Insects: Braga's Gold

by John Koloen

“No. They’re not going to go after us directly. We are peons. It’s the guys above us and the guys above them and, ultimately, the politicians. Este é o Brasil, afinal. You’ll see. Vá com Deus,” his predecessor said, as the conversation ended.

  9

  Determined to do his best, Lima reached back to the investigation of Duncan’s first expedition, which had been closed without charges being filed. Howard Duncan stood out as someone who had made the best of a rotten situation. The participants commended the American scientist for their survival, while he showered praise on his assistant. Nothing about it smacked of criminality. They were in the rainforest on a scientific expedition when a storm brought floods. Two people drowned as a result.

  Addenda to the report included two items that didn’t appear in the official record. One referred to a guide who had died prior to the flood and a package of materials from the family of one of the victims, an American student. It was obvious that they were trying to blame Duncan, who had been cooperative through the entire investigation, for their son’s death, but they had little standing since they hadn’t participated in the expedition and had no evidence to share.

  The unfinished investigation into the second expedition was another matter entirely. Conspicuously absent from transcripts of interviews was testimony from Duncan, the expedition’s leader, who had fled the country with the aid of the secretive American biotechnology company whose connections made it difficult for prosecutors to pursue charges. As an employee of the company, Duncan was similarly protected from prosecution even though it was clear that he and the company had violated the law. That is as far as the original prosecutor went.

  The second prosecutor expanded the investigation with interviews of an American film crew and interrogations of the surviving gang members, who claimed not to have been involved. Buried in the notes, Lima found the reason the second prosecutor had removed himself from the case. Pages of emails and documents from attorneys representing the family of the gang’s leader, Luiz Cardoso, alleged that he had been murdered by one of the Americans. Among the documents were the findings of a privately funded autopsy concluding that the twenty-seven-year-old gangster had died of a stab wound. Digging deeper, he found transcripts of interviews of gang members who claimed they witnessed a tall American stabbing their leader in the chest with a machete. The authorities on the ground had assumed that the Americans were victims and the gang got what it deserved, not bothering with autopsies. Of the gangsters who had died, only Cardoso was spared from being interred in a communal grave, having been recovered by private investigators hired by the family.

  In a conversation with his predecessor after immersing himself in the details of the case, Lima asked why it seemed the family had conducted a more thorough investigation than the state.

  “I agree,” the prosecutor said. “They seem to have bottomless pockets. I was totally surprised. As soon as we started receiving unsolicited documentation from the family’s attorneys, I could see that the investigation was becoming adversarial. Of course, they’re only interested in cleansing their son’s reputation while, of course, protecting the family name. It was big news here when Cardoso was identified.”

  “I guess I missed that.”

  “For a while the family used the media to make us look incompetent, but I think it started to backfire. Cardoso was a thug who attended private schools. He grew up surrounded by privilege and basically threw it away.”

  “What about the autopsy?”

  “Yeah, that was big. Given what was known at the time, it was open and shut. They were kidnappers. They’d killed one of the Americans, and then some of them died. As far as I’m concerned, they got what they deserved. But the family has connections and I don’t.”

  It was clear to Lima that the original investigation more or less ended with the rescue of the American hostages. Most of the documentation since came from Cardoso’s family.

  “One last thing,” Lima said. “I didn’t see transcripts of the interview with, let’s see, Duncan, the scientist. Where would I find those?”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He never responded to our inquiries. And now that he may be a murder suspect I doubt he ever will.”

  10

  Lima knew he couldn’t get a warrant for Duncan’s appearance based on the official report. But he could see that the gaping hole in the report was the absence of the former professor’s testimony. It was as if he were the leading man in a drama but was left off the playbill. It was an oversight the family of the deceased thug would continue to exploit until the end of days. The former prosecutors ran into so many speed bumps trying to reach him through Biodynamism that they simply gave up. That was three years ago, long enough for things to have changed. Perhaps he would be willing to cooperate, but the immediate problem was locating him. Biodynamism would say only that he was no longer an employee. They wouldn’t even tell him when he left the company. But that was more information than he’d found in the investigative reports. Until now, there wasn’t enough incentive to track him down.

  There was no way that American authorities would agree to help, given that Duncan was not charged with a crime nor officially considered a suspect in a crime, despite what the Cardoso family wanted. Carlos Johnson’s family was another matter. They’d pursued Duncan from the start and, according to their Facebook page, had filed civil suits claiming negligence against him and his former university. The university had settled but Duncan’s attorney had managed to deflect every attempt. He could afford it since Maggie Cross was paying the bills. Of course, he believed he had not been negligent, and out of his personal sense of honor saw no reason for a compromise that even hinted he had been at fault.

  Emailing the family seemed like a simple act, but the more he thought about it, the more fraught he became. His most substantial concern was that the family would reveal his investigation if he told them about it. Given the accusations they made on Facebook, they seemed the type that would not give up until they got their pound of flesh.

