“And wouldn’t it be wonderful,” Wilson continued, getting into the mood, “if Santa Claus decided to bring you a Junior G-Man outfit for Christmas, complete with deerstalker hat and magnifying glass?” He suddenly remembered. “Forget the magnifying glass. You’ve already got one too many.”
Da Silva’s large hands tightened on the steering wheel. His light mood disappeared.
“Well, if she’s home, she’ll tell us the whole story. Who were involved, why they were involved—although obviously for money—and who dreamed up the scheme, and what part each was going to play. The whole scenario.”
“And if she doesn’t? Hot needles under the fingernails?”
“If she doesn’t, a good search of her place should give us what we want.” Da Silva’s voice was expressionless. “If she was the one who went to the Catatumbá to visit Chico, and if they had a falling out that eventually led to—to—” He didn’t attempt to finish. “Then we ought to get some idea from her apartment. Her wardrobe. I’m sure she wouldn’t go to the Catatumbá in a low-cut cocktail gown.”
“True.”
“And we also have the Institute to check. João Martins, or his assistant, may have come up with something in the autopsy to help.” He nodded, trying to look confident. “We’re not licked yet.”
“Just punch-drunk,” Wilson said, and lapsed into silence.
They continued to drive without conversation, each busy with his own thoughts. Da Silva was attempting to find some good reason not to suspect Romana, alone or companioned, for the elimination of her ex-lover. He realized, of course, that he could hardly blame her for the fatal drop of the red Ferrari into the canyon. Still, to be impartial, if one thing hadn’t led to another, and that other thing led to a third, the chances were that many people would be alive who were, instead, dead. And, he said to himself wearily, if we’re going to live with ifs, then if your grandmother had wheels, she could have classified as a sulky. Certainly she didn’t weigh much.…
Nova Iguaçu was passed; Da Silva didn’t even take the effort to point out the curve on which the Senhora Xavier had met death. Merití outskirts came and went, gimcrackery in their new pseudo-American semivillas, basementless and with dangerous porches. Their architect had once seen a movie involving Los Angeles and had been impressed by the stucco monstrosities that make up a large part of the dwellings there. Then the police barrier dividing the states, and they were on the Avenida Brasil, in the city proper, watching the buildings heighten along the road, the people increase in number as they approached the center. Behind them the sun was already beginning to seek the refuge of the western mountains; it occurred to them both simultaneously that not only had Senhor Xavier failed to invite them to his luncheon, but neither had anyone else. Including themselves.
The tunnel from the Catumbí to the Laranjeiras was negotiated; Botafogo was dark when they emerged, lighted only by the pearl necklaces of the streetlights strung along both sides of the wide avenue. Across the sharp spit of the bay that half-hid the Yacht Club, the giant electric sign proclaimed the news in moving letters. There was the soft salt smell of the ocean carrying over the bay, warm and mysterious, soothing the traffic inching along the Beira Mar intent on home.
Da Silva turned off into the São Clemente, approaching the bairro of Jardim Botânico and the southern edge of the city. Here traffic was more daring. It was the hour of dinner, and all those who had been held up in the giant city for one poor reason or good another were intent upon consolidating their excuses. He held his breath and pretended he was pure in heart. It seemed to work; he came into the Praça Santos Dumont unscathed and turned into the Avenida Visconde de Albuquerque. The familiar path to Romana’s apartment brought back memories of his visit with her. Was it only the day before? It was. And was he anxious to see her again? He was. And was it only because she undoubtedly had a lot of answers he needed as a policeman? Unfortunately, it was not.… Still, why should she have murdered Chico? For the money? She and Chico would have had more than half of it without murder; unless, of course, she had tired of Chico and come to prefer, instead, a partnership with the driver of the red Ferrari; but on that basis any two or more could have been in partnership with any other two or less. Consideration of the possible combinations could only lead to madness. Also, in killing Chico, Romana would have eliminated the man who paid for her expensive apartment. Would she have done it? Very doubtful.…
Still, somebody had killed Chico, and with the driver of the Ferrari dead—and logically eliminated from the role of murderer—suspects were becoming rare. For a college prank, the thing had certainly turned into a nightmare!
