Whatever that might be. She still wasn’t really sure. She needed to look at him.
Chapter 34
Sanchez arrived the next morning. After he was ushered into the salon in the embassy where Sharon had decided she would meet him alone, she took some time to study him. Sanchez underwent the scrutiny patiently. He simply stood before her where she sat on a chaise, saying nothing. Patience? she wondered. Or was it simply fatalism?
Abruptly, she spoke. “Did you have anything to do with it, Ruy?”
Sanchez began to stiffen. Suddenly angry, Sharon slapped her hands on her thighs. “Stop it, Ruy! This is me. I don’t care about your damned hidalgo honor and your solemn vows and your so-called oaths.” It was all she could do not to grit her teeth. “I’ve never seen where any of that precious crap—and that’s what it is, crap—has kept any of you from butchering anyone you felt like. Or committing every other crime in the book.”
She lifted her head. “So tell it to me, this time. Just straight up. Did you kill Joe Buckley? And if you didn’t, do you have any idea who did?”
Sanchez blew through his mustaches. Then, his broad shoulders moved in a chuckle. “Such a difficult woman! In this, as in everything.”
He shook his head. “No, Dona Sharon, I did not do it. Nor did Bedmar. The cardinal would have used only me for such a deed. I cannot vow that it was not done by the regular Spanish embassy, the one representing Madrid directly. We have, in truth, little to do with them. But . . . I do not think so.”
She believed him. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, but she did. It came as a great relief.
Greater than she’d expected, in fact. She found herself starting to wonder about that, but Sanchez continued to speak.
“Your second question, of course, is much more difficult to answer. Do I have any idea who killed him? Oh, certainly—many ideas. But that is all they are, simply ideas. Do you wish me to expound upon them?”
She shook her head. “Not at the moment, no. Later, yes. In fact, that’s the reason I asked you here. Well, one of them. I want to ask you to help me try to find out who murdered Joe. You’re the only person I know in Venice who’d have any idea where to even start.”
Sanchez cut right past that. “Yes, certainly. And the other reason? Or reasons?”
She studied him again for a moment. Then, looked away and studied the Venetian sky beyond a window. “Me. You and me.” Impatiently, she flicked her hand. “I’m not saying this well. What I mean is, that I think we need to define our relationship. Finally.”
She smiled at the sky. “I really do not want to be fending you off while you and I play Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson—your Sherlock to my Watson, I’m quite sure. I wouldn’t mind so much—well, I would, but at least it wouldn’t be hard—if you did your groping with your hands instead of your brains. But, you don’t.”
Which was true. In all the many occasions they’d spent time together, Ruy had not laid a finger on her except for an occasional polite offer of a hand to help her out of a gondola or to cross a difficult patch of ground. He had been courtesy incarnate—while never ceasing his endless flirtation. At times when she’d not been immersed in her quiet melancholy, she’d found it quite amusing. Even, yes, quite flattering. Even, yes, sometimes—not often—quite attractive.
The first time she’d met the man she’d thought of him as Feelthy Sanchez. That image had faded away, as the weeks went by in his company. Ruy Sanchez had the sex drive of a goat, true enough, even at his advanced age. But there was nothing filthy about it. Lust, yes; leering, no. Just the honest if not particularly couth drive of a man with more than his share of testosterone.
And . . . so what? The same had been true of Hans Richter, after all, even if the outer shell had been as different as could be imagined. Hans, a sweet and shy young German boy; Ruy, a self-confident and swaggering old Catalan hidalgo. But Hans, too, had flooded her with that same raw desire. And if you wanted testosterone—Sharon issued a soft, sad little laugh—all you had to do was get in a motor vehicle with Hans at the wheel. Or—a stab a pain, here—fly with him in his beloved airplane. He’d sometimes driven Colonel Wood a little nuts. Sharon could remember one occasion when Jesse had ranted at him: Why don’t you try—just once, Hans!—thinking with your brain instead of your balls?