The Domingo Armada Mysteries Box Set by Jefferson Bonar

Author:Jefferson Bonar [Bonar, Jefferson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-15T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The colour drained from Jose’s face, something Armada had been looking forward to all morning.

“Jose Encinas?”

“Yes?” Jose said as he stood in the doorway of his house, shifting his weight back and forth.

It was early enough that the night chill hadn’t yet left the air, and the sun had just begun fading the dark blue of twilight.

Armada had been sure to leave off his jacket so the green of his sleeves could be seen. He wanted to catch Jose off guard, to intimidate him so he would be too rattled to think clearly and have time to make up a story about the events of the night before.

“Domingo Armada of the Holy Brotherhood. May we speak?”

Armada barged his way into the house to find it was quite a lot colder inside. The house was small with few windows and had a smell of damp coming from the back. The cold of the tiles on the floor seeped through Armada’s shoes. His breath puffed from his nostrils, which Armada regulated with long, slow blasts to resemble that of a dragon.

The effect worked. Jose was frightened, although he tried to hide it. But Jose was no actor. He was quite tall but with a long face with large eyes built for communicating fear. His mouth hung open, and he was always darting his head about when he talked, as if looking for a way out. But Armada wasn’t about to give him one.

“Where were you last night?” Armada asked.

“Um…at the…tavern.”

“Are you sure you weren’t at a small shack down by the beach? One filled with barrels of contraband brandy?”

Jose sighed and shifted his body back and forth. It was what Armada had hoped to see—resignation.

“How do you know about that?”

“Just answer my question.”

Armada found himself feeling bad for Jose Encinas. He was easily manipulated and wouldn’t have had the force of will to resist someone in authority like Martin Figueroa. Jose was being used to do Martin’s dirty work, but did that work extend to killing?

“Yes,” Jose whispered.

“There are four barrels missing. What were you doing with them?”

“Dumping them. Into the sea.”

It explained the lack of a pirate ship last night, which meant the soldiers had been telling the truth.

“Dumping them? Why? Brandy can be quite expensive.”

“Martin said I should. So no one in town would be tempted by them.”

“Does no one else in the pueblo know about the shack?”

“No! We made sure. Please…please don’t tell Martin.”

“Where did those barrels come from?”

Jose kept his head low, avoiding Armada’s gaze. “I don’t know. Smugglers probably.”

“You don’t know?”

“They just…showed up there one day. I don’t know. The shed has always been empty. My father was the fisherman, not me. I can’t catch fish. I can farm, though…wheat mostly…but sometimes onions…if…if the weather’s good.”

Jose was stalling, perhaps formulating an answer in his head. Which suggested he was lying about something. But what?

“How long have those barrels been in there, then?”

“I don’t know. A year maybe…”

“And you’re saying some unknown smugglers just put them in there, not knowing who the shed belonged to?”

“I told you, I don’t fish.

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