Requiem for a Killer Read online

  *

  He gave himself up to a long shower, scrubbing himself with soap and a sponge more than once. Even so the smell of mud that had sunk into his soul took a long time to disappear. The dog watched him curled up on the bathroom rug, the same place he slept every night.

  He was a rangy dog, plain and amiable, that always looked dirty even after occasionally showering with Dornelas, who would wash him with liquid detergent – a recipe from a childhood veterinarian friend who considered it the best remedy against fleas. For lack of a better idea the inspector followed the prescription every time Lupi began to smell too much.

  *

  The corpse had brought the police station to life. The sight of people milling around and the sound of the phones ringing pleased the inspector as he walked through the door.

  Marilda, the receptionist, leaned over her desk and gave him his messages while talking on the phone. She was a sexy big-breasted woman, fortyish, extremely efficient and who usually dressed like a flight attendant: tight clothes, hair in a bun and tortoise shell glasses. She no doubt was part of the fantasies of many cops in the precinct, but as she was not only married, but happily so, as they say, to a local tough guy who was strong as an ox, nobody dared hit on her.

  Solano appeared around ten.

  “Did forensics and the medical examiners show up?” asked Dornelas while reading the messages and skimming through his correspondence.

  “No. I left the body to the vultures and rushed here.”

  Dornelas lifted his head and looked him straight in the eyes.

  “They’re there. Lotufo is with them,” he said, realizing that this was not a good day to kid around with the inspector. “They want to talk to you about your interfering with the crime scene.”

  “Did you explain where the body was?”

  “What’s the difference? You know how uptight they are about procedures.”

  Chagas, the head of Forensics with his nasal voice, ‘that pain in the ass’ thought Dornelas, would pop up any moment now on the phone complaining about the damn procedures, never considering the possibility of the imponderables linking a body, the sun, the tide, the bay’s dry mud and a flock of vultures. Impulsively he threw the correspondence on the desk and barked out:

  “I’ll take care of Chagas. Just remind me to put it all in the report. I don’t want them giving me a hard time about it later on.”

  “I’m on it boss.”

  As he was preparing to leave the room he asked:

  “Have they identified the body yet?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  He disappeared. Dornelas took the phone off the hook and dialed three numbers.

  “Marilda, send flowers to Peixoto’s wife at the maternity ward.”

  “What should I say on the card?”

  A ‘thank you very much’ immediately came to mind.

  “It’s up to you.”

  “I’ll say something nice.”

  “Ask Lotufo to come see me as soon as he gets here.”

  “Okay, chief.”

  He hung up, then lifted the phone again as he picked up the message from the desk.

  “And Marilda, how long ago did this Councilman Nildo Borges call?”

  “An hour. He was anxious to talk to you about the mangrove crime.”

  ‘The Mangrove Crime! So that’s what they’re going to call this case’, he thought. Even though the body was not exactly in the mangrove, but in the mud in front of it, at the back of Palmyra Bay, public opinion would quickly appropriate the idea that the crime had occurred there. Dornelas was impressed with Brazilian creativity: The Park Crime, The Suitcase Crime, and now this. ‘Maybe they’ll make a documentary about it one day!’ he concluded.

  “Thank you.” He hung up, intrigued by the fact that all it took was for a body to appear for the snakes on the City Council to begin slithering around. Maybe the corpse wasn’t just any poor sucker. Lotufo appeared at the door.

  “You wanted to speak to me chief?”

  “Make a round of the hospitals in town and find out who had a blood test between yesterday and today.”

  “Right away.”

  He left. Dornelas picked up the phone again and punched another three numbers.

  “Anderson, Joaquim Dornelas, everything alright?”

  “So-so. The server went down again because of the heat. When do you think we’re going to get an air conditioner for this room?”

  “Soon, soon,” answered Dornelas mournfully.

  It was an old request and the inspector had not yet found a miraculous formula for multiplying the precinct’s tight budget.

  “What can I do for you today, sir?” asked Anderson, realizing he had put his boss on the spot.

  Anderson, the precinct nerd, didn’t have much of a knack for social interaction, as is the case with all good IT techs, and had nothing to talk about aside from his specialty and he knew it, just like he knew that he only got calls from Dornelas when his services were required.

  “A small thing. I want you to download some photos from my cell phone. Ask someone to print them up on photographic paper. And do it ASAP, please.”

  “Unloading the pictures is easy, sir. But as to printing them, you know our printers can’t do that. Doing it outside the precinct involves filling out an expense request, then following the protocol…”

  “I’ll do it myself then,” he said, cutting him short. “Just download the pictures and give it to me all on a CD please.”

  “I’ll be by in ten minutes to pick up the phone.”

  Dornelas put down the phone, discouraged. He knew all too well how the bureaucratic wheels of Brazilian public agencies turned. The meander of forms, requisitions, receipts, reports and stamps. Originally and obviously intended to intimidate corruption, over time the bureaucracy gained such a monstrous and suffocating aspect, nearly taking on a life of its own, that it allowed even inept crooks to take advantage of the system with their eyes closed. But the system was the system and it was not he who was going to be able to change it. He got up to stretch his legs and the phone rang. He answered it.

