The Ways of Evil Men

by Leighton Gage

  “In the same spot where the others are.”

  “Can I go?”

  Jade shook her head. “The Chief Inspector nixed it. He says it’s still a crime scene.”

  “I’ve had about all I can stand of that Chief Inspector.” And then, when Jade didn’t react, “Could we have a word? Privately?”

  “You can talk right here. He won’t understand anything you say.”

  “Maybe not, but … could we go into the kitchen?”

  “With Alexandra in there? Forget it! Let’s go onto the back porch.”

  “I want you to come clean about what happened today,” Maura said when they were seated. “I need to know what you found in that village.”

  Jade sighed, shook her head and set her mouth in a stubborn line. “I can’t tell you.”

  It took Maura some effort not to lose her temper. “Do I have to remind you, Jade, that I came all the way up here from São Paulo to help you out? That I took time off from the series I was working on? That Silva and his people wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me? If I hadn’t put the screws on Lana Nogueira—”

  Her friend threw up her hands. “I knew you were going to take it like this. Look, Maura, I owe you big time. I don’t deny that. And I’m sorry. But he’s the cop, not you. He’s running the case, not you. He has the experience. We don’t. I, for one, intend to trust him—and let him get on with it.”

  “It’s not a question of not trusting him. I’m sure he’s a good cop, but—”

  “You’re not going to wear me down, Maura. I love you, but you’re not going to wear me down.”

  “But why? That’s what I want to know. Why does he insist on keeping me in the dark?”

  “He feels that if any information were to leak out at this stage it might prejudice—”

  “Stop right there. Do you think that if you told me something in confidence I’d pass it on? That I’d talk about it to anyone if you told me not to?”

  Jade smiled. “He told me you’d say that.”

  Maura didn’t see the humor in it. Her reply was sharp. “What is this guy? A mind reader?”

  “He said you’d promise not to tell a soul, but that satisfying your personal curiosity isn’t a good enough reason to tell you anything. He said that, in circumstances like these, he wouldn’t tell his own wife.”

  “And you believed that?”

  “I did.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake!”

  Jade stood up. “I’m tired of trying to placate you, Maura. I don’t think there’s anything I can say to you that will make you see it my way.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “Then I’m going to see to the boy, and I’m going to sleep. Do you want Alexandra to serve you some dinner?”

  “No. I’m going back to the Grand.”

  “Don’t drink too much.”

  “I’m not going to drink too much. I’m going have a crack at getting something out of that cute young cop.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  DINNER WAS OVER. FOR privacy’s sake, the cops adjourned to Silva’s room, but they were a chair short, so when Gilda joined them she and Hector had to sit side by side on the bed.

  “So the way I figure it,” Arnaldo was saying when she came in, “if our friend Otto is guilty of anything at all—”

  “Which both of us doubt,” Gonçalves interjected.

  “—it’s transporting lumber he knew was harvested illegally. Big deal, right? More of a distraction than anything else.”

  “So you let him go?” Silva asked.

  “We did,” Arnaldo said.

  “He won’t be there for hours and hours,” Silva said, “so let’s do this: call Alex Sanches. It doesn’t have to be tonight. Tomorrow morning is good enough. Give him the truck’s registration and tell him to stop it on the way to the docks. He’s to get a statement from the driver, photograph the wood and copy the paperwork. Then, he’s to find out who else has been transporting wood from Azevedo. I’d say it’s a sure bet we can nail him, and that IBAMA agent, for illegal logging if nothing else.”

  “Leave it to me,” Arnaldo said.

  Silva turned to Gilda. “Your turn, my dear. What have you learned?”

  “The meat wrapped in the parachute was from a pig,” Gilda said, “and strips had been cut from it after it was roasted. There were pieces of that same meat in the stomachs of the victims. And all died immediately after ingesting it.”

  “So now we’ll need a toxology report,” Silva said. He turned to Hector. “Get samples off to Rodrigues as soon as the airport opens in the morning. Tell her to copy Lefkowitz on her findings. Then call him and tell him what’s happening.”

