“Motive, means, and opportunity,” Pereira said when the doorman was gone. “I am so going to nail this guy Garcia.”
“What’s that proverb?” Arnaldo asked. “Something about not counting your eggs until the hen lays them?”
“Nunes,” Pereira said, rubbing his hands in satisfaction, “even you, your pithy proverbs, and your half-assed suppositions are but minor irritations on this fine day. Share my joy.
Think of the comedown for that boss of yours. He’s down there shooting his mouth off, and I’m up here solving the case.”
“Pithy?” Arnaldo said. “Did you say pithy?”
“I did,” Pereira said. “And I even know what it means.”
“I’d approach this one with caution,” Silva said. “Believe me, Walter, you don’t want to be proven wrong.”
“I’m not wrong. Senhor T-for-Tomas is our man. You guys want to be in on the collar?”
“The wise thing to do,” Silva said, “would be to get rid of Sampaio first.”
“True,” Pereira said. “We don’t want him horning in on the interrogation. That alone would give him grounds for another goddamned news conference. Hey, how come it’s taking him so long to get up here?”
“Body’s still here,” Arnaldo said.
“So what?”
“Sampaio gets weak in the knees if he sees a corpse. Corpses give him nightmares.”
“That’s your twisted sense of humor again, is it, Nunes?”
“No, Walter,” Silva said. “It isn’t.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You’re serious? Corpses give him nightmares? And a wimp like that heads up the Federal Police?”
“And a wimp like that does,” Arnaldo said.
Arnaldo and Pereira watched as the body, now zipped into a black bag, was lifted onto a gurney and rolled out the door. Silva came out of the kitchen, putting his cell phone in his pocket.
“I told Sampaio,” he said. “He’s on his way.”
“And all this time he’s been talking to those reporters?” Pereira asked. “How does he do it?”
“It’s a talent,” Silva admitted.
“Filho da puta. How much are you going to tell him?”
“Mushroom treatment,” Silva said.
“Meaning?”
“We’re going to keep him in the dark and feed him shit.”
The words were no sooner out of Silva’s mouth when the door opened and The Mushroom bustled in. “Senhores,” he nodded curtly, taking in the group. Then he extended a hand to Pereira. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
Pereira took the hand. “Pereira. Civil police. I’ve heard of you, Senhor, seen you on television.”
“Have you indeed?” Sampaio preened. “Heard good things, I hope.”
Pereira looked at Arnaldo, then back at Sampaio. “Absolutely, Senhor. Nothing but good.”
Sampaio gave a perfunctory smile, as if he’d expected nothing less. Then the smile vanished.
“How long has the victim been dead?”
It seemed like a strange choice for a first question. Silva looked at Pereira.
“The medical examiner’s preliminary conclusion,” Pereira said, “puts the murder between 10:00 P.M. last night and 2:00 A.M. this morning.”
“And your people were called shortly before 7:00, correct?”
“That’s correct, Senhor.”
Sampaio scratched the nonexistent whiskers on his immaculately shaved chin and let them wait for his next comment. His body language said he was privy to important information. When he spoke, it seemed like an anticlimax.
“The father of the victim, as these gentlemen know, is a Very Important Person, Jorge Rivas, foreign minister of Venezuela.”
“Yes, Senhor, I’m aware of that.”
Sampaio stopped scratching and looked at each of them in turn.
“The president instructed our foreign minister to call Rivas personally, communicate the death of his son, and express the sympathy of the Brazilian government.”
“Thoughtful of the president,” Arnaldo said.
Sampaio paused for a moment, apparently concluded-erroneously-that Arnaldo was being sincere, and continued. “The phone call,” he said, “was placed about an hour ago.”
Pereira couldn’t contain his curiosity. “How’d you find that out?” he said. “You got a contact in the Foreign Office?”
Sampaio fixed him with a fish-eyed stare. The director had many sources of information, none of which he shared. Knowledge was power. The silence went on for so long that Pereira started to fidget. When Sampaio deigned to resume, his tone was cold enough to freeze water.
