“What li … lies? What do you know about all this?”
“Certainly less than you do, but enough to know you’re lying. For example, what happened with Max?”
The question got her right where I wanted. But she recovered with the classic reply:
“What Max?”
“The guy who said he saw you running out of the Menezes Cortes parking garage after shooting Ricardo Carvalho, and then dumping the gun into a pile of garbage bags on Rua da Quitanda.”
“Son of a bitch, he said that?”
“So you do know him?”
“He found out I was Dr. Ricardo Carvalho’s secretary and called the company trying to get me to help get money out of the wife.”
“How?”
“I never found out exactly. I think it was something about the life insurance money she was going to get. He wanted me to be the intermediary. He called twice the day after Dr. Ricardo’s funeral, but then didn’t call back.”
“From the way you reacted, I got the impression you two had met.”
“He wanted to meet up, but I didn’t. We never saw each other.”
“So then why would he make up the revolver story? Seems to me the story would only make sense if he knew you couldn’t refute it.”
“Are you implying that he’s telling the truth?”
“I’m open to all the possibilities—after all, you haven’t denied it. And there are some other things I’d like to know. For example, on the night Ricardo Carvalho was murdered, you left right after he did. Where did you go? I’ve got a few ideas. First. You two were lovers and got together on days when he was going to play tennis, and the meeting place was the parking garage. I checked out his gym and found out that he only showed up sporadically on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Instead of tennis, you went to a motel. He got tired of you and you killed him. Second possibility. You went to meet him in the parking garage, as usual. When you got there you found him dead and saw the murderer leaving the scene. Unfortunately for you, the murderer saw you too. You fled for your life. Third idea. Like the second. But with the final variation that you tried to blackmail the murderer. When he threatened your life you took off. Fourth. You were the accomplice—”
“Stop,” she interrupted heatedly. “That’s all ridiculous.”
“So how about telling the truth? You could start by telling me why you scheduled this meeting with me.”
“I told you, it’s because I’m scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“That they’ll fucking kill me, like they killed my mom.”
“Let’s start over. What makes you think they want to kill you?”
“I saw the murderer and he saw me.”
“Did you know him?”
“No, but he followed me, found out where I lived, and threatened me over the phone. He said his name was Max.”
“Listen, little girl. We’ve got plenty of reasons to arrest you, but the biggest right now is that you called this meeting just to dump a bunch of lies on me. Some cops are idiots but not all. You expect me to believe that you witnessed a murder, that the murderer followed you home and called you, giving his name and address and that, scared of being killed, you ran off and left your mother for the murderer? Either you’re an idiot or you think I’m one. When you’re ready to tell me the truth, call me. And don’t bother with that ridiculous show in the subway.”
I left some money on the table, got up, and left. Before I’d finished opening the car door, she was already pulling on my sleeve.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re an idiot. Let’s talk, I’m ready to tell you the truth. Do you live alone? Can we go to your house? I’m terrified of public places.”
5
“He’s waking up, don’t touch him, we don’t know what happened. We should call an ambulance.”
The voices were weak but distinct. There was some dirt in my mouth and I felt a strong throbbing in the back of my head. I tried to get up quickly, but my legs wouldn’t obey entirely and I was a little shaky. Two boys helped me. I asked one of them what had happened.
“I don’t know. You were passed out on the ground when we were trying to park the car; it’s pretty dark here and we almost drove over you. Luckily, we came in from the front and not the back. What happened? Did you pass out and fall down?”
They were both asking.
“I was assaulted, I was opening the car door … I had a girl with me…. What happened to her?”
“We didn’t see anything—we were parking when we saw you on the ground. Are you okay? Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine. My head hurt a lot and I was still wobbly. I was also a little nauseous. My gun was in the holster and my wallet and money were in my pocket. The only things missing were the car and Rose. I went back to the restaurant to wash up and call Welber. I preferred not to spread this one around the station. While I was waiting, I interrogated the security guard, the doormen, the owner of the kiosk. Nothing. No one had seen anything.
When Welber got there, forty minutes later, I was drinking a beer at a table near the entrance. He looked worried. Before he sat down, he walked around me to examine me.
“Espinosa, the hair in the back of your head is matted with blood. Let’s go to the hospital.”
I remembered being a kid and hearing my mother say, “If blood comes out it’s okay—it’s only bad when you bleed internally.” While I finished my beer, I gave him a short report of what had happened. We kept looking for someone who’d seen something, but in vain. The place where we’d parked was far from the restaurant’s entrance, the stores were already closed, there was no bus stop nearby, it was dinnertime, and it wasn’t a busy street at night.
Welber drove me home. On the way, I kept asking him how anyone could have known that I’d be at that place at that time with that person. Okay, so I was followed the whole time. But how did the stalker know I’d be there at that exact moment? Could he have been following me every day, every moment? Unlikely. Tapped my phone? Didn’t seem there was any reason to. Just then I was sure that the blow to my head hadn’t damaged my brain.
“The answering machine!” I cried.
Welber reflexively hit the breaks and looked at me, frightened.
“The answering machine,” I said again.
“What about it? What answering machine?”
