Blood of the Wicked

by Leighton Gage

  “Murdered? Like hell! I shot him in self-defense. I told you what he said. Are you calling me a liar?”

  “No, Senhor Muniz, I’m not calling you anything. Cuff him, Arnaldo. Take him up to my suite.”

  “Cuff me? Cuff me? Don’t you dare touch me, you fucking Neanderthal. I’ll have your goddamned job.”

  Arnaldo walked up to the fazendeiro and kicked his ankles out from under him. Before Muniz had recovered from the shock, the big cop’s knee was pressing on his kidneys, and Muniz’s arms were being forced behind his back. As Arnaldo led him away, Silva started going through Father Angelo’s pockets. He found a cigarette lighter (a cheap affair in pink plastic), a rosary, a few folded bills of low denomination, some small change, two more packs of cigarettes (one of them almost empty), and a single cartridge casing. He brought the casing close to his eyes for a better look. It was a .22-caliber short. Other than that, there was nothing. No papers, no identification, no other personal effects. The priest’s eyes were closed, his features composed, even content. There was no horror written there, no shock. He appeared to be sleeping.

  Silva rose to his feet. As he did, someone touched his shoulder.

  He turned and found himself looking into a pair of limpid gray eyes.

  Merda! Silva thought.

  His reaction had nothing to do with the eyes themselves or even the rest of what went with them: dark blonde hair, a flawless complexion, full, sensuous lips and a button nose.

  No. His reaction had exclusively to do with the camera that some guy was poking over her left shoulder. There was a tiny red light on the front of that camera and the light was blinking.

  “You were a witness to the shooting, weren’t you Chief Inspector?” the blonde asked, holding a microphone up to his lips to capture his reply.

  “No comment.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “We were a couple of seconds too late, but you were right here in the room. You must have seen Senhor Muniz shoot the priest.”

  “No comment, Senhora . . .”

  “Ferraz. And it’s not senhora, it’s senhorita, but you can call me Natalia.”

  “Ferraz. Any relation to—”

  “The colonel? No. No relation. But, while we’re at it, what’s your comment about what happened to him?”

  “Happened to him?”

  “His murder.”

  Silva stared at her and blinked. She studied his expression.

  “Hey, you didn’t know about it, did you?”

  “No,” he said with a sigh, “I didn’t.”

  She was going to make him look like an idiot. But then, to his surprise and relief, she let him off the hook.

  “Cut it, João,” she said to the cameraman.

  The tiny red light gave a final blink and went out.

  “To be fair,” she said, “there’s no reason why you should have known about the colonel. They only found him a little over an hour ago. Shot to death in his living room. Him and that adjutant of his, Major Palmas.”

  “How did you find out about it, Senhorita Ferraz?”

  “Natalia,” she said. And then, turning her gray eyes onto Hector, but still speaking to Silva, “Who’s your friend?”

  “Delegado Hector Costa,” Hector said, before Silva could reply.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, “you’re the nephew, right?”

  As Hector’s smile faded, she turned back to Silva. “Heard it on the police scanner,” she said. “His driver found the bodies.”

  “Whose driver?”

  “The colonel’s driver. He picks him up every morning. There’s no sleep-in maid, so it’s the driver who makes the colonel’s coffee. He’s got a key to the house. He called it in from the car radio. We picked it up. Got there just when everybody else did.”

  “And how did you get here so fast?”

  “We got a tip somebody’d been shot.”

  “A tip? From whom?”

  “Anonymous. He—it was a he—called it in to the network.”

  “When?”

  She looked at her watch. “Maybe twenty minutes ago, which is at least fifteen minutes before it actually happened. Funny, huh? Maybe the caller was a psychic.”

  WITH THE colonel dead, there was no reason not to use the local jail, so that’s where they took Muniz.

  He was entitled to one telephone call and he promptly made it. His personal judge, Wilson Cunha, got there in five minutes flat, called for an immediate arraignment, and assured Muniz that he wouldn’t have to spend the night in a cell.

