Tania Figueras's apartment was one of twelve carved out of a huge old house that had once belonged to a wealthy family. Although the building had been crudely subdivided, there were still traces of grandeur-high ceilings, delicate moldings, fine if scarred tile work in the entrance hall. As they entered, Janek noticed a faint smell of sewage, a sign that the plumbing was overworked.
He and Luis climbed the rear stairs. Tania's apartment had been created railroad-style out of three small servant's rooms on the top floor.
When she opened the door, she and Janek gazed at each other. Yes, it's her, Janek thought. The smooth features he knew so well from the photos he had carried around with him nine years before had grown more prominent, and the seamless skin was beginning to crinkle a little around the eyes. Her body was thicker, but her black hair was still glossy and her lips still slightly petulant. She was a good looking woman, and evidently an amused one, for she smiled as she searched Janek's eyes.
"What took you so long? I've been waiting nine years."
She laughed, turned, led them through her kitchen, a bedroom where clothing hung exposed, then into a pleasant sitting room with a view upon what had once been a lush tropical garden, but was now a desiccated patch of weeds dominated by the stump of a giant palm and an overgrown, browned-out banana tree.
"You've met my little brother?" she asked casually, seating herself beside the window.
Janek nodded.
"How is Angel?" "He's in trouble," Janek said.
Tania shrugged, "If he had come here with me he might be a doctor today." She turned to Luis.
"Sometimes we think we have too many doctors," Luis explained.
Tania snickered. "Most of them do the work of nurses, but since they have diplomas we must call them 'Doctor." Isn't that right, Ortiz?"
Luis, embarrassed, did not respond.
Janek glanced around the room. It was nicely furnished. There was an old stereo, a small battered TV and shelves crammed with books and long-playing records. It did not look like the room of a woman who worked as a maid.
"What do you do, Miss. Figueras?"
"I work for the revolution."
"Can you be a little more specific?"
"I am a bureaucrat at the Ministry of Finance. But not today." She smiled. "Today I assist the cops."
"You're married?"
She nodded. "My husband manages a citrus farm twenty miles outside the capital. I also have a son. He hopes one day to be a baseball player. He is at school now, no doubt studying revolutionary principles." She glanced at Luis again, to see whether she'd overstepped. Evidently satisfied, she turned back to Janek. "Well, shall we begin?"
He photographed her, fingerprinted her, then set up his tape recorder.
There then followed a brief discussion about whether she could be deposed under oath.
Since they were outside the United States, they agreed that after the interview Janek would prepare a statement in English based on what she told him, Luis would translate the statement into Spanish, then Tania would sign both versions and swear to their truthfulness before a Cuban judge. When all that was settled and Tania assured him she was ready, Janek turned on his tape recorder. Then he hit her with his first question, designed to set a no-nonsense tone and catch her off guard.
"Did you have anything to do with the murder of Edith Mendoza?"
Tania laughed. "Are you serious?"
"Please answer the question."
"Of course not! I know what they did. I can tell you that what they said Her black eyes flashed.
"You ran away the night of the murder. Why?"
"I was scared! As you would have been if you'd been in my position.
Mrs. Mendoza told me she was meeting a friend that afternoon at the studio. She asked me to come by afterwards and clean up. Nothing special about that. That was a normal part of my duties. I remember exactly what happened, almost as if it were yesterday. I got there just after seven.
I saw her as soon as I walked in, hanging there in front of me, body battered, deep purple most of it. I screamed. I believe I screamed a lot. I had never seen anything like that before.
Then I ran out, flagged down a said. I read all about about me was lies." cab, rushed back to Central Park West, packed my stuff and left. I hid out that night with a friend in Harlem, then, next morning, caught a bus to Montreal. I spent my second night at the YWCA, bought a plane ticket in the morning and flew down here. I've been living here ever since."
"The Metaxas letter-"
"I know all about it," she snapped. "What he wrote about me was a lie."
"Pefia backed him up."
"Pefia lied!"
"Everyone lied-is that what you're claiming?"
"Sure, and why not? I wasn't there to refute them, so they said whatever came into their heads." She smiled bitterly. "You police lied, too, because I never met Metaxas, I never arranged anything with him, I never even knew what he looked like. Why are we talking about this anyway?"
Her tone showed impatience. "I read that that letter was a forgery.
Wasn't it? Isn't that what they said?"
Uh-oh, here we go. Janek shook his head. Tania sat beside him, glaring, breathing in short, tight, angry gasps. She was smoldering and his only thought was that it was always this way with Mendoza-it made people crazy, everyone who touched it, every single person, including himself.
"If what you say is true-"
"It's true," she added scornfully.
"Then, why didn't you come forward?"
"Why should I? What did it have to do with me?"
"You say you knew about the Metaxas letter. Then, you must have known it was that letter, along with Rudolfo Pefia's testimony, that got Mendoza convicted."
"So what?"
Oh, the lady's tough! "You didn't care if an innocent man was convicted of murder?" "Who said he was innocent?"
"You think he-?"
"Who cares what I think? You don't understand." Janek shook his head. "I guess not."