Five Quickies For Roger And Suzanne (Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery Series Book 7)

by Jerold Last

  "Did you feel funny or awkward being the only wife who made this trip?"

  "No, I didn't. I'm the only one of the wives who actively participates in the sport, at least at this level, and I thought of myself more as "one of the guys" than as Russ' spouse when I was invited by Sam to come along."

  "Tell us you remember about where you were and where the others were, from the time we got to the gym until we discovered Russ' body."

  Ellen did some more fidgeting with her hair. "Sam, Russ, and I got there in the first taxi at about 1 AM. There were still quite a few locals using the dojo to work out. The mats were all crowded so we watched them spar. They were awfully good, a lot faster than most of us are. The rest of you got there about 15-20 minutes later and joined us. I didn't watch everybody all that closely but my impression is that we all were sitting there watching until all of the Brazilians went home between 1:30 and 2. Sam, Russ, Jeff, and I trained together for at least an hour, so we were all on the same two mats until about 3. We were pretty hot and sweaty by then, since there's no AC in the gym and the humidity must have been 100%, so I took a bathroom break downstairs to shower, cool off, and clean up. I must have gotten back upstairs by 3:30 or so. Russ wasn't here, so I assumed he was taking a shower break. I don't remember exactly who was doing what, but I think Bill and Arnie were still working out when I got back, and kept going until you found the body. I remember seeing you and Vincent off and on all night, but I don't recall exactly where and when."

  "What do you think happened to Russ?"

  "I haven't the slightest idea. For now, I'm leaning towards the ghost theory."

  "Thank you for answering so completely. You've been a big help. Please accept our condolences for your loss."

  Next up was Sam Clark. Like all of us, he was in his 30s or early 40s and in martial arts competitive shape. Sam was about 5'10", broad shouldered, and strong, with most of his dark hair still in place and professionally groomed. He gave the impression of being wealthy and took the role of group leader quite naturally. He was a lawyer back home, mostly doing corporate mergers and litigation about intellectual property disputes. He had obviously taken the standard course for TV anchors and politicians in TV broadcasting and media interviews. His hands were kept clasped together in front of his waist, with no gestures while he was speaking.

  Sam confirmed everything that Ellen had told us about his relationship with her and Russ. His memory of who was where in the dojo the night before was consistent with Ellen's story.

  "What do you think happened to Russ?"

  "He lost his last fight. I certainly don't hold it against you guys that you weren't able to protect Russ last night. Ghosts and curses are pretty heavy stuff, and I'm sure you did your best. Don't worry, you'll be paid everything we agreed to as soon as we get back to California."

  “Sam, as a lawyer yourself you should realize that all of the build-up about the ghost story in Los Angeles and your bringing us along to Fortaleza might look to the police or to a Brazilian court like you carefully laid the groundwork for the premeditated murder of Russ Pardo before you ever came here. Tell me how you even heard of our Jiu-Jitsu Gymnasium Ghost 6,000 miles away in California.”

  “One of my first Jiu-Jitsu teachers in Los Angeles was a Brazilian named Eduardo from here in Fortaleza. Eduardo suggested that I needed to come here to Brazil if I ever wanted to become truly simpatico with the sport in the purest sense. He taught me a lot about the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, including the story about the ghost in the gym. More than once he warned me not to ignore the stories because he personally knew about one of the killings, which happened while he was a student at this gymnasium learning the Brazilian techniques. After we made our plans I remembered his warnings and came to you. I swear to you that’s the truth.”

  Jeff Cortland had a wary look and answered our questions with a good deal of caution. He confirmed Ellen's timeline and the nature of the relationships between his family and the Pardos. At about 5'6" he was the shortest of our group, but highly competitive and living proof of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu theory that fighting on the ground took away much of the advantages of size and power and substantially leveled the playing field in the martial arts. Jeff had a bad habit of cupping his right hand over his mouth while he talked. Hiding his mouth like that may have meant he had bad teeth that he was ashamed of, or may have been a "tell" that he was telling lies. I made a mental note to make sure that anything he said was either confirmed by someone else or had a question mark next to it. He had one new piece to add to the puzzle.

  "I heard a lot of noise while I was downstairs taking a shower at about 3:15 or 3:30, almost like someone was fighting. I got out of the shower and headed back upstairs what I'd estimate to be some time between 3:30 and 3:45. I didn't see anything downstairs to account for the noise I'd heard, but it was pretty dark down there so who knows what I might have missed. It took me several minutes to catch up to you since I was looking for Ellen, Russ, and Sam upstairs, but you probably remember that I told you about the noises I heard just before you went downstairs and found Russ' body lying there."

  "What do you think happened to Russ?"

  "I don't want to gossip, but I'm pretty sure that Sam and Ellen had a thing going. I don't know if Russ knew about it, but it was pretty obvious to the rest of us. Unless it really was a ghost, you might want to look a lot closer to home for who did it and why."

