Instead of going back to the station, Espinosa went straight to the park. He wanted to get an idea of how many people were around in the late afternoon and early evening. Welber, a young detective on his team, had been put in charge of checking out the surrounding area.
The park, bigger than a soccer stadium, was thickly wooded; the ground was covered with dense undergrowth. It was crisscrossed by narrow walkways all converging on the mansion that housed the School of Visual Arts, set back about a hundred yards from the street. By day, the park was filled with children and their mothers or nannies; by night, it was frequented by lovers and students attending classes at the school. The massive wrought-iron gates, which provided the only access for cars and pedestrians off Rua Jardim Botânico, were open until ten-thirty at night. There weren’t enough groundskeepers to cover the whole park, and there was almost no way to tell who came and went.
When Espinosa arrived, Welber was sauntering down the avenue of trees toward the art school. He looked like a vacationing student: polo shirt, sweater around his shoulders, jeans, sneakers. The look was only thrown off by his untucked shirt, which concealed the gun in his belt. Since the benches in the park were wet from the rain, they sat in the car to talk.
Rose’s call to Bia had provided Espinosa with another scenario. If what Bia said was true, Rose would have boarded the bus downtown and gotten off at the stop opposite the park. If someone she knew had been waiting for her, they might have coerced her into the park with them. Rose gets on downtown—six-fifteen, six-thirty—the bus is crowded; no one notices the young woman jammed in between all the other passengers; they’re not paying attention. As the bus turns onto Rua Jardim Botânico, she finally gets a seat, but by this point it’s almost time to get off; shortly afterward, she rings the bell. Then the possibilities multiply. Rose gets off, walks to the corner, turns right toward Bia’s building. It’s getting dark, a misty rain is falling, but she doesn’t have to go too far; she keeps her head down, covering it with her purse to keep her hair dry. She doesn’t see Cláudio Lucena, who grabs her and forces her into a car.
Or on the other hand: Rose gets off the bus and finds Bia waiting for her by the park gates. Bia, in a hooded, waterproof cape, offers the secretary an umbrella and suggests they walk around the park so they can talk without being interrupted; her father’s supposed to be there any minute. Rose agrees, and they go down one of the walkways, which, given the time of day and the rain, are deserted. When they’re far enough from the avenue, Bia takes a revolver from a pocket in the cape and fires it point-blank. She hides the body in the thick undergrowth or pushes it into the lake; the roar of the traffic had disguised the shot. Bia walks home and waits for the doorman to leave his desk for a minute so that she can slip back in unseen.
In a vaguer version, with an even fuzzier cast of characters, Rose doesn’t even get the bus downtown.
“Sir, you’re not listening.”
“Sorry, Welber, go on.”
“At Planalto Minerações, they confirmed that Rose left at six-fifteen. Considering the time she’d need to catch the bus, the rush-hour traffic, and the distance down here, she could have gotten here between seven and seven-thirty. The bus stop is right across from the gates. It’s also the closest one to Carvalho’s building.”
“Did you find out anything from the park employees?”
“No, nothing. I showed them pictures of the secretary and Carvalho’s wife, but no one remembers seeing either of them. The cleaning people leave at five, long before Rose could have gotten here. Another problem is that the courses at the school change every day. So the people here yesterday between seven and nine aren’t necessarily the same ones who come today. I picked up a copy of the course catalog from the registrar and figure that our only chance of finding someone who could have seen Rose would be next Tuesday. So the likelihood of getting any useful information is about zero. The doorman confirmed what Bia said. She got home around noon and didn’t go out again; around eight, a man left an envelope with the doorman and he delivered it personally.”
“Did he know him? Had he been to the apartment before?”
“No, he doesn’t think so. He didn’t leave his name and said he didn’t want to go up himself; he just asked for the envelope to be delivered immediately.”
“Could he describe him?” asked Espinosa.
