land, of the women-all the glorious women-as well as the poverty and misery around them. Images that spoke to the heart and mind even today. Tomaso smiled at his pride in those old photos as much as the memory of his and Benilo’s youthful escapades. Full of the black and white thinking that characterizes teenage idealism, he and Benilo were such easy, innocent targets for recruitment into a revolution.
Having pretty much left his family, Benilo, always angry, decided to join the revolutionaries and began a campaign to convince Tomaso to join. By this time, Tomaso had become disenchanted with his own family, the proverbial black sheep for his anti-Batista talk. He joined Che Guevara and Fidel Castro’s movement as their special photojournalist. As a result, his mother had come to think of his photography as having become the family curse.
Tomaso again turned to Palo and said, “Smuggled to the foreign press, my photos made a big difference in the revolution. Made for me friends among the leaders-an uneasy relationship to this day.”
Sighing heavily, Tomaso shrugged and stood, gazing at the abundant blossoms of Mariposa, so beautiful to look at, so like his beloved Rafaela. She’d left so much of herself here in their Miramar home, not the least being Quiana. She has your fierce persistence and goes her own way, untamable, such spirit, like your own. You’d be proud of her. But this…three bodies… this situation… I am afraid for her.
He took as much care with Rafaela’s Mariposa garden as he did his cameras. “Pray for her, Rafaela, and watch out for her. Our daughter is in some terrible danger. I must find a way to persuade her to turn this ugly business over to someone else.”
Qui’s voice kept rising, “What does an old man who tends flowers and talks to the dead know of Cuba today? You forfeited a place in Cuba’s highest circles, and now you tell me what to do? Always with what is best and what is too dangerous! Papa, I am a police woman now, not a little girl.”
“Careful, daughter!” Tomaso gave only a moment’s thought to the governmental position offered him after the revolution, a position he’d walked away from.
“Instead of being proud of me, you treat me like a child, like I’m play-acting!”
“But this is dangerous territory.”
“Dangerous territory is what I do now. This is who I am.”
He just looked at this now angry daughter of his, saying nothing, again reminded of how much like her mother she was: impetuous, headstrong, passionate, and stubborn. Tomaso chuckled aloud at the thought, shaking his head. “Ahh… stubborn child.”
“How dare you interfere in my professional life?” she persisted, pacing the courtyard where a trade wind swept through, bringing with it the clean scent of the sea.
He tried to keep pace. “Calm down. We can talk like adults.”
She stopped and turned back to him. “Oh, that’d be a pleasant change.”
“I’ve never under any circumstances wanted to belittle or insult you.” He paused, taking a breath. “Now, what is all this ranting about, because I have no idea what-”
“I wanna know why Gutierrez is suddenly all sweet and polite and fake toward me.”
“Oh, this is about Alfonso Gutierrez?”
“Yes! That wormy pig is all of a sudden being professional toward me. Why?”
Tomaso laughed uproariously at her characterization of her colonel.
She didn’t skip a beat. “I can’t stand that plastic smile he’s suddenly wearing. You called him, didn’t you!”
“Sweetheart, I’ve had no contact with the man since-”
“You did more than just call him. You scared him, didn’t you! And you told him to take me off this case.”
“No! I’ve not spoken to him since your promotion. But I tell you-”
“You might’ve given me a fair chance. But you…you couldn’t be satisfied with that, could you? Could you?'
Tomaso stepped away from her, located his favorite courtyard seat, climbed into it, calmly crossed his legs, and said, “Quiana, perhaps someone called Gutierrez, but I didn’t. Now come sit, and we’ll talk about this.”
Taken aback, she calmed down. His sudden relaxed demeanor invited her to sit alongside him. When she did so, their eyes met in a truce.
“What?” she asked.
“Some detective you are! Think! You know I’d do nothing to sabotage you. Have I ever betrayed you?”
“This is different, and we both know it. This isn’t a recital or a school grade or an entrance exam you can fix for me. God, this is a triple murder! And how I hate it when you interfere, making me appear stupid and childish. I hate it!”
Her anger reignited, Qui stood and rushed from the courtyard.
“Wait a minute,” he called after her. “We still don’t know who called Gutierrez! Sheeze…” His words fell on empty air, she was no longer in the courtyard.
Qui felt a pang of anger for losing her temper on her father’s birthday. Passing through the kitchen, she realized only now that Maria Elena had overheard their squabbling. This brought on a dose of discomfort. “You can’t leave him like this,” the other woman pleaded, “not on his birthday. Besides, I know your father. He no longer interferes like you think. We talked about it, Qui, and I swear, he didn’t make any calls.”
“Well…if that’s the case…I stand corrected. But I need to get away for a while and think things through. I’ll be back later.”
In spite of Maria Elena’s words, Qui turned toward the lobby door, hesitating a moment, glancing through the window at her father. “Like hell that old man made no calls.” She knew someone had influenced Gutierrez.
19
At the same time
Having entered the lobby of Tomaso’s bed and breakfast, Dr. Arturo Benilo involuntarily exclaimed, “ Madre Dios, you are too beautiful, my beloved.” His heart had skipped a beat, so shocked was he at the sight of Rafaela’s life-size photograph hung in an ornate frame like a painting here in the lobby. More stunning than he’d remembered, she was the most attractive woman he’d ever known. This photo must have been taken when all three of us were friends. Aiy, Tomaso, you always did know how to take a picture, he grudgingly acknowledged.
Rafaela’s likeness graced the center of a huge mosaic-images of women that Tomaso had photographed over a lifetime, homage to beautiful Cuban women. Without question, Rafaela, blonde, blue-eyed, proved the most dazzling. As if staring from across time, and yet as if no time had passed, her vivid eyes peered lucidly, deeply into his. Her smile, so familiar. Tomaso had captured her precisely as how Benilo remembered, the image haunting Arturo deep within his soul. She lives in this photo…
Voices shook him from his reverie, but he wasn’t ready to let go of Rafaela’s likeness. However, a second glance and it was just a photo, beautiful yes, but all magic gone. Must’ve been the lighting, he speculated, else she really was here for a moment. As he walked closer to Rafaela’s image, he again heard raised voices, the loudest, angriest that of Tomaso’s daughter, the quixotic Quiana.
A door suddenly flew open and Qui, her face flushed, came eye to eye with Dr. Arturo Benilo. Perplexed, she demanded, “Wait a minute. What’re you doing here?”
“You invited me, remember?”
“Oh…yes, so I did. But I’m not sure how comfortable you’ll be.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Like you have trouble following a woman’s lead, doctor,” she said sarcastically, realizing his eyes were doing a little fox trot of their own, comparing her mother’s features with hers.
“You’re angry. What’s got you so upset?”
“You probably know perfectly well what he’s done, so why do you ask?” The thought that the call might have come from Benilo flitted through her mind.
“Is it Montoya? Did he give you a ring last night during dinner?”
She quickly studied his eyes to determine if he was deliberately dense. “No, it’s my father! He’s interfering in my life again!”