  Bill Holmes, an Emergency Room physician, was over 6 feet tall and very quick. He was the most difficult athlete in the group for me to defeat in a match because we were so similar in size and quickness. Whoever took the other one down generally won when we competed. His story was pretty similar to what we had heard from the other three, except he and Arnie pretty much served as each other's alibi. Like Sam Clark he had a professional poker face, which made it impossible to read what he was actually thinking.

  "We worked out together for an hour or an hour and a half, then went downstairs to shower together. I don't think he was out of my sight for more than 5-10 minutes any time last night until after you found Russ' body."

  "Do you know whether Russ and Ellen were happily married?"

  "If you're asking me whether Ellen and Sam were indulging in extracurricular activities the answer is that I don't know for sure but I'd certainly assume the answer is yes. If you're asking me whether that might be a motive for murder, I don't think so. I never saw any signs of friction or animosity between Russ and Sam. It's certainly possible that there was an affair that Russ knew about, and for whatever reason he was OK with an open marriage. I don't think any of us except Ellen and Sam would have known Russ Pardo well enough to know what might have been going on there."

  “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Bill?”

  “Did Ellen mention to you that she’s had to tell Arnie several times to be careful where he touched her during takedowns and when he reached across her body? There have been a few pretty public episodes over the last few months while they were grappling, and Russ was there for most of these complaints. Ellen doesn’t usually complain about stuff like this. She’s just one of the boys most of the time. But she clearly seems to have had it with Arnie. You might want to check this out.”

  Finally, Arnie Schwartz confirmed everything we'd heard until now, especially Bill's version of where people were at different times. Arnie's sly expression suggested that he thought he was smarter than we were and that his answers might be self-serving. He played a lot with his eyeglasses, taking them on and off while he was talking and unconsciously cleaning them over and over with a microfiber cloth while he was listening to someone else. I asked him about Sam and Ellen.

  The eyeglasses were taken off and put back on. "I think they were having an affair, but I don't know for sure. If they were fooling around, they were being pretty discrete about it."

  “I’ve heard that Ellen complained a few times about inappropriate touching. Is that true, Arnie?

  “You must have got that fr
om Bill. He’s always trying to start trouble between me and Ellen or me and Russ. It happened only once, and that time it was purely accidental on my part. Ellen overreacted.”

  Arnie leaned towards me with an intense expression on his face. His body language clamored that he had more to tell me if only I asked. His recently cleaned eyeglasses dangled from his right hand.

  “Is there anything else I should know, Arnie?”

  “I don’t want to sound like a gossip or anything, but there’s something more you should know. Bill and Russ haven’t been getting along so well this past half year. Russ made a few bad investments that hurt some of his clients’ net worth, especially Bill. Bill thought Russ had taken too much risk in a down market, and had made a big chunk of cash on sales commissions, which had created a conflict of interest. They argued a lot, with Bill thinking Russ should reimburse him for some of his losses from his own earnings. There was still some bad blood there.”

  Vincent and I took each other's statements, which were consistent with what we had already heard from the five martial arts enthusiasts (six if you count me). We both added that we not only watched the group upstairs, but we also patrolled the building at hourly intervals and were completely sure that Russ Pardo's body was not lying dead on a mat downstairs at 3 AM that morning.

  All of this got typed onto templates in my laptop computer and e-mailed to Joao Coelho, who would print out the file before we met for dinner. I also asked him to bring a file containing whatever he could find out about history of The Jiu-Jitsu Gymnasium Ghost and Kimura's curse, especially with details of what was known and suspected about the previous killings in the gym.

  Vincent and I had time for a quick taxi ride to one of Fortaleza's famous beaches, in this case Praia do Futuro. Fortaleza has about 16 miles of urban beaches to the east and north of the city. The water is warm, the climate is tropical, and the ocean is well used. Praia do Futuro is a 4-mile long beach most preferred by the locals for bathing and surfing. There are straw sheds and umbrellas everywhere, for shade and for sales of soda and snacks. The strong winds that blow constantly cool the body and offer world-class surfing, windsurfing, and kite-surfing. We took a long walk and watched the local talent wind- and kite-surf.

  As we walked along the beach we relaxed a bit and started to talk about things unrelated to the murder. “I'm curious about what you were doing in Brazil when you learned Portuguese, Vincent. Can you tell me about it?”

  Vincent looked lost in thought for a moment before answering me. “Have you ever heard of Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil from 2003 to 2011? The media called him ‘Lula’.”

  “Yeah, I think I remember him. He was pretty popular everywhere in South America as the politics shifted from military dictatorships to left wing liberalism if I remember correctly. The media loved him. He was a pretty good president for Brazil, wasn’t he?”

  “That depends on your politics. Lots of common folks loved him, especially in Brazil. A lot of right wing politicians, military hardliners, and multinational corporations didn’t like him at all.

