Chapter 2: October 24, 192X

The obvious thing would be to think that, when rushing down the slope, Joaquin Herrero would have dropped his lantern at some unspecified point on the Navia property. Perhaps, if the object was not sighted in the path´s vicinity on which it slipped, it would have rolled a few meters further down, until it crashed into some other pothole that prevented it from continuing its journey to the river.

But none of that happened.

With the help of half a dozen men—far less than necessary to accomplish this mission, it seemed to me—I toured not only this estate, but also those around it that Herrero might have passed moments before his death, all in vain.

We didn't find any lanterns. Not whole, not in pieces. And there was also no possibility the rain had washed it away and buried it in some quagmire, out of our reach. Well, as Freire had mentioned, that night only a few drops fell. Enough to keep the crops watered, but not to disturb the surface of the ground so much.

So, since it was already official that Ballejo's report stated Herrero found his death at some point between two and five in the morning of the twenty-second, the only possible conclusion was that a second person had accompanied him to the Riverbank. And that said unidentified individual was the one who carried a lantern to guide them both.

"Was there any indication that Herrero was accompanied on his walk?"

The lieutenant asked me this question without hiding his skepticism, something understandable, since stating that there could be a companion also meant pointing out that someone witnessed the event and chose not to report it.

"As well as finding clues... No," Before my superior could argue anything against my theory, I hastened to add. “But neither can we say for sure that Herrero was alone. Since the accident happened where it did, there are many people who pass through every day. And that's not to mention all the organized hustle when the body was found; any traces there might have been could easily have been erased.”

"What are you implying in such a case? That someone pushed him?"

"Could be… Although maybe not."

I corrected myself instantly, seeing my superior's disapproving expression. Logic said that it was impossible for a human to even enter these places at night without an instrument with which to illuminate the path, but the evidence indicated that Herrero did not carry such a thing with him.

If we went to the document that the doctor wrote later, after re-examining the body in more detail in his office, we came to the conclusion that there was no struggle of any kind in the moments before death. And that, in fact, all the injuries corresponded to an accidental fall.

The mystery in all this was evident. The lieutenant knew it as well as I did, since he was the first to point out the lack of a lantern in the vicinity. But he knew very well that I wouldn't press the issue any further than necessary, not when we already had a second opinion from the doctor and there was no clear reason why anyone would want to harm our victim.

"Herrero had no enemies that anyone knows," the lieutenant reviewed. “He worked as a boy for errands in the town hall of his region, but he was not affiliated with any political party. He also helped out on his parents' farm when needed. Money had the fair, coming from a humble family, so there could be no inheritance reasons involved.”

“So you would say what they have gained by killing him?”, I felt he wanted to say. And the truth is that I didn't see any feasible reason why they should eliminate a guy like Herrero, who wasn't unpleasant to anyone.

"What do you think happened?"

"A miserable accident, that's what I think. Although the lack of light continues to bother me, we can't completely rule out that you may have missed some corner to inspect” Without leaving me time to protest, he continued. “If you insist, we can unofficially assume your theory that there was someone else with Smith. Both may have ventured into the vineyards, intending to go somewhere. But that does not change the outcome of the investigations.”

Accidents like this happened often, perhaps not so fatally, but still it was not uncommon. That's what the lieutenant came to say.

And as for leaving these musings out of the report… Well, as plausible as the invisible witness sounded, it wasn't pleasant having to question friends and relatives of the deceased, when he hadn't even been buried yet, about a theory for which we had no evidence of its truth.

"According to neighbors and acquaintances of Herrero, he didn't mention anything to them about his visit to the Ribera," I pointed out, setting aside the other line of investigation for the moment. “What's more, they told me yesterday afternoon they saw him return home from work, like every day, and no one reported seeing him leave at dawn.”

'They won't have seen him do it, which isn't unusual. Who is aware of what person leaves his house when it's so late at night? Even if the dogs make some noise, alerted by the movement, it´s very likely the neighbors won´t give it importance, attributing the slight disturbance to the fact that they have sniffed out a boar that is walking in the area.”

“I haven't found anyone yet who claims he met Herrero at that time. Most, if not all, of the ones I spoke to were even surprised we ran into him in the vineyards.”

