Dying Gasp (6 page)

The deputado motioned Silva to a chair, one of normal height this time, but the deputado’s head was still higher than his guest’s. Malan’s desk stood on a little platform.

The deputado shuffled through the clutter on his desk, found the photos he was looking for, and handed one to Silva.

“Marta,” he said.

A brown-haired girl in pigtails—not ugly, but sullen— stared at the camera as if it was an enemy. She appeared to be about twelve.

“You said she was fifteen,” Silva said. “She doesn’t look it.”

Malan scowled.

“Take this one then,” he said, handing Silva another. “It’s more recent.”

The second photograph showed the same girl, now looking her age. She was no longer in pigtails and had her arm around another girl, who appeared to be two or three years older. Both were smiling. When Silva saw the face of the girl next to Marta, he took in a sharp breath.

“What’s the matter?” the deputado said.

“Nothing. Who’s her friend?” he said.

“I’m only interested in Marta. If you need to show that photo around, have it cropped.”

Silva repeated the question, keeping his inflection exactly the same, acting as if Malan might not have heard him the first time.

“Who’s her friend?”

The deputado fidgeted and finally spit it out. “Her name is Andrea de Castro. She’s a fucking bull dyke.”

“A lesbian?”

“What did I just say?”

“They were lovers, Marta and Andrea?”

“My son caught them at it, rolling around in Marta’s bed, right there in his own house. He threw the dike out and gave Marta the beating of her life.”

“And then?”

“And then he locked her in her room.” The deputado snorted. “She had some tools in there, screwdrivers and chisels. She was always fucking around with stuff like that, doing boy things instead of playing with dolls. She managed to get the hinges off the door. When her parents got up the next day, she was gone.”

“I see.”

“I doubt that you do. Let me spell it out for you: I’m a Northeasterner. Where I come from, men are men, and women are supposed to be women. If my political enemies found out about this, they’d have a field day.”

“I know how to be discreet, Deputado.”

“See that you are. No need to bother my son or daughter-in-law with this. You got any questions, you come back to me. That’s all I have to say. Go to it. On your way out, tell Maria to send in the next visitor.”

Silva stood.

“Just one more thing, Deputado. What can you tell me about this girl, Andrea?”

“She’s missing too. Maybe they’re together, maybe not. The cops in Recife have no idea what happened to her.”

But Silva did. He knew exactly what had happened to her. Andrea de Castro had been raped, strangled, and decapitated with an ax.

Chapter Eleven

“
S
O WHAT DID YOU do then?” the director asked.

“Nothing,” Silva said. “I left.”

Outside, a tropical downpour was lashing the windows. Lights in the offices of the Ministry of Culture, just discernible through the curtain of rain, were little flags of cheer punctuating the gloom.

But there was no cheer in Sampaio’s office. A single desk lamp with a green metal shade was the only source of illumination. The light pooled in a yellow circle on the uncluttered desk.

“You just
left
? You didn’t tell the deputado that his granddaughter’s girlfriend was the star of a what-did-you-call-it?”

“A snuff video.”

“You didn’t tell him that?”

“No, Director, I didn’t.”

“In the name of heaven, why not?”

“I don’t want to go public at this point. It could drive the people who did it even further underground.”

“Informing the deputado isn’t exactly ‘going public.’”

“I beg to differ with you, Director. He’d be bound to tell someone, his son and his daughter-in-law at least, and
they’d
tell someone else, and the next thing we know it’ll be all over the media.”

“So what? The girl’s dead already.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Explain.”

“The Dutch have thirteen videos made by the same woman. They have a tape recording of a telephone conversation where she declares her intention to make more. But, right now, she doesn’t have a supplier. Her most recent work, according to one of the men apprehended by the Dutch police, is the one of Andrea being beheaded. Andrea and Marta disappeared at the same time.”

“So you think there’s a possibility they haven’t gotten around to Marta yet?” The director looked doubtful.

“A slim possibility,” Silva admitted, “but still a possibility. And if they haven’t, and if her abductors discover we’re pulling out all the stops to find her, they’ll kill her at once.”

“
Uma queima de arquivo
,” Sampaio said, knowingly. Literally, burning of the files, this was cop slang for the destruction of evidence. Sampaio loved to talk the talk.

“I
am
right. And Director . . .”

“Yes?”

“It would be best if
you
didn’t mention this to anyone.”

The light was too dim for Silva to be certain, but he thought he saw Sampaio flush.

“Of course not,” the director snapped. “It never crossed my mind. What’s your next step?”

“Now that we have the murdered girl’s name, and a photo to go with it, we’ll be able to track down her parents. They’ll be listed on the forms she filled in to get her national identity card. She didn’t look to be any more than twenty when she was killed, so the odds are she didn’t have the card very long. With luck, she was living with her parents when she got it, and with luck, they’ll still be at the same address.”

“And when you find them?”

