Requiem for a Killer
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Authors: Paulo Levy
Tags: #crime, #rio de janeiro, #mystery detective, #palmyra, #inspector, #mystery action suspense thriller, #detective action, #detective and mystery stories, #crime action mystery series, #paraty
Copyright© Paulo Fernando Prada Levy 2015.
All rights reserved
All rights to this edition reserved by
EDITORA BÚSSOLA LTDA.
www.editorabussola.com.br
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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
Chapter 1
G
o 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
17
th
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 approached 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.
