The Butterfly Effect

by Luis A. Santamaría

  "Anyway, that's how we came to the day when Mike Lennard, Rubial's twin brother and hitherto unknown, is murdered in his bathroom several hundred miles away. It is at this point where you,” and he pointed his finger at Carroll, “and your partner came on the scene.”

  There was a silence that Thomas took advantage of to address his fellows.

  "Okay, I understand that I've been called because they need extra information about the murder that might help them in finding Grifero. Why not get to the point?”

  José Miguel Callejo ignored the challenge and looked at Grau as if giving him the word.

  "Easy, boy, we're at the end.”

  The doctor's tone sounded like a very subtle disrespect to Thomas. He was like the typical authoritarian schoolteacher who uses his power as part of his personal fun. In addition, the clock ticking on the wall exasperated him. Everything in the damn room did.

  "As José Miguel said before, Dr. Rafael Salas had interesting conversations with our dear Félix.” One out of two of Grau's words were sarcastic. “In particular, the deformed patient confessed to Salas a secret that dislocated us all.” He leaned across the table and challenged Thomas with his eyes. "A few years ago Charley Rubial traveled to England with the sole aim of finding a certain policeman. When he got to him, he gave him such a beating that he almost killed him. It happened at night in the middle of Oxford.”

  Rodolfo Grau's eyes shone with triumph. He leaned back on his seat and let the British policeman connect the dots. It didn’t take too long.

  "Wait... are you inferring from all this that it was Alfred who received that aggression?" He exclaimed on the verge of confusion. “You will forgive me, but I see nothing more than a mere chance.”

  "We are deducing much more," the judge now spoke with authority. “Thomas, you are not here for the Lennard case, as I suggested earlier; you are here because your partner, Alfred Horner, is a murderer.”

  Thomas Carroll experienced a beginning of dizziness. Even so, he had the strength to jump out of his chair in a rage.

  "You've lost your mind, you two!" He shouted, and pointed to both men with violence. “Fred as a murderer? Are you really telling me that you could kill someone for the simple fact that he is the twin brother of a guy who, according to you, assaulted him years ago?” As he screamed, he loosened the knot of the modern tie and tugged at it with fury. “You don’t know Fred, damn it. He is an honest cop. A brilliant policeman! He would never lower himself for revenge.”

  When he had finished venting, he noticed that the two men were watching him calmly, confidently.

  "What about Alyssa Grifero then?" Carroll tried to bring the conversation back to a point where his friend would not remain like the bad guy in the movie. “What about Sara Mora?”

  "The young Sara was the last victim of Charley Rubial before he committed suicide," José Miguel Callejo said ruthlessly. “Apart from that, I know she enjoys a well deserved holiday in England.”

  Carroll had run out of resources.

  "You know what?" He said indignantly, as if he were beginning to assume the truth. “It seems incredible to me that you have made me travel to this shit city to cast doubt on my friend's honor. I am leaving.”

  "I'm only asking for another minute, officer," Callejo said from his seat. “We're not done yet.”

  Without giving an option to the reply, the judge pressed a button on the telephone that connected to the intercom of the security checkpoint.

  "Toño, make the guest pass.”

  Then, as they waited, he turned to Carroll again.

  "Have not you wondered why Charley Rubial decided to travel to another country expressly to beat up a rookie cop?" He made the question sound like a trap.

  The door to the meeting room opened before Thomas could ask for the answer, and a young man in his thirties appeared behind it with the guard. He wore casual clothes, but of a brand name, and a bearded three-day beard that told Carroll that he was not a man of low social status. He did not look like a cop, though. His gaze wandered the room for a second to the figure of each of those present. In his restless eyes, it was the first time he had stepped into a court.

  “I present you to Dr. Jaime Vergara, a neurosurgeon from Madrid who has nothing to do with Horner, Lennard or Rubial.” Callejo tweaked the last words as setting the dictatorial rules of a game. “Jaime is simply a friend of Sara Mora who a couple of hours ago went to the police station to inform them that he had useful information about the case.” He addressed the newcomer. “Please, Jaime, have a seat.”

