The Golden City

Duilio puffed out his cheeks. “Erdano and I were set upon last night.”

“Yes, I heard,” Joaquim said briskly, waving that away as he sat behind the desk. “Now, Captain Santiago has given me a new assignment—”

“We’re both fine, by the way,” Duilio said, feeling unappreciated. “Only a knife to the shoulder for me.”

Joaquim folded his arms over his chest, an impatient frown twisting his lips. “Don’t be childish. Cardenas told me about it when I stopped by the house earlier this morning. He said you came in through the servant’s door late last night, looking like hell but on your own feet.”

Duilio slumped back in the chair and tugged off his gloves. “You stopped by the house to talk to Cardenas and not to me?”

Joaquim shrugged off Duilio’s protest. “You were at breakfast. Mrs. Amaral has decided to be petulant and is claiming that Miss Paredes stole personal items of the daughter’s. Some jewelry and—”

Duilio sat up straight, appalled. “That’s ridiculous. Miss Paredes—”

Joaquim held up his hands. “It’s a baseless charge. However, the charge gives me license to question the Amaral servants. I can get back to work on this case, even if in a roundabout fashion. Fortunately, Mrs. Amaral doesn’t know where Miss Paredes has gone or she’d probably demand I immediately arrest her.”

“Damnation,” Duilio said with a grimace. “She’ll know tonight. Remember, we’re supposed to go to the Carvalho ball tonight.” When Joaquim looked ready to argue, Duilio added, “Besides, servants up and down the street do gossip. It wouldn’t occur to them that her presence should be kept secret.”

“Which is why I spoke with Mr. Cardenas this morning,” Joaquim said. “I wanted to ask him to have the servants keep quiet about Miss Paredes.”

Duilio stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles under the desk. It irritated him that Joaquim felt unwelcome in his home. There’d been a lot of friction between Joaquim and Alessio when they were young. When his mother’s pelt was stolen, Alessio had chosen not to tell Joaquim, even though Joaquim surely would have been helpful in the search. Duilio didn’t know what had passed between the two of them, but he suspected that was at the base of Joaquim’s behavior. And Alessio was dead. “You should have come up and eaten with us.”

“I’d already eaten, and I wanted talk to Mr. Cardenas, not you.”

That puts me in my place. Duilio sighed. “That will give us until tonight, at a minimum. Has Efisio contacted the police in any way about Lady Isabel?”

“No,” Joaquim said with a roll of his eyes. “It’s a conspiracy of silence, with him and the girl’s mother shielding the criminal while they’re trying to protect their so-precious reputations.”

Duilio did understand Joaquim’s disdain for that aspect of privilege. Reputation shouldn’t come ahead of the truth. He nodded mutely.

“Now, I have something to show you.” Joaquim opened a desk drawer, withdrew a slip of paper, and handed it to Duilio—an invoice from the Castro Ironworks. “I talked with the bookkeeper there a couple of weeks ago, before the investigation was shut down. He didn’t recall anything unusual, but left this for me late yesterday. He didn’t know where the chain ultimately went, but the bill went to that address.”

Duilio frowned down at the paper, an order for three hundred feet of galvanized marine chain. A coffee stain marred one corner of the invoice, as if a cup had been left atop it. The grade of chain, a little heavier than a normal anchor chain, approximately matched what Duilio had seen when peering out through a submersible’s windows. The billing address near the bottom was in a less-well-to-do parish of the city on Bonfim Street. “Espinoza?”

“I stopped before work this morning and talked to the landlord,” Joaquim said, “one Mr. Gouveia. The renter answers Espinoza’s description handily. Middling age, lean, with white hair in a queue. He hasn’t been seen there for some time. Gouveia isn’t certain exactly how long, but he’s still receiving the rent via the mail.”

Fortunately, Espinoza’s old-fashioned hairstyle made him memorable. “Well, this has promise.”

