CHAPTER 30
The climb took longer than Amy had expected but wasn’t nearly as terrifying. Several yards from their starting point, the natural ledge actually widened under their feet and the feeling of imminent disaster faded into an excruciatingly slow but careful crab walk as the two women felt for a foothold with every step. Fanny was doing well, Amy marveled to herself. Her mother wasn’t being impatient or reckless, two of her more distinctive traits. She was taking her time. And while a fall from this height probably wouldn’t kill either of them, it would definitely be unpleasant.
They were only a few steps away from the crevice, the black hole they’d pinpointed from the ground, thirty or so feet up, the spot where, according to the app on Fanny’s phone, the VITA Pro Action was waiting for them, as improbable as that seemed.
Two more steps and Fanny grabbed the lip of the crevice.
“Good job,” Amy muttered into the rock face. She took a second to smile in her mother’s direction but had to look away. “Augh.” The mirrorlike Batman insignia on the Peruvian wool cap was catching the sunlight and causing her to see spots.
The hole in the rock face was maybe six feet in diameter, wide enough and deep enough to accommodate them both. Fanny was just about to pull herself off the ledge and into the blackness when something in the cave erupted.
Fanny screamed but held on. Her grip was loosening, and she had no choice but to pull herself into the now empty hole. Amy screamed, too, and teetered on a loose spot of gravel on the ledge, her fingers trying to grasp the stone.
The eruption had been a huge gray swirl of movement and air, like a ghost, flying out of the darkness of the crevice and spreading its wings. Amy steadied herself first, then turned her head and watched as the Andean condor sailed down, flapping its long, jagged wings and catching just enough wind to lift it into the cloudless blue.
“Mom? Are you okay? Mom?” Amy took a half dozen quick baby steps, grabbed the lip, and followed her mother into the mouth of the cave. It took her eyes a moment to adjust.
“I think we disturbed its nest,” Fanny’s voice announced calmly from the shadows. “See?” She was pointing.
Amy had never seen a condor’s nest before. It was larger than she’d imagined, not that she’d ever imagined a condor’s nest. It sat less than two feet back into the chamber; was about the same size and shape as a truck tire; and was constructed of twigs, bits of brownish moss, and a few little strings of bright red fabric. Fanny was staring down into it. Reaching down into it.
“Don’t touch the eggs,” Amy shouted.
“There are no eggs,” Fanny shouted back. Then she straightened up and displayed the stringy remains of a frayed red strap, with a small black camera hanging from the end. “But there is this.”
Amy laughed. “A condor stole your camera?” She felt almost giddy. They were no longer balancing on a ledge, no longer facing a wild, meat-eating bird, and suddenly, amazingly, in possession of their goal. “It must have liked the strap.”
“I can’t believe this actually worked,” Fanny said. Then she took the camera to the lip of the cave, where a patch of sun gave her enough light to see the buttons. Neither one said a word as the little machine whirred to life. There seemed to be enough juice left to power up the rectangular display on the rear. Fanny pressed a few buttons, reversing and fast-forwarding. Reversing and fast-forwarding, with a few grunts along the way. “Ooh, remember our tour of La Boca? That was fun.”
“It was after that.”
“Of course it was. Give me a minute.” A few more fast-forwards and reverses. And then . . . “I got her,” Fanny said. She pressed PAUSE and held out the display.
Amy tried to look at the frozen image but was once again blinded by the Batman mirror on Fanny’s forehead. “Jeez, Mom, can you please take that off?”
“Take what off? Oh! I think we have more important things to do than discuss fashion.”
Amy moved the camera out of the direct sunlight to check for herself. “It’s her,” she confirmed, taking off her glasses and squinting. “I think so.”
She had met the real, living Lola Pisano only once, in a dim tango hall in Buenos Aires. But the face—bloody, perhaps from a fall or a wound, damaged by a few condor pecks—matched the face in her memory, mole and all. And it perfectly matched that of the much more damaged, bloated corpse they’d found in the Rio Serrano.
“Yes, definitely her.”
“Then we got him,” Fanny crowed as she took back the camera and kissed it on the lens. “Our charmingly smug cold-blooded killer. All we have to do is find our way back to the ranch, behave like nothing happened, take the next whatever to Santiago or wherever the real police are, and show them.” Fanny’s celebration was interrupted by a flapping shadow, the sound of beating wings, and a guttural hiss echoing off the rock. “But first we should get out of here.” Just for good measure, she walked back into the sunlight and started waving her arms. “Shoo!”
