The Silence of the Rain

by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

  I looked surprised.

  “That’s why we didn’t want to meet at the station.”

  I asked them to explain.

  “As soon as the car chases stopped, the phone calls started,” Bia said. “The first was a little incoherent—nothing specific was said. There was a veiled reference to Ricardo’s death, but nothing very clear. No requests, no instructions, nothing to throw light on the caller’s intentions.”

  “Was it a man’s or a woman’s voice?”

  “A man’s,” they answered at the same time. “The second call was more revealing,” Bia went on. “As soon as he started to talk, I threatened to call the police. ‘No need to call, madam, you are already talking to the police.’ I hung up, frightened. I didn’t know where to turn. If the guy was telling the truth, I was being threatened by the police force itself. So I decided to call Júlio. I got even more scared when he said they were threatening him too. On the third or fourth call, I’m not sure which, it became clear that the caller was trying to blackmail me, but I was completely confused.”

  “How many calls were there, in total?” I asked.

  “Five or six; I’m not exactly sure,” she said.

  “Same for me. I think he called us both at the same time, as if he knew when we’d be home.”

  “Why the past tense? Do you think that just because you’re telling me this the calls are going to stop, as if I know who was making them?” I asked, somewhat disagreeably.

  “Of course not, Inspector; if we didn’t trust you we wouldn’t be here.”

  I also didn’t like the plural “if we didn’t” and “we wouldn’t.” I wasn’t talking to both of them—why include Bia in the question? It was her turn to talk.

  “Inspector, we know it’s hard for an honest police officer to hear from two people who are being blackmailed by the police force itself, but if we called you it’s because we trust you completely. Besides, we haven’t told you everything.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  Júlio continued:

  “In spite of what we’ve just said, we don’t have any proof that the blackmailer is actually a policeman. I got the impression that he had some information, but that he didn’t know how to fit it together and was hoping to figure it out through intimidating us. Since it turned out that we didn’t have anything to add to what he already knew, the threat wasn’t really articulated. It was obvious that he was casting around for some piece of information. He said he knew that Bia and I are lovers—which isn’t true but which he doesn’t know—and that we killed Ricardo Carvalho for the insurance money—and that we didn’t have a convincing alibi—and that it was a shame that two young, good-looking people would end up in a repulsive prison, targets of all kinds of aggression. He didn’t ask for anything. He concluded by saying that he’d call back to negotiate the price of our freedom.”

  My discomfort must have been apparent, since I was the only person in the police who had been in touch with them. I couldn’t tell them that besides me only Welber, Aurélio, and the chief knew the details of the case; that would only panic them more. They knew as well as I did that a million dollars was enough to cause most cops’ scruples to disappear—even those few who’d had any in the first place.

  It’s true that, nineteen days after the death of Ricardo Carvalho, many people had access to information, however fragmented—not just at the police station but at the insurance company and at Planalto Minerações as well. I was more inclined to suspect that the caller was someone without any direct tie to the murders and disappearances, someone who was trying to take advantage of the situation. I knew I could count on Welber’s honesty, but I wasn’t so sure I could count on his keeping his mouth shut. A little commentary, no harm intended—a little carelessness with a piece of paper—a slip of the tongue that raised an eyebrow … a million-dollar prize could make corrupt cops fiercer than animals.

  “I’m going to ask you to do two things. The first is not to mention these calls to anyone. The second is to keep answering and try to play along with the game. He’s going to want to get his hands on the insurance money in exchange for leaving you out of the whole thing. Play along, stretch out the negotiations as long as you can, and let me know absolutely every detail, no matter how insignificant it seems. And don’t worry; I won’t let you get yourselves into any danger.”

  I didn’t know how I could protect them without getting more people to help. It would have to be just Welber and me—and even that only after I could have a little talk with him.

  The idea of prolonging the meeting by changing the subject and relaxing by watching the moonlight over Copacabana Beach was out of the question for now. I had my doubts about whether we could ever do this—at least not the three of us. One of us would have to leave, and it wouldn’t be Bia. We said good-bye; she hadn’t taken a single swallow of her beer. Maybe she drank only wine or champagne. Beer on Avenida Atlântica was for hicks and tourists. After they left, I sat for a while thinking about what they’d told me. Truth be told, I was thinking more about how Bia had relayed it than about what she’d actually said. It’s amazing how I could let images invade the world of words. I should have been a filmmaker. Or photographer. Or painter.

  A little boy who couldn’t have been more than ten appeared in the space between the tables and chairs. He had a wooden box under his arm.

  “Shine, doctor?”

  “No, thanks. They’re clean.”

  “It’s to help me out.”

  “They’re suede—you can’t put polish on them.”

  “I’ll use a rough brush. They’ll be brand-new.”

  “All right, get to work.”

  And I sat thinking about Bia weaving her way through the chairs, with a graceful movement granted only to those favored by the gods.

  3

  The next day, I was awakened by the phone. Par for the course on Monday morning.

  “Inspector Espinosa?”