“Depending on the way they dealt with their daughter’s homosexuality, they may have maintained contact with her and might have something to contribute.”

“All right. What else?”

“We have some enhanced frame blowups of the man who killed Andrea. Someone who casually strangles a woman, then cuts off her head with an ax, probably has a record of previous offenses. We’ll go through the archives, try to match the blowups with mug shots.”

“How long is that likely to take?”

“There’s no central database. We’ll have to check municipal and state police files as well as our own. Many of the local databases aren’t computerized, particularly in the Northeast where Andrea came from.”

“I don’t want a lecture; I just want a simple answer to my question. How long?”

“A couple of weeks, minimum.”

“Anything else you can do in the meantime? How about broadening the search, trying to identify the other thirteen victims?”

“The more we ask local police departments to do, the more time it’s going to take them to get back to us.”

“And time,” the director said, “is something we’re running out of.”

“Exactly,” Silva said.

W
HEN
A
NDREA de Castro applied for her national identity card, she’d lived on the Avenida Boa Viagem in Recife. The telephone number still existed and was still listed to Otávio de Castro, her father.

When Silva called, a woman answered. As soon as he told her he was a cop, she started asking if he had news about her daughter. He told her he didn’t, that he was a federal, new to the case.

She asked why the federal police were now involved.

Silva lied. “If your daughter was kidnapped, and taken across a state line, then it’s a federal offense.”

“Of course,” she said. “How stupid of me. Well, I’ll be grateful for anything you can do. This is
so
unlike Andrea. Frankly, I’m scared to death.”

“I’ll send an agent,” Silva said. “His name is Arnaldo Nunes. He’s going to want to speak to your husband as well.”

“Of course. Today? Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. He’ll fly up from Brasilia.”

“My husband normally gets home at seven, but I can ask him to be here earlier.”

“No need, Senhora. Seven will be fine.”

Silva summoned Arnaldo.

“I spoke to the mother of Andrea de Castro. You’ve got a meeting with her and her husband tomorrow evening at seven, in Recife.”

“Jesus Christ, why do you always save the best stuff for me? What am I supposed to tell them?”

“As little as possible. Just pump them for information.”

“Sometimes I
hate
this job.”

“The only thing we can do for them is to track down the people who did it.”

“And what a comfort that will be.”

“Not much, I know. But if it was your daughter—”

“I’d want the bastards to pay. All right, what about the cops in Recife? You want me to talk to them?”

“I do. I’ll call the chief up there, tell him you’re coming. Handle him with kid gloves. He’s related to the mayor, and the mayor is a buddy of the deputado.”

“That’s one of the things I love about the North. All of those people who manage to get where they are on their own merits. It restores my faith in democracy.”

“I’ll try for a noon meeting at the
delegacia central
. The chief’s name is Venantius, Norberto Venantius. If he can’t see you at noon, or if he wants to meet somewhere else, I’ll call you on your cell phone. Here.”

“What’s this?” Arnaldo said, taking the paper that Silva was offering him.

“The de Castros’ address.”

Arnaldo glanced at it and let out a low whistle. “Avenida da Boa Viagem,” he said. “Looks like they’re well off.”

“They might have been,” Silva said, “but not any more.”

A
VENIDA DA Boa Viagem is the toniest address in all of Recife. One side of the broad thoroughfare is lined with expensive high-rise condos and hotels. Across the street, beyond the beach, white foam breaks over a
recife
, a reef that gave the city its name.

The de Castros’ ample terrace, where they received Arnaldo, was high up and had a view of the beach.

“I thought we’d sit out here,” Otávio de Castro said, coming forward and offering a hand. “I don’t know if you’re a smoker. . . .”

He was in his midfifties, with brown eyes set into deep sockets of grayish skin. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. “I gave it up,” Arnaldo said.

“Me too,” de Castro said, forcing a smile. “Four times. I’m Otávio. This is my wife, Raquel.”

Raquel looked younger than he did. She was too thin, almost gaunt.

“Why don’t you take that one?” She pointed to one of four metal chairs encircling a table with a glass top. “Can I offer you some refreshment, Agente? Nunes, isn’t it?”

Arnaldo sat. “Yes,” he said, “Nunes. No, nothing, thanks. I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“Well, maybe a glass of lemonade.”

She must have had some prepared. She returned with a sweating glass and perched on a chair opposite Arnaldo. Her husband, on his feet until then, took one of the remaining two places, pulled it against his wife’s and settled so close to her that their thighs touched.

“How can we help?” she asked, coming abruptly to the point. It wasn’t strictly polite by Brazilian standards, but Arnaldo forgave her for it.

“Why don’t we start,” he said, watching her carefully to see how she’d react, “by talking about Andrea’s relationship with Marta Malan? You’re aware of the fact that she, too, is missing?”

“Yes.”

She glanced at her husband then back to Arnaldo. “What do you want to know?” she said.

