The Lady from Buenos Aires: A Willie Cuesta Mystery by John Lantigua

Author:John Lantigua [Lantigua, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611925739
Publisher: Arte Público Press
Published: 2015-07-27T04:00:00+00:00

I called Fiona Bonaventura, and she answered herself. I decided not to tell her about Arno. Not yet, and maybe never.

“Is your husband there?”

“No, he’s not. He has a business meeting.”

“Will he be gone long?”

“All afternoon.”

“Then stay put. I’m on my way.”

“Have you heard from the laboratory?”

“I’ll be there soon enough.”

She answered the door wearing black slacks and a white blouse. The maid was gone, so she was alone.

Fiona led me onto a balcony that overlooked the beach and the sea beyond. We sat down in canvas chairs facing each other. Her hair was ruffled slightly by an onshore breeze.

“What did the doctor say?”

“He said the girl is your family. There’s no doubt.”

She had been expecting the news and took it calmly. She nodded once and for the next minute was lost deep in her thoughts. She might have been tracing her movements over the past two decades all over Argentina: the death of her sister, the long search for the child, the false leads and the frustrating dead ends, the reticence of her husband, right up to the moment on that balcony and to the words I had just uttered. She had waited twenty years to hear them.

Despite her self-control, there was no mistaking just how much the moment meant to her.

“You’ve done it,” I said to her. “You’ve found your sister’s child.”

She frowned at me and shook her head. “I should have helped save my sister all those years ago. She should have gone into hiding much earlier or left the country altogether. I could have convinced her if I had put my mind to it, but I didn’t do it.”

She stared out at the depths of the sea. “Instead, like my husband, I was just angry with her for causing me worry. If I had acted then, I wouldn’t have to do this now. Sonia would be alive. She would never have known the inside of a detention cell or a military plane. The main cause in my life is one that never had to be.”

It was a statement that echoed not just with irony, but with a terrible emptiness. Many people in similar situations felt what had come to be called “survivor guilt.” But this gorgeous woman was going further. She was saying that her whole life was a wash, or even less. You sensed she carried that detention cell around inside her. Part of her was locked up inside it, the way her sister had been. Maybe the girl, Elena, had the key that would allow her to get out.

Maybe Fiona was thinking the same thing right then. She fixed on

me.

“When can I go tell my niece who I am? When can we get her away from those people?”

“We can’t just walk in there because that might lead to bloodshed. In fact, we can’t tell the police about it yet because the same thing might happen. That’s the last thing we want.”

I told her about my meeting with Elena’s boyfriend, Nelson Cruz. I explained that

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