“Kindly show me the courtesy,” he said, “of not interrupting again.” Pereira’s eyes narrowed, but the director stared him down. “Our foreign minister was unable to complete the call. It seems that Senhor Rivas had already been informed of his son’s death. He is, even as we speak, approaching Brasilia. So my questions to you, gentlemen, are these: Who the hell told Rivas about the death of his son? Which one of you, or which person reporting to one of you, felt he had the right to do that? And if the informant proves to be someone unassociated with you people, how did that person find out about it?”
Arnaldo and Silva exchanged a look. “We will endeavor to discover the answer to those questions, Director,” Silva said.
“You’re goddamned right you will. And when you do, you’ll tell me first, is that understood?”
“Understood, Director.”
“What else have you got?”
“Nothing else at the moment,” Silva said.
Sampaio looked deeply into his chief inspector’s eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment, the exemplary communicator versus the master at concealment.
Sampaio blinked first. “All right,” he said, “keep me posted. I’ve got to get out to the airport. I want to be there when Jorge Rivas’s flight arrives.”
Without even a nod in Pereira’s direction, he bustled off in the direction of the elevator.
“Prick,” Pereira said when Sampaio was safely out of earshot.
“You have no idea,” Arnaldo said.
Silva glanced at his watch. “Unless he’s a gentleman of leisure, the odds on Garcia being home at this time on a weekday morning aren’t good.”
“No, but we can still toss the place, question the maid, get handwriting samples, maybe even find the murder weapon. I have Judge Carmo’s number right here.”
Pereira pulled out his cell phone.
Caio Carmo was what the cops termed a “friendly judge,” willing to issue a search warrant on the thinnest of evidence. The two federal policemen stood waiting while Pereira tried first Carmo’s home, then his chambers. Carmo, as it turned out, was in court.
Pereira left an urgent message and the cops adjourned to a nearby padaria to drink coffee and wait.
Tomas Garcia’s front door was opened by Garcia’s maid, a young woman with bad teeth and a Bahian accent. From the glazed look she gave Pereira’s ID, Silva concluded she couldn’t read. She said her name was Safira Nogueira and, when prompted, produced a dog-eared identity card.
Her employer wasn’t there, she said, hadn’t been home when she showed up for work that morning. She normally arrived at nine, left at six. Normally, too, he’d be there to greet her and to see her out.
Vargas read the warrant and explained, in layman’s language, what it gave them the right to do. She asked them to wait while she tried to reach her employer. But, as it turned out, Tomas Garcia wasn’t picking up his cell phone. Reluctantly, she admitted them.
The interior of the apartment was in sharp contrast to the one upstairs, as if the younger man was striving to appear older, while the older was clinging to vestiges of youth. The palette in Juan’s apartment had been a melange of dark reds and browns; Garcia’s place was a riot of color, the decoration contemporary and minimalist.
Pereira and Silva sat on a yellow leather couch, Safira on an upright chair, upholstered in cerulean blue, designed for aesthetics more than for comfort. The other two cops began to search the premises.
“Were you aware of the fact,” Pereira asked, kicking off the questioning, “that Tomas Garcia and Juan Rivas were lovers?”
Safira showed no surprise. “Yes,” she said. “Sometimes Senhor Juan would come down here to spend the night. Sometimes Senhor Tomas would go up there. They used to call each other, too. Sometimes five or six times a day.”
“But not recently?”
“No, Senhor. Not recently.”
Vargas came into the living room with a sheaf of papers in his gloved hand. He hadn’t been away for more than three minutes.
“From his desk,” he said. “The same handwriting as the letters.”
Pereira smiled, as if the young cop had given him a present.
“How about the club?” he said. “Or the gun?”
Vargas shook his head. “Not yet, Senhor.”
“Keep looking,” Pereira said.
Just then, there was a rattle of keys at the front door. Vargas, without being told, crept over and stationed himself behind it. Pereira rose to his feet, looked at Safira, and put a finger to his lips.
Silva, too, stood.
Keys in hand, a figure in his late fifties, or perhaps in his early sixties, entered the apartment. He froze when he saw the men standing in front of the couch.
“Senhor Garcia?” Silva asked.
