“I’m not concerned about-”
“Am I not making myself clear, Chief Inspector? I’m going to use it, and that’s it. Fim do papo. You think she’ll win?”
Silva gave up trying to talk his boss out of divulging the information. “Win her civil suit? Yes, I think it’s likely.”
“And that prick Fonseca thinks so too, otherwise he wouldn’t be wasting his time talking to her. So the money to pay for Vitoria’s defense is ultimately going to come from the Artist?”
“Ultimately, it is.”
Sampaio snorted in disgust. “It’s not right.”
“No. Not right.”
“Couldn’t you just…”
“What?”
“You know.”
“Claim Vitoria got shot while resisting arrest?”
“You said it. I didn’t.”
Silva shook his head.
“It wouldn’t wash. Vitoria was shot with her own pistol, which proves she was unarmed at the time. Also, she was shot in the back. If we made a claim like that, Fonseca would make mincemeat out of us. No, Director, I’m afraid it’s Juraci, or us.”
“Too bad for her then, because it certainly isn’t going to be us. Take me through Arns’s story. Start right at the beginning. Maybe there’s something else I can use.”
Silva took a moment to gather his thoughts, then began.
“One morning, about eight months ago, things were slow at the pharmacy, and Vitoria dropped by Arns’s shop to have a chat. Somehow, they got on the subject of Juraci. Arns told Vitoria how she was always firing her servants, changing her locks. From there, they started gossiping about her son, how there was a rumor he was going to be sold to Real Madrid, how much money he’d earned over the last few years.”
“So that’s when they started thinking about how they could get their hooks into some of it?”
“Not right then. But Vitoria kept thinking about it, and a few days later, she hit Samuel with a ‘what if.’”
“What if we kidnap the Artist’s mother and hold her for ransom?”
“Exactly. At first, he said, he thought she was joking.”
“But, when he found out she wasn’t, he bought into it.”
“According to him, he did’t. According to him, he put up objections.”
“Like?”
“What if someone got hurt? What if he and Vitoria were recognized? What if Juraci fought back and needed to be subdued? How would they go about collecting the ransom?”
“And she kept coming up with answers?”
“He said they made a game of it. But every time they played it, the game became more serious. Eventually, he said, a plan emerged: on one of the occasions when she changed her locks, he’d make up an extra set. That would give them access to her house. No one was supposed to get hurt. They’d use hoods so they wouldn’t be recognized. They’d subdue her with a sedative. Vitoria said she’d have no trouble getting her hands on a drug made to order for the job: Ketamine. Where they got hung up, and hung up for quite a while, was how they could collect the money without getting caught.”
“Until?”
“Until one day Edson Campos came into Vitoria’s pharmacy and started singing the praises of carrier pigeons. She recognized the potential immediately, but she also recognized that the pigeons wouldn’t be able to carry cash. It would be too heavy.”
“So she hit on the idea of diamonds?”
“She did.”
“And Samuel ran out of objections.”
“Actually, he did’t. His biggest objection remained. He was petrified by the idea of getting caught. But she kept wearing him down. She wrote away for travel folders, showed him ads for gold watches and sports cars, painted a life of luxury and eternal bliss. And, finally, his greed got the better of him.”
“So they started trying to find someone to buy the stones, and that bicheiro, Captain Miranda, heard about it, and he got in touch with you.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Samuel said they never consulted anyone.”
“So what did Miranda intend to tell you?”
“We’ll never know. Whatever it was, it would have been a false lead, a dead end.”
“So no one else was involved in the kidnapping? Just those two?”
“Just those two.”
“Who evaluated the stones?”
“Samuel.”
“He’s a locksmith. What does he know about diamonds?”
“He studied up on diamonds, learned enough to make sure they weren’t grossly cheated and bought the equipment he’d need to do it: a jeweler’s loupe, reference books, a set of scales, a hardness kit, a light box for grading, and God knows what else. We found it all when we searched his house.”
“And to convert the diamonds to cash? How were they going to do that?”
“Samuel’s parents are German. He’s got dual nationality. He and Vitoria planned to marry. As husband and wife, they could live anywhere in the European Economic Community.”
“And sell a few stones at a time?”
“A few in London, a few in Paris, a few in Rome. They thought they could go on forever. When we caught them, they’d already sewn most of the stones into clothing they’d be taking with them.”
“Most?”
“Some were lost in transit. A bird of prey attacked one of the pigeons. Some were stolen by the caseiro of the sitio where they kept the birds. Those we recovered. A few Vitoria sold for seed money.”
“Seed money?”
“The cash they’d need to set them up in their new life.”
“Who did she sell them to?”
“Samuel doesn’t know, and she won’t tell us. She’s not talking to us about anything.”
“The jeweler in Riberao Preto tipped us off. How come the same didn’t happen in Sao Paulo?”
