Helen went missing on a day crowded with odd incidents and
Sean found it difficult later to separate the inconsequential
details from what was important. His clearest memories were
of the day after—when he first reported Helen missing
at the police station in Granada. He could replay the interview
in his mind like a videotape: the fleshy policeman in his
cubicle on Plaza Campos, folding then releasing his faintly
soiled hands; the stutter of the tape recorder on the battered
table, indiscriminately recording his halting words; the rivulets
of perspiration trickling down his back where they puddled
at his beltline. Sean didn’t understand a word of Spanish.
It had been Helen, after all, who spoke the language. But
that was the point; Helen was gone. All the police would have
to go on was his testimony told to this fellow with dirt-etched
knuckles.
Their last day together—Sean told his impassive face—began in Seville,
on the first clear morning after a week of rain, after days when Helen and he
trudged through cathedrals and alcazars, soaked by the constant downpour, moving
every day or two to a new hostel in the towns between Madrid and Seville. Three
days before in Trujillo, he hadn’t been able to sleep for the odor of mildew. “You’re
imagining it,” Helen said, pressing the linen to her nose. “It’s
just the smell of old closets!” He watched as she spritzed the room, lavishing
her scent on the sheets, dancing like a sprite across the springy bed. Later,
overwhelmed by the smell, he threw the windows open, propping his elbows on the
windowsill and gulping down the damp night air. As luck would have it, Trujillo
in early May reeked of freesia and narcissus, and he had to shut the window against
it.
It was their first trip together and being shut up inside was making them testy. “We
haven’t learned to spoon yet,” Helen had told him, down on all fours
in the tiny bathroom, looking for the toothpaste cap he hadn’t replaced.
But after breakfast, the sun broke through, and giddy over the change, they checked
out of their hostel in the barrio.
“
Sorry. We’re out of compacts,” the woman told them at the rail station. “Everyone
wants compacts today.” Except that she said it in Spanish. “Todo
el mundo quiere coches compactos hoy.” Or some such thing. It was Helen
who spoke to her while he stood off to the side, flipping through Hello magazine.
“
Never mind,” Helen told him, gathering up the documents. “We’ll
just rent a larger car.”
“
You won’t be satisfied until I’m washing dishes in some hosteria!” Forced
to shout over the drone of train announcements, he laughed lightly to indicate
a joke.
“
It’s just thirteen dollars difference, Sean.”
“
Well, if that’s all.” He smiled reassuringly at the counter, where
the eavesdropping girl was pretending to file forms.
“It’s a Mercedes, for Christ’s sake!” he said, a few
minutes later in the lot, shading his eyes. He’d be reluctant to drive
such a car on the familiar roads outside of Boston.
Unperturbed, she placed their bags in the trunk. “It was either this or
a truck. I didn’t think we’d want to drive a truck through the mountains.”
They were on the outskirts of Seville when it happened. “Shit! Another
roundabout,” he’d said only seconds before, pounding his palm on
the wheel. Roundabout etiquette wasn’t obvious; circumnavigating the last
circle he’d stubbornly hugged the outside lane amidst much beeping.
“Just shoot straight out the opposite side.” Her expensive tortoise
shell sunglasses dangled from the end of her nose as she peered at the map book.
He’d reached over to push them up, annoyed at her blasé attitude
toward an expensive purchase, when a bronze Saab hit them with a thud. Helen’s
long, red hair slapped the side of his face as her head pivoted, and the sunglasses
fell in her lap. The other driver, invisible behind tinted glass, honked obstinately
until Sean followed him to the side of the road. He hopped out, like some sprightly
insect, swearing from the sound of it and gesticulating wildly. He was tall and
imposing— his white sleeveless shirt revealing muscular arms thickly covered
with a fine, dark hair.
“
What’s he saying?” Sean asked, opening the door cautiously. When
Helen didn’t respond, he stepped out, walking warily to the right side
of the Mercedes where he found several good-sized dents and a broken headlight.
“
I haven’t a clue what he’s going on about,” Helen said, hunting
frantically in the glove box. “He’s too fast for my level of Spanish.
Damn, what did I do with that contract? Could you look in…?”
“
No hablo español,” Sean advised the man amid the torrent of Spanish.
Crouching to examine the Saab, the man shook his head in disgust. He straightened
up, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped each finger carefully, looking
critically at his pristine pants, his snowy shirt. Glancing at Sean over the
top of his glasses, the man put a hand on his hip, thrust his pelvis forward
and hissed, “Mujer” in a high-pitched voice.
