There was a short silence while Da Silva digested this information and tried to think of further useful questions. At the moment, none came.
“Thanks, João.”
“Any time, Zé. Ciao.”
The telephone was disconnected. Da Silva set the receiver in place slowly, thinking. Wilson was watching.
“What’s this about the girl being killed first?”
“That’s what they say.” Da Silva stared at the carpet, his mind racing. He looked up. “Which might explain why there aren’t any pictures of Chico here.”
“How?”
“Suppose Chico came down here from the favela that night—” He paused, thinking, and then shook his head. “No.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Well,” Da Silva said, “for one thing it’s pretty hard to postulate Chico coming down here and killing the girl, and then going back and being killed himself—”
“Why?”
“By the same method? Both strangled in the same manner?” Da Silva shook his head. “That’s asking a lot of coincidence. For the time being I think we’re better off concentrating on one killer for both of them.”
“I think we’re better off getting some facts before we start wasting time concentrating on anything,” Wilson said. “Let’s check this place out and see what we can find. And then let’s see what we can learn from Humberto and the maid, when and if we locate them. Then let’s see where we are.”
“Right,” Da Silva said. He moved to the escritoire again as Wilson disappeared down the hallway. The tall detective seated himself on the small bench before the scroll-edged desk and pulled open one of the narrow drawers, sliding his hand into it. The drawers had been left undisturbed the previous evening; with a man on watch there had been no great urgency in cataloging their contents, but Da Silva was still hopeful of discovering something that might give him some useful ideas. A few letters rewarded his searching hand; he withdrew them and studied them. They were addressed in a shaky, uneducated hand, each beginning: “Romana, minha filha.…” He set them aside. It was doubtful if any message from the girl’s mother would be significant at the moment. And the mother would have to be told, too. He forced down a slight shudder that ran through him, continuing with the desk.
Some bills were unearthed from the second drawer; he noted the dates. The apartment furnishings, or at least many of them, were apparently of fairly recent origin. These papers were also laid to one side, although he made a mental note to have either Ruy or Perreira speak with the shops—and what good that would be, he had a feeling, would forever remain a mystery, even to himself.
What he was basically interested in finding was an address book, or a list of names that might indicate the people Romana had known, the ones who might have visited her. And, visiting, killed her. Other possibilities than Humberto, who would be here shortly if Perreira was doing his usual job. Da Silva did not like to consider Humberto in the role of dual killer; he was the last possible suspect, and if he wasn’t guilty.…
He was about to start on the third drawer when he heard a faint call from the direction of the kitchen. He came to his feet and walked quickly down the hallway, through the kitchen to the maid’s room off a tiny rear entranceway. Wilson was sitting on the narrow, hard bed, smiling mischievously. Da Silva was in no mood for games.
“Did you call?”
“I certainly did.” The small, nondescript man came to his feet and walked over to the ancient wardrobe that took up almost a third of the tiny, windowless room. He took the door by the handle and swung it open, waving his hand toward the interior in the manner of a magician offering a rabbit for the audience’s approval.
“Voilà!”
Da Silva followed the dramatic motion of the languid hand. “What is it? Oh—no clothes.” He nodded; the nod suddenly developed into a yawn. He fought it into a semblance of control. “So she isn’t just visiting her mother. She’s gone.…”
Wilson stared at him. “That’s the least of it. Look at the top shelf. Easy! Don’t disturb the dust!” His smile returned, widening. “Now, my friend, have you ever had a maid who had enough room, in these two-by-four cracker boxes they call maid’s quarters, so she could avoid the use of a shelf? I never have.”
“Neither have I, but I don’t see—”
“You don’t see because you’re not looking,” Wilson said accusingly. “Look again.
Da Silva ducked his head a bit so that his eyes were almost on a level with the dusty shelf. The thick, gray curls of lint followed a pattern, heavier in a square section at the center, and with four round marks, equidistant, clean at the corners of a square. Da Silva noted them and nodded.
“She had something there, a box or something. With feet.…”
“A box? Feet?” Wilson looked at him in amazement, his smile gone. “You must still be asleep! She had more than a box. Look!” He swung the wardrobe door wider, pointing to a small hole just above shelf level on one side. Sawdust still dusted the edges of the perforation. “One thing is sure—the maid never did that. She’d have cleaned up, at least. Now look here.…” He squatted down, his finger moving along the edge of the floor molding. “See these holes? The tiny ones? They’re from wire staples. Now just follow along.…”
He straightened up and led the way into the adjoining kitchen, marking the small pairs of holes along the baseboard. They rose to follow the doorjamb on one side and then dropped on the other. Wilson’s finger kept watch on the irregular pattern; his running comment also kept pace as he led the way.