“Marta’s grandfather, the deputado, told us they’re lovers.”

Raquel didn’t flinch, didn’t seem taken aback, simply nodded.

“The deputado doesn’t approve,” Arnaldo said.

“Neither do we,” Otávio said.

“But not for the reasons you might expect,” his wife added hastily. “It’s not that we don’t accept Andrea’s sexual preference, it’s just we . . . well . . . it was a bit of a disappointment, at first, knowing she’d never give us grandchildren. She’s our only child, you see.” She crossed her arms and hugged herself, as if she was fighting a chill. Her husband put an arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder.

Arnaldo made silence his ally. Down below, a wave broke and surf hissed over the sand. After an interval, she went on. “All we want, Agente, is for our daughter to be happy. Almost—let me see, how long has it been?—six years ago, when she started having doubts about her sexuality, she came to me right away. I reassured her, told her it was nothing to be ashamed of. Some people are just born that way.”

She sought Arnaldo’s eyes, looking for a sign of disapproval.

She didn’t find one.

“We’ve always been honest with each other,” she said. “I wanted to keep it that way. Oh, I suppose she must have her little secrets, but she’s open with us about the big things in her life.”

Arnaldo thought of his sons, how secretive they’d become since entering adolescence. He almost told Raquel de Castro she was lucky, but the words stuck in his throat. He took a sip of his lemonade. It was delicious, just the right combination of tart and sweet, but he found he had to force it down.

“You knew about, and accepted, her . . . sexual preference, and yet you disapproved of her relationship with Marta Malan?”

“Because of Marta’s age, Agente. Marta is three years younger than Andrea, sometimes four, depending on the month. The Malan family may have concluded that our daughter led Marta astray, but it wasn’t like that at all. Marta made the first approach, not Andrea. I told Marta’s father that, but he didn’t believe me. Then
his
father called me, and he—”

“
His
father, the deputado?”

“Yes. The deputado. He accused me of . . . pandering for my daughter.”

“If I lived in Recife,” Arnaldo said, “the deputado wouldn’t get my vote.”

“He never got ours,” Otávio said. “Not even before that telephone call.”

“Have they known each other long?” Arnaldo asked. “Andrea and Marta?”

“More than a year.”

“So Marta must have been fourteen when they met?”

“Exactly. That’s the reason we disapproved. Otherwise, they’re well suited to each other, similar interests in every way. Marta is very mature for her age.”

“What did you do when your daughter told you she was . . . seeing a younger girl?”

“I talked with both of them, told them they weren’t going to share a bed in this house, told them that if they really loved each other they were going to have to wait.”

“And they wouldn’t agree?”

“Teenagers are teenagers, Agente. Do you have any children?”

“Two. Both boys, both teenagers.”

Raquel lifted her hands, palms upward. “Then you know what I’m talking about,” she said.

Arnaldo was a first-class interrogator, good at reading his subjects. He liked what he saw and heard from Raquel and Otávio de Castro. They were being honest with him, holding nothing back.

But he was. And the burden weighed on him.

Raquel noticed.

“Are you all right, Agente?”

“Just . . . tired,” he said. Then, before she could ask him anything else, he inquired, “When was the last time you heard from your daughter?”

“That would have been the message she left on the answering machine,” Raquel said promptly.

“Message?”

She frowned at him, surprised.

“I told the officers about it. I’m sure they wrote it down. Didn’t they put it in their report?”

“In a case like this,” Arnaldo said, “we don’t start by reading other people’s reports. We get to them eventually, but we find it works better when we begin by collecting information first-hand.”

“Maybe I’d better tell you the whole thing then,” she said. “I think that would be best.”

She took time to gather her thoughts. Below the transparent surface of the table, Arnaldo could see Otávio squeezing his wife’s hand.

“Marta’s father came home and found the two of them in bed,” Raquel said. “They were . . . in a compromising position. He pulled Andrea off the mattress by her ankles. Marta screamed. Andrea started gathering her clothes, but he didn’t give her time to find her shoes. He grabbed her by the wrist, dragged her to the front door and threw her out. Then he took a belt to his daughter. When he finished beating her, he locked her in her room, but Marta had a toolbox under her bed. She waited until her parents were asleep and took the door off its hinges. She came straight here and rang our doorbell. By that time it was a little before four in the morning. She and Andrea started talking about running away together. We—”

Raquel looked at her husband and bit her lip. He took up the tale.

“—discouraged it,” he said. “I’m a lawyer. I explained to Marta that she’s still under the custody of her parents. She had no
right
to run away, and if she did, they’d have every right to bring her back, forcibly if necessary. I told her she’d have to go home and face the music.

“They asked for time to discuss it. They went into Andrea’s room and came out about fifteen minutes later. They said they understood. Andrea was dressed by that time, and the sun was already up. She said she was going to walk Marta home. That was the last time we saw her.”