  Carroll watched in amazement as the man, who had come out of nowhere, grabbed all the attention.

  "Agent Carroll, you too. I beg you.”

  The judge's voice sounded pious on this occasion. Thomas obeyed.

  The judge urged the newcomer to speak, who began as if he were the narrator of a story:

  "This afternoon I visited the house of Charley Rubial's half-sister, Verónica Salas. I've been chatting with her and her ten-year-old son for a while.”

  Rodolfo Grau leaned close to Carroll's shoulder and whispered in his ear:

  "Verónica is the daughter of Dr. Salas, whom we have talked about before."

  Thomas nodded without interest, and continued to pay attention to the young doctor.

  "The reason for my visit has been my growing attachment to Alyssa Grifero, the family's old friend and your main suspect.” Carroll raised his eyebrows at that name.

  "And how did you get the information you were looking for, Doctor?" Callejo asked, although something told Carroll that he already knew the answer.

  “More than that. It turns out that Alyssa's past is more tragic than I ever imagined. One night in the summer of 2002, she was savagely raped during a college party on the Malaga coast. She was only a fourteen-year-old virgin.” Thomas swallowed, overwhelmed. “The bastard who forced her, with pardon, was a boy named Alfredo.” He paused for a moment. “Everyone knew him as Freddy.”

  The doctor's tone had grown as much as his determination. He faced Carroll:

  "With all due respect, Officer, all this time you’ve been chasing the victim while sharing a table with the real murderer. I have all of Verónica's testimony recorded.”

  Vergara pulled a Smartphone out of his jacket pocket and lifted it up at the very moment Thomas Carroll felt the ground open beneath his feet.

  Chapter 19

  “Doctor...”

  "Yes, Morgan?"

  "A few minutes ago you told me that a few angry nurses would surely come after you for what you did to Félix.”

  “Ah...”

  "Well, I see them. Only they’re not nurses, but those from security. And they come armed.”

  Monday, November 13, 2006

  The digital alarm clock blinked 13:10. What... what day is it? Monday. Yes, it must be Monday.

  Alfred Horner had slept for more than ten hours straight. He remembered drinking some whiskey shots and falling asleep on the couch with a jazz record playing in the stereo. No, it definitely hadn’t been a good night. Now, however, he felt like new, his head clear of bad omens and energy running through his muscles again. The gun? He cocked his head to the dresser in the hall. Well, it's there.

  He stretched his whole body. Then, still in his underwear, he prepared a fruit smoothie and a toast of seed bread that he bathed in honey. He had breakfast at one-thirty while listening to the radio. Back in the room, he performed five sets of twenty push-ups and as many abs. Finally, he took a cold shower and dressed in a T-shirt, Chinese pants and sandals. Horner had done all these mundane and routine activities without even thinking for a second about the threatening video he had received the other evening, nor Henry Millward, or anything that had disturbed him since Mike Lennard died. He'd even gotten used to watching the cracked plasma in the living room and the broken shelves.

  Then he heard a car that stopped outside and it reminded him: Ania. Turning to the kitchen window to check, the cell phone rang on the study desk behi
nd him.

  THOMAS CALLING

  He ignored the call and turned off the vibrator.

  I'm on my day off, dammit.

  He looked out the window again and saw a six-foot-tall blonde emerging from a red Mini Cooper. She walked like a model, dressed like a model and had the tits of a model. He smiled. Among all the things he had forgotten, one was that today was her day of visitation. He went to open it.

  "Want something different?" Snapped the gorgeous woman from the door. She was holding leather handcuffs in her hands.

  Ania rarely spoke, but when she did she used to do it with the aim of making Alfred hot. But at least it was customary to say hello. This time it was enough to pronounce three words with her sensual accent from the east to make him horny. He lunged at her and pushed her against the door, which slammed shut. He had no intention of wasting any time. As they kissed, Horner felt Ania's body beneath her coat. Damn, she only comes in underwear. Very hot, he undid her coat and then the bra. He stopped kissing her to lead her to the bedroom, where she pulled her panties off. She had a smacking hot body. The time in the room had slowed, and in less than a minute he had already handcuffed her to one of the bars at the head of the bed. Sex with Ania and whiskey: the only effective antidepressants he knew.

