Requiem for a Killer (7 page)

He looked around and thought it strange to
find himself completely alone in this part of town, a spot where
you can always see someone at any time of the day or night. There
was no crowd, no police car, no fire truck, not one of his
detectives, absolutely no one.

Instinctively he jumped into the mangrove,
knowing the tide would come in soon and the body would then be
lost.

He struggled to walk in the black mud and
cover the distance between the wall and the body. Tired, he
recognized the filthy beige shorts, the open mud-soaked orange
shirt, the arms spread open like Christ the Redeemer.

He noticed the round band-aid on the inside
fold of the left arm, he remembered the blood test and the disease.
Everything was the same except for the black cloth that covered the
face. Without hesitating, Dornelas pulled off the fabric and saw
his head, his face, attached to the dead body. The eyes opened wide
for an instant, staring up at him with a evil grin stamped on its
face.

Totally spooked, he freed himself from the
sheets and got out of bed, gasping and bathed in sweat. He ran to
the shower and took a long and very hot shower, hot enough to burn
the feathers off a chicken. He got dressed, left the bedroom, went
downstairs and found Neide sweeping the living room floor.

“Are you off today, Inspector?”

“I took the graveyard shift.”

“Want me to fix you something, scrambled
eggs, toast?”

“No need. I’m going to get some
goró
.

Goró
was the recipe for a porridge
that dated back to Dornelas’ childhood. A true gastronomical wild
card, it was the answer for whenever hunger struck and there was no
time for a more elaborate meal.

He put six tablespoons of
farinha
láctea
, a common baby cereal, in a bowl together with two of
powdered milk and one glass of water. He substituted water for pure
milk as soon as he discovered that powdered milk and milk, in the
same recipe, produced a bombastic mixture capable of producing gas
for the entire day.

He finished it off it in a few spoonfuls,
scrapping the bottom of the bowl, to Neide’s astonishment as she
watched him open-mouthed.

“A man of your upbringing eating that awful
mess, sir!”

“You should try it someday.”

“Holy Mother of God!”

Visibly disgusted, Neide threw her dusting
cloth over her shoulder, picked up the broom and turned back to her
cleaning. Dornelas slipped out of the house, worrying about his
reputation if Neide were to tell everybody about his porridge.

Chapter 6

W
ell rested and
properly bathed and fed, Dornelas crossed the doorway into police
headquarters exuding satisfaction.

“Good afternoon, Inspector.” said
Marilda.

“Good afternoon, Marilda. Any messages?”

“The Sectional Director called and asked
that you get back to him urgently.”

“Thanks.”

Marilda interrupted him as he turned to go
on to his office.

“Inspector, a man arrived at 9 a.m., a
Raimundo Tavares. Solano and Lotufo are talking to him in the
conference room.

‘
Oh shit!’
thought Dornelas, putting
his hands on his head. He’d completely forgotten he’d asked Solano
to have Maria das Graças’ client at the precinct first thing in the
morning. He crossed the reception area and went down the corridor
to the conference room. He found no one there. He went to Solano’s
office and still nobody. Lotufo’s, same thing. He went back to the
reception area.

“Marilda, where are they?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

That was when he heard loud laughter coming
from the lunchroom on the other side of the station. He went in to
find Solano, Lotufo and another man sitting around the little table
with plastic cups in their hands, drinking coffee and grinning
widely. The laughter disappeared as soon as they saw him. But as he
was already three hours late – it was past noon – and he was
visibly embarrassed, Dornelas simply walked in with his hand
outstretched to greet the guy, who he presumed was Raimundo
Tavares.

“Please excuse my being late, Mr. Tavares. I
worked the night shift and overslept and I’m afraid that’s the only
excuse I can give you.”

“No problem, Inspector,” said Raimundo as he
shook hands with Dornelas. “We were just shooting the breeze.”

“Have you gotten his testimony yet?” he
asked Solano and Lotufo.

“Done,” said Solano laconically – in fact
too laconically.