  “In the months just before the 2003 election Lula had a big lead in the opinion polls and looked like a sure thing to win the election. That wasn’t good news for my bosses in the CIA. International investors, especially the big U.S. multinational corporations, were scared by Lula's campaign platform for social change and by his strong base of support with labor unions and leftist ideology. As the election got closer and closer and his lead in the polls got bigger and bigger, the value of the Brazilian currency was devalued and Brazil's investment risk rating got worse and worse. Some of this was fear of change, especially fear that Lula might nationalize some of the big multinational corporations, and some of it was the lousy fiscal policies of the previous president, Cardoso, who didn’t balance the budget and left a lot of debt behind him and practically no foreign credit or money in the bank."

  "Is this where you come into the story, Vincent?"

  “Yes, it is. The agency sent me here to the Northeast of Brazil, specifically Recife, Natal, Fortaleza, and Belem, to try to evaluate whether Lula’s support in this region was a legitimate coalition of labor and traditional liberals or was controlled by outside interests, communist or other ideologies. There was special concern about Middle Eastern interests who didn’t like the USA gaining influence in the region. I spent six months here before and after the election getting pretty deeply involved with the pro-Lula campaign and the early stages of the new government before they sent me back to Northern Chile. During that time I became a big fan of Lula and his close associates. Despite the radical-sounding rhetoric he was a pragmatist who realized that social reforms would take years to put into place and that Brazil had no alternative but to develop and implement fiscal austerity policies to stabilize the currency, decrease inflation, and attract more foreign investment. Brazil’s currency value and risk rating recovered shortly after the election as Lula’s policies became apparent. My report seemed to be enough to calm down the CIA, at least with regard to any obvious direct intervention in Brazil."

  “After 8 years as president, he was termed out. Lula gets credit for a substantial increase in the minimum wage for workers, almost a doubling of their base pay, which improved the standard of living for the working poor. He also got legislation passed to drastically cut retirement benefits for public servants to help balance the federal budget. Another change he implemented was the Zero Hunger program, designed to give each Brazilian three meals a day. He actually delivered on some of his campaign promises to the poor and to the worker unions. His policies and leadership style serve as the model for most of the newly elected liberal governments throughout South America. I really admire him, even though as you know I tend to be a political conservative.”

  "Don't tell me, let me guess. You actually spent enough time here in Fortaleza to hear about the murderous ghost at the Jiu-Jitsu Gym back in 2003. Right?"

  "Nope, I don't remember anything about any Jiu-Jitsu people being killed while I was here the first time. Sorry about that."

  A short cab ride later we arrived at the designated bar downtown where we would meet Joao to discuss the case.

  Chapter 4.Back to the gym for a workout

  The drinks were very Brazilian, in fact the national cocktail: caipirinha is made with cachaça (a Brazilian rum prepared from pure sugar cane), ice, sugar, and lime. It went well with the heat and humidity, and our jet lag. Joao was pleased with our interviews and asked for our opinions. Both of us thought it was too early to have an opinion and tossed the ball back into his court. He responded by passing us a file labeled "fantasma", the Portuguese word for "ghost". This was typical cop humor the world over.

  Vincent and I skimmed the file over our third round of caipirinhas. The ghost story starring Masahiko Kimura was similar to the version we had already heard. The serial killer ghost's body count was impressive, five dead bodies over 20 years, all killed the same way Russ Pardo had been.

  "We either have a ghost who is a serial killer, a serial killer human who is very good at what he does, or a skilled copycat at work in our case," commented Vincent.

  "That pretty much sums up the official conclusion," offered Joao with a few goatee strokes.

  "I'm going to suggest that I join the group for their Jiu-Jitsu competition tonight. They need someone else to make an even number to compete, and why not me? Maybe someone will say something in an unguarded moment that sheds some light on what actually happened last night. We'll have to hustle a bit to meet the group, but it's pretty much the only thing I can think of that we haven't done yet. I can use the exercise and I want to be able to tell Robert some day that I competed in Fortaleza."

  So that's how I ended up on a mat in a haunted gymnasium at midnight trying to take down and force into submission five black, or black/red, beltBrazilian Jiu-Jitsu experts starting with Sam Clark before they did it to me. I was able to establish a Full Mount position with an arm lock to win my match with Sa
m after 10 minutes of sweating and straining. He asked for a rematch after I'd worked my way through the other four.

  You can get a pretty good insight into your opponent's personality from their style on the mat. We were all nominally evenly matched. I would rank a bit higher in the Jiu-Jitsu hierarchy than all of them except Sam, who was a step ahead of me on the comparative competition scale. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu our relative rankings (and belts awarded) were more indicative of experience and wins in competition than of specific skills acquired, so any of us could win a match with any of the others. Sam was a risk taker; he lost to me because I was able to exploit an opening when he tried to attack me without properly accounting for my response.

  Ellen and Jeff were also risk takers, who I defeated pretty easily by focusing on my defense and waiting for them to make a mistake I could exploit. Like Sam they were impatient and tried to force the action. Bill and Arnie, on the other hand, were both very patient and focused on defense. I had a draw by mutual consent with Arnie, while I lost to Bill who got me in a chokehold after a unexpected and complex series of moves he made while he was in the guard position.