  She was screaming with pleasure. He loved it when she did that.

  The doorbell rang throughout the house. No one listened.

  Horner's vision blurred with desire. The telephone rang again. No one paid any attention to it.

  "Don’t stop, fuck, go on..."

  Ania's body had hunched in an unnatural posture.

  "You're hurting me," she moaned chained to the bed.

  Something was wrong.

  But Alfred couldn’t stop. He tried to focus his eyes. Why were Ania's wrists bleeding? He looked into her eyes and saw panic in them. He felt strangely powerful.

  The screams were now of real pain.

  Friday, July 5, 2002

  Four years before the events related to the Rubial brothers' death, Nacho and Alfredo were drinking Heineken beer. They were leaning on the windowsill of the kitchen in Nacho's parents' house, who would be out all week enjoying themselves at the pool of the mansion with a carefree air. They were in a complex of villas on the outskirts of Marbella, where they lived, in addition to Nacho and his family, the butler, the maid and also the cook.

  The atmosphere was sultry, and the moon, almost full, shone especially bright. It was the first Friday after the exams of all the courses in law school. Nacho, taking advantage of the fact that his parents were gone, had decided to increase his popularity among the rest of the university students by celebrating a multitudinous party in the garden.

  The two young beer drinkers studied in the same class, although they were not friends. Alfredo, to whom everyone called Freddy, had just turned twenty-four. Nacho was already twenty-five. The first one, who wore a black leather jacket, was the handsome student, the biker, and the hunk. The other had failed classes, and he wore a blue Armani jacket, which on its own aroused admiration. That casual encounter of alpha males in the window frame proved fateful for the youngest of them. Nacho Conde belonged to the class that in the faculty was known as a flirt, a womanizer. The reasons for the offensive discrimination were not without some weight. Since starting the course in his new class, Nacho had already broken up three couples and had conquered several more girls, so, after spending some good times with them in the backseat of his car, he would apply the, if I’ve had you, I don’t remember you. For Freddy, who had always been considered the winner of the class, Nacho was a threat.

  That night he fell into the trap of the womanizer to get into this delicate subject: Freddy’s new girl. She was a fourteen-year-old girl who had simply developed her femininity before the other girls, and who, therefore, caused a furor among the most avid college students of adolescent love. In spite of her youth, she was already looking at men with such a practical style to seduce a man, and her pale skin had the soft touch of the girls her own age. It was an open secret: the girl had promise.

  "The girl is hot, I congratulate you," Nacho said, looking toward the edge of the pool, where the girl, visibly affected by the effects of the rum, moved like a fish in the water between boys up to ten years older than she.

  Freddy detected an obvious provocative tone in Nacho's voice, which he probably didn’t even try to disguise.

  “Quit that.”

  He knew very well where Nacho was headed with his speech. He gritted his teeth and said nothing more. He took another sip of beer.

  "Come on, Freddy, are you kidding? Don’t tell me you’re jealous. We're good friends! Tell me, have you asked her to sleep with you?”

  The provoked looked at Nacho for the first time with an expression that said clearly don’t mess with me. He went on to explain that his girl was a virgin, and that she had asked him for some time before taking the big step. God, he felt ridiculous just thinking about it.

  "Bah, you're gay," he said as if he didn’t happen to be the host of the party, he kept the green bottle to his mouth. “If you continue to be an asshole and don’t hurry, at any time you’ll find out that she is fucking someone else.”

  "Fuck you," Freddy countered, very tense for having his manhood questioned.

  The offended posed the empty bottle on the windowsill and without saying goodbye went into the hall, where he met up with his colleagues.

