The Ways of Evil Men Page 3

  “The Big Six is what people call Cunha and the five major fazendeiros in the region,” Osvaldo said. “If you take the next twenty landowners and add what they’ve got all together, it doesn’t come close to the amount of land just one of those guys has.”

  “If they’ve got so damned much already, why don’t they leave the Indian land alone? Why do they need more?”

  “They don’t need it, they want it. And they want it because they’re all greedy bastards. But I didn’t tell you that. I’ve got to live in this town.”

  “Fortunately, I don’t. Not forever, anyway.”

  “So you’re willing to take them on?”

  “I sure as hell am.”

  The room was small, and his chair wasn’t more than a meter from the bed. He was able to reach out and touch her arm. “Good for you,” he said. “What do you plan to do?”

  “I’m going to speak to Borges.”

  Osvaldo looked disappointed. “Good luck,” he said and leaned back in his chair.

  “Who else is there?”

  “That,” Osvaldo said, “I couldn’t tell you. But there’s one thing I can tell you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re going to get zero help from Borges.”

  Chapter Five

  DELEGADO FERNANDO BORGES, the man who headed Azevedo’s five-man Civil Police Force, looked more like everyone’s favorite uncle than he did a cop. He was friendly, had a ready laugh, and was considered to be good company, even by the drunks who regularly populated his jail. He was also considered—not only by the drunks, but by everyone else in Azevedo—to be as lazy as sin.

  He listened to Jade’s story in silence, then said, “Thirty-nine, eh?”

  “Yes, Delegado. Thirty-nine.”

  Borges made a scratching noise, running the nails of one hand through the stubble on his chin. “That’s terrible,” he said, “just terrible. But you don’t really have any proof, do you?”

  “I saw the graves.”

  “Ah.” He held up a finger. “But did you see the bodies?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But they’re there. I’m sure of it.”

  “Even if they are,” he said, “it could have been disease that killed them, maybe even a simple cold. Those Indians die like flies whenever they’re exposed to white men’s diseases.”

  He made it sound like catching a disease was some kind of conspiracy on the Indians’ part. “I need you to help me prove that the bodies are there, and that it wasn’t disease that killed them,” she said, striving to keep her voice level.

  “And how could I possibly help you to do that?”

  She took a calming breath. “By sending Doctor Pinto to examine the bodies.”

  Doctor Antonio Pinto was the town’s part-time medical examiner. Azevedo wasn’t big enough to need the services of one full-time.

  “Hmm,” Borges said. “Who’s going to pay for it? The FUNAI?”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t got the budget, and it’s not my responsibility. It’s yours.”

  Borges waved a negating finger. “No it isn’t, Senhorita Calmon. It’s not my responsibility at all. That’s an Indian reservation. Reservations are federal land. They’re outside of my jurisdiction.”

  “Come on, Delegado. What does jurisdiction matter? You’re the closest legal authority. We’re talking about thirty-nine people here. Human beings, just like you and I.”

  “Jurisdiction always matters, Senhorita Calmon. My brief is narrowly circumscribed. And, as to them being like you and I, I’m going to have to disagree with you. Indians aren’t at all like you and I. We’ve civilized. They’re savages.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I surely do.”

  “So you’re not going to help?”

  Borges looked pained. “I really wish you wouldn’t put it that way. You can come to me with a murder that has taken place in this town, and I’ll do everything I can to help. But it’s unfair of you to expect me to get involved in anything that happens outside the city limits.”

  “And that’s your final word on the matter?”

  “I’m sorry. But it is.” It wasn’t as if Osvaldo hadn’t warned her. Borges was giving her exactly what he’d predicted: zero help. Jade gritted her teeth, held her temper in check and left to try the mayor.

  HUGO TOLEDO didn’t just head up the municipal government; he was also a cattle rancher, one of the Big Six. The property that had made him rich had all been Indian land less than forty years before, so Jade didn’t expect much help from him either. But she had to try.

