idiot hung up on me. Which made me even more furious. I dialed him again several times, but it was busy; he must have left the phone off the hook. Then I called his cell. When he heard my voice, he started up again with his fit of hysteria: I should stop bothering him with my nonsense — that’s what he said — he was waiting for urgent phone calls and couldn’t waste his time on me. He hung up again without giving me a chance to tell him what was on my mind, to say all the horrible things I was thinking about him, because it just can’t be that all that money’s been lost, money doesn’t just disappear from one day to the next, between him and that Toñito Rathis, they must have stolen it, they probably snuck it out of the country and are now acting like they’re the victims, pretending the investment company just crashed on its own. Damn thieves. I’m very worried, my dear. So many people are going to lose their money. I immediately called papa at the finca to tell him. He told me he’d been expecting this, it was impossible for them to be paying twenty-two percent annually when the banks were paying ten, there had to be something shady going on. That’s my father, my dear, sometimes I criticize him for being too conservative, but in the end he always ends up being right. You remember when he warned us against putting our money there when everybody else was going on and on about how Finapro was the very best? I wouldn’t have done it anyway, just to avoid having anything to do with Alberto. We did the right thing, my dear. Now I remember that I warned Olga María, told her what papa told me, but she ignored me, she said it was just my prejudices against Alberto. But here you have the consequences. She was too innocent, she let herself be led down the garden path, she must have totally trusted Alberto, and seeing as how she’d already slept with him, everything seemed under control. What a brilliant way to lose the money they got for the fincas Don Sergio left them. It makes me so mad. I told papa what I’d talked to Alberto about, the tragedy of Doña Olga and the girls, I asked him if something couldn’t be done; it’s simply unheard of that from one day to the next Doña Olga will be out on the streets. I wanted to know what papa thought before I called Doña Olga, because I was certain Alberto hadn’t called her, coward that he is. Papa told me that if Alberto couldn’t do anything, nobody else could, either. He repeated that even though he didn’t have any evidence, this bankruptcy smelled to him like a gigantic fraud, a tidal wave of shit that was going to bury half the country, and Alberto more than anybody, that’s what papa said. Thank God I separated from that imbecile, and I have absolutely nothing to do with him. Just imagine the mess I’d be in. I don’t know why I thought to tell my papa my suspicions about Alberto and his connection to Olga María’s murder. You know how much I trust my father. That’s why I told him everything, down to the last detail, just like Pepe Pindonga told me. He was quiet for a while, like he was thinking, then with great concern in his voice he suggested that, because it’s such a serious accusation, I should keep it in reserve. But I have this intuition that Alberto’s got something to do with our friend’s death, and this might just be the connecting thread that will tie up all the loose ends. That’s what I thought at that moment, still fuming against Alberto, and here’s how I communicated it to papa: What if Olga María and Alberto were still seeing each other and she found out what was happening with Finapro? Papa just kept repeating that I shouldn’t talk about this to anybody else. After I hung up, after all the excitement of having solved the case, I got paralyzed. It was like I saw a blinding light. I felt this terrible dread, as if my discovery, that I’d solved the case, could cost me my life. I didn’t want to keep thinking. So, instead, I called Doña Olga. Sergio answered. I asked him if he’d heard about the crisis at Finapro. He told me he had, word had already reached everybody who has their money there, and Doña Olga is falling apart, her blood pressure is shooting sky high, they were waiting for the doctor. I called about half an hour ago. I’m extremely worried, my dear. Can you imagine losing all your money a month and a half after they kill your daughter? Horrible. I’m afraid something serious will happen to Doña Olga, a heart attack or something like that. You know when things like this happen people want to die. I asked Sergio if he had his money in that company, too. He said luckily he didn’t, but Marito did and a ton of other people did, too. You know who could lose millions, my dear? Yuca. That’s what Sergio said: even the archbishop, the Spanish one papa can’t stand, he put the church’s money in Finapro. What a disaster Alberto has gotten himself into. Because he’s an imbecile, that’s why, a conceited spoiled brat. Yuca is going to kill him, no doubt about that. Sergio told me people are very upset, they don’t know what to do; neither he nor Marito has been able to get hold