  “They sound like contemptible people,” Lima said to Rodrigo Correa, an investigator assigned to Lima’s office. Correa, eight years older than Lima, clean-shaven and bright-eyed, stood behind the attorney’s desk. The computer monitor displayed the Johnson family’s Facebook page.

  “It’s probably the ones who were closest to him,” Correa said. “Maybe a sibling or a parent. You know how these family pages go. Everyone buys in as long as someone else does the work. But I guarantee anything you tell them will end up online.”

  “But why go through all this after nearly five years?”

  “I don’t know. Dinheiro? Revenge?”

  “Problem is, they’re the ones who may know where he lives.”

  “They probably got his phone number too,” Correa said.

  “They must. I saw posts where they talk about using private investigators.”

  “You know there are websites that supply personal information.”

  “I tried that, but the phone number belonged to someone else and the address was a college town in Texas from years ago. I know how old he is. I know his background. I’ve got photos of him from years ago. I’ve even read some of his published papers. He’s an entomologist.”

  “Oh, yeah. Now I remember this,” Correa enthused, as if a light bulb had gone off. “This was big news at the time. Had all kinds of bodies and killer baratas. Then it all died down like it never happened and then it came up again. I wasn’t involved but it was in all the papers. You didn’t read about it?”

  “I read some of it but, you know, there’s so much crap nowadays I just ignore most of it.”

  Lima shook his head.

  “You need to get this guy’s phone number and address, right?”

  Lima nodded.

  “You could send them an email from a dummy account, you know, and without divulging too much information, get them to send you his information. They got to have it. You h
ave to wonder why they don’t just post it on Facebook. Seems like it would be in their self-interest.”

  “Yeah, that would make sense.”

  “On second thought, maybe they did and maybe they got into trouble somehow. You know, Facebook changes its rules all the time. I could see where it could be called harassment.”

  “I’ve never done anything like that,” Lima said.

  “You don’t have dummy email accounts?” his colleague asked credulously.

  “No. Should I?”

  The investigator smiled sympathetically, as if Lima had a skin disease that he didn’t know about but everyone else could see.

  “You know, they know you’ve been reading their Facebook page,” he said, pointing to the monitor.

  “What?”

  “Unless you’re using a Virtual Private Network, which I know you’re not, you’re leaving digital footprints wherever you go.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If they look at your IP address, they can pretty much tell where you are located.”

  “Are you kidding? They know who I am?” Lima said, after which he closed the tab on the Facebook page.

  “I’m not kidding. But they can’t resolve the IP address to you specifically,” Correa said. “It just shows up as a place. That’s only if they’re looking at everyone who visits the site. If they want to, they’ll know you’re in Manaus and that the justice department owns the IP address. But that’s as far as they can go. They can’t identify you.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Lima said. “I thought this was mostly anonymous.”

  “You are so naive.”

  Lima stared grimly at the screen.

  “I’m not naive. I’ve never had training on computers, you know, besides keyboarding in school,” Lima said defensively.

  “Well, you’re in luck,” Correa said optimistically. “I’ve had plenty of training. And if I do say so myself, I’m pretty good at it.”

  Lima felt his spirits lift as he turned over his chair to his colleague.

  “This’ll take a few minutes. Why don’t you get us a cup of coffee?” Correa said, smiling slyly.

  It wasn’t often that he gave orders to prosecutors.

  11

  What it came down to for Howard Duncan was, what harm could it do? It was just a conversation with an official in either the state or federal prosecutor’s office. He wasn’t certain. He didn’t ask, though he’d filled a page in his journal after it ended. He could tell from his voice that Marcelo Lima was young and spoke English with a Brazilian accent. Having worked with foreign students in his classes and labs, the former professor awarded Lima a B+ for his language skills.

  “Your English is much better than my Portuguese,” Duncan had told Lima midway through the ten-minute conversation. It was a throwaway line while Lima went through a checklist of questions he’d drawn up, but it made Lima’s day. He thought he was proficient at the language but the only way to know for certain was to get feedback from a native speaker, particularly a highly educated native speaker.

  The conversation, which Lima recorded, was something of a game, the object of which was to gather as much information as possible without raising suspicions of the true nature of the interview and to provide as few details as possible to the interviewee’s questions.

  “When is all this going to end?” Duncan asked. “I’ve paid a heavy price for something that wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

  “It’s nothing we’ve done,” Lima said.

  “I know. It’s just that it all gets wrapped together, and you’re saying this is about the kidnapping.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That was what, four years ago? And you’re only now getting around to it?”

  “Well, sir, if I may be direct,” Lima said, pausing to wait for an objection.

  “Go ahead.”

  “We tried to contact you by phone not long after you left the country, but you never responded.”

  Duncan racked his brain. He was certain he would have remembered such a call. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “Our only contact information was for the company, Bio, Biod—”

  “Biodynamism.”