  He posed the same questions as Borges. What did he, as mayor, have to do with something that had occurred on a federal reservation? And if Doctor Pinto were to autopsy the bodies, who’d pay for it?

  She gave him the same answers she’d given the delegado and got the same response. This time, though, Jade did lose her temper and ended the interview by storming out of his office.

  Two men had already spoken to her about Doctor Pinto. She decided that her next step should be to talk to him personally.

  “A thousand Reais each, my dear,” he said when she asked how much he’d charge to autopsy the bodies. “The lab tests, of course, would be extra.”

  “That’s a lot of money, Doctor Pinto.”

  He looked at her over his spectacles. “A doctor, like everyone else, has to earn his bread,” he said. “In a case like this, Senhorita Calmon, you wouldn’t be paying me just for the time I’d spend working on the bodies, you’d be paying me for my years of expertise. And there’s another aspect you have to consider: if I made an exception for you, I’d be setting a precedent. The news would get around. Soon other people would be appealing to the better side of my nature. You know just as well as I do how small this town is. Before long, I’d be besieged with people asking me to donate my services. And then where would I be? It’s a question of survival, you see. Still, I don’t want to be intractable about this. How about if I meet you halfway, give you a volume discount? Shall we say two thousand for four?”

  “I don’t—”

  “And I hope you don’t think I’ll be going with you when you dig them up.”

  “Your testimony, Doctor, would be fundamental at a trial. It’s essential you be present while the exhumations are taking place.”

  “And spend a night in some Indian’s hut?” The doctor shook his head. “Who knows what kind of vermin infest such places?”

  “We could bring a tent.”

  “Me? Sleep in a tent? At my age? No, Senhorita Calmon, I’m seventy-one years old and I’m no boy scout. If you want my collaboration, you’ll have to bring the bodies to me.”

  “It’s not that far, Doctor Pinto, and there’s quite a serviceable road for much of the way. You wouldn’t have to sleep at the site. We could go back and forth in a single day.”

  “Could we?”

  “Yes. I’ve done it often.”

  He stroked his chin. “How long would it take to get there?”

  “Only a two-hour drive.”

  “And the walk?”

  “An easy forty-five minutes.”

  “Forty-five minutes? Through the rainforest? With the heat, and the insects?” He shook his head. “No, my dear, I think not.”

  “Just one day, Doctor. That’s all I’m asking. I could bring a crew. They could exhume all the bodies at once. Then you could go from one to the other.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing good comes from being too hasty, young lady. And besides, even if I was willing, which I’m not, would you really want to spend that much money on a few Indians?”

  “Yes,” Jade said, evenly, “I would. But I haven’t got it.”

  Doctor Pinto held up his two hands, palms upward, in a gesture of helplessness. “Then may I offer you a cup of tea before you go?”

  Jade refused his tea, went home, and called her boss, Leon Prado, in Brasilia.

  “None of those people have any intention of helping you—ever,” Leon
said when she’d finished explaining. “All they care about is clearing the land for development, and the odds are that the police chief and the doctor are in on the deal. I’d bet my ass they’ve got a stake in the business, wouldn’t be surprised if they had a hand in poisoning those people.”

  Leon was passionate about what he did and quick to leap to conclusions.

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Leon, but they’re indifferent to say the least. So what do we do now? Call in the federals?”

  She heard a sound, identified it as Leon slapping a palm on his desk. It was a common gesture of his. “Exactly!” he said. “Do you know Estevan Barbosa? The Federal Police guy in Belem?”

  “No.”

  “His field office is responsible for the region. He’s the guy to turn to.”

  “That’s absurd. Do you know how far we are from Belem?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “More than seven hundred kilometers.”

  “It’s a long haul, I agree. But we don’t have any other option. It’s Barbosa or nobody. Give him a call.”

