Requiem for a Killer (25 page)

He decided to stay outside in the street and
mingle with the other people while the funeral home employees
prepared to place the coffin in the hearse that would take Marina
Rivera’s mortal remains to the cemetery.

A crowd waited outside the hospital’s
viewing hall, spread around the sidewalk and a good part of the
street, making it impassable to traffic; a traffic cop had cordoned
off the area with a row of rubber cones.

From his spot on the street, Dornelas could
see Marina’s brother deep inside the hall helping to close the
coffin. He looked drawn, his eyes red and hollowed. In his weakened
state he appeared to be about to have an emotional breakdown. Nildo
Borges stayed near him, as did two others who were crying – people
Dornelas had glimpsed during his visit to Nildo’s cabinet in the
City Council.

Six men lifted the coffin up by the handles
and carried it outside to the hearse.

The inspector noticed he hadn’t seen Wilson
Borges.

As soon as the vehicle started to move the
crowd began the procession to the cemetery. Instead of using a
siren to control traffic, the way it’s done in big cities, the
driver played Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor – chosen personally
by Nildo Borges – on the speakers.

The distance from the hospital to the
cemetery was relatively short. The multitude of people gave the
ceremony an even greater magnitude. Under a metal-grey sky swallows
flew in circles while the people swayed along behind the hearse, at
times straying, whispering, lulled by the chords of the sorrowful
and plaintive music; a torrential river of human lives.

‘
The people really cared for this
woman’
, Dornelas decided, recognizing that of all those who
were there, only one was a family member.

Trying not to get emotionally involved,
Dornelas followed the slow procession on the outskirts of the
crowd, looking to the sides and behind him, almost walking
backwards against the flow. He saw Solano in the distance, on the
other side of the mass of people. Lotufo followed further behind.
Caparrós would be somewhere around, blending in, invisible in the
middle of the crowd.

Sweeping his eyes over the sea of people,
Dornelas saw Maria das Graças not too far off. She looked sad, her
eyes bloodshot and looking at the ground. Touched, Dornelas
approached her.

“Did you know her?” he asked.

“I did, really well,” answered Maria das
Graças. “She used to visit our neighborhood all the time, she’d
stop and talk to people on the street. Dona Marina was a really
nice lady. She’s gonna be missed a whole lot.”

“I’m sure she is.”

Maria das Graças didn’t answer, just kept
going, eyes still looking down. Not knowing whether to leave or say
something, Dornelas decided to walk with her.

“What kind of work did she do?” he asked and
immediately regretted it. He hadn’t meant to turn the funeral
procession into an interrogation.

“Is this gonna show up in my testimony,
Inspector?”

“Forgive me. It’s just that I didn’t have
time to get to know Marina well enough to understand what it is she
did. I got the impression that she was very involved with the
community.”

With a hint of resentment, Maria das Graças
stopped, lifted her eyes and stared at him for a few seconds. And
then she decided to let herself go. She went up to Dornelas and
took his arm. Now side by side, they continued walking.

“She was a wonderful woman. She didn’t have
a man around to always be givin’ her a hard time, wantin’ to screw
her all the time. She spent her time workin’ for the people, really
workin’. If the city didn’t come collect the garbage all you hadda
do was call her and she’d get after the company what was supposed
to do it. Same thing if the gutter was clogged up. But where she
really made a difference was in the schools. Marina believed the
only thing could make this country better was education, if the
people could read and write, think and decide for themselves.”

“What kind of work did she do?”

“She did all sortsa things. She made sure
the Christmas baskets got to the families at Christmas and didn’t
get lost, if you know what I mean. She even made some of the
deliveries herself. Dona Marina was always in the schools with the
teachers. The woman wanted to understand their problems, listen to
their complaints, help ’em find solutions. She’d even deal
sometimes with some of the parents.”

