There was no radio, no television, but they’d left her a stack of old magazines. She was grateful for that.
Her captors were two, one tall and broad-shouldered, one of less than average height and girth for a man, but average on both counts if the captor was a woman. Their outfits were identicaclass="underline" blue coveralls, a hood made of blue cloth, black tennis shoes and vinyl gloves.
They rotated, first one, then the other, never coming into her cell together, never speaking.
Except once.
That time, they had come in together. The big one had handed her a newspaper, and told her how to hold it, while the smaller one took a photograph.
That incident happened shortly after she awoke. The flash had made her headache worse. They’d taken the newspaper with them when they’d left.
Were they people she knew?
The thought disturbed her.
Something else disturbed her, too.
Back in her bedroom, before the big oaf put the needle in her arm, she’d heard two sharp reports.
In the favela of her childhood, such sounds were everyday events, background noise, like birdsong in the countryside, or surf on a beach. She’d heard them many hundreds of times.
Gunshots.
Chapter Sixteen
Irene asked him when he’d be coming home.
“We talked about that yesterday,” Silva said, and then regretted it. It would pain her to know she’d been so drunk she couldn’t remember.
“I… I miss you,” she said, in a small voice, slurring her speech. He took it for what it was-a drunken attempt to apologize.
“And I miss you, Irene. Now, let me talk to Maria de Lourdes.”
Silva no longer felt comfortable about leaving his wife alone, not since the day, almost three months ago, when he’d come home to find her in a stupor on the kitchen floor. She’d hit a corner of the table on the way down, and the gash had bled profusely. He thought, at first, that she’d been shot, there was so much blood on the tiles.
He’d promptly hired Maria de Lourdes Krups, their former cleaning woman, as Irene’s full-time companion.
Despite her somewhat Teutonic surname, Maria de Lourdes was a mulata from Parana, fiercely loyal to Silva and infinitely patient with his alcoholic wife. The loyalty stemmed from a favor he’d done her once, an affair linked to her only son, like Silva’s, now dead.
“Senhor?” Maria de Lourdes said.
“I should have called earlier, shouldn’t I?”
“I’m sure you’ve been busy, Senhor.”
“It’s early in the day for her to be that far along. Has she had any more than usual?”
“No, Senhor. Sometimes it’s just…”
“I understand. Call me on my cell phone when she’s gone to bed.”
“ Si, Senhor.”
Silva hung up. Mara stopped typing on her laptop. Arnaldo put down his pencil.
“How is she?” Arnaldo said.
“The usual. Hasn’t had a fall, though, for almost a month.” “Because Maria de Lourdes follows her around like a mother hen.”
“Maybe. She’s a jewel, that woman.”
“Why don’t you just cut her off?” Mara asked. “Stop buying it for her. Don’t give her any money.”
“Doesn’t work,” Silva said. “You can’t force a cure on an alcoholic. They have to want to get cured.”
“Irene doesn’t want to get cured?”
“Not yet.” Silva changed the subject. “That call you took while I was talking to her? Was it about the keys? The ones you picked up at the Artist’s place?”
“It was. They fit. No useful prints other than those of Cintia and the Artist.”
“And Cintia Tadesco’s skin?”
“Perfect. The bitch.”
“Bitch is right,” Arnaldo said. “I do so hope she’s mixed up in this. If she is, I want to be the one to cuff her.”
“Get in line, Nunes,” Mara said. “Ladies first.”
“What was in the syringe?” Silva asked.
“We don’t know,” Mara said. “Not yet.”
“Hurry the lab along.”
“I’m on it.”
“Ballistics?”
“The bullets that killed both maids were fired from the same weapon.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Arnaldo said, and would have said more, but just then, they heard footsteps approaching in the corridor, a woman’s high heels, moving fast. They all looked at the door.
Celeste, one of the Mara’s people, bustled into the room. She was clearly excited.
“A tip,” she said. “There’s a warehouse in Bom Retiro-”
“That neighborhood is nothing but warehouses.”
“Let her talk, Nunes,” Mara snapped. “Go on, Celeste.”
“This particular warehouse has been abandoned for ages. Then, yesterday, at about seven in the morning, a truck pulled up in front. Two men got out, unloaded a packing crate, and carried it inside.”
“Big crate?”
“Big enough to contain a human being. The truck drove off. The men stayed. They’ve been there ever since.”
“Who called it in?”
“A neighbor, a widow lady, name of…”-Celeste consulted the paper she was holding-“Garcia.”
“Who took the call?”
“Marlene. She says Garcia sounds like an old biddy, a selfappointed watchdog of the neighborhood.”
“Nothing terribly suspicious in what you’ve told us up to know,” Silva said. “There must have been more, something that prompted the Garcia woman to pick up her phone”
“There was,” Celeste said.
“What?”
“She heard a woman scream.”
Less than an hour later, a hostage rescue team headed by Gloria Sarmento had taken up positions around the warehouse. Gloria, dressed in gray coveralls, wearing a headset, and carrying an H amp;K MP-5, was peeking out through a gap in Senhora Garcia’s curtains. From the old lady’s living room, she had a clear view of the warehouse’s front door.
Hector was on Senhora Garcia’s roof with three of Gloria’s snipers. Gloria’s number two, Raul Franco, and three other members of the team, were on a parallel street, covering the rear exit.
Silva studied the lady who’d called in the tip. She looked like a friendly grandmother, appeared to be about eighty, had watery eyes and thick eyeglasses.
“It was more than one scream,” she said. “It was a whole lot of shrieking. I called right away, but your answering system put me on hold for almost fifteen minutes.” She stuck an accusing finger in Silva’s face. “That screeching, Chief Inspector, was almost an hour and a half ago. It sounded like they were torturing the poor woman. God knows what they’ve done to her by now.”
“We’re short-staffed, Senhora Garcia. Sometimes it creates problems.”
“If you ask me, the law enforcement in this country is getting worse and worse. You can say what you like about the dictatorship, but if you called the police in those days, they showed up right away.”
“Really?” Arnaldo said. “Did you have occasion to call them often?”
“What are you?” she snorted. “A goddamned pinko?”
“Tell us about the packing crate,” Silva said.
“It was wood,” she said, “and plenty big enough for a person.”
“Painted?”
“No, and nothing written on it either. What are you standing around talking to me for? Why don’t you just go in there, grab those bastards and kick the shit out of them?”
“Will you be my grandma?” Arnaldo said.
“How would you like my cane shoved up your ass?”
“What do you remember about the men who were carrying the box?” Silva said.
“Did I tell you they were men?”
“You told the lady who took your call.”
“They were men. I’m just keeping you on your toes.”
“How were they dressed?”
“The shorter one was wearing a coverall like Superwoman’s over there, except hers is gray and his was blue.”
“Who are you calling Superwoman?” Gloria said, fingering the trigger on her machine pistol and looking as if she’d like to use it. She’d been in the room with Senhora Garcia longer than any of the others.