As soon as they found a table, Espinosa asked Irene to tell him one more time what had happened.
“There’s nothing besides what I already told you on the phone. On the corner of my block, there’s a traffic light at the intersection with a much busier street. So the light is almost always red when you’re driving on my street. It takes a long time to change. I have to take the cross street to get home, but I’m used to it, and since it’s so close to my building I never worry about having to wait, because I’m practically home. When I came back from work tonight I stopped, as always, and waited for the light to change. Suddenly someone came up—I couldn’t see who—and pressed a big For Sale sign against the passenger window, completely blocking my side view, and simultaneously trying to open the door. I got scared and hit the gas. The person kept trying to force the door with one of their hands while the other was pressing the board against the window. I managed to get away before the light changed; I didn’t even worry if any cars were coming toward me.”
“And you couldn’t see who was behind the cardboard?”
“No. I don’t know if I wanted to. I looked quickly in the rearview mirror, afraid they’d shoot me, but I couldn’t see them. I was terrified. Espinosa, it’s not a coincidence. I know that people hold up cars at stoplights, but that’s a busy intersection, it was seven at night, there were other cars behind and on either side of mine, and the person was interested in me and only me. It’s not a coincidence. Olga dies, then the fortune-teller dies, now they try to force open my car door a block from my house…. It wasn’t a coincidence, and it wasn’t some juvenile delinquent. I was struck by how they hid behind that sign. I know you don’t agree, Espinosa, but this has something to do with that guy.”
“There’s no reason for him to try to kill you.”
“He might be crazy, Espinosa.”
“If he was crazy and wanted to kill you, he wouldn’t take so much trouble to avoid being identified; he’d just kill you.”
“Who else can it be? I’ve never been threatened, I don’t have any enemies, nobody’s after me. All these things started after that fucking freak showed up.”
“What things?”
“These deaths! Fuck, what else? Are you waiting for me to die too?”
“Try to calm down. Let’s order some beers. If you want, you can stay with me this weekend. I’ll take you to work and come get you at the end of the day.”
“You can’t do that for the rest of your life.”
“That’s another subject.”
“Espinosa, don’t play with me.”
“I’m not playing. Besides, Gabriel’s birthday is Saturday. Four days from now.”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“Don’t forget that his birthday is the expiration date for the fortune-teller’s prediction.”
“Jesus, Espinosa, are you crazy too?”
“No, but I’m used to taking other people’s craziness into account.”
They didn’t speak about Olga; they were worn out. The night wasn’t right for romance either; at least, that’s how Espinosa interpreted Irene’s turning down his invitation to spend the night. He escorted her home and she promised to be extra careful. She’d wait for him in the morning to take her to work. Espinosa accompanied her upstairs and said good-bye only after looking over her whole apartment—at her request.
Downstairs, he showed his badge to the doorman and made a series of recommendations about security. Then he left, satisfied that Irene was set for the night. Before he started his car’s engine, he carefully scoured the street for anything suspicious; then he drove around the block, passing the building once again before heading toward the Peixoto District.
He was convinced that the episode hadn’t been a simple attempted mugging. If you want to steal watches, jewelry, or a purse, you’d use the driver’s window, almost always showing a weapon or hinting at its existence; you don’t force the other door and hide behind a piece of cardboard. This person had tried to get into the car. And they probably didn’t know how to drive, which would explain why they went for the passenger door.
The next morning, after picking up Irene and taking her to work, Espinosa went to the office. He wanted to think quietly about the “Gabriel case” before he completely lost track of it.
In his office, he gave orders to his assistants not to interrupt him unless it was absolutely necessary. He took a sheet of paper and wrote down all the names of everyone involved in the story, drew a circle around each one, and traced each person’s link to everyone else involved. It wasn’t that he believed this would be the solution to his problems; he was merely trying to keep things as uncomplicated as possible. The result expressed what was already obvious. Gabriel was the name that held all of them together. That had been expected, since the whole story had begun with him. Yet just because his name was at the hub didn’t make him responsible for the deaths. Espinosa couldn’t picture him threatening Irene at a stoplight in Ipanema. Why would he do something like that? Just to scare her? To kill her? He didn’t need all those props. Unless Irene had invented the story of the attack to distract his attention from something else—like, for instance, her trip the weekend before.
He put aside the useless drawing, leaned back in his chair, crossed his hands behind his head, and let his mind run loose. The first figure to appear was Dona Alzira at the door of his building the day before. He put his chair back in its normal position, opened a drawer, and removed the bag she’d given him with the weapon and ammunition.