  Silva told Cunha that he intended to file federal charges and that, by law, he had twenty-four hours to do it. In the meantime, Muniz wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  “What federal charges?” Cunha sputtered.

  “I haven’t decided yet. I’m still thinking about it.”

  “I protest.”

  “Protest all you want. Your patron is going to spend the night in jail and I intend to make sure he doesn’t get a cell to himself. Who knows? Maybe he’ll find love.”

  Silva waited until Cunha had stormed out, then called a friend at the revenue service in Brasilia and initiated an audit of the judge’s last five years of income tax statements.

  Chapter Fifty

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, a small crowd of the curious was still milling about in the lobby of the Hotel Excelsior. As Hector threaded his way through them, leading the way to the elevator, he spotted an unexpected figure: Father Francisco, the late bishop’s secretary.

  The priest’s attire was rumpled, he was showing a day’s growth of beard, and there were dark rings under his eyes. He tossed aside the newspaper lying in his lap, wearily pulled himself out of his armchair, and extended a hand.

  Hector took it, introduced the priest to his two companions, and said, “I hope you’ll pardon me for saying so, Father, but you look as if you could use a good night’s sleep.”

  Self-consciously, the priest ran a hand over the stubble on his chin.

  “I daresay I do, Delegado, but I’ll have to put it off a little while longer. I’ve been waiting for you and the chief inspector. Have you time for a cup of coffee?”

  “Of course. You heard about what happened to Father Angelo?”

  “Yes. The desk clerk told me about it. He had it from some people who saw it all.” The priest seemed neither scandalized nor surprised.

  Hector glanced at the hotel’s coffee shop. Yellow crime-scene tape still sealed off the entrance, and people were leaning over it, staring at the bloodstains on the floor.

  “No coffee to be gotten here,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs and order it from room service.”

  * * *

  WHEN HE was seated on the sofa in Silva’s suite and the coffee had been ordered, the priest said, “Shortly after two o’clock this morning Father Angelo called me.”

  “He called you at two AM?” Silva asked. “You were awake?”

  “Asleep, but I have a telephone next to my bed. Last rites, you see. I’m often asked to give them in the early hours of the morning.”

  “So you weren’t particularly surprised to get a call?”

  “Not until I picked up the telephone and heard Father Angelo’s voice.”

  “What did he want?”

  “To talk to me, he said, about a matter of the utmost urgency.”

  “What matter?”

  “He refused to discuss it over the telephone.”

  “Sounds familiar. He did the same with me. Only it was hours later. Just after eight-thirty. He woke me out of a sound sleep and asked me to meet him in the breakfast room downstairs. He was shot to death before we could talk. I’m still wondering what it was all about.”

  “Perhaps I can shed some light.”

  At that moment someone rapped on the door. It turned out to be room service with the coffee. Father Francisco waited until everyone had been served, and the man had left, before he resumed his story:

  “Angelo asked me to come here, to Cascatas. There was something in his voice, s
omething in the way he made his request. It was . . . well, I hope you don’t find I’m being too dramatic, but his voice was almost funereal. I told him I’d come immediately.”

  “To his home?”

  “No. That was something else I found strange. He told me to come to Santa Cecilia’s. That’s the old church, the one they’re going to demolish to build a school. He said he had a key, and he’d leave a door open. He described how to find it.”

  “And you did as he asked?”

  “Yes. We met this morning, a few minutes past seven.” Father Francisco reached into his pocket and removed an envelope. “He gave me this,” he said, “and asked me to deliver it to you, personally. He said you’d be in the breakfast room of your hotel. I was to hand it over at nine-thirty AM precisely.”

  Silva examined the business-sized envelope. It was sealed and unmarked. “What’s in it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “So why didn’t you? Hand it over at nine-thirty, I mean.”

  “When he left, I sat down on one of the pews near the altar. I was exhausted from the journey and closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, it was almost ten. I hurried here, but you’d already gone off to the jail with Orlando Muniz.”