It was then that a banged up pickup pulled up behind them, and a teenage driver
and his friend hopped out. After a few laughing remarks to each other, they circled
the car, pointing out various features. The smaller one, wearing an oversized
red and white football jersey with the words Sevilla FC emblazoned across it,
polished the car with the bottom of his shirt while his friend laughed soundlessly.
It was the man in the Saab who finally spoke to the boys, muttering something
with the air of a threat. Shaking their heads, the boys got back into their truck
and drove away amid squealing brakes and screeching tires. Sean and the man in
white turned together when they heard Helen’s door opening. Sean watched
from an increasing distance as Helen and the man filled out the paperwork. Sean’s
signature was all they required and Helen pointed out the place for him to put
it. When the forms were complete, the man lingered over Helen’s maps, the
two walking companionably over to the rear of the Mercedes where Helen pulled
out a bottle of sherry they’d picked up in Jerez from the trunk. The man
demurred at first, shaking his head, but she insisted. It was like a pantomime
from Sean’s perspective, with gesture after gesture to work out.
“No wonder he gets into accidents,” Helen said, coming to his side
when the driver had sped away.
“
You might have introduced us.”
“
I thought the time for introductions had past with you glowering at him. Do you
think we can drive with the right front like that?” she asked, holding
out an inky carbon copy of the completed insurance form. The man’s name
was Geraldo Pao Gonzalez, a resident of Calle Don Rodrigo, 24 in Cordoba. “I
guess we should report it immediately.”
“
We’ll turn it in at the airport in Granada tomorrow— like we planned,” Sean
said,. “Did you have to give him our sherry?”
“I thought you hated sherry.”
“
I do. But I don’t like watching you twitch your ass at any prick that bangs
into us.”
She raised an eyebrow and slid into the car, retrieving her sunglasses from the
floor. “I doubt it was my ass he was after.”
Their hotel was in the old section of Granada, and he drove up and down the narrow
streets looking for a place to park. “Look, I’ll just go inside and
ask,” Helen said finally,
“
You’re leaving me…?”
“
Oh, Sean! Just stay on this quadrant. Placeta de la Cruz Verde.” She opened
the door and pointed to the name on an old stone building at the corner.
In minutes, he found himself unexpectedly heading out of the hilly Albaicin area.
The streets looked too new to his eyes—as if centuries had been traversed
in seconds. He jerked the wheel impatiently and swung left and left again, amid
honking from all quarters.
Suddenly, Helen was there hammering on the door. “Didn’t you see
me standing in front of the cathedral?” she gasped, sliding in. “I
had to sprint to catch up. Oh, guess who I saw coming out of a stationer’s?”
“
I give?”
“
The man in white. He didn’t see me, but he was hard to miss ... oh, oh,
pull in right there,” she said suddenly, pointing to a small lot. “Some
woman on the street put me onto this lot. They were so busy in the hotel with
a tour group I couldn’t get anyone’s attention.” He pulled
in, and within twenty minutes they had checked into a room and lay stretched
out on the narrow bed. A silver crucifix hung above them and a poster advertising
a bullfight took up most of the opposite wall.
“I wonder what he’s doing here?” he said sleepily.
She followed his eyes toward the poster, trying to block the light with her forearm. “Oh,
you mean Geraldo?” Shrugging, she stood and tugged determinedly at the
heavy damask curtains until the room was dark.
“
Funny he didn’t mention coming here when he was giving you directions.”
He yawned disinterestedly. “Should we eat something or take a nap?”
“
I’d rather do the third thing,” she suggested, sliding closer.
“
Sometimes I wonder if this is the only thing I’m good for.”
“
Don’t underestimate it.”
Sean woke to an empty room and pulled the curtains back. Every shop on the street
was shut tight, their windows shuttered against the heat and the tourists.
“
Guess what?” Helen said, arriving seconds later. “Our car’s
been broken into!” She was breathless from either the stairs or the information.
“We’ve only been here an hour!”
“
I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d run back to get my walking shoes.
I could see the trunk was open from across the street.”
“
I knew renting such a flashy car was a bad idea! What did they take?”
“
I think the only thing missing was my backpack. Who would want that tacky thing?”
“
Do we need to report it?”
She shrugged. “Right now we need to get to the Alhambra.” She paused. “I’ve
had that backpack since college. Ooh, guess who I ran into?”
