Dying Gasp Read online

  “Of course. Today? Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow. He’ll fly up from Brasilia.”

  “My husband normally gets home at seven, but I can ask him to be here earlier.”

  “No need, Senhora. Seven will be fine.”

  Silva summoned Arnaldo.

  “I spoke to the mother of Andrea de Castro. You’ve got a meeting with her and her husband tomorrow evening at seven, in Recife.”

  “Jesus Christ, why do you always save the best stuff for me? What am I supposed to tell them?”

  “As little as possible. Just pump them for information.”

  “Sometimes I hate this job.”

  “The only thing we can do for them is to track down the people who did it.”

  “And what a comfort that will be.”

  “Not much, I know. But if it was your daughter—”

  “I’d want the bastards to pay. All right, what about the cops in Recife? You want me to talk to them?”

  “I do. I’ll call the chief up there, tell him you’re coming. Handle him with kid gloves. He’s related to the mayor, and the mayor is a buddy of the deputado.”

  “That’s one of the things I love about the North. All of those people who manage to get where they are on their own merits. It restores my faith in democracy.”

  “I’ll try for a noon meeting at the delegacia central. The chief’s name is Venantius, Norberto Venantius. If he can’t see you at noon, or if he wants to meet somewhere else, I’ll call you on your cell phone. Here.”

  “What’s this?” Arnaldo said, taking the paper that Silva was offering him.

  “The de Castros’ address.”

  Arnaldo glanced at it and let out a low whistle. “Avenida da Boa Viagem,” he said. “Looks like they’re well off.”

  “They might have been,” Silva said, “but not any more.”

  AVENIDA DA Boa Viagem is the toniest address in all of Recife. One side of the broad thoroughfare is lined with expensive high-rise condos and hotels. Across the street, beyond the beach, white foam breaks over a recife, a reef that gave the city its name.

  The de Castros’ ample terrace, where they received Arnaldo, was high up and had a view of the beach.

  “I thought we’d sit out here,” Otávio de Castro said, coming forward and offering a hand. “I don’t know if you’re a smoker. . . .”

  He was in his midfifties, with brown eyes set into deep sockets of grayish skin. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. “I gave it up,” Arnaldo said.

  “Me too,” de Castro said, forcing a smile. “Four times. I’m Otávio. This is my wife, Raquel.”

  Raquel looked younger than he did. She was too thin, almost gaunt.

  “Why don’t you take that one?” She pointed to one of four metal chairs encircling a table with a glass top. “Can I offer you some refreshment, Agente? Nunes, isn’t it?”

  Arnaldo sat. “Yes,” he said, “Nunes. No, nothing, thanks. I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Well, maybe a glass of lemonade.”

  She must have had some prepared. She returned with a sweating glass and perched on a chair opposite Arnaldo. Her husband, on his feet until then, took one of the remaining two places, pulled it against his wife’s and settled so close to her that their thighs touched.

  “How can we help?” she asked, coming abruptly to the point. It wasn’t strictly polite by Brazilian standards, but Arnaldo forgave her for it.

  “Why don’t we start,” he said, watching her carefully to see how she’d react, “by talking about Andrea’s relationship with Marta Malan? You’re aware of the fact that she, too, is missing?”

  “Yes.”

  She glanced at her husband then back to Arnaldo. “What do you want to know?” she said.

  “Marta’s grandfather, the deputado, told us they’re lovers.”

  Raquel didn’t flinch, didn’t seem taken aback, simply nodded.

  “The deputado doesn’t approve,” Arnaldo said.

  “Neither do we,” Otávio said.

  “But not for the reasons you might expect,” his wife added hastily. “It’s not that we don’t accept Andrea’s sexual preference, it’s just we . . . well . . . it was a bit of a disappointment, at first, knowing she’d never give us grandchildren. She’s our only child, you see.” She crossed her arms and hugged herself, as if she was fighting a chill. Her husband put an arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder.