  “THOSE ARE serious charges you’re making,” Estevan Barbosa said after Jade had finished explaining. “If we’re to have any hope of getting them to stick, we’re going to need proof that the Indians were actually murdered and that white men were responsible for it.”

  Jade wanted to scream, but somehow managed not to. “That,” she said, “is exactly why I need your help.”

  A pause. Static on the line. Finally Barbosa said, “And you shall have it. Except—”

  “What?”

  “My plate is overloaded at the moment. It’s likely to be a couple of weeks before I can get to you.”

  “Weeks? Did you just say a couple of weeks?”

  “Yes. Sorry. Best I can do.”

  “Delegado, we’ve got thirty-nine bodies rotting in the rainforest. At least some have to be autopsied now, before they decompose.”

  “Yes, yes, you’ve got a point. Well, I can help you with that. All you have to do is to get the bodies to me. Dig three or four up, zip them into body bags, and send them to Belem. We’ll do the autopsies here.”

  “With all due respect, Delegado, I think you should come here—and bring a medical examiner with you.”

  Another pause. More static. Just when Jade was beginning to think she had lost the connection, he started to speak again. “Senhora Calmon—”

  “Senhorita,” she corrected him.

  “Senhorita Calmon, you have to understand that this is the only federal police field office in the entire state. Do you have any idea how big it is? The state, I mean, not the field office.”

  “It’s—”

  “It’s more than one point two million square kilometers, that’s what it is. The largest in the republic after Amazonas. We’ve got eight million people living here and a high murder rate. I’m understaffed. Like it or not, priorities get determined for political reasons, and the lives of Indians are at the bottom of every politician’s agenda. Even garbage collection ranks higher.”

  “We’re talking about thirty-nine—”

  He interrupted her. “Senhorita Calmon, either you’re not listening, or you simply don’t want to understand what I’m saying to you. Thirty-nine or a hundred and thirty-nine, it doesn’t matter. The principle still applies. White trumps red. I’m really sorry, but that’s the way it is. Look, here’s what I’m willing to do: let me get a few things squared away here, think about the situation, and call you back in a few days.”

  “Frankly, Delegado—”

  “Please don’t misunderstand me. It’s not that I’m unwilling to come. Quite the contrary. The fishing is great around there, and the local police chief is a friend of mine. The bodies are all in the ground already, right? They’ll keep. As long as we don’t get any heavy rain, that is.”

  MANY WOULD have given up at that point and let the whole situation slide, but Jade Calmon wasn’t a quitter. If the authorities weren’t willing to act on their own initiative, she’d try to pressure them. She placed a call to her friend, Maura Mandel, in São Paulo.

  “How about writing a big, scandalous article in that newspaper of yours?” Jade said. “Maybe it will embarrass someone into doing something.”

  “If it was my newspaper, I’d do it,” Maura said. “But I have an ogre for an editor, and he only comes out of his cave to trample my story ideas.”

  “Why would he want to trample something like this?”

  “Money. It’s a long way from here to there, and he’d be unlikely to approve a trip to your neck of the woods on hearsay.”

  Jade snorted. “So what? Get your father to pay for it. He can afford it.”

  “He can, and he would, and I could even take time off to do it, but the ogre would still demand proof of wrongdoing before he’d let me spill any ink on it.”

  “Proof? Et tu, Maura? Haven’t you been listening? The only way to get proof is to exhume bodies, but if we can’t talk the powers-that-be into doing it, it’s not going to happen.”

  “Don’t despair, minha filha. You remember Lana Nogueira?”

  “Of course I remember Lana Nogueira. Worst damned volleyball player who ever lived. If it hadn’t been for her we would have won—”

  “Don’t get me started. You have any idea what she’s doing these days?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “She’s a lawyer for Direitos Já.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A civil rights group based in Brasilia. When she hears about this, she’s going to be outraged.”

  “And?”

  “And guess who her uncle is.”

  Chapter Six

  AN EC725 SUPER COUGAR was landing on the roof. Chief Inspector Mario Silva took a sip of coffee and waited for the roar to subside.