of Alberto to get some kind of explanation. I told him what he’d said, the situation is now out of his hands, most likely the money can’t be recovered. My poor little girls: they’ve lost their inheritance. I’m telling you, when I hung up, my head was racing a million miles a minute. You know what I mean? That sensation that you’re on the verge of discovering something very very important, the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Do you see the threesome? Alberto, Olga María, Yuca. I thought I should call Pepe Pindonga right away. But it was as if that man was reading my mind, because just as I was about to pick up the phone, it rang. Bingo: it was him. I told him about the financial scandal. He told me he already knew, everybody was talking about it, the newspapers were about to print the story, and he’d gotten all the details from his contacts. Then I told him all about my conversation with Alberto, the money Olga María’s family had lost, and also the rumors about Yuca having a big portion of his money in that company. He confessed to me that he hadn’t known that last bit; and he said that it made the situation much trickier than he’d imagined. I told him straight out my suspicions: that Olga María’s murder probably had something to do with Finapro’s crash. The more I think about it, the more convinced I get, my dear. You-know-who must have figured out the dirty game Alberto and Toñito Rathis were playing and that’s why they decided to get rid of her. Alberto probably opened his big mouth, wanting to impress Olga María — just to show you how stupid he is — and when they realized she was romantically involved with Yuca, they decided to eliminate her. It’s the only logical explanation. It scares me, as you can imagine. Of course they’re capable of that, and worse: they’ve stolen billions of colones. Do me a favor! You think they’re going to think twice about putting a contract out on someone? That Toñito Rathis is the worst, he’s a gangster, my dear, ever since he was at the American School, you could see what a scoundrel he was, even if he was three years ahead of us, he already had quite a reputation. But, you know what Pepe Pindonga, the great detective, told me? That my hypothesis sounded very far-fetched to him, there was no evidence to back it up, I must be upset by what’s going on, and that’s why I keep coming up with these bizarre hypotheses. What an imbecile. I told him I don’t have a hypothesis, that hypotheses are for the police or detectives like him, people who aren’t interested in finding out the truth because what they really want is to stretch out the investigation for as long as possible so they can keep collecting their wages. He asked me not to get so worked up, it wasn’t such a big deal. That made me even more upset: I shouted at him that now that we finally had a solid lead, something that made some sense of Olga María’s murder, now that we finally have the chance to solve the case, Mr. Smartypants starts putting on airs, doubting what’s completely obvious, instead of offering some ideas of his own, instead of taking his own steps toward solving it. So, I threatened him: he’d better get moving or I’ll call Diana in Miami and tell her to fire him for his feebleminded approach. That’s what I told him. I zeroed in on the most important fact that everybody knows: Toñito Rathis wants to take over the party so he can become the candidate for president. My dear, it’s the talk of the town, at the club, everywhere. Papa told me that the one who’s benefited most from Yuca’s fall from grace is Toñito Rathis; at the next party convention he’ll try to become the finance secretary and then the candidate. Do you get it? It’s all so clear to me. And that idiot Pepe Pindonga, doubting it all. He asked me how it could be possible, if Yuca and Toñito Rathis are enemies, that Yuca invested his money in the other’s company. I told him he’s a poor slob who doesn’t understand anything about business, one thing is money and the other politics, if Finapro was paying out twenty-two percent annually anybody would have placed their money there without caring if the owner of the company was his political rival. Anyway, my dear, who would ever have thought that a Rathis company would go bankrupt? Nobody. I still can’t believe it. One of the most powerful families in the country, one of the most prestigious names. But that penniless slob of a detective who lives from month to month can’t possibly understand. That’s when I realized it would do absolutely no good to talk to Pepe Pindonga, the guy has absolutely no power over the law, a poor sonofabitch who’s being paid just so he can feed that crazy Diana some story or other. What I should have done is call that Deputy Chief Handal — even though I find him repulsive, even if he is a foul-mouthed busybody — so he can have a hand in this. I told Pepe Pindonga that I had to hang up. The worst part was that I couldn’t find the famous little card where I’d written down the policeman’s number. I had to turn my entire room upside down until I finally found