Dornelas thought about what Maria das Graças
had said and decided to keep his mouth shut. The final strokes on
Marina Rivera’s personality had been painted and he had nothing to
add. The inspector regretted not having known her better. Right or
wrong, Marina had been coherent in what she said and did and had
produced concrete results. She had truly changed people’s lives,
and changed them for the better. Telling himself he wasn’t directly
responsible for her death couldn’t stop an enormous weight from
falling on his shoulders.

They continued on and reached the corner of
the hospital on the way to Mangueiras Hill, above and behind the
city, where the cemetery was located. From here Dornelas could
already see the crumbling walls, the dead flowers, the dismantled
crosses, the principal uphill cobblestone path that leads from the
entrance gate to the top of the hill where stood the old house
where autopsies used to be performed. Between the tombs eroded by
time and abandon were many irregular narrow alleys of packed dirt,
like tracks made by rats.

Perched on the hill, Mangueiras Cemetery
offered a lovely view of Palmyra Bay; perhaps the most beautiful
and certainly the least known. It would have made for an incredible
postcard if it weren’t for the state of abandon and ruin it was
in.

Passing by the Emergency Ward entrance, then
past an inn and a forgotten alley, the crowd began shambling up the
parallelepiped street lulled by the Lacrimosa movement of Mozart’s
Requiem Mass. The mournful chords lent such gravity to the ceremony
that the people seemed heavier, dragging themselves along, as if
carrying a knapsack full of rocks uphill.

As the hearse approached the cemetery gate,
it braked, the disorderly multitude halting behind it, as a sudden
dry crack was heard, a shot. People threw themselves on the ground
and began to scream. Maria das Graças did the same. Dornelas got
down but only on his knees, head up. He was looking for the shooter
or some sign of him.

He saw half a dozen people surrounding Nildo
Borges, who was lying on the ground. He carefully snuck through the
screaming crowd. As he got close to the councilman, who was now
writhing on the ground, he saw that the shooter had aimed for the
heart but had missed his target: Nildo’s right hand was squeezing a
stain of blood on his left arm. The inspector got his cell phone
and called for an ambulance.

When he saw that there wasn’t that much
blood and that Nildo was talking to the people surrounding him,
Dornelas concluded that the politician’s life was not in danger.
Acting on instinct, he got up and started running away from the
crowd, towards the entrance to the cemetary.

Over the sea of people Dornelas could see
Solano running up the packed dirt alleyways, zigzagging between the
tombs in pursuit of a man running away. Caparrós was doing the same
on his right, next to the wall. Lotufo was a little farther
behind.

Reacting contrary to what to him seemed
obvious, that the shooter would try to escape through the opening
in the high rear wall, right behind the old autopsy house, and from
there into a dense forest, Dornelas decided to turn around, get out
of the cemetery and follow along the outside of the wall. If the
guy changed his mind and went for the neighboring open field, he’d
have it covered.

Running uphill, panting and unarmed,
Dornelas rounded the curve around the wall and came upon a rifle on
the ground, no doubt the weapon used in the attempted murder. He
took off his jacket and a calling card from his wallet and threw
them both next to the gun. Maybe that way no one would touch it
until the forensic lab people arrived.

Taking up the chase again, his illogical
suspicion proved correct: the man had jumped over the wall further
up the hill and was running through the open field with the three
cops hard on his tail. Visibly tired and out of breath, Dornelas
kept going. And then, worn out, he stopped. His detectives, besides
being younger and much spryer than he, were closer. Let them make
the arrest.

From what he could see, the man was unarmed
because he was running through the cultivated lot with his arms
swinging free and easy. The area had recently been expropriated by
the city to become an extension of the old cemetery – it was the
second phase of the project – because there was no more space
available to bury the corpses except in special cases such as this
one. The municipal burial service in Palmyra was in chaos, the
result of indifferent politicians and people who insisted on dying.
In a way Dornelas was grateful; the odds of catching a man in open
ground were a lot better than in a forest.

It didn’t take long for his men to get their
hands on the character who was just about to reach the heavy
forestation on the other side of the property.

