Perfect Hatred (8 page)

Jessica Cataldo’s kitchen was a homey space, filled with the comforting smells of spices and coffee, bathed in bright sunlight shining through chintz curtains—and furnished with a table she could use to distance herself from unwelcome visitors. She sat on one side and motioned Silva to a seat on the other. A coffee service, already in place, served as an additional barrier between them.

“Sugar?” she said. “Sweetener?”
“Just black, thanks,” he said.
Her hand trembled when she poured. The cup rattled in

the saucer.
“I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time by coming here,” she
said. “I’ve already told your colleagues everything I know.” Her reproachful look put him in mind of a puppy someone
had kicked.
“They’re not my colleagues, Senhora Cataldo. They work
for the State of Paraná. I work for the federal government.” She shrugged, as if to say she made no distinction. After a moment of silence, he went on. “Where did your
husband get the pistol? There’s no record of him owning a
firearm.”
“He never did, and he never would. Julio hated guns. He
supported the legislation to ban them. Where he got that one
from is a mystery to me.”
“Where were you when you heard the news?”
Without taking her eyes off him, she gestured toward the
counter in front of the window. “There, at the sink, washing dishes. The children were in the living room, watching cartoons. They interrupted the program to show Julio being
shot. The children saw it and began to scream.”
“My God!” Silva said. “That’s horrible.”
“I ran into the living room,” she said. “I don’t know how
many times the children saw his neck gushing blood before
I got there. They were playing the scene over and over in
rapid succession. They said, later, that some of the material
was too violent to show on television. But that, apparently, just applied to Plínio. They didn’t seem to have any
compunction at all about showing what happened to my
husband.”
Silva visualized the scene. It turned his stomach. “Where are your children now?” he asked.
“With my sister in Florianopolis.”
“Has she sought counseling for them?”
“They’re seeing a psychologist.”
“A psychologist will help, but what they need most is their
mother.”
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be, but the police won’t let
me leave Curitiba, and I couldn’t keep them here. The other
children at school, the people on the street, the telephone
calls. . . .” She threw up her hands.
Silva took out his notepad. “Give me the contact information for your sister in Florianopolis.”
She did, spelling out the street address, looking at his hand
as he wrote.
“You can leave as soon as we’re finished,” Silva said.
“Should further questions arise, I’ll contact you there.” She leaned forward. Silva thought she was going to grasp
his hand, but she grasped the coffee pot instead. Her nails, he
noticed, were bitten to the quick.
“Thank you,” she said. “Are you a father yourself?” “I was, Senhora. My son died of leukemia a number of
years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
She hadn’t been expecting either sympathy, or confidences, from a policeman. It seemed to shake her equilibrium
even more than it had been shaken already. She bit her lip
and said, “More coffee?”
He shook his head.
She leaned back, not taking coffee for herself either. “It’s my understanding,” Silva said, “that your husband was
a supporter of Senhor Saldana’s.”
“You see? That’s another thing that doesn’t make any sense.
Julio used to call Plínio the
only honest politician in the State
. An
exaggeration, I know, but that’s what he used to say.” As she warmed to him, the tendons in her neck, steel wires
under her pale skin, began to relax. Silva took his time phrasing the next question.
“Did he know Plínio personally?”
She nodded. “He did. Not well, but he’d met him.” “Did Julio often support political candidates?”
“No, but he was a great one for causes. I mentioned the
abolition of firearms. He also fought for the preservation of
the rainforest, recycling, the rights of our native peoples,
transparency in government, saving the whales, all sorts of
things.”
“Some people,” Silva suggested, “turn to violence in
defense of their beliefs.”
She shook her head. “Not him. Never him. Ask anyone
who knew him. I know you’re going to find this hard to
believe after what he’s done, but he was a peaceful man.
Before this, I never saw him raise a hand against anyone.” “It’s also my understanding you were in need of money. I
don’t mean to pry, but I have to ask.”
“We
were
in need of money. I still am. Julio had life insurance, but the insurance company has no intention of paying me anything. They’re making a case it was suicide. They
don’t pay out in cases of suicide.”
“Suicide?”
“That’s what they’re calling it. They’re saying that Julio
couldn’t have possibly believed he’d be able to commit murder in the presence of an armed bodyguard and come out of
it alive, that his intention was to die in the attempt. I can’t