  Arnaldo made silence his ally. Down below, a wave broke and surf hissed over the sand. After an interval, she went on. “All we want, Agente, is for our daughter to be happy. Almost—let me see, how long has it been?—six years ago, when she started having doubts about her sexuality, she came to me right away. I reassured her, told her it was nothing to be ashamed of. Some people are just born that way.”

  She sought Arnaldo’s eyes, looking for a sign of disapproval.

  She didn’t find one.

  “We’ve always been honest with each other,” she said. “I wanted to keep it that way. Oh, I suppose she must have her little secrets, but she’s open with us about the big things in her life.”

  Arnaldo thought of his sons, how secretive they’d become since entering adolescence. He almost told Raquel de Castro she was lucky, but the words stuck in his throat. He took a sip of his lemonade. It was delicious, just the right combination of tart and sweet, but he found he had to force it down.

  “You knew about, and accepted, her . . . sexual preference, and yet you disapproved of her relationship with Marta Malan?”

  “Because of Marta’s age, Agente. Marta is three years younger than Andrea, sometimes four, depending on the month. The Malan family may have concluded that our daughter led Marta astray, but it wasn’t like that at all. Marta made the first approach, not Andrea. I told Marta’s father that, but he didn’t believe me. Then his father called me, and he—”

  “His father, the deputado?”

  “Yes. The deputado. He accused me of . . . pandering for my daughter.”

  “If I lived in Recife,” Arnaldo said, “the deputado wouldn’t get my vote.”

  “He never got ours,” Otávio said. “Not even before that telephone call.”

  “Have they known each other long?” Arnaldo asked. “Andrea and Marta?”

  “More than a year.”

  “So Marta must have been fourteen when they met?”

  “Exactly. That’s the reason we disapproved. Otherwise, they’re well suited to each other, similar interests in every way. Marta is very mature for her age.”

  “What did you do when your daughter told you she was . . . seeing a younger girl?”

  “I talked with both of them, told them they weren’t going to share a bed in this house, told them that if they really loved each other they were going to have to wait.”

  “And they wouldn’t agree?”

  “Teenagers are teenagers, Agente. Do you have any children?”

  “Two. Both boys, both teenagers.”

  Raquel lifted her hands, palms upward. “Then you know what I’m talking about,” she said.

  Arnaldo was a first-class interrogator, good at reading his subjects. He liked what he saw and heard from Raquel and Otávio de Castro. They were being honest with him, holding nothing back.

  But he was. And the burden weighed on him.

  Raquel noticed.

  “Are you all right, Agente?”

  “Just . . . tired,” he said. Then, before she could ask him anything else, he inquired, “When was the last time you heard from your daughter?”

  “That would have been the message she left on the answering machine,” Raquel said promptly.

  “Message?”

  She frowned at him, surprised.

  “I told the officers about it. I’m sure they wrote it down. Didn’t they put it in their report?”

  “In a case like this,” Arnaldo said, “we don’t start by reading other people’s reports. We get to them eventually, but w
e find it works better when we begin by collecting information first-hand.”

  “Maybe I’d better tell you the whole thing then,” she said. “I think that would be best.”

  She took time to gather her thoughts. Below the transparent surface of the table, Arnaldo could see Otávio squeezing his wife’s hand.

  “Marta’s father came home and found the two of them in bed,” Raquel said. “They were . . . in a compromising position. He pulled Andrea off the mattress by her ankles. Marta screamed. Andrea started gathering her clothes, but he didn’t give her time to find her shoes. He grabbed her by the wrist, dragged her to the front door and threw her out. Then he took a belt to his daughter. When he finished beating her, he locked her in her room, but Marta had a toolbox under her bed. She waited until her parents were asleep and took the door off its hinges. She came straight here and rang our doorbell. By that time it was a little before four in the morning. She and Andrea started talking about running away together. We—”

  Raquel looked at her husband and bit her lip. He took up the tale.