“
Geraldo?” It had a certain inevitability about it.
She laughed. “Do you know what he does for a living?” she said, tying
her walking shoes with double knots. “He’s with a flamenco show!” She
removed a flyer from her pocket and handed it to him.
“
Neptune’s Gardens? It looks like a hole in the wall.”
“
It’s supposed to. Didn’t you read a single page in the guide…?” She
covered her mouth abruptly.
He looked at her feet with displeasure. Ankles as fine as Helen’s should
never be covered. “Maybe we’ll stop by tonight.” He nodded,
hoping she’d forget about it before then. He’d be damned if he’d
spend a cent on that gigolo.
“
Do you know why they call this the Hall of Secrets?” Helen asked, consulting
her pamphlet.
“
Something to do with how it magnifies sound.”
“
You’ve actually read something. Anyway, it’s lucky we’re in
here because I have a secret to tell you.”
“
You and Geraldo are running off together?”
“
Nope. Although when I was buying the Irving book, I thought I saw those two boys
who showed up at that roundabout. I could have sworn…”
“
What?”
She shook her head. “It’s silly but I could have sworn one was carrying
my backpack. I saw a flash of orange.”
Sean squinted, trying to remember the bag. He drew her toward him. “So
what’s your secret?”
“
It’s too crowded in here,” she said, looking behind him.
“
You can hardly move without walking into someone’s frame,” he complained,
moving out of the way.
An hour later, Helen screamed when a bee stung her left hand beside the rose
bushes in Generalife. “Sorry. I know I’m being a big baby.” Perspiration
made her face glisten, her head damp.
Locating eyebrow tweezers in her purse, he removed the stinger. “I’ll
get ice from the refreshment stand. You’re not allergic, are you?”
“I don’t think so.” Leaving her on a bench, he went off to
fetch ice.
“
Look,” she said, a few minutes later, “I think I’ll go to the
ladies’ room to reassemble myself.” She combed at her still damp
hair with her fingers, making it all stand up. “I must look like hell.”
“
Are you sure you don’t want to rest another minute? Get out of the sun
at least.”
“
I just need to splash water on my face.” She headed for the restroom, quickly
melting into the crowd. That was the last time he ever saw Helen: a red-headed
woman of twenty-five, 5’ 5” tall, 112 pounds, wearing beige Capri
pants, a white blouse and sturdy walking shoes with anklets.
He was out of breath from his monologue. “And then … what did you
do?” the police officer asked, a sneeze breaking his sentence in two. “Spring
allergy,” he explained.
“
I waited about fifteen minutes and then asked a woman to check on her. I thought
Helen might have fainted so I more or less insisted.”
The woman—British, fiftyish—returned, saying, “There are five
rows of stalls in there.” Her voice, clipped and deep, sounded more put
out than concerned. “I didn’t think to ask her name.” Blondish-gray
hair. Tall. Wearing sunglasses like everyone, Sean reported. He went on to explain
how several guards and he had combed the area for more than an hour, Sean, holding
out the possibility she was allergic without knowing it. Anaphylactic shock or
something. “A doctor we ran down said she wouldn’t necessarily be
aware of an allergy. It could develop over time.”
“
And the only trace was this?” the officer said, holding up Helen’s
tortoise shell sunglasses.
“
We found them about a hundred feet from the rest room. Near another exit.”
“
So you think she might have left through another door?”
“
Got confused. Or maybe she spotted….”
“
The two boys,” Rosales said, sighing.
Sean had returned to his hotel eventually, finding Helen’s things as she’d
left them. No one had seen or heard anything. The maids shrugged, the concierge
expressed concern. No one, it seemed, remembered her.
On his third interview, a day later, an Inspector Sofia and a female translator
joined Officer Rosales. “Just so we make no mistakes,” the young
Inspector told Sean with a tight smile. Sean raised a few new ideas. Perhaps
the two boys had followed them to Granada to steal their luggage and believed
Helen had spotted them at the car.
“
What would they expect to find inside your luggage more than anyone else’s?” Inspector
Sofia asked somewhat ungrammatically through his translator. “And how did
they know where you were going if they left first?”
“
With that damned Mercedes we looked like rich Americans.” The three Spaniards
began to snigger. “I don’t even have a job, you know.”
A frown stole over Sofia’s face. “No job yet you could afford this
trip?”
The money had been Helen’s—a graduation present from her parents.
