“There were shots fired, according to the neighbours,” said Flores.
“They showed this one no mercy,” said Handal. Pineda’s tongue was an enormous lump. It looked as if all the venom had concentrated in that one spot. The Deputy Commissioner spotted the blood in front of the bathroom door and the drops that led out to the street. “They got Bustillo,” he added, after verifying that none of the bodies had any gunshot or knife wounds.
“More like one of the snakes,” Flores said. “A neighbour says he saw the suspect leaving carrying a reptile with its head blown off.”
“Obviously Pineda was the guy Bustillo and his pets were looking for,” Villalta ventured in his high-pitched voice.
Handal got a flash, a feeling, an unmistakable intuition — something that wouldn’t hold up with just the evidence they had so far, but was there, waiting to be discovered.
“Let’s go!” he ordered.
They hurried out of the driveway when they ran into Chele Pedro and his squad, a dozen men in black uniforms carrying M-16 rifles.
“What happened?” the head of DICA asked.
“The snakes,” said Handal, barely stopping.
“What do you mean, the snakes?”
But he was in a rush. He had no time to explain.
“I’ll see you at headquarters,” he said, walking on.
Before they got into their cars, he ordered Flores to get a detailed file on narcotics agent Raúl Pineda, and Villalta to ask Bustillo’s relatives for the name of the woman he had an affair with.
He passed the gas station on the way back. The firefighters had managed to put out the flames, but the whole place reeked. That bastard Bustillo: he loved distracting them before he attacked his real target. Of course! They had to step up the surveillance in the bars and clubs, an attack there would be just what he needed.
The atmosphere at headquarters was anxious, the way it was during the war, when the sight of Handal climbing the staircase commanded more respect. He went into his office and then to the washroom to clean off the grime and to change. He always kept a spare change of clothes. Refreshed, he sat down in his swivel chair, put his feet up on the desk, stuck his left finger deep in his ear and looked at the clock. It was ten-fortyeight.
Then the phone rang. Just what he needed — Rita. She’d been to the gas station and was just leaving Raúl Pineda’s house. What was behind the attacks? What was the link between the events at noon and those this evening? Was there a connection between Mrs. Bustillo and Agent Pineda?
“I’ve been asking myself the same questions, sweetheart,” Handal said reluctantly. “I promise to have an answer for you early tomorrow.” He hung up.
Flores came in carrying a folder with Pineda’s background information. The Deputy Commissioner knew what he was looking for: “Marital status: widower,” it said. Next to that it said the agent’s wife had been killed in a mugging three years earlier. He threw the folder on the desk, satisfied and smiling. Here was the first confirmation of the intuition he’d had about the case. Now he just needed Villalta to bring him a first name, it didn’t matter which, and a very specific last name.
“What’s going on, boss?” Flores asked. “Did you find something?”
Handal got up, went to the whiteboard, erased what he’d written that afternoon, took out a marker and wrote “Jacinto Bustillo” in the middle. Then he put the names “Sofía Bustillo,” “Raúl Pineda,” and “? Pineda” next to it.
“The narcotics agent’s wife was the mistress of the psychopath we’re looking for,” he explained. “I’m sure of it. Everything fits. We just need to confirm the name.”
“But, why did he attack the gas station?” Flores asked.
To distract them, to throw the investigation off, or just for the lunatic murderer’s pure pleasure — what mattered was the revenge. A crime of passion committed three years after the fact.
“Go see Narcotics,” he told Flores. “See if anyone there remembers Pineda’s wife’s name and whether she worked as a secretary at the Steel Tube Company. And look in the files for muggings reported on this day,” he added, opening the folder and pointing to the date. He sat back down in his swivel chair. He felt calmer because the basic motive for the crimes had been found. Now they just needed to arrest that crazy piece of shit. He knew that no matter what, he’d have a sleepless night. He looked at the messages on his desk. One said that Vargas, the chief forensic psychologist, was out of the city and would be back only on Monday. He leafed through the folders of the day’s reports: the bodies of two homeless men who’d fought each other with knives and broken bottles were found with no identification that morning in an alley in the red-light district.
The clock struck eleven.
He called Adriana Sosa to ask if her brother had come back yet. She answered the phone anxiously, because she’d been waiting for some news from Eduardo, but she still hadn’t heard from him. As soon as they got their hands on Bustillo they’d find out whether he had anything to do with the young man’s disappearance, the Deputy Commissioner told himself.
Flores got back to him with the information he was looking for right away — there was a report in the files that stated Mrs. Aurora Pineda, secretary at the Steel Tube Company, had been shot and killed by two thieves. Villalta had gone and disturbed Bustillo’s daughter in the middle of her mother’s wake. She told him she remembered that the bitch her father had got mixed up with was called Aurora or something like that. But Handal wasn’t ready to claim victory yet, much less call the Commissioner without having Bustillo in handcuffs and some minced snake meat.
“Let’s go for a drive,” he ordered.
They were on their way down the stairs when they ran into Chele Pedro and his squad. Overbearing, potbellied and double-chinned, the DICA chief blocked his path.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded.
The Deputy Commissioner explained the facts of the Bustillo case, especially his relationship with Agent Pineda’s late wife. He told him he needed to catch the suspect, who was moving around town in a yellow Chevrolet, right away.
“There’s something fishy going on here,” Chele Pedro mumbled. “Pineda and the boys were in the middle of a very delicate investigation.”
An officer told them that at that very moment, the Commissioner was pulling into the parking lot. They saw him climb the stairs in his immaculate suit, his eyes a little glassy with drink. He’d clearly come from some fancy dinner or reception.
“You two, in my office,” he ordered. He had a fierce look in his eyes and he was scowling. Right away, before they’d even closed the door, he laid into Handal. How could that madman still be out killing people all over the place without having been arrested? And he’d better have a good explanation for the murders of the DICA agents! Didn’t he realize they were the best agents trained by the gringos? And for what? To come back and be killed by a lunatic who was supposedly getting revenge over an affair he’d had with Agent Pineda’s ex-wife three years ago! Did he think anybody was going to buy a story like that?
“It’s the only story that makes sense, sir,” Handal murmured.
The Commissioner had sat down behind his desk and was looking through a pile of folders. Handal and Chele Pedro were standing at attention.