  After a very long time, when he had consumed so many beers that he had lost count, Freddy decided to go out for a walk. He walked aimlessly around the garden, stumbling as the music reverberated loudly inside his head. Then he noticed something less than fifty meters away, and felt a little dizzy. Inside the pool and even with his clothes on, Nacho Conde was kissing passionately a young woman who smiled like a dizzy dummy. Under the water, some of her intimate parts were being stroked. Several guests, mostly women, attended the sultry show with disgust. Freddy, who feared the worst, bent his head to discern the face of the girl, and then his suspicions were confirmed. Anger rose from his feet and came out in an uncontrollable explosion.

  The sight of his sweet little girl rubbing against the body of his greatest enemy had provoked in him as much rage as excitement.

  He strode to the edge of the pool. He pushed back a young lady who was watching the spectacle from the front row on the side of the pool and reached for the teenager's armpit, who seemed to be on the edge of an ethyl coma. He pulled the soaked blouse and pulled the almost motionless body out of the pool. There was a circle about them both, perhaps waiting for Freddy to give first aid to the young woman, or they might have been anxious for him to pounce headlong on the disgusting jerk, still in the pool, mocking smugly, and start an exciting fight. Everyone would have wished one of these things to happen. Instead, he took the girl in his arms and took her away from the party.

  Already outside the complex, under the eyes of a few curious people who had followed him, he settled her in the seat of his motorcycle, a black Kawasaki Z 750, and sat behind her, making sure that he held her tightly between him and the handlebars. He left.

  Something had crossed in the depths of his head. He was drunk and had also tried several marijuana joints during the party. But that's not what it was about. The image of her, his girl who had so often denied him, rubbing herself like a nymph against Nacho Conde in front of everyone, had caused a complete short-circuit in his brain. He couldn’t reason, he was simply beside himself. He drove on a course to nowhere following a path that should lead somewhere. Her black hair fluttered in the wind and went into his nose and mouth, irritating him. He had only one thing in his mind: to hurt her. It had become a strange obsession.

  The road was lost inside a forest, and some leafy trees closed their path. He stopped. He looked around, but he couldn’t see anything, not even the stars. The deep darkness was only comparable to the absolute silence. Perfect for what he had planned to do.

  While Freddy, disoriented at the sight, surveyed the groun
d, the weight of her, free of restraint, caused her to fall to the ground from the seat of the Kawasaki. The blow woke her up, though her alcohol level was so high she didn’t seem to be aware of what was going to happen to her in the next few seconds. He dragged her to the base of a tree. He placed her face up like a lifeless log. Then he ripped off her still moist blouse with his teeth, and began to run his tongue over her torso.

  The innocent babe with a lifeless smile could only call, “Freddy..." Apparently, she was still madly in love with him. It was when he took off her pants as if he were undressing a plastic doll, and then her panties, that’s when she seemed to realize where she was and the danger she was in. The instinct for survival made her start to scream like crazy, but the biker knew they were several miles from civilization. No one was going to listen. Possessed by an evil never known in him, Freddy stopped her by covering her mouth with his hand. Then he had a better idea; he was going to need both hands. He grasped the fragile wrists and forced them so that they surrounded the trunk of the tree. He used his belt to immobilize them. The girl moaned as if her shoulder had been dislocated, she seemed on the verge of fainting. Then Freddy slipped her own blouse into her mouth and unzipped his trousers.

  Once she was at his mercy, he raped her in the darkness for more than an hour. Only one thing competed with the muffled cries that the girl let slip through the damp cloth that covered her mouth: during the act, Freddy repeatedly whispered in her ear two words that would remain engraved in her brain forever: “you're mine..."

  When it was done, at dawn, Freddy was still beside himself. Unaware that he left a fourteen-year-old naked, wounded and unconscious in the middle of nowhere, he climbed back onto the motorcycle and drove away. It was daytime when he got home and got into bed. He fell into a deep sleep and slept more than fifteen hours straight. Once awake, at dusk the next day, He remembered almost nothing of the previous night (and absolutely nothing of the abuse committed).