  “Yes, thank you. Bio-dy-na-mism. According to my notes, the company never responded.”

  “Nobody told me.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I understand. But you were the leader of the group, and you are the one person who can provide the answers we need in order to close the case. Now that I have reached you, I just want to assure you that we want your side of the story.”

  “My side?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You want my side of the story. You make it sound like there’s another side that I don’t know about.”

  “No, no, sir. Perhaps I chose the wrong word. What I mean is that we need your testimony so that we can complete the investigation and close the book on it. I agree, it’s taken too long. But that’s only partly our fault.”

  “It’s not my fault at all,” Duncan said, irritably.

  “Oh, I’m not blaming you, sir. Perhaps, another poor choice of words on my part,” Lima said, hoping Duncan would be sympathetic. “It’s just that this investigation has been opened and closed several times. It’s been dumped on my desk and all I want to do is wrap it up.”

  “That makes two of us,” Duncan said. “Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll get back to you.”

  12

  Duncan thought of all sorts of questions to ask not long after ending the phone call with Lima. The notes he’d jotted on a note pad were barely legible, which is why the first thing he did was to make a journal entry on his laptop, mostly from memory but partly from the jumble of notes. Lima had divulged little information about his investigation. He hadn’t said whether it was criminal or civil in nature and Duncan hadn’t thought to ask. He assumed it was criminal given that he’d been kidnapped and that the kidnappers had killed a member of his group. But he could understand why it had taken so long. Lima’s explanations were plausible and he didn’t doubt that Biodynamism had not offered its cooperation.

  “I did ask if I could be prosecuted because of the way we left the country, you know, without authorization,” Duncan said, as he recollected the conversation for Maggie Cross and George Hamel. They’d returned from Europe in the dead of night while he was sleeping in Maggie’s bed. He was pleasantly surprised to find her snoozing next to him when he awoke.

  Sitting in the living room, bright from the mid-morning sun, he was looking for advice from the supportive girlfriend and her cynical housemate/personal secretary. They were sipping the last of the coffee as Duncan finished describing the conversation he’d had with Lima.

  “What did he say?” Hamel asked.

  “He didn’t know anything about it. But he looked it up while we talked, and he couldn’t find a record of it.”

  “So, there aren’t any charges because there’s no record?” Hamel asked.

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Well, it happened a long time ago,” Maggie said. “Really, you weren’t responsible anyway. That’s on that company you worked for. They’re the ones responsible. Right?”

  “That’s what I told him,” Duncan agreed. “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. He wants me to testify at some kind of hearing in Manaus to, ah, give my side of the story. About the kidnapping. I think they’re going after those jerks.”

  “You’d think they’d have already done that,” Hamel said.

  “Yeah, you really would. Like they say, the wheels of justice turn slowly.”

  “You’re comfortable with this?” Maggie asked.

  “Yeah, sorta. They’d pay for my travel and lodging and even give me a per diem. And, you know, maybe this will finally put everything behind me. Your attorney says the Johnsons may be on the verge of settling, finally.”

  “Talk about the wheels moving slowly.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I think. But, you know, it’s
a pain to have to wonder how things will work out, year after year. It’s not like I’m obsessing over it, but just getting it off my back, permanently, would be a relief. I have to admit that.”

  “You might want to run this by Stan,” Maggie said.

  “I talked to a lawyer I know in Manaus,” Duncan said quickly. “He said there was no harm in talking to the prosecutor. He even looked up the case on a database. My name wasn’t even mentioned. He said it might look suspicious if I didn’t talk to him.”

  “So, you’re good with it?” Maggie asked doubtfully.

  “What can I say? You don’t think so?”

  “I can’t put my finger on it, but if it’s the only way to finally get over this then maybe that’s what you have to do. I just wish you’d talk to Stan first.”

  “You know he just pawns me off on one of his subalterns.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll call him.”

  13

  Lima thought the conversation went well. He was proud of his bilingualism. Though his friends thought he sounded like an American when he spoke English, he knew better. Still, having an entire conversation over the phone in English was a rare opportunity to measure his progress, and judging by the few times he had to repeat himself, or rephrase, he gave himself an A. The practice was paying off. Of course, had he learned Spanish as his second language he would have had many more opportunities to use it, given the proximity to Spanish-speaking countries. He’d signed up for English in high school and enjoyed it so much that he continued to take classes in college.

  Transcribing the conversation himself—the only way to get it done quickly—he pored over it as if it were a treasure map. He noticed that Duncan seemed evasive or reluctant in some of his responses, which could be expected. But he wasn’t uncooperative. He responded to all the questions with no hint of deception. Questions regarding Biodynamism seemed to generate the greatest reaction. Of course, he’d let the former professor believe that the investigation focused on the kidnappers, neglecting to tell him about the parallel investigation conducted by the Cardoso family. Where that led was not at the time within the scope of Lima’s assignment.