He unwrapped the revolver and held it in his hand for a while, trying to answer the question of what, exactly, Gabriel had been planning to do with a weapon. He pictured him firing at Hidalgo point-blank. It didn’t work, though the idea wasn’t completely absurd. In his desperate state of mind, it might have made sense. He put the revolver on top of the table and considered the box of bullets. It was clearly new. He arranged the bullets in the position they must have originally been packed in. They were loose. He stuck his finger in the leftover space and noticed that there would have been room for at least one more. From his own box of bullets, he removed two .38 bullets and inserted them in the empty space. They fit perfectly. He separated his own bullets out and dumped the contents of the box on his desk. He counted them twice, then compared his calculation with the number printed on the box. Two were missing. Freire had surely used this box in the firing range, for the ballistics exam. But why two bullets? One would have been enough. He called the Criminology Institute. Freire wasn’t in. He left a message for him to call as soon as possible. He sat wondering what had happened to the other bullet, assuming it hadn’t been used in the tests, and couldn’t imagine where else it might have ended up except in Hidalgo’s head. After half an hour, Freire called. He’d removed only one bullet from the box, and nobody else had had access to it. Espinosa’s head ached slightly; soon, he thought, it would ache more. He swallowed an aspirin, called in Welber, and told him what he was thinking.
“Espinosa, at first I thought the kid was guilty of everything, including his own craziness. But gradually my opinion changed, and I decided he was only a little crazy, but not responsible for the girl’s death. Until he disappeared in the subway station and I found out later that the Chilean guy had been shot in the face only a few blocks away. If he wanted to kill the guy, why had he walked toward the subway station, which wasn’t in the direction of the Chilean’s house? Why didn’t he go straight to the guy’s building? If it was because he knew he was being followed, it seems unlikely that he would have gotten rid of me and then killed the guy. That would be tantamount to confessing to the crime. I’m sure he didn’t kill the Chilean. Unless he’s an extremely cold, calculating murderer who likes playing with his luck for the thrill of it all. But he doesn’t seem like that kind of guy, though we’ve often been thrown off by innocent-looking people.”
“I agree with you. And that’s why I still haven’t gone after him. And the ballistics results agree
with me. But that missing bullet made me think of other possibilities.”
“Like …”
“Like the following. He didn’t shoot anybody—at least not in the last few years—with the gun the mother gave me, which she claimed was the one he always carried. But he could have used another weapon. Why would it have to be that one? Just because his mother says so? What if the mother, to protect the son, gave me a gun she knows hasn’t been used?”
“Do you think she’d do that?”
“Welber, a mother will do anything to protect her son. Her husband taught her to use the weapon. She herself took the bullets out of the barrel and put them back in the box. She knows the difference between a revolver and a pistol. She knows that the caliber of her husband’s gun was the same as the bullets her son had hidden away. She didn’t hesitate to try to protect him.”
“Does that mean he killed the girl too?”
“In my opinion, the same person killed them both. Think about it. Only someone Olga knew could get close enough to walk up to her on the platform and push her. And only a person who could be recognized would bother to hide their identity when they tried something against Irene.”
“So you mean the guy suddenly goes from being completely innocent to completely guilty?”
“I’m not saying that he’s guilty. I’m just saying it’s not impossible.
“There’s one thing,” Espinosa went on, “about the guy that’s intrigued me since our first meeting: the motive he claimed for meeting us, that he was worried about becoming a murderer. There could be a lot of fantasy in that story, but one thing seemed real enough: the fear that had overtaken him. He might even have been wrong about the nature of the threat, but he wasn’t wrong about the intensity. What we still don’t know—and what he still doesn’t know—is what the threat really is.”
“What about the Chilean?”
“The Chilean only sparked the crisis; he didn’t cause it.”
“Gabriel thinks that you don’t consider him a suspect. And he was right, until an hour ago. Why don’t we call him in for a more serious conversation?”
“I’d already decided to do that. Call and tell him I want to see him during his lunch hour. If he asks why, tell him it’s to pick up his father’s gun and clear up a few details.”
“He’s not going to be suspicious?”
“I don’t think so. He’s been here in the past and always came of his own free will.”
“And what if he has some excuse to avoid coming today?”
“Tell him it’s important, that the conversation can’t be put off. Don’t pressure him with anything official; that might scare him off. He still feels like someone’s after him. Tell him that between one and two will be fine. And, Welber …”
“Yes?”
“I’d like you to be there too.”
The meeting didn’t take place in Espinosa’s office, but in the small conference room. When he entered, followed by Espinosa and Welber, Gabriel immediately noticed that not only the setting had changed. The weapon and the box of bullets were on the table.
“What happened?” His tone of voice and facial expression were different than they had been at previous encounters.
“That’s what we’d like to know.”
“How do you mean?”
“We know that you’ve committed the idiocy of walking around with a gun for the last few days.”
“Who said that?”
“No use denying it. It doesn’t make any difference.”
“I was scared.”
“Which is why you asked me for help. But that wasn’t a good enough reason to walk around with a gun, ready to shoot the first suspicious-looking person you came across.”
“I wasn’t going to shoot anyone.”
“Somebody who walks down the street with a loaded thirty-eight has a hard time convincing me he didn’t plan to shoot anyone.”
