Requiem for a Killer

by Paulo Levy

  Requiem for a Killer

  Paulo Levy

  Copyright© Paulo Fernando Prada Levy 2015. All rights reserved

  All rights to this edition reserved by

  EDITORA BÚSSOLA LTDA.

  paulo@editorabussola.com.br

  www.editorabussola.com.br

  Cover Photo

  13881278 / zbruch / iStock by Getty Images

  Cover Art

  Editora Bússola

  English Translation

  Steven Mazzetti

  CIP-BRASIL. CATALOGAÇÃO NA PUBLICAÇÃO SINDICATO NACIONAL DOS EDITORES DE LIVROS, RJ

  L65r

  Steven Mazetti. - 1. ed. - São Paulo : Bussola, 2015. recurso digital : il.

  Tradução de: Réquiem para um assassino Formato: ePUB Requisitos do sistema: Adobe Digital Editions Modo de acesso: World Wide Web

  ISBN 978-85-62969-44-7 (recurso eletrônico)

  1. Ficção policial inglesa. 2. Livros eletrônicos. I. Mazetti, Steven. II. Título.

  15-25483 CDD: 869.93 CDU: 821.134.3(81)-3

  11/08/2015 11/08/2015

  To my Father

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Author’s Notes

  Keep in touch with the author

  Other books by Paulo Levy

  Chapter 1

  Go to bed early and it happens every time.

  Dornelas slid out of bed in the dark as if Flavia were still sleeping beside him. Out of pure habit he went to check on the kids, only to be met by empty beds. Hearing a slight commotion coming from the street, he opened the window and saw a cat sitting on the front wall watching a drunk stumbling along and humming a song. He closed the window, went to the bathroom and then back to bed, only to realize that sleep had indeed abandoned him. He felt restless, disturbed.

  He decided to go downstairs.

  Dornelas went into the kitchen for a glass of water and ended up devouring a chunk of milk pudding, his day maid’s specialty.

  Maybe a book would help him get back to sleep. He stopped in front of the bookcase, studied it for a while and pulled out a worn copy of Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, given to him by his father many years ago. He read a passage from the cover flap that reflected on man’s incapacity to develop a deep and mature love. He got his glasses from next to the computer, sat down in an armchair and began to read.

  He felt a sharp pain and tightness in his calf when he crossed his left leg over the right. His hand brushed along the scars and the memory of the .22 bullet that had gone through the muscle, close to the skin, flashed through his mind. He recalled the doctor’s words: a band-aid on one side and another on the other.

  A wound of no consequence that had killed his marriage.

  Worried that she would become a widow and the children fatherless, it didn’t take long before Flavia began bullying him into choosing between his profession and his family. With his career on the rise and no other way to put food on the table, the Chief Inspector chose the police, sure his wife would back down. He was wrong. Flavia had packed her bags and with the kids left for Rio de Janeiro, a few hours away. The whole thing had been done with sadness and a bit of emotion – but no melodrama – a little over a month ago.

  Dornelas put the book down, feeling listless and depressed.

  With his policeman’s mind he searched for something to blame his plight on: his ex-wife’s intolerance, the demands of his work, or the dark side of human nature, the root of all crime. But without that dark side, who would need the police?

  Reconciling his profession with his marriage was without a doubt the biggest challenge he had ever faced, and, given the simple logic of the facts, at which he had failed miserably. He’d considered quitting the police many times to go into something more predictable and less dangerous. But being a policeman gave his life meaning, a purpose. No way was he going to give that up.

  He was also greatly attracted to the job because of the flexible hours, the improvisation, and, most importantly, the absence of a set plan, which was exactly the aspect most criticized by Flavia. ‘Women need to at least see an oasis on the horizon where they can water their love, even if they never reach it. Otherwise they dry up, pack their bags and leave.’

  Burning the midnight oil would not change the facts: a marriage dies and it’s someone’s fault. Could it have been his? Too soon to know for sure. But he was sure that one day he’d get to the truth and shed the doubts that clung to him like barnacles on the hull of a ship.

  Realizing that his thoughts were coming and going in bursts, as if he were driving down a bumpy road, Dornelas closed the book and went back to bed. There was no big case going on at the precinct, just the usual: petty thefts, carjackings, and the occasional drug bust. But a feeling was moving inside him, like a snake coiling to strike in the darkness.

  *

  He got up at seven, in a rush and bathed in sweat, certain he was going to be late. He didn’t keep regular nine-to-six working hours, but he liked to arrive before eight to keep his detectives on their toes. If he let working hours slide it would turn into a habit and before he knew it no one would be around before ten.

  He took a cold shower, got dressed and left a plastic bag with a note next to the kitchen sink. In few words he asked Neide, his day maid, to take the dog out as soon as she arrived. Lupi needed a walk around the block or he would piss on the living room couch out of sheer spite.

  He left. He’d grab some toast and coffee at the coffee shop on his way to work.

  *

  He stepped into the street and began his daily walk to the precinct. He avoided using his car; he liked to walk around town, see the people, see what was going on in the streets. He always took the unnecessarily long way – he thought of it as his way of getting exercise.

