Requiem for a Killer (19 page)

“Thank you. That’s right. Did she identify
the body?”

Dulce put a smaller scoop on her plate and
they both began to eat.

“Immediately. But she didn’t scream or get
hysterical, nothing like that. She cried softly and left the
room.”

“This pie is delicious!” exclaimed the
inspector. “The problem is that I don’t have an ID or any other
document of his, nothing that proves that he and she are brother
and sister.”

“A family recipe... Why don’t you ask for a
DNA test?”

“For a drug dealer? I don’t have the budget
for that.”

“I can’t keep the body much longer.”

“Could I have another piece of pie?”
Dornelas asked, holding his plate out to Dulce. “But you also can’t
bury him as an indigent. Maria das Graças identified him.”

“It’s not enough, but better than nothing,”
she said putting a generous slice on his plate. “More ice
cream?”

“One scoop. Small, please.”

Dulce served him.

“Thank you.”

“How much time do you need?’

“Three, four days?”

“As long as a massacre doesn’t fill up my
freezers, I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

*

As she opened the door Dulce barred his way
and, with a languidness in both her movement and look, pressed him
against the wall.

“What did you think of our first dinner, did
you have a nice time?”

The mere suggestion that other dinners were
to follow scared him. Whatever this was – friendship, a date, a
moment – it was going too fast for him. Like a boxer trapped on the
ropes, Dornelas tried to keep things under control.

“It was nice…,” he murmured cautiously.

His hesitation hovered in the air.

“Relax Inspector Joaquim Dornelas. I have no
intention of handcuffing you to anything.” She gave him a
mischievous smile. “For the time being.”

Dornelas smiled uncomfortably and, moved by
an inexplicable impulse, lowered his head and kissed her lightly on
the lips, just a peck.

“Thank you for dinner. It was great. Next
time is at my house.”

“It’s a deal.”

She returned the peck and freed him for the
night.

*

Saturday began early. At six on the dot
ABBA’s
Take a Chance on Me
blared out from the clock radio.
Happy to be in his house, in his bed, Dornelas got up, went into
the shower and took his first piss of the day while the hot water
was running down his neck.

Through the bathroom window he could see the
pale blue sky with thin clouds like little tufts from a cotton ball
rolling past. He noticed there were no swallows, a sign that it
would not rain, and got quickly dressed in the most worn-out
clothes in his closet. The shorts, T-shirt and running shoes Flavia
had threatened to throw out more than once were his favorites.
‘How I wish I could wear this every day,’
he fantasized.

He made the bed – Neide didn’t work on
weekends – put his cell phone, wallet and sun block in his pockets,
went downstairs and had a yogurt smoothie and a large slice of
white cheese.

He put a couple of cans of soda in the
cooler, along with two bottles of mineral water, plastic cups, a
loaf of bread, a knife and a chunk of yellow cheese. He would get
crushed ice at the fish market on the way to the pier.

Watching all this unusual activity, Lupi
kept close tabs on his owner, following him everywhere. Finally, as
he always did on fishing trips, Dornelas put the leash on the dog,
picked up the cooler and left.

*

The Historical Center was quietly waking up.
Seven in the morning on a Saturday is too early for the tourists.
The people in the street were either tradesmen on their way to
work, residents out to buy fresh bread and milk, or the employees
of both. With luck the pier – which the natives called a pontoon –
would also be empty, with only a few boats almost ready to take
their owners to the best beaches before they were invaded by
outlanders.

Dornelas was holding the dog by the leash in
one hand and the cooler in the other as he stepped on the pier’s
first plank and saw the schooners being readied to receive the
day’s tourists.

Sailors were opening the wooden cabins,
sweeping the decks, putting up the awnings, preparing sandwiches,
pouring crushed ice on top of the drinks in the Styrofoam coolers,
giving the quarterdeck a final polishing and plumping the cushions.
Signs with the daily itineraries, pictures and prices were hung on
the pier’s wooden framework like fishing tackle awaiting a shoal of
fish.