Sean also raised the peculiarity of running into Geraldo again. “You were
both on the road to Granada,” Rosales reminded him. “So it’s
not so unusual to find each other here.” His tone had grown patronizing—as
if Sean were a not very bright child.
“
We can find no one by this name…Geraldo Gonzales… at this address.” Inspector
Sofia picked the yellow accident report up and waved it in the air. “This
whole thing appears to be falso. The driver’s license number, the address.” He
slapped it on the table. “And he’s not on the bill at Los Jardines
Neptuno.”
“
The flamenco club,” Rosales interjected, seeing Sean’s blank look.
“
We’d like a sample of your handwriting, Mr. Drury.” Sofia continued. “And
why is it no one in the whole of Granada remembers seeing Helen?”
Interview Four reconsidered their movements in the Alhambra. “She bought
Tales of the Alhambra in a bookstall there.”
“
She seems to be using her credit card for everything else in Spain. Why cash
in the Alhambra, Señor Drury? Por qué no uso una tarjeta de credito?”
“
She might have thought I was getting impatient.”
“
Do you get impatient often?” Inspector Sofia looked at him.
“
No, of course not.”
“
The last time we can document Helen’s movements was at the rental counter
in Sevilla. The clerk remembers the two of you arguing.”
“
It wasn’t really an argument!” He felt his cheeks grow red with frustration
and tried to halt it. “If the agency had had the compact we reserved….” The
men looked at him, their faces expressionless. He tried again. “What about
the secret she was going to tell me? Maybe someone didn’t want it told.” Now
their mouths twisted in disbelief; their eyes twitched with incredulity.
“This is the scenario I would suggest,” the female translator—speaking
for Sofia—put forward in Interview 5. “Somewhere between Seville
and Granada, Helen and you had a fight. Something unfortunate happened: she fell;
you pushed her; you wrung su cuello,” Sofia said, scowling dramatically
and put his hands around his own neck. “I don’t know what happened
exactly, but Helen died.” Murió—it sounded like something
beautiful.
“
You found some place to dump her body – some crevice, a cave…” Sofia
looked toward Sra. Nuñez, “a dumpster— and began to concoct
your intricate tale of accidents and mysterious men. Of robberies and bees stings.
And always, always—the sunglasses are falling off her face. Your story
is so full of mishaps, Mr. Drury, it’s hard to separate these— diversions
you speak of—from the facts we can prove.” Both Sra. Nuñez
and Inspector Sofia both took a deep breath.
“In your tale,” Rosales added, “it is her side of the car that
is hit; she who finds a burglary has taken place; she who is stung by the bee.
Es muy extraño que only Señorita Helen suffers these… fates.
It is also Helen who does all the work, makes every arrangement, speaks for you.
And finally, it is she, you suggest, that runs after these boys for a worthless
bookbag. Sometimes, it seems it was you who disappeared.” Sofia and the
woman sniggered. “Generalamente, Spanish teenagers don’t spend their
days wandering through the Alhambra.” All three Spaniards sniggered.
“
She wanted that damned bag back!”
“
I think the injuries to the car occurred when you tried to drive alone through
the mountains. Was she in the trunk? Is that how those little …que… jimmying
marks got on the car? You lost the key perhaps? Or had you already disposed of
her before you banged up the Mercedes?” Sofia looked at him even more intently. “Was
it you who placed the sunglasses outside the restroom, Mr. Drury? Did you decorate
the Alhambra like the set for a play, scattering evidence around for the guards
to find? Any minute we will find the orange bookbag lying under a tree with bloodstains?
You have put it so much in my mind, I expect to come across it myself.”
“I would like to see someone from the US Embassy,” Sean said after
a pause.
“
The American cinema tells me you believe you have a right to an attorney.” Sofia
said, easing out of his chair. “Okay, so we get you one.” Rosales
pushed the stop button on the tape machine and, miraculously the droning whir
ceased.
Sr. Ramirez peered at Sean from across the table some three hours later, his
false teeth vibrating gently with each roll of an “R.”
“
Usually it’s a drug problem or a stolen vehicle,” he was saying,
admitting he was out of his depth.
“
I’ve told them way too much. I thought we were on the same side,” he
whispered.
“
Can we go over it again?” Ramirez asked, still stuck on the sequence. “Did
you see the boys in the Alhambra, too?” A map of the Alhambra rested in
front of Sean with a series of Xs marking their path through the palace and gardens.
