Blood of the Wicked (4 page)

“And that’s it? That’s all you can remember?” Silva said, cutting the social commentary short.

“Yeah. That’s it.”

Before he’d smashed de Alencar in the face, Silva had lowered the hammer of his Taurus. Now, he cocked it again. “What are you doing?” the sergeant said, nervously. “Watch out for that thing.”

“Think hard. Give me something else.”

The sergeant swallowed, crimped his eyes shut, opened them again. “There was one more thing,” he said.

“What?”

“One of them had this tattoo. It was a snake that started under that fucking jersey, maybe down on his chest. Then it curved all the way around his neck and the head and tongue were just under his ear.”

The tattoo clinched it for Silva
.

The man in front of him had been face-to-face with the men who’d killed his father and raped his mother. De Alencar had been close enough to smell them, close enough to reach out and touch them. But now they’d vanished again, and Silva’s lead had run out, all because of the venality of three municipal cops.

Only the thought of the woman and baby sleeping across the street caused him to stay his hand. The sergeant never realized how close his wife had been to becoming a widow.

Chapter Five

When Hector Costa, after a thirty-minute wait, was admitted to his presence, Ferraz didn’t even look up. For a good minute-and-a-half Hector stood in front of the colonel’s desk like a schoolboy called up for disciplinary action. All the while, Ferraz scratched away on a yellow legal pad with a Mont Blanc fountain pen. The pen, dwarfed by his pudgy fingers, looked out of place in the hands of a man earning the salary of a cop.

The office stank of sweat and cigar smoke, both of them stale. Topping the clutter on Ferraz’s desk was the business card Hector had handed to the uniformed policewoman— no beauty herself—who functioned as Ferraz’s secretary.

Tiring of being ignored, Hector sank, uninvited, into one of the two chairs in front of the colonel’s desk.

“Sure. That’s right. Just make yourself comfortable,” the colonel said, putting down his pen and raising his head. He stared at Hector out of a pair of porcine brown eyes and then screwed up his face as if his visitor had just passed gas. “I’ve heard about you,” he said. Ferraz emphasized his words by jabbing at Hector’s card with a pudgy forefinger.

Hector groaned inwardly. He knew what was coming.

“Your boss is Mario Silva, who just happens to be your uncle, am I right?”

Hector hated it when people brought that up.

“Yeah, I thought so.” Ferraz said, responding to Hector’s nod, as if he’d just wrung a confession from some criminal he particularly disliked. “Well, let me tell you something. I don’t need your help.” He picked up Hector’s card, ripped it in half, and dropped the pieces into a wastebasket. “And I don’t need your
uncle
, either.” He made the word “uncle” sound as if it was some kind of epithet.

Hector was tempted to tell him that neither he, nor his uncle, needed, or wanted, Ferraz or his damned case either, but the colonel wasn’t finished.

“Something else. I don’t talk to messenger boys. If that uncle of yours wants anything from me, tell him to come himself.”

Ferraz picked up his pen and went back to doing whatever he’d been doing when Hector arrived. For some time the only sound in the office was the constant whir and clank of heavy construction machinery drifting in through the closed windows and the scratching of the colonel’s pen on paper. Hector waited him out, saying nothing.

After a while, Ferraz looked up and blinked theatrically. “Still here?” he said.

“He
is
coming himself,” Hector said, picking up where Ferraz had left off, “but he had to clear his schedule. He’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

“Here?”

“Here. In Cascatas.”

“The almighty inspector-general himself?”

“His title, Colonel, is Chief Inspector for Criminal Matters.”

“No shit? Chief Inspector, eh? Well, don’t expect me to be waiting at the airport with a brass band. And tell him that if he wants to come here”—Ferraz stabbed the desktop with the same forefinger he’d used to jab the card—“he’d better call for an appointment.”

As if emphasizing what the colonel said, someone on the floor above flushed a toilet.