  “—discouraged it,” he said. “I’m a lawyer. I explained to Marta that she’s still under the custody of her parents. She had no right to run away, and if she did, they’d have every right to bring her back, forcibly if necessary. I told her she’d have to go home and face the music.

  “They asked for time to discuss it. They went into Andrea’s room and came out about fifteen minutes later. They said they understood. Andrea was dressed by that time, and the sun was already up. She said she was going to walk Marta home. That was the last time we saw her.”

  “Weren’t you suspicious?”

  Otávio shook his head.

  “We’re not accustomed to having our daughter lie to us. Discretion is one thing, an out-and-out lie is another. I didn’t think Andrea would ever do that.”

  “You mentioned a message on your answering machine.”

  “Yes,” Raquel said. “That was later. She left it at a time when she knew Otávio would be at work, and I’d be out shopping.”

  “How could she know you’d be out shopping?”

  “On Wednesdays, there’s a feira, on the Rua Santa Rita. It’s where I go to buy fresh vegetables and fruits. Andrea could have called me on my cell phone, but she didn’t. She called here, when she knew I’d be at the feira.”

  “Did you save the message?”

  “I meant to. I erased it by mistake.”

  “We both heard it, though,” Otávio said hastily. “We listened to it several times. Even if we’d kept it, it wouldn’t have added anything to what we know.”

  Otávio was wrong. Sometimes the electronics guys could pull amazing things out of the background noise of a recording, but Arnaldo decided not to mention that. The couple was already suffering, and there would be a great deal more suffering still to come.

  “She said she was with Marta,” Raquel said. “She said Marta didn’t want to go home. They’d taken a nap on the beach. A woman had come along and started talking to them. She told them she was a talent scout. Our Andrea is a pretty girl. So is Marta Malan. The woman offered them jobs as models. They thought it was a godsend. Literally, as if it was a sign from God that He was blessing their relationship.”

  Arnaldo looked at each of Andrea’s parents in turn. They didn’t give any more credence to that story than he did. He wondered if the girls had always been that naïve, or if they’d simply grasped at a straw.

  “I suppose Marta must have lied about her age,” Otávio said.

  “If the woman ever asked,” Arnaldo said, “which I’ll bet she didn’t.”

  “Andrea said I wasn’t to worry,” Raquel said. “Imagine that. What was she thinking? How could I not worry?”

  “I don’t suppose she said where they were going?” Arnaldo said.

  “Oh, but she did,” Raquel de Castro said. “She said they were going to Manaus.”

  Merda, Arnaldo thought.

  But he didn’t say it.

  Chapter Twelve

  RECIFE/BRASILIA/MANAUS

  ARNALDO NUNES ARRIVED AT RECIFE’S delegacia central at 11:55 the following morning. The corporal on the reception desk was a slim fellow with a wispy beard who looked more like a clerk than a cop. Before Arnaldo had a chance to say anything, the corporal asked, “You that federal guy, Nunes?”

  “Do I look that much like a cop?”

  “Frankly, yeah,” the corporal said. He picked up the phone. “You’re expected. Have a seat over there.”

  Two minutes later, a tough-looking brunette with a shoulder bag came into the reception area and stuck out a hand.

  “Vilma Santos,” she said. “I’m your lunch date.”

  Vilma had dark brown eyes and used little makeup. She had broad shoulders and stood erect. Her grip was as strong as a man’s.

  “Come on,” she said. “My car is out front.”

  When they were seated in her beat-up Fiat, she said, “I’m a delegada. You call me Vilma. I’ll call you Arnaldo. You know Olinda? You like pitu?”

  As a delegada, Vilma was a senior cop. Olinda was the ancient colonial city bordering on modern Recife. Pitu, a freshwater crayfish, was a specialty of the region.

  “Yes and yes,” Arnaldo said. “We gonna meet the chief?”

  “Nope,” she said. “I’m all you get. You work with Silva?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Cool. I wish I did.”

  “How come I don’t get to see Venantius?”

  “You’re not important enough.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re just an agente, so you get me.”

  Arnaldo looked her up and down. “I’m not complaining,” he said.

