affaire between Alberto and Olga María and my connections with Yuca. Can you believe it? I got indignant, my dear. Not only do I have to swallow the fact that my best friend slept with my ex-husband but also that they suspect me of having killed her. It’s unbelievable. I was so angry I lost my appetite. I had the urge to immediately call that Deputy Chief Handal and give him a piece of my mind. But Pepe tried to calm me down: I wasn’t a suspect in the strict sense of the word, it’s just that I’m considered part of secondary investigations, offshoots, ones that feed into and support the central inquiry. No matter what, it’s outrageous. Now, after thinking about it a lot, I disagree with Pepe Pindonga: I believe Olga María went to bed with Alberto fully conscious of what she was doing. She was perverse, my dear, it all started when I told her that my relationship with Alberto was on the rocks, he was useless in bed, life with him was the most boring thing that could ever happen to me; that’s all she needed to hear to decide she wanted to give him a whirl. That’s what I think. She wanted to try him out to see if what I told her was true or not. Simply perverse. Most likely she found out I wasn’t lying, because Pepe Pindonga assures me that he has dependable information about only a couple of encounters. My head hasn’t stopped racing all afternoon, my dear. Horrible: I’ve had the most awful thoughts. I haven’t had a moment of peace. Now I feel a little calmer. Your house really is in the best part of the city: you have a gorgeous view, it’s super-cool here, and it’s not that far away from shopping and everything else you need. You know what I’ve even started thinking? That Alberto hurried the divorce through — even though I was the one who first suggested it — because he had hopes of starting up something with Olga María. It’s not paranoia, my dear. All of them were ready to separate from their wives so they could be with her. Why would Alberto, who was sort of dense about things like that, be the exception? I might be exaggerating, you might be right, but by now anything seems possible. It’s as if I just got rudely awoken with a slap across the face. What a nightmare. The worst part is that there I was, accomplice and confidante in all her romances: I feel cheated, and idiotic. I’m going to get even with that piece of shit Alberto, and I’m going to force him to confess everything, absolutely everything, the whole nine yards. Who does that idiot think he is? The good part is that this Pepe Pindonga is a great conversationalist, he knows an infinite number of stories, and when he saw how distraught I was he changed the subject to get me to calm down. He started telling me about something super-interesting: his experiences at a school of the esoteric. He said he was in some kind of monastery, in the mountains in central Mexico, where the masters are old indigenous people who’ve experimented with hallucinogenic mushrooms. He asked me if I’d been in Mexico. I told him only briefly: papa hates that country, he says Mexicans are thieves and bums, and the Aztecs were barbarians. That’s why I’ve never been very interested; I prefer to go to Miami or New York. Don’t you feel the same way? The thing is that there we were, the detective and I chatting away, right next to the pool, hanging around after dinner, about to have coffee or tea. I don’t know how we got back to the subject of Rita Mena, the reporter. He told me that she’d accused him of sexual harassment and that’s why his situation at the newspaper deteriorated to the point where he had to resign. Seems like that girl blows everything out of proportion, she’s a compulsive liar, ever since she covered that story about the snakes; do you remember that huge scandal, about that maniac in a yellow Chevrolet full of snakes who went around terrorizing the population a few years ago? She thinks she’s the cat’s meow, but she’s just a nobody, that’s why anybody can easily manipulate her, like they did to wage their campaign against Yuca. Now she’s trying to get in to interview that RoboCop criminal so she can write an article that will earn her one of those journalism prizes the priests hand out. That’s what Pepe Pindonga told me. But it seems RoboCop plays his cards very close; that man’s kept his lips sealed, that’s why they hired him. Oh, dear, it’s getting late. It’s so pleasant here on the terrace, but I can’t stand it any longer, I have to call Alberto. He’s going to be so surprised, this Olga María case is getting uglier all the time. I get the impression nobody has found the unifying thread. You can tell that Pepe Pindonga is no simpleton, but even he admitted there comes a point where all the trails go cold. By the way, he asked me about you. Yes, Pepe did, about if you had been a good friend of Olga María’s, where you work, how much I trust you; the man is nosy, I’m warning you. I told him I was sick of being interrogated, you are one of my best friends, and you weren’t about to go gossiping about me. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to interview you. He’s nice enough. We left it that we’d meet again in a few days. He said he’d get in touch with me, even though he also left me his card. Here it is in case you’re interested. I bet you’ll run into him when you least expect to, like I did, but once he gets hold of you he doesn’t let go. You know I even got to thinking that the sly fox probably let the air out of my tire. Too much of a coincidence, my dear. I can’t trust anybody anymore.