Twenty Centavos: A Mystery Set in San Miguel de Allende

by John Scherber

  “Sounds like we’re going to Izamal,” said Cody.

  “I’m not,” said Maya, “I’ve got research to do. Someone has to put tortillas and beer on the table.”

  An hour later Cody called from home. “My people in Chicago drew a blank,” he said. “No Tobey or Tobias Cross in the system.”

  I found Maya out in the loggia, working on her laptop from a stack of research notes from the Dolores Hidalgo archive. “Nothing,” I said. “Cody’s police friends couldn’t find a thing on Tobey.”

  Her cell phone rang and Maya picked it up. The conversation was brief. “Marisol is back from Guanajuato. She is hoping we have something. I told her we’d come over to give her a report.”

  At Galeria Cruz Marisol was more composed, but her face was still tight. She met us at the door wearing black. We sat down in the great room with the two story ceiling. The lights were low but everything looked the same. The glossy books were still positioned just so on the desk. There are people who immediately remove any sign of the departed person. Marisol was not one of these. Chilly personality that he was, it still said something about Tobey’s relationship to his wife.

  “We found the office in Dolores Hidalgo,” began Maya, although Marisol was looking at me, waiting for a report. Marisol’s eyebrows went up, as if Maya had said it was in Afghanistan or Sumatra.

  “But, Dolores Hidalgo? It’s 50 kilometers away. I don’t understand. What was there?”

  “Yes, well his business was there,” I said, “more paintings, more Mayan ceramics, a computer and records. It looks like everything, except a Rolodex and a sales ledger, if there was one. Marisol, the office had been broken into, through a window in the back. I’m not sure if anything was missing. Did Tobey have a Palm Pilot or something like that, a PDA?”

  “I never saw one. He thought that even having a computer was too great a concession to the twenty-first century.”

  “I know you said that before, but I think he was just covering his tracks. He didn’t want anyone, including you, to think he had an office somewhere else.” I felt it was time to start bringing her along to the idea that not everything was as he led her to think. She looked away when I said this, but showed no emotion. “Well, other than that, we got everything we could from the office. I think it might be time to let the police know about it. They’ll dust it for fingerprints. I’m giving you back the key. We have a copy for ourselves in case we need to go back. We also copied the computer files and we’ll be going over the customer list and his sources. One name came up on the packing materials many times. Have you ever heard the name Ramon Xoc? He lives in Izamal.”

  “In the Yucatan? It is a Mayan name, isn’t it?”

  “It seems to be. Did Tobey ever mention him?”

  “I don’t think so.” She sighed. “I’ll call Licenciado Delgado and let him know. He’s managing the case.”

  “Don’t mention what we’ve been doing. Just say this key was in Tobey’s clothes, which of course it was, and that now you recall him saying something about Dolores Hidalgo. They can take it from there. Also find out if they know anything more. They might have something we don’t.” What I didn’t say was that I didn’t think they’d tell her if they did. They tended to keep their investigations private, not wanting to arouse undue expectations, especially if they hadn’t done a thing.

  Marisol got up and then hesitated for a moment, rubbing her hands together. “I want to thank you so much for helping me with this. Both of you.” She walked over to one of the niches by the French doors. “I want to give you this for your efforts.” She lifted a large ceramic statue from the niche and placed it in my hands. My first instinct was to refuse it because it was probably quite valuable, but a quick glance at Maya told me it would be ungracious and even insulting to not accept it. What people here call mal educado. No manners.

  “This is very generous of you, Marisol. I hope what we turn up will be worth your gift.”

  “I can get you a box for it.” She managed a smile and moved off to a closet near the dining room entrance, returning a moment later with a container of heavy cardboard and a sheet of bubble wrap. The statue was about fourteen inches high and weighed four or five pounds, a substantial piece of work. It portrayed a godlike creature with thick lips and nose, holding some device out from his body. He wore an elaborate headdress and something in his nose. There were two fine fracture lines in one arm but the repair was nearly perfect. I wrapped it in the bubble wrap and slid it into the box thinking it could be part of a still life some day when I got back to painting.