“Now, that's interesting. What is the distance between his village and the Navia farm? Six or seven kilometers? He had to have done them on foot, according to his relatives there was no horse missing from the stables in the morning.”

The Herreros didn't have their own car either (almost no one owned a vehicle in those mountains, to be honest) and, in any case, if they had used a steed to get around, someone would have noticed. Not only because of the sound that such an animal could make when jogging through the streets of town, but because in this area it was customary to have the stables on the ground floor of the houses. With which, any movement that occurred in them would be heard by the tenants of the upper floor.

Unless someone had picked up Herrero halfway, which was even more difficult to prove than the fact that someone had witnessed his demise, there was only one thing to do but assume that he had made it to the Ribera on his own.

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"But what could he have lost there at that hour?"

"I don't know, but it must have been urgent if it couldn't wait for dawn," Taboada concluded. “You have to have courage, or be very desperate, to enter those mountains at night and knowing there are wolves in the area.”

"A-are there?"

The lieutenant nodded and, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, pointed out:

"Why do you think people are in such a hurry to round up the cattle before nightfall? Those distant howls you hear at night aren't from some insomniac dog the neighbors keep.”

"I-I figured that, it's just that I didn't know that wolves attack people."

And it scared me just thinking about it, to be honest.

"They usually don´t, unless feeling threatened. Haven't you heard about what happened to Quintana five years ago?”

“No…”

“It's the same, forget that I mentioned it then. I haven't told you anything and you're already shaking! Sit back, breathe, and be thankful We're not in the age of making raids in the middle of the night, I can see how useful you´d be in such circumstances!”

Perhaps if he hadn't mentioned the wolves, my reaction wouldn't have been so exaggerated: As a child I had heard some terrible stories featuring these animals and the fact that wolves could be heard very close, from my relatives' house in those summers didn't help my growing paranoia either.

For now, I did as I was told and sat down. A couple of days had passed since the discovery of the body and, except for the first day when we searched the farms and spoke briefly with the farmers who first reported it, we did not make much progress in the investigation.

Yes, we had gone to talk to Herrero's family, to give them the news and ask a couple of routine questions. But little else. Nobody seemed to have anything useful to say and if to this was added the report that Dr. Ballejo wrote, in which he stated that the injuries corresponded to an accidental fall, there did not seem to be much more to scratch.

Now we were in our small barracks, each one at his desk, between various documents and chatting in a more informal than routine way about everything that had happened in the last few hours.

"Leaving the wolves aside and getting back to Herrero," the lieutenant went on, reminding me once again that what had happened to the deceased had nothing to do with any predator, “it's best we don't meddle anymore. At least until after the funeral.”

Perhaps that resolution was not very practical, from the point of view that evidence could be lost if one waited too long to act. But it also made sense in a way. A death like this didn't happen often, and if one suddenly started asking too many questions, it was almost certain that the inhabitants of those villages would become defensive and refuse to answer even the most irrelevant question, even if nothing had anything to do with the incident.

"The funeral will be tomorrow, right?"

"The plan was to do it today, but it turned out that the other night Herrero wasn't the only one who died.” Seeing that I was going to ask, he ventured to comment. “Didn't you hear the death knell early on the twenty-second?”

“Yes, I heard it, but I thought it was because of him…”

A reasonable mistake, because with the task of finding the lantern I was not so aware of the time. Much less did I realize that, by the time we were sent for in town, there had still been no chance of locating the priest. Now he knew, probably because the aforementioned would be in the house of the other deceased person, in another of the nearby villages and not in his usual rectory.

The bells rang, but I didn't associate them with the right person.

“Vilar's widow expired that morning, too. An unfortunate coincidence: That woman was over eighty years old and had been sick for weeks, we all knew that sooner or later she would pass. If Herrero's funeral has been delayed, it is only because the priest's work is piling up these days.”

I nodded absently, wondering if there really wasn't some connection between the two deaths and the feeling of unease I felt when we went looking for Herrero's body.

However, I quickly dismissed these thoughts, putting them down to absurd superstitions and a suggestion caused by the fear of seeing a dead man in such circumstances. No. One of those deaths had been an accident, the other the natural culmination of the life cycle. There was nothing more to ponder.

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