Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy (21 page)

"You get a lot of heat from the animal
protection people?"

"Pickets once in a while. They'd have us all
living on bean sprouts and Velveeta, they had their way. But, hey,
there wouldn't be any veal calves if it weren't for the dairy herds,
right?"

"Right."

"I mean, what's a dairy farmer supposed to do?
He needs the bull to knock up the cows so they'll give milk. But when
he gets a boy calf instead of a girl that can grow up to give more
milk, he doesn't have too many choices. One, he can let the calf roam
with the mother and suckle, which cuts down on her milk production.
Two, the farmer can let the calf loose in the fields to feed on grass
and become a beefer. Three, he can sell the calf to a Bob-packer who
whacks the animal at all of one or two weeks of life and maybe eighty
pounds of weight. Four is us. The dairy farmer, if he's smart, can
auction the calf to a fancy veal grower like the ones who own this
plant. The grower's going to raise that calf for sixteen weeks and
come in here at four hundred pounds, giving us maybe two hundred
sixty pounds of meat. Now, those are the choices, right?

You want milk, you're going to have male calves and
you got to do something with them." He picked up the cup again.
"And it seems to me that our way is the best way."

I didn't say anything as he sipped.

Cuervo blinked a few times and then said, "What
outfit are you with, anyway?"

"I'm not in the veal business."

He rotated the cup in his hands. "I started to
get that idea. What are you doing here?"

"I'm a private investigator from Boston."

Cuervo frowned. "What do you want from me?"

I had decided on the drive up that there was no way
around telling him the truth. But maybe not all the truth. "Your
stepmother, Maisy Andrus. She's been getting threats."

He laughed, shaking his head. "What's the
matter, she flunk the wrong student?"

"How's that?"

"She's a teacher, right? Who's going to get mad
at her except the students?"

"I don't think it's like that, Mr. Cuervo."

"Hey, call me Ray, okay?"

"Not Ramon?"

Cuervo took a big slug of coffee. "Look, I know
it's not too cool to turn your back on your heritage and all, but it
would be kind of tough to go through life over here as Ramon Cuervo
Gallego, you know?"

"Your last name isn't Cuervo either?"

"In Spain they do names differently. My middle
name comes from my father's family, the very last name, Gallego, from
my mother's. So, my father was Enrique Cuervo Duran and my mother was
Noeli Gallego de la Cruz, and I'm Ramon Cuervo Gallego. Understand?"

"I think so."

"Besides, I'm not exactly Spanish."

"Now I don't follow you."

"My father, the late great el Senor Doctor, had
this thing about American stuff, okay? Everything from America was
better: cinema, appliances, sporting arms, cars. When we went
hunting, it was Remingtons all the way, and we were the only family
in Candas, maybe in all of Asturias, that had a Cadillac. Yeah, he
had a hell of a time getting that boat through the streets."

Cuervo made a hitchhiking gesture behind him at the
photo of the house. "Even had to widen the driveway, keep from
scratching the paint off. If we ever got snow — which thank Christ
we never did, it's more like London weather there — he'd have
wrecked it first time out, the way he drove. And when it broke? Good
luck getting it fixed. But that didn't matter, right? My father
wanted the best of everything, and the best was American, so I got
sent off to school over here, and after my mother died he married the
showiest American woman he could find."

"How old were you when your father married Maisy
Andrus?"

"I don't know. I didn't even go to the wedding.
What the hell does it matter?"

"Why didn't you attend the wedding?"

A smirk. "I think I had a track meet that
weekend. Yeah, yeah, that was it. The team couldn't spare me."

"You get along all right with Andrus?"

"Get along? I barely ever saw her. You got to
remember, I was in school over here. And Maisy went to live in Spain
with my father only part of the year. I sure as hell wasn't
interested in seeing Maisy over here, and I'll bet Maisy spent more
time in old Esparia during those years than I did."

"You have a falling out with your father over
Maisy?"

"Falling . . . you got a hell of a nerve,
interrogating me like this."

I just waited.

"What right do you have, coming into my place of
business and asking me all these questions?"

I hadn't checked in with the Sarrey police. "Only
trying to do my job."

"Which is?"

"To eliminate as many people as possible from
the list, and then focus on the ones who could be threatening her."

Cuervo started rotating the cup again. "Look, I
don't have any bone to pick with Maisy anymore."

"Anymore?"

"My father . . . when he died, she got some
things, I got some things."

I inclined my head toward the house photo. "She
got the homestead."

"Yeah, which if she was able to use it would be
a nice place. It sits on this bluff, kind of overlooking the bullring
in Candas, near Gijon. When I was a kid, the family'd sit on the
lawn, swilling sidra — new cider, sweet, a little alcoholic — and
we'd watch the corridas — the bullfights. The bullring is built
right along the beach, so when the tide goes out, they can have the
corridas right there. Of course, sometimes the bulls, they notice the
hole in the wall and they swim for it, but . . . look, what I'm
trying to say here is, by the time it came to dividing things up
between her and me, I did fine. I got everything I needed to come
back here, go to college, buy a place on the water in Marblehead. My
father was right about one thing. American is the best, and I got all
I needed from him to have it."

"How did you feel about your father dying the
way he did?"

"My father got sick. He was a doctor. I never
thought much about him getting sick. When I was young, still living
in Spain before he sent me . . . before I came over here for school,
I thought he was like Superman, you know?"

"Invulnerable?"

