Mapuche (24 page)

The Grandmothers discussed the matter as they looked at the puzzle. About one fourth of the words had disappeared, but they could reconstitute an organizational chart of the military men and their accomplices who were involved in the couple's sequestration and the theft of the children, establish correspondences, and work their way back to the
desaparecidos
' families.

“Yes,” Susana said, her mind elsewhere. “Yes, we'll take care of that.”

“I've given a copy of the document to Carlos,” Rubén told them. “He will look into the connections between Campallo and high-ranking officials at the time who could have gotten him the babies. He will contact you.”

“Fine.”

The air was heavy in the
Abuelas
' office. Rubén looked at the black and white portrait on the wall, a young woman hardly twenty years old whom he had not known: why did she have such a sweet smile? Why, on seeing her, did he want to
love
her? Because of what they had done to her? Elena plumbed her son's feverish look, which was not due simply to his lack of nicotine.

“What will you do?” she asked him.

“I'll look for the bodies of the biological parents,” he said, coming out of his meditations. “If I find them, their DNA will prove their connection with María and Miguel, with or without the Campallo family's agreement. I also have to find a safe place for a witness, a friend of Miguel's at whose place he kept his tranny gear. She was with me at the laundress's when we discovered her body.”

“A witness? Where is she?”

“Locked up at my office.”

“That's not very prudent,” Susana observed. “By this time, the killers in Colonia might have found out who you are.”

“Precisely,” he warned them, “be on your guard: the name of the person who ordered the abductions and murders must be on the form.”

Rubén wasn't telling them everything, Elena felt, just as he had never talked about his months of incarceration at the ESMA, not even to Carlos (she had asked him about it one night when she was feeling bold), who was certainly his closest friend. What was keeping her son going could kill him—did he know that? When they released him, Elena had asked if he had heard anything about the fate of Elsa and Daniel: Rubén had replied in the negative. They had probably been sent to different clandestine camps. The problem was that he had repressed the subject rather than worry about it as she did. Everything that had to do with his detention was taboo. Torture had made him very resistant. She couldn't talk to him about women, children, and grandchildren, all the things a mother hopes for from her son. That didn't prevent her from knowing him right down to his fingertips.

“Don't worry about us, if that's what's bothering you,” she said, looking him in the face. “You're the one who's in danger, Rubén. You and your witness.”

Rubén knew the risks he was taking. When he came to office in 2003, Néstor Kirchner had abolished the amnesty laws, not hesitating to dismiss fifty-four generals and admirals, take down the portraits of the oppressors in the barracks, and transform the ESMA into a Memorial Center. But during the very first trials, a carpenter who had been tortured and was an essential witness for the prosecution had disappeared without a trace. Subsequently, other persons who were implicated in these crimes or who were prepared to testify died under suspicious circumstances—bullets in the head, cyanide poisoning—or simply vanished.

Thirty officers convicted of crimes committed under the dictatorship were thus freed because the period set by the statute of limitations had run out. In 2008, of eight hundred cases brought since the cancellation of the amnesty, only twelve had gone all the way to sentencing, with thirty-six convictions pending.

“They're eliminating everyone,” the president of the
Abue­las
had complained.

Christina Kirchner had been following her dead husband's policies, and the rate of indictments had increased since 2010 and the ESMA trial. Eight hundred new indictments and almost three hundred sentencings, and even if that represented hardly two accused per clandestine detention center, the former oppressors were being prosecuted and the number of suspicious deaths among the witnesses were legion, scandalous crimes whose perpetrators were never found. Although some judges and ministers seemed to be acting in good faith, the law of silence usually reigned among the investigators: there were suspicions about the networks of interests and protection that were said to have survived the collapse of the dictatorship, but nobody dared to utter the names of those who were trying to cover their tracks. The Grandmothers had demanded the dismissal of passive judges and the extension of preventive detentions, but the pressures were still enormous. Was the abduction of María Campallo connected with one of the cases currently being investigated?

