“And then he tied Welinton to a chair,” she went on. “I objected. I told him he was crazy. But he said that he didn’t want any paper floating around with evidence of what they’d discussed. I think that’s maybe when Welinton realized that something bad was going to happen to him.”
“What did he do?”
“He got all pale, and he said that Cesar could have it all, that there was always more gold to find out there someplace, and if Cesar would just let him go, he’d sign over the whole thing.”
“And what did Cesar say to that?”
“That the paper wouldn’t have any value, since the strike was on Indian land, and it wasn’t Welinton’s to sign away.”
“What happened next?”
“He made Welinton tell him where he’d found the gold. And I mean exactly where. Somehow, the old man had learned to use a GPS. He’d written down the coordinates, latitude and longitude, right to the second, and put them on a paper he was keeping in his wallet. When Cesar saw that paper, he figured Welinton wasn’t lying about the location, so—”
“Wait. How did he get Welinton to talk? By torturing him?”
She nodded.
“How?”
She hesitated. It wasn’t for long, not even as much as a second, but it was enough to tell Silva that what was coming next was going to be a lie.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t stand to watch. I left the room.”
“At which point you could have called the police.”
“It wouldn’t have done any good. You know how far we live from town. It would have taken them an age to get there. Cesar would have killed the old coot by the time they did. And, anyway—”
Silva knew what was coming. He said it before she could. “You feared for your life.”
“I did. I truly did. If I hadn’t gone along, Cesar would have killed me for sure.”
“Uh-huh,” Silva said.
She studied his face. “You sound like you don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that, Senhora.”
“No, but you implied it. It was they way you said uh-huh.” Silva didn’t respond to that. Instead, he asked, “Do you know where the prospector’s body is buried?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll take us there?”
“Yes, and I’ll testify against my husband in court, tell the whole story to a judge and jury. That’s what I can do for you. What are you prepared to do for me?”
“We’ll discuss that,” Silva said, “after we’ve spoken to your husband.”
“SHE’S FULL of crap,” Cesar Bonetti said when they related his wife’s account of the murder. “It was her idea from the get-go. I wouldn’t have done a damn thing if it wasn’t for her. Let me tell you what really happened.”
“Please,” Silva said.
“You getting all this?” Cesar said to Borges.
“I’m getting it,” Borges said from behind the camera. He was propping his elbows on the table to steady the image.
“Well, then, it was like this. I was in the bar at the Grand when Welinton came in and started shooting his mouth off. That much is true. But then I went home, and I told the whole story to Maria, and what does Maria say?”
“You tell us. What did she say?”
“She said this was our chance of a lifetime and asked me where Welinton went. I told her he went to Crazy Ana’s, and she told me to go there, wait until he left, and bring him back with me. I asked her what she had in mind. She said we were going to strike a deal with him. So I did what she said, and I even negotiated something along the way. Fifty percent each. That was our deal, and I was happy with it.”
“But she wasn’t?”
“No, the greedy bitch wanted it all. Once Welinton was in the house, she pulled a gun and told him to sit down. Then she made me tie him up.”
“Made you tie him up.”
“She was holding a gun, Chief Inspector. I know her. Nobody better. She would have used it.”
“On you?”
“On both of us. Why else would I go along?”
“Why else indeed?” Silva said, drily. “And then?”
“And then it was like she said. Except she tortured Welinton, not me. And she killed him, not me.”
“How did she torture him?”
“With a blowtorch.”
“What?”
“A blowtorch. The kind you screw onto the top of a little canister of gas. She burned him when he wouldn’t answer, burning him even when he did answer. He was a hairy guy, and she burned that hair off his whole body. His armpits, his eyebrows, his chest, even his balls. The smell was awful—stank up the whole room.”
“Jesus!” Arnaldo said and ran a hand over his face.
Bonetti looked at him and bobbed his head up and down. “Honest to God. And she enjoyed it. She enjoyed every goddamned minute of it. She even got hot on it. After he was dead, and even before we buried him, she dragged me to the bedroom and made me fuck her, so hot she was.”
“Who killed him?”
“She did.”
“How?”
“She cut his throat.”
“With what?”
“A knife we use to kill pigs. But you know what?”
“What?”
“The calculating bitch made me put a lona preta on the floor first. You know what a lona preta is?”
“No.”
“We use them to cover compost and for some other things. Every fazendeiro has them.”
“A plastic sheet?”
“Yeah. Basically. But thick plastic. And then she made me grab one side of his chair, and she grabbed the other side, and we moved him onto it.”
“So his blood wouldn’t stain the floor?”
“That’s right. He figured out what we were up to, and he started to scream. She enjoyed that, too, but I didn’t, so I gagged him.”
“And then you killed him and buried him.”
“She killed him. I buried him.”
“And you’ll show us where?”
“I will! You believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes, Senhor Bonetti, I’m inclined to believe you. Just one more question, did you have anything to do with the poisoning of the Awana tribe?”
“Not a goddamned thing,” Cesar Bonetti said.