  AT THE same time Silva was conferring with his colleagues, another get-together was taking place at a fazenda some thirty kilometers away. The mayor, Hugo Toledo, was meeting with his fellow landowners, José Frade, Cesar Bonetti, and Roberto Lisboa. Also present were Lisboa’s foreman, Toni Pandolfo, Paulo Cunha, Doctor Pinto, and Father Castori.

  “Why couldn’t we do this at the Grand?” José Frade said as he took his seat.

  “More confidential this way,” Toledo said. “We don’t want to be seen getting together while those federal cops are in town.”

  “You got any idea how long it takes to get from my place to here? I could have been at the Grand in half the time.”

  “I know exactly how long it takes,” the mayor said. “But after you’ve heard what we’ve got to say, you’re going to agree that this way is best.”

  “We?” Frade said. “Who’s we?”

  “All in good time, José. Anybody want to refresh their drink before we start?”

  Roberto Lisboa did, but the priest got to the bottle first. While Castori was pouring, Frade, still irritated, looked at his watch.

  “It’s late,” he said. “How long is this going to take?”

  “Not long,” Toledo said.

  “So how about you get down to it,” Cunha said. “What’s it about?”

  Toledo rose from his chair and looked at each one in turn before he continued. “I think we’ve got a chance—a good chance now that those damned Indians are gone—of getting the federal government to abolish the reservation. I’ve got the men in Brasilia who can make it happen.”

  There was a generalized murmur of approval.

  “But,” Toledo said, holding up a finger and waiting for silence before he went on, “now we’ve got a gang of federal cops sticking their noses into our business. And the longer they stay, the more they stir the pot, the more complicated things are going to get.”

  “Complicated?” Frade asked. “Define complicated. It’s going to take longer? Or it’s going to cost more?”

  “Both,” Toledo said, “so the time has come to take countermeasures to neutralize our unwelcome visitors. I’ve asked you here tonight to get our stories straight.”

  “What’s he doing here?” Bonetti said, cocking a thumb at the priest.

  “He’s here,” Toledo said, “because of what he can bring to the party. And so is Doctor Pinto.” He turned to Frade. “And that, José, is what I meant when I referred to we. Doctor, how about if you begin?”

  The doctor took a sip of his whiskey and sat up straighter in his chair. “The Federal Police,” he said, “have gotten it into their heads that the Indian didn’t kill Omar Torres.”

  “The fuck he didn’t,” Cunha said.

  The mayor held up a hand. “Hear him out, Paulo, hear him out. Go on, Doctor.”

  “The man conducting the investigation, one Chief Inspector Silva, demonstrated suspicion the first time he saw the body. But he refused to share his observations with me or with Delegado Borges, who was also present. Later, he sent some snip of a girl to conduct a more detailed autopsy. I was there when she did it.”

  “And?” Cunha prompted.

  “And she was more forthcoming than the Chief Inspector had been. He’d failed to instruct her to keep me out of the loop.”

  “She agreed
with Silva?” Frade said. “She thought someone else killed Torres? Not the Indian?”

  The doctor nodded. “She did.”

  “Well, fuck her,” Frade exploded. “Who cares about any stupid theory she might have come up with? Or Silva either, for that matter.”

  “I’m afraid it’s more than a theory, José,” the doctor said. “They might well have a point.”

  “What point? The savage was found next to Omar’s body. There was blood all over him, and the murder weapon was right next to him. What more proof do you want?”

  Toledo walked over and put a friendly hand on Frade’s shoulder. “It’s not what I want, it’s what the Chief Inspector wants. Doctor, would you kindly tell José—and the rest of us—how the Chief Inspector came to his conclusion.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “The angle at which the blows were struck seems to indicate that they were delivered by a man at least as tall as Omar was. But the Indian was much shorter. Furthermore, the cuts were on top of each other. A drunken man, they believe, wouldn’t have had that much control over the knife.”