He noted the radio patrol car parked a block below the Coronado Apartments. He passed the building, drawing up behind the radio car, climbed down, and walked ahead. Perreira was sitting on the front seat, talking to the driver. At sight of his superior he opened the door and hastily climbed down.
“Captain.…”
“Hello, Lieutenant. Is she back yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you sure she couldn’t have come back without being seen? Up from the garage, for example?”
“Positive, Captain. She doesn’t have a car—” Perreira suddenly realized that people without cars can also take elevators from basement garages. “Even if she came up from the garage, I put those men back on the floors the way you wanted.” He shook his head positively. “No, sir. She hasn’t come back.”
“All right. You have the search warrant?”
“Yes, sir.” Perreira tapped his jacket pocket.
“Good. Then let’s go.”
Wilson joined the two; the three walked back up the street, climbed the steps of the luxurious apartment building, and walked into the lobby. The plainclothesman standing with the porter at the desk drew himself up. The porter merely scowled. It was past his hours of work, but the police wouldn’t let him go home, and he was sure they weren’t going to pay him overtime. What a deal! It was bad enough that apparently the lady in 1612 had broken the law, but much worse to have the place besieged by policemen. To the porter a few policemen went a long way.
Da Silva nodded to him coolly. “Hello. Do you have a master key? I want to get into 1612.”
The porter’s face hardened. He knew his rights. “Do you have a warrant?”
Perreira stepped up, presenting it. The porter was stunned. He took the ornate paper and stared at it, wishing—not for the first time—that he knew how to read well enough to interpret more than mail addresses or numbers. Were they taking advantage of his ignorance with this fancy paper? Was it really a search warrant? Not knowing what a warrant looked like certainly complicated things! Still, fortunately, it really made no difference. He had no key.
“I’m sorry, senhores,” he said, handing back the paper, “but porters aren’t allowed keys to the apartments. I have a key for the outer door and one for the garage. At the renting office they have master keys, but only there.”
“That’s quite all right,” Da Silva said pleasantly. “I’m sure we’ll manage somehow.” Perreira tucked the warrant back into his pocket. Da Silva caught the attention of the plainclothesman. “Should our little bird return while we’re inspecting her gilded cage, I’d appreciate it if you’d call up and announce her. They’re very fussy about people being announced in this place.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good.” Da Silva led the way to the elevator and pressed the proper button. They rose in silence and emerged on the sixteenth floor. Wilson and Da Silva moved to the apartment door while Perreira said a few words to the man on duty before joining them. He looked about as Da Silva fumbled with keys.
“Quite a place!” The lieutenant’s voice was admiring. “Oil paintings in the hallways! How does anyone afford a place like this?”
“I wouldn’t want to shock you,” Da Silva said. He continued trying keys from his master set on the door, muttering under his breath. The third one caught; he pressed gently, and the door swung open. Da Silv
a smiled. “Gentlemen?”
He waited until they had entered and then closed the door behind them. Perreira stared about, even more impressed by the apartment than by the hallway. He wandered to the piano and was about to test it for sound when he seemed to realize they were not there for entertainment. With a sigh—for it was a beautiful piano—he came back to the business at hand.
“What are we looking for, Captain?”
Da Silva smiled faintly. “I have no idea.”
“Then why are we searching the place?”
“Because I don’t know what else to do.” Da Silva sounded sincere. “However, since we’re here, and we’ve gone to all the trouble of getting a warrant, we might as well use it. I want to go over this apartment with a fine-tooth comb. I want to see anything that looks the slightest bit out of the ordinary, and—naturally—anything that might tie into favelas in general and the Catatumbá in particular. Or tie in with Chico, though we ought to find plenty of that. Is that clear?”