Sean was about to point out the bookstall in question when the door opened and
a policeman ushered another man into the room. “Jonathan Pearce,” the
man said, holding out his hand. “The Graves’ have asked me to look
into Helen’s disappearance.” A small man with a well-trimmed beard,
he didn’t smile. “You’ve gotten yourself into quite a fix.”
“
They’re not coming over then?”
“
Oh, they’re here all right. But the police won’t let them anywhere
near you. It’s up to the two of us to straighten it out.” Sean looked
at Sr. Ramirez.
“
Not Ramirez. Us. You and me.” He looked at Ramirez, smiling. “Nothing
personal, of course.” The Spaniard shrugged affably.
“
What can I do?”
“
You can convince me you’re innocent.” Sean told his story again,
placing each piece of the puzzle on the table for Pearce’s scrutiny.
“
Well that’s certainly a busy story you’ve come up with. One piece
of good news though. They have Helen’s timed ticket from the Alhambra now
and a guard who believes he saw the two of you. It’s a pretty vague description,
but it’s cast some doubt. Sean sat up a little straighter. “The Graves’ tell
me you’ve only been together for a few months.”
“
Since autumn. We came here after graduation. Helen lived in northern Spain for
a year. She wanted to see Seville and Granada.”
“
Just willing to put yourself in her hands, huh?” Pearce handed him a picture
of Helen. “Pretty hands they are too.”
“I’ve never known what she sees in me,” Sean admitted, looking
at the picture.
“
They’ve got that photograph posted all over the city, son.” Pearce
stood up and began to pace the room. “Let me tell you what I think we should
do.” Ramirez looked up, too—curious to see what kind of defense a
Yale degree bought.
Two days and it was over. “Planning such a thing in that amount of time
would be nearly impossible,” Pearce had told Sean and Ramirez back in the
interrogation room. “Unless you came to Spain with the idea in mind.” He
looked at Sean. “And why would you do that? What was in it for you? Why
choose a foreign country with even less tolerance for—poor behavior.” Unflatteringly,
Pearce had also found him wanting in the wherewithal to carry out such a crime.
When the police were satisfied, when the Graves’ were convinced, Sean was
sent home like a souvenir too big to fit in their suitcases. Pearce himself saw
him off in Granada.
Helen wasn’t in a dumpster in Granada, or in a cave in the Sierra Nevadas,
but in a cistern by the sea near Málaga. As the plane lifted up over the
tiny Granada airport, Sean imagined he saw the very spot. But it could have been
somewhere else entirely; he had almost no sense of direction.
It was after lunch that day—at a freidurías in some nondescript
town on the road between Seville and Málaga. His story was essentially
true up until then, especially the admission of their little squabbles, a detail
forced on him the car rental agent.
After a meal of calamari and red wine—too much red wine—they took
off for Málaga. “Oh, we should have gone to Gibraltor!” Helen
said, powering down the window to breathe the sea air in. Her voice was regretful
again, which irked him. “Look, it’s starting to rain again!”
“
Dear, dear,” he replied. It was a phrase they sometimes used to indicate
the other was being whiney. He patted her hand. “Anyway, Cádiz was
quite enough for me,” he assured her, switching on the wipers. “I
wonder if they designed that old quarter to trip up innocent tourists.”
Stiffening (and he could feel it at once under his hand) she said. “That
part of the city’s been there for centuries, Sean. You’re being paranoid.”
“
Damn it all! This car cost us a fortune and the wipers are bent.” He played
with the settings until the windows cleared “I had no idea Spain was so
chockfull of camel jockeys.”
He meant it to be funny, but it didn’t come off. “Who did you think
the Moors were then?” Helen moved incrementally toward her door. “Look
Sean, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk about.” He
knew from her voice what came next; it had been hinted at in decreasing intervals
ever since their arrival. “When we get home, I think we should try living
separately. We’re both starting new jobs and need to give that all our
full attention. Just for a bit,” she added, softening her words.
He thought he could cajole her out of it by reminding her of the strain of travel.
When it was clear she did mean it—that nothing would change her mind—he
drove even faster. Not intentionally exactly, but from the flood of adrenalin
her words had unleashed. “Sean, be careful!” she cautioned, as he
entered a roundabout too quickly. Coming out, he skidded and hit a cement abutment
off the road, finally screeching to a thudding halt.
