The Night Watchman

by Richard Zimler

  ‘Anything more?’

  She bit her lip. ‘Go ahead,’ I told her, ‘I won’t be offended.’

  ‘That you . . . you kind of hear voices telling you what to do – what to look for.’

  ‘No, Luci, that’s not true. And I don’t see the dead either.’ Though I wish I did, I added to myself. ‘Now please get out your notepad and take notes about what I do.’

  Lowering my head between my legs, I snuck an upside-down peek under the bed. A nest of clothes sat in the middle of the floor. Kneeling, I pulled it out. A lump in the leg of a pair of jeans caught my attention – panties stained with blood. I dropped them on the night table for safekeeping.

  In the pocket of the jeans was a small flashlight.

  The wooden platform on which the mattress rested was too low to the ground for me to slide under, but by lying down, I managed to squeeze my head a little way in. My flashlight beam revealed something metallic and shiny taped under the bed, and then my head began to pound, and a familiar hand was pulling me away . . .

  Luci was seated beside me on the grass of the garden, gazing over the back wall at the neighbour’s house. My heart was racing, and yet the world was revolving slowly around me, as though I were at the centre of a turntable. It was a disorienting sensation that often came to me in the after-time, as I called it. I wiped away the ticklish sweat on my brow. Looking up, I discovered I was seated in the shade of the palm.

  Luci saw me stir and began to speak, but I gestured for her to wait; my voice would take a minute or two to return. I gripped my revolver, craving the compact, tight, hard-edged confidence it gave me. I lay back and closed my eyes. Tears came, but I didn’t know why. Exhaustion has its own reasoning.

  When I sat up, it was into the embrace of the sadness that sometimes awaited me after Gabriel’s departure. It was heavy with all that could never now come to pass – most of all, my mother getting to know me as a man. Out of habit, I searched out the most beautiful thing in my vicinity – the ruby-red bougainvillea climbing over the back wall. Closing my eyes, I imagined it ageing, as if in a high-speed film, starting as a sun-charmed thread poking out of the moist winter soil, slithering into the air, jumping and twisting like a magic lasso, leaping over the hot dark stone, unfurling and twisting, shimmering with a desire for more life.

  When I got to my feet, I downed one of the emergency tranquillizers I kept in my wallet and put my gun back in its holster. ‘How long was I gone?’ I asked.

  She looked at her watch. ‘Thirty-one minutes.’

  I opened my left hand and read, H – Ask Ernie about the knife. And don’t let the dead make you forget the living!

  ‘Did I find a knife?’ I asked Luci.

  ‘Yes.’ She held up an evidence bag. The blade was about five inches long. The handle was black. ‘It was taped to the bottom of the girl’s bed,’ she added.

  Apparently, Sandra had needed to be able to grab it in a hurry. Which meant that whoever was hurting her could enter her room whenever he or she wanted. Maybe the same man or woman who’d killed her father had been her tormentor.

  Luci handed me the evidence bag. The blade looked to be made of stainless steel. Tilting it, a glittering reflection gazed back at me with the searching eye of the boy I’d been. He was stunned – but very pleased, as well – by how something so dangerous could fit so perfectly into his hand.

  Chapter 7

  Inside the second evidence bag that Luci handed me was a slender stick with a small wooden egg fitted on the end. ‘What do you think it is, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a honey dripper,’ I replied in English, since I didn’t know the translation, but I explained in Portuguese what it was for. ‘Where did I find it?’ I asked.

  ‘It was tucked into a corner of the daughter’s bed sheets.’

  ‘Anything else?’ I asked.

  ‘In the bottom drawer of her desk, you also turned up three old bread rolls – black with mould and really smelly.’ She held her nose for comic effect. ‘You opened a window and hurled them out.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘It was all you handed to me, sir,’ she said, emphasizing the difference of meaning.

  ‘Did I take something for myself?’ I asked, cringing inside, hoping that G had pilfered only a bit of chocolate; apparently, it was in short supply wherever he lived.

  ‘You snatched something up from beneath the girl’s mattress,’ Luci answered. ‘You slipped it in your left front pocket.’

