The Butterfly Effect

by Luis A. Santamaría

  "To the number 219.”

  They looked like two kids who just found a treasure map.

  "It's her," Carroll murmured.

  Alfred's gaze was lost, as if behind the monitor was the answer to the riddle.

  "It’s evident that girl was the one who killed Lennard!" insisted the blond, who now saw it all too clearly. “She came to that point on the street on purpose, and she didn’t mind the damn rain a bit, because her goal was to find Lennard.” He was repeating his hypothesis as he moved his index finger on an imaginary keyboard. “So she stopped in front of the house and decided to get a kebab while she waited for her prey to arrive. As soon as she saw Lennard appear, she tossed the food and lunged at him. She struck him in the bathroom, which is the nearest room to the entrance, and before the neighbors arrived she carved his chest with a pointed tool.” He gestured at the screen with his arms outstretched and sentenced with satisfaction, with the passion of a man who had just had a revelation, "I think we're dealing with Mike Lennard's killer."

  Horner nodded as he reviewed his colleague's theory for cracks. Meanwhile, the tape continued to reproduce images that didn’t contain any interest.

  "It makes sense," he said. “I wouldn’t go so far as you, but in any case, that hooded girl must have had a lot to do with the incident, there's no doubt about it.”

  Carroll looked at him questioningly.

  "Fred, let's be clear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Thomas sat up and began to wander aimlessly through the dark room. He tossed the coffee cup into the wastebasket before adding tension to the conversation.

  "You're bent on blaming Sara Mora, aren’t you?" His voice had increased.

  "No, that's not it," Horner said, gesturing with his hand to reduce his companion's tenseness.

  Carroll turned on the light, causing Horner's eyes to squint. When he became accustomed to the new lighting, he noticed that Thomas's gaping grimace was tenser than he imagined.

  "See Fred, let's think objectively," the blond said with his arms in a pitcher. "We know from Interpol that there is a girl named Alyssa Grifero, with a troubled past who has reasons to take revenge on the victim's family. We also know that on the day of Mike Lennard's death she flew to Oxford, did something we still don’t know and returned to Madrid the next morning. We now have evidence that a young woman with the appearance of an expert killer was on the scene of the crime a few minutes before it happened. Expert killer. Horner understood that Thomas had chosen those two words for the purpose of refreshing the underscored on the napkin the other afternoon.

  Carroll paused to stand beside him and concluded:

  "I think it's time to set aside Mora and focus on this new goal.”

  Horner wondered if his partner was really upset with him. Or maybe it all came from a problem of self-esteem, since it had been a long time since his luck had been smiling when trying to follow a clue. Should he talk to him about it? He missed having some good times with a couple beers together. He decided that as soon as they closed the case, he would organize a barbecue with him on the esplanade next to his boat, on the bank of the river. Then he stashed the idea and returned to the million-dollar affair.

  "What did you say the suspect from Interpol’s name is?"

  "Grifero," said Carroll. “Apparently she's an 18-year-old girl.”

  Alfred had acid reflux and was thoughtful, as if he were remembering the details of a recurring nightmare. Then he spoke:

  "Tom, listen to me. Sadly, this recording does not provide any extra proof to the case, except that it was the work of a woman, which we already assumed.” At that instant, a new idea landed in his head as if by magic: "It may even be that both women, Mora and the hooded girl, were associated with the goal of sending Lennard to the other side. After all, the two come from the same town. Maybe they know each other.”

  Carroll leaned on one of the chairs and gave a long sigh.

  "Fred, it's time I told you what I came to tell you.”

  Horner sensed a special glow in the eyes of his half albino friend, which gave him renewed curiosity.

  "I called the phone company this morning to investigate calls from Mike Lennard's landline phone the day of the homicide," he explained. “Well, a few minutes ago I got the call back with the answer.”

  “And?” Alfred knew with certainty that Tom was about to give him another piece of the puzzle.

  "Only a call was made that day. At 7:32 p.m. The destination was a mobile number of Spanish origin.”

