Read Online Mystery by the Sea by David Sal - Free Book Online Page B

worked here did
wonders. This terrain was filled with rocks and the land wasn’t as level as it
looks now. It took quite some time. I think you should buy your own machine and
work independently,” commented Javier calmly. Lorenzo was losing patience with
Javier’s small talk.
    “I’ve thought about it, but it’s a
big investment and things aren’t good right about now. You know.”
    “Yes, the economy is unstable,”
agreed Javier.
    “I’m not referring to the economy,
but rather the situation with my wife Doris,” clarified Lorenzo, directing the
conversation toward what mattered to him.
    Javier took a sip of beer in
preparation for talking about the inevitable topic.
    “Okay, I haven’t asked why you’re
here because I already know. You want to know what happened the night of the
crime. Or, at least, from my point of view, because you should already know the
general facts.”
    “I’m more interested in the how and
the why.”
    “You can’t possibly believe that
Doris didn’t do it?” asked Javier in a way that Lorenzo did not like at all,
but he preferred to keep his mouth shut for now. Just then, Javier’s wife
showed up with a tray of soft drinks and another tray of light snacks: cubed
cheese, sliced ham, and crackers.
    “Thank you, love, but he doesn’t
want anything.”
    “I think I changed my mind. I’ll
take a soft drink. You can leave it there. Thank you,” said Lorenzo, stretching
out his arm to grab one of the glasses. He brought it to his mouth and drank it
all in a single gulp. Javier’s wife shot a glance at her husband before
returning to the house. Lorenzo caught it but could not quite make out its
meaning.
    “Look, I sympathize with your
situation, really,” assured Javier. “But, honestly, it’s a waste of your time
and energy. I say that with the best of intentions. I know it’s the last thing
you want to hear, but sometimes that’s what the truth is: ugly. And in this
case I assure you that that’s how it is because I was there and I saw the whole
thing,” declared Javier with conviction and resolve but in a condescending tone
that bugged Lorenzo.
    “I know, but I want to understand
some of the details that don’t make sense to me. For example, why was Doris
there in the first place?” asked Lorenzo.
    “Easy, because she was invited.
Without an invitation she wouldn’t have been able to come in, and we could all
see that she had one,” answered Javier, smiling in satisfaction at batting away
Lorenzo’s first concern so easily.
    “Why? For what reason was she
invited? She no longer had Pedroza’s trust. He fired her! And why did she
accept the invitation?”
    “It could have been a last attempt
at getting her job back. If Pedroza invited her, then there was hope,” pointed
out Javier while adjusting the towel around his neck.
    “Where does that leave us? On the
one hand, everyone tells me that Pedroza had a bad temper but on the other
hand, that he invited his subordinates to his house to drink wine, taste
cheese, and yada yada . To me that doesn’t add up,” declared Lorenzo,
shaking his head, vexed.
    “That’s how Pedroza was. What do you
want me to say? In official matters, he was so wrapped up in his job and so
demanding that he made you feel like nothing. Like garbage! Sometimes he had
fits of rage that would terrify you. You could see his employees hiding in
their cubicles to avoid even being seen by him, even if the current problem had
nothing to do with them. Then, outside of the office, it was a different story,
one of love. Your best buddy. I’m telling you honestly, it wasn’t easy to
reconcile his two sides. Maybe that was what Doris expected when she arrived
there. If he invited her, there must have been something. Maybe in his house,
in a different environment, she could fix things,” argued Javier easily.
    “Another dead-end,” complained
Lorenzo, putting a cheese cube in his mouth.
    “The truth is that none of us who
were there, aside