“Police, right?”
“Right.”
“She’s expecting you. Still gonna have to see some ID.”
Everyone reached for their credentials. The guard went through them, making notes on a clipboard as he went.
When he was done, he lifted his arm and signaled to another guard behind the bulletproof glass. That one picked up a telephone. Seconds later, the gate in front of them was opening and a security car was rolling up to lead them to the Mansur home.
“Seems pretty tight,” Hector said.
“Believe me,” Prado said, letting out the brake and putting the van in gear, “they pay for it.”
The gate closed behind them and they started rolling through the streets of the community. The security car kept the speed down to a little less than twenty-five kilometers an hour. Even without the car, they wouldn’t have been able to go much faster: there was a speed bump every fifty meters or so.
“Once you’re in here,” Prado said, “you’re safe. The problem is getting here. The bad guys cover the approach roads like old-time highwaymen, put out sharp stuff to perforate tires and make people stop. And that’s just one of their ploys. Another one is they dress whores in designer clothing, make ’em look like housewives, put ’em next to a car with a flat tire, and then-ah, this is it.”
A hand protruding from the security vehicle was pointing at a red brick house set between two tall palms. Prado pulled into the driveway. The rent-a-cops made a U-turn and drove off.
Senhora Mansur was an attractive woman in her mid-to-late thirties, casually dressed. Pale blue jeans were topped by a baggy sweater. Her hair was drawn back in a severe bun, making a no-nonsense impression. She did not appear to be in any way devastated by her husband’s death. Once they were all seated inside, Prado kicked off the interrogation.
“I apologize, Senhora, for intruding on you at a time like this.”
It was a formula. Every one of the cops present had said it to a bereaved person at one time or another. Silva had probably said it over a hundred times. But he’d never gotten a response like the one Magda gave Prado.
“No, Delegado, I’m the one who should apologize. I’m afraid I shocked that nice man you sent. Tell me, do you think I murdered my husband?”
Silva found her forthrightness refreshing.
“It did cross our minds,” he said, making a bid to take over the interview. Prado sat back in his chair, a sign that he had no objection.
“Of course it did,” she said.
“And did you?” Silva asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “But I thought about it often enough.”
Silva had come prepared to dislike the woman. Instead, he found himself warming to her.
“So you’re not terribly displeased that someone else did it for you?” he said.
“I should have left him years ago. If he was still beating me, I would have. But after I walloped him with one of his golf clubs, a seven iron as I recall, he stopped. We have no children. I’ve got money of my own. So why did I stay with him?”
“Indeed. Why did you?”
“I’d become little more than an object to Luis, something he owned, like a car or a house.” She leaned forward, folded her hands and put her elbows on her knees. Evidently, it was important to her that Silva fully understand what was coming next. “But he didn’t abuse me any more. He paid the bills. He wasn’t jealous. He let me do the things I wanted to do. He was almost never home, and the time he did spend at home he mostly spent sleeping. When I’d tell the women around here that I was considering leaving him, they’d look at me like I was insane.”
“They didn’t think it was important that you no longer loved him? Or that he no longer loved you?”
She smiled and leaned back in her chair. “You don’t know my neighbors, Chief Inspector. Most of the people who live in Alphaville, men and women alike, have another perspective. For them, earning money isn’t a necessity of life, it’s the purpose of life. Love doesn’t enter the equation. The husbands, by and large, are workaholics, and the wives are work widows. They see each other on weekends and not always then. Mind you, I’m not saying all the men are like Luis. They could be loyal husbands, for all I know.”
“Luis had other women? That’s what you’re saying?”
“Yes, Chief Inspector, Luis had other women. Luis chased skirts like dogs chase cats. He couldn’t help himself.”
“You weren’t jealous?”
“You’ve got to feel attraction, or love, or… something to be jealous. What I felt for Luis was disgust. It’s viscerally repulsive to have your husband come home smelling of another woman’s perfume, smelling of sex. He could at least have had the decency to take a bath before he got here. But he never did. He wasn’t a decent man.”
“You were… estranged?”
“I suppose that’s a delicate way of asking me whether I was still sleeping with him. The answer is no. I have my own bedroom now, and I lock the door at night. But he didn’t start whoring around because I’d stopped sleeping with him; I stopped sleeping with him because he was whoring around. And I didn’t want to catch anything worse than the dose of gonorrhea he gave me once.”
“Did he ever mention any of his women by name?”
“He denied they existed. When I was diagnosed, he said I must have picked it up from a seat in a public toilet. I told him it didn’t work like that. So he got his cousin, a medical doctor, to call me up and assure me it was common. I believed him for a while. That was back when I cared, and I wanted to believe it. Now, Chief Inspector, can I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why would a prostitute want to kill him?”
“You’ve been frank with us, Senhora Mansur-”
“Magda.”
“Magda. So I’ll be frank with you. There is a possibility that the person he brought to that motel room murdered him; but that person wasn’t a woman.”
“A man? I don’t believe it. Luis was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a homosexual.”
“The person was a transvestite. By all accounts, your husband was drunk. He took her for a woman.”
A smile creased her face, but she immediately repressed it.
“What a surprise for Luis,” she said.
“Do you think your husband would have reacted violently?”
“It’s hard to say. He had a fear of ridicule. He wouldn’t have wanted to make a scene.”
“But if they were alone in a motel room? Just the two of them?”
“Provided the transvestite was considerably smaller and weaker, Luis would have beaten the crap out of him. The operative words, Chief Inspector, are smaller and weaker. My late husband was a coward.”
“There is another possibility,” Silva said. “If you’ll bear with me for a moment, I’d like to tell you about it.”
“By all means. Please, go ahead.”
“Over the last several weeks, there have been other murders, all committed in essentially the same way. The victims were first shot and then beaten to death. The same weapons, as far as we can determine, were used in all cases. Yesterday, I called your husband. I told him about the other killings, and I warned him that he might be in danger.”
“He had a gun. He always carried it. One time he got robbed on the street-”
“He told me about that. The gun was in his attache case. The case was in his car when the attack took place. He couldn’t get at it.”
“What brought you to Luis? What did he have in common with the other victims?”
Perceptive woman, Silva thought.
“Most,” he said, “were fellow passengers on a flight from Miami to Sao Paulo. One was a stewardess on that same flight. The flight arrived here early on the morning of the twenty-third of November. Does that date ring any bells?”
She shook her head. “Luis was always going back and forth between here and Miami. He had some clients there, probably a girlfriend or two as well.”
“Let me try some names on you.”
“The other victims?”
“Yes. Bruna Nascimento?”
“She was the flight attendant?”
“Yes.”