Hector crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.”Do both of us a favor, Colonel,” he said, choosing his words carefully, but letting his irritation show. “Answer my questions. It’ll save you time in the long run.”

Ferraz didn’t appear to be ruffled by the absence of cordiality. In fact, he seemed to welcome it. “Okay,” he said. “How about I give you five minutes of my time. Starting . . .” he glanced at his watch “ . . . now.”

He took a box of thin cigars from the drawer of his desk, chose one, and replaced the box without offering it to Hector.

Hector had already noticed that Ferraz had a slight wheeze when he talked.
Probably,
he thought,
because he inhales the
damned things.
He wasn’t looking forward to the colonel lighting up that cheroot.

The colonel seemed to sense it. He licked the cigar to moisten it and rolled it back and forth between his palms, staring at Hector all the while.

Hector had made inquiries about Colonel Emerson Ferraz before leaving São Paulo:
Politically connected and
close to retirement
, a friend at the State Police had told him. W
asn’t born rich, didn’t marry into money
,
but drives some
kind of fancy imported car, owns a really big fazenda, and takes
vacations in Miami.

What Hector’s friend
hadn’t
told him was that Colonel Ferraz, in addition to almost certainly being a crook, was also a nasty son of a bitch.

Ferraz bit a piece from the end of his cigar and spit it across his desk, narrowly missing the chair to Hector’s right.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“Do you have any leads?”

“Not a one,” the colonel said contentedly. He removed a box of long wooden matches from his breast pocket, lit up, and blew some smoke in Hector’s direction. The cigar was Bahian and the smell was everything Hector had feared it would be. He started breathing through his mouth, a trick he’d taught himself after being exposed to too many rotting corpses.

“Speed it up,” the colonel said. “You’ve got four minutes and forty seconds.”

“Where did the shots come from?” Hector asked.

“The north tower of the new church.”

“How can you be sure?”

“We found the murder weapon.”

Ferraz opened the drawer of his desk.

Hector sniffed. A telltale smell filled his nostrils.
A photo.
Recently processed.
Hector was blessed, sometimes cursed, with an extraordinary sense of smell, a sense so acute that he could have made a living as a perfumer or a wine taster. He’d already found the stale sweat and the cheap cigar smoke hard to bear. Now, despite the trick of breathing through his mouth, there was the dominant top note of a photographic print hardly dry.

Ferraz handed it over. The paper was still damp.

The image was of a firearm, a rifle with a telescopic sight and a leather sling. It had been photographed against a white background, perhaps a Formica table.

“Looks like a Sako Classic with a Leupold scope,” Hector said.

Ferraz tipped some ash into an ashtray. “It is,” he said, a reluctant note of admiration creeping into his voice.

“What was he firing?”

“Nosler ballistic tips,” the colonel said, and then, glancing at his watch, “three minutes and twenty seconds.”

Hector kept staring at the photograph. In Brazil, the rifle and ammunition were unusual—sniper stuff—but these days, you could buy just about any firearm you wanted in the
fave-las
of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The drug gangs smuggled them in from Paraguay or bought them from corrupt quartermasters in Brazil’s armed services. The crooks were as well armed as the police and often better.

“Latent prints?”

The colonel put the cigar back into his mouth, held it firmly between his teeth, and tipped it up at a jaunty angle. “Not one. Wiped clean,” he said through clenched teeth.

“My people are going to want to inspect the rifle.”

“Be my guest. It’s in the evidence locker downstairs.”

“And no one saw anyone going in or out of the tower?”

“Nope.”

Ferraz took the cigar out of his mouth and bared his teeth, more of a grimace than a smile. The teeth were tobacco-stained and as crooked as the tombstones in an old cemetery. “Have you sealed off the tower?”

“Of course I have. What do you take me for?”

An ugly, unpleasant son of a bitch.
But Hector didn’t say it. He took a shallow breath and let it out slowly. “Any theories about the motive?”

“Seven, to be exact.”

