“He could have hired someone else to do it. Talk to him anyway.”
Mara nodded and made a note.
Sampaio turned back to Silva.
“Did you consult with Godofredo?”
“No.”
“Why not? As I recall, I instructed you to do so.”
“You did, Director, but I haven’t had the time.”
Sampaio stabbed his pencil in Silva’s direction.
“But you had plenty of time to talk to that felon, Rosa, right?”
“We talked to him, yes.”
Sampaio dropped his pencil and held out his hands, palms upward.
“And?”
Silva told him about Rosa’s conclusions.
Sampaio shook his head. “Rosa’s all wet. You’re wasting your time with that guy.”
“I don’t think so, Director.”
“But I do. And the last time I heard, I’m running this shop.” He picked up his pencil. “Let’s go over this again step by step.” He reversed the pencil and tapped the eraser three times on the table. “Answer me yes or no. Lefkowitz thinks the kidnappers had a key to Juraci’s house, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re inclined to agree with him?”
“Yes.”
“Three sets of keys were found in the house?”
“Yes.”
“Both the locksmith and the Artist confirm that Juraci ordered four?”
“Yes.”
“The fourth set was with the Artist and his girlfriend.”
“Yes.”
“But it seems to have gone missing for a while and then mysteriously turned up?”
“Not so mysteriously. The Artist-”
The director waved his pencil. “All right. All right. Strike the word mysteriously. The fourth set went missing and later turned up. Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
Sampaio leaned forward, a sign he was coming to the end of his peroration.
“And it’s obvious the Artist wouldn’t kidnap his own mother.”
“Yes.”
“And, therefore,” Sampaio said, with a smile of triumph, “his girlfriend, Cintia Tadesco must be involved.”
“No.”
“No?” Sampaio’s smiled faded. “What do you mean no? I just took you through it step by step. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. She’s in it up to her neck.”
“Not necessarily. Not if there was a fifth set of keys.”
Sampaio tossed down his pencil in a sign of frustration.
“A fifth set? Who said anything about a fifth set?”
“I’m introducing a supposition.”
“Introducing a supposition, my ass! You’re groping. Groping in the dark. How big is Granja Viana?”
“Big. It stretches over two municipalities.”
“So there’s no way you could search every house, right? I mean, it would take you weeks.”
“It would.”
“And by that time, Juraci Santos is going to be either free or dead. Same thing applies to investigating carrier pigeons. By the time you finish investigating every enthusiast, every club member, every dealer in birds, she’ll be free or dead.”
“I’m sorry, Director, but that really is all we have to go on at the moment.”
“Meanwhile, the Minister has his teeth in one side of my ass and the President in the other. What are you smiling at?”
“The metaphor, Director. Only the metaphor.”
“If Captain Miranda found someone making inquiries about diamonds, how come you can’t?”
“We’re trying, Director. We have men on the street asking questions; we’ve been in contact with all of our confidential informants.”
“Why don’t you talk to your snitches?”
“Confidential informants, Director, are what we call snitches.”
“I know that, I know that,” Sampaio said, recovering quickly from the faux pas. “What I meant was, why don’t you talk to them instead of just being in contact with them?”
It made no sense. Nobody bought it, and Sampaio could see nobody bought it. He went on hurriedly.
“So what now?”
“Now,” Silva said, “we’re hoping for a break.”
“A break? What kind of break?”
“On the diamonds. We’ve circulated details of the weights, quality and cuts to law enforcement nationwide. We’ve asked them to get in touch with dealers and jewelers in their area.”
“You think they’ll do it?”
“All of them have their own problems to deal with, and most of them are understaffed. But, in this case, I think the response is likely to be better than usual.”
“Why?”
“They know the Artist won’t be doing his best unless we find his mother. And everyone in this country wants to see the Artist doing his best.”
“And you really think people are going to buy into the idea that finding the diamonds will help to find her?”
“I do.”
“I don’t. If this situation wasn’t so serious,” Sampaio said, “I’d laugh you right out of this conference room.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
If, in the summer of 1939, anyone in Salerno had suggested to Francesco Romanelli that he might emigrate to Brazil, he would have laughed them out of his shop.
Francesco had a prosperous jewelry business. He counted some of the leading families of Sicily among his customers. He had a strapping son of nineteen, Marcello, offspring of his union with Maria of Blessed Memory. He had a handsome new wife, Clara, eighteen years his junior, who tolerated his marital attentions and infidelities with equal stoicism. And for the first time he could remember, maybe for the first time ever, the trains all over Italy were running on time. Six years later, Marcello was dead, killed in that insanity in North Africa. Francesco’s business was in ruins. The country was an economic basket case, and Il Duce, the man who’d made the trains run on time, had been strung up on a lamppost in Milan.
Before the war, Francesco’s youngest cousin, Giuseppe, the one who stood to inherit the least, had picked up his family and moved to someplace in America called Brodowski. Francesco still had Giuseppe’s address somewhere. He found it, wrote a letter, and much to his surprise, got a reply within a month.
It turned out that this Brodowski was, indeed, in America, but it was South America, Brazil to be precise.
Giuseppe was happy with his life there. There were opportunities for Francesco as well. Giuseppe would be happy to have company from the old country. Francesco could stay with him for as long as he liked.
So Francesco, as soon as he’d saved enough for the fare, sold out, packed up his few remaining goods and took Clara off to Brazil. She was, by then, already pregnant with Luigi.
Francesco and Clara’s only son was born on a coffee plantation in the interior of the State of Sao Paulo. By the time he was eleven, his father had saved enough to set up a modest shop in the neighboring city of Riberao Preto, where he proceeded to teach his son, Luigi, everything he knew about jewelry and gemstones.
By the time Francesco died, in 1991, Luigi had surpassed his father in knowledge of precious stones, but he’d never held in his hand a stone more precious than the one he was holding now.
He looked across the counter of his shop, taking in the fellow who was offering it for sale. There was definitely something shifty about him, which immediately caused Luigi to remember the circular that some cabo from the Policia Militar had dropped off on the morning of the previous day.
He’d done no more than scan it, but he remembered where he’d put it: on the right-hand side of his worktable.
“I’ll have to take a closer look at this,” he said to the man who’d brought the stone. “Have you got a few minutes?”
The man said he did, so Luigi told Priscila, his sole employee, to keep an eye on things while he did an evaluation. He went into the back, switched on the light and read the circular, this time with care.
The police were looking for diamonds of exceptional quality and cut and weights between three and five carats. It was just such a stone that he held in his hand.
If he’d had any idea how little the shifty man knew of the gem’s true value, and for how little he’d have been willing to sell it, Luigi might not have called the police.