“It was only for self-defense.”
“Shooting people in self-defense.”
“Everyone has the right to defend themselves.”
“Not by carrying a gun. That’s a crime punishable by imprisonment, with no parole.”
“I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“Is that the weapon you were carrying?”
“That’s my father’s revolver.”
“We know that. We want to know if this is the revolver you’ve been carrying.”
“It is.”
“And is this the ammunition with which you loaded the weapon?”
“It is … but I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“Did you buy it yourself?”
“That’s right.”
“Where?”
“In a store downtown.”
“Nobody else knew about this box of bullets?”
“No.”
“Then would you like to tell me where the missing bullet is?”
“What?”
“The bullet. One bullet is missing from the box. What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know one was missing.”
“Would it have been used, perhaps?”
“Used, how?”
“The way thirty-eight-caliber bullets are usually used. To kill someone.”
“Kill?”
“Yes, kill. The Chilean, for instance.”
“Are you accusing me of—”
“No. I’m only giving an example and asking for an answer to my question. What happened to the missing bullet?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know one was missing. Maybe it was missing to begin with. Maybe I dropped it on the floor.”
“Maybe it was used on someone….”
Over the next two hours, Espinosa and Welber went over the same questions, and Gabriel repeatedly had to walk them through his activities on the night of the Chilean’s death, from the moment he left work until he got home. How he carried the gun, in his belt or pocket; whether he took out the bullets every time he got home, or if he always kept the revolver loaded; if he told his mother he was carrying a gun; how he managed to hide it from his colleagues. Espinosa finally wrapped up the discussion.
“I’d like you to come back tomorrow so we can take your deposition. Today was just a conversation.”
Farewells were said without any friendliness.
“What did you think?” Welber wanted to know.
“I think something’s not quite right. Every time we repeated a question, he responded to it the exact same way—same details, almost the same words. It seemed a little rehearsed. When you tell a story several times, your natural tendency is to change a detail, add another one, fill in a gap, not just repeat the same thing verbatim. Even if he’s not guilty, he’s hiding something.”
At the end of the afternoon, Espinosa picked up Irene, as planned, and they headed to the Peixoto District together. Espinosa had bought bread, food, and wine, planning an intimate meal for the cold weather, which had gotten worse over the last couple of days.
“You really think I need to stay at your place?”
“I’d like you to.”
“But it’s not necessary?”
“If not necessary, at least preferable. I don’t have any way to put you under police protection. Officially, there’s no case or registered complaint; we don’t even have an investigation opened. I feel better with you here with me. I sent two detectives to tail Gabriel until the end of the weekend. After that, we’ll see.”
“How long do you think this is going to go on?”
“I think the end is near.”
“You sound like a preacher.”
They stayed home. They enjoyed the food and wine. It was nice, with the music. They went to bed, lulled by the sound of the wind that was blowing outside the windows. He didn’t ask, but Irene talked about her relationship with Olga. She confirmed what Espinosa had suspected: they had been lovers when they lived in São Paulo.
The night was different. Not better or worse than the previous nights. Different.
9
The following day, at the hour he had scheduled to speak with Gabriel, Dona Alzira climbed the stairs and paused for a minute in the small hallway that led to Espinosa’s office. She checked her clothes (dark and sober, as the moment required) and smoothed her hair. She stood, as if at a bus stop, until a man came out whom she recognized as a policeman.
“May I help you, ma’am?”
“I’d like to speak with Officer Espinosa.”
“What is it regarding?”
“I’ve come to testify.”
“Were you asked to testify?”
“Of course not.”
“Then can you tell me what it’s regarding? The officer is in a meeting.”
“Just tell him it’s Gabriel’s mother.”
After glancing at a chair the detective offered her, Dona Alzira thanked him and remained on her feet. A few minutes later, the door to Espinosa’s office opened and two men emerged, one of whom she recognized. Officer Espinosa followed.
“Dona Alzira, to what do I owe this visit?”
“It’s not a visit. I came to testify instead of my son.”
“Ma’am, you can’t do that. He was required to appear, not you.”
“I know that, Officer, but my testimony can clear up the facts involving my son’s name.”
“Dona Alzira, we appreciate your help, but right now we’re interested in talking to your son, not to you.”
“But you will be, Officer. Gabriel had nothing to do with those deaths; he was only the recipient of those people’s evil.”
“Dona Alzira, it’s the job of the police to decide if he’s implicated or not.”
“You’re right about that, Officer, but I think you’ll change your mind once you hear what I have to say.”
“In order to give a deposition, you need to be accompanied by a lawyer.”
“The presence of a lawyer won’t make any difference to what I have to say.”
“I’m willing to listen to you, Dona Alzira, but I want to make clear that what you have to say doesn’t mean that Gabriel doesn’t have to come in as well.”
Welber was called, the door was closed, and the people sitting outside Espinosa’s office were informed that he was not to be interrupted.
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