“Mine, Welber. It wasn’t blinking when I got back home today.”
My colleague was increasingly sure that the blow had produced serious damage. Even so, he politely invited me to explain just what exactly I was talking about.
“Here’s the deal,” I said as if I were talking to a child. “There is not a single day,” I began, “when I get home and I don’t see the light blinking on my answering machine, telling me I have messages. Today I got back after twenty-four hours on duty and it wasn’t blinking. It’s impossible that the phone didn’t ring all day. Do you know why it wasn’t blinking, Welber? Because someone broke into my house and listened to the messages. That’s how they knew Rose had called me.”
My friend was obviously upset that I hadn’t told him anything about Rose. How long had I known about her? Where was she hiding? Why had she fled? I told him about the phone calls and the meeting.
“Nobody could know about it, Welber; you’re the first person I’m telling about the girl. Unless she told someone, which I highly doubt given how scared she is.”
We got home. The first thing I did was listen to the old messages on the machine. The first message was from Rose. She didn’t say who it was, but anyone who knew what was going on could tell. I asked Welber to pour himself a drink and wait while I took a shower. The cold water on my head made me feel better. I came back to the living room wearing a robe, only partially dried off.
“My friend, two observations. First. The son of a bitch is competent. Second. I’m not.”
Welber tried in vain to console me.
“The fac
t is, the guy broke into my apartment, listened to my messages, and vanished without a trace. He followed me all afternoon without my noticing, took the girl out of my hands without my even seeing him, and on top of it stole my car without leaving witnesses. Damn, Welber, the guy’s a genius and I’m a moron. I should get out of the police and open a bookstore. If I can still read.”
I got dressed and we looked around the apartment. Nothing was missing and there was no sign of the intruder’s having gone into the other rooms. We weren’t dealing with a thief but someone interested in only one thing: whether Rose would get in touch with me. Now he not only knew the answer to that but to lots of other questions as well, and what scared me was the method he’d used to get his answers. It was a matter of utmost urgency to find out who the kidnapper was and where he’d taken Rose. I didn’t even know where to start. No use calling in the Anti-Kidnapping Division or anything like that. It wasn’t exactly a kidnapping, or at least it wasn’t a kidnapping like the ones the media was taking note of. His objective wasn’t ransom in exchange for money. Rose didn’t have any money, but she had something of interest to someone who didn’t hesitate to torture and kill an old lady. Besides, if I wasn’t convinced of the competence of the police, I was even less confident of their honesty.
“We can’t completely cover up what happened. We have to report at least the assault and … let’s call it the kidnapping of a witness whose name has to be kept secret during the progress of the investigation. Or during the disintegration of the investigation.”
“Espinosa, all this self-criticism isn’t going to get you anywhere. Soon you’ll be blaming yourself for the death of the businessman. Why don’t we go to an emergency room to have them check out your head?”
“Damn it, Welber, the problem’s not on the outside.”
I retraced my steps that afternoon for Welber. Then we went over the list of names linked to Ricardo Carvalho’s death. We were—rather, I was—frightened by the efficiency of someone who’d managed to grab Rose out of my hands as if he were stealing flowers from an old blind lady. We hadn’t yet considered the possibility that it was someone she knew. That was the only way he could have taken the risk of getting so close to us. If Rose had seen him before he attacked me, all he would have had to do was smile at her: Imagine running into you like this!
“The other possibility,” added Welber, “is that they’re all mixed up in this and the whole scene was a farce.”
My head still hurt. My self-respect even more. It was incredible that people were dying, disappearing, suffering as a result of a death nobody seemed to mourn and whose resolution didn’t seem to matter to anyone but us. I let Welber go.
6
I sat trying to picture Alba’s meeting with Júlio. The farewell? The falling-out? The renewal of vows? Love: a romantic, Frank Sinatra version of their previous relationship, together forever. Of course, I wasn’t at my best, and my head hurt more than it had the night before.
We sent out a general alert for Rose’s kidnapping, hoping that by emphasizing that a policeman had been severely wounded we could provoke some class spirit. We didn’t have any illusions that the alert would have any effect, but it was all we had.
The next day, I saw the photograph of Rose distributed by fax and computer. She could have been any woman from twenty to forty. My car was found in Humaitá. Obviously without any useful clues. Even the place it was found, near the Rebouças Tunnel, pointed toward the Zona Norte and downtown as much as toward the entire Zona Sul and Barra da Tijuca via Lagoa and Jardim Botânico. It wouldn’t have made any difference, in other words, if the kidnapper had dumped the car at his front door.
I called Bia Vasconcelos. Since I didn’t really have anywhere to turn, I just decided to take the most pleasant path. No one answered. I called the studio. She answered. Her melodious voice, her polite, nice, correct way of speaking—it all enthralled me. After the usual greetings came the fatal question:
“So, Inspector, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
In a fraction of a second, I imagined the reverse situation. What would I be like if I were an internationally known designer, rich, heir to a respectable fortune, and a cop from the Praça Mauá station started calling me and showing up at my house? Would I go out of my way to be nice and invite him to my house so we could become friends?
“Inspector?”
