On that same Monday morning, while Tanaka was interviewing the Portellas, Arnaldo and Silva were meeting with the federal police’s criminal profiler, Dr. Godofredo Boceta.
Boceta was a man in his midforties with a receding hair-line and horn-rimmed bifocals that looked as if they’d come out of a 1950’s catalog. He never used one word if he could use two, never employed a shorter word if he could think of a longer one, and always took detours before he got to the point. He was one of those people who could break up a friendly office conversation around the watercooler just by putting in an appearance. To say he was boring was an under-statement. Dr. Boceta’s verbosity drove Arnaldo nuts.
The profiler sat upright in a chair across from the two fed-eral cops. He was looking at one of the photos, the one that showed the overall view of the burial ground in the Serra da Cantareira. His mouth was puckered, as if he were sucking on a lemon.
“Do you know anything about Alzheimer’s?” he asked.
“I had an uncle who died of it,” Silva said.
“In an institution or at home?” Boceta asked.
“An institution.”
“Did they use art as an activity for the patients?”
Arnaldo released a long breath, almost a sigh.
“I don’t recall,” Silva said. “Why?”
“Sometimes institutions hold exhibitions of patients’ art-work,” Boceta said, ignoring the question.
Arnaldo shifted in his chair. He was a bulky man, and his movement caused a considerable rustle. Silva kicked him under the table.
“Ouch,” Arnaldo said.
“And?” Silva said.
Boceta looked back and forth, finally decided to ignore the interjection, and continued to address Silva.
“And if you look at the art of Alzheimer’s patients, you’ll notice something curious. Not all the time, but often.”
Arnaldo couldn’t contain himself. “What the hell has this got to do with what we should be talking about?”
Dr. Boceta pulled his glasses down to the end of his nose and stared unblinkingly at Arnaldo. His stare reminded Silva of that of a fish.
“If you’ll contain your impatience,” Boceta said, “I might tell you.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, stretching out the moment.
Sometimes Silva thought Boceta knew exactly what he was doing to people. He was determined not to let the man get to him.
“Alzheimer’s patients often draw trees and domiciles,” Boceta said. “And as the disease progresses, the windows and doors of the domiciles tend to diminish in magnitude. One day they disappear.”
Silva threw Boceta a conversational bone: “And the trees?”
“Ah, yes, the trees. The trees lose their leaves, extend longer and longer roots. Mostly, the patients choose to draw those roots in black.”
Arnaldo let out another long, slow breath. Silva kicked him again, more gently this time. Arnaldo didn’t react. Boceta put his glasses back on and resumed his study of the photograph.
“I’m telling you this to illustrate the correlation between artistic expression and diseases of the mind. Now, take your serial killer. A disturbed individual often shares common characteristics with other disturbed individuals with the same malady. That, gentlemen, is a good deal of what crimi-nal profiling is all about.”
“I see,” Silva said, hoping that Boceta was finally getting to the point.
“I’m sure you’re aware that serial murderers, people who have a compulsion to kill, tend to demonstrate a lack of affect, often take trophies, and tend to specialize in certain kinds of victims. By certain kinds of victims I mean little boys, little girls, women, young men if the killer is a male and has homosexual tendencies.”
“Yes.”
“There are always exceptions, of course. Most serial killers are men, but there have been women, notably a prostitute in the United States named Aileen Wuornos, a lesbian who demonstrated a distinctly masculine approach to homicide.”
Arnaldo stood, looked as if he were going to say some-thing, but didn’t. He walked to the credenza and poured himself a glass of water. Boceta waited until Arnaldo had resumed his seat before continuing.
“The expression, I might almost say artistic expression, of serial killers often extends to the way they bury their victims. Sometimes they pose them, as if for a photograph. Most commonly, they don’t bury all of them in one central loca-tion. If they do, it’s generally in their home, under the porch, for example, or under the floor.”
“But there are cases where they set up their own little cemeteries?” Silva asked, his interest awakening.
“Indeed there are. And in most of those cases, the first victim is buried at the apex of a triangle with the other vic-tims radiating out from there.”
