“A slaughter, right?”
He nodded. He tried to get back to work. It made no sense, but perhaps it was one of those useless gestures that one makes, like smoothing back one's hair, like being horrified, like being afraid or crying, useless things we cannot avoid.
“Give me … give me the certificate of examination of the body. I'll sign it and be present at the autopsy if … if the pathologist can do anything with this.”
Pacheco and Briceño exchanged glances. The judge said:
“I'll take over the investigation. I don't know if you … are in any condition.”
“I'm in condition,” said the prosecutor, looking down at the ground. He tried to hold back his tears. “Edith was … a member of a terrorist cell. They killed her to keep her quiet. You just have to find her accomplices. There's … a very clear line of investigation to follow.”
Pacheco shook his head. He took off his kepi and turned it in his hands as he said:
“We already have a very clear line of investigation, Señor Prosecutor.”
The prosecutor stood there, waiting for the rest of the sentence. Since it did not come, he looked up. The looks of the other two were icy. Pacheco took out a notebook and read in the tone of an official report:
“Last night you were seen leaving El Huamanguino restaurant in the company of the victim. According to our information, you were visibly agitated. There are witnesses who affirm that the two of you were arguing. A good number of witnesses. Several of them state that you threatened her with a firearm in a public street. After that, she did not return to the restaurant. No one saw her alive again. What do you have to say?”
Nothing. He had nothing to say. Not even the sickly giggle that had afflicted him the day before at police headquarters came out now in his defense. The police coming toward him seemed surprised that he offered no resistance, that he let himself be dragged off like a toy in the wind, like a paper doll. They put him in a patrol car and took him out at police headquarters. They threw him in a cell the size of a closet. In a corner was a hole to be used as a toilet. He knew by the stink that he was far from the first one to occupy the cell. Scratched on the walls with pieces of stone there were still “vivas” to the people's war. He spent several hours there, trying to think of a solution, but it seemed there was nothing left to think about, that everything he needed to know was now beyond his thoughts. That afternoon, Pacheco himself interrogated him. It was not necessary to employ violence:
“Why don't you confess once and for all?” the captain asked. He seemed serene, protective, paternal. “We've sent the prints we found next to Quiroz's body to Lima. The results will be here on Tuesday, but they're not even necessary. There are more witnesses who saw you come out of the parish house carrying a weapon. And Edith Ayala's neighbor saw you crazed when you went into the girl's house the night before, immediately after the bloody acts you perpetrated at Heart of Christ. You're on the list of visitors to Hernán Durango, and Colonel Olazábal states that you offered to negotiate a promotion for him following the escape of the terrorist. We have obtained a report signed by you in which you declare that you made contact with Justino Mayta Carazo in clandestinity. That makes you the last person who claims to have seen him alive. From what we have observed, you carried out the investigation without informing us and wrote reports intended only to cover your back …”
Prosecutor Chacaltana responded to everything with vague movements of his head, like a senseless lump. For the first time, the captain lost patience.
“You've killed as if you were in your own home! Even the terrorists left fewer clues when they placed bombs!”
The prosecutor did not even look up. The captain recovered his serenity and continued:
“It's understandable, Chacaltana. It isn't justifiable, but it is understandable. Death floats in the air of this city. I've seen others like you lose their heads. But no one in the way you did. For now, you can be certain of life imprisonment, and thankful the death penalty was never enacted. Still, your regimen in prison can be made easier to the extent that you cooperate. Do me a favor, do yourself a favor …”
The prosecutor did not react. He seemed stupefied, beaten. The captain showed him some papers. They were the Senderista notes left on the bodies of Durango and Mayta.
“Let's go one step at a time,” he said. “Did you write these notes? You can tell me in confidence. Just tell me that. Did you write them?”
The prosecutor looked at the papers. He remembered the notes. He remembered the scrawls in Edith's room. The signature: Sendero Luminoso.
“You did it badly,” said the captain. “Very badly. Sendero never signed like that. They signed PCP, Peruvian Communist Party. Or they simply left their slogans: Long Live the People's War, Long Live President Gonzalo, that kind of thing. Hmm? How obvious it is that you didn't live here in the time of terrorism. Your efforts to throw us off wouldn't have convinced an eight-year-old. These papers don't help you. On the contrary, they work against you. And your methods. The Senderistas were savages, but they made a certain political sense. Do you understand? But what you did is slaughter plain and simple, Señor Prosecutor.”
For the first time, the prosecutor showed signs of responding. He moved his mouth, as if he had to get rid of the numbness in order to speak. Then he said, in an inaudible whisper:
“It wasn't Sendero?”
Pacheco, who'd had a moment of animation, seemed disappointed again.
“Señor Prosecutor, show us a little respect and stop acting like an imbecile. Confess everything once and for all and get it off your conscience. We'll bring you a statement, you'll sign it, and you'll be able to rest easy. After all, you're one of our own, Chacaltana. That will be taken into consideration, no one will hurt you.”
“It wasn't Sendero …,” the prosecutor repeated.
Now he did feel incompetent. All this time he had been following a dead end, pursuing ghosts, pursuing his own memories rather than a reality that was laughing at him. Then, only then, the light began to shine in his mind. Perhaps the light of the fire, perhaps the light of the burning torches on the hills, but a bright, intense light beginning to make its way through the darkness of his reason. He remembered Pacheco warning him about evil companions. This is a small town, everybody knows everything. They had been following him, they had always known where he was going, they had always known to whom he spoke. His eyes lit up. With recovered self-assurance, he asked:
“Did you say you have my reports? How is it that on Thursday you did not have the reports and now you do?”
“Excuse me?” said Pacheco. He still wore a peaceable smile.
“Why did you obstruct the entire investigation and suddenly take it over now?”
Pacheco's smile of superiority was disappearing from his face.
“Well, the departure of Carrión has left a gap in the city's security that …”
“Why was I free if witnesses incriminated me on Thursday and again on Friday night? Why didn't you come for me right away?”
Pacheco began to stammer. He had suddenly turned pale.
“The witnesses … well … the fact is …”
“You want to incriminate me. You want to incriminate me in this! You want to lock me away!”
“Chacaltana, calm down …”
Chacaltana did not calm down. He got up from the table and lunged at the captain. He grabbed him by the neck. Everything was so clear and so late. Now that he was lost, perhaps he would at least be able to take Pacheco to hell with him. He threw him to the floor and began to squeeze his neck, the way he remembered Mayta squeezing his. In the end, the killers are exchanging faces, he thought, they become confused with one another, they all turn into the same one, they multiply, like images in distorted mirrors. Pacheco tried to throw him off, but the prosecutor was too enraged. The captain was turning purple when the prosecutor felt the blow to his head. He tried to squeeze a little more as he felt himself losing consciousness, sinking into sleep, while everything around him turned into the same, single darkness.