“Not really. Around forty, tall, good-looking, deep voice, well-mannered is what I gathered. He said he could recognize him.”
Welber paused to emphasize what he was about to say.
“And something interesting. The people in the building don’t have a reserved place in the garage. When they get here, they give the keys to the doorman, who parks their car. Most people get here between seven and eight, and the doorman has to get up several times to repark the cars. So our lovely designer could have slipped in during one of those absences.”
“Yes, that’s interesting,” Espinosa remarked. “But I really don’t think someone intending to kidnap or kill someone would do it so close to where they live, in a public place, when they just got a phone call from the victim arranging to meet upstairs.”
“It could be,” continued the young detective, unperturbed, “that someone overheard the conversation, left before Rose did, and waited for her at the bus stop to prevent her from speaking to Bia Vasconcelos.”
“A third possibility,” said Espinosa, “is that this is all an incredible coincidence and her disappearance has nothing to do with Carvalho’s death. But I don’t believe in coincidences like that. Try to find out at the company who she might have told she was coming here or who could have overheard her phone conversation. I need to talk to Dona Bia again and find out who sent that note.”
Espinosa didn’t mention another detail to Welber. It struck him that the doorman said the guy had asked for the note to be delivered “immediately.” That might be the doorman’s way of intimating that Bia Vasconcelos was home at eight, the likely time of the secretary’s disappearance.
After a rainy day, the damp air in the park made it seem colder. The warmth of their bodies and their hot breath had steamed up the windshield. As they were talking, Welber had been doodling; the words now resembled a kind of lace. When they stepped outside again, Espinosa became aware of how thin his linen jacket was. They said their good-byes and Welber went to retrieve his own car from the parking lot.
Espinosa wandered up and down the avenue for a while. Groups of kids walked toward the School of Visual Arts with large portfolios, rolls of paper, canvases, and shoulder bags. He could see the back of Bia’s building from there. There was a light on in the penthouse. He was cautious by nature, but just then he felt an urge to ring her doorbell and ask: “Who sent you that note?” He was also worried that his impulse had nothing to do with the mystery but with his desire to see Bia Vasconcelos again. He needed only to walk out through the gates, onto Rua Jardim Botânico, turn the corner, and walk a hundred yards in order to see the only woman who had really made an impression on him since his marriage broke up. He liked everything about her; he resisted the idea that she was involved in those deaths. What was she doing now? He walked slowly through the park, imagining: Bia watching television (boring); Bia on the sofa listening to classical music and flipping through an art magazine; Bia in a T-shirt, barefoot, legs crossed, eating a sandwich; Bia putting her ex-husband’s stuff in a box; Bia calling the guy who wrote the note …
It started to rain again. Espinosa took shelter in his car. He started the engine and went home.
10
Júlio had been sitting in his car for forty minutes watching the people going in and out of the gym across the street. The facade was glass but he couldn’t see the whole second floor. At regular intervals, a line of women in tight, colorful clothing passed by the window, clapping their hands above their heads and kicking rhythmically. Everything there annoyed him: blaring music, stereotyped movements, lurid leotards, exuberant health, no smoking.
He was about to leave when Alba bounced
out in a green-and-purple leotard, black leggings, white leg warmers, and sneakers, with a backpack slung over her shoulder. Her smile faded when she saw Júlio crossing the street in her direction.
“Hey, baby,” he said, slightly awkwardly, and Alba’s face changed completely.
“Don’t you ‘baby’ me!” she said, prodding Júlio in the chest. “You dump me for a whole week to go fuck some rich bitch and then you’ve got the nerve to come call me ‘baby’?”
“She’s not a rich bitch,” protested Júlio. “She’s an internationally renowned designer.”
“Oooooh, an intellectual,” Alba sneered. “So you spent the week talkin’ about art, huh?”
“You don’t understand—”
“No, you don’t get it, you little intellectual piece of shit. Just remember, you’re a so-so brain and a so-so fuck. Plus you’re not exactly loaded. So you really don’t have much to offer.”
