The Ways of Evil Men (29 page)

“Makes sense. What else?”

“The first killer was right-handed. The second was left-handed. The second blow to Frade’s neck was delivered with more conviction that the first. It was deeper and much deadlier. I don’t think a two-time killer would have held back when he first struck. That’s speculation on my part, but—”

“It’s all speculation on your part!” Pinto sputtered. “I can refute everything you said.”

Silva held up a hand to silence him. “And you must feel free to do so, Doctor,
when
she’s finished. Go on, Gilda.”

“The first wound would have frightened him more. A little liquid goes a long way. If you have any doubts about that, try throwing a bottle of ink against a wall.”

“Yes, but why the fright?”

“A nick creates a small aperture, and a small aperture would have caused the blood to exit the body with more pressure behind it. It would have spurted much further. Scary, if you’re on the receiving end. The second wound, the one that severed the artery on the other side, wouldn’t have been as spectacular to watch, but it would have released his blood in a gush rather than a spurt. It would have drained him of a hundred milliliters of blood with every heartbeat. He would have lapsed into unconsciousness in less than twenty seconds, probably more like fifteen. Until he did, though, he tried to defend himself. There are slashes on his forearms. He held them up for protection.”

“Tell me this, Gilda, when you examined Torres’s body, you told me the wounds were deep, that they would have to have been inflicted by a man, or a very strong woman.”

“Yes.”

“And in this case? Could it have been a woman?”

She thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “I think so, yes.”

“I don’t,” the doctor said. “No woman in this town would have taken on José Frade. He was—”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Silva said, cutting him off. His next question was also directed to Gilda.

“You think he was able to inflict a scratch or two on his killer?”

“I think he might have, she said.

“You bag his hands?”

“I got Amanda to bring me some plastic bags from her kitchen. Makeshift, but they’ll do.”

“No scrapings as yet?”

“I was waiting for you to tell a certain party”—she shot her eyes in Pinto’s direction—“that I was authorized to take them.”

Silva turned to the certain party—and told him.

E
ARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING
, Max Gallo, the teenaged Casanova of the skies, took off for the State capitol. Accompanying him on the aircraft were a willing and enthusiastic blonde and two plastic envelopes containing scrapings Gilda had taken from under the fingernails of José Frade’s corpse.

An hour after his departure, Hector spoke to Alex Sanches, the young federal agent who worked with Barbosa—or as Arnaldo put it, worked
instead
of Barbosa. Sanches promised to meet the kid upon arrival and forward the samples to São Paulo.

Lefkowitz, in the course of another phone call, promised to subject them to DNA analysis and phone back the results in record time.

After Hector reported his telephone conversations to his uncle, the two senior men set out on a short walk to the
delegacia
.

“I’m beginning to think,” Arnaldo said, “that you have a pretty good idea about who killed Frade.”

“Don’t you?”

“Uh-huh. Pretty damned obvious when you think about it,” Arnaldo said. “I guess there’s no particular hurry about making an arrest.”

“No,” Silva said. “We’ll go after we’ve finished with the Bonettis.”

“I’
M KEEPING
them as far apart as I can,” Borges said when they got there.

“Which isn’t far, is it? Silva said.

“No. They’ve been shouting at each other all night. I don’t think either one got any sleep. I sure as hell didn’t.”

“Recriminations?”

“Big time. Can I go home now? My wife is about ready to kill me.”

“Not yet, I’m afraid,” Silva said. “Do you have a video camera?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“We’ll question her first. I want you to record it. After which, we’ll question him, and I want you to record that.
Then
you can go home.”

“How long is this gonna take?”

“Based upon what you’ve just told me,” Silva said, “I don’t think it’s going to take long at all.”

T
HE
DELEGACIA
was small, and there was no space given over to a room for interviewing suspects. It had to be done either in a cell or in the delegado’s office. Since Silva didn’t want either suspect to hear what the other one was going to tell him, he elected to use the delegado’s office.

They took Maria first. She was perfectly willing to talk, anxious to shift the blame onto her husband.

