading to get the modeling right, and we knocked off with a shorter session than I wanted. While she was dressing the phone rang. It was Marisol. I told her our plan for the day and she said someone had called for Tobey. The caller would not say his name, and when she said Tobey had been killed he was silent, and then hung up without saying any more.

  “A Spanish speaker?” I said. It would have been an odd lapse in cortesia for a Méxican to hang up like that.

  “Yes, but by his accent sounds Yucatecan, I think.”

  “Has he called before?”

  “I am not certain. Maybe he reached Tobey if he did. There are two phone lines and he called on the one in the gallery. I usually didn’t answer that phone during the day, when, you know, when Toby...”

  As she struggled with this I passed the phone to Maya and finished cleaning my brushes while she asked Marisol how she was doing.

  We had a quick and early lunch and put on our walking shoes. I had the key copied at a little shop on the edge of centro down on Hidalgo, and we split up, each with our cell phones. In about two hours I found six places with the 132 address but the key fit the lock to none of them. Trying the key and then walking away brought me a few strange looks. I had not heard from Maya. I was hoping she was a better detective than I was when my cell phone rang.