  We paused at the door. “I’m going to go Izamal tomorrow to talk with Ramon Xoc.”

  “I hope he will speak to you. Thank you again. I will let you know what Licenciado Delgado says. I hope this can be over soon.” I didn’t say it but she spoke for both of us. Her expression gave me the sense that she was holding back in my presence, but if it had been Maya alone she might have broken down again.

  Chapter 7

  The Aero Mexico flight went east over San Miguel and out over the Gulf toward the Yucatan Peninsula. Cody had the window position and the arms of his seat gripped him like a sausage in a pair of pliers. He struggled to retrieve his briefcase from under the seat in front of him and, with a grunt, pulled it up between his knees, the little finger of one hand looped into the handle.

  Below, the water was a featureless silvery gray sheet, hard and unyielding, like I imagined some cases must be. Cody pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Did you get a chance to go over the sales records?” We could have been a couple of salesmen traveling to an annual meeting in the Bahamas.

  “No. Maya and I went to update Marisol. She’s doing better. I told her it was time to bring in the police now on the office, keeping us out of it. I made a point of not mentioning the picture slasher. It would only make her feel bad that she had asked our help.”

  “Well, we’ve got some interesting things here. Tobey did quite a bit of business, much of it back in San Miguel, but also a lot in Guadalajara, some in México City. It also looks like he supplied a retail gallery in Manzanillo, and one in Acapulco. Then there are a few shipments to Austin, Texas, but pictures only. We talked before about whether these ceramics could be brought out of the country and something occurred to me.” He turned and tried to gesture, then gave it up for lack of space and settled for pulling off his reading glasses. “What if you lived in a beach community and had a boat? A large one that could make the trip in deep water back to LA or San Diego? Bringing the pre-Columbian stuff back home would be no problem at all.”

  “Interesting thought. Any names you recognize?” I asked.

  “Only in San Miguel. Bill Frost bought one piece.” He handed me the list. The common feature of the five names that I recognized was that they all had the money to finance expensive hobbies. I was not surprised that the most common name was Perry Watt; he had bought a total of seven ceramic pieces and five paintings, aside from a long list of shipwreck jewelry and old silver. There was a gold and emerald rosary with an eye-popping price. Perry could certainly buy and sell most people in San Miguel.

  “Do you know Perry Watt?” I asked.

  “Only know of him, but I ran totals on everybody. My tally says Watt spent about $385,000 with our friend Tobey over the years. That would include the seven major ceramic pieces, some pictures, a lot of jade, and some odds and ends like daggers and spurs, silver pieces from the mint at Lima, and some gold. Must be quite a collector.”

  “We’ve known them for a while, but not well. We were at a party they gave last week, two days after the murder. Barbara said Perry would like to be a Renaissance prince, a patron of the arts. I sold him a nude of Maya about four years ago that hangs over his piano. I’ve gotten a lot of business from it. It’s very sassy.”

  “What’s his wife think of it?”

  “No problem that I’m aware of. Barbara can be a handful herself. I think she tends to go her own way.” I didn’t want to bring up her behavior in my studi
o; I still wasn’t sure how to think about it. But I was still thinking about it.

  “Where does his money come from?”

  “Oil field equipment, Barbara says. I’m not sure whether it’s the drills or the derricks. It’s family money anyway, but since his father died Perry controls it. He goes back and forth between San Miguel and Houston, where he’s got some kind of family compound. I’d like to see the art and antiques he’s got there.”

  A flight attendant came by in a crisp blue uniform, hair coiled up on the back of her head, attractive, capable and efficient, but still friendly. Méxican hospitality travels well. We made room on the fold-down trays for some coffee.

  Going back to the paperwork after a while there was no indication that Tobey had used anyone else to receive things at Calle Independencia 132. Almost always the restoration costs were higher than the original purchase price. I thought back to the condition of the pantings at Galleria Cruz, and those in Perry’s house. They may have been wrecks coming into Tobey’s possession, but they were museum quality going out.