“It was all Cesar’s idea,” were her opening words on the videotape.

“Was it?” Silva said.

She nodded emphatically. “When he showed up with that old coot, it was a total surprise to me.”

From down the hall, they could hear Cesar Bonetti scream out the single word, “Bitch!” The timing was perfect, as if he could hear what she’d just said. He couldn’t, of course. It was just another addendum to the thoughts he’d been voicing throughout the night.

“And that was on the night Welinton sold his nugget and treated everyone to drinks at the Grand?” Silva asked, ignoring the outburst.

“Yes,” she said, casting a nervous glance in the direction of the cells. “No one’s going to let him out of there, are they?”

“No, Senhora, they’re not. And at about what time was this, your husband’s arrival with Welinton?”

“Late. Past midnight.”

“So your servants were all in bed?”

“Long since.”

“Do any sleep in the house?”

“No. We’ve got an
edicula
. It keeps them out of our hair.”

“Bitch!” Cesar Bonetti screamed again.

“That guy’s got one hell of a set of lungs,” Borges said, without taking his eye from the viewfinder. “It’s amazing he isn’t hoarse by now.”

“Please go on, Senhora,” Silva said.

“Cesar always told me he
just happened
to run into Welinton when he was leaving Crazy Ana’s.”

Silva raised an eyebrow.

“But I never believed him,” she went on hurriedly. “Never! He was waiting to waylay him. I’m surprised nobody else was, what with the old fool shooting off his mouth like that.”

“Yeah,” Arnaldo said, “in a town like this, I guess you gotta expect things like that.”

She missed the irony. “Exactly,” she said.

“All right,” Silva said, getting her back on track, “so there you were at home, and your husband showed up with Welinton. What happened next?”

“He made me fetch them drinks.”

“And by that time, do you think he’d already made up his mind to kill him?”

She paused. “Probably,” she admitted. And then, quickly,
“But Welinton didn’t know that. He thought he was there to negotiate terms for a partnership. Cesar started by agreeing to take half the profits in return for buying the equipment and working the site. That’s what Welinton kept calling it. The site. Not the claim. He said we couldn’t claim it, because it was inside the reservation.”

“Uh-huh. So that’s why Cesar decided to kill the Indians? So the reservation would be dissolved and he could turn it into a real claim?”

She opened her eyes wide. “The Indians? Kill the Indians?”

“I think you heard me, Senhora.”

“I did. I was surprised, that’s all.”

“Because?”

“Because he had nothing to do with that.”

Silva frowned. He thought he’d solved that case as well. Now, it appeared that he hadn’t. Before he could say anything she plunged on. “I have no idea who killed those Indians. Neither one of us do. Cesar was furious when he found out. He said it would draw attention to what we’d—to what
he’d
done. And for once, the stupid shit was right. If some idiot hadn’t rooted out that goddamned tribe—–”

Silva brought her up short. “Please finish the story, Senhora Bonetti.”

“Where was I?”

“Cesar agreed to take half the profits—”

“And Welinton said he wanted a contract before they went any further. So Cesar got paper and a pen, and they wrote it all out. Meanwhile I served them more drinks. It was all cordial up to that point. Or at least the old coot thought it was.”

“And then?”

“Then Cesar said, since they now had an agreement, all signed and proper, that he wanted Welinton to tell him where he’d made the strike. And Welinton said he’d only
do that after he’d put the paper somewhere safe. He said he trusted Cesar and all, but he’d been at Serra Pelada, and he’d seen what gold could do to some people, so he’d always been cautious after that. Up to that point, Cesar thought it was going to be easy to get the old man to talk, but now he saw it wasn’t.”

“He lost his temper?”

“Not really. He just got up, knocked Welinton out of his chair, and sat on his chest. Then he made me get a rope.”

Silva was tempted to ask how her husband could have
made
her do anything if he was sitting on the old man’s chest but didn’t.

“And then he tied Welinton to a chair,” she went on. “I objected. I told him he was crazy. But he said that he didn’t want any paper floating around with evidence of what they’d discussed. I think that’s maybe when Welinton realized that something bad was going to happen to him.”