“It’s as clear to us as it is to you,” Wilson said. He grinned. “I’ll take the kitchen. I just remembered we haven’t eaten today.”
“That’s a search warrant, not a license to pilfer,” Da Silva reminded him with a smile, and then nodded. “All right, you take the kitchen and after that the maid’s room. Perreira, you start in here and then take the dining room. I’ll take the hallway and the bedroom.’
“That figured,” Wilson said.
“Of course it figured,” Da Silva said loftily, and thought of something else, turning to Perreira. “I want to see any pictures—photographs—and all correspondence. Of any kind. O.K.?”
“Right, sir.”
“Then let’s go.”
The three men split up, Perreira starting in the living room by moving to a white escritoire behind the piano and sliding open the center drawer. Wilson and Da Silva moved to the hallway leading to the bedroom and, beyond, to the kitchen and the maid’s quarters. Da Silva, in the lead, flipped on the hall light and opened the door to the bedroom. Wilson, behind, waited for the captain to get out of his way. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then Da Silva backed from the room, turning about. His face was white.
“Wilson.…”
“What’s the matter?”
“Romana.…”
The smaller man pushed past him, throwing the door wide, staring in growing shock. The room was lighted from several lamps; under their soft light the nude body on the bed was still beautiful, even in death, but the once lovely face was almost unrecognizable, blackened with suffused blood. The throat was a mass of discolored bruises.
Romana Vilares had been brutally strangled.
Chapter 15
To the mind of Captain Da Silva, in the warm, clean light of morning, with sky like polished aquamarine and a soft, fresh breeze from the sea, death was something that should not have to be tolerated, and especially the death by violence of Romana Mariana Vilares. Still, it had happened and could not be put back, and someone was going to pay for it. There was nothing melodramatic in this promise he made himself; the person who had strangled Romana Vilares was going to be found and punished. That was the one true, assured fact in a world filled with hesitations, deceptions, and just plain lies.
He pulled the taxi to the curb, jamming on the brake and switching off the ignition while Wilson climbed out, and then joined the smaller man on the sidewalk. They mounted the steps of the Coronado Apartments together, crossed the marble-floored lobby, entered the elevator side by side, and rode up in silence.
On the sixteenth floor they left the elevator and moved down the carpeted hallway to the apartment door. Da Silva pressed the button; there was a delay of a few seconds, before the door was opened. Da Silva nodded to the plainclothesman who had spent the night in the apartment, walked in with Wilson, and closed the door behind them.
“Any telephone calls?”
“No, sir.”
The swarthy detective, face rigid, glanced about the quiet room and slowly shook his head in disbelief. How could anyone as lovely, as vital, as Romana actually be dead? He clamped down on the thought. Enough of that! The job right now isn’t to mourn her but to avenge her. Wilson was watching him with understanding. Da Silva’s eyes returned to the plainclothes detective.
“Have you had anything to eat?”
“No, sir.”
“Then go out and have some breakfast, and then get back here. There’s no need to rush.”
“Thanks, Captain.”
The door closed behind the man. Da Silva stared about the room again for a few moments and walked over, dropping into a chair. Wilson seated himself on the sofa, across from him, and leaned forward.
“Zé.…”
The black eyes came up, inscrutable. “What?”
“Why did you want to come back here? Just being here isn’t doing you any good. This is no time for memories. So why come back? The technical squad last night covered everything useful.”
“Did they?” Da Silva stared at him. “Ninety percent of the fingerprints they found were too smeared to be useful. And they can’t find any record of the ones that were clear.”
Wilson frowned at him. “You can’t very well expect them to manufacture unsmeared fingerprints. And it certainly isn’t their fault if the clear ones aren’t on record.”
“I realize that. I also realize they didn’t search the place as thoroughly as I would have liked. I just didn’t feel like staying here and doing it last night. After they took her away I just wanted to get out of here.” He shrugged. “Besides, where else would we go? What else would we do?”