  According to the older records, the ceramics came from a number of sources in and around the Yucatan and Guatemala. Many of the sellers had only a single transaction. Ramon Xoc first appeared eight years back with Tobey’s purchase of one item, and then with increasing frequency until from four years ago until the present, he was Tobey’s sole source of Mayan ceramics. I wondered how he could be that good. Had he discovered a buried city that no one else knew about? But when I checked the prices he was getting for these pieces I was amazed to see that Ramon Xoc was getting only about 10 to 15% of Tobey’s sale price, and sometimes less. I would have expected 50%, the kind of split you found in an art gallery. Unlike the paintings, none of the papers noted any restoration costs for the ceramics, although I had noted repairs on a number of Perry’s pieces, as well as those in Tobey’s gallery. This was a good business, for Tobey at least. I made a note to ask Ramon what he thought Tobey had been getting for his finds.

  As the coastline came into view we could see Campeche below on the right. First there was a dry area to the north and east of it and then the solid carpet of jungle spread out as far as we could see. This was not the African variety of jungle, I knew it was more like 20 or 30 feet high, never more, full of thick scrubby trees yielding rare and exotic hardwoods in small dimensions. Then Mérida appeared. It was just past two o’clock when we got off the plane and the heat hit us like a wet quilt thrown over our heads. We picked up a small Chevrolet rental car and headed from the terminal out onto the Periférico, a belt line that circles the main part of Mérida. There was not much traffic and we made good time into el centro.

  I had booked us at a bed and breakfast occupying two adjoining townhouses not far from the main square. Cobbled together from these adjacent residences, it was maze-like and confusing at first, with 20 foot ceilings and a roof garden and bar with long views over the city. On a table in the entry was a tall candle bent over in the exact curve of a horseshoe, a metaphor for the heat.

  The interior held a small courtyard, with a tiny swimming pool so enclosed by the tall surrounding walls it was like swimming at the bottom of a hole. Sunlight reached it for 10 minutes precisely at noon. In my room the hot water sometimes worked, but never during my shower. I had a small balcony overlooking the interior jungle and some stairs beside the bed that led to a door to my own personal roof garden. A hand-lettered sign on the door warned, “Reserved for Walter’s Mother.” She didn’t use it while I was there, unless she got past me during the night.

  The climate dictated a small siesta, and the air conditioning was more reliable than the hot water. I woke up about six with Cody tapping on my door and we headed out toward the square. Automobile tires were no longer melting. We found a small restaurant on a side street where the waiters fought over us as we entered. After dinner we found the zocalo.

  This plaza is the heartbeat of Mérida, with flower and balloon vendors and small booths with handmade clothing, most of it embroidered in the Yucatan style, usually multicolored flowers at the edges of sleeves and hems or necklines.

  I had been to Mérida a number of times before and in some ways I liked it better than San Miguel, but I didn’t think I could do the climate. You couldn’t get away from it, and I didn’t want to live in a place I felt I had to get away from for part of every year. I’d had enough of that in Ohio. We sat before a platform set up in one of the streets and the folkloric dances began, young boys and girls in white embroidered outfits swaying to the music of a small combo. The music was laid back and distinctive; it did not remind me of the mariachis in the Jardin in San Miguel.

  It was late when we came back to the bed and breakfast and the door was locked. One of the owners, probably Walter, had to let us in. We were not ready to turn in, so we went up to the rooftop garden which had views in all directions. The bartender was no longer on duty and we borrowed a couple of beers from the bar fridge, wondering what Ramon Xoc might have to say tomorrow.

  We left Mérida in a rental car at 8:30 in the morning and followed a narrow blacktop road bordered on both sides by the jungle, where we dodged streams of tricycle-drawn carts. In Kimbila we got confused and took the wrong fork in the road. I guess everyone knew the way to Izamal and there was no need to mark it. A woman with two small children in tow got us turned around. Cody was shoehorned into the bucket seat beside me, with his knees up against the dashboard. The jungle was low and gnarly and stopped just at the edge of the pavement.