“Who are you people? What are you doing in my apartment?”
“I’ll take that for a yes,” Silva said.
Garcia sensed a movement behind him and turned to find Detective Vargas gently shutting the door. He took a nervous swallow, and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
“No need to be alarmed,” Silva said. “We’re police officers. Here’s my identification.”
As Garcia read, the stiffness drained out of his neck and shoulders. He slouched, looked very tired; defeated, even.
“A police ID doesn’t give you the right to invade my apartment,” he said.
“No,” Pereira said. “But this does.” He produced Judge Carmo’s warrant and held it out. “Read it, if you like.”
“I certainly will,” Garcia said. His Portuguese was fluent, but heavily accented. He snatched the paper out of Pereira’s hand and started to examine it.
“That will be all for now, Safira,” Silva said.
The maid looked to her employer, but he kept his eyes glued to the paper. Safira nodded at Silva and left the room.
Garcia was wearing a tailored suit and a Versace tie, but he’d done a bad job shaving. Narrow swatches of whiskers clung to his chin. He smelled of Scotch whiskey and mintflavored mouthwash. Folding the warrant, he licked his lips and looked at Pereira.
“Were you aware, before you read that”-Pereira pointed at the papers-“that Juan Rivas was dead?”
“I was aware,” Garcia said, cautiously.
He could hardly have said otherwise what with the circus going on downstairs. If he hadn’t known before he got home, someone in front of the building would have told him.
“We found your letters,” Pereira said, “the ones you wrote to Juan about Gustavo.”
Tomas Garcia turned a shade paler. His eyes moved from side to side as if seeking an avenue of escape.
“You want to tell us about it?” Pereira asked. “Get it off your chest?”
“I loved him,” Garcia said. “We had a spat. We were estranged, I admit that. I was angry, but I would never have…” His voice trailed off.
“Have what?” Pereira said.
“Killed him.”
“And yet your letters…”
Garcia put a hand over his eyes and sank down onto the sofa. “Oh, God,” he said. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Pereira didn’t reply.
“All we want,” Silva said, “is the truth. If you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear.”
Garcia, apparently surprised by Silva’s gentle tone, lifted his head. “This is one of those good cop/bad cop routines, isn’t it?”
“It’s not a routine. I’m not trying to trick you. I honestly want you to tell me what happened.”
Garcia began speaking in a rush. “You say you want the truth? All right, here’s the truth: I wanted to patch it up between us. I’d tried everything else, so I threatened to kill myself, and-”
“Wait. You threatened to kill yourself?”
Garcia frowned. “You said you read the letters.”
“Not all. There were a few unopened.”
“A few? How many is a few?”
“Seven.”
“Seven. The last seven?”
Silva nodded.
Garcia stared past him. A tear pearled out of his left eye and ran down his cheek. He made no attempt to wipe it away.
“Yesterday,” he said, “I spent the day with a bottle. I got shitfaced. I passed out for a while, woke up, and started drinking again. Sometime around midnight, or maybe it was later, I heard banging around upstairs. His living room is… was… just above this one. I thought to myself, He’s with that bitch Gustavo Fernandez.”
“One moment, Senhor Garcia,” Silva said. “You said you heard ‘banging around.’ Did you hear a shot?”
“A shot? No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I know what a shot sounds like. There was no shot. Why do you want to know if there was a shot? What does a shot have to do with anything?”
“Who’s Gustavo Fernandez?”
“Gustavo Fernandez is a whore. Gustavo Fernandez is a filthy, money-grubbing whore Juan met in a sauna.”
“A sauna?”
“In Miami. Gustavo is Cuban, one of those so-called exiles. Always complaining about how Che Guevara and the Castro brothers took their island away, but they wouldn’t go back to it if you paid them.”
“And this Gustavo? He’s here now? In Brasilia?”
“I thought he was. He’s been here twice before. Juan paid for his tickets both times. Business class, no less. The little bitch said he wouldn’t fly tourist.”
“And now you think he’s here again?”
“I assumed he was when I heard the noise.”
“You think Gustavo killed Juan?”
