Blood of the Wicked cims-1

by Leighton Gage

  "Okay. Sure you don't want to check out the nightlife?"

  Silva shook his head. When the opportunity arose, Arnaldo always asked the same question and he always got the same answer. But asking was part of their ritual.

  Arnaldo took a cautious bite of his cheeseburger and grimaced in disappointment. "You really want to have breakfast here? I'll bet the cook in this place can't even boil a fucking egg."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ferraz's secretary was a uniformed policewoman in her mid-forties with a no-nonsense hairdo and an abrasive manner.

  "I already told you on the telephone, Chief Inspector. He's in a very important meeting. He doesn't want to be disturbed."

  "Just tell him I'm here," Silva said.

  She gave him a scornful look, picked up her telephone, and stabbed a button set into the base.

  "Chief Inspector Silva is here," she said and then, after a moment, "Yes, here. He asked me to tell you."

  She hung up. "You can wait," she said.

  A table against the wall bore a pile of magazines-a half dozen dog-eared and outdated copies of Veja, three of Agricultor Moderno, and two of Gente-as well as a tattered copy of Diana Poli's newspaper, Cidade de Cascatas.

  The headline on the front page caught his eye: ANOTHER HAM: THE FIFTH.

  Silva checked the date: Two days before the bishop had been shot. He picked it up and took a chair.

  The photo spread across the bottom half of the page made it clear that the headline didn't refer to smoked pork. In Brazil the word ham, presunto, has a secondary and more sinister meaning. It's giria-slang-for a murder victim who has been bound in a special way, ankles tied to wrists, so that the body takes on a form roughly resembling a ham, and then shot, execution style, with a single bullet to the back of the head.

  Making presuntos is a signature of a death squad, rogue policemen who take it upon themselves to thin out the ranks of the criminal population. It was an aberration in law enforcement, and as such, should have been immediately reported to the Federal Police. But no one had. Diana's article was news to Silva.

  All five of the victims had been street kids, and all five had been murdered in exactly the same way, at a frequency of about one a month for the last four months.

  Silva muttered an obscenity and reread the story from beginning to end, absorbing the salient details. He had plenty of time to do it.

  Ferraz kept him waiting for a total of sixty-three minutes. No federal employee could have gotten away with it, but Ferraz reported to the State Secretary for Security, and Silva's department had no power over him. In the interim the colonel received three other visitors.

  Two of them were together, a married couple in their sixties who arrived shortly after Silva did. The woman was carrying a toy dachshund with a collar that matched the necklace she was wearing. The gems on both the necklace and the collar could have been green tourmalines, but the man was using a gold Rolex watch, which led Silva to believe that he was looking at a dog that was draped with emeralds. Both the man and the woman were wearing jeans, designer jeans but still jeans, wealthy landowners by the look of them. Ferraz received them after a short wait.

  They stayed about twenty minutes and came out with smiles on their faces. Their host didn't accompany them to the door.

  Another ten minutes went by and another visitor arrived. His uniform and badges of rank identified him as a major in the State Police. There was a thin scar high on his left cheekbone. A scabbard in black leather that matched his holster hung from the opposite side of his gunbelt. The bone handle of a knife protruded from the scabbard. He ignored Silva, nodded at the secretary, and went into Ferraz's office without knocking. Ten minutes later, on his way out, he gave Silva the look that policemen generally reserve for felons, not colleagues.

  More time went by. Finally, the secretary's telephone buzzed. "He'll see you now," she said, replacing the receiver. "Go on in." She made no effort to open the door for him as she'd done for the couple.

  Silva stepped into a haze of cigar smoke and would have left the door ajar, but she came out from behind her desk and slammed it shut.

  The colonel didn't waste any time on pleasantries. He didn't offer Silva a hand. He didn't even offer him a seat. Silva took one anyway.

  "Okay, Mario, now that you've made yourself at home, what can I do for you?"

  Ferraz said it with an insolent smile. The use of Silva's first name without having such usage offered to him was a breach of etiquette bordering on insult.

