The federal cops drew their pistols and took up positions, two on each side of the frame. Silva nodded to Virgilio. Virgilio pressed the doorbell, a harsh, loud buzzer. Someone turned down the volume on the television set. They heard a woman’s footsteps, approaching the door, coming to a stop on the other side.
“Who’s there?”
“Virgilio, from downstairs, Senhora. I’ve got a package.”
The chain came off. The door started to swing open. Virgilio stepped back. Hector stepped in front of him, holding his Glock in both hands.
Aline Arriaga was still in her work clothes. The laser sight from Hector’s pistol painted a dot of red light on her white blouse.
She put a hand to her mouth. For a moment they all stood there, frozen. Then Aline’s shoulders slumped.
“Put the gun away,” she said. “I’m not going to give you any trouble.”
But Hector didn’t put the gun away.
“Take a step backward,” he said. “Turn around. Put your hands behind your back.”
She complied. Arnaldo stepped forward with his handcuffs, shackled her wrists.
“So soon,” she said. “I didn’t expect you so soon.”
Her remark irritated Silva. He didn’t think it was soon at all. Not soon enough for Bruna Nascimento, not soon enough for any of the innocent victims. He blamed himself for not having gotten to the bottom of it earlier. It seemed so obvious now.
“This is about Rivas, isn’t it?” she asked.
“No, Senhora, it’s about guilt and innocence. Someone is guilty of the murder of a number of perfectly innocent people. We think it was you.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me about guilt and innocence! My son was innocent. Someone is guilty of killing him. And how much effort did you put into finding that person? None at all, that’s how much!”
She leaned forward, trying to get closer to Silva.
Arnaldo pulled her away, forced her into a chair and held her there. She tried, at first, to shake him off, but when she realized how strong he was, she stopped struggling.
“You say this isn’t about Rivas,” she said, “but you’re lying through your goddamned teeth. You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know how things work in this country? How the rich and powerful get justice and the rest of us can go to hell? Rivas is an important man. Your superiors are on your necks. You need someone to blame. It’s a simple as that.”
“No, Senhora,” Silva said, “it’s not as simple as that.”
But she wasn’t listening.
“None of you gives a good goddamn about people like me,” she said. “You’d sing a different tune if you’d ever lost a child.”
At that, Hector, Arnaldo, and Goncalves all looked at Silva. But Silva had eyes only for Aline.
“I had a son, Senhora,” he said. “We lost him when he was eight years old.”
Her mouth went slack, aggression replaced by pity in the space of a heartbeat.
“Did you have other children?”
“No, Senhora. We never did. He was our only child.”
“Your wife…”
“Never got over it. Neither one of us did.”
“It’s worse for the mothers,” she said. And then: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“No. You’re right. It is. It’s worse for the mothers.”
“What was his name?”
“Mario. Like mine.”
“And he…”
“Leukemia.”
“Leu… kem… ia. I don’t know what I’d have done if Julio had died of leukemia. I mean, it isn’t even contagious. There’s no one to blame.”
“No. No one to blame.”
“But there is when your child is murdered.”
“Yes. Then.”
“And what do you think the murderer of a child deserves?” she said. The manic glint was coming back into her eyes.
Silva looked at his colleagues, then at his hands. “There’s no death penalty in this country,” he said.
“I didn’t ask you that. I asked you what a murderer of a child deserves.”
Silva met her eyes. “Death,” he said.
Chapter Forty
“So now she’s got herself a lawyer,” Sampaio said.
“Yes,” Silva said.
It was the Monday after Aline’s arrest. They were in the director’s office in Brasilia, just the two of them in the room.
“And the lawyer is that cheap shyster, Dudu Fonseca.”
“He’s a shyster, but he’s anything but cheap,” Silva said.
“Whatever. And her idea is he’ll get her off so she can go out and kill that guy Salles, the one who really murdered her son.”
“I’m sure that’s her intention. But it isn’t going to happen. The lab results are in. The gun, the baseball bats, the wigs, the sunglasses, we found them all in her apartment. Not even Fonseca is going to be able to get her off now.”
“Fonseca would be making a big mistake if he did. Everybody from the president on down would have his balls.”
“And he knows it. I don’t think he’ll try very hard.”
“We’ve got her dead to rights? Guaranteed? No chance she’s gonna be able to wriggle out of this?”
“No,” Silva said. “No chance.”
“Tell me this: how did Aline locate the people who’d been traveling in the business-class cabin?”
“She worked for the airline, remember? She had access to the passenger lists.”
“Lists, okay, but how about the victims’ addresses?”
“Rivas, Cruz, Porto, Mansur, Palhares, Neves, they were all frequent fliers, all in the airline’s mileage program. She must have gotten their addresses that way. Bruna, another airline employee, was no trouble at all. Sacca, we gave her.”
“And Girotti?”
“Remember I told you about that delegado, Bittencourt?”
“Oh, yeah. Him. You bust him yet?”
“Not yet. Soon. We’re still gathering evidence of his other indiscretions. The guy’s as crooked as they come. We surmise he told Aline when Girotti would be getting out of jail. She waited for it to happen and followed him.”
“But we don’t know that for a fact.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Why didn’t she go after the old lady? And the guy with the weird name?”
“Senhora Porto and Marnix Kloppers? Perhaps because they were parents, too, the only ones on the flight who were. That’s just a guess. I really don’t know. I do know she consciously and purposefully excluded Lidia Porto. She visited her in her apartment, grilled her about the other passengers, and left without attacking her. Maybe because Senhora Porto told her she didn’t rise from her seat during the entire flight.”
“And what about the priest? Why didn’t she go after him?”
“I believe she would have. If she’d been able to locate him.”
“Crazy. How did she get to Brasilia? And Rio?”
“Drove, probably. She owns a car, could have gone back and forth in a night. It would have been tiring, but it’s doable. Ribeirao Preto and Campinas are, of course, much closer.”
“And now she’s clammed up completely, has she?”
“Yes.”
“So it isn’t likely we’re going to get any answers for the rest of our questions.”
“No.”
“You know what bugs me?”
“What’s that, Director?”
“That pervert.”
“Pervert?”
“That pervert, Big Castor Salles. He’ll come out of this with nothing more than an add-on for rape and another add-on for killing the kid. The odds are, he’ll be out before she will.”
“The add-on for rape,” Silva said, “is guaranteed. We have the forensic evidence to make our case. But he won’t serve even a day for the murder of Julio Arriaga Junior.”
“What? Why not? What about all the witnesses?”
“Everyone who was in that cell is frightened to death of him. He’s a member of the PCC. He has friends. Zanon Parma, the public prosecutor, tried, but he couldn’t find a single person willing to stand up in open court and testify.”
“Are you telling me Salles is going to walk?”
“On the murder charge, yes, he’ll walk.”
“But… but if he hadn’t killed the boy none of this would have happened. No one would have died. After all the trouble he’s caused, a conviction for rape is nowhere near what Salles deserves.”