Dornelas was puzzled, it sounded as if there
was something else behind that syllable.

“Let’s talk in my office,” he said to
Solano. And turning to Tavares, “Would it be too much to ask you to
wait just a little bit longer?”

Raimundo Tavares was a refined individual;
hair fashionably cut, designer clothes, apparently discreet and
well-mannered from the way he spoke and behaved. Dornelas did take
exception to the pen and pencil in his shirt pocket though. It
reminded him of an old schoolmate, a total snob who he had
fistfights with everyday. The boy’s trademark was the designer pen
and pencil set in his shirt pocket, a present from his father, an
engineer on his way up in the city.

“No problem. I’ve already told my office I’d
be out all morning.”

“Thank you. We’ll have more time to talk
shortly.”

Dornelas left the lunchroom, crossed through
the station, went into his office and sat in his chair behind the
desk. Solano, following right behind him, closed the door and sat
down in one of the visitors chairs.

“And?” asked the inspector.

“The man’s clean, sir.”

“What’s that mean?”

“He’s married, like Maria das Graças said,
but his wife’s been away since last week. She gets back tomorrow.
They have no children, it’s just him and the wife in the house.
There’s a maid, a daily, who goes home every day at four p.m. after
leaving dinner ready in the oven. I mean, nobody can confirm his
alibi except for himself and Maria das Graças.”

“Has he been her client long?”

“For quite a while, from what he says. His
wife owns a women’s wear store and travels a lot on business. She
buys clothes in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to resell here at a
good profit. He takes advantage of her trips to have his little
escapades that, according to him, are what save his marriage.”

‘
What a son of a bitch, this
Tavares,’
thought Dornelas.
‘The guy not only cheats on his
wife but manages to keep his marriage intact at the same time.’
During his fifteen-year marriage to Flavia he had never once
cheated on her. Not that there hadn’t been any opportunities. The
inspector was a good-looking guy and often felt attracted to many
types of women, from the modest saintly ones to the most wanton.
And they to him.

On some occasions they had practically
rubbed their pussies in his face so he would take them to bed. But
he would always weigh a one night stand against his family,
politely decline the offer and get on with his life. The next few
days were pure hell though, because he spent the whole time
fantasizing about the adventure he’d turned down, dealing with the
frustration as best he could.

In a way Dornelas admired, even while
hating, men who were able to handle these situations so cleverly
and at the same time so brazenly and shamelessly. Now, abandoned by
his wife and with his children far away he felt like a real idiot
for not having taken advantage of the opportunities that had
knocked on his door.
‘Maybe Tavares’ wife has a thing going on
in the city too,’
he thought spitefully.

“Does she know what her husband’s up to when
she’s out of town?”

“He says no. But he thinks his wife suspects
something.”

“Bring him in.”

Solano went out and came back minutes later
with Raimundo Tavares. The man entered and Solano left, closing the
door behind him.

“Please, sit down,” said Dornelas.

“Thank you.”

Raimundo Tavares sat down elegantly.

“From what Solano tells me you’ve been Maria
das Graças’ client for a long time.”

“A good couple of years,” he said, crossing
one leg over the other while he put his cell phone away in his
shirt pocket, behind the pen and pencil.

“What does your wife think of that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never asked her.”

Dornelas leaned forward in his chair, moving
closer to him.

“I’ll be more to the point. What will her
reaction be when she finds out?”

Raimundo Tavares’ pleasantness disappeared
and a dark, cynical look took its place.

“I think that like any woman, she’s not
going to like it. But knowing her the way I do, I figure that as
long as we maintain appearances and money in the bank, I’ll get a
slap on the hand, suffer a few weeks of no sex, and that will be
the end of it.”

This marriage was more modern than Dornelas
could have imagined. As much as Tavares pissed him off, albeit with
a pinch of envy, blackmailing him in this veiled manner was
ethically unacceptable. Time to back off.

“Can you prove that you really were with
Maria das Graças the night of the crime?”