“
Seven?
”

“Seven. The reception committee. They’re all landowners and each and every one of them thinks the bullets were meant for
him.
”

“They think the bishop was shot by mistake?”

“What did I just say?”

“Why?”

“Ever hear of the Landless Workers’ League?”

“Sure.”

“How about Aurelio Azevedo?”

Hector shook his head. “Aurelio who?”

“Azevedo. He was their leader around these parts, a real pain-in-the-ass. About a month ago, somebody killed him. His buddies figure it must have been a landowner and they’re out for blood.”

“What do
you
think?”

The colonel took another deep drag on his cigar. “They’re wrong. The bishop was the target.” He expelled the smoke and coughed. He brought up some phlegm and leaned over to spit it into the wastebasket next to his chair.

Someday
, Hector thought,
those cigars are going to kill him.
But not soon enough to suit me.
“What makes you so sure?” he said.

“When the first shot was fired the whole reception committee, all seven of them, stopped dead in their tracks. The closest one, the mayor, was still four meters away, maybe even a little more. The second shot hit the bishop just above the line between his eyes, took off the back of his head. That sound to you like the shooter didn’t know what he was doing? No way. He was aiming at Dom Felipe, all right. No doubt about it.”

Ferraz pulled up his cuff and ostentatiously displayed his watch. It was a gold Rolex. “You’ve got two minutes left.”

“Tell me more about this guy Azevedo.”

Ferraz took another puff. The smoke was beginning to sting Hector’s eyes.

“Azevedo was a field hand out on the Fazenda da Boa Vista
,”
he said. “No criminal record. Never made any trouble until those League people got to him. Then he started going to meetings and rallies and the next thing you know he’s running around in a red shirt, waving one of those banners and organizing a group to occupy Muniz’s land
”
.

“Muniz? Orlando Muniz? The industrialist?”

“And banker, and God knows what else. He’s richer than God. He owns the Boa Vista, and his son, Junior, runs it.”

“Tell me more about what happened to Azevedo.”

Ferraz studied the ash on his cigar, twirled it, tapped it gently on the edge of a large brass ashtray, and took another puff. “Not much more to tell. He turned up one morning nailed to a tree in front of his shack. They’d cut off his cock and stuffed it in his mouth. His wife and kids were inside the house. All of them shot through the back of the head.”

“No suspects?”

Ferraz shrugged. “The League people got it into their heads that it was Junior, accused him of bringing in hired guns from Paraguay to do the job, but they could never prove it. You got one minute left.”

“All right. Let’s get back to the bishop. Despite what the mayor and those other six guys on the reception committee think, you’re convinced that the bishop was the target and that the Landless Workers’ League had nothing to do with it. Is that right?”

“Did I say that?” Ferraz took another puff, but offered nothing more.

“Explain,” Hector said, shortly.

“Dom Felipe was new in the job. The old bishop died about six months ago, and not a minute too soon, if you ask me. Mellor was his name. Dom Augusto Mellor. He was a piece of work, the old bastard, a big supporter of the League. He had his priests out recruiting new members, showing up at their rallies, helping them to plan occupations of fazendas
,
all that kind of shit. He was no better than a fucking communist. Now, Dom Felipe, he was different.”

A small piece of ash fell off of Ferraz’s cigar and onto his gray shirt. He brushed it off with a practiced gesture.

“Different? How?”

Ferraz glanced at his watch and grinned.

“Time’s up,” he said.

Chapter Six

“Dust,” the desk clerk at the Hotel Excelsior told Hector, “kicked up by all the construction. It’s a good thing. It means the town is growing.”

The clerk sounded as if someone had told him to say that to visitors, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself. He was a young fellow, probably not more than twenty-one or twenty-two, with the flat nose, jet-black hair, and coppery skin that betokened Indian blood. He and Hector were the only two people in the lobby.

Hector leaned one elbow on the counter. “Where’s the church?”