  We were still seated in the victim’s garden, in the shade of the palm, and I emptied my pocket on the grass. A woman’s ring tumbled out – a small round turquoise set in a silver band. It sat in my hand like a bad omen; it seemed to me that Sandra would only have hidden it if someone had threatened to take it from her – or had previously taken other valuables.

  On my request, Luci brought me a glass of water. Thankfully, she made no attempt to question me as I gulped it down. I imagined she’d learned discretion very young, but perhaps that was simply the shape of my greatest wish at the moment. I asked if I’d told her anything about taking the ring.

  ‘No, but when you put it in your pocket, you grinned at me, like it was a game.’

  G had been testing her, hoping she’d react badly to his theft, eager to prove to me that I ought not to confide in her. To him, all adults were potential enemies.

  ‘Did I speak to you at all?’ I asked.

  ‘When you were searching frantically through the girl’s room and I asked if you needed help, you told me to put a lid on it. You said that in English, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry I was rude to you. And when did I write on my hand?’

  ‘Later, in the garden, while you were smoking.’ She knelt by me. ‘May I speak freely sir?’ she asked, and when I gave my agreement, she said, ‘For how long have you had these . . . episodes?’

  ‘Since I was a kid. Now read me your notes about exactly what I did.’

  ‘I’d like to say something first.’ She started to speak, then cut herself off and shook her head in self-reproach. She gazed off in search of the words she wanted, holding up her hand to prevent me from interrupting, which seemed a very mature gesture for so young a woman.

  Waves of heat floated up from the deck, as though trying to keep me at the centre of a world of secrets. Strange ideas often came to me in the after-time, and I realized – with a sense of having been cheated – that I’d never be a young woman like Luci.

  ‘Sir . . .’ she said, to bring me back to her.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘You know, you’re nothing like the men said you were.’ She smiled to let me know she was relieved.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘They made you sound difficult and . . . tainted. But you opened my eyes just now, to something I never thought about.’

  ‘What was that, Luci?’

  ‘How far I’d go to help people who needed me. People I’d never even met.’

  Some moments of understanding seem to come from very far off, as if they have been journeying for years to reach us. One alighted inside me then: Luci was willing to look under my surface to what lay concealed below.

  I started rubbing G’s writing off my hand to keep her from noticing how deeply she’d touched me. ‘And how far would you go?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d like to think I’d risk as much as you did just now.’

  Relying on professional decorum to hide my mixed feelings about finally being understood by a colleague, I said, ‘Thank you, Luci, but now I need to hear your notes.’

  ‘Just one last thing, sir. I know about the disorder you have. My university degree is in psychology, and I—’

  ‘Luci, stop! You’ve said a beautiful thing. It would be a shame to ruin it.’ I spoke harshly in the hopes of avoiding a quarrel.

  ‘But if you’ll let me finish, then—’

  ‘No, please don’t, just read me your notes,’ I cut in. ‘And whatever you do, don’t ever say anything about this to anyone. Or . . .
or we could never work together again.’

  Her hurt feelings gave a clipped preciseness to her voice as she told me about how I’d tossed CDs and books from the girl’s shelves onto the floor, hurled away blankets and sheets and tugged off the mattress. In the master bedroom, I’d created a similar mess.

  ‘And after you were done there,’ she added, her voice gaining intensity, ‘you rushed into the kitchen and snooped around in the cupboards and came up with a bar of chocolate. Forgive me for saying so, sir, but you ate it like a starving dog.’

  My face must have revealed some of the shame twisting my gut, because she said, ‘No, you intended it to be comic. You were performing for me.’ She laughed sweetly, pleased by having been able to recognize the disguised clowning of her boss – if that was what it had been.

  ‘After the chocolate,’ she continued, ‘you poured yourself a glass of milk and took a sip,’ she continued, ‘but you didn’t like it. You spat it into the sink.’ She grimaced. ‘It was that chalky-tasting, super-pasteurized stuff.’

  ‘And then?’

