"Okay," she said. "What else can you tell me?"
She held her pencil poised.
"At the moment, nothing else. Your turn."
"What do you want to know?"
Hector, calmer now, picked up the questioning.
"Why did you smile when you mentioned Ferraz? What do you know that we don't?"
She dropped the pencil into a coffee mug she'd pressed into service as a penholder. SAO PAULO. 450TH ANNIVERSARY, it said. Red letters on white porcelain with a black outline of the city's most prominent buildings.
"Because I think-as a matter of fact I know-that Ferraz doesn't want the Federal Police snooping around Cascatas."
"And how do you know that?"
"Because I'm doing a little investigation of my own. Not about the bishop's murder. Something else."
"What?"
Diana hesitated, and then shook her head. "It has nothing to do with your case."
"Why don't you let us be the judge of that?"
"Because I've been working on the story for weeks, and I don't want to tip my hand. You can read it when I publish it."
"And when will that be?"
She picked up a cardboard desk calendar and consulted it. "The fourteenth. That's a week from this Friday."
Hector let his displeasure show.
Silva didn't.
"What can you tell us about the Landless Workers' League?" he asked. "Not the movement. I know about that. I'm talking about the local picture. Who runs the league here in Cascatas? What have they been up to recently? Who opposes it?"
Diana pulled another pencil out of the mug. "Why do you want to know?"
Hector and Silva exchanged glances.
"There's been a suggestion made-" Hector said.
"By whom?"
"I can't tell you that, but there's been a suggestion made that Dom Felipe was acting against the best interests of the league. They might have wanted him out of the way, might have killed him."
She dropped the pencil on her desk and made a dismissive gesture. "I don't believe it. Not for a minute. Okay, Dom Felipe came down on liberation theology, and that hurt the league, but that's no reason for them to kill him. As far as the higher-ups in the church are concerned, liberation theology is a dead issue. People like Dom Felipe don't make the rules. The Vatican does, and they're sure to appoint somebody with the same views."
"So liberation theology is dead?"
"I didn't say that. I said it's a dead issue in Rome. Here, on the local level, it's different. There are still a few priests who are-how shall I put this?-sympathetic to the doctrine."
"And who might they be?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Why do you want to know?"
"Another suggestion was that a priest, one of those liberation theologians, might have committed the murder."
She looked at him as if he'd given her a personal affront. "That's insane. Who put an idea like that into your head. Gaspar?"
"I'm not at liberty to say. Why do you think it might have been Father Gaspar?"
"Ah, so it was him. Why do I think so? Because he's like that"-she crossed her index and middle fingers-"with the landowners. One of his favorite themes for a sermon is the inviolability of property. The people from the Association love him."
"The association?"
"Landowners' Association, set up to oppose the league."
Silva nodded knowingly.
"Oppose? How?" Hector said.
"Don't you read anything other than the sports pages?"
Hector reddened and opened his mouth to reply. His uncle stepped on his foot.
"Ever since the government in Brasilia shifted to the left," Diana continued, "the big landowners have been feeling like orphans. The bureaucrats have been grabbing their uncultivated property and giving it away."
"So what?" Hector said. "It's legal, isn't it? And it's not like they don't get paid for it."
"Legal, yes. And, yeah, they get paid for it-eventuallybut most of them don't want the money. They don't need it. They want to keep the land. And there's something else, too."
"What's that?"
The definition of `uncultivated."'
"Seems pretty clear to me."
"As it does to the people from the league. For them, anything that isn't actually planted with food crops is `uncultivated.' The landowners don't see it that way. Some of them run cattle, some plant trees for the paper industry, some of them have land they're allowing to lie fallow for crop rotation. The league goes in anyway. Next thing you know they're setting up tents, occupying farm buildings, planting their own crops, and petitioning the government. It drives the landowners crazy. That's why they set up the association."
"To lobby the government?"
"That too. But also to force the eviction of league members who occupy their fazendas."
"Force how?"
Diana shrugged. "By any legal means possible. But, for some of them, by using capangas, hired gunmen. They contract them in Paraguay and up north in places like Piaui. And sometimes they hire the local cops."
"Like Ferraz?"
"You said it. I didn't. The landowners call the league people communists and anarchists. The league calls the landowners despots and terrorists. The truth of the matter is probably somewhere in the middle. Who wrote that line `in a true tragedy both sides are right'?"
"I don't remember," Silva said, "but from what you're saying, it sounds appropriate."
"It does, doesn't it?" she said, picking up her pencil and making a note to herself before continuing. "There've been excesses on both sides, but most people are only capable of seeing one side of the question. Even the priests."
"Okay, let's get back to them. Where do I find liberation theologians?"
Diana's smile was back. "You don't find them. They no longer exist. Not officially, anyway. They wouldn't be permitted to stay in the church if they did. But if you want to know something about how they used to think and what they used to do, go talk to Brouwer."
"Brouwer?"
"Don't give me that innocent look, Delegado. I wasn't born yesterday. If Gaspar talked to you about liberation theology, he must have talked to you about Anton Brouwer."
"I don't recall telling you that Father Gaspar talked to me at all."
She sighed. "Okay, have it your way. Father Anton Brouwer. He's a Belgian from some little town in Flanders near Antwerp. He's been living here for years, helping the Indians, the orphans, AIDS victims, the street kids, you name it."
"Is he involved with the league?"
She hesitated. "He was once," she said, cautiously. "But since the bishop started cracking down… Well, I can't say."
"Can't or won't?"
"He's a good guy, Brouwer is. He does what he thinks is right."
"You're not answering my question."
"No, I'm not. And I don't intend to. But I'll say this: Brouwer is a priest, not a landless worker. That means he wouldn't qualify for membership, much less leadership, in the league."
"Who runs it?"
"Luiz Pillar."
"Not him," Silva said. "He's in Brasilia. I'm talking about here, locally."
"Most people don't know," she said.
"But you do?"
She thought about the question for a moment and decided to answer. "I do, but I don't print it."
"Why?"
She sighed. "Because when certain landowners manage to identify league leaders, those leaders have a way of turning up dead."
"Like that guy they nailed to a tree?"
"You heard about that, did you? His name was Aurelio Azevedo. Ferraz was in charge of the investigation. He never arrested anyone. Why am I not surprised?"
"You think Ferraz is in bed with the landowners?"
"I think he's a whore who gets into bed with anyone who pays him, and the association pays him. Don't quote me. I can't prove it."
"Who runs the association?"
"The Munizes, father and son. Orlando Senior is the national president. Junior runs the local chapter. He also runs a big ranch-and I mean a really big ranch-that his father owns about fifteen kilometers east of here, the Fazenda de Boa Vista."