“Here’s the best part,” Joaquim said. “The tenant rented both the first and second floors and, according to Mr. Gouveia, the first floor has been made over into a craftsman’s shop.”

“Woodwork, perhaps?”

“The landlord wasn’t sure, but it was enough to make me curious.”

“Me too.” Duilio folded up the invoice. He held it between his palms and asked himself whether it was important. Yes, came the answer. Duilio grinned at his cousin. “I’ll try to get back with you later today, let you know if I find anything.” He quickly rose to take his leave. “By the way, did you get a chance to tell Captain Santiago I had another lead I was working on?”

Joaquim rose as well. He retrieved his suit coat from the back of his chair. “I did, although I didn’t tell him what lead or mention the specific case. He would know, since you’re only on the one right now. But I didn’t feel comfortable talking about your source. Captain Rios was in with him,” Joaquim finished, shrugging on his coat.

Duilio paused, one hand in the doorknob. Captain Rios was the liaison between the Special Police and the regular police, and he thoroughly disliked Duilio. Rios considered him an interfering busybody and dilettante. “The person who attacked Erdano and me in the tavern last night? He left his knife behind. It was Special Police issue.”

* * *

Oriana had been working in the front sitting room where the light was good, but she’d finished the edge she was hemming some time ago. She’d been sitting there just staring at it. The blue silk dress with its layers of skirt and newly attached ruffle was almost ready. At the moment it lay across her lap on the beige sofa, a cloud of darkness that reflected her mood.

She shook herself back to awareness. The day before she’d checked behind her a dozen times on her walk home—using a far more circuitous route than she would have normally taken—and had finally been satisfied that she wasn’t being followed. Her brief foray in pursuit of Heriberto had given her a great deal to think about. She’d always suspected that Heriberto wasn’t above blackmail. Now she knew that to be true.

He had definitely been threatening her father. It had been a vague threat, but Oriana had heard Heriberto mention his girl. She didn’t know whom Heriberto meant by that. It wasn’t Oriana herself, because Heriberto had said he knew where she lived. It apparently wasn’t her father’s employer and purported lover, Lady Pereira de Santos, which hinted that her father was involved with more than one woman. Oriana hadn’t yet forgiven him for replacing her mother with Lady Pereira de Santos, no matter that her mother had been dead for fourteen years now. It implied that the tie of Destiny between her father and mother had been false, didn’t it? She hadn’t been able to reconcile that in her mind yet.

And she was jealous of her father’s new life here, where he had a gentlemanly occupation and likely didn’t wear shoes that pinched his feet. Here the males had all the opportunities, which would suit her father perfectly. She shouldn’t be angry with him. But she’d been the one left behind to raise Marina when he’d been exiled. She’d had to hear the news that her sister was dead. She’d been alone then, with no one to comfort her.

Lady Pereira de Santos lived one house over, and Oriana’s father came there on occasion. She would peer out the Amarals’ windows, trying to catch a glimpse of him as he walked up the front steps of the Pereira de Santos mansion. But she’d never contacted him—not even a note. She had played by the rules, done everything as she should, and now she felt a fool.

He’d known she was here in the city. Her father hadn’t contacted her, but he hadn’t displayed any surprise when Heriberto asked about her either. He’d seemed ready to defy Heriberto for her sake. He said he wouldn’t tell Heriberto where to find her even if he knew. Part of that was simply his temper. She’d gotten her hot temper from him, not her mother. But she believed his words.

She’d spent the past two years in fear that Heriberto would blackmail her by threatening her father. Evidently she’d gotten it all backward. And what of the woman who’d watched her from across the street? Oriana sighed, clenching her teeth on the pins in her mouth. She wished she knew what the truth was.

Stop wasting time. She could mull this over and over for hours and still get nowhere. She turned the dress about to take in the waistband.

The door to the sitting room began to swing open. Oriana reflexively buried her bare hands in the mass of fabric in her lap. But it was Mr. Ferreira who stepped inside, leaving the door open. His brows drew together