“Which one?” the Indio said with a touch of pride. “We have lots of churches, senhor. There’s Santa Mari—”

He had his fingers out in front of him, his thumb extended upward, ready to count the rest of them off, but Hector cut him short. “The one the bishop was coming to consecrate.”

“Ah,” he said, his hands falling to his sides. “That would be the new one, Nossa Senhora dos Milagres.”

“Who’s the priest?”

The clerk looked blank. “Senhor?”

“The priest at Nossa Senhora dos Milagres. What’s his name?”

“That would be Father Gaspar.”

“New in town, is he?”

“Oh, no, senhor. He used to be at Santa Cecilia’s on the Rua Governador Quercia, but it’s closed now. They’re going to tear it down and put up a school.”

“Where do I find this Father Gaspar?”

The clerk reached to one side and pulled a street map of downtown Cascatas from a nearby stack.

“We’re here,” he said, circling an intersection with a red ballpoint pen. “And the church is . . . here.” He made a cross. “Father Gaspar lives next door. You can’t miss it.”

THE CLERK was right. You couldn’t miss it. The priest’s house was three stories tall and had an enclosed garage. It was built of the same red brick as the church, an obvious annex to the much larger building.

The young man who answered the doorbell had tawny skin and reddish-brown hair that hung low over his forehead. He had a single earring, a nose that showed signs of having been broken more than once, and mismatched lips. The upper one was thin and the lower one fleshy. He was wearing white duck pants, an open-necked white shirt, and a white jacket. His black shoes were highly polished. His manners weren’t.

“Got an appointment?” he said, before Hector had a chance to utter a word.

“I’m here to see Father Gaspar.”

The young man raised his eyes and sighed. “I didn’t think it was to see me, so I ask you again. Have you got an appointment?”

“No, but—”

“Then call and make one.”

He started to swing the door shut, but not quickly enough. “Hey,” he said, “get your foot out of the—”

Hector didn’t wait for him to finish. “Tell Father Gaspar that it’s police business.”

The door swung open again, relieving the pressure on Hector’s foot.

“You’re a cop?”

Hector nodded. “I’m a cop. Federal Police.”

“Prove it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Hector said, but he reached for his wallet. “We don’t take the name of the Lord in vain around here,” the young man said, reprovingly. He studied Hector’s ID. “You got a business card in there?”

Hector fished one out and handed it over.

“Okay, wait here. And take your foot out of the door.”

Hector did, and the surly servant slammed it shut.

A few minutes later the servant was back. This time he swung the door wide, led Hector toward the back of the house, and ushered him into a room where a fat man in a black cassock was waiting for him. Limpid brown eyes stared at Hector from beneath bushy eyebrows.

Hector took the hand he was offered. The priest exerted only the slightest pressure before he let go.

“Father Gaspar Farias,” he said.

“Pleased to meet you, Father. Hector Costa, Federal Police.”

Completely bald, Father Gaspar had slightly protuberant eyes, a wide mouth, virtually no neck and a double chin. His head seemed to be out of proportion to the rest of his body. He reminded Hector of a huge frog.

The priest’s study was a high-ceilinged room lined with bookshelves. A rustic dining table had been pressed into service as a writing desk. Two cane chairs were situated in front of it, and a more comfortable one, in black leather, was behind.

A strong floral perfume hung in the air. Hector sniffed.
Lilacs?
The priest was using a scent more suited to a woman than to a man, and to an older woman to boot.

“Have a seat,” Father Gaspar said, indicating one of the cane chairs and sinking down in the other.

When Hector sat he felt a cold blast of air-conditioning on the back of his neck. He glanced upward and discovered that his chair had been placed directly under the vent. He shifted his seat and tried leaning forward slightly, but it didn’t seem to help. The priest showed no sign of noticing his discomfort.

“Am I the first to welcome you to Cascatas, Delegado
?
”

Father Gaspar was using Hector’s title, the one on his business card, a clear improvement on the treatment he’d received from Ferraz.