  “Steamy place,” he said. “Makes me miss the crisp mornings in San Miguel this time of year.”

  We pulled into Izamal at about 9:45. Immediately ahead was a small square with a car park. The town traffic cop got up off a bench and waved us into the row of empty parking spaces. We waved back and kept going, passing an antiques shop on the western edge of the square.

  “We might want to check out that antique store after we talk to Ramon Xoc,” said Cody. “Let’s see what’s for sale in this town. I might have to get me some antiques.” His normal idea of decor was a brace of police merit citations on the wall over his sofa.

  The street ended in a T at the edge of an immense platform, edged on three sides by arches, and on the fourth by the Convento de San Antonio de Padua, which was itself fronted by the same kind of arches. The facade towered above with a square bell tower on the left and a Baroque peak in the center. Everything was yellow ochre. We turned left and circled the platform. I tried to imagine the scale of the pyramid that had once stood there. The rear of the church was sculptural, with massive stone buttresses left in their natural color. Close up you could probably see traces of Mayan carving in the stonework. Izamal was laid out in the same kind of grid as Mérida, with the odd Calles in one direction, and the even Calles running perpendicularly. I swung a left on Calle 4 and in a moment we were on Calle 29, Ramon’s street.

  On both sides, as far as we could see, it was fronted by yellow houses and shops. Number 14 looked much like the others, with arches embedded in the facade. We drifted on by and cruised around the block. As I expected, there was no way to see the rear of the house since the block was faced on all four sides with house fronts. I pulled back onto Calle 29 and parked down the street.

  “Here we go,” I said. “We finally meet the great excavator.”

  We stopped in front of an old door constructed of wooden panels placed at right angles to each other. A glazed clay tablet to the right of it said 14. There was no bell and Cody pounded briskly on one of the panels. The same knock he had used probably 10,000 times as a cop.

  “Are we doing good cop or bad cop?” I asked.

  “More like friends of a friend.”

  There was silence for a full minute or more and then a small panel behind a grid opened, and a woman in her sixties looked out at us. Her hair was mostly gray, but with a few streaks of black, and pulled behind her head in a bun. Her only wrinkles were at the corners of her black eyes and at her mouth. It must be the humidity.


  “Si?” she said.

  “Good morning, Señora,” I said, in my best formal Spanish. “We are sorry to disturb you. We are looking for the home of Ramon Xoc.”

  “He is not here today.” Her tone was neutral.

  “We were told he is an important excavator here in the Yucatan, and we have come from Mérida to speak with him and perhaps see some of the things he has found.” Beads of sweat ran down Cody’s forehead.

  “Does he know you?”

  “No, but we were sent by Señor Tobey Cross,” I said, “who does business with him in San Miguel.” This was a stretch, but I was betting that she didn’t know Tobey was dead.

  She smiled and opened the door. We entered a room which took up the full width of the house, sparsely furnished and with a beautiful ceramic tile floor in a floral pattern. No rugs. “Señor Cross is an important man in the state of Guanajuato. Ramon has said this.”

  “My name is Paul Zacher, and this is my friend Cody Williams.” I wasn’t sure whether to offer to shake hands, so I didn’t. She was quite short, not even five feet tall, and under an apron wore the embroidered white sisal dress we had seen everywhere since we arrived.

  “I am Señora Xoc, the mother of Ramon,” she said. She moved toward a table in one corner. It held half a dozen photographs in silver-colored frames. On the other end of the table was a good-sized television set, rabbit ears cocked off to the right side. “This is my son Ramon.” She picked up a photograph and showed us a man about my age, small stature, wide Yucatecan features and thick hair. He smiled at the camera, standing before a well preserved wall of stone skulls.

  “We are sad we missed Ramon today. We had hoped to see some of the things he has found. Does he have a studio or a laboratory near here?” She looked at Cody and laughed as she made a gesture with her head.

  “Ramon has the old house. That’s where he works. Come with me, you can see it.”