  At that, Alfred dropped his back against the back of his chair and began massaging his eyelids with his fingers.

  "Well, that means the poor little man was in direct contact with one of our two favorite Spaniards," he said with sudden self-assurance. I’ll bet it was Mora.

  Thomas looked out the window and was surprised to see that it was night. Then he looked at his wristwatch, which marked seven-forty. At that moment he realized how tired he was.

  "I'll make a call to Telefonica Spain, the owners of the line first thing in the morning," he promised, with a hint of a boss rather than a companion. “Then we'll know who Mike Lennard called.”

  Horner nodded in a weary sign of agreement. He rubbed his face and yawned. When he looked into his colleague's eyes, he had the feeling that he was watching him with brotherly concern.

  “How’ve you been?” Thomas asked, confirming Horner's suspicion.

  "Don’t worry, I'm better," he replied as naturally as he could. “Last night I fell asleep on the sofa watching a chapter of House, and I slept for a stretch. When I woke up it was time to eat.”

  Carroll nodded at each sentence with a frown that was too puckered not to be worried. Horner caught him glancing at the bandage that still covered his forearm, but neither of them said anything about it.

  "I hadn’t even set the alarm," he continued, taking a carefree stance that didn’t fit him. “Bah, I think I deserve half a day's rest after the many hours I've spent on my days off, don’t you think?”

  "Oh, Freddy, Freddy... you don’t have to give me any explanations. I’m not your superior.”

  Thomas gave Horner an affectionate peck on the cheek that, according to all the codes of masculine friendship, meant reconciliation. Then he sat up, ending the conversation.

  "I think that's enough for today," he said, looking at the total darkness outside. “Tomorrow we will continue with this damn puzzle.”

  Horner stretched the muscles of his body, picked up his jacket, and followed his companion toward the exit.

  "Come on, I'll take you home." He offered as they both walked out the door.

  A gust of icy wind assaulted Horner as soon as he stepped on the first pavers on the sidewalk. He grimaced not only at the cold, but also at the sinister wall that was forming between Lennard's death and his own person. In front of him, in the shadows that invaded the pavement of St. Aldate's, a new stone awaited him that would enlarge his sinister wall. Someone had committed an unfortunate crime in front of the police station, in front of their very noses. The two companions approached the Alfa Romeo without giving credit to what they were seeing. In large, dripping letters, painted with a red spray and covering the entire side of the body, the following threat was read with absolute clarity:

  WHO PERSECUTES WHOM? WATCH YOUR BACK

  "It seems like someone doesn’t like you working on this case," was Carroll's lapidary conclusion.

  Horner swallowed repeatedly.

  That afternoon, Diana was making coffee and toast while Sara lay naked and disheveled between the sheets. The neurosurgeon sat up and lit a cigarette from a pack that she had found abandoned in the nightstand drawer (she hadn’t smoked since the rainy afternoon when she discovered the lie of that fucking Dr. Salas). She stared at Diana through the open door. She wore only a T-shirt that was her pajama because it fit quite big. Sara had never touched a skin as soft as Diana's, and in her opinion she had a thin waist that made her look impressive. And she envied h
er ass. Not that hers wasn’t great, but Diana's seemed a ten: small but firm. Surely she worked out with a certain routine, she thought.

  Diana's mother was from Wales, while her father came from France. Sara knew that both had died in an accident when she was a child. The mother's British genes were appreciated in almost every trait: the bluish-green color of the eyes, the freckles that peppered her pale skin, and of course the peculiar taste of tea with a splash of milk. The father had contributed a sleek, elegant hair that gave Diana a very particular look. She had enormous eyes that she hadn’t inherited from any of her parents.

  She realized that she was in love with her.

  A beautiful black cat with large green irises like those of his mistress appeared in the corridor, leaping over Sara's knees, interrupting her analysis.

  Diana returned with a tray containing a cup of coffee, an orange juice and a plate with several toast with butter and jam. She set the tray on the table, climbed back into bed, and kissed her.