  The drive to Olinda took twenty minutes. It was a city long past its prime, many of the historic buildings in near ruin. Century-old palm trees and stately churches spoke of former grandeur. She took him to a restaurant fronting the sea. They chose the terrace, shaded by an awning.

  “Actually,” she said, “you’re better off with me than you’d be with the chief.”

  “I told you, I’m not complaining.”

  She leaned closer. Arnaldo could smell her perfume, something citric, like sweet lime juice laced with orange blossoms. “You know who Norberto Venantius’s big brother is?” she asked.

  “The mayor?”

  “Bingo. Norberto doesn’t know shit about law enforcement. He went from running the family’s sugar mill to chief of police in one easy step. The mayor figures to move on soon. He’s gonna be the governor, and Norberto’s gonna be the candidate for his old job. He’ll win.”

  “Like that, is it?”

  “Yeah, it’s like that. The old families still run this town. But don’t be hurt that he won’t see you. The chief doesn’t spend time with anyone who knows anything at all about police work. They’re liable to embarrass him by asking him questions about which he knows less than nothing.”

  “Like catching felons?”

  “Exactly. And he’s too pompous to want to be embarrassed. Something else too: he hates dealing with anybody who isn’t important.”

  “Like me?”

  “Like you.” She looked him up and down. “But I’m not complaining.” She flashed him a grin. “I see you wear a wedding ring. You play around on the side?”

  “No,” Arnaldo said.

  “Good for you,” she said.

  They drank beer with the pitu, peeling them as they went. During the meal, she rehashed the situation, then added, “It’s a political hot potato. The mayor is big buddies with Deputado Malan.”

  “Yeah, I heard. So what’s your conclusion? What happened to the girls?”

  “At first, I assumed they were runaways.”

  “But you don’t any more?”

  “No.”

  The waiter intervened, bringing them little bowls of warm water, slices of fresh lime floating on top, and linen napkins with which to clean their hands. When he’d gone away, Arnaldo asked, “What made you chang
e your mind?”

  “A girl who calls her parents within a few hours of leaving home, you think a girl like that’s going to let a couple of months go by before she calls again?”

  “I guess not. Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Arnaldo signaled the waiter. He arrived with two cups and left with the plate of pitu shells.

  “Something happened to her in Manaus,” Vilma said, “or on her way to Manaus, or maybe some sicko killed her right here in Recife and hid her body.”

  Arnaldo took a sip of his coffee. It was first-rate, and he said so, then added, “And you figure whatever happened to Andrea happened to Marta as well?”

  “Marta’s father is a drunk and a womanizer. Her mother is just a drunk. They’ve got money and influence, but they’re not happy people. It must have been a relief for Marta to get away. But she and Andrea were more than just good friends. They’d stick together. Whatever happened to Andrea happened to Marta as well. I’d bet on it.”

  Arnaldo was itching to tell Vilma what he knew, but he didn’t.

  “So I guess you asked the cops in Manaus to keep an eye out for her,” he said.

  She sat back in her chair and expelled air through her mouth. “You know Manaus?”

  Arnaldo nodded. “Unfortunately,” he said.

  They exchanged a look.

  “The cops are worse than the town itself,” she said.

  “Nothing’s worse than the town itself,” Arnaldo said.

  “The cops are worse,” she repeated. “They’re lazy and crooked, and every request we make for help falls into a black hole. We never got answers. I told Norberto I wanted to go up there and have a look around.”

  “You must love your job.”

  “It’s my substitute for not being able to find a good man.” Arnaldo didn’t want to go there.

  “And what did Venantius say?” he asked.

  “He said he wasn’t going to send me off on vacation, that he had better things to do with his budget.”

  “Vacation? I guess he’s never been to Manaus.”

  “I guess not. Anyway, I don’t think it had anything to do with the money. I think he did it to get off the hook. If Marta and Andrea are in Manaus, they’re out of our jurisdiction. That means it’s no longer Norberto’s problem.”