“A question for you, then.”
“What?”
“The kidnapper’s demand that payment be made in diamonds…”
“Yes?”
“Who have you told about it?”
“Me? Nobody.”
“And the Artist?”
“You guys asked to keep it quiet. That’s what we did.”
“You’re sure you didn’t confide in anyone else?”
She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, I’m sure.” Then, more sharply: “I don’t like repeating myself. What’s this about?”
“Captain Miranda called me. He knows about the diamonds.”
“That bicheiro? What’s he got to do with it?”
“He’s helping us with our inquiries.”
“ Helping you with your inquiries? Oh, please. You trying to sound like you’re Scotland Yard?”
Silva, with an effort, managed to keep his temper.
“We’re meeting tomorrow. He hopes to have more information by then. Meantime, please continue to keep quiet about the diamonds.”
“It’s gonna get out anyway. The kid who runs the website knows, which means his father, Tico’s agent, knows, which means a lot of other people know, because a bigger-mouthed filho da puta was never born. And then there are all the cops that know.”
“I don’t think-”
“The cops would let it slip? Ha! Don’t make me laugh. From what I hear, cops are cheap. You buy them a meal, or a drink, and they spill their guts. Oh, hey, sorry, it didn’t occur to me until just now that you’re a cop.”
“Are you trying to be offensive, Senhorita Tadesco?”
“I’d say I’m succeeding. Wouldn’t you?”
She hung up.
Silva slammed down the phone.
“Bitch,” he said.
“Who?” Mara said, coming in from the corridor.
“Cintia Tadesco.”
“Why were you talking to her?”
Silva told her.
“Sounds like that visit you two made to Miranda paid off,” Mara said.
“He called Arnaldo a gorilla.”
“Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all,” Mara said. “How about that dinner?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Silva was staying at the Sorrento, a small hotel within walking distance of Hector’s office. When his cell phone rang just before seven the following morning, he was sound asleep. He groped for it and put it to his ear.
“Silva.”
“I’m at Miranda’s place,” Hector said. “His home, not his office. I sent a car to pick you up.”
“What happened?”
“Turn on the television.”
“Which channel?” Silva said, reaching for the remote.
“Take your pick,” Hector said. “It’s on all of them.”
The coverage of the explosion, and the fire that followed, was being carried live. Silva watched the images while he dressed. He was knotting his tie when the reception desk called to tell him his car was waiting.
He arrived to find Arnaldo, Hector and Goncalves surrounding the man in charge of quelling the blaze, a fire captain named Godoy.
“So that’s all I can tell you,” Godoy was saying, “but we should have some answers soon.”
Silva was introduced, shook hands with the captain, and squinted upward into the morning light.
“Miranda lived in the penthouse,” Hector said.
The building had been eight stories tall. Now it was seven.
“Bomb?” Silva asked.
Godoy shrugged.
“Give me another explanation then.”
“It’s like I just told these guys, I don’t want to speculate. I’ve got an examiner up there now. Go have some coffee. Come back in half an hour.”
The cops went to a nearby padaria and took their cups to a table.
“Miranda was there when it happened,” Hector said.
“That’s confirmed, is it?” Silva asked.
“He got home at around ten-thirty last night. He never left.”
“That based on surveillance tapes?”
Hector nodded. “Time-coded. Security is, if anything, even tighter than at his office.”
Silva drained his coffee. “Run me through it.”
“To start with, Miranda’s elevator goes directly to his penthouse.”
“ Went directly to his penthouse,” Arnaldo said. “That elevator doesn’t go anywhere anymore.”
“Went, then,” Hector said. “The point is, no stops along the way. You could get on, or off, either from the garage or the penthouse, no other options.”
“Stairwell?” Silva asked.
“Sealed with a grate and rigged with an alarm. The grate is on the floor below, steel, hinged, triple-locked and set into a steel frame. The frame is embedded in the wall. Godoy’s examiner couldn’t open the locks, so she had to cut her way through it.”
“She? A woman?”
“Either that, or a guy with long hair, a high voice and breasts,” Arnaldo said.
Silva ignored him.
“Only the one elevator?”
“There are two others,” Hector said, “social and service, running upwards from the garage, but programmed not to go any further than the floor below Miranda’s. And to make damned sure they didn’t, steel girders were welded across the shafts.”
“He’d be good and stuck, wouldn’t he, if there was a power failure.”
“He had a generator in his apartment.”
“Big enough to power the elevator?”
“So I’m told.”
“Security cameras?”
“The building runs one on every entrance, including the garage. Miranda had two more of his own, one in the stairwell, one in the elevator.”
“The recorders for those two?”
“Upstairs, in the apartment.”
Silva glanced upward at the smoldering ruin.
“So they’re toast?” he said.
“They’re toast,” Hector confirmed.
“Guards?”
“Two in the apartment, one in the garage. The guy in the garage survived.”
“Other fatalities?”
“Miranda’s wife and two kids.”
Silva narrowed his eyes. “Kids? There were kids?”
“Third wife. Eight and six, both girls.”
Nothing affected Silva so much as the murder of children.
“You figure this is business related?” Hector said, breaking a short silence. “Some rival trying to take over Miranda’s bank?”
“Maybe,” Silva said. “But…”
Arnaldo caught his meaning and shook his head. “A job like this,” he said, “takes time to set up, lots more time than just a few hours. Besides, who knew Miranda was going to talk to us?”
“Cintia Tadesco,” Silva said. “Cintia Tadesco knew Miranda was going to talk to us.”
“She couldn’t have done it on her own. She would have needed help.”
“Five million dollars buys a lot of help. How about access to the garage from the outside?”
“Two sets of gates, on tracks, motor controlled. You go down the ramp and honk your horn. They check you out on the TV camera and open the first gate. Then they close it behind you before they open the second.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
The doormen in the lobby.”
“Is that the only switch?”
“It is.”
“Can both gates be opened at once?”
Goncalves shook his head.
“Do they issue remote controls to the residents?”
“No, and they don’t open the gates to anyone but them-or people they authorize-in person.”
“Other entrances?”
“The social entrance faces the street. The service entrance faces a parking lot in the rear. Access to the lot is via a driveway that runs along the side of the building.”
“The tapes?”
“I looked at the ones of the front door and the service entrance. I haven’t had time yet for the garage.”
“Anything suspicious?”
“Not yet. The images are lousy. The recorders are VHS devices, older than my grandmother. They run on a twentyfour hour loop. I shut the system down as soon as I got here, but by then it was hours after the explosion.”
Silva glanced at his watch. “It’s time. Let’s go back and hear what that fire examiner has to say.”
Elisabeth Correia had a smudged face and looked to be in her mid-thirties. Her heavy yellow coat was two sizes too big. When she took off her helmet, spiky black hair protruded in all directions.