Amy joined her mother at the mouth of the shallow cave. Off in the distance, but not far enough off for their comfort, were two condors now, circling on the thermals in a tight little pattern. They had retreated from their approach but were starting to circle closer. “I think they want their cave back.”
“That’s reasonable,” Fanny agreed. “Want me to go first? It should be easier going down.” She wound what was left of the red strap tightly around her wrist, letting the camera dangle and keeping her hands free, and took a first tentative step out to the ledge.
“Mom, wait.” Amy put a hand on her mother’s shoulder and pulled her back. Out on the Patagonian plain, below and beyond the condors, they could see a moving column of dust. It was approaching on the same dirt trail that they themselves had just used. “You think it’s Jorge?”
Reverberating up from the stubbled plain came the soft but distinctive sound of a truck engine. Fanny shrugged. “Well, he was bound to notice we were gone. Should we hurry down and drive off?”
Amy shook her head. “He’s going to see our dust, like we’re seeing his. It’ll look like we’re running away.”
“We don’t even know he’s coming this way.”
“My guess is he followed our tracks.”
“Maybe it’s not him.”
“Really? Who else?”
The Abels went back and forth like this, arguing the pros and cons of going down or staying or meeting Jorge halfway, waiting for him on the ledge or waiting for him by the truck, until it just didn’t matter anymore. The dust column was coming straight for them, growing into a Land Rover like their own. Amy pulled her mother back into the crevice, and they watched as it slowed and stopped, parking maybe a dozen yards away from their abandoned vehicle.
Jorge emerged from the passenger side, and a few seconds later, Oscar, the gaucho, emerged from the driver’s. The men approached the other Land Rover, one on each side, and looked through the tinted windows, talking back and forth.
“We should let them know we’re here,” Amy whispered.
“Why?” Fanny whispered back.
“Because . . .” Amy sighed. “Because I left the keys in the ignition.”
“You did what? Well, that was irresponsible. What if they take it?”
“You know, that possibility didn’t really occur to me.”
“Mrs. Abel?” a voice echoed up. Jorge O’Bannion was turning in a circle, hands cupped to his mouth. “Fanny? Amy? Where are you?” He turned toward the cliff, his eyes drawn to the top directly above him and not fifty yards farther along and halfway up the rock face. “Fanny? Amy?” They stood perfectly still, becoming just another pair of irregularly shaped shadows in one of the multiple weatherworn openings. “Where are you?”
“We should answer,” Amy hissed into her mother’s ear.
“What do we say?”
“Well, we don’t tell him about the camera in the condor’s nest.”
“But what do we tell him?” Fanny asked. “That we took up rock climbing?”
“It’s better than saying nothing and getting abandoned.”
“I suppose.” Fanny stepped six inches forward into the sunlight, staring at Jorge and mulling over their options. The choice didn’t remain theirs for long. The aristocratic man in his jeans and sheepskin jacket noticed something on the ground under his feet, a moving bright spot shaped roughly like a rectangle. He bent at the waist for a closer look, then reached down, as if to touch it. When he straightened, he was already facing in their direction, a hand shielding his eyes. Jorge O’Bannion was staring directly at them.
Amy was the first to realize. “Mom, it’s your hat!”
“Don’t start in about my hat.”
“No, the reflection.”
It took Fanny a moment to see that the mirrored Batman logo on her Peruvian wool cap had acted as an unintended bat signal. She snatched it off her head and threw it into the condor’s nest.
“Fanny?” Jorge O’Bannion was walking toward them now, squinting up at the cliff face. “What in the world are you doing there?”
Amy’s gut reaction was to retreat as far as the shallow cave would let her, but it was too late. “We came up here for the view,” she said, improvising.
“The view of what?” Jorge asked, glancing back at the flat expanse of scrub. The man had a point.
“We got lost,” Amy said. “We were hoping we could get a view of the estancia.”
“The estancia? It’s too far. And you could hurt yourself climbing like this.” There was concern in his words but not in his tone. His tone was full of suspicion. “Well, now you are found. Lucky for you, Oscar is a professional tracker.”
“Yes, very lucky,” said Amy. “We can get down by ourselves. Don’t worry.”
“Good. Oscar will drive you to Puerto Natales. But you have to come now. Enough is enough.”
