Hector's uncle was in his working uniform, a gray suit. All of Silva's suits were immaculately cut and all of them were exactly the same color. It was one less decision he had to make when he got up in the morning. His mustache, a bushy island of vanity between his nose and upper lip, didn't quite match the color of the suit but only because a few isolated strands of black hair gave a salt and pepper effect to the gray.
Waving off the sergeant's attempt to help him, he carried his own bag down the steps, tossed it into the back seat of the car, and climbed into the front.
They embraced.
"Thank God for air-conditioning," Silva said, when the mutual back patting was done. He reached for his seatbelt, fastened it with a click, and pulled out a handkerchief to mop his brow.
"You think the heat is bad? Wait until you get a lungful of the dust."
"Dust?"
"Dust. The whole town is one big construction site. You want to stop by the hotel and freshen up?"
"No. Let's get right into it. Did you see that colonel? Ferraz?"
"I saw him," Hector said. He let out the emergency brake and slipped into first gear. "He doesn't want any help from us."
"Well, we've run into that before, haven't we?"
"Yeah, but most people feign politeness. Ferraz doesn't. He gave me five minutes of his time and then he threw me out."
The air conditioning was coming up to speed. Silva mopped the remaining perspiration from his forehead and started folding his handkerchief. Hector turned onto the road that would take them back into town.
"You learn anything in your five minutes?" Silva asked.
"A bit."
Hector briefed him on the weapon, the location the sniper had chosen from which to make the shot, the lack of leads, and the little that Ferraz had told him about the political situation. Then he recounted the details of his other interview.
"A priest, eh?" his uncle said when he heard Gaspar's theory.
His voice expressed neither shock nor surprise. There was very little that shocked or surprised Mario Silva.
"That's what he said. Are you familiar with this liberation theology stuff?"
"Oh yes. There was a time when it was considered subversive activity. A lot of those priests were tortured. Others disappeared."
Hector nodded and turned off the main road onto a street lined with warehouses. He didn't ask where the priests had "disappeared" to. The military regime had ended twenty years before, but the clandestine graves of dissidents were still being discovered.
He pulled out a newspaper that he'd stuffed between the two front seats. "The local rag," he said, handing it to his uncle. "The editor is a woman by the name of Diana Poli."
"So?"
"So that's our first stop. They say she knows everything and everybody. I made an appointment."
Diana Poli turned out to be a short, heavyset woman in her mid-thirties with a Marlene Dietrich voice and John Lennon spectacles.
Her only jewelry was a Russian wedding ring-red, yellow and white gold in three interlocking bands-which she wore on the third finger of her right hand. Her hair was prematurely shot with gray, and except for lipstick of an indifferent red, she wasn't using any cosmetics. Her outfit, black jeans and a man's dress shirt, completed a distinctly masculine impression.
The Cidade de Cascatas, her newspaper, occupied a rectangular metal building with galvanized external walls, a tile roof, and a pervading smell of printer's ink.
Diana met them at the reception desk, studied the business cards they gave her, and led them past a rumbling press into a glass-walled office at the back of the building. When she shut the door the noise dropped off by a considerable number of decibels. It wasn't what you'd call quiet, but it was possible to hold a conversation without shouting.
"Double glazing," she said when Hector looked surprised. "Call me Diana. Everyone does. Nice of you to stop by. Saves me the trouble of looking you up. How's the investigation going? Any leads?"
Hector speared her with his black eyes. He didn't actually say, I'm the cop, I'll ask the questions, but he might as well have.
It didn't work. She wasn't in the least intimidated. She leaned across her desk, putting her face closer to his.
"Look, Senhor-"
"Delegado."
"Okay, Delegado… what was your name again?"
"Costa."
"Costa. I'm not just the editor around here. I'm the principal journalist, and I own the newspaper. And before you ask how that came to be, it's because my daddy's rich, I love journalism, and he dotes on his only daughter."
"Senhora Poli-"
"I told you, it's Diana, and it's not senhora, it's senhorita. Let's get a couple of things straight. I'm a serious reporter, not a fucking gossip columnist. If you want anything out of me, you've got to make it a two way street."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that if you expect any answers to your questions, you'd better have some to mine."
"Look… Diana, we've just started this investigation. I can't-"
She held up a hand.
"Hear me out. The bishop's murder is the biggest story ever to hit this town. There are reporters flocking in from all over."
"Yes, we know," Silva said unhappily.
"And I'm the soul of discretion. Ask anybody. If you tell me it's not for publication, not yet anyway, I won't publish it. I just want an inside track."
"How about this," Hector said, "how about we talk about your story after you answer our questions?"
"How about we don't."
"Then how about we charge you with impeding an investigation?"
"Don't you threaten me, Delegado. That won't stick and you know it."
Hector flushed. Silva put his hand on his nephew's arm.
"Let's start all over again," he said. "Hector has been in Cascatas since yesterday. He's a bit upset with the level of cooperation we've been getting."
"So?"
"So he's a little grumpy."
"A little?"
"Don't take it personally."
Diana sat back in her chair and smiled. "Okay," she said. "I won't. Lack of cooperation, huh?"
Silva nodded.
"Ferraz?"
He nodded again. "But that's not for publication," he said.
"What else do you know that isn't for publication?"
"Ferraz has what he claims to be the murder weapon. It's what you might call a sniper rifle, a Sako Classic with a Leupold telescopic sight, if that means anything to you."
Diana picked up a pencil and made a note. "It doesn't, but it will. I'll look it up. What else?"
"The weapon and the cartridge casings are apparently free of fingerprints. The shots seemed to have been fired from the north tower of the new church. That's where the rifle was found."
She made another note. "Have you been able to trace it? The gun, I mean."
"Not yet. We're working on it."
"The killer didn't file off the serial number or anything like that?"
"No. But that probably only means he knows the weapon won't be traceable."
She tapped the paper she'd been writing on. "Why don't you want me to publish this?"
"The ballistics tests haven't been completed. We're not absolutely sure that the rifle is the murder weapon."
She leaned forward. "When will you know for sure?"
"Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning."
"And you'll tell me when you do?"
"I will if you help us."
She leaned back. "Okay, we have a deal. Do you think the murderer was somebody from around here?"
"I'd be guessing."
"Guess."
"Probably. According to the bishop's secretary, the decision to arrive by helicopter was made the day before the murder. There wouldn't have been much time for an outsider to plan the shot, and he probably wouldn't have known how to get access to the tower."