  "Thanks, Colonel, for coming right to the point. I'm sure you're a busy man and wouldn't appreciate me wasting your time any more than I appreciate you wasting mine."

  The smile faded. "Crap. If I'd shown up to see you without an appointment, wouldn't you have kept me waiting?"

  "Not if I could help it. And I would have taken your call. You know what brings me here. I can hardly imagine you have anything more important on your agenda."

  "What the fuck do you know about my agenda?"

  Silva ignored the question. "How come you haven't informed us about those street kids?"

  "What?"

  Ferraz seemed genuinely surprised.

  "The serial murders, Colonel. My business, as much as yours.

  "Oh. That."

  Ferraz made a dismissive gesture. "Paperwork," he said. "I didn't get around to it."

  "The first one was four months ago, Colonel. Four months."

  "I thought you were here because of the bishop."

  "I am, or rather I was. Now there appear to be other matters that require my attention, notably serial murders, and the disappearance of the fazendeiro, Orlando Muniz."

  "Junior," Ferraz corrected him. "Orlando Muniz Junior. How did you find out about the death squad?"

  "From the newspaper in your waiting room. So you confirm it's a death squad?"

  "Pretty damned obvious, isn't it? But they're only killing street kids, so who cares? It's not like they're knocking off honest citizens."

  "It's still serial murder."

  "Look, if you want to waste your time, I'll send you the paperwork, okay? I'll try to have it waiting for you when you get back to Brasilia, which I hope is going to be real soon. What else do you want? I'm a busy man."

  "Have your men made any progress in investigating what happened to the bishop?"

  Ferraz took another pull on his cigar and launched a jet of smoke toward the ceiling. "Nope," he said. "But we don't have to worry, because now we've got the Federal Police in town and if they can't catch the bad guy, who can?"

  "You asked me what I wanted. I'm going to tell you. I want you to help me locate someone called Edson Souza."

  The colonel blinked, obviously mystified. "Who?"

  "Edson Souza."

  "Why?"

  "I think he might have information about the bishop's murder."

  "You got a description? A profession? Age?"

  Silva shook his head. "Only a name."

  Ferraz puffed on his cigar. "So what makes you think-"

  "We talked to the bishop's secretary. This Souza called Dom Felipe a few days before he was shot. They spoke about something so confidential that even the secretary doesn't know what it was. Maybe it's related."

  "Okay," the colonel said. He picked up a pen and made a note. "Souza, Edson. I'll get back to you. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

  Chapter Twenty

  The following morning, Arnaldo got to the breakfast table first. He was already poking at a cheese omelet when Silva arrived.

  "Look at this thing," he said. "I told you they couldn't even boil an egg."

  "That's not boiled."

  "The hell it's not. It's boiled in warm oil."

  Hector joined them five minutes later, his eyes still puffy from sleep. His uncle made a show of looking at his watch.

  "Yeah, sorry," Hector said, and then to the waiter: "Coffee, black. I'll have the breakfast buffet."

  "Good choice," Arnaldo said, and pu
t down his fork.

  "So, how did it go with Brouwer?" Hector asked. "What did you think of him?"

  As if on cue, the buzz of conversation in the restaurant came to a sudden stop. Heads turned toward the door.

  A tall man in blue jeans and a Landless Workers' League T-shirt was standing there, scanning the room.

  "Speak of the devil-" Silva said.

  "That's him?"

  "That's him."

  The conversation around them resumed, but something about it had changed. There was tension in the air. Eyes followed Brouwer as he walked toward them and stopped at their table.

  "May l?"

  "Sure. Have a seat," Silva said, indicating the empty chair. "Padre Anton Brouwer, meet Delegado Hector Costa and Agente Arnaldo Nunes. Coffee?"

  "Please."

  Hector raised a hand to summon the waiter, who seemed to be the only person in the room who wasn't looking their way.

  "I'll go get him," Arnaldo said, and stood. As he lifted his bulk out of the chair, he did a visual sweep of the room. People started taking a sudden interest in their food.