She huffed off, thumping his arm with her backpack.
He thought about what she said as she vanished around the corner. He didn’t know which hurt more: the so-so brain or the so-so fuck. He wasn’t worried about not being rich, although he understood what she was getting at. When Alba had opened the gym with three partners, ex-classmates from the School of Physical Education, she didn’t have any money to put in, so her contribution was the architectural plan drawn up by Júlio, which made her a minority shareholder. “Your design’s not even worth a fourth of the capital,” she’d say when she wanted to hurt him.
The scene underlined the difference between the two women, although Júlio had to admit that Alba had every right to be angry. Her figure was sculpted by daily doses of aerobics, but she was nowhere near as elegant or beautiful as Bia. Nor, for that matter, as cultured: why did she have to talk like that? There was a vast cultural gulf between the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan and a gym in Ipanema. He stormed off in the other direction.
It was Thursday, two days since Bia’s talk and their meeting in the Bar Luiz. The more he thought about Bia, the less he thought about Alba. Next to Bia’s discreet elegance, Alba looked like some brightly colored, squawking parrot. But she was there—habit had made her available, familiar. Júlio could have predicted her little scene. She’d probably call that night or—at the latest—the next day, apologize for throwing a fit, and then everything would start over like it always did. He didn’t have the nerve to tell her that Bia’s husband had been killed. Alba would assume that he was about to make a play for the wife. And she’d be absolutely right, he thought. Anyway, she was a romantic, and murder would only get her going. He wouldn’t wait for her; he’d call first and invite her out for Chinese.
He didn’t want to hurt her. They’d met a little more than two years ago, a year before the gym opened. Since then the relationship had been good for both of them. Once when he’d been thinking about it, he’d decided the word “satisfactory” summed it up. She’s probably right, he thought now. Maybe a relationship that’s just satisfactory is by definition boring. Boring brain, boring in bed. “Habit breeds mediocrity.” He said this last sentence out loud, attracting a few stares. It was six and the streets of Ipanema were packed. Tourists laden with shopping bags were returning to their hotels; as he walked he noticed that the crowded buses were moving even more slowly than he was.
11
It was past nine when he got home. He took a long shower and then called Alba, who answered after the first ring, sounding perfectly normal. One of the good things about her was that she never stayed mad. She loved the idea of Chinese. “So healthy!” They had made their peace by the time they reached the restaurant. Bia wasn’t mentioned once, although she was very much there the whole time. Júlio kept waiting for the moment when the thought would be put into words, but it never was. There wasn’t that much to talk about; the sequence of events was entirely unsurprising. When they left the restaurant, she would say: “Your place or mine?” He would choose to go to her place, not because it was closer or more comfortable but for strategic reasons: in case of an argument, he could easily bail. He didn’t know whose fault it was that their relationship had atrophied: hers or his, for underestimating her.
Her apartment was at the rear of the building, on one of the upper floors, looking out over a hillside slum only about a hundred yards away. From her window, Alba could see samba dancing, gun-fights (the wall of her building was pockmarked by stray bullets), family arguments, the collapse of shacks in the rainy season, and the fireworks that announced the arrival of a fresh supply of drugs. Occasionally, she’d witness the show put on by the police going up the hill with a TV crew, finding “yet another major haul of drugs, arms, and munitions” and the imprisonment of a few child thieves labeled as dangerous bandits. The following day it would be the lead news story.
But that night things didn’t go according to schedule. Alba didn’t ask where they’d spend the night—Júlio suggested her place; the slum was quiet; and the expected argument about Bia never materialized. They made love as usual and went to sleep. The next morning, after flipping through the paper and drinking her coffee in silence, Alba suddenly asked:
“So who killed Bia’s husband?”
“How do you know about that?”
“It was on TV, and then I saw it in the paper.”
