by Ales Matko
''¡Por el amor de Dios!'' Beatra erupted involuntarily, as if his voice were coming from somewhere outside his body. ''What are you talking about? What about the engineer? Duvali killed Ana-Maria as he was trying to rescue her!''
''Señor Duvali had nothing whatever to do with it, inspector! That silver case Elsa's men were carriying outside on the day of the explosion contained equipment, nothing more.''
''Quite to the contrary!'' Beatra objected. ''Have you forgotten the letters? The hair found at the bottom of the case? And Duvali's own admission that he ...''
''When you were calling to inquire about Antonia Mirral as I'd asked you to, I cut off a strand of Lucia's hair and was already holding it in my hand as I reached down into the case. I then rushed up to Duvali’s room and planted the letters, which I had written the previous night, while you were tossing and turning in bed. They were my work and it was no accident that I found them by ‘accidentally’ knocking off that book earlier today. As for Duvali's confession, I have to admit that surprised me as well. But it's not really all that much of a mystery what happened. The poor fellow was obviously quite bright and saw how I'd played him when we found those incriminating papers. He must have realized then, if not even before that, that I was the one who had come for the girl. So it appears he did something incredibly selfless. He literally sacrificed himself, threw himself under the bus, so to speak – a Christian with a gulity concience and a fear of hell, sick and tired of all the things he'd been compelled to take part in over the years, and knowing full well that he would be tortured no matter what he said or did to defend himself against the accusations of this so-called brilliant detective. Faced with an impossible situation, he apparently decided to confirm my story, help at least one person escape the misery of life in that horror house, and presumably buy his own salvation in the process, may God forgive him.''
''That’s preposterous!'' Beatra thundered, forgetting for a moment the weapon pointing at his right temple.
''And yet,'' Klauder coolly responded, ''that is exactly what happened, inspector. I framed Duvali in just the same way our imposter, playing Antonia, framed Beatrice and Elizabeth. The only difference was that my actions were a little more thought through, and neccesary for saving at least one life, while hers were strictly motivated by vengeance. And of course I had the additional advantage of there being no second detective snooping around and discrediting my story!''
Klauder paused briefly, revelling in the moment. He seemed to take a perverse pleasure in Beatra's incredulity.
''This is the biggest cock-and-bull story I've ever heard!'' Beatra bellowed. ''And what about the insulin? I mean, obviously someone poisoned it. You saw yourself how that man ...'' His sentence trailed off, and for a moment he forgot the point he was trying to make.
''My dear inspector,'' Klauder gleefully condescended, ''there never was any insulin. I'm not even diabetic! The vials contained a tranquilizer I'd prepared for injection through the permeable area of the mould around my stomach in order to keep Lucia sedated so she wouldn't start making noise and blow my cover. I also had a few that contained saline solution to prevent her from dehydrating. Naturally I had to pretend to give myself an injection once or twice early on so as not to raise suspicion, but rest assured there was never any insulin in those vials, nor did old lady Constanza ever come anywhere near them.''
''Is that so?'' the increasingly defeated Beatra said, with as much indignation as he could muster. ''Well then tell me, por favor, if your vials contained only a sedative, what happened to the guard who dropped dead after getting a dose of it? A sedative would have put him to sleep, not killed him!''
Klauder’s smile faded slightly.
''Ah yes, that was indeed a close call. Elsa's goons demanded that I ‘lend’ them a shot for their compatriot. What they didn't know was that half of what was in one of those vials was enough to put a horse to sleep, which is why I needed so little to keep Lucia quiet. I had no choice but to give him a full dose, knowing it would be fatal, since having him just fall asleep would have left me with quite a bit to explain. It is true, however, that the incident cost me my vials. So I later had to borrow some of the etorphine left in Alejandra’s room and use it instead. Right after the guard died, I took you up to her apartment under the pretext of finding a sample of her handwriting …''
As Klauder spoke, it seemed as though the whitish winter sun were somehow shining more brightly, accentuating the sheer outlandishness of the story. But even here, poor Beatra found himself on the losing end, for he was sitting on the shaded side of the car, and so received none of its gracious warmth. He simply couldn't win.
''There is no way,'' he growled. ''Constanza - why did the engineer kill her then? What was the point of ...'' His face went from grim to furious. ''Of course. Duvali didn't kill her, you did!''