Chapter Forty-Nine
WHEN SONIA FRADE SAW them approaching her veranda, she put down her teacup and wrapped both arms around the child in her lap. The little girl looked to be about two years old.
“And who have we here?” Silva asked, mounting the steps, his eyes on the little one.
“Lucinda,” her mother said. “Her name is Lucinda.”
The little girl clutched a doll in one hand and kept the thumb of the other firmly planted in her mouth. Silva knelt down and stroked the doll’s blonde hair with a forefinger.
“And what’s this one’s name?”
Lucinda held the toy tighter, as if she feared he’d take it away.
“Jaqueline,” she said, removing her thumb just long enough to say the word.
“That’s a beautiful name. And so is Lucinda. And so is Sonia. You all have beautiful names.”
“I knew you’d come eventually,” Sonia said, “but I didn’t expect you quite this soon.” She raised her voice—but only slightly—and called out, “Geralda.”
A chocolate-colored woman appeared in the doorway. She looked anxious. “Senhora?”
“Would you please give Lucinda and Laura some cake?”
“Cake! Oba!” the little girl said.
She clambered from her mother’s lap. The maid opened the screen door, ushered her in, and followed her.
Sonia picked up her teacup—and, as Silva had expected, did it with her left hand. She hadn’t bothered to conceal the scratches. They stood out on her pale arms, damning witnesses to her husband’s last struggle.
“I’m Chief Inspector Silva. This is Agent Nunes.”
“Would you like to sit down?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Each man took a chair.
“Tea? Coffee?”
“Nothing, thanks,” Silva said. “We won’t be here long.”
“No,” she said, “I suppose not.” She let her eyes drift, staring, without seeing, at a herd of Tabapuã grazing on the border of the rainforest. “I suppose you want me to tell you about it. Well, there’s not much to tell, not really. I waited for him outside the Grand. I’d waited for him the night before, and the night before that, but he hadn’t been drunk enough.”
“You didn’t think you could kill your husband unless he was falling-down drunk?”
“Maybe. But I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to be sure. And I didn’t want to run the risk of doing it here because of the children. I’d planned to take him when he reached his jeep, but when he stepped into the alley I saw my chance, and I followed him.”
“So there was nothing symbolic in it? That you killed him in the same place he’d killed Torres?”
“No. Nothing symbolic.”
“And the weapon you used?”
“That was deliberate. I wanted him to suffer the way Omar suffered.”
“Where is it?”
“Buried behind the milk barn. Do you want me to take you there?”
Silva didn’t respond to the offer, said instead, “Your husband told you, didn’t he? Told you he’d murdered Torres?”
She nodded.
“And Torres was your lover?”
She nodded again. “It was wrong,” she said. “I know it was wrong. And God knows Omar wasn’t much of a man. He was fickle, and coarse, and he drank too much, but I loved him. I loved him because he took me out of my daily misery and gave me something, other than my daughters, to look forward to when I got up in the morning. And I have to admit, there was a malicious side to it as well. I knew José would hate it if he ever found out. But I didn’t expect him to find out, and I certainly didn’t expect him to do what he did.”
“How did he find out? Any idea?”
“I know exactly how he found out.”
“Tell us.”
“Patricia Toledo. She wasn’t willing to accept that Omar was finished with her. She suspected he’d taken another woman into his life. She wanted to know who it was, so she started following him. One night, she saw us going into the back door at the Grand. Omar’s arm was around me, so there wasn’t much doubt about what we were up to. The next day she called him, and told him that if he didn’t leave me and go back to her, she’d tell my husband.”
“How did Torres react to that?”
“He laughed. Said that if she told José about me, he’d tell Hugo about her.”
“But she told your husband anyway.”
“She did. I denied it, said that Patricia was only saying that because she’d slept with Omar herself. He didn’t believe it. He beat me and asked me again. I denied it again, and he beat me again and he said he was going to go on beating me until I confessed. And I was in pain, and I wanted to hurt him back, so I told him. And do you know what he did then?”
Silva shook his head. “No, Senhora, what did he do?”
“He started to laugh.”
“Laugh?”
“And while he was laughing, he asked me again about Patricia, asked if it was true Omar had been sleeping with her before me.”
“And you confirmed it?”
“I did, and he said that was good to know because he could use it to get into her pants.”
“Blackmail her into having sex with him?”
“Yes. And he did.”
Her face contorted with a revulsion too strong to have been caused by the illicit sex alone. There was more, but she was reluctant to talk about it. She avoided his eyes.
Silva gave her a gentle prod: “And then?”
She still refused to look him in the face, but it came out in a rush. “He came home, dropped his pants, and forced my nose into his crotch. He made me smell her on him. And then he put himself in me without washing off.”
Now, she did look at him, looked straight into his eyes, the revulsion replaced by anger. “I was his wife, Chief Inspector, his wife, but he made me feel like a whore. And that’s what he kept telling me I was. ‘Whore! Whore!’ Saying it over and over again while he … while he was … fucking me.”
The obscenity seemed out of place coming from her mouth.
Silva rubbed his chin. “After which he went out and vindicated his honor by killing Torres?”