“How should I know?”
“I’m not asking you what you know, Senhor Garcia. I’m asking you what you think.”
“Then I think… not. Gustavo had a good thing going. He was in it for the money. Why should he kill a goose that was laying golden eggs for him?”
“Could Juan have done something to make Gustavo jealous?”
Garcia shook his head.
“Impossible. Gustavo didn’t care about Juan. I couldn’t get Juan to see that, but it’s true.”
“All right, so you heard this banging around…”
“And it sounded like they were having a rough fuck on the carpet. I couldn’t stand it. I was drunk. I went up there on an impulse.”
“Drunk,” Pereira repeated. “And angry too, I’ll bet.”
“Angry too, I admit it. Being angry isn’t a crime.”
“Murder is,” Pereira said.
“Goddamn it! I’ve already told you. I didn’t kill him!”
“Senhor Garcia,” Silva said, “please.”
Garcia took a deep breath.
“I took the elevator. When it stopped on three-”
“Wait a minute. You took the elevator? For one floor?”
“Normally I’d walk up the stairs, but I was so drunk, I decided to take the elevator. As I got off, I heard the metal fire door to the stairwell slam shut. All the banging had stopped. I walked into the apartment-”
“You walked into the apartment? Are you telling me the door was open?”
“I used my key.”
“So the door was locked, as usual?”
“Not as usual. Juan likes to keep it on the dead bolt. He has a lot of art in there.”
“But this time it was only on the latch?”
“Yes.”
“As it would have been,” Silva suggested, “if an intruder had walked into the corridor and pulled it shut behind him.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s right.”
“Please go on. You entered the apartment, and…”
“And at first, I didn’t see anything. I called Juan’s name. He didn’t answer. I was on the way to his bedroom when I passed the couch and saw him… lying there. It… it was awful. Can you imagine my shock? My horror? Seeing someone you loved, seeing them like that?” Garcia raised a hand to his face. “His left eye was almost-”
“I saw it. What did you do then?”
“I panicked. I was afraid the criminal might still be there. I ran down here and locked myself in.”
“And then?”
“And then I made myself another drink to settle my nerves. And I got to thinking. That stairwell, it goes down to an exit at the back of the building. It’s normally locked, but if it isn’t, you can get out without being seen by the doorman. I got my courage up, went downstairs, and checked the door. Someone had broken the lock.”
Pereira told Vargas to go downstairs and examine the door.
“The night doorman works from midnight to eight,” Garcia continued. “He must have a day job, because he sleeps half the time. He sacks out on a couch in the lobby. You have to pound on the glass if you want to get in. I thought about waking him up, telling him about Juan, about the door.”
“But you didn’t?”
Garcia hung his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I knew he’d call the police. Then I’d have to explain the whole thing, my relationship with Juan, all of it. I knew the press would tear into me like a shoal of piranhas. I didn’t want that.”
The penny dropped for Silva. He suddenly realized he had an answer to Sampaio’s questions.
“So instead of calling the police, you called Jorge Rivas, Juan’s father?”
Garcia nodded. “I called his mobile phone, his private number. He leaves it on, day and night. It’s one of those satellite things, so he can be reached anywhere, anytime. He’s an important man, a minister in the government.”
“We know.”
“I didn’t think Jorge would forgive me if I called anyone else first. Jorge and I have been friends for a long time.”
“Good friends?”
Garcia paused before he answered. “What the hell. I might as well tell you. Jorge and I were… intimate. It started years ago. We went to boarding school together. We remained friends, even after he was married. He used to swing both ways, you see. Not me. I only like men. Anyway, he got me my job here at the embassy, back when he was the ambassador.”
“You work at the Venezuelan embassy?”
Garcia nodded. “I organize cultural events, parties, that sort of thing.”
“So you’re the cultural attache?”
“No. Not the cultural attache. I just… organize parties and things.”
“And you stayed on after Jorge Rivas went back to Caracas?”
“Yes.”
“How did the current ambassador feel about that?”
Garcia shrugged. “He didn’t like it very much, but what could he say? Jorge is his boss, and Jorge instructed him to keep me on.”