“Yes, Father, you are. Not the first person I’ve spoken to, mind you, but certainly the first person to welcome me.”

A look of consternation came over the priest’s face. “I’m sorry. Euclides can be a bit abrasive at times.”

“Euclides?”

“The young man who answered the door, my self-appointed watchdog. Sometimes a bit too zealous, but—” The priest broke off when the door swung open.

Euclides came in carrying a tray with coffee, already poured. He put a cup and saucer in front of each man.

Hector picked up his cup and took a sip. The coffee was nauseatingly pre-sweetened, and cold. He glanced over at the priest and saw a thin wisp of steam arising from the other cup. Determined not to give Euclides any degree of satisfaction, Hector drained the remainder of his coffee, and smacked his lips, as if he’d actually enjoyed it.

The servant’s thin smile faded. He leaned his back against the wall, settling in.

“Thank you, Euclides,” Father Gaspar said pointedly. Then, when his servant still didn’t seem to get it, he added, “That will be all.”

Euclides narrowed his eyes and left without a word. Hector had no doubt he’d be listening on the other side of the door.

“What can I do for you, Delegado?
”

“I’d like to talk to you about Dom Felipe.”

Father Gaspar furrowed his brow. “A terrible thing, that. A terrible thing.”

“You knew him well?”

There were four picture frames on Father Gaspar’s desk, all with their backs toward them. The priest leaned forward, picked up the largest one and handed it to his visitor.

“That’s him, there, on the right.”

In the photo, Dom Felipe’s hair hadn’t yet turned white. There were three men in the shot. The man standing on the left was a younger, and much thinner, Father Gaspar. The third man was the Pope.

“Taken . . . let me see . . . seventeen years ago this April in the garden of the Vatican. Autumn here, but it was springtime in Europe. Winter had been mild that year. You can see that the flowers were already in bloom.” He took the photograph back from Hector and stared at it.

“The bishop and I were great friends,” he said. “Longtime friends. I shall miss him. The church will miss him.” He seemed to make a conscious effort to shake off his melancholy. His voice took on a more businesslike tone when he said, “Have you made any progress in discovering who did it?”

“Not yet, Father. Were you there when it happened?”

“Yes, I was. I was standing in the vestibule of the church. I saw it all. The first shot hit him in the chest. The second . . . .”

His words tapered off. He shook his head, rubbed some dust off of the top of the frame, and returned the photo to its original position.

“Sorry, Father. I’m sure this must be painful for you, but—”

“No, Delegado. Don’t apologize. I want to be of any help that I possibly can. Please, ask away.”

“Thank you, Father. I’ll try to be brief. Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill him?”

Father Gaspar hesitated. Hector noticed, and gave him a gentle push. “Did he have any enemies?”

“Everyone has enemies, Delegado
.
Even priests.”

Hector sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. His instincts told him Father Gaspar was holding something back. “Could his death have had something to do with ah . . . an intimate relationship?”

Father Gaspar looked confused.

Hector was forced to explain.

“Women, perhaps? Or boys?”

“Certainly not,” Gaspar said, reddening.

“Money, then? Was he particularly fond of money?”

The priest shook his head. “To him, money was only an instrument, an instrument he employed to help the less fortunate. And to celebrate the glory of God.”

“You’re not giving me much to work with, Father. In my world, unless they’re insane—and, believe me, I’m not ruling out that possibility—people kill each other for revenge, jealousy, money, and very little else.”

“And do you think, Delegado
,
that
your
world is so very different from his or, for that matter, from mine?”

“Frankly, I hope it is. Mine can get pretty ugly at times. But, if he wasn’t killed for revenge, or for jealousy or for money. . . .”

Hector let the unasked question hang in the air.

Father Gaspar folded his hands over his ample stomach, and blinked. It made him look all the more like a frog. Then he nodded, as if he’d made a decision.

“Are you familiar with liberation theology, Delegado?”

