The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,40

as his father.”

Johnson watched Amaia for a reaction. She pressed her lips together, shook her head, and shrugged slightly. This didn’t really add much to what they’d already found in the file. Sure, they could interview the boy, but if Nelson was right, he was a grieving youth who refused to accept a horrible reality.

Tucker’s voice vibrated over the phone line. “I asked him about the mess in the house too.”

Amaia held her breath.

“A tropical storm hit Galveston that day. Not a bad one; there were no deaths or injuries, mostly fallen trees and minor property damage. The father didn’t go to work because his firm told all their employees to stay home. The family was new to the city, and they’d never been through a coastal storm. The mess in the house was caused by violent gusts through the broken windows. The detective thinks that at some point during the storm, they opened a window, and the sudden change in pressure blew out several more. There were no cuts on the bodies, no injuries from flying glass. There were marks on the father’s wrists, but the police concluded that they were self-inflicted, tentative attempts at suicide. No sign at the scene of any kind of bindings. They left that out of the report; considered it irrelevant. He says that without rereading the report, he can’t be absolutely sure how the bodies were oriented, but he’s practically certain the heads were aligned toward the north.”

“For Christ’s sake!” Amaia couldn’t contain herself. “Is Agent Dupree going to think this one matches close enough to investigate?”

Johnson said goodbye to Tucker and called Dupree, though not on speakerphone. He outlined the new information and listened intently. Amaia watched Johnson’s face, trying to guess what would come next.

“He told us to go to the campus, but he insisted Bill and Bull go with us.”

“Do you think they’re still downstairs?”

“Sure,” Johnson said as he collected the photos and returned them to the file. “And I suspect they’re having a good time. The hotel owner told me that for years the bar was the reception room for May Bailey’s brothel.”

Amaia nodded with a smile. She’d guessed right. The owners did tell that story to all their clients.

13

MISERY, DEAF AND MUTE

Elizondo

Annoyed, Engrasi raised a hand and pushed the remains of an old spiderweb away from her face. She’d been kneeling in the most cramped section of the attic, looking for Christmas ornaments. As usual, she’d found everything except what she was looking for. Boxes of clothes she’d worn only on the streets of Paris, tons of handwritten notes in French from her days as a psychology student, cartons of books that had filled the shelves of the house she’d shared with the man she loved. These things had once meant the world to her, but now she saw them only through a haze of nostalgia: emblems of a bygone life, as remote and unattainable as if she’d been reborn into a completely different existence. She closed a box and leaned to one side so the light from the open attic door fell across the dial of her watch. She’d lost track of time. Amaia should have been home already.

She crawled back toward the stairs and noticed, close to the doorway, a little wooden chest she’d brought back from Paris. She heaved a sigh, knowing exactly what was in it. She stopped at the door, one foot on the first step, and before leaving the attic, she raised the chest’s lid just enough to slip a hand inside, extract a sheaf of papers, and tuck them beneath her jacket. She quickly descended, having made a mental note that the boxes of garlands and tinsel she had been looking for were at the far end of the attic. She called out to Amaia in hopes that the girl had scurried into the house like a timid little mouse while Engrasi was in the attic.

She saw her own reflection in the window, for it was already dark outside. Her hair was unruly, her brow was furrowed with worry, and the bulky folder was obvious under her jacket. She had to deal with the documents first. She fished in her blouse for the tiny gold-colored key that always hung from a delicate chain around her neck. She used it to open the only locked drawer in her wardrobe, deposited the folder, closed the drawer, and dropped the key back inside her blouse. She picked up the phone from the little table