Requiem for a Killer (14 page)

“Inspector, you’ve got to help us! This
can’t go on. We’ve been here all day protesting and nobody will
come and listen to us. We deserve some respect.”

“It’s absurd!” shouted another girl in the
back.

Off to the side a TV camera was filming the
demonstration. A woman with a desperate look on her face got in
front of it and started screaming:

“Mayor Roberto, the whole community voted
for you. We believed you when you promised to take the morgue out
of the middle of our neighborhood. Where are you now, Mr. Mayor?
What you’re doing to us is absurd.”

Alarmed, being pressed by the crowd and
having a tough time getting to the entrance gate, Dornelas was
afraid to say that this township was out of his jurisdiction. And
even if it weren’t there was nothing he could do; this was a matter
for the Military Police that, so far at least, was nowhere
around.

By pushing and shoving Dornelas was able to
snake through the mass of women. At one point he picked up his pace
after being shocked by a hand grabbing his ass and squeezing hard.
He identified himself to the guard at the gatehouse who let him in.
Claudio followed a few steps behind. Once he got over his own scare
he noticed the fear on the faces of the people inside the building
looking out from the corners of the windows.

When they entered the lobby a screaming
woman was pulling at her hair and tearing at her clothes. The
receptionist, taking it all in routinely, let Dulce Neves know they
had arrived; she appeared immediately and pulled them into the
hallway.

“I try to avoid the family members,” she
said after shaking Claudio’s hand and giving the inspector a loud
kiss on the cheek. “It’s not that I’m cold or insensitive, it’s
just that things around here are tough enough as it is.”

Claudio was wide-eyed. And Dornelas, even
though he was used to the harsh nature of the profession, was also
shocked by this animal-like demonstration of human despair.

“Oh, and I only talk to the dead,” Dulce
added as they went down the hall toward one of the autopsy
rooms.

Dulce Neves was wearing green pants, a white
medical coat, a disposable paper hair net - the kind they give you
when you visit restaurant kitchens – and yellow rubber shoes. In
one of her hands she was holding a clipboard decorated with
Superpowerful Girls
stickers.

In the first room a coroner was sawing the
skull of a young man, the son of the woman whose screams they could
still hear echoing in the lobby. If he closed his eyes and blocked
out the buzz of the electric saw, Dornelas could swear he was in a
torture chamber during the Middle Ages.

Dulce invited them into the second room from
which emanated the odor of formaldehyde and clotted blood. A body
covered by a white sheet lay on top of a steel work bench. Claudio
entered with his arms crossed and showing the dread of someone who
was about to have an audience with the Antichrist himself.

“You know, Joaquim, I’m scared of those
people, of them storming the building. Good thing it’s only a bunch
of women. If it were men I’d call the cops.”

“Have you taken any special measures?”

“We called City Hall. They promised to send
another truck to clean the cesspool by the end of the day. Would
either of you like a glass of water?”

“No thanks,” replied Dornelas.

Claudio remained silent, his eyes glued to
the sheet. The inspector turned to him.

“Can you do this?”

His friend nodded. Dornelas did the same in
Dulce’s direction and she lifted the sheet, uncovering the body to
the waist. As soon as he saw the corpse the fisherman relaxed,
perhaps because in its present state the body looked like a
scarecrow.

The corpse had been sewn up perfectly with a
thick needle and stiff fiber string, with a stitch every two or
three centimeters. Two incisions descended from the collar bones,
meeting at the sternum and from there continuing down in a single
straight line, forming a “Y” that disappeared under the sheet and
ended at the pubis. Beautiful work by a tailor for the dead.

“So, is it him?” asked the inspector.

“Hard to say. The last time I saw him we
were kids.”

Claudio began to study the features with the
coldness of someone who’s analyzing a fish in a supermarket
freezer.

“The slant of the eyes, the nose…it could
be, but…it’s hard to say.”

Dornelas and Dulce waited for the final
analysis patiently and in silence.

