Blood of the Wicked (23 page)
EDSON CAME TO THE end of his story without meeting Father Angelo’s eyes.
The old man put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Look at me,” he said.
Edson did, and something in the priest’s expression must have encouraged him. His posture straightened and his sunken shoulders rose.
“Tell us the rest of it, why don’t you?” Father Angelo said.
“The wallet belonged to that
canalha
Farias,” Edson went on, faster than before, eager to get it over with. “There wasn’t much money, but there was his identification card and his driver’s license and even a credit card. I tried to use the credit card, but that was only the next day, in the afternoon. He’d canceled it by then.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Threw it in the river.”
“The wallet too?”
“All of it. Everything except the cash.”
“Where?”
“I threw it off the Goulart Bridge.”
Silva looked at Father Angelo.
“The river is deep there, and fast flowing,” the priest said, shaking his head. “I think it’s highly unlikely you’d find anything.”
Silva addressed Edson directly: “What did you do then?”
“I sent a letter to Dom Felipe.”
“Why didn’t you tell Father Brouwer or Father Angelo?”
“I . . . I was embarrassed. I didn’t want them to think . . .”
“Okay. Why the bishop?”
“Because I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me, and he’s the boss of all the priests.”
“Did you tell the bishop everything you just told us? About what they did to you? About the wallet?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he believed you?”
“Maybe not at first, but after a while he did. He asked me to go with him to the police.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean—”
“Yes, it does. Because I told him I was afraid of the police, and he said that he couldn’t stop Father Gaspar without me coming forward, and I said I’d like to help, but I couldn’t, and he said I had to, that it was my . . . Christian duty, yeah, that’s it, Christian duty, and that it had to be stopped, because it had happened before and it would happen again if I didn’t—”
“Happened before? It had happened before?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Why would he share anything like that with you?”
“How the hell would I know? But he did.”
“All right, Edson. Stand right where you are for a moment. Gentlemen, a word.”
Silva drew Arnaldo and his nephew into his bedroom and closed the door. “Well?” he said, lowering his voice. “Do we believe him?”
“I sure as hell do,” Arnaldo said.
“The smell clinched it for me,” Hector said. “Gaspar drenches himself in that lilac cologne. And when we check the army records of that surly bastard, Euclides, I’ll bet we’re going to find out he’s an expert marksman.”
“So here’s how it probably went down.” It was Arnaldo again. “The bishop talks to the kid, and he tries to get him to come in. The kid refuses. The bishop pressures Gaspar anyway. Gaspar gets nervous, and he gets Euclides to kill the bishop.”
“Maybe,” Hector said, “or maybe not. Maybe the priest didn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe Euclides took the initiative himself.”
“Not likely,” Silva said. “The bishop talked to Gaspar. Why would Gaspar go whining to Euclides unless he expected him to do something about it?”
“Good point. Case solved?”
“Solved, maybe. But not proven and, therefore, not worth a damn. We’ve only got the kid’s word for the motive, nothing else. Gaspar was on the steps of the church when the bishop was shot, and everybody saw him. The gun’s untraceable, and there are no prints. Euclides doesn’t have a motive unless we can prove that Gaspar had a motive, and we can’t. All we’ve got is the word of—”
“A street kid who’s just admitted to being a prostitute and a thief,” Hector said.
“Precisely. And that, as Father Angelo was kind enough to point out to me earlier today, is the same as nothing at all.”
“So where do we go from here?” Arnaldo said.
“You go rent a car.”
“What for?”
“Never mind, just do it. Meanwhile, Hector and I will take the kid over to Gaspar’s place and confront him. If we take him by surprise, maybe Gaspar will crack and say something stupid.”
“What about Ferraz?”
“He won’t crack. Not him. And I don’t want him to know we’ve got the kid. We’ll leave Ferraz for later. Let’s go back and tell the kid.”
“SOAS soon as we leave Gaspar’s place,” Edson Souza said when Silva explained the plan, “you send me to my mother, right?”
“That’s right,” Silva said.
“Okay. But I want Father Angelo to go along, to Gaspar’s I mean.”
The old priest shook his head. “It wouldn’t be appropriate, my boy. Just keep on being as brave as you are.”
Edson’s face assumed a sullen expression, but he nodded. He didn’t like it, but he’d do it.
“As for you, Father,” Silva said, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you’re the next one on Ferraz’s hit list. How about accompanying Edson to Riberão?”