  They laughed without reason, as would two teenage girls who have kissed a boy for the first time.

  "I have to tell you, Brunet. You're as good in bed as I remembered.”

  Sara blushed and stretched her body for a toast.

  "Well, it's a relief," she said with her mouth full of the first bite. “But please.” She paused to swallow. "Don’t call me Brunet.”

  Diana cocked her head.

  “Why not?”

  "It's been four years since then, now I'm a completely different woman. Brunet no longer exists,” she said, so convincingly that anyone would have said that she had rehearsed it in front of the mirror. “Besides, it brings back bad memories.”

  “Bad memories?”

  "Yeah, specifically the last day we saw each other, you know, when you got hurt.” Sara's expression changed suddenly, as if she had just remembered something. “By the way, how's your ankle?”

  "The truth is they had to operate," Diana replied, unable to help glancing at her foot.

  "And it doesn’t hurt anymore?"

  "It hurt every day," she said. “Until yesterday.”

  The two pairs of eyes crossed with tenderness.

  “Diana.” She paused to ask the question, “Have you been with anyone in these past four years?”

  Before she nodded, Diana hesitated for a moment.

  "Once, a long time ago.”

  "Is the person already forgotten? I don’t want to stick my nose where it’s not wanted.”

  "She's past, she's more than forgotten.”

  “Woman?”

  Sara, who was about to speak out on a subject from which she could finally speak freely, felt like an invalid who has regained the ability to walk.

  "Yes, it was a woman," Diana said curtly. Then came her turn: "And you?"

  Sara answered immediately.

  “I haven’t.”

  Diana's face clearly stated that she expected more information than a simple monosyllable.

  "I did not tell anyone I'm...”

  “Lesbian?”

  Sara nodded, half guilty and half embarrassed.

  "I missed you so much, Diana. I don’t know if I'm a lesbian, bisexual, or just a weirdo, but I just didn’t want to be with anyone if it wasn’t with you.”

  By the sudden transformation in Diana's gesture, Sara knew that her heart had just softened.

  "You missed me so much that you kept writing me letters even though I didn’t answer any of them." Diana confirmed, more than she asked, staring at the sheets. Neither woman was laughing anymore. The atmosphere was vitiated.

  They remained silent for a moment.

  "I intend to reward you for each of the unread and unanswered letters."

  She put a hand between Sara's back and the mattress, and rolled her to her side of the bed. She kissed her again.

  "I want you to play something of Orbison, as in the old days," Sara pleaded, her eyes almost smoldering. Her breasts were swelling.

  "In a little while."

  She leaned over her with such force that Sara gasped for a moment. They looked at each other with laughter. Then Sara settled in and kissed Diana fiercely.

  Clutching the doorknob with his sweat-soaked hand, he paused to wonder what the hell he was doing. Alyssa was still placidly asleep on the couch in the living room when Jaime had gone to run his seven routine miles. He realized that he had not assimilated the idea of housing in his singles flat an unmarried girl wanted for murder. At that moment he understood that he was a stranger in his own house, so much as to feel uncomfortable as he walked through the door. It was not the first time that Jaime had thought to telephone the police and end all that mess. He unplugged his music player, slid the earphones from his ears, and opened the door with his breath still weary from the effort.

  As soon as he entered, an endearing picture captivated him. The beauty and peace of the scene were combined with the aroma of freshly made stew to make life seem simple and fundamentally good for a moment. Alyssa was standing in front of the kitchen fire, standing, still, humming something gracefully as she cooked less than four feet from him. The windows of the room were wide open, and both the autumnal sunbeams and the singing of some birds had endowed the room, despite being in the center of Paseo de la Castellana, with a bucolic atmosphere. Jaime, aware that she had not noticed his arrival, paused in shock at the calmness of her pose. She seemed so... so lonely... and, at the same time, so deeply connected with what she was doing. It was as if she hadn’t a care about her situation at all, and was just enjoying a period of well being.

