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She read it to him and he scanned the list for a match, finding none.
“Hate to ask this, but would you please give me that number again?” he asked, and he wrote it on the paper. Mexico City. “And before that?” he asked Rosa.
She sighed and said, “Same time,” and she gave him the telephone number to Scott’s house. “We have to charge even for less than a minute.”
“Of course you do. And the other one was how long?”
“Four minute.”
“I hate to trouble you further—”
“It is no trouble,” Rosa said, plainly lying.
“Don’t recollect if there were any other calls.”
She seemed to scan a printout. “Sí. Lunes.”
“Monday. Wonder if I could get that number, too?” She read it and he wrote it down. “Anything more?”
“Nada, señor.”
Atticus suspected her Spanish meant she wanted their chat finished. He told her, “You see, I’m doing a little bookkeeping here, kind of double-checking my facts for my expense report.”
“Por supuesto,” she said. Of course. But a tone of suspicion was filtering through.
“Exactly how many days have I been here?”
Rosa sighed.
“Don’t count, just give me the date when I got here.”
“December eighth, Mr. Schmidt. You don’t remember?”
“Wasn’t sure if it was that or the seventh,” he said.
“I have business?” Rosa said, and after accepting his gratitude for her forbearance, she said good-bye and hung up.
Atticus lifted the half sheet of paper and looked at his handwriting. And then he dialed the first number Reinhardt had called. A female voice said, “Bueno. Cipiano.”
“¿Habla usted inglés?”
“A little.”
A half dozen things flew through his mind, but he remembered the call was made on lunes. “Would you be able to tell me if you had any wakes or funerals a week ago? Monday?”
“You are?”
“A friend of mine died,” he said.
She sighed, but obliged him. A page was turned and she read, “Álvarez, Ellacuría, Hijuelos, Martínez, Ortiz.”
“Carmen Martínez?”
She hesitated and got back to the page. “Sí, señor.”
“Muchas gracias,” he said, and hung up. Atticus dialed the Mexico City number just above Cipiano’s. Wednesday, he remembered; four minutes. He heard a faint, official male voice—had he said American Embassy? Atticus plugged his right ear with a finger as he inquired, “¿Quién es?” Who is this?
The official heard his accent and asked him, “¿Hablainglés?”