  It was the same voice from Saturday’s cut-off message.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Rose. I used to be Dr. Ricardo Carvalho’s secretary at Planalto Minerações.”

  My mouth was sticky; my eyes tried to adjust to the light coming through the window I’d just opened. My neurons were trying to set up the necessary connections so that my voice wouldn’t sound too groggy. I knew it was an important call and tried to rouse myself.

  “I was waiting for your call, Dona Rose. I’m terribly sorry about what happened to your mother.”

  Her voice exploded in a mixture of pain and anger.

  “Who was the animal who did that, Inspector?”

  “I still don’t know, but I hope that, with your help, we’ll be able to catch him.”

  And before she hung up, as she’d done on Saturday, I asked her:

  “Where are you?”

  “I think I’ll be safer if no one knows where I am.”

  “But I need to know where you are, so that I can protect you.”

  “Like you protected my mother?”

  “Dona Rose, I was with your mother just days before her death and there wasn’t the least sign that she was being threatened. It was your own disappearance that led me to her, not any threat she’d complained of.”

  “Excuse me, but I’m still in shock.”

  “You don’t want to tell me where I can meet you?”

  “For now I prefer not to say; I’ll call you when the time is right.”

  “Your life could be in danger.”

  “I know, which is why I don’t want to say where I am. When you want to talk to me, leave a message on my answering machine.” And once again she hung up.

  If I’d at least eaten breakfast, perhaps I could have been more persuasive. Six-twenty in the morning. The girl got up early. No way I could go back to sleep. So I tried to eat breakfast. I gathered together all the pieces of cheese in the fridge—Brie, Camembert, Emmenthal, and a dry, hard provolone, remains of some ancient party—found some imported jam, pr
epared an extra portion of toast, and turned on the coffeemaker. It wasn’t brunch at the Plaza, but it would do. The fact was, I’d already let Max slip through my fingers and didn’t want to do the same with Rose. On the way downtown I thought about how to prevent her from escaping. She wouldn’t try to go to the apartment; she was smart enough to know that someone could be watching the building. She could check her messages over the phone, and if she needed money she could always use ATMs. It could be a long time before she showed up.

  I got to the station before eight. At ten to nine, Aurélio called. The insurance company was pressuring him to dig deeper into the Ricardo Carvalho case. Forty-two is pretty young to die, especially for someone with a million-dollar policy. They didn’t believe that his death was unrelated to the life insurance. The directors were looking for someone to crucify, and Aurélio was the best candidate. He was crying for help.

  “Espinosa, I’ve got to show the company some usefulness. They keep bringing up suicide. They’ve even suggested that he paid someone to kill him. They think it’s impossible for someone with a policy like that not to die of old age. For them, life insurance has to be followed to the letter. For a million, you don’t die before things start falling off: your hair, your teeth, everything.”

  “Aurélio, this time I can’t help you. I’m in the same situation. My time limit’s run out, and the only thing I’ve got to show for it are more murders and disappearances.”

  “Why don’t we have lunch and analyze everything we’ve got?” he asked. It wasn’t his style; he never forced a situation. He must be truly desperate. I agreed to the lunch, even though I wasn’t inclined to give him any more than I already had. I didn’t plan to tell anyone about Rose’s call. We scheduled the lunch for one, a little against my will; but I didn’t feel right denying information to a friend.

  Aurélio was really worried. He’d taken early retirement from the force and his pension was substantially fattened by his salary from the insurance company. But to keep that up he had to prove his use to them. This was the kind of case that, if he resolved it in their favor, could result in a healthy raise. He must be under enormous pressure to uncover what the board considered an obvious case of fraud.

  We parted with the promise that I’d help him however I could, and I meant it.

  As I walked back to the station, I wandered for a while through downtown, on a sort of automatic pilot. I don’t like to turn myself off for too long—there’s always the risk that I’ll get used to it. I think everyone’s born on automatic pilot: only a few people eventually take over the controls. Just now I had low visibility. I steered myself through the pedestrians with difficulty; I had a hard time keeping my thoughts coherent. But I managed to get back to the station safe and sound. The week was only just beginning.

  It was day twenty. The facts were still pretty hard to link up, and my reports were inconclusive. The two things that seemed indisputable were that the disappearance of Rose was linked to the death of Ricardo Carvalho, and that the death of Dona Maura was linked to the disappearance of Rose but not directly to the death of the executive. It was possible that the disappearance of Max was directly related to all the other events, but I didn’t think it was likely. For twenty days on the case that wasn’t a whole lot to show. The president of Planalto Minerações had called one more time to find out about the “progress of the investigation.”

  Monday was coming to an end, but I wasn’t going home. The time I’d been allotted to solve the executive’s death was up, and this was my first day of routine duty at the station. From that moment on, the investigation of the Ricardo Carvalho case would be lumped together with all the other unsolved cases. The newspapers and television were no longer interested. The media attention allotted to the torture and murder of Rose’s mother was due to the brutality of the thing itself, not to its possible link to the executive’s murder. The press hadn’t established any connection between the two.