  Silva raised his eyebrows. "We seem to be attracting quite a bit of attention. Is it you, Father, or the T-shirt?" He pointed to the league logotype emblazoned on the priest's chest.

  "Both," Brouwer said. "This isn't a place for the have- nots. I don't belong here."

  Arnaldo came back and caught the priest's last words. "The waiter thinks so, too," he said. "Says the other customers aren't going to like it if you get served. I had to flash a badge at him."

  "I don't want to be here any more than they want me to be here," he said. "But I had to come. Because of this." He pulled a piece of paper from one of his pockets.

  "What's that?" Silva said.

  "A letter from Diana Poli to me. Read it."

  Silva did.

  Anton,

  You were right. It's one hell of a story, but now that I know what he's capable of I'm scared to death.

  If anything happens to me, tell the Federal Police to look in my safe-deposit box. It's at the Itau Bank, the one on Avenida Neves. And if you call, for God's sake don't mention this note. He may have tapped my phone.

  Love, D.

  Silva handed the note to Hector. Hector read it and passed it to Arnaldo.

  "Who's `he'?" Silva asked.

  "I'm not sure she'd want me to tell you that."

  Silva let that one go for the moment. He took the note back from Arnaldo and rustled it. "When did you get this?"

  The waiter arrived with a pot of fresh coffee, put a cup in front of the priest and went away without looking at any of them.

  "It came in this morning's mail," Brouwer said. "I called her right away. She didn't answer the phone at her apartment, so I tried her at the office. She had a meeting set for eight o'clock, but she never arrived."

  Hector wrapped his napkin around the metal handle of the pot and filled Brouwer's cup. The priest nodded his thanks and reached for the sugar.

  "She's punctual? Reliable?" Silva asked.

  "Very. And she has a pager and a cell phone. She's not responding to either."

  "You know where she lives?"

  "Yes."

  Silva pursed his lips. He was getting a bad feeling about this.

  "Finish your coffee, Father. I want you to take us there."

  They tried buzzing Diana from the lobby. There was no answer.

  "There's probably a zelador," Arnaldo said-a live-in janitor, responsible for keeping the public areas of apartment buildings clean and neat.

  "Go see," Silva said.

  Arnaldo took the stairs that led down to the garage. A few minutes later they heard two pairs of footsteps coming back up.

  The zelador was a little brown man with a singsong Bahian accent. No, he hadn't seen Senhorita Diana, not last night, not this morning. No, he didn't have a key to her apartment, but Cecilia did.

  "Cecilia?"

  "Sim, senhor. Cecilia. Senhorita Diana's faxineira. She comes to clean. She'll be here tomorrow morning."

  "We can't wait. Come with us. We're going up."

  Upstairs, they pounded on the door of the apartment.

  There was no answer.

  Silva put his ear to the door. He heard a faint buzzing, constantly changing in pitch, and recognized it immediately for what it was.

  "Ah, Jesus," he said to no one in particular. And then, to Arnaldo, "Open it."

  Arnaldo stepped up to the door and examined it.

  "Steel, in a steel frame," he said, "it's gonna be a bitch to break. You want me to call a locksmith?"

  "Wait," Hector said. First he looked under the welcome mat. Nothing. Then he ran his hand over the top of the doorjamb. A key came tumbling down, tinkled once against the door and wound up on the corridor's rug.

  "Voila," he said, and picked it up.

  The steel door had done a good job of isolating the hallway from what was happening inside. The minute Hector cracked it open all of them could smell the stench.

  Arnaldo and Hector exchanged a knowing look. Father Brouwer put his hand to his mouth. Silva turned to the zelador.

  "There's a dead body in there," he said.

  "Stinks, doesn't it?" the zelador asked. He was enjoying it.

  "I want you to go downstairs and call the State Police. Wait for them out in front and bring them here when they arrive. Understand?"

  "Sure. But-"

  "But nothing. Get moving."

  The zelador looked at the door to Diana's apartment, back at Hector, back at the door again, and shrugged. Then he turned and walked reluctantly to the elevator, taking his time about it.