“As I told your detective, I can’t. I don’t
really remember what time it was, but I imagine I was with her
after midnight. I say this because my trysts always take place late
at night.”

“Any special reason?”

“My wife goes to sleep early, wherever she
is. Around nine, ten o’clock her body turns off and she’s ready to
fall into a deep sleep. And whenever she’s traveling she calls me
at home before going to bed. That night, as usual, was no
different. What I do is wait for her to call, we chat, I tell her
I’m going to read a book or watch a movie – which I often do – we
hang up, I wait an hour and I go out. I know that’s how long it
takes for her to fall fast asleep. I don’t remember her ever
calling after that. And let’s be fair, Inspector, I may play around
some but it’s not like I go out every night.”

‘
A real pro, this Tavares.’

After going over Maria das Graças’ account
step by step, Dornelas could see that either the guy had carefully
learned Maria das Graças’ story by heart, or it really was him
having a good time with her the night of the crime.

“One last question. What line of business
are you in?”

“Construction.”

“Any specific area?”

“Concrete structures, tunnels, bridges,
buildings. The City Council building is one of mine,” he responded
proudly.

Dornelas was nearly jolted out of his chair.
Not wanting to lose the line of thinking that was just beginning to
take shape in his mind, he got up and with a handshake apologized
once again for his delay, then accompanied Tavares to the reception
desk and saw him out. On his way back he ran into Solano and
Lotufo.

“I want to speak to both of you in my
office. Where’s Caparrós?”

“In the bathroom,” answered Lotufo.

“Get him too.”

As soon as the three of them entered they
came across a very excited inspector, as if he’d been energized by
a live wire. They approached the desk.

“Have we gotten the results from the lab yet
on the liquid in the syringe?”

“Pure insulin, Inspector,” answered
Lotufo.

“Great. That makes sense. Anything on Nildo
Borges and Marina Rivera?”

“Not yet. I’m still waiting for some
information they promised to send me later today. As soon as I get
it I’ll bring it in to you.”

“Okay.”

He was silent for a few seconds and then
went on:

“I want you to find out all you can about
the City Council building. Our friend Raimundo Tavares, longtime
client of Maria das Graças, is who built it. I want to know who
approved the plans, mayor, councilmen, everything you can find. And
if there was a commission that analyzed it, I want to know who
presided over it. Got it?”

“Got it,” all three of them said with one
voice.

Dornelas sat down and picked up the phone.
He pressed three numbers. Seeing that the brief meeting with the
boss had ended, the detectives left. Lotufo closed the door on the
way out.

“Marilda, call Dr. Amarildo Bustamante,
please.”

“Right away.”

He hung up. The neurons in his brain were
working overtime.

The information he had from the
investigation, transformed into electrical impulses in his mind,
was now being processed at breakneck speed, interconnecting in an
intricate web of associations. Dornelas was in a hurry to fill in
the gaps between the facts and the accounts he had obtained so far,
because he knew very well that an investigation, like a mosquito,
grows old and dies in a few days.

A professional and well-equipped police
department is not able to keep a case open solely because it wants
to. Without the active cooperation of a complex network of
interests linked to public opinion, the press and politics, nothing
happens. And even when the investigation identifies the guilty
party based on irrefutable proof, the bureaucracy of the courts
does its part in helping the bad guy go home.

The telephone rang.

“Inspector, Dr. Amarildo on the phone.”

“Thank you.”

After a few seconds the boss’s deep voice
came on the line.

“Joaquim, how you doing?”

“Very well, Dr. Bustamante.”

“Forget the ‘doctor’ bit. I know we’re boss
and subordinate, but when it’s just between us we’re Joaquim and
Amarildo. That okay?”

Amarildo Bustamante was Dornelas’ direct
boss and a longtime friend. They had graduated from law school
together and nurtured a brotherly liking for one another.

The boss, who was a few years older, had
never been a man of action, but he compensated for it with his
natural ability to play politics, which he did to perfection in the
complex and complicated political world that was the police
department.