  “What did you and Father Angelo talk about?”

  “I think it would be best if you were to read the letter, Chief Inspector. Afterward, I’ll respond to your questions.”

  Silva tore open the envelope, perched his eyeglasses on his nose and began to read aloud:

  Dear Chief Inspector Silva,

  I am writing to confess to the murders of four men: Colonel

  Emerson Ferraz, Major Osmani Palmas, Father Gaspar Farias, and Euclides Garcia.

  “Jesus Christ,” Arnaldo said.

  He looked at Father Francisco and reddened, but the priest ignored his interjection.

  Silva continued reading:

  Please note that I take no responsibility for the death of the fazendeiro Orlando Muniz Junior. The men who killed him are all dead, murdered by Colonel Ferraz in an unprovoked attack on the encampment of the Landless Workers’ League.

  “That’s just too much of a coincidence,” Arnaldo said. “And I’ll believe it when I go back to believing in Santa Claus. ”

  Silva cleared his throat and went on:

  I staged the deaths of Father Gaspar and Euclides. My motive in misleading the police about the true nature of the crime was to sow confusion, and to thereby ensure that I would be given the time to carry out some other plans that I had on my agenda.

  Gaspar’s confession, although obtained under duress, is truthful. He planned the murder of Bishop Antunes and his manservant carried it out. There will be ample proof of this in the degree of detail set forth in his handwritten document.

  In the case of Ferraz, his crimes are too numerous to list and many may never be known. They certainly include the murders of Diana Poli, Vicenza Pelosi, Anton Brouwer, various members of the Landless Workers’ League, and at least five street children.

  “That man Ferraz was a fucking murder machine,” Arnaldo interjected. “Uh, sorry, Father.”

  “No apologies necessary, Agente. I happen to agree with you.”

  In all of Ferraz’s crimes, his adjutant, Major Osmani Palmas, was a willing participant. In the case of the street children, Ferraz was also assisted by a death squad consisting of Tenente Lacerda, Sargento Maya, Cabo Cajauba, and Soldados Prestes, Porto, and Najas, the first four of whom also participated in the attack on the encampment.

  “So that bucket of lard Menezes is out of it,” Arnaldo said. “But there are still six of them. They’ll be elbowing each other to be the first in line.”

  Silva nodded. As cops, Ferraz’s men would be quick to recognize that the first of them to turn state’s witness would get the best deal from the prosecutors. He adjusted his reading glasses and turned to the last page of Angelo’s letter:

  As for me taking the law into my own hands, I want to make one thing clear. I would have liked to have gone to my grave believing in Brazilian justice. If I regret nothing else, I do regret that I was unable to do that.

  By the time you read this, I will have taken my own life. My last gesture before doing so will be to meet with Orlando Muniz in order to give him some degree of comfort by communicating to him what others have told me about his son’s last hour.

  God’s blessings upon you, Chief Inspector Silva, and—to please my ghost—try to see that those as yet unpunished suffer the fate they deserve.

  Yours,

  Fr. Angelo Monteiro, S.J.

  Silva folded the letter and looked at Father Francisco.

  “A Jesuit, was he?”

  Father Francisco nodded.

  “Brouwer, too?”

  “No. Franciscan.”

  “All right. Let’s talk. Did Father Angelo ask you to come to Cascatas just to give me this?”

  Silva brandished the priest’s last letter.

  “No, Chief Inspector, he asked me to come so that he could make another kind of confession. He did. I gave him absolution.”

  “So you knew he intended to take responsibility for the killing of four people?”

  “I did. I would have expected no less of him. He was a murderer, but he was a good man. I know that sounds incongruous, but it’s the truth.”

  “So you’re sure he did it? Killed them, I mean?”

  Father Francisco looked mildly surprised. “Of course he did. You just read his confession.”

  “I read it, yes, but don’t you think it strange that the man lived a long life of peace and then, suddenly, went off on a murderous rampage? Was it because of what happened to his friend, Brouwer?”