  Silva walked inside, followed by Hector.

  "Let's go, Padre," Arnaldo said. "Follow me, hold your nose, and watch where you step."

  They found the bodies in the office. Someone had switched off the air-conditioning and left the door to the terrace ajar. Diana's apartment wasn't just hot, it was stifling. The smell was bad, but the flies were worse. They were everywhere: in the air, on the furniture, the curtains, the walls, the ceilings, the pools of blood on the floor, but mostly on the corpses of the two women.

  Diana was lying on her back with her throat cut. Nearby, a woman with blonde hair was bound upright in a chair. She was naked from the waist down. Her head was tilted forward, and they couldn't see her wound, but judging by the blood that covered her blouse it was likely she'd been dispatched in the same way.

  "You know her?" Silva asked Brouwer, pointing at the blonde.

  He nodded. "Diana's friend, Dolores. Diana called her Lori. They lived together."

  "Look at her hand," Arnaldo said.

  The other three did.

  Brouwer was the first to speak.

  "There was something they wanted to know," he said. "They chopped Lori's fingers off, one by one, until Diana told them. Then they killed them both."

  Silva remembered the priest's experience of torture.

  Arnaldo looked at him with admiration. "You could've been a cop," he said.

  "Let's get out of here," Silva said.

  "You don't want to wait for the locals?" Hector asked.

  His uncle shook his head. "I want to see what's in that safe-deposit box," he said.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The bank manager must have been one of the few people in town who wore a suit to work. He was friendly and helpful, but also a fusspot, determined to go through all the formalities.

  "Pardon me for asking, but may I see the warrant?" he said.

  "We don't have one." Silva was doing the talking for the four of them.

  "An authorization signed by Senhorita Poli would do just as well," the manager insisted.

  "We haven't got that either. This is a special case, Senhor…"

  "Junqueira."

  "Senhor Junqueira. Look, Senhor Junqueira, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Senhorita Poli won't be signing any authorizations for anyone. Senhorita Poli is dead. Murdered."

  The man
ager opened his mouth, reminding Silva of a fish with eyeglasses.

  "Murdered?"

  "All I'm asking you to do is to let us have a look in that box. We'll do it in your presence. We won't take anything out or put anything in. You can watch us while we do it."

  "Murdered. My God. Well, in that case…"

  The woman in charge of the safe-deposit boxes was introduced as Carmen. She had a picture frame on her desk with photos of two little girls who weren't quite as plump as their mother but who were well on their way.

  She smiled, offered a hand to each of them-Silva, Hector, Arnaldo, and Brouwer-and started gathering chairs from neighboring desks to seat them all.

  "That won't be necessary, Carmen," Junqueira said. "The gentlemen are in a hurry. I'll sign the book,"

  "Sim, senhor," she said. "And the key?"

  "Ah, yes, the key. I'd forgotten about the key."

  "What key?" Silva said.

  "There are two keys," Carmen explained. "We keep one, and the client keeps the other. You need both keys to open a box. We have ours. You need Diana's."

  Carmen seemed to be on first-name terms with Diana Poli.

  "And without that key?" Silva asked.

  "We have to drill out the lock. It happens occasionally, people losing their keys."

  "Drill out the lock?"

  "Yes," she said brightly. "There's a locksmith we always use. But I'm sure it won't be necessary in this case."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, you're policemen, aren't you?"

  "We are."

  "Then why don't you just ask Colonel Ferraz for his?"

  Ferraz had left an authorization, ostensibly signed by Diana and dated a week earlier. Carmen showed it to Silva. It was short and to the point:

  Please allow Colonel Emerson Ferraz, RG 186364682, to access my safe-deposit box, number 3601

  Diana Poli

  RG was the prefix to numbers in a national identity card.

  "When was he here?" Silva asked.

  "Yesterday afternoon," Carmen said, "about an hour after we closed our doors to the public. He just caught me. I'd finished my paperwork, had my purse in my hand, and was on my way out the door."