Rubén had spent part of the night entering into his files the names and places that appeared on the internment form. He deposited one copy in a locker and another with Carlos, and left the puzzle with the Grandmothers. He did not understand how a paranoiac like Ossario could have procured such a document, but if he had had the original, it had disappeared along with him. Someone had involuntarily betrayed him: María Victoria. The kidnappers must have made her talk, and followed the trail back to Ossario, whom they were waiting for when he returned to Colonia. But María—who had betrayed her? The laundress, with whom María had been imprudent enough to leave a copy of the document? Was Rosa Michellini demented to the point of handing her own child over to the oppressors? In any case, the killers had had some lead time. A double kidnapping in the middle of Buenos Aires, the transvestite thrown into the harbor to make the murder look like a sex crime, Ossario's house put under surveillance, the attack, the almost simultaneous murder of Rosa and the abduction of her son—operations on that scale couldn't be improvised: logistics were involved, vehicles and weapons that couldn't be traced, a hideout where interrogations could be carried out, trained men, complicities, all advantages Rubén didn't have.

He spent an hour in a shop in Florida, long enough to pick up two cell phones with prepaid cards, and another hour organizing his retreat before he took off for San Telmo.

Anita Barragan was waiting for him in a store in Peru Street that specialized in art books, not far from the police station: no cop ever went in there.

At the back of the store, Oscar, the bookseller, had set up two wicker and leather chairs with worn armrests where people could read while drinking
maté
.
Anita wasn't a great reader but she liked the peace and quiet of the place, looking at the customers and drinking the bitter beverage that was served there, as much as you wanted. More nervous than usual, she glanced at her watch—something she'd got in some promotional deal; she didn't care about watches or jewelry in general. Thanks to Rubén, she had found two corpses in less than twenty-four hours; the guys in charge of the crime unit limited her to a token role, but she was determined to show them that they were wrong, all down the line.

Rubén arrived on time for their rendezvous, which had been set a little earlier, greeted the shop owner, who had a salt-and-pepper mustache, and spotted the blonde sitting in the reading area. Anita was wearing her policewoman's uniform, her hair let down from her regulation bun, hiding as much of the down covering her cheeks as possible—an
eau de
bearded woman according to her complex no. 12.

“You don't look so good, you heartbreaker,” she observed.

Her black cotton jacket with seams overstitched in blue was in harmony with her eyes; the rest seemed very tense.

“I must be getting old,” he conceded, collapsing in the chair put there for that purpose.

“Impossible,” his childhood friend said. “You're immortal, like David Bowie.”

Rubén shook his head: he was brown-haired, a dyed-in-the-wool Porteño, trained for combat, and he spoke English with a Mexican coyote accent. Then she saw the red line that ran across his neck, repressed a shiver—those guys in Colonia, no doubt.

“Nice collar,” she commented. “Is it decorative?”

“Yeah, I brought it back from Uruguay. There were also things made of seashells, but you would have found those a little too gay.” Rubén glanced over the rows of books and saw the last customers chatting with Oscar at the cash register. “Do you have any news?”

“Yes. Ossario's house burned down after you were there yesterday. A body was found in the ruins, that of a man who seemed to correspond to the description of the renter. I don't have any further information for the moment, neither suspects nor possible witnesses.”

“There was one, however,” Rubén objected. “Díaz, the neighbor I questioned before the attack. I tried to fool him but he knew that I'm an Argentine: Immigration would have no trouble finding me on the passenger list.”

“I can call a couple of colleagues to get some tips. But if I were you, I'd try to disappear for a while. I'd tell you to come to my place,” the blonde added, “but I have only one bed.”

“I'll figure something out,
querida
,” he said, replying to her oblique smile.