“Thank you, Chief Inspector. I appreciate the suggestion, but, no.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite sure. I have unfinished business here. You
will
inform me, won’t you, about what Gaspar has to say? I think I’ve earned the right to know.”
“I don’t think—”
“Please, Chief Inspector. It’s . . . very important to me.”
“Well, then . . .”
“Thank you.” Father Angelo fished a small notebook out of one of the pockets of his cassock and made a note. “I’ll be at this number,” he said, tearing off the page and giving it to Silva, “waiting for your call.”
WHEN EUCLIDES SAW EDSON standing between the two cops, his eyes started to narrow. When he noticed where Hector had placed his shoe, they became mere slits.
“There you go again,” he said. “Take your fucking foot out of the door,” he said.
“I thought you didn’t hold with foul language,” Hector said. “Where’s your boss?”
“Not here.”
“Really? Then we’ll wait for him. Get out of the way.”
“You can’t come in here. You need a warrant.”
Silva’s patience, held in check since he arrived in Cascatas, took that moment to run out.
“We do like hell,” he said. “All we need is this.”
Euclides took one look at the gun and stepped back out of the way. They pushed past him and headed straight for Gaspar’s study.
The priest was seated at his desk, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose and a pen in his hand. When they burst in, he dropped the pen and whipped off the glasses.
“I tried to stop them, Father,” Euclides said, “but the old guy pulled
that
.”
Gaspar ignored where his manservant was pointing. He only had eyes for the boy.
“Recognize him, do you?” Silva asked.
He slipped the Glock back into its holster without taking his eyes off the priest.
“I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
“It’s him,” Edson said, pointing a finger. “I recognize his voice. And he’s using that same stinky stuff.”
Gaspar tore his eyes off the kid and addressed Silva.
“What do you mean by bursting in here with this . . . this . . .”
“This what, Father? What do you think he is?”
“I have no idea. I told you. I’ve never seen him before.”
“He says you have.”
“Then he’s a liar.”
“You used me like a girl,” Edson was shouting now. “I told you what I didn’t like, told you what I wouldn’t do, but you did it anyway, you and him.” He pointed at Euclides. “He had a hat pulled down over his eyes, but I recognize his voice, too.”
“Preposterous.”
“
He
picked me up on Republic Square, and brought me up to your bedroom, and the two of you—”
“Outrageous.”
“—fucked me in the ass.”
“Disgusting.”
“This boy’s name,” Silva said, grasping the kid firmly by the shoulder to quell his outburst, “is Edson Souza. You probably know him as Pipoca, and you also know that he’s a male prostitute—”
“Aha!”
“Let me finish. He says—”
“I don’t care what he says. He’s a liar.”
“He says,” Silva repeated, “that he took your wallet.”
“If he did, which he didn’t, then he’d be a thief as well as a prostitute.”
“He said the wallet was on the table next to your bed.”
“I
lost
my wallet. On the street. Maybe to a pickpocket. Isn’t that true, Euclides?”
“Yeah.”
“You see? How
dare
you—”
“Did your man here kill Bishop Antunes?”
“What did you say?”
“I asked you if your man killed Bishop Antunes.”
“I don’t have to listen to any more of this.”
“It’s a simple question, Padre
.
Answer it.”
“Of course he didn’t. Why would he?”
“Maybe to help you conceal the fact that you’re a pedophile?”
“A pedophile?
Me
, a pedophile?”
“Well? Aren’t you?”
“Certainly not.”
“No?
He
says you are.”
“
Him
? That vagabond? You’d take the word of a whore and thief over that of a consecrated priest?” Gaspar’s chin went up, and his back straightened. A little smile creased the corner of his mouth. “You haven’t any proof, have you? Of course not! How could you? There isn’t any to get. Euclides, show these people out.”
Silva made a final attempt. “Look, Padre, you know what you did. So do we. Why don’t you just make it easy on all of us and confess?”
Father Gaspar picked up his pen, put the glasses back on his nose, and went back to his papers.
Silva turned on his heel and walked out of the priest’s study, followed by Edson and Hector. When they passed through the front door, Euclides slammed it behind them.
Silva took out his cell phone, searched his pockets for the number Father Angelo had given him, and made good on his promise to update the old priest on the results of his interview with Gaspar.
ARNALDO WAS NOT PLEASED when Silva told him why he’d wanted the rental car.
“Why can’t we just send him by bus, like we did his mother?”