“And you wanted to stay because…”
“Because Juan wanted to stay. It’s as simple as that.”
“Does Jorge Rivas know you’ve been intimate with his son?”
Garcia looked at his lap.
“No,” he said. “He doesn’t even know Juan is… was gay.”
“All right,” Silva said. “So you spoke with Juan’s father. What, exactly, did you tell him?”
“I told him I’d let myself into Juan’s apartment.”
“He didn’t find it unusual? You having a key?”
“He knows we take care of each other’s plants whenever one of us is traveling. Juan goes to Miami a lot. He likes the nightlife there, the clubs on South Beach. And the saunas, too, although I didn’t know that until… until Gustavo Fernandez came into our lives.”
“So you told the elder Rivas you let yourself in, and then…”
“I told him the same thing I told you, except I didn’t say I was drunk, didn’t say I thought I’d heard Fernandez and Juan fucking. I said I heard suspicious noises, thought it might be burglars, said I went up there, saw Juan’s body, panicked, and came back here.”
“Did you tell him about the emergency exit, about the lock being broken?”
“Yes.”
“How did he take it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Within a very short time, Senhor Garcia, we’re going to deal with a bereaved father who is also the foreign minister of your country. The case has political overtones. We, the police, are going to be under a great deal of pressure, and I want to be as prepared as I possibly can. Tell me, please, how Senhor Rivas reacted to the death of his son. Was he devastated? Angry? Hysterical? What?”
“He… he was none of those things.”
“What, then?”
“He was… offended.”
“Offended?”
“He took it as a personal affront,” Garcia said.
“Don’t you think that’s a strange way for a father to react?”
“Jorge isn’t your average father. He has… how can I put this… a tendency to interpret everything in terms of himself.”
“Megalomania? Egotism?”
“I didn’t use either of those words.”
“Tell me what he said.”
“I don’t remember exactly, but it was something like didn’t the killer realize who he was dealing with? And then, How dare anyone do something like this to me? ”
Silva raised an eyebrow. “To me?”
Garcia gave the faintest of nods. “Jorge wasn’t always as hard as that, but when he got to be an ambassador…”
“He got carried away by his own importance?”
Garcia bit his lip, looked out of the window, looked back at Silva. “In all fairness, neither man was fond of the other. Jorge used to call Juan that little prick and Juan referred to his father as the old bastard.”
“Nice family,” Pereira said.
“When you spoke to him,” Silva said, “did he give you any instructions?”
“He told me to call the police and report it.”
“Anything else?”
“He said he’d get here as soon as he could, said it wouldn’t look good if he didn’t come.”
“Let me get this straight,” Silva said. “He as much as told you he was coming for the sake of appearances?”
“I told you what he said. You can read into it what you like.”
“All right. You ignored his instructions to call the police. Why?”
“I wasn’t ignoring them. I took a drink to fortify myself. Then I took another one. And I… fell asleep. I woke up this morning, looked out the window, and saw the police cars and the ambulance.”
“What time was this?”
“About half past nine.”
“What did you do then?”
“I drove to the airport to meet Jorge’s flight. The Foreign Office already knew he was coming, gave him the VIP treatment, and drove him off to have coffee with the foreign minister. He knew I’d be waiting, so he sent someone with a message. I was to go home; he’d be here as soon as he could.”
“Here?”
“He owns this apartment. He owns the one upstairs as well. You don’t have to tell him, do you? About Juan and me? It has nothing to do with the murder.”
“Doesn’t it?” Pereira said.
“No, goddamn it! It doesn’t. And he wouldn’t want to hear it. These days, Jorge is what he chooses to call reformed. But he only uses that expression to me. For the rest of the world, he’s never had a homosexual relationship in his life.”
“What kind of an attitude is that?” Pereira said. “I mean, like, who gives a shit these days?”
“Our president does. He’d never permit the presence of a gay man in his government. He’d consider it a national embarrassment.”
Vargas came back with his report. The lock on the exit door had been intentionally smashed. The news didn’t impress Pereira. He was reaching for his handcuffs when Silva hustled him into the hallway.