fight it. I don’t have any money in the bank, and no lawyer
will take the case without money up front.”
Silva had once intended to be a lawyer, but being a cop
had brought about a shift in his values. These days, with
a few noteworthy exceptions, he couldn’t stomach people
who’d chosen the legal profession. His expression showed it. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “how did you get
into difficulty in the first place?”
She shook her head. “I don’t mind,” she said. “In fact, I’m
glad you asked.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Why?”
“Because I’m trying to explain to you what Julio was all
about, and there’s no better illustration of the kind of man
he was.”
“Go on.”
“He quit his job almost a year ago because he disagreed
with the way his company was cheating the government out
of taxes. Can you imagine? At least half of the companies
in this country cheat the government out of taxes, but my
husband, the crusader, thought it was wrong. So he resigned
because of it. He even blew the whistle to the authorities.” Silva shook his head at the naïveté of the man. He was
quite sure he knew the answer to his next question, but he
asked it anyway.
“What happened then?”
“The company paid off the tax officials, and a judge, and
that was the end of it. For the company, that is, not for us.
Julio made no secret of what he’d done. After that, what kind
of a chance do you think he had of getting a new job?” “Not a good one.”
“How about none at all? We went through all of our savings, we took another mortgage on the house, and I even
borrowed money from my parents. But you know what?” “What?”
“Right up until the last, Julio remained convinced he’d
done the right thing. He kept saying he’d only want to work
for a company that would respect what he did.”
She snorted.
“I sense,” Silva said, “that you found his attitude . . . how
shall I put this . . . excessively idealistic.”
“That, Chief Inspector, is an understatement. We had . . .
words about it. I told him to think of his children.” “And he said?”
“That he
was
thinking of his children. That he wanted
them to inherit a better Brazil. And to get there, we’d have
to make sacrifices, we’d have to put egotism aside and work
for the common good.”
Silva was beginning to form the image of a prissy, betterthan-thou do-gooder. He didn’t think he would have liked
Julio Cataldo. But his wife was right about one thing: her late
husband didn’t fit the profile of a killer.
“Can you see a man like that picking up a gun and shooting someone?” she said, echoing his thought. “Particularly
someone he respected and wanted to see elected?” Silva rubbed his chin. “No,” he said, “I can’t. And yet it’s
incontestable that he did.”
“Yes,” she said. “It is. But
why
? That’s what I want to know.” Jessica looked, for a moment, as if she was about to
burst into tears. But then she took a deep breath—and the
moment passed.
“During those last days of his life,” Silva said, “how was
his state of mind?”
She took a pensive sip of her coffee. “That’s another curious thing,” she said, after replacing the cup in its saucer. “For
about a month he’d been brooding, having dark thoughts,
sometimes sleeping too much, other times not at all. Then,
a week or so before the mortgage payment was due, he came
home radiant. He’d been out all day, looking for work, and
I thought he’d found a job, that’s how happy he was. But he
said no. It was just that he’d dropped by Plínio’s campaign
headquarters on the way home. And he’d been able to talk
to the candidate himself.”
“And that, in itself, caused him to become . . . radiant.” “It did.”
“And you?”
“I told him he should be worrying less about elections and
more about feeding his family. He said he never ceased to
think about feeding his family, and I should show more faith.
He quoted the twenty-third Psalm.”
“‘
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
?’ That one?” “Yes, that one. I told him I’d love to believe it, but that
the Lord hadn’t done much for us recently. Then he said
something strange.”
“What did he say, Senhora?”
“He said, ‘Just wait.’”
Silva raised an eyebrow. “
Just wait
?”
“That was it. Just wait. It was all I could get out of him.
And then, at breakfast, on the day he died, he said something
even more enigmatic.”
“Which was?”
“He reached across the table, took my hand and said,
‘Jessica, this is going to be a tough day, but don’t let it shake
your faith.’”
“What did he mean by
a tough day
?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you ask him?”
“Of course I did. He wouldn’t say.”
“How long was this after his visit to Plínio’s campaign
headquarters?”
“About a week. I remember because the mortgage was due
the next day.”
“So he made this reference to a tough day. And what happened next?”
“He went out, shot Plínio Saldana and got himself killed.”

“I was the youngest professor they had,” Mariano explained, “twelve years older than the men, only nine years older than Stella.”