it. What do you think happened? No matter how much I insisted, they kept telling me that the deputy chief was out on a special mission and they didn’t know when he’d be back. At that very moment he must have been arresting Alberto, I was sure of it, you know my intuition never fails me, because I called Alberto again so I could tell him what I’d discovered, but all his telephones were disconnected. I was just about to leave for Alberto’s house to find out if they’d arrested him, tell Handal I absolutely had to talk to him, but just at that moment the phone rang. It was Pepe Pindonga again. He told me the police had just arrested Toñito Rathis, Alberto, and all the other members of the board of directors of Finapro; this is just the beginning of what will undoubtedly end up being the swindle of the century. As you know, Pepe Pindonga worked at the police academy and he has excellent contacts there who pass him information. I asked him if that Deputy Chief Handal had taken part in the arrest. He told me he wasn’t sure but most likely, because as chief of the division of investigations he had to be present. He suggested we meet tomorrow morning, early, to give him time to check out a few things, my theory about Alberto and Toñito Rathis being the masterminds behind Olga María’s murder needs some solid proof, logic isn’t enough, even less so now that they’ve arrested those guys for a multimillion-dollar financial fraud, people will think they’re just being used as scapegoats so they could pin the blame on them for other crimes. That’s what he told me. I answered him that he can investigate whatever he damn well wants to, the facts are there, clear as day, I don’t need any proof: I’ve been turning it over in my head for more than a month, trying to figure out who could have arranged Olga María’s murder. What does that Pepe Pindonga think, that other people are as stupid as he is? Do me a favor: I repeated that anybody who’d stolen millions of colones was capable of putting a contract out on somebody. I’m super-hyper, my dear; I feel electrified. I haven’t stopped calling Deputy Chief Handal, but he still hasn’t gotten back to his office. That’s why I took a minute out to call you. I couldn’t watch the telenovela any longer. There’s nothing on the news yet; maybe there’ll be something on the ten o’clock news. Who would have thought Alberto would end up like this? It’s hard to imagine him part of a conspiracy, but after working so long with Toñito Rathis something must have rubbed off on him. As soon as we hang up I’m going to try again to get hold of this Deputy Chief Handal. I’m going to tell him exactly what he needs to do, tell him to stop wasting his time, like that Pepe Pindonga, such a sissy that detective turned out to be when I got worked up this afternoon, probably scares the daylights out of him to realize the mess he’s stepped into. But it’s Deputy Chief Handal’s responsibility to investigate the case, to find the masterminds; he can’t be satisfied with arresting the murderer, that monstrous RoboCcop. That’s why first thing he should find out about what kind of relationship Olga María and Alberto were having in the last few months. She wouldn’t have told me anything. But it’s easy to find out: you just have to ask the secretaries, the managers, to find out if Olga María visited or called either Alberto or Toñito Rathis frequently. That’s the first step. When you’ve made a fixed-term investment you’ve got no reason to be visiting the bank all the time, only once when you invest and then again when the term is up. Right? That’s the first thing Handal has to find out. I don’t know, my dear. Look, the way things are going, nothing will surprise me now. Olga María might have been involved in who knows what, and me like a driveling idiot, totally clueless about all of it. Or they might have gotten her involved, without her even realizing it — considering Toñito Rathis’s Machiavellian mind — in a plot that culminated in her death and Yuca’s political demise. I swear I can’t figure Olga María out at all. I thought I knew her, but now I realize she had many personalities. I still can’t quite believe she had an affaire with Alberto. Here comes my mother, she looks very upset. Wait a second, she wants to tell me something. Okay, she heard the news. She says everybody is going crazy. Yes, I know, mama: they just arrested Alberto. Of course, and Toñito Rathis. Apparently it wasn’t Yuca’s money, according to my mama, it was Kati’s and Don Federico’s. Can you imagine? That’s even worse for Alberto: getting into trouble with Don Federico Schultz is suicide. The archbishop had a million colones in Finapro. Papa will be delighted to hear that: he’ll say it’s good for that priest to lose his money, serves him right for being so greedy, they should all go to Hell. That’s what papa will say. I’ll call you later, my dear — mama isn’t letting me talk, she’s making a big fuss — and that way you can tell me what happened today in the telenovela. In a while I’ll try again to get in touch with that Deputy Chief Handal. Ciao.