Knowing the schooners’ routine – casting off
everyday full of people, even more so on the weekends when they
were jam-packed – most of the fishing boats would remain moored
during the day. Sharing the ocean with noisy tourists would be a
waste of time and fuel.

There was some activity, but only from the
fishing boats that had just docked and were beginning to unload the
catch from their days on the open sea onto the pier. On one of them
three men were taking plastic boxes lined with fish and crushed ice
out of the hold and stacking them up in different piles on the
pier.

A older lady with unkempt hair wearing a
colorful dress pulled a big corvina out of one of them and began to
lift it up and down by the tail, weighing it with her own arm while
grousing to a man. He listened to her patiently. A mangy dog chewed
on the rests of a fish, its colored tail hanging out of the dog’s
mouth, at the same time Lupi approached it. They exchanged
growls.

Dornelas used the walk down the pier to read
the names of all the boats in hopes of finding
Cê Que Sabe
.
Unsuccessful, he passed the dog and the old woman and soon saw
Claudio moving around the deck of the
Janua
, almost at the
end of the pontoon.

“I got ice at the fish market on my way,” he
said, handing the cooler to his friend and jumping on the boat.
Lupi followed him.

“Then we’ve got everything we need.”

“Great. Let’s go. But remember – the fuel’s
on me.”

“Okay, sir.”

Claudio turned the key and pressed the
ignition button. A hard jolt produced a kind of dry cough, black
smoke spat out of the exhaust, there was a squeaking sound and the
engine caught, making the whole boat shake. The inspector untied
the ropes and rushed to the bow to lift the anchor.

In a few minutes they were heading out of
the bay on calm waters, on their way to Hunger Island.

Happy to be able to spend the day outdoors
in the fresh air, Dornelas breathed deeply and watched a low-flying
booby, its wings nearly grazing the water.

The rhythmic husky sound of the engine
rocked him into a kind of trance, leading him to think of his
children, of Dulce, of his ex-wife. Like a ball of yarn held fast,
the web of thoughts began unwinding as the boat got farther away
from land, to finally break up with a subtle snap and leave him
free on the open sea.

The Mangrove Crime switched on in his head
with the same effect as a spotlight in total darkness. Dornelas saw
himself in the middle of an arena with all the pieces in the case
laid out around him – characters, facts, statements and theories –
ready to be moved about however he saw fit.

Although he hadn’t wanted to give it serious
consideration up until now, he couldn’t completely disregard the
hypothesis that the crime may have been committed by someone who
had no connection to Palmyra’s drug trade, that the motive may have
been as banal as the dumb crimes on television police series.

Going over the case chronologically, he
asked himself about some of the things they didn’t know, pieces
still missing from the puzzle: where did the criminals come from?
Who owned the black pick-up truck that Luis Augusto saw driving
past his house? If there was a one hour interval between the
injection and the time of death, would it be correct to assume that
they wouldn’t dump José dos Anjos on that little beach while he was
still alive? And what did the criminals do during this one hour
gap? Where had they waited? Most certainly hidden somewhere, in a
garage or on a road or lane between Maria das Graças’ house and the
beach.

It was a relatively short distance.

Leaving the island to then come back made no
sense. The car would be easily identified as soon as it crossed the
bridge over the canal, given that there were fanatic fishermen who
spent the whole night on the bridge after needlefish. Most likely
they had hidden on the poorer side of the island, in the middle of
the slum, where the drug trafficking was heaviest and even the
police were afraid to enter.

But he couldn’t ignore the fact that an
imported pick-up truck would call a lot of attention in a slum.
Unless, pondered Dornelas, the vehicle had remained on the island,
was well-known in the neighborhood, and its rich owner lived around
there. But who had a lot of money in a slum?

There was no doubt.

The fact that the murderer knew about José
dos Anjos’ disease and used it to kill him puzzled him. Except for
a few isolated cases, nobody recognizes a diabetic on the street
since the disease is easily controlled with daily insulin shots,
something that’s done at home as easy as swallowing a pill with a
sip of water.