Arnaldo was surprised. “Stella was the oldest?” Mariano smiled. “She doesn’t look it, does she?” Arnaldo shrugged. “I couldn’t say. I never met the lady

myself, only seen her in photographs.”
“Well, take my word for it, she doesn’t.” Mariano leaned
back in his chair, getting comfortable. “Plínio, now, he was the
opposite. He always looked older. I think it had something to do
with his demeanor. A serious guy, he was, even back then. Not
Stella. It was rare to see her without a smile. She used to light up
my classroom every time she came in.” He smiled a rueful smile.
“I wasn’t married then, and I had a crush on her. But we’ve got
strict policies here. We’re not allowed to date our students.” Arnaldo smiled back. “Odds are, you would have had a
better chance than he did.”
Mariano shook his head. “Not likely.”
“No? Being their professor and all? Besides, three years can
seem like another generation when a woman is that young.” “True. But it never seemed to make a difference to Stella.
She was crazy about him.”
“Different graduating classes?”
Again, Mariano shook his head. “Stella came late to law
school. First, she tried nursing.”
A wind jostled the leaves outside the window. Shadows
danced across the professor’s desk. He frowned, as if he found
it distracting, and stood to adjust the blinds.
“The key to understanding them,” he said, resuming his
seat, “is to get a grip on what made them tick. They cared
about people. They wanted to
make a difference
. They used
that phrase all the time.
Make a difference.
”
“As
lawyers
? They wanted to
make a differe
nce as lawyers?
No offense, but. . .”
Mariano raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Arnaldo backpedalled. “Wouldn’t Stella have had a better
shot at helping people if she’d remained a nurse?” “If she’d been suited for it, I daresay she would have. But
human suffering was something she couldn’t deal with on a
one-on-one basis. She hated seeing people in pain. She hated
seeing people die.”
“From nursing to law is still one hell of a jump. It’s not . . .
uh . . . a profession I associate with altruism. Would it be fair
to say most of your students are in it for the money?” “Yes. But those three were different. They concluded,
early on, that the host of problems this country faces could
be distilled into three major areas of concern.” The professor
counted them off on his fingers: “Public health, public education, and public safety.”
“And they thought the best way to tackle those problems
was through the law?”
“They did. And if money came into their calculations at
all, which I really don’t think it did, there would have been
only one reason for it: a conviction they could use money to
do good.”
“So it’s not a fairy tale. Kids like that actually exist in law
schools?”
Mariano took the question seriously. “They’re not as rare as you might think. But kids as talented and intelligent as those three
are
rare. Unfortunately, few are able to keep their
early values intact.”
“They sell out?”
“Your question, Agent Nunes, betrays your age. We no
longer live in idealistic times. Kids don’t use that phrase
anymore.”
“So maybe they call it something different, but it’s what
they do? They sell out?”
Mariano sighed. “The best and the brightest, the ones that
started out with an ideal of service, fall, all too often, into a
trap. It’s like this, you see: because they
are
the best and the
brightest, they get the best offers. And they often wind up
taking jobs at the big corporate firms, the ones that pay big
salaries. They tell each other that they’re only going to do it
for a little while, long enough to put a bit of money in the
bank.”
“But?”
“They generally get derailed.”
Outside, in the corridor, someone knocked.
“Come,” Mariano said.
A pretty brunette in her early twenties opened his office
door and paused on the threshold.
“Sorry,” she said, looking back-and-forth between the professor and Arnaldo. “Am I early?”
Mariano glanced at his watch.
“A little,” he said. “Give me another ten minutes.” “Sure,” she said.
She was juggling an armful of books, and it took her a
couple of seconds to back out and close the door again. “Where were we?” Mariano said when she was gone. “The best and the brightest generally get derailed,”
Arnaldo prompted. “By what?”
Mariano shrugged. “Fancy cars, a summer house, a taste for
the things money can buy.”
“But not those three? They didn’t get derailed?” “No. They continued to view success as being defined by
service to the community, not the accumulation of wealth.” “Good for them.”
“You and I agree about that, but not everyone does. One
day, about halfway through Plínio’s third semester, I got a
visit from his father.”
“Orestes Saldana?”
“Yes. He sat there, where you’re sitting right now, and
called his son a—and this is a direct quote—‘
bleeding heart
liberal with his head up his ass.
’ He went on to accuse me of
being—and, again, this is a quote—‘
responsible for letting the
damned fool lose his way.’
”
“Whoa! And how did you answer that?”
“I suggested he should have been proud of his son, not
