Fifteen minutes later, Espinosa arrived at his office, where Ramiro was waiting for him.
“I got the phone call five minutes before I called you. Welber’s already gone up.”
“What do you know?”
“It seems she broke her neck. The manager of the hotel said that she was found on the bathroom floor, and that she had probably broken her neck when she hit the ground. The Ninth Precinct’s already been alerted. The manager of the hotel knows the chief there.”
“Who do we know from the Ninth?”
“Several people, including Chief Meireles.”
“Let’s go to the hotel.”
The crime scene was as preserved as it could be. The maid, who had found the body, had called the manager, who’d found another maid there when he arrived. So at least three people had entered the room before the police got there.
Chief Meireles, two cops from the Ninth Precinct, and Welber were talking in the hallway, outside the apartment, when Espinosa arrived with Ramiro. There were no introductions, just greetings, since they all knew one another. Neither the forensic team nor the autopsy people had arrived yet, but Meireles said he suspected that Dona Adélia had been dead since the night before.
“That’s just my opinion,” he added.
Espinosa thought the position of the body was strange, as if it had been forced to fit into the small space into which it had fallen, between the sink and the toilet. He mentioned this to Meireles.
“We also thought it was almost impossible for someone to fall and break their neck in this bathroom. Anybody, even an old person with slower reflexes, tries to find something to grab when they fall. And in this bathroom there are several things she could have instinctively reached for: the sink, the door of the shower, the towel racks, and even the toilet bowl. And even if she’d fallen straight onto the ground, there wouldn’t be any space for her to hit her head in such a way that she’d break her neck.”
According to the manager, it was highly possible for someone to have gone to the victim’s apartment without being noticed, especially on a Sunday night, when so many people were around. He explained that many guests came to the hotel only to spend the weekend, and then returned home at the end of Sunday afternoon or on the last night flights. Besides those guests, there were some who preferred to go out on Sunday night, to dinner or a show. So a person could perfectly well walk into the hotel as if they were staying there and go up to the rooms. Once he got there, all he would have to do was ring the bell and say anything at all to get the door opened. So it was possible that someone could have gone up to the apartment, killed Dona Adélia, arranged the body so that it would look like an accident, and then left without anyone noticing.
Espinosa brought Meireles up to date on the case that, because there was no proof, hadn’t even been officially investigated, and in which this victim was the last living witness. They agreed that each would conduct his own investigation, but that they would keep each other informed about the progress of their teams. They also agreed to communicate the partial results of their investigations, starting with the results of the autopsy and forensic examinations.
Espinosa, Welber, and Ramiro went back to the station. The first thing Espinosa did was finish his breakfast, which he’d started at home, and which Ramiro’s phone call had interrupted.
“Now what, boss?” Inspector Ramiro asked.
“I don’t know if it changes anything we already know. Unless the things we think we know aren’t true. If we imagine that the death in the hotel was a crime, and that the crime was committed by Hugo Breno, that wouldn’t change anything he told me in our conversation on Friday. And I think he thinks the same way, whether or not he’s guilty of any of those deaths. In that case, why would he take the risk of killing someone else, when he was already sure he wouldn’t be accused of any of those deaths? What would he gain from another killing?”
“He’d gain by eliminating the last witness to the things his mother told her friends,” Ramiro said. “He might imagine that Dona Adélia knew more things than what he told us and so he decided to eliminate whatever was left from his past.”
“Leaving in place the story he told me. Nobody else would be left to question his version.”
“If that is what it is, he did a brilliant job,” Welber observed.
“Then let’s try to discover which of those stories was true … if any of them were.”
It would be quite a coup, Espinosa thought. Suspected of responsibility in three deaths—the first one, he couldn’t be charged for; the second, killing his mother; the third, a deliberate homicide—the criminal created a dramatic story in which he had been the victim, since childhood, of the cruelty and religious obsession of his mother, who died of a heart attack; then he inverted the meaning of his mother’s friend’s death, so that he ended up the persecuted victim of her blackmail; and finally he told a dramatic story in which he described himself as rejected by Espinosa, his childhood idol. In a word, a solitary, unhappy, hardworking, honest, and … innocent man. And he, Espinosa, an experienced law enforcement officer, feeling psychologically guilty, swallowed the whole story and let the man off. And then, to top it all off, by an extraordinary coincidence, the only person who could challenge his story, at least in part, turns up dead in a hotel bathroom … with a broken neck.
When Hugo Breno got off work on Monday and stepped onto the sidewalk, he found Espinosa waiting for him. A sensitive and experienced gaze could have captured the urge to flee that, for a fraction of a second, he barely managed to think about. After that, his attitude bordered on the farcical.
“Chief Espinosa … what a pleasure. I feel like a little kid whose older brother comes to pick him up at school. To what do I owe this pleasant meeting?”
“To what you did last night.”
“And what did I do last night?”
“Maybe you should tell me.”