“What did he do?”

“He got all pale, and he said that Cesar could have it all, that there was always more gold to find out there someplace, and if Cesar would just let him go, he’d sign over the whole thing.”

“And what did Cesar say to that?”

“That the paper wouldn’t have any value, since the strike was on Indian land, and it wasn’t Welinton’s to sign away.”

“What happened next?”

“He made Welinton tell him where he’d found the gold. And I mean exactly where. Somehow, the old man had learned to use a GPS. He’d written down the coordinates, latitude and longitude, right to the second, and put them on a paper he was keeping in his wallet. When Cesar saw that paper, he figured Welinton wasn’t lying about the location, so—”

“Wait. How did he get Welinton to talk? By torturing him?”

She nodded.

“How?”

She hesitated. It wasn’t for long, not even as much as a second, but it was enough to tell Silva that what was coming next was going to be a lie.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t stand to watch. I left the room.”

“At which point you could have called the police.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good. You know how far we live from town. It would have taken them an age to get there. Cesar would have killed the old coot by the time they did. And, anyway—”

Silva knew what was coming. He said it before she could. “You feared for your life.”

“I did. I truly did. If I hadn’t gone along, Cesar would have killed me for sure.”

“Uh-huh,” Silva said.

She studied his face. “You sound like you don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that, Senhora.”

“No, but you implied it. It was they way you said
uh-huh
.” Silva didn’t respond to that. Instead, he asked, “Do you know where the prospector’s body is buried?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll take us there?”

“Yes, and I’ll testify against my husband in court, tell the whole story to a judge and jury. That’s what I can do for you. What are you prepared to do for me?”

“We’ll discuss that,” Silva said, “after we’ve spoken to your husband.”

“S
HE
’
S FULL
of crap,” Cesar Bonetti said when they related his wife’s account of the murder. “It was her idea from the get-go. I wouldn’t have done a damn thing if it wasn’t for her. Let me tell you what really happened.”

“Please,” Silva said.

“You getting all this?” Cesar said to Borges.

“I’m getting it,” Borges said from behind the camera. He was propping his elbows on the table to steady the image.

“Well, then, it was like this. I was in the bar at the Grand when Welinton came in and started shooting his mouth off. That much is true. But then I went home, and I told the whole story to Maria, and what does Maria say?”

“You tell us. What did she say?”

“She said this was our chance of a lifetime and asked me where Welinton went. I told her he went to Crazy Ana’s, and she told me to go there, wait until he left, and bring him back with me. I asked her what she had in mind. She said we were going to strike a deal with him. So I did what she said, and I even negotiated something along the way. Fifty percent each. That was our deal, and I was happy with it.”

“But she wasn’t?”

“No, the greedy bitch wanted it all. Once Welinton was in the house, she pulled a gun and told him to sit down. Then she made me tie him up.”

“
Made
you tie him up.”

“She was holding a gun, Chief Inspector. I know her. Nobody better. She would have used it.”

“On you?”

“On both of us. Why else would I go along?”

“Why else indeed?” Silva said, drily. “And then?”

“And then it was like she said. Except
she
tortured Welinton, not me. And
she
killed him, not me.”

“How did she torture him?”

“With a blowtorch.”

“What?”

“A blowtorch. The kind you screw onto the top of a little canister of gas. She burned him when he wouldn’t answer,
burning him even when he
did
answer. He was a hairy guy, and she burned that hair off his whole body. His armpits, his eyebrows, his chest, even his balls. The smell was awful—stank up the whole room.”

“Jesus!” Arnaldo said and ran a hand over his face.

Bonetti looked at him and bobbed his head up and down. “Honest to God. And she enjoyed it. She enjoyed every goddamned minute of it. She even got hot on it. After he was dead, and even before we buried him, she dragged me to the bedroom and made me fuck her, so hot she was.”

“Who killed him?”

“She did.”

“How?”

“She cut his throat.”

“With what?”

“A knife we use to kill pigs. But you know what?”

“What?”