  “Dornelas!”

  “Inspector, it’s Councilman Nildo Borges,” said Marilda. “He’s really anxious to speak to you.”

  “Put him through.”

  He squeezed his eyes with his fingers and sighed.

  “My dear Inspector Joaquim Dornelas,” he heard an unknown man’s voice say on the other end of the line, in a seductive and clammy voice, characteristic of politicians able to turn someone they didn’t know into a long-lost best friend in a matter of minutes.

  “Good morning, Councilman. What can I do for you?” answered Dornelas in a dry, flat voice that took the councilman by surprise.

  “Well Inspector,” he continued more formally. “I heard you found the body of one of our dear citizens stuck in the mud this morning.”

  “We still haven’t identified him, so I can’t tell you who it is or where he came from. But if you know it’s one of ours, please help us with the identification.”

  Nildo Borges realized he’d said too much with his false friendliness.

  “Well, I don’t know for sure if it’s one of ours, but as we warmly welcome tourists to our city, you know we embrace everyone like a brother.”

  The councilman’s unctuous manner began to irritate him.

  “If you agree, let’s do the following: if you know something we don’t, please tell us so that we can expedite the course of the investigation.”

  “Right. How about us having a little chat about it in my cabinet here at the City Council, say around noon?”

  “Can we do it at two o’clock? I have a pressing engagement for lunch.”

  “Perfect. I’ll expect you at two then.”

  Dornelas hung up and left the cell phone on the desk for Anderson to find easily. He left. He would eat something at the precinct cafeteria and then go home.

  His salary didn’t allow him to eat at restaurants very often,
and he didn’t like to just show up and ask for a courtesy takeout – as some policemen did – because it made him feel like a beggar. And besides, he knew that the restaurants, much to their disliking, traded food for police protection, a spurious business he wanted no part of.

  Chapter 3

  Now on a full stomach, Dornelas opened the door to his house around one o’clock to find Lupi with his ears straight up and wagging his tail frantically, displaying the typical canine anxiety that appears when they are about to piss through their ears. If he didn’t move quickly the hem of the couch would be drenched again. He got the leash and collar out of the cupboard next to the door, picked up a plastic bag and went out into the street, dragged by the excited dog.

  Ever since Flavia had left with the children the small, old two-story row house with the checkered windows in the new city’s little downtown area had become too big for him and the dog. But now that he could do anything he pleased, Dornelas liked being able to enjoy the animal freedom of walking around the house naked without having to answer to anyone.

  His territory duly marked, Lupi went back home with him and lay down on the living room rug while Dornelas turned on the computer. With the precinct’s server on the blink, he wanted to consult the tides on the Navy’s site and check the changes that month with the approximate time of death – information the medical examiners would provide – and maybe find out where the body had come from to end up stuck where it was found.

  He printed out the four pages with the tidal forecasts for the month, turned off the computer and left. In fifteen minutes he would be meeting with Nildo Borges.

  *

  The City Council was located in an imposing and shiny three-story building fronted with granite and full of black windows, resulting in total discord with the rest of the city’s poor architecture. ‘Somebody made a lot of money on this construction job,’ he thought. A project of that size was not the product of just one man, but of a well-structured gang involving people from the private sector, politicians and public employees. Bezerra da Silva’s samba song popped into his mind.

  “…Here really is society’s cream of the crop: doctors, executives, even magnates Through drink and argument I came to my conclusion:

  If you cry ‘thief!’, not one will be left my brother,

  If you cry ‘thief!’, not one will remain...”

  What really pissed Dornelas off was to think that a building that size catered to a group of only eleven councilmen, along with an entourage of public servants – nepotism included – and had cost the public coffers, the taxpayers money, a fortune.

  After having his picture taken, and another of his ID card, he took the elevator up to the councilman’s cabinet on the third and top floor. He stepped out in front of the reception counter with an attendant standing behind it. He presented himself, stated his business and was told to knock on door number nine.

  The door opened and emerald-colored eyes stared out at him. Dornelas found himself face to face with the lushness of a tropical rain forest, complete with its musky scent of virgin jungle; one that any man would gladly enter to get lost searching for El Dorado.

  “Inspector Joaquim Dornelas, I suppose!” she said, thrusting out her hand. “My name is Marina Rivera. I’m Councilman Nildo Borges’ Chief of Staff. Please, come in.”

  Dornelas shook the girl’s hand delicately, as if holding a little bird. And when she leaned over he saw, ever so briefly, her small, firm breasts, as perfect in size and shape as a sculpture.

  “The Councilman just called from his cell phone, he had a slight holdup but he’s on the way,” she said.