  At that time of day Palmyra wasn’t even close to opening for business yet. The new area was the downtown, commercial part of the city. The old town, historically preserved by decree, with its luxuries and privileges, belonged to the wealthy homeowners and the tourists.

  After walking six blocks the shoddy architecture, the cement block sidewalks and asphalt streets gave way to the cobblestone streets of the Historical Center.

  The Brazilian colonial style of the 17th century, with its white-washed walls and colorful window frames, gave the old town the aspect of a handmade and outdated toy. He hopped over the heavy chain attached to two granite pillars, one on each side of the street to block the entrance of cars, and continued walking toward the ocean.

  Every time he left the new town and entered the old one Dornelas felt as if he were travelling back in time. He enjoyed crossing over, being sent back to more profound times where things weren’t worn away by time or by facts, as opposed to a superficial world where everything is temporary, today’s fad replaced by tomorrow’s novelty, a never-ending merry-go-round.

  Stepping from stone to stone, as if crossing a stream, he arrived at the end of the block and instead of making his usual left on Abolição Street, stopped short at the sight of an unusual disturbance on Santa Teresa Street, on the opposite corner. A crowd was moving steadily in that direction, like water going down the drain.

  Moving more quickly he joined the crowd. All around him he heard people muttering, asking questions. The crowd became larger as it approa
ched the water. Passing behind the church of Santa Teresa he crossed the little Old Jailhouse square and pushed through the crowded street that ran along the ocean, elbows held high, shouting, “police, police!”

  It was no easy feat, but he was able to climb up on the seawall separating the street and the ocean. Looking down he saw the body of a man belly up in the dry mud of the bay, his mud-soaked orange shirt open, his arms outstretched like Christ the Redeemer.

  A corpse stuck in the mud forty meters away.

  Dornelas searched the crowd around him, looking for one of his detectives. He finally spotted Solano a short distance away, talking on his cell phone. Opening the way with “excuse me, excuse me, police! police!” the inspector strode along the top of the wall in his detective’s direction.

  “Why didn’t anyone call me?” he shot at Solano as soon as he reached him.

  “Nobody answers your phone at home. And your cell phone goes straight to voice mail.”

  ‘Shit,’ thought Dornelas. He had pulled the phone jack out of the wall the night before after an annoying call from his ex-wife and had forgotten to plug it back in afterwards. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and, embarrassed, reconnected it.

  “Is anyone else from the team here?”

  “Lotufo is on his way. Caparrós is doing the fire department paperwork.”

  “Where’s Peixoto?”

  Dorival Peixoto was the Deputy Inspector, the second-in-command responsible for the precinct’s investigations and day-to-day operations, while Dornelas concentrated on the more administrative and political functions. In a case like this one, with a dead body in plain sight, the press would pressure the police without mercy. And the pressure would fall on Dornelas, not on his lieutenant. And since Peixoto loved the press, he needed to be contained in time.

  Peixoto was attracted to the spotlight like a moth to a burning candle. His love for the cameras once resulted in his mistakenly telling the media about an impending police raid to be made in a slum under cover of a political campaign. Of course the criminals were long gone by the time the police got there. Not to mention that Dornelas also found him lacking in zeal and intelligence, as well as being a tremendous ass-kisser.

  “He’s at the maternity ward. His son was born early this morning. A beautiful boy,” answered Solano.

  Dornelas silently thanked Peixoto’s wife. He wasn’t about to turn this case over to his lieutenant no matter what.

  He’d send flowers later.

  “What about the Military Police, are they going to be long? This crowd has to be contained.”

  “They should be here soon. I’ve already called the forensics team and the medical examiner, but I don’t think they’ll be able to do much in this low tide.”

  “They’re going to take a couple of hours to get here. If the tide comes in we’re going to lose any tracks or trace evidence that might indicate how the body got there,” said the inspector, pointing at the puddles of dirty water, rimmed with iridescent foam on top. “How much longer are the firemen going to be?”

  “Half-hour, maybe an hour. It depends on the paper work.”

  “That’ll be too late. The tide’s already coming in.”

  Little streams of dirty water began running down all around, tiny bubbles here and there in the shiny mud. Inexplicably the stink of the dry mud and nearby mangrove held a morbid charm for the tourists, especially the Europeans. And on a sunny day like this the stench was nearly unbearable.

  Solano stuck out one of his feet to exhibit a shiny new boot.

  “I just bought them, sir. They cost a fortune,” said the detective self-consciously.

  Dornelas took off his jacket and angrily flung it at his subordinate. Much to the surprise of the crowd watching everything from the bleachers, he then jumped two meters down into the mangrove. Up to his knees in black mush, he set off in the direction of the body, sinking knee-deep into the mud with each stride, losing a shoe in the process. He had the crowd’s full attention as he stoically plodded along the remaining thirty meter stretch, leaving a trail of deep footsteps that immediately filled up with water in his wake.

