Who was Manolo Conde and what rumors about his death have been floating around the community for years?

Monolo Conde was a wealthy landowner who lived and worked in Montiel Sosa, Mexico. The narrator tells the reader in Chapter II that part of the community's poor treatment of the Witch, and subsequently of her daughter, the Girl, involved their collective belief that the Witch had killed her partner, Monolo Conde, in order to get her hands on his land and money.