“Her box, as you call it, was electrical, and I never heard of anyone keeping a radio or television—assuming a maid down here could ever afford a television—on the shelf of a wardrobe. Nor did I ever hear of a maid sharp enough to do a wiring job like this.” His fingers noted the neat corners as the removed staples left a distinct pattern. “My own feeling is she didn’t do it.” He looked up over his shoulder, grinning. “I guarantee nobody would have thought anything at all of seeing those wires. He’d have automatically figured them for wires added to give more electrical outlets, or else telephone wires.…”
By now he had followed the line into the hallway. He pointed to its disappearance into a linen closet. “Scarcely the place for a telephone, eh?” The tiny line of perforations led behind a pile of towels, now tilted to one side. Wilson pulled the towels to one side, pointing. There were two small holes drilled in the walls, one on either side of the now-disturbed stack of towels. The smaller man nodded in satisfaction.
“And there you are. The hole on this side leads to behind the mirror in the bedroom. The one on this side leads to behind a picture in the dining room. Neat, eh?”
“The place was bugged! To a tape recorder!”
Wilson smiled. “Waking up, eh? About time. I think, my friend, that this explains why anyone in the world could have known that Chico was in Fonseca’s shack on the Catatumbá last Tuesday night.…”
“Not anyone,” Da Silva said slowly. “Only someone who managed to bribe Romana’s maid to keep a tape recorder in her room. Hidden. And who had a key—at least to the back door.”
“And who does that leave out? Other than you, me, and the President of the Republic?”
“It leaves out quite a few,” Da Silva said thoughtfully. His eyes narrowed. He closed the door to the linen closet and led the way into the living room, moving almost unconsciously to the bar. He bent down, and brought up a bottle and two glasses, and poured two drinks. He picked one up and carried it to the sofa, sitting down. Wilson preferred the bar and remained there, dragging a stool into position and mounting it. Da Silva sipped his drink and set it on the floor beside him.
“Let’s see what we have,” he said slowly. “Somebody bribed the maid to keep the tape recorder in her room. And probably also bribed her to disappear. Let’s take the recorder first. Why?”
“Well,” Wilson said, “the most logical one would be Chico, keeping an eye on his true love. Or an ear, to be more
exact. On the other hand, we have to assume whoever planted the tape recorder was the same one who went to the trouble of taking it out. And taking out the wire and the staples, all in the hope of hiding the fact it had ever existed, although how he ever figured us to explain those holes in the linen closet wall, God knows. We also have to assume this was all done after the death of the girl—”
Da Silva interrupted. “Why do we have to assume that?”
“Well, we don’t,” Wilson conceded, “but let’s do it anyway, at least for the time being. Now, on that basis, since we’ve agreed that Chico probably didn’t kill the girl, it probably means that Chico didn’t plant the recorder. Right?”
“You have a lot of ifs and probably’s in that statement, but—to add one more—you’re probably right. Unfortunately.” He sighed. “What else do we have?”
“What did Dr. Martins tell you, other than the girl died first?”
“Not much. He said there was no sign of recent sexual molestation, and that neither autopsy showed signs of their being drugged. From that we can gather that the killer was fairly husky. Chico was thin, but he was wiry and strong. Tennis will do it. And Romana wasn’t a particularly small girl.”
“So we’ve got a strong killer who kept a tape of Romana’s life. That seems about as close to the ‘who’ as we can get for now. Next comes the why? And was it tied into this kidnapping gimmick?”
“It could be, I suppose. Or it could have been simply jealousy. Maybe Romana had a boyfriend before Chico. In fact, I’m sure she had many boyfriends in her life.”
“Well,” Wilson said, “let’s not get involved in them. We’ve got enough problems as it is. Every time we make one brilliant deduction, we rule out four previous brilliant deductions. We’re back to Humberto as last man on the totem pole, and I thought we ruled him out long ago.” He frowned. “By the way, what was our reasoning in ruling him out? To be honest, I don’t even remember.”
“To tell you the truth,” Da Silva said, “I don’t remember, either. I suppose we could reconstruct it, but we wouldn’t necessarily be right even if we did. We’ve been wrong on almost everything in the case up to now.” He considered his statement and amended it. “Well, maybe we haven’t been wrong so much as we haven’t been right.”
“We haven’t been anything,” Wilson began and then paused. There was a dull buzzing sound from the house telephone. Da Silva finished his drink and set his glass on the bar on his way to the instrument mounted on the doorjamb. He raised it.
“Hello?”
“Captain? Perreira here.” The lieutenant’s voice was distorted by the apparatus. “I’ve got this Humberto lad downstairs with me. Do you want me to bring him up now?”
“Keep him there a few minutes, and then bring him up,” Da Silva said. He disconnected, turning around. “It’s Perreira. He’s coming up with our elusive Humberto in a few minutes. Let’s plan how we’re going to handle him.”
Wilson nodded in agreement. “It’s going to be interesting to see his reaction to being brought to this apartment. Was Romana’s murder given any publicity? I didn’t hear anything on the radio this morning.”
“João usually keeps things quiet until the autopsy is finished, at least. We’ve lost a couple of killers by warning them too soon. But now that it’s over, I suppose the newspapers will be getting it.”
“But as of now, Humberto doesn’t know she’s dead?”
“Not unless he killed her.”
“Then my suggestion is to simply find out if he knows she’s dead. In a roundabout way, of course.”