angry at him.”
“But he wouldn’t have it?”
“No, and I wasn’t surprised. I’d heard all about Orestes
Saldana long before he appeared in my office. He and Plínio
were polar opposites. Orestes is a man of no compassion,
a man who, forgive the vulgarity, doesn’t give a shit about
other human beings. He doesn’t like, or respect, anyone who
isn’t as stinking rich as he is. There wasn’t a chance in hell
I could make him understand, so I didn’t even try. I just sat
there, staring at him, until he ran out of steam.”
“And then?”
“He concluded by saying he was going to teach us both a
lesson—and stormed out.”
“Did he follow up on the threat?”
“He did. He tried to get me fired.”
“Which, obviously, didn’t work.”
“Not even when he tried to bribe the board by offering
them a grant. And then he cut his son off from the paternal
money flow.”
“So how did Plínio manage to finish his education?” “His grandmother stepped in.”
“Maternal grandmother?”
Mariano waved a finger of dissent. “Paternal, Ariana
Saldana. Ariana hates her son as much as she loved her
grandson, which was a lot. She gave Plínio the money he
needed.”
“It must have pissed the old man off.”
“Oh, it did. And Orestes Saldana is the wrong man to
piss off. He hired a flock of lawyers, paid off a judge, had his
mother declared mentally incompetent and institutionalized
her.”
“Not nice.”
“No, Agent Nunes. Not nice. And a complete and total
fabrication. The old lady was as sharp as a tack, still is.
Fortunately for her, and for Plínio, she’d already given him
the money he needed in one lump sum. By the time the judgment came down, and Orestes assumed control of her bank
accounts, Plínio’s education was assured.”
“I’d like to talk to the old lady. Have you got a number
for her?”
“Sure.”
The telephone on Mariano’s desk rang, but he ignored it
while he looked up the number and made a note of it. After
a while, the telephone stopped ringing, but then, just before
he handed Arnaldo the paper, it started up again. “You want to take that?” Arnaldo asked.
The professor shook his head. “It’ll go to voice mail. So,
where were we?”
“You were saying Plínio’s education was assured.” “Right,” Mariano gathered his thoughts and continued,
“As soon as Plínio had his diploma, and was admitted to the
bar, he managed to have Ariana released into his custody.
Then he appealed the judgment.”
“Did he win?”
“He won. The case came up in front of an honest judge.
Ariana got most of her money back, and Plínio went on to
marry Stella.”
“Who, by that time, had graduated as well?”
“Yes. Her sister, Joana, was a teacher, and she told her their
union needed a lawyer, so Stella volunteered.”
“And Nestor became a cop.”
“Exactly. First with the Civil Police here in Paraná, then,
later, with you fellows.”
“And Plínio?”
“He was the one with the most charisma. They chose him
to be the guy they’d put up as their political face. While still
in law school, he ran for the presidency of the student body—
and won. As soon as they graduated, they started working to
get him elected to the State legislature. And he won there
as well.”
“That quickly?”
“It wasn’t quick. It took four years. I skipped a few details
for the sake of brevity. From that time on, they never
wavered. In the course of the next ten years, they always kept
their eyes on their three goals, the three ways they wanted to
make a difference
. Remember them?”
Once again, Mariano’s telephone started to ring. Once
again, he ignored it.
“Public health, public education and public safety,”
Arnaldo said. And then, pointing at the telephone, “You’re
a popular guy.”
“Goes with the job,” Mariano said. “That’s right, health, education and safety. Plínio’s battle to get his grandmother released wound up teaching him a good deal about the health care system. Over the next decade, he became a recognized expert on it. Towards the end, he was the guy they always turned to when they were looking for a chairman to head-up a committee on the subject. Stella, working as a lawyer for the teacher’s union, became their specialist on education, and Nestor, working with the police, made it his business to learn everything there was to know on the subject of
law-enforcement.”
“So they turned themselves into a kind of self-contained
panel of experts.”
“Uh-huh. And on the day Plínio won the nomination,
Stella and Nestor quit their jobs and signed on to help elect
him governor. Stella was to have been State Secretary of
Education and Nestor was going to be the State Secretary of
Public Safety.”
“So what happens now? Now that Plínio and Nestor are
dead?”
“Stella will win. Odds are, her sister will become State
Secretary of Education. With Nestor dead, I have no idea
who’ll become the State Secretary for Public Safety, but of
one thing I can assure you: Braulio Serpa will be out on his
ear the day Stella takes office.”
“I think he knows that already.”
“I’m sure he does, the venal bastard.”
“Any other appointments you know of?”
“Just one: the governor’s Chief of Staff.”
“Who’s that going to be?”
“
That
,” the Professor smiled, “is going to be me.”

