“No maid?”
“He had one, but she was on vacation.”
“Live-in girlfriend?”
“She wasn’t live-in. But they did have three kids.”
“And he never married her? Betcha she did it. Hell hath no fury and all that.”
“She didn’t do it,” Silva said. “I told you. She was in Bahia.”
“She got any proof of that?”
“Plenty.”
“If it was me, I’d take a closer look at that proof. She’s a natural for it.”
“The cops in Brodowski thought so too. But her alibi is rock-solid.”
“No other suspects?”
Silva shook his head. “And Brodowski isn’t exactly an epicenter of violent crime. The locals are well out of their depth. They’d already filed a request for help.”
“You said four. Who’s the fourth?”
Silva frowned. “That one confuses me.”
He clicked the mouse. A black man in knee-length shorts was staring at the camera with one eye. The other was mashed to a pulp. His bloodstained polo shirt bore the Lacoste crocodile emblem.
“Nice shirt,” Pereira said. “Who’s he?”
“He’s The Man Who Doesn’t Fit. Joao Girotti, a thug with three convictions, one for armed robbery, one for burglary, one for auto theft.”
“A man still in search of his vocation,” Arnaldo said.
“Good riddance,” Pereira said. “Where did this punk end his days?”
“In an alley, in back of a bar, in Brasilandia.”
“Brasilandia?”
“A suburb of Sao Paulo,” Silva said. “A slum. Girotti lived there whenever he wasn’t a guest of the state.”
“Was he gay?”
“Not as far as we know.”
“And the other three you just showed me all had girlfriends. How do we tie four straights to a gay like Rivas?”
“I don’t think we can. I think we’re going to have to discard your original hypothesis of homosexual jealousy as a motive for Rivas’s murder.”
“I’m still gonna find out if Tomas Garcia was here in Brasilia when these people were killed.”
“And you should. But I’m now convinced he’s not our man.”
“Okay, okay, I have to admit, it’s looking pretty thin. But tell me this: what’s a lowlife like Girotti have in common with four respectable citizens?”
“Maybe they were only apparently respectable citizens,” Arnaldo said.
“Okay, so how do we connect Girotti to four apparently respectable citizens?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Silva said. “I don’t have an answer.”
“Any ballistics results on the bullets?”
“Not yet. But…”
“I know, I know, don’t even bother to say it. The MO is just too similar. It’s the same killer. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that the victims are connected. We could be dealing with some sick bastard who picks them at random.”
“That’s possible.”
“But you don’t think it’s likely?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Sao Paulo, Campinas, Ribeirao Preto, Rio, and Brasilia; one killing in each city. That’s almost too random to be random. I think the killer had a reason to go to those places, and I think that reason was that he wanted to kill those specific people.”
“Who was the first?”
“Girotti, the thug.”
“And when was that?”
“Back at the end of November.”
“So it’s been going on for over two months?”
“It has.”
“All right, Mario, I admit it. You were right, and I was wrong. You saved my ass, and I owe you one. Thanks.”
“ De nada.”
“What about that guy in Miami?”
“Gustavo Fernandez.”
“We rule him out?”
“Not just yet. I’ve got a friend, a cop in Miami. He’ll talk to Fernandez.”
“When?” Pereira said.
“Today, when he gets up. It’s three hours earlier in Miami.”
Chapter Eight
The building was three stories tall, ugly, and painted flamingo pink. A concrete sign to the left of the door identified it as the Ocean View.
Detective Sergeant Harvey Willis glanced at the opposite side of the street. “Bullshit,” he said. The building over there was considerably taller and effectively blocked any possible view of the North Atlantic.
But view or no view, the three-story monstrosity he was standing in front of would command healthy rents. The Miami Beach of picture postcards, Bermuda shorts, and tourist-pale knees was only four blocks to the north.
Pierre “Pete” Andre, Willis’s partner, looked at his watch.
“If he’s a night owl,” he said in his soft Creole accent, “he’s not gonna be happy.”
It was a quarter to ten, still very early by Miami Beach standards.
T HE MAN who answered their ring was wearing a light blue T-shirt, darker blue pajama shorts, and an attitude.
“Gustavo Fernandez?” Willis asked.
“What’s it to you?” the man said.
“Detective Sergeant Willis, Miami Beach PD. This”-Willis jerked a thumb toward the black man standing next to him-“is Detective Andre.”
The man ran a hand through his unkempt hair and stared at them out of bleary, brown eyes. He didn’t seem in the least intimidated.
“Cops?”
“Cops.”
“Got any ID?”
“Sure.”
Willis had his badge ready.
The man fish-eyed it. “Something with a picture,” he said.
Willis turned the badge case over and let Fernandez scrutinize his warrant card.
“What do you want with me?” Fernandez said, finally admitting to Willis’s identity. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I didn’t say you did,” Willis said. “May we come in?”
“ Carajo, do you know what time it is?”
“It’s about ten.”
“Middle of the fucking night.”
“Can we come in?”
“Wait,” Fernandez said and shut the door in their faces.
They heard voices from within, Fernandez and another man.
“Ah,” Andre said. “Like that.”
A minute later, the door opened again. The apartment had been pitch-black. Now the overhead lamp was on.
“I hope you’re going to make it quick,” Fernandez said and stepped aside.
The place was a studio, a single room with a kitchenette in one corner and a king-sized bed in the other. Beyond a door on their right, someone flushed a toilet.
Fernandez pointed at a table encircled by four chairs. “Sit there,” he said.
He walked to the window and pulled aside a heavy blackout curtain, revealing the wall of an adjoining building.
“Ocean view, my ass,” Willis whispered to his partner.
On his way back to the table, Fernandez switched off the overhead lamp. “What’s this all about?”
Willis took the lead. “You were an acquaintance of Juan Rivas, right?”
“What’s with the were shit? We’re still acquaintances.”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“It was in the Herald, him being the son of the Venezuelan foreign minister and all.”
“I don’t read the fucking Herald. Where are you going with all this?”
“Juan Rivas is dead.”
“No shit?” Fernandez didn’t look devastated or even concerned, just curious. “What happened to him?”
“He was murdered.”
“Huh.”
“The way we hear it,” Andre said, “you and he-”
Fernandez looked at the door to the bathroom, held up a hand, and lowered his voice.
“He was a friend. That’s all, just a friend.”
“Uh-huh,” Willis said. He reached into his pocket, took out his notebook, and glanced at a page. “According to our information, you also know a guy by the name of…”-he found what he was looking for-“Tomas Garcia?”
“That old fart? Yeah, I know him. So?”
The shower in the bathroom went on; it made a lot of noise. Fernandez looked relieved.
“According to Garcia,” Andre said, “you and Rivas were an item.”
“That’s a load of crap,” Fernandez said.
“Is it? The Brazilian cops have Rivas’s telephone records. They told us the two of you spent a lot of time chatting with each other.”
Fernandez cast another glance at the bathroom door.