“I haven’t seen him in a long time. He was
really skinny when he was a boy. Now he’s fat, bloated. It could
be, but I’m not sure, sir.”

“It could be yes, or it could be no?”

“It’s hard to say, I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” murmured a discouraged Dornelas when
he realized he was once again left empty-handed. “You tried and I
thank you very much for that.”

Realizing that the consultation had ended
and everyone was getting ready to leave, Dulce faced the inspector.
Her look demanded his attention.

“Claudio, I need to talk to Dr. Dulce. Could
you wait in the lobby? I won’t be a minute.”

“No problem.”

He left. As soon as they were alone – not
counting the corpse on the metal slab - Dulce went up to him, ran
her fingers down the lapel of his jacket, as if searching for a
thread out of place and looked at him tenderly.

“I’ve thought a lot about our conversation,”
she said.

Dornelas froze, his attention now fully
focused on her. Dulce continued:

“I agree to the conditions you suggested,
the limits you set, that we only be friends. That doesn’t make me
like you any less. But I want you to know that I think about you
and that your friendship is very dear to me.”

So as not to give a superficial answer and
hurt her feelings, Dornelas took a deep breath, felt his feet
growing roots in the floor and slowly let this information sink
into his brain. Staring at each other, the silence seemed to Dulce
to last an eternity.

“Your friendship is very important to me
too. Maybe I’ve reached an age where friendship is more important
than marriage. But who knows, maybe we could nurture this a little
and see where it leads.”

Dornelas was surprised by his words as soon
as they came out of his mouth, as if they had been said by someone
else, not him. Dulce immediately lit up.

“It’s a deal. I’ve got to tell you that I’m
really happy with what you just said. Would it be pushing it to
have dinner tonight?”

‘
Right during the last chapter of the
soap?
’ thought Dornelas, with such intensity that it must have
showed on his face because she immediately understood the reason
for his hesitation.

“At my house. I’ll cook and you watch the
soap. What do you say?”

“Tough to say no.”

“Then it’s a date. I’ll expect you around,
say eight, eight-thirty?”

“I’ll be there.”

“And please don’t fall asleep.”

“I won’t.”

She gave him another kiss on the cheek,
sending him off down the corridor like a teenager, beet-red in
embarrassment. He really would have preferred not to see Claudio
right then. He didn’t want to have to give any explanations to him
or to the impatient crowd still clamoring in the street.

In order not to be cornered by the
demonstrators, Dornelas decided to slip out the back door. With any
luck nobody would notice them circling around the back of the
parking lot to the side street where he had left his car. As he was
going out the door, he heard someone yell:

“Look, it’s the police inspector getting out
the back.”

He and Claudio speeded up. The crowd took a
couple of seconds to realize that both of them were now running out
of the building. They were precious seconds for Dornelas. It was
either doing this or spending the whole day locked up in the
morgue.

They had cast the die.

With the mob of women at their heels, they
felt as if they were running for their lives. They had just enough
time to get in the car, slam the doors, start the engine, hear a
shoe slam against the back window and take off with tires
squealing.

There was total silence on the way back.
Dornelas hoped the cameraman hadn’t caught the car speeding away on
film, especially the plates. It would cause a public embarrassment
he didn’t need. Claudio looked worried, something was eating at
him. When they arrived at the precinct his friend opened up.

“Sir, I remembered something about the
Demon, from back in school.”

“Shoot.”

“I remember that he was always thirsty, he
was drinking water all the time. The teacher used to say it was
some kind of disease.”

“That recollection helps more than you can
imagine. Thank you.”

Dornelas held out his hand and said:

“Changing the subject a bit, are you going
out fishing tomorrow?”

Claudio returned his handshake.

“I hadn’t planned to. But if you’d like to
see if the anchovies are biting, we can try.”

“What time?”

“Seven at the pier?”

“Done.”

Claudio turned around and left.