“I’m sure that what I did last night won’t be of the slightest interest either to Espinosa the man or to Espinosa the policeman.”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Chief, I think Sunday’s the worst day of the week. Sunday offers everything I don’t like and nothing I do. The morning was less unpleasant because I got through my physical exercise: I jogged and swam before all the beachcombers arrived. The afternoon was terribly boring and I didn’t even leave home. At night, I watched movies on TV. Three in a row.”
“Can you tell me which ones?”
“Not only which ones and who starred in them, but I can also summarize the plots.… Except for the last one … I fell asleep before the end.”
“We can do that while we walk home.”
“I hadn’t planned to go home now, but I’ll be more than happy to tell you about the films.”
While they were walking, Hugo summed up the films, telling Espinosa what time they began, their plots, and how they ended (except for the last one), as if he were happily telling a friend what he’d seen on TV the night before.
“Now that I’ve told you about the movies, why don’t you tell me what happened last night? It must have been more interesting than the movies I watched, because otherwise you wouldn’t be waiting for me to get off work.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t say. I need one more thing: What time did you get home to start watching those films?”
“I didn’t. I was already home. I only went out in the morning.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Chief Espinosa, you know that I live alone, that I don’t have any friends, and that I don’t talk to the neighbors. And the watchman is off on Sundays.”
They’d reached the corner of Barata Ribeiro and Siqueira Campos. Hugo Breno was looking in the direction of his home, as if waiting for authorization to go there.
“Do you think you’re finally done with your past now?” Espinosa asked.
“A strange question, Chief, especially because I don’t know what you mean by that now.”
“Yes, yo
u do. See you later.”
Espinosa crossed Siqueira Campos and kept walking down Barata Ribeiro. Hugo Breno, instead of going up Siqueira Campos, went toward the Avenida Copacabana … in search of the crowd.
Espinosa’s cell phone rang when he was already in the Peixoto District. It was Welber.
“Chief, we’ve got the news from forensics. They say it’s almost impossible for her to have broken her neck in the position she was found in. The examiner thinks the body was placed in the bathroom after her neck was broken. And he thinks that the victim had been dead for at least twelve hours when the body was found; after the autopsy he’ll be able to say more precisely.”
“Was anything stolen? Any sign that the murderer was looking for something?”
“Nothing. There was some money in a drawer that could easily have been taken. Jewelry in a wooden box that might as well have had the word ‘jewels’ engraved in gold on the top. Apparently nothing was taken.”
“Unless he was looking for something specific, which he would have gotten by threatening her, and then killed her to get rid of the witness. Did they find any fingerprints?”
“Lots … repeatedly … basically from the victim and the cleaning staff.”
“I want you to go back to the hotel in the morning with a picture of Hugo Breno. Try everyone who was working on Sunday night. If he did it, someone must have seen him.”
“Unless it wasn’t him,” Welber said.
“Unless it wasn’t him,” Espinosa repeated.
When Espinosa hung up, he was already standing before the door of his building. He had a feeling he wouldn’t have a peaceful night. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he remembered that Irene had said she’d be back Monday night. And it was Monday night.
Espinosa looked at his watch. It was almost seven, and already getting dark. Irene certainly had already come back from São Paulo. He didn’t even wait to get up to his apartment, calling her from his cell phone as he was walking up the stairs. A woman’s voice answered.
“Irene?”
“No. Who’s calling?”
“Who is this?”
“Vânia. A friend of hers.”
“Vânia, is that you?”
“Espinosa?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t get her message? Irene called to say she couldn’t get back tonight.”
“I was busy all day.”
“She needed more time to wrap something up. She’s going to try to come back tomorrow night. Since I had to come to Rio, she said I could stay here.”
“She didn’t tell me that she was going to spend the weekend in São Paulo, or that she was going to stay until tomorrow.”
“She didn’t know. It happened all of a sudden.”
“And the thing you had to deal with, have you done it?”
“Not yet … I haven’t managed to find the person I was looking for …”
Espinosa didn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue the sentence she had left hanging …
“I have to go back to São Paulo tomorrow afternoon,” Vânia added.
“If you manage to find the person you’re looking for …”
“I did, actually. Now it’s up to them.”
What a difference between her impetuosity the first time and her prudent hesitation now, Espinosa thought. But he didn’t want to play along. The first time had been a turn-on, but something said the second time would end badly. Besides, he didn’t know exactly what the game was.
“Then good luck to you.”
For the second time, Vânia had offered herself as a substitute for Irene. It was hard for Espinosa to suppose that Irene was consciously and intentionally participating in that amorous game. Unless she’d fallen in love with someone else and wanted to end their relationship by offering Vânia as a kind of consolation prize. But he clearly remembered what she’d said: “If either of us wants to end the relationship someday, all we’d need to do is say the word. We don’t have to divide our property, carry away our clothes, or fetch personal mementos.” That was true as far as material things went, but he didn’t know how it would be to gather up or get rid of the extremely pleasurable and happy moments they’d spent together. No matter how tasty the compensation, you couldn’t get rid of some things by just saying the word … or by quietly moving away.