  He was right next to the body now and noticed that it didn’t stink; the stiff was fresh, as they said at the precinct. The stench from the mangrove and his clothes was so strong that he needed to lean over the body to smell it more closely on the forehead and confirm his suspicion: it smelled of salty and acid sweat, but not of rotten meat. At least not yet.

  Looking up, he squinted against the sun and saw little black dots circling in the sky. His gaze shifted to the opposite side of the narrow canal, where there were more little dots sitting motionlessly on the mangrove trees, waiting patiently for Dornelas to go away so they could land on the corpse and enjoy the feast.

  The inspector was momentarily irritated by all the attention he was getting: the crowd on one side and the vultures on the other. He decided to speed up his review of the body.

  He first took a mental picture of the scene and stored it in the back of his mind. He counted on his intuition – a precious tool in his work – to soon provide him with a complete and total analysis. In the meantime he stared reverently at the corpse, becoming intrigued by it. He looked for the signs that had caused his first impression and wondered if it could be the position of the body, the slight smile, or the open eyes, glassy and inert, that gave it the appearance of a cherub in a state of devotion. Or maybe it was all three taken together. ‘What would make someone die with a smile like that on his face,’ he wondered.

  He observed the bare feet and the legs bare up to the knees. From there on up they were hidden under a pair of white or beige striped shorts, so dirty you couldn’t tell which. He found no signs of violence, no recent marks or scars.

  His eyes continued up to the naked torso. The prominent belly was beginning to become distended, stretched like a drum, and its skin was beginning to dry up in the sun, the result of the decomposition now underway. He moved on to the hairless, unmarked chest, then up to the neck that bore no signs of strangulation, and finally to the shaven head, where there was also no sign of injury.

  He looked at the arms and the only thing that caught his attention was a small, round band-aid stuck to the inside fold of the left arm. The skin around it was slightly bruised. Other than that everything seemed normal. If there was anything on his back it would show up in the autopsy later. He didn’t want to turn him over here.

  He studied the mud surrounding the body, looking for signs: blood, footprints, signs of a boat, or of something being dragged. Nothing. Taking his cell phone out of his pocket Dornelas quickly took pictures of everything that caught his eye. The tide was coming in quickly and any clues would soon disappear beneath the water. A picture here, another there, an angle, a detail – anything that might help him in the ensuing investigation.

  He knew the people from forensics wouldn’t use any of this. They couldn’t, even if they wanted to, at least not in an official capacity. Each agency involved – Military Police, Fire Department, Forensics, Medical Examiners and Civil Police - of which Dornelas was the Chief Inspector – has its own specific duties and the structure is set up so that each organ is allowed to do only its pre-determined part in an investigation. But sometimes things overlap and toes get stepped on.

  Before noticing that the incoming tide was already lapping at his thighs and the corpse was beginning to loosen itself from the mud, a red light lit up in his head. He focused his attention more closely on the band-aid. He would have to get back to it later. He had to move quickly or the body would soon float away to God knows where and the vultures would attack it voraciously. ‘To hell with the fire department and forensics,’ he thought.

  Dornelas took off his belt, tied it to the body by the right wrist and began pulling it towards the bank. In the meantime, the Military Police had arrived and were already cordoning off the perimeter and dispersing the crowd.

  As he glanced at the curious people lined up on the shore, Dornel
as lamented mankind’s morbid enjoyment of death. He had never understood why humans delight so in seeing their own species’ misfortune turned into a spectacle. Perhaps it was some sort of inherited animal trait, raising its ugly head when faced with a calamity. Maybe it was pure thirst for blood; or maybe it was just the lack of something better to do.

  The fact is, however, that at times like these the human race lowers itself to a bovine-like mental state, watching impassively as a lion devours one of its own in broad daylight.

  He thought of the programs on TV, with their rich menu of options: the reconstitution of crimes, scientific crime scene investigation methods, people being killed in front of the camera. ‘This is what the press lives for,’ he decided.

  Standing there, Chief Inspector Joaquim Dornelas looked up at the crowd and what he saw was a swarm of flies hovering over fresh manure.

  Chapter 2

  Dornelas reached the foot of the seawall sweaty and panting. He raised the belt tied to the corpse as high as he could so Solano and Lotufo could grab it and haul it out of the mangrove. He got out further along, where the wall was lower, and told Solano he needed to go home to change clothes before heading to the precinct.

  Lotufo wrapped the body in a black plastic sheet on top of the wall. It would now be safe from the vultures, but not from the scorching sun. Two hours in this heat and the body would be baked like a snook wrapped in banana leaves.

  On the way home, filthy and stinking, he decided to first stop at the gas station two blocks ahead to shower in the car wash. If he left his filthy clothes for Neide to wash she would surely quit and he couldn’t afford the luxury of losing her. The day maid was trustworthy, took care of the house, his clothes and occasionally even the dog, all with a certain amount of affection. She wasn’t great in the kitchen, but did she okay with the basic stuff. And for a recently separated man, with little time and less experience in taking care of a home, her help was not only welcome, but necessary.