“So you’re Mario Silva, are you?” Orestes Saldana said. The wiry little man with the sour face was looking at Silva like a housewife might look at a cockroach she’d found in her sugar bowl. “I’ve heard all about you.”

“Really?” Silva said. “From whom?”
“Orlando Muniz.”
Two peas in a pod
, Silva thought,
arrogant, rich bastards who

“I’m a busy man,” Saldana snapped, confirming Silva’s conviction, “What do you want?”
“I’m investigating the murder of your son.”
“What about it?”
“Forgive me, Senhor Saldana, but you sound. . .”
“What?”
“How shall I put this? Dismissive? Uninterested?”
“I
am
uninterested.”
Silva’s life as a cop had brought him into contact with a lot of callous people, but this was too much, even for him.
“This is your
son
we’re talking about.”
“Only in a biological sense,” Saldana said. “In every other respect, he was no son of mine. We didn’t have a single cordial conversation in the last thirteen years of his life.”
“Thirteen years?”
“You heard me. So, as far as I’m concerned, he’s no deader today than he was back in law school.”
“But—”
“If you’re about to start spouting sentimental crap,” Saldana said, “save your breath. What do you expect from me? Crocodile tears? I’m not that kind of man. If a son isn’t loyal, he’s no damned good. Plínio wasn’t loyal. In my book, that’s worse than having no son at all.”
Silva, who missed his dead son every day of his life, was appalled. “Is loyalty the sole criterion? Doesn’t love come into the equation?”
Saldana moved a hand in front of his face, as if he was waving away a pesky mosquito.
“Not into
my
equation, it doesn’t. This business is my life’s work. When Plínio was a kid, it put a roof over his head, food on his plate, clothes on his back. But what did he do as soon as he got into the state legislature? He tried to bite the hand that fed him, that’s what!”
“I don’t understand what you mean by—”
“Seventy-one percent of my construction company’s billings,” Saldana cut in, “derive from contracts with the State of Paraná. Seventy-one percent. And a good deal of the rest comes to me
because
my company works for the state. First thing Plínio did when he got elected was to propose a system of sealed bids. Sealed bids! No room to maneuver! Lowest bid gets the job! It was all I could do to stave it off.”
“But you did?”
“I did, but it wasn’t cheap. And now his whore of a widow is telling everyone she’s going to introduce sealed bids by gubernatorial decree as soon as she gets elected. Bitch!”
“Business concerns aside—”
“Business concerns aside?
Business concerns aside?
Jesus Christ, would you say that if it was
your
business?”
“There is a question of justice—”
“Justice? Justice has been done. The guy who shot Plínio is dead.”
“The man who pulled the trigger is dead, but the person who enlisted him—”
“Who’s to say anyone enlisted him? Who’s to say Cataldo wasn’t just a fanatic with an axe to grind?”
“He might have been, but—”
“But you prefer to cook up a conspiracy theory? Cataldo as Oswald and Plínio as Kennedy, is that it?”
“In this case, a conspiracy is possible, even likely.”
“I. Don’t. Care.” Saldana leaned forward and punched his desk with his forefinger as he enunciated each word. “I don’t care about Plínio, and I don’t care who killed him, and I don’t care why he was killed. I’m not interested in any of it.”
Silva’s patience with the man was exhausted. He switched to provocation. “You’re not interested” he asked, “even if the person who had him murdered was your surviving son?”
“What?”
“Not even if the man who paid to have Plínio killed was Lúcio?”
Saldana snorted. “That’s absolute crap!”
“Is it? The law precluded you from disinheriting either one of your sons. Plínio would have come into a great deal of money upon your death. Now, all that money is going to Lúcio. That’s a pretty good motive for murder, don’t you think?”
“What I think,” Orestes Saldana said, narrowing his eyes, “is it’s high time you left. This interview is over.”