  4

  I had no idea what to expect or how to act with Alba. Only two days ago we’d slept together, but I still felt uptight in the face of her disconcerting spontaneity. There was no doubt she liked me, but I wondered what her liking me meant. It could just mean “I liked sleeping with you” or it could mean “I’m madly in love, you’re the man of my life.” She still hadn’t dismissed Júlio as her boyfriend (maybe “lover” was a better word). Or maybe she just slept around. I was uncomfortable with myself just for posing these questions. I felt as old-fashioned as a tail-finned Cadillac.

  I didn’t think asking someone else what Alba’s actions meant would get me anywhere. If part of her looked like a stereotypical gym bunny, another part of her could hold an intelligent conversation. She had control over her ideas and her voice and listened to Grieg and Vivaldi at home. Someone who didn’t know her would judge her on her appearance alone, which (even though it was great) didn’t give an accurate indication of her personality.

  I called the gym. It was five-thirty. The pretext: dinner the next day. Her voice was happy and fresh.

  “Hey, babe, miss me?”

  “I thought we could have dinner tomorrow … tonight I’m on duty. I could come pick you up—”

  “I’d love to, but I can’t. I’m supposed to meet Júlio after I get off work.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know …”

  “Don’t worry about it, babe, I’ve got to straighten some things out with him. But on Wednesday, if you’re around, I’ll be ready for another round of cops and robbers,” she said.

  It was a quiet night. I read a little more of the Conrad, which I’d luckily left in the trunk of the car and which was a pleasant companion. My reading was interrupted by the occasional police business and by elaborate fantasies involving Bia and Alba—not both of them together; one at a time was already too much for me. At six-fifteen in the morning, the phone rang. It was Rose. She wanted to schedule a time to meet. It was the second time she’d caught me half-asleep. I doubted it could be on purpose—that would be pretty sophisticated for an amateur. She said she’d called my apartment and then, since no one had answered, left a message and remembered to call the station. We decided to meet at six that night in the Largo do Machado subway station. I was supposed to have my left hand wrapped up in a bandage. An amateur.

  There was enough time to rest. I went home thinking about Rose. Why did she want to meet me? Unless she was a fool, which didn’t seem to be the case, she would know that she risked being accused of Max’s murder. Unless she didn’t know about it … or unless the burned body wasn’t his. As soon as I got home, I noticed something different. It took me a few seconds to notice what it was: the answering machine wasn’t blinking even though I’d been away for twenty-four hours. It was like being abandoned by your dog. I took a bath, stretched out, and set the alarm clock for five in the afternoon.

  The subway station was packed. It was five to six and I was applying the gauze with some tape. I walked all through the station showing my left hand. Two trains came and went without my being approached by any girl who looked like a secretary. I looked around for my hidden friend, but any and every decent-looking girl there was a candidate. Six-fifteen, nothing. At six-thirty, everyone who had been there had been replaced by someone else; only I remained the same. She now knew what I looked like, while I only knew her from pictures.

  On the way out of the station I looked for a trash can so that I could rid myself of the bandage, which I did with a certain degree of embarrassment, certain that people were staring at me. Which in fact they were. The voice came from close by and scared me.

  “Inspector Espinosa?”

  It was a young woman, pretty, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes, with a purse slung across her chest. Before I could say anything, she said:

  “I’m sorry I made you wait so long, but I needed to make sure you were alone.”

  “And why would I bring someone else to meet you? You don’t look so dangerous.”

  I tried to joke with
her, but she was serious in spite of the attempt.

  “I’m not talking about a colleague of yours but someone who might know we were going to meet. Let’s get out of here?”

  We walked to the car silently, surreptitiously checking each other out, a preliminary investigation. As soon as we got in the car, I said, “So, did I pass the test?”

  “Sorry about all this, Inspector, but it’s just that I’m scared. After what they did to my mother …”

  “Let’s go somewhere we can talk and I can focus on what you’re saying.”

  “Okay, but please, let’s go somewhere busy. I’ll feel safer.”

  We went to the Restaurante Lamas, two blocks away. At that hour there still weren’t as many people there as she would have liked, but it was a perfect place to talk without being overheard by the next table. It was an in-between time, late for lunch and early for dinner. After we distractedly glanced at the menu, we decided on lunch. I’d just gotten up, so it was too early to have a drink.

  “Inspector, I heard about my mother’s death on television and I still haven’t talked about it with anyone. Why did they do that?”

  “Because they wanted information they thought she had, and killed her so she couldn’t identify them afterward.”

  “What information?”

  “The first thing was your whereabouts; the second they planned to get out of you personally, I think.”

  “So my mother died to protect me …”

  “I’m not sure about that. I think she died because she didn’t know where you were.”

  “They didn’t need to …”

  Her voice was sad and there was a true sadness in her face, but her eyes were as dry as a bone.

  “Why are they after you? Who is after you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know? Who’s after you or what they want? Or both?”

  “Both.”

  “In that case, we’d better get out of here and you can stop calling me at six in the morning just to make me listen to you lie.”