Wearing a loose shirt and old, torn pants,
they quickly had the man handcuffed. Still panting and resting his
hands on his knees, Dornelas was glad he had trusted his instincts;
the decision to bring his team to the funeral had been the right
one. He waited for his detectives to bring him closer.

“Good work, guys,” he said to his
subordinates and then to the man, “And you, what’s your name?”

No answer. Like the inspector and his team,
the shooter was out of breath and sweating profusely.

“I’m going to ask you once more. What’s your
name?”

Dead silence.

“Very well. Take him to the precinct. But
don’t start questioning him without me,” said Dornelas while trying
to collect himself, tuck in his shirt, straighten his tie and pat
down his mussed up hair. Even though physically exhausted he had an
image to maintain; he was still a police inspector.

“Come with me,” he said to Caparrós.

They went down to where the rifle was.
Dornelas put the card in his pocket and threw the jacket over his
shoulder.

“Call the lab and don’t budge until they get
here. I don’t want anything to touch that rifle, not even an
ant.”

“Copy that, sir.”

The inspector went on his way. Caparrós took
off his jacket and sat against the wall. The lab would take a
while. He’d use the time to get his breath back and, who knows,
take a little break.

*

Nildo Borges was fine. Wounded, but fine.
Sitting in the back seat of the hearse he had bandaged his wound
with a white handkerchief donated by a lady who had deserted the
scene out of pure fear. The bullet had gone through his biceps
without hitting the bone. His shirt was bloodstained down to his
elbow. Augusto Rivera and some people Dornelas didn’t know were
standing around him.

The music had been turned off and the
funeral put on hold until further notice. Nobody knew exactly what
to do. Dornelas went to talk to Nildo.

“I’ve already called an ambulance. How’s
your arm?” he asked.

“It hurts a lot. Did you get him?” asked the
councilman, who twisted around in his seat and bared his teeth like
a baboon.

‘Yeah,” he mumbled. “Right now he’s being
taken to the precinct.”

Augusto, pale and trembling, approached them
and interrupted:

“Do you think this attack has anything to do
with my sister’s murder?”

“It’s too soon to say,” replied Dornelas.
“Are you going to go ahead with the burial?”

Marina’s brother was at a loss and looked
over at Nildo, who replied with a “why not?” indicating that even
injured, he was still in charge of the situation.

The councilman turned slowly to give
instructions to the driver, a frightened young man who wouldn’t let
go of the steering wheel. The boy opened the door and got out to go
around to open the back. With help from Augusto, Dornelas and
another four men who were standing around, the casket was slid out
of the vehicle and carried up the hill.

The attack had scared off a lot of people.
Those who stayed were just milling around. But as soon as the
procession started up again, they all gathered behind the coffin
and went on to the cemetery. From inside the hearse Nildo once
again put on Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor, backtracked the CD
to the Lacrimosa movement and got out of the car to bury his
friend, lover and chief of staff.

Chapter 18

A
fter opening the
door and entering the room with the suspect, Solano removed his
handcuffs and politely asked him to sit in the only plastic chair,
cold and hard, in front of a big mirror. Dornelas followed them in
and sat in a more comfortable chair next to him. Seeing that the
boss wanted to conduct the interrogation, Solano made himself
comfortable in the chair behind the table from where he could watch
attentively and be able to assist the inspector if needed.

It was a small soundproof cubicle with a low
ceiling and nothing on the walls, not even a light switch. Inside
only the little table and the three chairs. The atmosphere in the
room was purposely stifling, a physical setting planned to increase
the man’s discomfort and feeling of impotence; he looked around
nervously with a “get me out of here” expression stamped on his
face.

“Before we begin it’s important that I
inform you that this conversation is being filmed.” said
Dornelas.

The man didn’t move, he didn’t even look
around the room for the camera. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have
found it. Anderson was handling the filming from the other side of
the two-way mirror. Lotufo and Caparrós were also following the
interrogation from there.