She nodded. “He locked me up first and took away my telephone, so I couldn’t call and warn him.”
“And Amati? Where did he come into it?”
“Amati? Was that the name of that poor Indian?”
“Yes, Senhora, that was his name.”
“José bragged to me about that.”
“Please explain.”
“He had a machete waiting in his jeep. They were all playing cards at the Grand, and he was waiting for Omar to get drunk enough so he could follow him outside and kill him, when one of the other men at the table started speculating that the Indian might be sleeping in the hotel.”
“And that gave him the idea?”
“Yes.”
“Simply because the man was close by, and because people in this town would be all-too-willing to believe that an Indian was guilty?”
“Yes.”
“Jade told us she and Osvaldo brought Amati up to his room by way of a back stairway. They were keeping his presence in the hotel a secret. How did your husband know where to find him? Do you know?”
She took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I know. I know everything. He was so proud of himself, thought he’d been so clever, couldn’t wait to tell me how brilliant he’d been.”
“Please tell us.”
Off in the distance, one of the cows starting lowing. It was a mournful sound, one that Sonia must have heard many times before. She paid it no mind.
“While they were talking about the possibility of the Indian staying there,” she said, “someone suggested they ask Osvaldo about it. And someone else said he’d never tell. And then Omar suggested that a chambermaid by the name of Rita would know, and he turned out to be right. She’d been one of Omar’s conquests, but she’d been one of my husband’s as well, and she was always hoping to get him back. That night, she was on duty cleaning the toilets. My husband got up from the table to use one and ran into her. She told him straightaway. Ironic, isn’t it? That Omar himself should be the one to suggest the scapegoat?”
“Yes, Senhora, it is. What did your husband do next?”
“He did what he’d been planning to do all along. He followed Omar outside and killed him. Then he took Omar’s key to the back stairwell out of his pocket—”
“He knew about the key?”
“Everybody did. Omar used to brag about it. He didn’t tell people who he was … entertaining, but he liked to let people know what a success he was with women. So José took the key, went up the back stairway to the Indian’s room, and knocked him senseless. He carried him downstairs, put him next to Omar’s body, wiped off the knife, pressed it into the Indian’s hand, and forced cachaça down his throat.”
“And then?”
“He left.”
“Did he tell you anything about blood?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot. He’d done some shopping earlier in the day. He’d bought a big bag of meat—kilos of it. We stock up once a month, and he brings it home from the butcher in big plastic sacks. That was the day. He didn’t think the Indian looked bloody enough, so he poured blood all over him. He was proud of that. Thought it was the perfect finishing touch.”
“You don’t slaughter your own cattle?”
“They’re milk cows. The meat we get from the butcher is better. I think he gets it from Lisboa.” She changed tack: “Do you know what makes me saddest about this?”
“No, Senhora. What’s that?”
“It wasn’t Omar who suffered the most, and it wasn’t my husband,
and it won’t even be me. The true victims are my little girls. Last night, I thought about killing myself. And I would have, if I could have kept it from them. But it would have all come out in the end, the whole sordid story, and then they would have hated me all the more. I don’t much care about what the law does to me, but if I’d thought more about the consequences for them, for Lucinda and Laura …”
“You wouldn’t have done it?”
“No, Chief Inspector, I wouldn’t have done it.” She reached out and put a hand on Silva’s arm, a touch as light as a feather. She looked into his eyes, anxious for him to understand. “I was crazy mad with hate. I started thinking rationally again when I saw he was dead. But by then, of course, it was too late. I’m not looking for pity, Chief Inspector, and this is by no means an excuse, because I don’t think there can be any excuse for murder, but that man made me suffer. Oh, how he made me suffer! I’d just turned eighteen when I met him. It was in Porto Alegre, where it gets cold in the winter, and where we sometimes have snow up in the mountains. God, I miss that cold weather! José was there to buy cattle, and he had dealings with the lawyer who’d probated my parent’s estate, what little of it there was. They’d both been killed in a car crash the month he arrived. I never had brothers or sisters. My best friend, just about my only friend, had just gotten married, and I didn’t like her husband. Rightly, it turned out. He cheated on her within a year. They’re divorced now. I’m getting off the track, aren’t I?”
“Just tell it your way, Senhora.”
“Cristina, that was my friend’s name, Cristina Melo. She didn’t like José any more than I liked the man she married. She told me so, and that led to a split. So there I was, eighteen years old, an orphan, just divested of my closest friend and feeling sorry for myself. José proposed, and I accepted. He was fifteen years my senior. I’d known him for less than a week.”
“How old are you now, Senhora?”
“Twenty-four. I look older, don’t I?”
“I wouldn’t say that, Senhora.”
“You would if you were being honest. Why am I telling you all of this?”
“Because I asked you to. Please go on.”
“We got here, and he changed—just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “He didn’t want a wife, or a companion, or even a friend. He wanted someone to keep house for him. He treated his servants badly, you see. They kept leaving him. He wanted a drudge he could train to do things his way. He beat me. He beat me all the time.”
The Ways of Evil Men Page 24