“You haven’t forgotten Humberto, have you?”
“I haven’t forgotten him. Perreira is digging him out this morning.” Da Silva leaned back wearily, closing his eyes. The night before had not given him much sleep. “It was too late last night to check on the university, but Perreira is there now. He’ll find the boy and bring him here.”
“Unless Chico had ten friends, all named Humberto.”
“That he picked up and drove to class? Possibly. In that case Perreira will bring all ten.” Da Silva opened his eyes, rubbed his hand across his face, and came to his feet. “Well, sitting here won’t search the place for us. Let’s get to work.”
“Right,” Wilson said, and placed his hands on his knees, preparatory to levering himself erect. His eyes came up. “Do we have any better idea of what we’re looking for now that—” He paused.
“Now that Romana’s dead? Don’t be afraid to say it; we’ll all get used to living with it. The answer is still no.”
“There’s one thing,” Wilson said, rising. “I didn’t see any photographs around last night. You’d imagine she would have had a regular gallery of Chico around. I understand it’s fairly normal to boost the ego of whoever pays your rent.”
“I noticed that,” Da Silva said. He shrugged. “Mystery number two hundred. Whoever killed her may have taken them away, or destroyed them. But why?”
“Why, indeed?” Wilson said. “Maybe we’ll find them under the rug in the bathroom. I’ll take the bedroom this time. All right?”
“The technical squad went over the bedroom pretty thoroughly last night. Start with the maid’s room. The porter didn’t know anything about her, not even her name. If we can find out where she lives—or rather where her sick mother lives—we can locate her. And maybe she can tell us something. I’ll start in here.”
“Right,” Wilson said, and started to leave the room.
Da Silva turned toward the escritoire; the telephone rang sharply. Wilson froze. Da Silva moved to the small telephone table instantly, alert at once. He picked up the receiver softly, bringing it to his ear, making no sound. At the other end of the line he could hear breathing. He continued to wait, one hand cupped over the mouthpiece. At last, as he had hoped, the person at the other end spoke.
“Hello? Hello? Who’s being cute? Who’s playing games?”
Da Silva uncupped the receiver, disappointed.
“Hello, João.”
“Zé? Is that you? It sounded like you. There must be something wrong with this damned phone.” He calmed down. “Anyway, how’ve you been? Sorry I missed you the other day.”
Da Silva answered Wilson’s unvoiced question. “João Martins, from the Institute.” He returned his attention to the instrument. “Yes, João? Do you have anything useful for us?”
“I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I doubt it,” Dr. Martins said. “Death was by strangulation, which was fairly evident. In both cases. I imagine you’ve already seen the autopsy report on the boy. That was sent over to you yesterday.”
“I haven’t seen it. I haven’t been in the office.”
“Well, there wasn’t anything startling in it. We estimate he’d been dead between four and eight hours when you brought him in, which would mean he’d been killed between midnight Tuesday and four in the morning Wednesday. The time element was a little harder to calculate in the girl’s case; it usually is after a greater length of time. But we judge she was killed roughly three to six hours earlier than the boy. Sometime early Tuesday evening to midnight at the latest. That’s far from accurate, and I know it covers a big span, but—”
“João!” Da Silva was staring at the telephone, his eyes wide open, now completely awake. “You mean the girl was killed first?”
“Almost certainly. In fact, certainly.”
“But that’s impossible—” Da Silva paused. “No, it isn’t impossible at all. It’s just—”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He took a deep breath. “Anything else?”
“Nothing that can’t wait until you get the report, but it won’t be much more than I’ve already told you. Strangulation in both cases. No sign of recent sexual molestation as far as the girl is concerned. Nothing in the stomach or brain of either to indicate a drugged state, if that’s of any use. And, as I said, we’re sure she died a few hours earlier than he did.”
The Xavier Affair Page 15