  She read from her notepad: ‘You searched through the bathrooms and the library, and the small storeroom on the top floor. And after that, you asked Fonseca for a cigarette and went outside to the deck to smoke.’ She looked up at me, and her face was lit with astonishment. ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone enjoy smoking so much, sir. Also, you stared at me for a while with an expression that’s hard to describe.’

  ‘Distanced amusement,’ I suggested; it was a look that G specialized in, I’d learned from those who’d taken offence at his behaviour in the past.

  ‘That seems about right. And then you asked if I was new to the force. I told you I was, and you said, “Good luck, Luci.” Which was odd. Because I hadn’t told you my name and you claimed at first not to have any idea who I was.’

  ‘I was testing you,’ I told her; I seemed to owe her at least a small explanation.

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘I think you said it yourself – to see how far you’d go to be of assistance.’

  She considered that possibility. ‘Maybe that’s right, sir. Because after you finished writing on your hand, you added, “We’re grateful to you,” and I asked you who we was, and you said, “Hank and I.” Then, you took two last puffs on your cigarette and stubbed it out. And you asked if I liked Lisbon.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That I did. And I asked you the same thing. You smiled. A beautiful smile, sir. And you said, “It was hard to be here at first, Luci – very hard. But I’ve grown to like it – maybe even love it. Because Hank does.”’ And then your eyes rolled back in your head and you leaned over, like . . . like a puppet that no longer has any fingers holding up its head and arms. You stayed that way for a few seconds, and then you slowly raised yourself up. And you were you again.’ Tilting her head, she added, ‘Are you really all right, sir?’

  ‘Yes, fine. You did very well, Luci, but now we need to get back to work. And remember to keep all this to yourself. It’s very important.’

  I took a few minutes off to straighten up the bedrooms upstairs, then helped Luci hunt around the living room and kitchen for any additional clues the killer might have left behind. While we worked, she gazed at me from time to time, anxious for an affirmation of the solidarity we’d achieved. It made me wary. Still, I nodded towards her whenever I noticed her staring, and that small acknowledgement seemed to be enough for her.

  The other inspector on my team, Manuel Quintela, soon arrived, and I led him outside to question Coutinho’s neighbours. Manuel was a lanky young man, hardworking and bright, but unable to keep his youthful eagerness out of his expressive hands and voice, which often irritated his colleagues, since nearly all cops – at least, in my experience – liked to regard themselves as world-weary pros. He took the top half of the street; Luci and I covered the bottom. We soon discovered that the artist who’d sketched the portrait of Fernando Pessoa hanging in Coutinho’s living room – Julio Almeida – lived just down the block with his wife, Carlota. After I’d explained what had happened to their neighbour, Almeida told me that Coutinho had recognized him at a nearby café about six months before and come to his house a few weeks later for tea, and that he’d asked to see some recent drawings. He’d ended up buying the small portrait of Pessoa. Almeida had no idea where it had hung in the victim’s home. Coutinho had told him that he felt most himself when painting with Japanese brushes. He’d added that he wanted to have Almeida and his wife over for dinner, but he’d never called. Before I left, Carlota mentioned that the building under construction near the bottom end of the street – covered with scaffolding – had been abandoned for more than a decade.

  Over the next two hours, we discovered that none of Coutinho’s neighbours on the Rua do Vale had heard a gunshot or seen anyone leaving or entering his house over the last two days. It was nearly four o’clock by then, and the Valium and heat had made me feel as though I were trudging across miles of sand dunes. I told Luci she had forty-five minutes to get a bite to eat and asked Quintela to return to headquarters, write up our preliminary report about the murder, and get it over to the Prosecutor’s Office. I also told him to call Coutinho’s office and get a list of all his employees’ names in Lisbon and their phone numbers.

  As soon as they’d left, I headed off without a destination in mind, craving a few minutes of purposelessness. I ended up sitting on a bench in front of the National Assembly, under a mammoth tree – was it a beech? – that must have sprouted almost a hundred years earlier, into the city of horse carriages and sailing ships that Fernando Pessoa must have known in the 1920s. Could the intersections of our lives be predicted? Would what I learned about Coutinho’s murder today give shade to someone fifty years from now, or create more suffering?