Why then wasn’t José dos Anjos killed with a
gun or a knife? The simple fact that the murderer, or whoever
ordered it, was familiar with the consequences of an insulin
overdose by itself pointed to a sophistication uncommon among
traffickers who usually resort to much cruder methods to eliminate
their enemies.

But there was another issue that bothered
him: the unfinished wall in Maria das Graças’ bedroom. Dornelas
didn’t trust her statement that the work was done right after the
crime. The light grey color of the dry cement between the bricks
made him believe that the doorway had been closed and the wall
erected longer ago. And if that were true, why had she lied in her
statement?

“We’re almost there, sir,” announced
Claudio, pointing to the horizon.

A triangular hillock with a band of grey
rocks washed by the waves could be seen behind Poita Island. On the
top of it was a little green tuft with a naked palm tree; Hunger
Island.

“I’ll get the rods ready,” said
Dornelas.

Claudio held the engine steady at 5 knots in
the rough sea and got as close as possible to the steep wall on the
opposite side of the island.

With fast-action equipment in his hands – a
rod for a 25-pound line and a reel with a 100-meter line 0.40
millimeters in diameter – Dornelas cast a barbed mid-water
artificial bait into the foam of the breaking waves and began
quickly reeling it in, working the bait as if it were a small fish
in flight.

Two, three, five tries and nothing.

Claudio skillfully maneuvered the boat in
the waves that were trying to push it against the rock wall.

Dornelas dropped his rod on the floor of the
boat and picked up another identical one, but with a different
bait. He cast the Jumping Jig bait in the same place and a hard tug
stretched the line with a buzz, bending the tip of the rod.

“Take it slow, sir,” said Claudio, taking
the boat out of the surf and into the open sea.

“It’s a big one.”

A clean fight followed. The reel’s drag
screeched at the fish’s first pull. Dornelas knew he would have to
tire it before bringing it in close to the boat. To avoid the line
snapping he had to first work the fish. He let out the drag a bit.
By yanking and then loosening in an irregular “zigzag” pattern, the
inspector tried to keep the line taut every time the fish tried to
free itself from the bait.

After a while the sharp jerks were replaced
by maintaining the line permanently and unyieldingly taut. When he
saw signs that the fish was tiring Dornelas slowly lifted the rod
and, without asking too much from the equipment, lowered the tip
while reeling in the line, furiously spinning the spool.

A silver figure passed close to the boat.
Sensing the excitement, Lupi got up with his front paws on the
gunnel and started barking non-stop.

Dornelas carefully drew the fish next to the
hull and leaned over the side. He grabbed it by the tail to pull it
out of the water when a light went on in his brain and he just
stood there, static, holding the fish by the tail for a few
seconds, as if waiting for someone to take his picture.

When he realized what he was doing he
quickly put the fish on the floor of the boat. The anchovy, with
its big head, protruding jaw, wide mouth and sharp teeth struggled
on the deck. Its bluish back and silver-colored flanks shone under
the hot sun.

Being careful not to hurt the fish even
further and add to its suffering, Dornelas took the needle-nose
pliers that Claudio handed to him and skillfully removed the hook
from the large bleeding mouth.

Without hesitating, Dornelas caught the
anchovy by the tail with a quick move and threw it back into the
ocean. Claudio was astonished by what his friend had just done.

“Why’d you do that, sir?”

“We have to go back.”

“But we just got here. That one was just the
first.”

“I’m sorry, but we have to go back. I need
to check something.”

His friend stood there paralyzed, his jaw
hanging open.

“How many kilos do you think it weighed?”
asked Dornelas.

“Four, five…I don’t know.”

“I’ll pay you the equivalent, plus the
fuel.”

Not understanding what was going on, Claudio
accelerated the boat, turned it around and pointed the bow back to
Palmyra.

Chapter 14

T
he doorbell at the
house next to Maria das Graças’ rang more than once before a woman
appeared, muttering something as she wiped her hands on her
apron.