“I don’t know, it was probably an attempted robbery or kidnapping.”
“The news said they haven’t ruled out revenge killing or a crime of passion.”
“That’s what they always say when they don’t have anything to go on.” Júlio shrugged as coolly as possible. He said a quick good-bye: “Gotta run, babe. I’ve got to drop by my apartment before I head to school.”
On the way, he tasted the sour aftertaste of Chinese food. At home, he shaved, changed his clothes, and called Bia’s apartment. She’d already left, so he tried the studio. The machine picked up. It was the last day of the Week of Art and Visual Perception. He went to the university. Another boring Friday.
12
Espinosa hadn’t cleaned his apartment for the last two Saturdays. His cleaning lady said he didn’t really need to clean so much as get organized. This, she said, had to be done before she could get down to cleaning. Espinosa had instructed her to clean everything but move nothing; she thought this was impossible, mainly because of the books. He thought she was absolutely right.
He lived in the Peixoto district in Copacabana, in an old three-story building with no elevator. His apartment was on the top floor, facing the square. Apart from the books wildly scattered everywhere, it was in reasonably good order. The other residents knew he was a cop, although he’d never actually told any of them.
His family had been the first to move into the building back when, its white walls still smelling of fresh paint, it was a clean slate. Their old home, with all his childhood memories, had been in the Fátima district downtown. In fact, most of his memories—childhood or otherwise—were related to the house in Fátima; few memorable things had happened to him since they’d moved all those years ago. He realized now how few vivid memories had been created since they had lived in that old house, when his parents were still alive. Then, the only death that had touched him deeply was that of a puppy, a gift from one of his dad’s friends. The very intensity of those memories, infused with the smell of rain in the garden, made him feel he could recall every instant of those childhood years. He couldn’t say that about his first few years in Copacabana, which had been almost entirely forgotten.
His father had died a little more than a year after his mother, and the images of the two funerals had become confused in his memory. He was fourteen. His maternal grandmother had moved into the apartment in Peixoto to take care of him and his education. With her came the books. She was a proofreader. The books linked their two worlds; his love of reading and his perhaps overdeveloped fantasy life both dated from those days. Their relationship had not been without its difficulties, but it had always been lively. Just before his twenty-first birthday, he
was summoned to have a talk with his grandmother. She said she’d stayed longer than necessary and felt it was time to go back to her small apartment in Flamengo, where she stored the rest of her books and her personal history. “I’m leaving before the roles are reversed and you have to take care of me.” She didn’t live much longer; she died from her best part, her heart. With her he lost his only known relative, and ever since he’d been responsible for his own survival. His inheritance was his parents’ apartment, his grandmother’s books, and just enough money to cover the funeral of the only person he’d loved for the past eight years.
It was Saturday, so he decided not to call Bia Vasconcelos before eleven. He started gathering the books piled by the armchair and the sofa, on top of the table, by the bed, on the bedside tables, and on the chairs. He intended to make bigger piles along one of the walls. Nothing definitive, but a start. It proved to be slow going because he kept stopping to reread pages he happened across. By eleven, he’d built a shelfless bookcase by lining books up along the wall and separating the rows with other books, lying flat. The pile was waist-high and took up the entirety of the only bare wall in the room.
He stood for a while, contemplating his feat of engineering. He washed his hands, which were black with dust, and called Bia. The machine picked up, and he left a message. The next half hour was unproductive. Realizing she must be asleep but finding himself unable to do anything else until he’d spoken with her, he abandoned his attempt at sorting out books to wait for her to wake up. Just before noon, the phone rang.
“Inspector Espinosa?” asked the now familiar voice.
“Yes. How are you, Dona Bia? Sorry to bother you on a Saturday morning.”
“No problem, Inspector. Any news?”
“Not really,” he answered. “Could I drop by your apartment? I won’t be more than five minutes.”
The Silence of the Rain Page 4