Espinosa took off his clothes, took a shower, put on some comfortable house clothes, grabbed whatever was in the fridge for a possible dinner, all of which could be prepared quickly, while thinking about what was happening between him, Irene, and Vânia. He didn’t even know if Irene’s supposed participation in the drama was real or just a fantasy he had cooked up as an excuse for his immediate, voluntary acceptance of Vânia’s first proposition.
An hour later, seated in his rocking chair with a book in his lap, he was still feeling perplexed by everything that was going on, and unhappy with himself. Feelings he’d been having for the last two or three weeks. Espinosa opened the book to where he’d left off, but immediately had to go back a few pages to remember what had happened before.
Tuesday morning. Welber had gone to the hotel to see if anyone recognized Hugo Breno. Espinosa and Ramiro were talking in the boss’s office.
“How was your conversation with Hugo Breno yesterday?” Ramiro asked.
“He said he spent Sunday night watching TV movies. He gave me the times, the titles, and the plot of every one of them, and then summed them all up for me. A bit too detailed to be true. He might have read about them in the TV guide, or he could have taped whatever was on that night …”
“Did you pressure him?”
“Not explicitly. He’s either innocent or he’s very clever. He wanted me to tell him why I was investigating, but I didn’t give him any clues about what we’re looking into. He’s going to try to find out what it’s all about.”
“Chief, if he’s guilty, he’s just closed the circle: all the witnesses to his past are dead … except for you.”
“I’m not a witness to his past—we were just kids who lived in the same neighborhood. I didn’t even remember him at first.”
“But you managed to gather enough material so that you could, together with his own story, piece together the places where he was involved in someone’s death.”
“What are you insinuating with that?”
“Exactly what you’re thinking.”
“Come out with it, Ramiro.”
“I’m suggesting that you might be the next, and last, element in the series. It’s not a crazy idea. I’d suggest that you pay close attention and deal with him very carefully.”
“In that case, he’d have to kill you and Welber, since he knows that you know all about him.”
“But we’re not witnesses to anything, we’ve just heard what you told us. We aren’t significant to him. His own personal drama wouldn’t change a bit if we were dead. I think he wants you, sir.”
Ever since Friday in the hotel in the Peixoto District, when he’d heard Hugo Breno’s tale, Espinosa had had the feeling that he was not only a confidant, but an integral part of the story. And not just a part of an obscure, far-off episode, but a key to a whole life history. It made sense that the final reckoning would be with him.
“Ramiro, this isn’t the end of a real story, it’s the end of a delirium. The Espinosa in his story is a fantasy, not a real person.”
“All right, Chief, but if he wants to fire at that fantasy, you’ll be the one who dies.”
At noon Welber arrived with the news that nobody at Dona Adélia’s hotel had recognized Hugo Breno in the picture he’d shown them.
“He’s got a distinctive face and thick bushy hair, which means that any alteration to his face would leave him unrecognizable,” said Welber, who was an expert on disguise.
The three of them went out to lunch together, something they did less and less since Selma had started keeping an eye on Welber’s diet and Ramiro had decided to start economizing. But the lunch at the trattoria was st
ill feasible for all three of them, especially during the first couple of weeks of the month.
On the way, Ramiro talked to Welber about the conversation he’d had with Espinosa, and about the threat Hugo Breno might pose to the chief.
“After so many twists and turns, I have to say I no longer know what to think of that man,” Welber said. “I think that everything we’re putting on him really might just be our imaginations, like the boss says. Maybe it’s been our imagination from the beginning, ours along with the two old ladies’, way more than real facts.”
“We’re not inventing those deaths,” Espinosa interrupted. “They actually happened, so this last one is more than suspicious. And suspecting Hugo Breno is not just pure fantasy on our part. We can’t keep trying to decide between full guilt and total innocence. I think the girl’s death, thirty-two years ago, just like Hugo’s mother’s death, can be considered accidents. But Dona Laureta’s death and Dona Adélia’s, on the other hand, can be considered intentional.”
As soon as they went into the restaurant, they changed the subject.
15
The autopsy information, transmitted by Meireles by telephone, indicated as a possible cause of death a break in the cervical column.
“Compatible with what happens in a fall,” Meireles commented. “Everything indicates that the old lady broke her neck in a fall. And we were already tying the noose around your suspect.… But the guy who did the autopsy wanted to make sure I said that this wasn’t a definitive result.”
Espinosa didn’t expect the final verdict to change the original finding, that the death was the result of a fall. From what Meireles told him, the cause of death was not asphyxia or a twist of the head, common forms of criminal homicide, but a kind of fracture that frequently occurs in falls. That wouldn’t exclude the hypothesis of murder, it would just require that the murderer have specific training and enough sangfroid to simulate an accidental fracture. Hugo Breno followed a rigid military discipline when it came to his physical preparation; Espinosa wondered if that preparation included learning ways to kill without recourse to arms.
Alone in the Crowd Page 14