“Most cases?” Arnaldo might as well have said what help is that, because that’s the way it came out.
Boceta bristled. “This isn’t an exact science,” he snapped. “We’re dealing with statistical probabilities. Every serial killer is insane in his own insane way. There are always exceptions. Always. But they’re always insane. That’s why the Americans’ criminal trials of serial killers are so ludi-crous. Serial killers don’t belong on their death rows. They belong in institutions. Their legal definition of insanity, and the aberrations that stem from it, are an abomination. Any fool can plainly see-”
“Conclusions, Godo?” Silva interrupted, trying to get the profiler back on track.
“Yeah, and sometime within the next twenty minutes, if you please,” Arnaldo said.
Boceta sniffed, as if Arnaldo emitted an odor that offend-ed him. “Alright, here’s what we know,” he said, addressing himself exclusively to Silva. “The killer shows no apparent preference for sex or age; he buries his victims side by side, indicating he doesn’t give particular importance to any one victim; sometimes he buries them in a mass grave, adults and kids all heaped in together, not taking any care to arrange them, just disposing of the corpses. My conclusion is that he doesn’t attach any aesthetic value to what he’s doing, that he isn’t milking it for a vicarious thrill, that he is, in short, not acting out of any inner compulsion. He’s not your stan-dard serial killer. I say he, but only to avoid repetition. I don’t want to waste your time.”
“Perish the thought,” Arnaldo said.
Boceta narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to reply, but Silva deftly cut him off. “So we could be dealing with a her, or a them, instead of a him?”
Boceta kept looking at Arnaldo. He looked so long that Silva was arriving at the conclusion that he’d have to repeat his question. But then the profiler said, “Exactly.”
It was probably the most succinct answer that Godofredo Boceta had ever given to anyone.
Silva pressed his advantage. “Okay, but I’m not sure I get it. What you’re saying is-”
“I’m saying that I sense some utilitarian purpose here.”
“Utilitarian purpose? What do you mean by a utilitarian purpose?”
“Well. . genocide, for example.”
“Genocide? You call genocide a utilitarian purpose?”
“In the mind of the perpetrator, or perpetrators? Of course it is. Haven’t you heard the term ethnic cleansing? The people who practice it actually believe that they’re making a posi-tive contribution to their societies. Think of the Turks and the Albanians, the Hausa and the Ibo, the Bosnians and the Serbs, the Nazis and the-”
“Enough. I take your point.”
“In all the cases I’ve cited, and many more that I could cite, the killers attached no great significance to the dispos-al of the bodies. Burning, dissolving in acid, burying, tossing into rivers, it was all the same to them, a simple problem of disposal where ritual played no role. There are consistencies between what they did and the behavior we see here.”
“So you’d rule out ritual killings?”
Boceta waved a finger in Silva’s face. “I never said that. Don’t put words in my mouth. I merely suggested a hypoth-esis. There are, of course, other explanations.”
“Ones in which ritual might be involved?”
“Of course.”
“Give me an example.”
Boceta thought for a moment. Then he said, “A use for body parts, perhaps.”
“Like what?”
“Some believe that the eating of human flesh conveys benefits. That, by consuming another human being, you take on some of their life force.”
“Now we got cannibals in Sao Paulo?” Arnaldo said. “Fat chance.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Agente. Whether cannibals are active in Sao Paulo or not is no concern of mine.”
“No? So why are you suggesting it?”
Boceta shot Arnaldo a beady-eyed stare before turning back to Silva.
“You might want to inquire, Chief Inspector, if the skele-tal structures of the victims were intact.”
“Why?”
“In ritual killings, the murderers often go after specific bones or body parts containing those bones. If the skeletal structures are incomplete, that could tell you something. Mind you, it would only be significant if the same mutilation took place in every case.”
Arnaldo turned to Silva. “Remember when Dr. Couto cut that assistant of his short? Maybe she was gonna say some-thing about missing parts.”
“Maybe,” Silva said. “And I’m sure Hector would be de-lighted to call her up and ask her.”