  “Maybe it was a drunken woman,” Bonetti said.

  It was meant as a joke, but the doctor took him seriously. “The wounds were delivered with great force,” he said. “It’s unlikely a woman could have inflicted them.”

  “Unlikely,” Bonetti said, looking around at the others. “But not impossible, right?”

  “Dead right,” Lisboa said. “It’s all supposition on their part, pure supposition.”

  “I considered filing a report with different conclusions,” the doctor said. “It’s my right as the town’s medical examiner, except …”

  “Except what?” Frade asked.

  “I’m afraid that any objective analysis would come down on her side, not mine. It would be putting my competence into question for no purpose whatsoever.”

  “So if you were to do it,” Cunha said, “you’d want to be well-paid for it.”

  “And maybe it wouldn’t do us a damned bit of good anyway,” Bonetti said.

  “Right on both counts,” Doctor Pinto said. He drained his glass and got up to pour himself more whiskey.

  “Before that damned FUNAI woman started pulling strings, we had everything tied up in a neat little package,” Frade said. “The Indians were gone. And any investigation into what happened to them was stalled.”

  “Yes,” Toledo agreed. “And even after she managed to get the attention of Federal Police Headquarters, we were blessed by another stroke of luck.”

  “Which was?” Cunha said.

  “Omar’s murder.”

  “Luck? You call that luck?”

  Toledo laughed aloud. “Oh, come on, Paulo. No crocodile tears. No one in this room was any great friend of Omar’s. Can you honestly say you’re sorry he’s dead?”

  Cunha waved his hand as if swatting at a pesky fly. “Of course not. But I still don’t see how you can call it luck.”

  “Think about it. Who’s to say it wasn’t Omar, acting alone, who eliminated that tribe?”

  “Now, that would be convenient,” Lisboa said.

  “Wouldn’t it?”

  “And maybe even true,” Bonetti said.

  “Exactly,” Cunha said. “Who’s to say it isn’t?”

  “No one,” Toledo said. “And whether he did, or he didn’t, doesn’t matter a damn. Whoever killed off that damned tribe did us all a favor. And Omar did us another favor, by getting his ass killed, thereby providing us with a perfect scapegoat.”

  “Who might not even be a scapegoat,” Cunha said, “because he might well have done it.”

  “Precisely. So that’s the first story we have to tell. We’re going to say that every one of us, at one time or another, heard Torres say he was going to do away with those Indians.”

  “Good,” Cunha said. “But then how would the Indian have found that out? How are we going to prove that?”

  Toledo turned to the priest. “Padre, you’re on.”

  Father Castori licked his lips. “If someone who spoke his language were to say that he heard the Indian threaten Omar’s life, wouldn’t that be enough?”

  “Hell, yes,” Cunha said. “Are you telling me that you—”

  Toledo didn’t let him finish. “Father Castori and I,” he said, “had a little chat several hours ago. He has recalled that while he was translating the Indian’s words for the Calmon woman there were a few things he neglected to impart.”

  “Like the Indian being convinced that Torres killed his people?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Come on, Hugo, the FUNAI bitch will never buy that, and neither will the federal cops.”

  “The padre here assures me that Jade doesn’t speak enough Awana to contest it. As to the federal cops, so what? They might not believe it, but what can they do? They have no proof, and if we stand together they’ll never get any.”

  “Makes sense,” Bonetti said, “So what’s next?”

  “What’s next,” Toledo said, “is that we brief our wives about this. You know how women like to talk. They’ll get the story around town faster than we can.”

  “Excellent idea,” Cunha said. “Let’s do it.”

  Toledo looked at Lisboa. “Roberto?”

  “I’m in,” Lisboa said.

  “José?”

  “Hell, yes. You were right, Hugo. It was worthwhile driving out here.”

  “Then I think, Doctor, that we might be able to make use of your medical expertise after all. I’d like you to write a report that contests that of the young medical examiner from São Paulo.”