Da Silva smiled. “Of course.” There was a short, sharp ring at the door. Da Silva moved over to it. “Here we go,” he said softly. “Ready or not.…”
Chapter 16
The large, stocky boy standing with Perreira in the doorway looked more sullen than frightened. He shook himself loose from the lieutenant’s hand and turned to face Da Silva. He almost seemed to be assaying the position of his family against that of the man before him; behind him Perreira closed the door and stood with his back to it, protectively. The boy noted the stance and sneered.
“Am I under arrest?” His tone was curt, argumentative. It was the tone of one with enough influence to handle policemen, individually or in groups. He tilted his head in Perreira’s direction. “He wouldn’t tell me anything. All he did was show me his badge and force me to go along with him. I know a little about law. Am I under arrest?”
Da Silva studied the heavy, arrogant face.
“You may be in about five minutes,” he said coldly, and pointed to a chair. “Sit down.”
The boy opened his mouth as if to protest, and then closed it. The man facing him seemed calm enough, relaxed enough, but there was still something about the swarthy, pockmarked face that warned Humberto not to start anything which, in all probability, he couldn’t finish.
He walked over to the chair, and sat down, his eyes treating Da Silva with the scorn he felt he deserved. The tall detective took a stance before him, looking down.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want answers. Honest answers. Is that clear?”
“Questions about what?” Humberto attempted to appear puzzled. “What’s this all about?”
“Just questions. Here’s the first one: Have you heard about Chico Xavier?”
“Yes.” The boy was on safe ground here and knew it. “It was in the papers.” A thought seemed to occur to him. “You don’t think that I had anything to—”
“Do you know how he died?”
“The paper said he was killed. Good God! You don’t think for a minute that I had—”
“He was strangled,” Da Silva said, in the tone of one correcting an error. “Someone strangled him. Do you know where he was killed?” This had not been in the newspapers; the Xavier influence had some value.
Humberto frowned. “Where he was killed?”
“That’s the question.”
The boy wet his lips and looked down at the carpet, as if trying to remember, and looked up again quickly, not wanting his action to be misinterpreted. “No.…”
Lie number one! Da Silva’s face remained unchanged.
“How many of you were involved?”
“Involved?”
“In the extortion scheme.”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you know what I’m talking about. And I know you know. I’m talking about the extortion scheme you were involved in, together with Chico and Romana, among others.”
“I wasn’t involved in anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who’s the boy who drives the red Ferrari? The racer?”
“I don’t know any—” Humberto paused. It would be a stupid lie; and there certainly couldn’t be anything incriminating in knowing someone with a red Ferrari racer. “I know someone who owns a red Ferrari. He goes to the university.”
“What’s his name?”
“Ricardo Caravelas. Why?”
“What does he study at the university?”
“Law. He’s in his last year. Why?”
“Because he’s dead. Did you know that?”
Humberto’s face turned grayish white. He closed his eyes and then opened them instantly. His big hands clenched the chair arm tightly, knuckles straining, ridged, white.
“How did he—”
“He ran his car over the edge of the cliff on the serra. He was going over two hundred kilometers an hour at the time.”
“He was killed?”
“He was killed. I don’t know how soon, or how mercifully. He fell one hundred meters before he struck; and after that his car turned and rolled to the bottom. At least another six hundred meters. It didn’t catch fire—”
“Then that’s why—”
“That’s why what?”
Humberto took a deep breath, looking away from the steady, black eyes, forcing himself under control. Nobody could prove a thing! “Why he was
n’t in school today.”
“Was he in school yesterday?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“He wasn’t in school yesterday. Yesterday he was driving over the edge of a cliff on the serra at a couple hundred kilometers an hour. He ended up a blot on the bottom of the ravine. His Ferrari was a wreck. His suitcases—” Da Silva dismissed the matter of the suitcases as being unimportant. “Are you in the same classes?”
“He’s a year ahead.”
“Do you always keep track of people who miss a day at school? If they are in different classes than you? How would you know?”
“We were friends.…”
“I know. Where did you type the note?”
“What—what note?”
“The ransom note—what else? The extortion note. Who composed it? It wasn’t bad. You?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Humberto stared at his tormentor with tortured eyes. “How long is this going to go on? I’ve got things to—”
“How good a friend were you to Chico?”
“We were friends. Good friends. If you think I could have killed him, you’re—”
“Were you also friends with Romana?”
“Ramona?”
“Not Ramona. Romana. From the word Roman. The feminine. Well?”
“I don’t know any Romana.”
“You were good friends with Chico Xavier and you didn’t even know the name of his girlfriend?”
“We weren’t that good friends.”
“You just said you were.” The boy remained silent, glowing hate. Da Silva stared at him. “At least you were good enough friends to help him out on his scheme, weren’t you?”
The boy locked his jaw. Da Silva considered him evenly.
“Whose idea was it? Yours? Chico’s? Romana’s? Ricardo’s?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Who else was in on the deal other than the four of you?”
“I tell you, I don’t know—”
“—what I’m talking about.” Da Silva nodded. “I’m surprised. Do you mean you didn’t know that Chico was pretending to be kidnapped in order to extort half a million dollars—American—from his father? I thought you said you were good friends?”
The Xavier Affair Page 16