  “Pará is Barbosa’s turf, right?” he asked when it did.

  The State of Pará was Brazil’s modern-day equivalent of the old American Wild West. Life was cheap; violence, rife; ignorance and poverty, endemic. Silva, urban to his fingertips, shuddered at the thought of spending time anywhere in Brazil’s far north, but he especially despised Pará. Some other states, like Amazonas and Acre, were as bad. Nowhere was worse. Except, perhaps, Maranhão.

  Nelson Sampaio started fumbling with his Mount Blanc, always a bad sign.

  Up above, the engine of the big helicopter kept turning over. The pilot had no intention of lingering on the pad.

  “Right?” Silva insisted.

  “Barbosa is too busy to handle it.”

  “Busy? Barbosa?”

  “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, Chief Inspector.”

  Using Silva’s title was a warning shot. When cornered, the Director of Brazil’s Federal Police turned pugnacious. “I concede that Barbosa is … ah … not as industrious as I might like, but you know his political connections as well as I do. If he says he’s too busy to attend to it …” He didn’t finish his sentence, and he didn’t have to. The meaning was clear.

  “So you’re going to force me to attend to it instead, is that it?”

  “That’s exactly it, and let me remind you that I give the orders around here, not you.”

  The helicopter started revving up for takeoff. When the Director had commandeered the top floor of Brasilia’s new Federal Police building for his office, he’d overlooked the noise he was going to have to put up with from the roof. Another man would have moved by now. Not Sampaio. He wasn’t one to admit he’d been wrong.

  “And lest you think that the FUNAI agent in question is simply an excitable female,” he said, raising his voice so Silva could hear him over the racket of the engine, “let me assure you she’s a serious young woman.”

  “And how do we know that?”

  “Because she’s an old school friend of my niece.”

  So that’s it, Silva thought. That’s what this is all about.

  But he didn’t say it.

  “Now, ordinarily,” Sampaio went on, “I’d take anything Lana say
s with a grain of salt. Save the whales, feed the children, adopt an animal, every week it’s something new, but in this case …”

  Silva put down his cup. “In this case?”

  “Her mother is backing her up.”

  “Because?”

  “Because she knows that FUNAI agent personally. The woman used to frequent their home when they lived in São Paulo.”

  “And?”

  “And my sister is convinced that she’s anything but an alarmist. Which means she isn’t. So stop being obdurate, and start taking notes.”

  “Obdurate?”

  “Obdurate. There’s a two A.M. flight to Belem. I expect you and that sidekick of yours to be on it, so you’d better get cracking.”

  BACK IN his office, Silva opened his atlas and tried to find Azevedo. It wasn’t listed. Then he tried looking it up on the Internet. He couldn’t find it there either. He picked up the telephone and called the number Sampaio had given him.

  “We’re about seven hundred and fifty kilometers west-northwest of Belem,” Jade Calmon told him.

  She sounded every bit the levelheaded young woman Sampaio told him she was. By the time he hung up, he was convinced they were truly dealing with a case of genocide.

  “THAT FUCKING Barbosa,” Arnaldo said when Silva finished briefing him. “If his cousin wasn’t a federal senator, the lazy bastard would have had his ass fired long ago. Does he ever do any work at all?”

  “None of which I’m aware,” Silva said.

  “If it turns out to be disease that killed those people, can we turn around and come back home?”

  “We can,” Silva said. “But it wasn’t.”

  “How many victims are we talking about here?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  “Whoa! Did you just say thirty-nine?”

  “I did. Maybe you’d like to go home and pack a bag. We’re catching a two A.M. flight to Belem.”

  “Two A.M.? Jesus.”

  “Sorry. Boss’s orders.”

  “Who are we going to use for a pathologist?”

  “I asked him if he’d lend us Rodrigues.”

  Arnaldo looked shocked. “You didn’t!”

  “I did.”