  “I’m willing,” the doctor said.

  “For the right price, of course,” Toledo said.

  “Of course. What do you intend to do with it?”

  “Muddy the waters. Our position, as the most prominent citizens of this town, will be that Silva and his people are chasing ghosts.”

  “And that the longer they stay,” Cunha said, “the longer it’s going to take for the people in Brasilia to get the money you’ve promised them for getting the reservation declassified.”

  “Correct. We’ll give Silva a week or so before we drop a few words to the right people.”

  “What kind of words?” Frade wanted to know.

  “Words suggesting Silva is pursuing an absurd hypothesis and is obstructing our plans of a mutually-lucrative outcome.”

  “He must have friends too,” Lisboa said cautiously.

  “He probably does,” Toledo said, “but in Brasilia, money always trumps pure friendship.”

  The priest cleared his throat. “Speaking of money,” he said. “I’d like to discuss my fiscal participation in all of this.”

  Toledo turned to him with a smile. “And we will, Father. You’re a key figure in the whole equation. Now, let’s go over our version of events in detail. Only then will we all be able to sing to the Chief Inspector in harmony.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “HAVE YOU, OR HAS anyone else in your crew, come up with any proof that white men were behind the genocide?” Maura asked.

  Rather than meet her eyes, Gonçalves stared at his drink. “I’m sorry, Maura, but—”

  “But your Chief Inspector bla, bla, bla. Don’t repeat yourself, Haraldo, it’s boring.”

  They were alone in the bar. Most of the lights were out, and the front door was locked. Maura was grilling him, and Gonçalves was feeling uncomfortable.

  “Is that why you got me down here?” he said. “Just to interrogate me? Just so you could get a scoop for your scandal sheet?”

  She bristled. “It’s not a scandal sheet. It’s one of the most respected newspapers in the country.”

  “Whatever,” he said and stood up.

  “Sit down, Haraldo. You know you want to.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes, you do.” She extended a hand. He took it and sat down again.

  “As long as you stop with the questions.”

  She smiled—and ignored his pl
ea. “You, and by you I mean the Federal Police—”

  “Maura, please.”

  “—think the killers were after one of two things: land they could add to their fazendas—”

  “Enough, Maura! You’re—”

  “—or hardwoods they could steal, is that right?”

  Gonçalves leaned back in his chair, suddenly cagey. “Who said anything about hardwoods?”

  “Where were you all day while your buddies were out at the Awana village?”

  He avoided her eyes. He was a pretty good liar, but for some strange reason he was having a problem when it came to Maura. “I can’t tell you,” he said.

  “Maybe not,” she said. “But you know what? I’ve got a pretty good idea.” And then, before he could get a word in, “You guys come up with any proof that somebody else might have killed that fazendeiro? Someone other than the Indian, I mean.”

  He released her hand. She withdrew it into her lap.

  “Stop it, Maura. Stop it right now. I’m not kidding. If you don’t lay off with the questions, I’m going to bed.”

  She was losing him, and she knew it. She decided to take a chance. “How about this? How about we exchange information? How about I tell you something that’s going to set your investigation off in an entirely new direction?”

  “What makes you think you could?”

  “I know some things you don’t.”

  “Now you’ve got me curious.”

  “Good.” She put her hand back on the table. He didn’t take it.

  “But I’m still not going to tell you anything.”

  She curled her fingers. “Damn it, Haraldo—”

  “You’re cursing at the wrong guy. If you’ve got something to contribute, and you’re only willing to give it up if we clue you in, you should go and negotiate with the Chief Inspector.”

  “And get him out of bed? You think he’d appreciate that?”

  “If you’re in possession of any information that would contribute to the solving of this case, he certainly would.”

  “Now you’re sounding like a cop again.”

  “I am a cop.”

  “In a couple of days’ time, you people are going to be sorry you didn’t play ball,” she said.

  “I guess we’ll have to take that risk.”