  “Father Angelo, Chief Inspector, was a very sick man. Lung cancer. He didn’t have long to live. He authorized me to tell you that, and also to tell you that he wanted to make what he called ‘a difference’ in the short time left to him. He feared you weren’t going to be able to bring certain people to justice, so he decided to help you.”

  “Help me?”

  Silva remembered the times he, too, had taken justice into his own hands. Father Francisco studied the expression on his face and misinterpreted it.

  “Yes, yes, I understand your feelings. At first glance, it really seems repulsive. I can’t condone his actions—”

  “I can,” Arnaldo muttered. “Good for him.”

  Silva gave him a sharp look. Arnaldo, unrepentant, grinned at him. He almost grinned back. To hide it, he turned again to Father Francisco. “Is there any more you can tell me about the death of Orlando Muniz Junior?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Sanctity of the confessional?”

  Father Francisco looked Silva in the eye and didn’t answer but he might as well have.

  “So Angelo had something to do with it after all,” Silva insisted.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t, did you?”

  “Look, Chief Inspector, you’re holding a letter in your hand in which Father Angelo confesses to four murders but quite specifically denies any responsibility for the death of Muniz’s son. Wouldn’t it be logical to assume, then, that he had nothing to do with it?”

  “That’s the way it appears, doesn’t it?”

  “It certainly does. So what reason might he have had to tell Muniz that he did?

  “Are you also a Jesuit, Father?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Then, just as an intellectual exercise, imagine this. Imagine that Father Angelo set Muniz up.”

  “Set him up?”

  “Set him up. Provoked Muniz into committing murder with himself as the victim.”

  “All right. I’ll try to imagine it. But first, tell me what motive Father Angelo could possibly have had for doing something like that. If he meant to hurt Muniz, why wouldn’t he just shoot him like he did the others?”

  “That’s what’s bothering me, too. Help me to think it through. As I said, purely as an
intellectual exercise.”

  Father Francisco was silent for a moment. “Well . . . ” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Purely hypothetically, you understand?”

  “Yes, Father. Purely hypothetically.”

  “Perhaps it could have had something to do with making the punishment fit the crime. After all, Muniz didn’t actually kill anyone. He’s not a good man, but he wasn’t a murderer.”

  “Not as far as Angelo knew at the time. But now he is, Father.”

  “Yes, Chief Inspector, now he is. Or maybe. . . .”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe Father Angelo believed that prison would be the worst punishment for a man like Muniz, worse than dying even. Remember what he wrote about wanting to believe in Brazilian justice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps he thought he’d found a way to make it work.”

  “Make it clearer for me, Father. What do you mean by that?”

  “How many rich men in this country actually wind up being convicted of a crime?”

  “Unfortunately, very few. Our legal system leaves a great deal to be desired. There are those that say all of our judges have their price.”

  “Yes. But what would happen to a man, however rich, who shot down an unarmed priest in the presence of half a dozen witnesses, one of whom happened to be a chief inspector of the Federal Police? And what would happen to such a man if a reporter from Rede Mundo immediately arrived on the scene and had a chance to interview some of those witnesses? He’d be looking at a long prison term, wouldn’t he? Whoever he was.”

  Silva took in a deep breath and slowly let it out through his nose. Arnaldo broke out in a broad grin. Hector turned away and looked out of the window. Silva was sure he was smiling, too.

  He cleared his throat and glanced at his watch. It was almost noon, almost time for another one of those calls from the director.

  For once in his life, Mario Silva was actually looking forward to speaking to him.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  Brazil has a population of 180 million people occupying a land mass larger than the continental United States. It puts satellites into space, harnesses nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, boasts the world’s second largest fleet of private jets, exports automobiles, weaponry, aircraft, and consumer electronics. It has millions of acres of arable land, exports agricultural products to every continent, ranks ninth among the world’s economies—and has an unevenness of income distribution second only to Bangladesh.