*

When he entered the precinct Marilda handed
him a piece of paper. Flavia had called. He took his cell phone out
of his pocket and saw he’d missed a call from an unknown number. He
probably received it when he was at the morgue, either when he was
trying to get in or trying to get out. He went straight to his
office and closed the door. A light knock and Solano’s head popped
in.

“You wanted to talk to me, sir?”

“I still do. In five minutes, okay? I’ve got
to make a call. I’ll call you.”

Solano pulled his head back like a turtle
and closed the door. Dornelas picked up the phone and dialed
Flavia’s number.

“Hello, Joaquim.”

His ex-wife’s voice sounded cold and
distant, as if it were coming from one of the Earth’s poles. On
hearing her say his name Dornelas felt a kind of chill run down his
spine. He took it as a sign that he had better manage this
conversation with caution. He sat up in his chair and began,
measuring his words.

“Good morning, Flavia.”

“You called me.”

“I did. You had just left to take the kids
to school.”

“What do you want?”

From the flat and overly business-like tone
of her voice, Dornelas realized that Flavia was hiding behind a
barrel of gunpowder with the fuse within easy reach. One wrong word
and she would light it and this conversation would go up in smoke.
The situation demanded the skill of a bomb squad negotiator dealing
with a murderous terrorist.

“I wanted to know if there’s any chance the
kids could spend the weekend here with me,” he responded in a
clearly
sotto voce
tone.

“So you’re going to stand them up?”

She had lit the match.

“Not exactly,” he said, knowing it was
exactly that. Dornelas could see the match getting closer to the
fuse. He had to gain time, make her change her mind. “I’m in the
middle of a complicated investigation. The press is all over the
police. You know what it’s like.”

“I saw you on TV pulling a dead body out of
the bay. Quite a scene.”

“So there you have it, that’s the case I’m
working on. I can’t leave now. We have a press conference in a
couple of hours and God knows how that’s going to go.”

“I understand.”

He felt relieved. The match had been put
out.

“But my answer is no.”

“What do you mean?”

“No; it’s that simple. I will not allow our
children, our very young children, to get on a bus by
themselves.”

“But what’s the problem? All you have to do
is put them on it with an authorization to travel alone to see
their dad and I’ll pick them up at the bus station three hours
later.”

“That’s exactly the problem. The bus makes
two stops over those three hours, people get off, they go to the
bathroom, go shopping, get back on and if they don’t get back on
they’re left behind. Don’t forget that our children are still
country bumpkins. They grew up in that little town of yours and
haven’t been living in Rio all that long. They’re still lost here.
Maybe one day in the future they’ll be able to make the trip. Maybe
the best thing now would be for one of us to go with them the first
time. But right now, at this moment, my answer is no.”

Dornelas knew deep down that she was right
and that he had no choice but to agree.

“I understand,” he said with a deep sigh,
crushed because he was going to have to let down his kids. “What
time do they get home from school?”

“Twelve-thirty.”

“Are they going to have lunch with you
there?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll call them at lunchtime.”

As if he hadn’t suffered enough already,
Flavia came back with:

“That job of yours is hell, Joaquim. It’s
one thing for you to hurt me, to never be home, to put your work
ahead of our marriage. But it’s another thing entirely to hurt our
children. You know how upset they’re going to be when they find out
you can’t come.”

“I know. We’ll talk about it later,
okay?”

“Okay.”

“A kiss.”

“Same.”

He hung up, and with the end of the call the
guilt he had felt while talking to his ex-wife disappeared.
Inexplicably a new feeling of relief suddenly came over him.
Dornelas discovered that the separation had launched him on a
personal journey, along a new and unexplored path, one that didn’t
exist before and that wouldn’t be there under any other
circumstances. A path all to himself, one which would demand
tremendous sacrifices like the one he was facing now: being forced
to distance himself even further from his children.

Life was testing him. He felt proud of
himself for noticing.

It shocked him, however, that to recognize
his state of mind it had been necessary to break a promise to his
children and argue with his ex-wife. In a strange way, the current
investigation – part of the job Flavia so criticized – was what was
helping him to keep going.