I nodded, nonchalant, and kept walking.
His perception of me seemed to have changed. He was more relaxed, friendlier. Apparently, I’d been accepted into the male clan after drinking and visiting prostitutes without any objections. How different expectations for men were. If a woman had spent the night outside her home, in a hotel such as this one, she would’ve been shunned by society. But a man received praise and approval from his peers.
He shoved his hands inside his pockets. “And here I thought you were, you know . . .”
“I was, what?”
He was silent for a moment. But I knew what he meant. This was the second person who thought I was an effeminate man, one who indulges in forbidden pleasures with other men.
I frowned.
“Never mind,” he said. “Are you ready to go back to the hacienda?”
“You go on without me, Don Martin. I need to go to the bank to exchange some money.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I crossed the street and followed the receptionist’s instructions to the bank, which was five blocks away.
It was odd how as a woman, I’d always been considered slightly masculine. My mother never understood why I wasn’t like other girls my age and she was cross at me for months after Cristóbal and I opened the chocolate shop. She always said women belonged in their homes, not in the workplace, and why couldn’t I just be a little more feminine?
But now, disguised as a man, all my femininity—so eclipsed in my normal life—seemed to come through.
I asked to see the manager and a balding man with sweaty palms and enormous spectacles came to greet me. After I mentioned I had a delicate matter to discuss with him, he hesitantly led me to his office. He was the nervous kind, the type of person who doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. One moment he was rolling a fountain pen on his desk and the next he was shuffling papers from one pile to another.
I introduced myself as Don Armand Lafont’s son-in-law. The news in Vinces traveled more quickly than I thought as he’d already heard about me. He stuttered his condolences on my wife’s passing.
“How c-c-can I help you, Se?or Balboa?” Through the glasses, his eyes looked monumental.
“I trust this conversation will remain private, Se?or Aguirre?” I said. It was remarkable how I was learning to control the low register of my voice.
“Of c-c-course.”
How on earth had this nervous little man climbed to such an important position in the company?
I removed the check from my pocket and placed it on the surface of the desk. For a moment, I hesitated. What if this man was friends with whoever had tried to kill me?
He looked at the check.
“Mr. Aguirre, I found this check among my wife’s belongings. I know it’s postdated to May and I don’t intend to cash it, but I’d like to know whose signature this is.”
Aguirre removed a magnifying glass from his top drawer and examined the penmanship for a moment.
“Mr. Balboa, this is Mr. Lafont’s signature.”
“Mr. Lafont? As in Armand Lafont?”
“The very same one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sir, I would r-r-recognize his signature anywhere. He was one of our most important clients for over t-t-t-twenty years.”
This made no sense. “Is there anyone else who can sign on this account?”
“I believe Don Martin Sabater has a power of attorney given to him by Mr. Lafont for when he could no longer make business decisions, but Mr. Sabater can sign with his own name.”
So, he wouldn’t need to sign under my father’s name. Unless he didn’t want anyone else to know he was the one signing. But this didn’t make him any more suspicious than my sisters. The only thing this proved was that someone had either forged the signature or that my father himself had signed a blank check and this person had stolen it. In either case, someone else was behind all of this because it made no sense that my father would send someone to kill me after making me his heir.
Frustrated, I thanked Mr. Aguirre and left. So, my murderer was a skilled swindler or a good thief—that was all I’d gotten from this meeting. What now? Was I going to hold calligraphy tests on all my suspects to know who had the ability to forge my father’s signature?
CHAPTER 13
I found a ride home on a carriage pulled by a donkey. His owner, a humble old man with scarce teeth and a straw hat, nodded repeatedly as I placed a handful of coins in his hand, flashing his gums without a hint of self-consciousness. Neither one of my sisters asked where I’d spent the night—one of the perks of being a man, I supposed.