  Putting him unawares, without any pre-warning signal of the feeling, the view softened his heart.

  Holy cow, was he suffering some kind of collapse from the effort he made? Feeling dizzy, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and leaned against the wall for balance.

  Maybe it was that subtle movement in the outline of her field of vision, or perhaps the sound of his choked breath, which caused her to turn and stop humming. She looked at him and smiled slightly, but said nothing. He had the particular impression that Alyssa was trying to compensate him, with kind gestures and food, the favor he was doing. He stood next to her in front of the counter and watched the fabulous appearance of the chicken pieces submerged in the vegetable broth. She put her right hand on his back and gave him a sincere good morning that Jaime felt with glory.

  Jaime studied her face as she stirred the stew in the pan. He was touched. It was as if the beauty of the morning reflected in her expression, fresh and without makeup, and as if she enjoyed it.

  After a few seconds, Jaime was not sure how many had passed, she asked him while she was still staring at the pan.

  "Did you want to tell me something?"

  "No, nothing specifically. It just looks spectacular.”

  “I'm glad. Are you hungry?”

  “I'm starving.”

  They didn’t speak again until Jaime came out of the bathroom after a revitalizing quick shower and they met again in the living room. Alyssa was setting the table.

  "I bought a bottle of wine yesterday," he said.

  “Great! I'll open it.”

  Alyssa pulled out a bottle of Rueda from the refrigerator and a corkscrew from the cupboard that contained the cutlery.

  “What?” She looked at him curiously and blushing, with the corkscrew tip about to pierce the bottle.

  "Nothing," he said. “I was just looking.”

  Alyssa pushed hard, and the metal spiral pierced the cork. She looked at him again.

  "I'll get the napkins," said Jaime, who felt the need to do something.

  He returned to the kitchen and opened the drawer where the napkins were, but before he took them out he stopped and looked at the stove. With a clouded look, he imagined her humming in her sweet voice and dancing lightly as she stirred the vegetable broth with the wooden spoon. An intense, lacerating feeling seized him. He struggled to identify the causes of his pain. He wondered why a young woman so bright,
charming, and attractive had ended up hiding in the apartment of a stranger, cooking for him and behaving as if she had known him all his life. Was she really an angel that someone had taken from clay to save him, or on the contrary, was she a wolf in sheep’s skin that tried to play it in the same way that Ernesto Shapiro did? A shiver ran through his body as he pondered such a possibility.

  He returned to the living room with a pair of napkins. Alyssa was waiting for him at the table ready to start eating. Jaime smiled. The scent of the chicken in beer sauce had penetrated his olfactory sensors, interrupting any opaque thinking.

  “The food is served!” She exclaimed brightly as she pointed to her masterpiece with her arms outstretched.

  By eight, Alfred Horner had already brought Carroll to his door and was already home. He had dropped the keys on the small table by the door of his apartment, and for the hundredth time he had seen his cracked plasma TV and his racks of bookshelves. The living room was an absolute mess.

  After digging in the fridge and thawing a couple of chicken thighs, he undressed and got in the shower. While lathering, Horner's restless mind skated around a series of tricky questions: Was he really in danger? Whoever came into his apartment the other night and smashed up the room, was it the same person as the coward's message that had been left on the side of his car? How did the hooded woman fit into all this? What actually happened in that town of northern Spain? Should he invite Thomas to a beer to close any open wounds? What was Lennard's relationship with Sara Mora? And what was Sara Mora's relationship with this Diana? Who killed Mike Lennard? And why?

  He felt an imperative need to label and revise, to collect the huge amount of information and possibilities that crowded into his mind and order it in a logical way. A foamy stream slipped from the tattoo of his right bicep and reached the scratches that still remained on his forearm. The stinging interrupted his thoughts. After a brief, muffled moan, he looked around and was aware that he had been in the shower far too long. Now he was a clean man with the same muddled thoughts of a little while ago.

  As he dried himself, his mind spontaneously traveled to a question that was on the edge of his mind and he cursed himself for having almost ignored it.