Ocho Columnas. Can you believe it? Yes, indeed, my dear, the very same newspaper that waged the campaign against Yuca. I was in shock when he said that. The first thought that came to me was that this big-mouthed phony was part of the conspiracy against Yuca. I was about to read him the riot act, demand that he get out of my car immediately, when he asked me if I knew Rita Mena, the reporter from the same newspaper who was in charge of investigating Olga María’s murder. That was the last straw. I told him I didn’t, I told him I had absolutely no interest in meeting that kind of trash, I consider journalists to be a filthy race, buzzards, vultures after carrion, flies hovering over shit — and that stupid reporter from Ocho Columnas more than any of them, I consider her an accomplice in the plot against Yuca, and it’s only because I’ve got good manners that I’d give him a ride back to the mall because I had nothing more to say to him. He told me to take it easy, not to get the wrong impression: he hated Ocho Columnas, too, everybody who works there, and especially Rita Mena; it was her fault he’d had to leave that paper, he could deliver truckloads of dirt on that sleezebag. He convinced me to keep driving to the hotel when he told me he was certain that Rita Mena and the newspaper had been involved in a bigger conspiracy aimed at removing Yuca from the political arena. The way he said it, it sounded like he was repeating my very own words. He has absolutely no doubt that Olga María’s murder is being used to finish Yuca off. His words. If the case is rigorously investigated the clues will lead to those who have been the main beneficiaries of Yuca’s political demise. I was stunned, my dear, that was precisely what I was thinking but I hadn’t been able to put into so many words, plus I realized that this detective knew a lot. You know what else he said? That only an idiot or someone with ulterior motives would think that Yuca or another one of her lovers would’ve had Olga María murdered; we’re dealing here with a crime committed for perfectly calculated political motives, not a crime of passion, like that Deputy Chief Handal is trying to make us believe. Precisely what I think. I managed to ask him if he’d spoken about all this and in such clear terms to Marito. He told me they were paying him to investigate a murder, not sink a recently widowed man into a deep depression; if he was telling me this, it was because he was sure I already knew about Olga María’s escapades. “Escapades,” the moron said, like she was some kind of floozy. Luckily, when we got to the hotel I didn’t see anybody I knew, and in the café I chose a corner table and sat with my back to the entrance. I love how they remodeled that hotel; it looks so modern, so spacious, the decor’s in such good taste. I like the architecture of the boutiques the best. Did you know that when they first started the remodel they asked Olga María if she wanted to open up a branch of her boutique there? But she thought it was too risky. The thing is, once we were sitting in the café, I asked him how he’d found out about Yuca and Olga María’s relationship. He told me that when they threw him out of Ocho Columnas, he went to work as the head of PR for the police academy. Can you imagine the contacts he established there? He’s made a lot of progress in the investigation. He told me a ton of things. Supposedly, we were just going for a cup of coffee, but we talked for about four hours; first in the café, then we went to the bar, and then we ate at the restaurant next to the pool. He doesn’t drink coffee or alcohol or smoke; the exact opposite of the private detectives in the movies. He says he’s already used up his quota of drinking and smoking, he’s already ingested enough toxins for a lifetime. He doesn’t look that old to me at all, but who knows what kind of life he’s led. He ordered a chamomile tea and I had a coca-cola. Then he told me that Diana had hired him totally out of the blue, he’s never met her, all he’s seen is a photo Marito showed him; they’ve spoken on the telephone, it would be ridiculous if they hadn’t at least done that. He says about fifteen days ago he received a fax in his office, near Bloom Hospital, next to the university, in that area, I’m not sure exactly where, I get lost in that neighborhood. The fax was from Diana in Miami, requesting his services to investigate the murder of Olga María. Diana doesn’t trust the police. He claims he doesn’t know how Diana heard about him and decided to hire him. But he immediately plunged into the case. He’s had access to the police reports, he says, and I believe him, my dear, because he knows more than we do: he mentioned Olga María’s relationship with Julio Iglesias, with José Carlos, with Yuca. Then I went totally numb when he asked me if I knew that my ex-husband had had an affaire with her. It took me so much by surprise that I didn’t know what to say. I still haven’t fully digested it. Can you imagine Olga María finding Alberto attractive? I simply can’t make heads or tails of it. That’s what I told that detective when I came out of my state of shock: I told him he’d have to show me some proof if he wanted me to believe him, it was some kind of misunderstanding, malicious gossip cooked up by the