I said I was sorry for calling at this hour (in fact, it was a perfectly inoffensive time) and asked if anyone had been bothering her again. She said no. I said she didn’t need to worry anymore because the stalker appeared to have gotten what he wanted and wouldn’t be bothering anyone anymore, we hoped. She thanked me, relieved, and waited politely for me to say good-bye and hang up. End of the romance.
With Alba, I saw there might be the beginning of a romance, although I wasn’t sure, but there hadn’t been any sign from Bia that she was in the least attracted to me. At most she might think I was an interesting cop, but nothing more.
Thanks to Rose’s kidnapping, I was once again liberated from night duty and back to special status. My immediate objective was to find the girl. After what the murderer had done to her mother, it was clear he wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to her. But what was he after? If it was money or some object, she could try to buy time by saying she didn’t have it with her, but if it was information, it wouldn’t take him very long to get it out of her, judging by the techniques he used. I didn’t have any doubt that the murderer would eliminate her as soon as he got what he wanted.
It was eleven-thirty in the morning. I’d just left the station, the day was gray, threatening rain, and my favorite bench in the Praça Mauá was empty. I sat down as usual facing the port (the most interesting thing to watch) and, for no specific reason, remembered the face of Max’s sister, more of a character than a person, living out a Greek tragedy in the slums. I didn’t even know her name, I hadn’t gotten to see her daughters, and even her house seemed unreal. She’d lost her parents, husband, beauty; she’d never had any money; she’d lost her faith; she supported her daughters. She’d probably lost her brother. Max was the perfect candidate for the murder of the businessman, the secretary’s mother, the assault, Rose’s kidnapping … as long as he wasn’t frozen in a cabinet at the Forensic Institute. And I was almost sure he was.
It started to drizzle. That was a good reason to get up and start thinking about where to eat lunch. I didn’t feel like a cheeseburger and a milkshake, but I also didn’t want a plate of rice, beans, beef, and French fries. I started walking toward the Bar Monteiro. Maybe a nice sandwich and a beer would help clear my head. And I’d be right by Carmem, Rose’s colleague at Planalto Minerações, who might be able to help me. She’d been the only person there who’d shown genuine concern for Rose. If she’d been holding on to something up till then to try to protect her, she might be more cooperative knowing that Rose’s life was in danger.
The rain didn’t last long. A few drops occasionally fell, but nothing to disturb my walk. On the way, I decided to stop by Planalto Minerações first. It was lunchtime and Carmem had a few minutes. She didn’t seem surprised to see me but didn’t want to join me at the Monteiro because she’d brought her own lunch to work. I accompanied her to the room the employees used as a lunchroom, decorated in black and white like everything else. We sat down at a table for four. The lunchroom was still empty. She meticulously folded back some waxed paper to expose a sandwich of black bread with a filling of indefinite color. I quickly told her about Rose’s reappearance and sudden disappearance. She seemed genuinely frightened.
“I don’t think she’s got more than twenty-four hours left to live. She has to be found immediately.”
“What do you want from me? How can I help you?”
“Rack your brain. Did Rose ever talk about anywhere quiet she liked to go? Or someone she’d turn to in an emergency?”
“I don’t think so. Rose isn’t a real nature buff. If she was going on vacation she’d go to
a big city, not to the country or the beach.”
“And was there any big city she especially liked?”
“New York, Paris, London …”
“But nothing here in Brazil?”
“Not that I remember.”
“What about hotels she stayed in? People tend to go back to places they’ve already been.”
“She went on several business trips with Dr. Ricardo. They often went to the North or Northeast. I can find out where they stayed just by looking in our files.”
“And here in Rio, did she ever have to stay in a hotel?”
The question was delicate and risked exposing possible intimacies between boss and secretary. I was sure that Carmem would try to protect them both. I reiterated that any information, even about her private life, could save Rose’s life. But the secretary of the only living director of Planalto Minerações didn’t know of any hotel her colleague used here in Rio de Janeiro, by herself or with someone else.
The sandwich was finished. I thanked the secretary and was already getting up to leave when she said, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin:
“I don’t know if it’s important, but I remember her saying that when she first came to Rio with her parents they spent a week at the Hotel Novo Mundo, on Flamengo Beach, while they were waiting for the apartment to be painted and for their furniture to arrive, and that she had such good memories of that hotel. It was when she was still together with both her parents; right afterward her father died.”
I couldn’t resist giving Carmem a kiss even as I looked around for a phone. She said I could use the one in the reception area. I told Welber to meet me in the lobby of the Hotel Novo Mundo, and to bring a picture of Rose with him. I left without speaking to anyone else, my heart pounding. I ran to Avenida Rio Branco and grabbed the first taxi. It was a quarter to one when I jumped out at the door of the hotel.
The hairs on the manager’s neck stood on end when I showed him my badge, but he tried to be as helpful as possible. I told him that the survival of a woman depended on the speed with which we could track her down, and that it was possible that she was or had been a guest of the hotel; her name was Rose Chaves Benevides. Seeing that I wasn’t there about a problem with the hotel, the manager became completely cooperative. He looked in the computer and at a handwritten list; he shook his head at both.
The Silence of the Rain Page 17