  Dornelas entered what looked like the reception area of a public health clinic: a connected computer on an otherwise empty desk, three hungry-looking people squeezed together on a bench, the usual picture of the smiling Brazilian president hanging on the wall and a scrubby plant in a corner.

  “Will he be long?”

  “Fifteen minutes at most. Would you like something to drink… water, coffee?”

  “Water, please.”

  With nowhere to sit, he remained standing. Marina spun around on her heels, tossed her black-haired braid behind her and cast him a naughty look over her shoulder before disappearing behind the only door into the cabinet. Dornelas felt a flame lighting up inside, the kind that can burn out of control and level an entire forest.

  She returned in a flash. He gulped down the glass of water.

  “Why don’t you wait in my office until the Councilman gets here,” she suggested.

  “I don’t want to get in your way.”

  “I insist. There’s nowhere for you to sit out here.”

  She went in with Dornelas close behind her.

  “Have they identified that body yet?” Marina asked while they walked through a spacious office with low dividers that separated four desks in a kind of cross and two desks up against the back wall. There were only two people working there.

  “Nothing yet. But the Councilman seems to have information about him. That’s why I’m here.”

  They entered a small office that connected to a larger one that might belong to Nildo Borges. She went behind the desk and looked straight at him.

  “I’d like to help you,” she said sugar sweetly. “Tell me if I can, whenever you like.”

  Fire, Dornelas, fire!

  “I’ll remember that,” he replied before sitting down and taking out a calling card from his jacket pocket and putting it on the desk. “Please, don’t let me bother you. I really don’t want to interfere with your work.”

  “I’m just going to finish this e-mail.”

  Pretending not to notice the inspector’s presence, Marina Rivera sat upright in front of the computer and began typing on the keyboard. Dornelas looked inward and tried to understand why he was so attracted to this woman. He studied her big, green, delicate doe eyes. She opened them wide, making her seem even more fragile and innocent. But something about her disturbed him.

  “Done!” exclaimed Marina with a little bounce, looking up at him.

  Dornelas let go of his thoughts and straightened up in his chair before asking, “Do you know anything about this morning’s crime?”

  “Nothing that can help you. As much as I manage Nildo’s activities here in the Council there are some subjects that only he knows about.”

  This intimacy intrigued him. Going straight to the point, he asked, “Tell me, what is your relationship with the Councilman?”

  She smiled.

  “I was expecting that question.”

  He waited in silence.

  “Nildo and I go way back. We met in college. He was like a son to my father. He started getting involved in politics on the Student Council and I followed him because I admired his enthusiasm, his ideas. We’ve been friends for a long time. That’s all.”

  “What ideas were those?”

  “Equality and economic security for all,” she recited, sounding like a recording.

  “Don’t you think that speech is somewhat outdated? Do you still believe in it?”

  “Inspector Dornelas,” she said in a professorial tone.

  “Please, call me Joaquim.”

  “Okay. Joaquim, the world has changed a lot since that time. I’ve changed too, maybe not willingly, but I’ve changed. Since then unbridled capitalism and globalization have imposed themselves in such a crushing manner that they’ve made me see that those ideas of equality, of a strong and centralizing government that owns the bulk of the land, banks, natural resources and industry were no more than an ideal that could never be achieved. It took me a long time to see that our fight was akin to Dom Quixote jousting against the windmill. Time gave us a cold shower of reality.”

  This woman was well acquainted with the ideology she advocated and showed herself to be much more enlightened than she had at first appeared to be.

  “And what do you believe in today?”

  “Inspector Dornelas!”

  “Joaquim, please.”


  That professorial tone, typical of card-carrying communists who thought they had all the answers was beginning to annoy him.

  “Joaquim, I’m sorry. Today I try to look for social equality within a market economy, if that’s possible. You know, we live in such a socially unjust world…The rich pay less tax than the poor, the sick die waiting in line at the hospitals, children leave school without understanding even one page of what they read. It’s like they say: functional illiterates. We need to do something!”

  Marina Rivera sounded like she was campaigning for public office. Dornelas considered reminding her that she already held one when he was interrupted by an obese man barging into the room while knocking on the open door.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Nildo!” she said enthusiastically while getting up from her chair. Dornelas followed suit and shook the councilman’s hand.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I had to go by Peixe Dourado. One of our refrigeration units broke down and we had to transfer half a ton of fish to another one, otherwise we would have lost everything. Would’ve been a tremendous loss. My brother only took over running the business recently and he’s still not familiar with our procedures.”

  Nildo Borges owned Peixe Dourado, the largest fishing company in Palmyra. His business spread its tentacles to almost all areas of the fishing industry: production, processing, resale, both in and beyond the city, as well as doing some exporting.

  In order to take his seat as a councilman, Nildo had placed his brother Wilson in charge of the business. That way he could dedicate more of his time to public service, participate in the city’s important decisions and voting issues and stop handing over free ammunition to the opposition. However, it wasn’t uncommon for him to be absent from the Council taking care of private business that required his presence; fundamental issues, as he would say.