“I found this in the bathroom. Sleeping pills. I also found half a bottle of wine and a dirty glass in there. I can assure you I didn’t prescribe the sleeping pills, but then again, for many years Facundo Alamilla has dispensed medicines without the proper prescription, as if they were candy. This is the result of that negligence: Nepomuceno has been murdered by the pharmacist!”
The doctor handed Beto a glass bottle that had a couple of pills left. The policeman turned the bottle between his hands. “You’re saying Nepomuceno swallowed almost a whole bottle of this stuff?”
“I’m certain he did. By the sink I found the receipt for the pills. He bought them yesterday, poured a glass of vintage wine, and killed himself. Those pills should have never been sold without a prescription from a physician.”
“Vintage wine,” Perla fumed, more outraged at the thought that he had kept an expensive bottle hidden in his room than at the suicide.
“Why would he do that?” Beto asked.
“Perhaps he left a note?” Bartolo said meekly. “It might be good to check for a note.”
“Did he?”
“How would I know? The point is, I want Facundo Alamilla arrested for murder!” the doctor yelled. “Murderer!”
“You said he killedhimself. That’s suicide,” Beto protested.
“Murder! It’s murder!”
Inés was covering her eyes and Ulises was feverishly dabbing at the stain on his trousers with a napkin. Perla was about to yell back at Dr. Carrel and order him to cease his theatrics before she tossed a cup of hot coffee in his face.
Just then Fito rushed into the room to let them know that Father Anselmo had arrived, and would he also be having coffee, or should Estrella prepare chocolate for him? Perla rubbed her temples with her fingertips once more and took a deep breath.
—
There was a note after all. It had been folded and placed in the inside pocket of Nepomuceno’s frayed jacket. Nepomuceno had written that he’d been unwell for months, that he wished to die, and scrawled a line of poetry after bequeathing his silver-plated pocket watch and his books to Inés. And the dog, although it wasn’t worth one peso, that mutt that had followed him home one day and which they’d kept.
At once Father Anselmo declared that the note would cause problems with the burial, because a suicide was different from a death by natural causes. Nepomuceno couldn’t possibly be buried in the cemetery in town, which had never harbored a suicide, and he’d have to be taken to Las Tunas. There had been suicides in town, and this was a ploy to obtain more money from Perla. It led to an animated discussion between her and the priest, which turned from the theological to matters of accounting, since Perla had made several donations to the church through the years and did not think it fair that she be charged any extra money, considering her pious life and devotion to Christ.
“You can’t be charging me for the man as though he were a chunk of meat at the butcher shop,” Perla said. “Here’s an extra kilo of fat, and pay three more pesos.”
“By the Blessed Virgin, that is an outrageous comparison,” Father Anselmo said, his face reddening as he gripped the Bible between his hands.
“Forgive me, Father, but this is no small fee we’re discussing; times are lean.”
Despite Father Anselmo’s irate exclamations, Perla managed to talk him down in his monetary demands, and a plot was secured for Nepomuceno in the local cemetery.
By the time the gravedigger arrived to haul the body away, more than a dozen gossips had congregated by the gates of the house with the hope of glimpsing the corpse or receiving an invitation to the wake. With no mortician in town, in the moist, warm atmosphere of Puerco Ahogado people were best buried quick. There was nothing more uncomfortable than the scent of a fetid corpse mixing with the stench of cigarettes and burning candles during a protracted wake.
When it became clear that there would be no wake that evening for the dead professor, the small crowd dispersed.
Dr. Carrel left, feeling affronted because Beto refused to arrest the pharmacist. Fito, who had been forced to help the gravedigger carry the corpse out and stuff it in the back of an old cart, wept because he’d never touched a dead person and thought it was unlucky. Perla considered slapping the boy if he did not shut up, but then Rita took him to the kitchen for a cup of tea.
That boy was useless. Perla would never have hired him if Rita hadn’t begged her to: he was her nephew. He ate too much and even though he worked only three days at the house, she thought he was an awful burden. She’d have to see if Ulises couldn’t take over the boy’s responsibilities.
The policemen put on their hats and shook Perla’s hand. Inés, who had been quietly standing next to Perla for most of the day, also extended her hand, and Bartolo took it between his, almost trembling with emotion at the touch of the girl.
Men can be utter fools,Perla thought, and she remembered that her father had always had an aversion to hiring young maids in their household. He said they enticed unsavory men, like bitches in heat. You’d have bricklayers and peasants and factory workers circling a house, trying to woo the girls. Then the maid would end up pregnant or married, and you’d have to hire another girl.
Inés was not a servant, but she was not a lady either, and she’d managed to attract the attention of Salvador and Bartolo. Both entirelyunsuitable men, for neither could ask for the girl’s hand in marriage. A woman leaves the family’s house dressed in white, that was Perla’s mother’s saying. White for a bride or white for a novice pledging herself to Christ.
Yet even if either of the men had been able to marry Inés, Perla would not have allowed it. She was meant to become Perla’s caretaker in her old age; that was the way of things.
Once the men departed, Perla went to Nepomuceno’s room and began rummaging among his things.
“What are you doing?” Inés asked, looking at her from the doorway, and surprised Perla, who flinched and slammed a drawer shut.
She smoothed her skirt. “Seeing if he left anything aside from books and a watch. This is going to cost us a pretty penny.”