"Right, right. Like God didn't let the doctors
catch any diseases. That they always had to stay healthy to keep
other people alive."

"And therefore?"

"When I heard about him . . . about him being
sick, I mean, I didn't take it seriously. I couldn't even remember
seeing him sick. When I finally realized how bad it was, I got upset,
sure. But there wasn't anything anybody could do about it, so . . ."
Cuervo shrugged.

"How did you feel about your stepmother helping
him'?"

A quick breath, then he leaned back in the chair and
got casual. "I don't think Maisy is my stepmother anymore. I
mean, she got to be that because she married my father, but now she's
married to somebody else, right?"

"Andrus injected your father with an overdose."

A philosophical smile. "Maybe what she did was
the right thing. He was going to die anyway. Maybe Maisy was just
making it easier for him, like we do with the stunner on the calves
downstairs before they can see the knife."

"You get involved in any of the legal wrangle
over your father's death?"

"No. Maisy got charged and I was supposed to
testify, but they never — what do you call it?"

"Indicted her?"

"No, like when they . . . extradited her. They
never extradited Maisy. This was all after Loredo Mendez — the
prosecutor that let her get off to start with — killed himself.
Barely remember old Luis now, but he was a friend of my father's from
the university and had this young wife my father saved from dying
during childbirth." The smirk again. "Younger wives were
real popular in my father's crowd."

"You ever go back to Spain?"

"Me? No way. That's a part of the world I've
already seen."

"Never get homesick?"

"For what? Candas hasn't been home since I was
fourteen."

"What can you tell me about Manolo?"

"Manolo. He still around?"

"Yes."

"Well, I guess he would be. My father was a soft
touch, John, a real soft touch. One day he comes home, I'm maybe
eight or nine, and he's got this big, scared kid with him. Manolo's
family was kind of poor, and his father was a drunk. You don't see
much of that in Spain. The people learn to drink sidra and sherry
young enough to handle it. But Manolo's father was the exception, and
with Manolo not being able to talk or anything, I guess it got him
frustrated, so he beat the kid. But el Sefzor Doctor took him in.
Taught him sign language and turned him into a helper around the
dispensary. Kind of a trained bear, if you ask me. But he was like my
father's shadow. Wherever el Senor Doctor Enrique went, Manolo would
be there too."

"How did Manolo take your father's death?"

"I wasn't paying much attention. But I'm
guessing that my father must have made him understand that it was
okay."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I know Manolo. If he thought Maisy had
killed my father? Hah, he'd kill her. No question. But then, Manolo's
not your man."

"Why?"

"Well, he can't talk, can he? How's he going to
make threatening calls?"

"I didn't say the threats came by phone."

"Oh," said Cuervo, shrugging again. "I
thought you did."
 

=18=

I DROVE BACK INTO BOSTON, PUTTING THE CAR IN THE
Trash-strewn alley behind my office building and grabbing a beer and
burger at Friar Tuck's Pub. After lunch I called my answering service
as I sorted through the mail. Four messages, one of which was from
Inés Roja, asking me to reach her at the school by two.

My watch said two-fifteen. I tried anyway.

"Maisy Andrus."

"I didn't expect to get you directly."

"Who . . . oh, John." Her voice darkened.
"Is something wrong?"

"Not that I know of. Inés left word for me to
call."

"You just missed her. I can give you the number
at the clinic?"

"Clinic?"

"Yes, she volunteers an afternoon a week,
sometimes more."

"I thought Alec said Inés had to leave that?"

"This is a different
clinic."

* * *

Recognizing the 269 exchange as South Boston, I did
some paperwork first, then drove to it. The small parking area had
one slot open, but there were plenty of spaces on the street as well.
Just inside the door was a waiting area. An elderly woman had a wire
carrying cage in her lap, a Siamese hunched down on its forepaws and
looking out warily. Across from the cat lady was a fat man with a
matched set of Airedales, straining at their leashes and licking
their chops. The Siamese seemed pleased that the woman had remembered
the cage.

I walked to the counter. A high school girl in a
faded green smock and moussed hair asked if she could help me.

"I'm looking for Inés Roja?"

"She expecting you?"

"She called me."

The teenager sized me up, then nodded and beckoned. I
followed her through one door and immediately another. I thought of
Louis Doleman's spacelock as my guide opened the second door.

Containing cages stacked from floor to ceiling, the
room sounded and smelled like a menagerie. The crying of birds, the
mewling of cats, the staccato barks and mournful howls of dogs. But
also the chattering of monkeys, raccoons, and a few other mammals I
couldn't place even by continent.

The teenager spoke in a command voice over the din.
"Inés?"

"Right here, Deb." Roja stood up from
behind an examining table of some kind, cradling a gaunt monkey and
holding a baby bottle that the monkey eyed eagerly. Roja wore a green
smock, too, which was covered with stains old and new. She seemed
surprised to see me as she brought the monkey toward us.

"John, I did not want to drag you all the way
over here."

"It was on my way. Don't worry about it."

Deb said, "I've got to go back out front. Ines.
Let me know if you need anything."

"Right."

The monkey began making "eek" noises. so
Roja moved the bottle to its mouth. The creature began sucking,
almost shyly.

Roja said, "You got my message, then."

"I did. Another note?"

"No. No, it is probably nothing really. That is
why I just wanted you to call me."

I rested my rump against one of the tables. "Well,
I'm here. Tell me."

Roja shifted the monkey to the other arm like an
awkward bag of groceries. "The professor and Tucker are going on
a vacation."