  I leaned back on my worm-eaten green bench and took off my shoes and socks. My only neighbour – lying on another of the benches – was a homeless man, bearded and shirtless, with filthy, swollen, doughy hands, like potatoes just pulled from the soil. He was snoozing with his head on an overstuffed Lufthansa bag. I played my high-speed game with him, living out his life, from newborn to death, in just a few seconds.

  When I turned my phone back on, two SMSs lit up, the first from my wife: Drink! she wrote, since I became dehydrated when I was upset and often ended up with a sore throat. The other was from Ernie: Dreamed of you last night.

  Eased by their concern, I closed my eyes to better feel the breeze playing over my hair and shoulders. The Valium had left me nearly weightless by then, and as I listened to the cars zooming past, Ernie gazed down at me from high up in a cottonwood tree, grinning because he had reached the topmost branch before me. I gave him the thumbs-up sign until fear leapt inside my chest. ‘You might fall!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t move!’

  As though he hadn’t heard me, he waved, and, through an alchemy beyond the laws of waking reality, the back and forth movement of his hand became the ringing of my cell phone. It was Fonseca. He told me that Susana and Sandra Coutinho had arrived at their home, and that he’d already obtained a full set of their fingerprints.

  Chapter 8

  Susana Coutinho stood in the kitchen, leaning back against the refrigerator, barefoot, holding a glass of whisky with ice up to her temple. A nearly full bottle of Glenlivet was sitting on the table by the last quarter of Senhora Grimault’s sponge cake. I introduced Luci and myself, but when I reached out my hand, but she made no move to shake it.

  ‘Tell me where your aspirin is and I’ll get you some,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks, I just took three,’ she replied in a hoarse voice. She smiled good-naturedly – a very generous gesture under the circumstances – then stepped to the back window and gazed out while standing on her tiptoes. She was blonde and tan – the colour of cinnamon. ‘Just checking on our dog,’ she told me. ‘We only stopped once for him on the car ride up. Poor thing got frantic.’

  She wore three golden bangles around her le
ft ankle and a fourth – encrusted with red and yellow gemstones – on her right; India must have been in fashion among the Portuguese jet-set. A grass stain by the back pocket of her shorts convinced me that she’d grabbed the clothes she’d last worn before driving up to Lisbon. When she turned back to me, it was with a pained expression. ‘I’m sorry, but if my headache gets any worse, I’m going to have to lie down.’

  Her eyes were silver-green, and they had that lost, weary, impoverished look I nearly always saw in the wives and husbands of murder victims. Either she hadn’t been involved in Coutinho’s death, or she was a standout actress.

  She grabbed a pack of Marlboro Lights from a small leather bag dangling from the back of one of the kitchen chairs and lit a cigarette with abrupt gestures. Her cheeks hollowed out dangerously when she drew in on the smoke. After giving her my condolences, I asked where her daughter was.

  ‘Last I heard, she was upstairs in her room,’ she replied, with a caustic indifference that seemed to imply they’d quarrelled. She swept her uncombed hair off her neck with an irritated hand. Her fingernails were long and scarlet.

  Anxious to get the worst question out of the way first, I asked where she had spent the day before. Annoyance twisted her lips, which were cracked and dry, and naked-looking, as though needing lipstick. ‘You don’t have any idea who killed my husband, do you?’ she asked, targeting me with a peeved squint.

  And just like that, all the goodwill I’d felt from her was gone.

  ‘We’ve collected a great deal of evidence,’ I said, choosing my words cautiously, so as not to set her off, ‘but as of yet, we haven’t any firm leads.’

  She seemed to take my precise tone as an indication that I was withholding information. ‘My husband was friends with the Minister of Justice!’ she warned me. ‘Very good friends!’

  I kept the harsh replies I thought of to myself, since I saw no point in quarrelling. Also, there was a slim possibility that she meant she could get me extra troops if I needed them, though I had no way of confirming that from her expression; she was looking at the slender collar of her pale-blue blouse and fiddling with a loose button.