“Samuel’s a handy fellow. He bought gold, made rings, mounted the diamonds before she sold them. He says she planned to offer only one ring to each jeweler, and to claim it was a present from her ex-husband.”
“Why don’t we just canvas all the shops?”
“We’re working on it, but we haven’t got our hopes up. Samuel says they realized very little from the sales. That’s probably an indication the jewelers thought the rings were stolen. I don’t expect them to come clean.”
“So how much is the Artist out of pocket? How much did it cost him?”
“In Reais, about two hundred and fifty thousand.”
“That’s small change for him. He probably thinks he got off cheap.”
“In fact, he does. His girlfriend, Cintia, is more concerned about the money than he is.”
“Because she’s already looking at what’s his as hers?”
“Probably.”
“Tell me about the day it happened. How did it go down?”
“Pretty much as Lefkowitz hypothesized it did. They got to Juraci’s at four-thirty in the morning, cut the telephone wires and went to the kitchen door. Samuel had the flashlight. Vitoria had to put her reading glasses on to get the key into the lock, so she took off her hood. She planned to put it on again as soon as they were inside, but-”
“-but there was one of the maids, standing at the sink, getting a glass of water.”
“Correct. It was Clara, the younger sister. She dropped the glass and started screaming. Vitoria pulled out a pistol. Samuel says it came as a surprise. He didn’t know she’d brought it.”
“You think he’s lying?”
“No, I don’t. He doesn’t seem like the bloodthirsty type.”
“But she is?”
“Oh, yes, Director, she’s definitely the bloodthirsty type.”
“What happened next?”
“Juraci’s dog came running in and sunk her teeth into Samuel’s ankle. Vitoria stamped on it and killed it. Then she sent Samuel to find Clara’s sister.”
“Which he did?”
Silva nodded. “Hiding in a wardrobe cupboard. He pulled her out, and forc
ed her into the kitchen. Vitoria made her kneel on the floor and sent Samuel upstairs to subdue Juraci.”
“She must have been awake by then, what with all the racket they were making downstairs.”
“She was. She locked the bedroom door, but it was flimsy. Samuel had no problem breaking in. He was going for her with the syringe when he heard the shots. Up until that moment, he said, the thought that the sisters might be in danger never entered his head.”
“You believe that?”
“Actually, I do.”
“I don’t. I don’t think a jury will either. And then?”
“He threw Juraci on the bed and injected the Ketamine. She fought back. He tossed the syringe aside so he could use both hands to immobilize her. Vitoria told him she’d be unconscious in thirty seconds, but it took longer. So long, he began to believe the drug wasn’t working. It made him nervous. So nervous, he forgot to pick up the syringe when she finally passed out.”
“So now the maids are dead and Juraci’s unconscious. And then?”
“They bundled Juraci into their car. Vitoria waited behind the wheel while Samuel locked the door and smashed it with a sledgehammer.”
“To make it appear as if that was the way they got in.”
“Exactly. The noise woke the neighbor, Rodolfo Sa. Samuel had just remembered that he’d left the syringe in Juraci’s bedroom when he saw Sa’s light go on. He assumed Sa was going to call the security people.”
“Did he?”
“No. But Samuel didn’t know that, so instead of going back for the syringe, he made a dash for the car. Less than ten minutes later they had Juraci under lock and key.”
“Where she stayed until we broke in and rescued her?”
We. Sampaio believed in his own press releases.
“And that’s it,” Silva said. “That’s the whole story. It was, as we suspected in the very beginning, all about money. No other motive.”
“When did they decide to murder her?”
“I think Vitoria had it in mind since the beginning.”
“Arns tell you that?”
“No. And I don’t think she told him, either. She would have known it would make him squeamish. But she kept working on him. Ultimately, he agreed. But I don’t think his heart was ever in it.”
“Juraci never realized that one of her captors was a woman?”
“She had her suspicions, but she was never really sure. Not until the very end.”
“How were they able to get their hands on the Ketamine?”
“Nothing easier. Vitoria simply failed to enter the arrival of a shipment into the ledger. She paid for it with a personal check and fudged the bookkeeping.”
“Okay, let’s leave it at that. I figure I’ve got enough to talk my way through the whole damned dinner, if I have to. And all’s well that ends well.”
“Senhor?”
“Vitoria and Samuel are going to get what’s coming to them. A bicheiro is dead. The filho da puta who sold the Artist to Real Madrid is dead. The Artist’s mother came out of it without a scratch. Her son is itching to kick Argentinean ass, which I have little doubt he will. The President of the Republic is happy. And I get to have dinner with the Minister of Justice. Don’t you think that, all in all, it worked out well for everyone concerned?”
Except, Silva thought, for two young women, shot to death as they kneeled in terror on a kitchen floor.
The Director was looking at him, waiting for a response to his question. Silva groped for something to say.
And then didn’t need one, because Sampaio’s telephone rang.
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A vine in the blood cims-5 Page 24