police. And I couldn’t even manage to get angry because suddenly I was putting two and two together. Pepe Pindonga was categorical — the man is heartless: he told me that Olga María and Alberto had met at least a couple of times before we got divorced. Imagine that! What a fool I was not to have realized it. He went on to explain that the first time was at Olga María’s, the morning after a party, when you-know-who returned to the house with the excuse that he’d left his sweater there, and they took advantage of nobody being home; the other time Alberto picked her up at the beauty salon. That must have been why Mercedes got so nervous when I started talking about Olga María, because the detective had just been there questioning her and gotten that information out of her. Then, while my brain was working a million miles a minute, I began to catch a glimpse of what the beauty salon “hypothesis” consisted of. I was determined to have the answers. He said, yes, Alberto’s name appeared in a report about the investigation into her lovers, especially because he’s been managing Olga María’s and her family’s finances. By this time, my dear, we were in the bar, so I ordered a double whiskey. He said he’d talked enough, he’d told me everything he knew, now it was my turn, I needed to help him, tell him everything I knew so we could work together and that way he could move his investigation forward. He mainly asked me about what you already know, but in much greater detail than the police. The horrible part is that the more I talked the more I realized that this man was only looking to confirm what he already knew; I wasn’t, in fact, telling him anything new, just corroborating the information in the police reports he’d read and the inquiries he’d carried out on his own. The truth is, I was feeling pretty distressed, choked up and all, because of the Alberto thing, and I wanted to get back to that, hear more about the relationship between my ex-husband and Olga María. Weird, because I didn’t feel angry, none of that rage that blinds you when you feel like you’ve been betrayed, but instead there was this sadness, anxiety, as if suddenly nothing made any sense. That’s why I wasn’t responding with much enthusiasm and Pepe Pindonga had to pry everything out of me. There was a moment, around when I ordered a second drink, that I felt like crying, I swear, that’s how I felt, because I’d always been so loyal to Olga María, and now it turns out she didn’t show me the least consideration at all. Pepe noticed my state of mind — he’s very sensitive — and he said maybe it’d be better to change the subject; he saw me so sad, he hadn’t wanted to hurt me, but it was better for me to know so I wouldn’t hear about it later and be even more shocked. He tried to comfort me: Olga María didn’t want to hurt me by getting involved with Alberto, she probably didn’t have any control over those unconscious urges that made her have sex with men, I knew her better than anybody else did and should forgive her. Pepe Pindonga said all that. I couldn’t control myself any longer and I shed a tear, then another, and another; it all happened in silence, with no big fuss, a mournful cry, melancholic, like I was remembering somebody I’d lost a long time ago. Luckily, it’s pretty dark in the hotel bar and the TV’s always on, so nobody knew what was happening to me, only Pepe: he took my hand and squeezed it. It’s pretty awful, my dear, to find out about something like that. With my last glimmer of hope I asked him about his sources, how he’d gotten his information. But Pepe had already warned me that he wasn’t going to reveal any names. All I can guess is, other than Mercedes, maybe Julita, Olga María’s housekeeper, maybe she confided in her, or in those blabbermouths Cheli and Conchita, who work at the boutique. Who knows? It’s unbelievable how you can live, being deceived by your best friend and your husband. Though I couldn’t care less about Alberto; on the contrary, he must have something going for him besides his moneymaking ability, otherwise our friend wouldn’t have gotten involved with him. Bring me some more water, my dear, my mouth is dry from talking so much. I don’t want to get sad again, especially on this overcast afternoon. But I’m telling you, I’m going to call Alberto later tonight when he gets home from the office, I don’t want him to think I’m a total imbecile, to think they can cheat on me like that and me not have a clue. Pepe Pindonga advised me not to: why dig up dirt from such a long time ago? But I’m not going to repress myself. That’s what I told him when we were already at the restaurant by the pool; Alberto’s going to pay for this. You’d keep your mouth shut, wouldn’t you? So what if we got divorced a long time ago. Pepe says maybe Olga María seduced him; but no man goes to bed with a woman by force. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and the same goes for Olga María. Pepe told me he’s trying to create a psychological profile of her — it would help his investigation — because even though he’s almost a hundred percent sure that the murder was planned to hurt Yuca, one should never completely neglect other lines of investigation. He told me that my name appears in the police reports as a possible suspect, because of the