“What Humberto did—actually, what I did for him—was convert one wing into a place where Beatriz could be cared for in comfort. I had the garden walled in, and converted the rooms above her apartment into living quarters suitable for the Little Sisters who would care for her around the clock.”
“You arranged for the nuns?” Frade asked.
Welner nodded.
“The Mother Superior came to understand that the greatest good for the greatest number would come from the generous contribution that would be made by Humberto as an expression of his appreciation for the Little Sisters’ care of Beatriz. They could use the money to treat the less fortunate.”
“How could they have been sure Beatriz would stay there?” Frade asked.
“Well, they were prepared to watch her twenty-four hours a day. Suicide was a potential problem. Thank God that’s passed. And as I said, the garden was walled in. There are locks.”
“How much is it going to cost me to put Frau Frogger in there?”
“Wouldn’t, using your terminology, ‘putting Frau Frogger in there’ be the decision of her family?”
“No,” Frade said simply.
“We are in Major Frade’s hands, Father,” Oberstleutnant Frogger said.
“I can’t be a party to taking her there as a prisoner,” the priest said.
“If you can arrange for the nuns to take my wife, Father,” Herr Frogger said, “you will be saving her life, mentally and physically.”
And Frade had a sudden insight: Welner wouldn’t have brought this up unless he knew it was the best solution possible. But he now has convinced Frogger, father and son, to think it’s their idea.
Goddamn, he’s clever!
“Then the problem becomes: How do we get her there?” Welner said.
Frade walked to the wall-mounted telephone intending to call Gonzalo Delgano, but then changed his mind.
He walked instead to the door.
“Enrico, I need a half-dozen reliable men to go to Mendoza with me right now. Don’t tell them where we are going, only that they’ll be there several weeks at least.”
“We are taking the German woman to Casa Montagna, Don Cletus?”
Enrico knows about Casa Montagna?
“That’s right.”
“You are going to fly?”
“Just as soon as I can get the Lodestar in the air.”
“And who will help you fly?”
“Doña Dorotea.”
“What will Delgano say?”
“I think he will be distressed that I allowed Doña Dorotea to fly the airplane from here to Jorge Frade, when it appears there first thing tomorrow morning. It’s about six hundred miles to Mendoza.”
“He will be even more distressed if you kill yourself and everybody else before tomorrow morning, Don Cletus. Call Major Delgano. Either have him come here or, if time is so important, go to Buenos Aires.”
“Then he would learn what I’m doing.”
“He would learn anyway, Don Cletus. Don Cletus, you would insult him if you did this without him. He is now one of us.”