“Familiar with it? No. I’ve heard the term, that’s all.”

“The expression
liberation theology
comes from the title of a book, a book written more than forty years ago by a Peruvian priest named Gustavo Gutierrez. He entitled it
The
Theology of Liberation
.”

“I don’t see—”

“Bear with me, Delegado
.
I don’t know any other way to explain this, and I think it’s something you should be made aware of.”

Hector inclined his head.

The priest continued. “Liberation theologians believe the church should be involved in what they call ‘the struggle for economic and political justice.’”

“Struggle?”

“That’s the word they use. Struggle.” Father Gaspar lifted a forefinger like a teacher anxious to make a point. “They maintain that there are two kinds of Christianity: their kind, liberation theology, which proposes radical change, and another kind, one that favors the status quo.”

“And by the ‘status quo,’ they mean?”

“The current distribution of wealth, more specifically of land.”

“What’s land got to do with theology?”

“For them? Everything! They maintain that rural people who don’t own at least a small piece of land are doomed to live as an underclass. On the other hand, they say that the ownership of vast tracts of land defines membership in a group that exploits and oppresses the poor.”

“And you, Father? Do you subscribe to that?”

The priest looked shocked, as if Hector had just accused him of something morally repugnant. “Of course not! But all liberation theologians do. They also believe that priests who defend the status quo, priests like Dom Felipe and myself, are lackeys to the rich. They say we’re brainwashing the poor.”

“Brainwashing?”

“Brainwashing. Their phrase, not mine. They accuse us of convincing the landless that they should be patient here on earth because that’s what God wants. Then, when they die, they’ll get their reward in heaven.”

“Land in heaven?”

Hector smiled, but the priest didn’t.

“Unfortunately, some of the simpler people interpret it exactly that way. It’s a lie! We don’t teach them that. We teach that paradise awaits for all good men, both rich and poor. Liberation theologians, on the other hand, postulate that everyone has a God-given right to a certain degree of wealth
in this life
. They want to force radical change. They propose redistribution of wealth, redistribution of land, here and now.”

“Sounds like Marxism.”

“Similar, but different. The concept of sin is alien to Marxism, but not to liberation theologians. To them,
not
overthrowing the ruling class,
not
fighting to redistribute wealth, is a sin, a sin of the gravest nature, perhaps the gravest one of all.”

“So they basically advocate some kind of a holy war, a crusade, a Christian jihad?”

“Exactly. And they embrace anything it takes to achieve their ends.”

“Even violence?”

“Even violence. There was a classmate of Gutierrez, a priest by the name of Camilo Torres. He was killed fighting with the guerillas in Colombia. When they found his body he had a weapon in his hands.”

Hector shook his head. “How can the church tolerate something like that?”

“The church doesn’t. Not anymore. Liberation theology has been condemned.”

“Condemned?”

“By the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the body that rules on such things.

“And Dom Felipe . . .”

“Devoutly carried out the dictates of his superiors.”

“Which brought him in direct conflict with the liberation theologians?”

“Exactly. But he welcomed the conflict. Dom Felipe saw it as his duty to bring them to heel. He made it clear that priests who were liberation theologians had to renounce the doctrine or leave the Church.”

“Which wouldn’t have made him popular with the people from the Landless Workers’ League.”

“Just so. Simple people—and most landless farmers
are
simple people—interpreted his action as a rejection, by the Church, of everything that the league stood for. The good Catholics among them became concerned that they might be doing something wrong, even impious. They quit the league in droves.”

“Which gave the league a good reason to dislike Dom Felipe.”

“Exactly.”

“Enough to kill him, do you think?”

“Perhaps, but that’s not my point.”

“What
is
your point, Father?”

“There are still priests out there who ignored Dom Felipe’s clear instructions. They’re recruiting for the league, battling the landowners, planning the occupation of fazen-das
,
doing all the things that Dom Felipe expressly told them to stop doing.”