''You're getting better at this by the minute!'' Klauder enthused. ''I couldn't have her running around denying the poisoning of my vials. Upon our arrival at the greenhouse I made up that bit about hearing the door click behind us. When you went to check it out, I found Constanza asleep in her rocking chair and broke her neck. Had she been awake, I would have had to take a different approach, of course. Well, in the end, Duvali took the blame for killing her as well, so there really was no str...'' Klauder stopped short. ''Now please, inspector, don’t look at me like that! I think it's fair to say that I did the world a service! That old hag was the devil incarnate!''
Beatra shook. ''You not only killed her, but also caused the death of many others as a consequence of your misguided actions! Pierre was certainly one, probably also Alejandra. Then there's Jago ...''
''Surely you're not feeling sorry for that old pedophile!''
''... And Duvali, obviously! You called señor Elsa a monster many times while we were conducting our – ahem – investigation, but you yourself are hardly any better!''
Klauder laughed from the bottom of his artificial belly.
''Oh, come now, inspector,'' he said. ''I only did what I absolutely had to do to get the girl out. This was my only priority. And as I'm sure you've realized by now, her name is Lucia, not Ana-Maria.''
For a moment it was as if Beatra was not even listening. He heard the words well enough, but his head was swarming with puzzle pieces he still couldn't quite connect, making it difficult to cognize new information.
''What about the bones found in the barrel by the factory?''
''I've actually no idea. Probably just someone one of the guards needed to dispose of. In any case, I went with it, knowing that in the end I could improvise if someone who knew the real story behind those bones spoke up. And of course, no-one did.''
''But Duvali was standing there weeping!''
''Consider the source.''
Beatra was starting to become unglued. After having so recently befriended this pseudo-investigator, he now felt an equal dose of frustration and betrayal. Emmanuel Klauder, if that was even his real name, was no friend, anymore than he was a detective. He was a mystery man, an enigma, and in the end, a criminal as well.
''So I suppose it wasn't the pinwheel that we heard when we rushed to Elizabeth’s room?''
Another car went by and honked at the Rivera, part of which was parked in the road.
''Correct again, inspector,'' Klauder nodded. ''The etorphine is hard to dose correctly, and I knew too much could be fatal. But when we were in Elizabeth’s apartment, I had no choice but to quickly give the girl a little more to quiet her down. Of course I knew I needed some sort of explanation for the noises, so I had to improvise. The metal on that pinwheel was easy enough to bend so that it would make a noise when turned.''
Beatra was speechless. This imposter, this pseudo-detective with a pseudo-stomach and a pseudo-résumé had an explanation for everything. He realized he had been played for a fool. And yet there was something that puzzled him still.
''I have only one more question, señor ... Whoever you are! Why do all this? Everything you've described
is orders of magnitude above and beyond the call of duty for any detective, and you're not one! Cui bono? What's in it for you?''
The proud smile faded from Klauder's face. Beatra could see he'd hit a nerve.
''You know how I accused Duvali of working for the girl’s real parents?'' Klauder said, his tone markedly subdued. ''Well, that was an utter falsehood, of course, but those people really did - or rather, do - want their daughter back.''
''Well, they certainly must have paid you well to do what you did to your own body and risk your life in the process. No sum of money on earth would motivate me to go to such extremes.''
''The payment was the safe return of my daughter,'' Klauder said. ''I'm Lucia's father.''
Beatra sat dumbstruck.
''And the contact who met up with Pierre was my wife. After Lucia was taken, inspector, we went through hell, and only by a stroke of pure luck did we manage to learn who it was that had kidnapped our baby. It was painfully clear to me that we couldn’t just storm that fortified nut-house and take her back, and we certainly couldn't rely on the police. My wife wanted to confront Elsa directly, which of course would have been suicide. But I convinced her that we had to come up with a plan, a way to recover her using our wits. It took almost three years to piece it together – three years of agonizing sacrifice! I had to travel the country, stage a string of mysterious crimes so that I myself could appear to solve them ... And of course I also had to gain an enormous amount of weight. Would you believe that three years ago I was as skinny as you are, inspector?''