Rubén had called her the preceding evening as he left the laundry. Anita had had to make up a story about clothes she had to drop off at the dry cleaners on her way to work, and a metal shutter that was pulled down earlier than usual that led her to worry about the old invalid's state of health and to find the scene of the crime—which was moreover not very palatable.

“The murder in Peru Street—what happened with that?” Rubén asked.

“It's not the discovery of the corpse that's the problem,” Anita replied, “but who will conduct the investigation.”

“Did Ledesma take you off the case?”

“I fiddled my report, but the Old Man needs to restore his image: he's the one heading up the investigation. I'm still involved, as an auxiliary, as usual. For the moment, we're trying to contact her son Miguel: that's to say that they are not about to find the murderer,” she added with acid irony.

Anita inhaled her
maté
while he mulled things over. The “Old Man” Ledesma wasn't the worst of cops, but Rubén couldn't have them on his back.

“Has María Victoria's body been identified?”

“Yes,” Anita replied. “Her father came last night to identify the corpse. It's not yet officially a murder, but an investigation has been started. The forensic team is handling it, of course.”

“Luque?”

“Roncero,” she said. “Same difference.”

The head of the police force's elite homicide squad.

“You saw María's body on the beach,” Rubén said. “Was there anything indicating that she been physically abused?”

“The top of her skull had been taken off, what would you call that?”

“Any clear signs of torture?”

“I didn't see anything like that. Hard to tell, given her condition.” Anita shuddered as she recalled the sight of the corpse washed up among the shellfish and whelks. “We'll know more after the autopsy. Muñoz is doing it.”

The head physician at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, a bootlicker who followed Luque's orders. They were going in circles.

“You're well-informed for a patrol officer,” Rubén complimented her. “Who's your source?”

“Guillermo, the intern at the morgue. He's a pal of mine.”

Anita smiled, pleased with herself.

“Well done, Barbarella.”

“I couldn't say the same about your visit to Colonia,” she said, slightly annoyed. “The Uruguayan police will soon be on your case, and the Buenos Aires police will love grilling you about it. Luque will kill the first person who trespasses on his territory and Ledesma has politely asked me to do my nails while he carries out the Peru Street investigation. How do you plan to get out of this? Feet first?”

“That's not a very nice thing to say to me.”

“I'm kidding. The only solution is to go tell the Old Man everything.”

“And put myself under police protection?” he said, cynically. “No, we need proof. When is María's funeral?”

“Tomorrow evening.”

“Already?”

“You haven't seen the body,” Anita said, looking distressed. “And then Campallo must be eager to bury his daughter before the press gets hold of the tragedy.”

There was a muffled silence at the back of the bookstore. The last customers having left, Oscar was counting out his cashbox. Sunk in the old chair, Rubén was thinking hard.

“I have to see María Victoria's body,” he finally said.

“Impossible,” Anita replied. “The forensic team comes in right after the autopsy to prepare the remains.”

“I also need a copy of Muñoz's autopsy: X-rays, requests for analyses, photos of the body, anything you can find.”

“Huh?”

“Work it out with your intern friend,
querida
.”

Anita would have liked to hear a touch of jealousy in his voice, but Rubén was smiling just as he had on the day he'd bought her a strawberry ice cream.

 

*

 

For hours, Jana had been waiting impatiently in her ivory tower, ruminating on the same fears. She had surfed the net, but the press was not talking about corpses, Miguel's abduction, or the murder of the laundress. Was it too early? The Mapuche paced like a wild animal in its cage. Impossible to read, to find a television set, to concentrate on anything at all. She had listened to music, thinking that would calm her down: Godspeed You, Barn Owl, Marc Sens—Rubén's CD collection was full of instrumental music ranging from the tragic to the sinister, by way of light and electronic destructured. Did it reflect his soul? They had hardly seen each other this morning: she had awakened just as he was leaving, obviously not having slept that night, and asking her to stay there, securely locked in, until he came back. The sun was going down over the rooftops of Peru Street when Jana heard the clicking of keys in the lock.