“We need to talk to you first,” Fanny said.
“Talk?” Jorge threw his hands in the air. “No. No, I am very busy. And this foolhardy excursion has made my schedule worse. Oscar will help you down and drive you. Meanwhile, I’m leaving. I have been more than patient.”
“All the same, we need to talk,” Fanny insisted.
“We do not need to talk.” O’Bannion was near enough to speak in an almost normal voice, but he was shouting. “We are through with talking, Senora Abel. You crazy women stole my property and worried me and wasted hours of my morning. I never want to talk to either of you again. Is that clear? Good-bye.” He was about to retreat to the spot where Oscar stood now, arms crossed, between the two trucks.
“We know you killed Lola Pisano,” Fanny shouted back.
“Mother?” The word came out as an elongated moan. “What the hell?”
O’Bannion stiffened. Then he returned to the foot of the cliff, three stories below. “What do you know, Senora Abel?”
Fanny smiled a thin, nasty smile and squared her shoulders. “We know you dumped her in the river and she floated downstream. We know you hired some woman to impersonate her.”
“Interesting.” Jorge choked out a laugh. “And how do you know this?”
“We figured it out,” Fanny answered, “after that night in Valparaiso. We saw you and the woman together. Did you hire her for your masquerade? Or is she your lady friend? Your coconspirator? Not that it matters.”
“Is that it?” O’Bannion looked relieved. “Seeing her? So you are just guessing.”
“It’s more than guessing,” Fanny said. “When we tell the police what we know, they’ll talk to your Valparaiso friends and they’ll track her down. I think she’ll confess.”
O’Bannion laughed. “I doubt that very much.”
“What do you doubt? That they can track her down or that she’ll confess?”
Amy had been struck dumb by her mother’s reckless antagonism. Her one consolation was that Fanny wasn’t stupid. Impetuous and willful, but not stupid. Annoying and unfocused, but not stupid. Amy kept her mouth shut and tried to think it through. What was the point of all this? What could possibly be the point? And why was her mother standing stiffly like that and off centered, with her weight on her left side?
Quickly enough, Amy saw it—the VITA Pro Action, balanced in the crook of Fanny’s left arm, its lens pointed out and downward. A flash of red pulsated against her jacket. Impetuous and willful, but not stupid at all.
“You can tell us,” Fanny continued. “It might be cathartic. And we don’t have to worry about Oscar hearing.”
O’Bannion glanced in Oscar’s direction, curled his lip, then turned back up to face the Abels. “It was an accident.”
“You killed her accidentally?” Amy had joined in.
“Yes, accidentally. I’m not a murderer, despite your opinion of me.”
“What?” Fanny adjusted her arm. “My hearing isn’t what it used to be. Can you speak up?”
Surprisingly enough, O’Bannion complied. “When Lola paid her visit, she was upset.” His voice was loud and clear. “The money. The problems. But I could talk her into things. Given time, she would see how important it was. With a little more faith, the business would be a success. My father’s dream. My legacy. All I needed was time. But she was stubborn. When she tried to walk out . . .” He cricked his neck uncomfortably. “I had no choice but to stop her.”
It took all of Amy’s self-control not to glance at the camera. “I understand.”
Fanny also seemed to understand. “It must feel good to get that off your chest,” she said.
“To be honest, no,” said O’Bannion. “But it makes no difference, does it? Since no one will ever hear me say that again.” And with that, he began walking back toward the vehicles. “Oscar?” he shouted, then followed up with a sharp sentence or two in Spanish.
Fanny stepped out of his line of vision and switched off the camera. Amy joined her. “Pretty smart of your old mother, huh? Even if the video is a little jerky, the audio alone . . .”
“Very smart,” Amy agreed, although she didn’t quite feel like celebrating. There had been something about Jorge O’Bannion’s tone just now. “We should get off this cliff.”
“Agreed,” said Fanny. This time she secured the camera inside her nylon Windbreaker, where it would be camouflaged by her natural contours, and zipped up tight.
When they next looked down to ground level, one of the Land Rovers, the one driven by Oscar, was on the move. It made a tight little circle and began to pick up speed, retracing its path back toward civilization. Jorge O’Bannion stood there, watching it go. When the vehicle was kicking up dust a good kilometer away, he pivoted back to the cliff, gave a soldier’s salute to the two women, got into the second Land Rover, and made a similar tight little circle.
Then he drove off.