Klauder's voice lowered, and his eyes softened. ''But now, finally the nightmare has come to an end and we have her back at last! It will be hard explaining to her who we are and what's happened. She probably won’t remember us any more, and I hope she's young enough that she'll soon forget the whole thing altogether. But at the end of the day, we are her real parents, and her being back with us is all that matters ...''
Suddenly Beatra was seized by an impulse. Sensing the brief lapse in Klauder's otherwise unwavering attention, he took what he knew was his only chance, throwing himself onto his long out-of-shape passenger and catching him by suprise. The gun went off, blowing a hole in the roof of the Rivera.
Beatra tried to restrain Klauder, but the latter repaid him in kind, punching, kicking and even biting him as the gun fell from his hand and into the crevice by the seat. As the duo wrestled, the passenger door opened, and they fell out of the car and rolled onto the side of the frozen road.
''¡Bastardo! Get off me!''
''You’re under arrest!''
''¡Que te jodan! Let go!''
Klauder attempted to scramble away, but Beatra grabbed him by his porcine leg - a mistake, it turned out, as the faux detective kicked back with all he had left in him and landed a hit directly on Beatra’s forehead.
The policeman collapsed into the icy mud, knocked out cold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
When Beatra came to, he did not know where he was or what had happened, but he somehow managed to lift himself onto all fours and crawl along the frozen terrain, his eyes blinking furiously as he tried to make out the details of the surroundings in the blazing winter sunlight.
Realizing that he had been in a fight, he suddenly remembered his second gun, stashed in his ankle holster.
With a pain in his knee and an even bigger one in his head, he got to his feet and looked around. The world – or rather his image of it – seemed to be dancing, like the shimmering of a distant mirage.
Suddenly he heard the sound of a car starting.
''Hold it right there!''
Beatra limped toward the car and pointed his gun at Klauder through the open door on the passenger’s side.
''Just let me leave,'' Klauder said. ''Nobody will ever know.''
''I'm sorry, but you know I can’t do that. Whatever your reasons were, you still broke the law, and it's my sworn duty to uphold the law. You're under arrest.''
''The law?'' Klauder gasped. ''What has this ... law you're so duty-bound to uphold done for my family? For a full half year, they either couldn't or wouldn't track her down. If we hadn't done it ourselves, at tremendous expense, to this day we'd probably have no idea where she is! And even when we finally located her and wanted to get the police involved, they were either too intimidated to do anything or else they were on Elsa's payroll. So pardon my language, inspector, but fuck the law! Today, justice is the law! I am the law!''
His stomach pouch wobbled as he spoke, as one of the belts on the harness had come undone in the fight.
Klauder put the Rivera in gear.
''Stop!'' Beatra screamed, both hands on the gun, shaking.
''I can’t! I'm sorry!''
''I mean it! Stop or I'll shoot!''
Klauder stared straight ahead at the road before him, struggling to hold back tears of desperation and not daring to look at his partner-turned-adversary. Nearly blinded by the glare of the sun radiating off the snow, he clenched his teeth and gripped the steering wheel.
''After all my family's been through, I won’t let some guy with a badge and an Eliot Ness complex stand in my way. Shoot me if you have to, but you're not taking me in.''
''Don’t do it!''
Klauder hesitated for a few more moments, gathering his courage. Then he stepped on the gas and the Rivera sped off with a loud screech. Beatra fired twice in rapid succession, but the car kept going.
''¡Hijo de puta!'' Beatra exclaimed, pointing the smoking barrel of his revolver at the sky. He limped forward and took aim again at the speeding car, then lowered his gun and watched it disappear on the horizon.
''¡Hijo de puta!''
The sun was shining strongly, so strongly that he wondered how it could still be cold enough for all that frost and snow to remain on the roadside. He put the gun back in its holster and continued onward, grimacing as much from the blinding glare as from the pain in his body.
''Hijo de puta,'' he said again out loud, as if anyone were there to hear it.
And yet, something inside him was glad to be without an audience, for if anyone had been there, they might have noticed an oddly inappropriate lack of conviction in his voice, and an expression on his face that one might even say betrayed a certain ironic and bittersweet satisfaction, however slight. And this was something no police inspector of his stature and reputation could afford.
''Hijo de puta,'' he sighed, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from rising ever so slightly. ''Hijo de puta.''
The end