“Too risky,” Silva said. “By now, Ferraz knows she’s gone. He’ll be checking the buses, looking for the kid. And we can’t use one of our own cars because the colonel already knows what they look like.”
Silva’s cell phone chose that moment to ring.
“Wipe that smile off your face, you little punk,” Arnaldo said to Edson. The kid had been looking back and forth between Silva and Arnaldo like he’d been watching a tennis match.
“Fuck you,” the kid said.
Silva pulled the phone out of his pocket, wishing the damned thing had a caller ID. He pushed the call button.
“Mario?”
It was the director. Again.
“I’ve got to take this call,” he said, putting a hand over the mouthpiece.
Arnaldo snorted, grasped Edson’s shoulder, and propelled him out of the room.
“Hey,” the kid said, “keep your paws to yourself, you big gorilla.”
“Cut the crap,” Silva called after them.
“What the hell do you mean, ‘cut the crap’?”
“Sorry, Director, that wasn’t meant for you.”
“I should hope not. What’s this business about somebody offing a priest? What did this Brouwer guy have to do with what happened to the bishop?”
“As far as I know, nothing at all. I don’t think the killings are connected. How, may I ask, did you find out about Brouwer?”
“Not from you, that’s for damn sure. On the news. Ana heard it.”
Ana. Silva liked the director’s secretary, but sometimes . . .
“Has it occurred to you, Mario, that ever since you arrived things have been getting worse?”
“I take exception to that remark, Director.”
“I don’t give a damn what you take exception to. Are you one iota closer to solving the bishop’s murder?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. He’s a pedophile and—”
“Whoa. Slow down. The bishop was a pedophile?”
“No. The man who killed him is. Well, actually it wasn’t the man himself, but this manservant of his who—”
The director, interrupting, cut right to the chase. He wasn’t a man who cared about details, no matter how juicy they might be.
“Can you prove it?” he said.
“No. Not yet.”
“What do you mean by
not yet
?”
“Well, we’ve got a witness—”
“To the killing?”
“Not to the killing, to the pedophilia. He’s a street kid—”
“A street kid? And he’s going to testify against a pedophile?”
“Yes, except that the pedophile is a priest and—”
“A priest? Did he confess?”
“No. He denies everything. But I’m sure he did it, as sure as I’ve ever been of anything in my life.”
In a moment of silence, rare for him, the director reflected. Then he softened a bit. Not much, but a bit. “Well, I suppose we’re better off today than we were yesterday. Wrap it up, Mario, wrap it up.”
And, although he didn’t wait for Silva’s reply, he actually went to the trouble of saying goodbye.
Just before the handset hit the cradle, Silva heard him bellowing for the long-suffering Ana.
ORLANDO MUNIZ WAS POURING what he’d planned to be his last whiskey of the evening when the telephone rang. He kept on pouring and let one of his bodyguards pick it up.
“It’s Colonel Ferraz, senhor
.
”
Muniz picked up his glass with one hand and the wireless telephone with the other.
“What can I do for you, Colonel?”
“It’s about that priest, Brouwer.” Ferraz sounded worried. Strange. The colonel hadn’t struck him as someone who worried easily.
“What about him, Colonel? You, yourself, said he was harmless.”
“More than ever. Somebody killed him.”
Muniz took a sip of his drink and swished the whiskey around in his mouth.
“You hear what I just said?”
Muniz swallowed. “Yes, Colonel, I heard what you said. Brouwer is dead. I’m delighted to hear it. Good riddance.” Muniz took another sip. The whiskey in his glass was almost gone. Maybe he’d have just one more before he went to bed.
“Good riddance, yeah. But there’s a problem. Angelo thinks we had something to do with it.”
“Angelo?”
“Father Angelo. The old guy who lived with Brouwer.”
“Thinks
we
had something to do with it? We? As in you and me?”
“Yeah,” the colonel said again.
“And you think we should be concerned about that? Really, Colonel, I’m surprised at you. That priest, if he’s the one I’m thinking of, is a weak old man. He must be pushing ninety.”
“It doesn’t take any strength to pull a trigger. He’s got a gun.”
“He said that? He said he had a gun?”
“He did. And he said he was going to use it on both of us.”
“I’d like to see him try. I really would. The old bastard is just blowing off steam, that’s all.”
“You think so, huh? Well, I hope to hell you’re right.”
There was a newfound insolence in the colonel’s voice. Muniz didn’t like it.
He decided he’d definitely drink one more whiskey.