It was then that the two boys in a battered pickup pulled up behind them. That
scene played out like he had told the Granada police, minus the man in white,
of course. (What’s his name—the flamenco dancer—had never existed,
but it was an inspired touch with the address in Cordoba courtesy of an excellent
guidebook map.) He had lost his temper with the boys, of course, when it seemed
like both boys were laughing at him. He took a swipe at the larger one, who backed
away at once, his dark eyes narrowing into slits. Helen had handed over her emptied
bookbag to appease him— a rich girl’s largess. When the boys finally
took off, Helen took off down the beach on foot.
“
That’s right,” he yelled, his voice catching in the wind and slamming
back at him. “Run away, you bitch.” He watched as she half-fell and
then took off again, nearly lost to him in the rain save for the white-socked
ankles and thick walking shoes.
And finally he went after her, still expecting her to relent as she had in the
past, to slow down suddenly and turn around laughing. When he caught up, they
were in front of a building site—a new resort—probably going up at
breakneck speed based on the sheer volume of machinery spread out before them.
The entire Spanish shoreline, in fact, was littered with concrete resorts for
working class vacationers—people like him.
“
Don’t go in there,” he warned as she spotted him and ducked inside
the makeshift fence. The fence was plastered with warnings, all of them in Spanish
so he couldn’t read them. He went in after her, grabbing her arm just as
she was about to tumble into a ditch. She chose to see his quick movement as
aggressive, looking at her arm as if he had tried to wrench it out of the socket,
and when she tried to pull away, he shook her, getting angrier. They were both
screaming senselessly into the storm’s roar and finally he slapped her.
A good slap had cleared the air in the past, but this time, she screwed up her
mouth and spit at him, the saliva reaching him despite the wind. He hit her harder
the second time, her body dangling from his hold like a rag doll’s. There
may have been a third and fourth slap; time seemed irrelevant.
When his rage abated—when he saw clearly what was in front of him—Helen
was dead, bloody and broken at his feet. But coolness set in. The car was at
least half a mile down the beach and the rain was letting up; carrying her there
in the reemerging sunlight was impossible. She’d have to be left behind.
Beneath the work site’s detritus, under the canvassed boards and stacks
of dripping tile, he came across the foundation of some earlier establishment
with ancient cellars, corroded pipes, crumbling cement structures. He poked around,
trying to force himself to act carefully, kicking at loose concrete pilings,
shifting boxes and tarped plumbing supplies to the side. Within a quarter of
an hour, he found an old cistern. It would have been located directly beneath
whatever this place had been—perhaps a fishing camp or a rich man’s
retreat in the century before the last. The cistern’s cover, worn and rusted
was still on it, and he pried it loose. Peering inside, he couldn’t see
the bottom, but a dropped piece of concrete took several seconds to splash. Since
the foundation seemed extensive, the cistern must have stored water for a large
population. He eased her body toward the hole and pushed. Her bracelet caught
on a ledge or a rock and she dangled for a second before he released it and her
into the abyss.
The rest was easy. After using a piece of concrete to scuff up the lock, he drove
on to Granada. He had a gift for anonymity and used it at the hotel, carrying
his own luggage, accepting the first room they offered. No one noticed him. He
spent several hours on a square, finally meeting an American girl, superficially
like Helen, who was only too glad to have a free pass to the Alhambra on her
one day in the city. (“I have to be on a plane tonight,” she told
him within minutes.”)
“
My wife is sick,” he said, gesturing toward a hotel. “Hate to see
it go to waste.”
And an hour or so later, she was at the gate with her timed ticket, waving to
him, and they passed through together, handing their tickets to the guard, spending
a few minutes together before he lost her, easily enough, outside a gift shop.
Then he had several hours in the complex to plot Helen’s last hours—where
she was stung, where her sunglasses might have fallen, which restrooms were the
largest with multiple exits. He was good at deception; it came naturally. The
hardest part by far was dealing with the police in Granada but he, or Pearce
rather, managed it.
People in detective novels always said that a simple story makes a better lie,
but he preferred to make his tale complicated. It was so much harder to keep
track of the bean when the cups moved relentlessly.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patricia Abbott writes newsletters, brochures and webpage copy at
Wayne State University in Detroit. She had published stories and poetry
in literary magazines such as Inkwell, Fourteen Hills, Portland Review,
the Potomac Review and nidus. A chapbook, Next to the Serengeti Ballroom,
won the Detroit Writer’s Voice, chapbook contest. Recently she
was turned to the dark side and forthcoming stories will appear in
Shred of Evidence, Demolition and SHOTS.
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