Leighton Gage - A vine in the blood

Tancredo raised his eyebrows. “You don’t?”

“No, I don’t. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. So here’s what we’re going to do: if you cooperate, I’m not going to charge you.”

“You’re not?”

“No.”

Tancredo smiled, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Right. Right. I’m your man. How do I cooperate?”

“First off, I’m going to send an artist from Sao Paulo. He’ll sit down with you and, based on your description, try to work up a sketch of what the woman looked like.”

Tancredo looked dubious. “I’ll try. But I got a lousy memory for faces.”

“Just try your best.”

“Sure. What else?”

“You’ll return the diamonds to us, you’ll stay here in safety for a few days, and then we’ll let you go back to that sitio of yours. That’s it. You’re off the hook.”

“If I’m gonna be off the hook, why do I have to stay here at all? And what’s with the in safety bit?”

“You know the Artist’s mother has been kidnapped?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“The diamonds were the ransom.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“So that sweet-smelling bitch with the nice-”

“-was involved in the kidnapping. Did you hear about what happened to Juraci Santos’s maids?”

“I saw it on TV. The kidnappers killed them, right?”

“Yes, the kidnappers killed them. They killed them because the maids could identify them. And they’ll do the same to you if they get the chance.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Tancredo Candido burst into a fit of coughing-and reached for the last of Fortunato’s cigarettes.

“Cintia?” Goncalves said. “Disguised? Wearing a wig?”

“Not Cintia,” Silva said.

“Why not? She’s in show business. She must know all about makeup and that sort of thing. She’s-”

“-almost as tall as you are. Read what’s up there on the board.” Silva looked around the table. “Any other suggestions?”

The task force was assembled, once again, in a conference room at the Sao Paulo field office. Silva had chalked the salient points of the caseiro’s description onto the blackboard. They team went back to staring at them.

Female.

Brown, curly hair.

Average height.

Age +/- 35.

Good figure.

Unremarkable eye color.

Smells good. (Perfume?)

Abrasive attitude.

“There’s something…” Goncalves scratched his head. “… something that rings a bell…”

The others looked at him expectantly.

“But it just won’t come to me,” he said.

After a while, Mara said, “I must have talked to two dozen pigeon fanciers. Up to now, I haven’t come across a single female.”

“Good point,” Silva said. “Call them back. Ask them if they know any women who share their passion.”

“Not passion,” Arnaldo said. “She didn’t show any interest in the birds. She was just using them.”

“Arnaldo’s right,” Silva said. “Call them anyway, but mention that.”

Mara started to get up. Silva raised a hand.

“Something else,” he said. “This might be a long shot, but ask them if they’ve ever heard of a fellow by the name of Edson Campos.”

“W OMEN WHO fancy carrier pigeons,” Mara said, when she returned to the room, “are like women attracted to Arnaldo Nunes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arnaldo said.

“Rare,” she said. “Very rare. But I got solid hits on Edson Campos. In the pigeon world, Senhor Mello’s partner is very well known indeed.”

Silva leaned forward in his chair.

“Familiar with Ketamine,” he said, “lives in Granja Viana and keeps pigeons. Maybe we’re finally getting somewhere.”

“And maybe not,” Goncalves said. “I talked to Campos. He’s a wimp. I don’t think he has it in him to get involved in something like this unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless Mello talked him into it. That guy’s a slimeball. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“If Mello and Campos are in on it,” Silva said, “that would probably exclude Cintia Tadesco.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Arnaldo said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Think about it, Arnaldo. She had a falling out with Mello, told us she was going to fire him.”

“So what?”

“If they were partners in crime, I doubt she’d run the risk of alienating him. Not now. Not until things have cooled off.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Arnaldo said, grudgingly.

“The world is full of disappointments,” Mara said.

“What was the falling out about?” Goncalves asked.

“Cintia wouldn’t tell us.”

“When we were talking to her,” Arnaldo said, “she got this far-away look in her eyes, as if she’d just put two and two together. Then, a little later, she said she was going to fire him.”

Silva turned to Mara. “Have you got a home address for Campos and Mello?”

“I do.”

“Get a search warrant,” he said.

“Remember me?” Goncalves said.

“Of course I remember you,” Tarso Mello said, blinking out of bloodshot eyes. “What do you want?”

Mello was unshaven and uncombed, dressed in a faded T-shirt and jeans, barefoot and reeking of whiskey. To Silva, he didn’t look in the least like the dapper talent agent Goncalves had described.

“These are colleagues of mine,” Goncalves said, making the introductions, “Chief Inspector Silva, Delegado Costa and Agent Nunes. And this is a search warrant for the premises.”

He held it out.

Mello made no attempt to take it.

“What do you need a search warrant for?”

“You can read it if you like.”

Mello brushed it aside.

“I’m shitfaced. I don’t want to read anything, and I don’t care if you search my place or not.”

Up to that point, Silva had been harboring suspicions about the man’s involvement. Now, he relaxed the hand that had been hovering over his pistol. His gut was telling him that Mello wasn’t one of the people they were after.

Mello followed the cops into his living room.

“You people want a drink?”

“No,” Silva said, answering for all.

“But you won’t mind if I have one, will you?”

Mello’s speech was slurred. He picked up a bottle and emptied it into a glass, spilling some of the whiskey onto his hand and even more onto the floor.

“I suggest you go easy on that stuff,” Silva said.

Mello licked his hand, and then rubbed it on his pants.

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet, huh? Sounds ominous. But since I’m not under arrest, not yet, I figure I can drink as much as I want in my own house.” He took a gulp of the Scotch. “What are you looking for?”

“Not what, who. Juraci Santos.”

“And you think you’re going to find her here? Ha!”

“Where’s Edson?”

Mello, for the first time, showed a degree of concern.

“What do you want Edson for? Edson didn’t do anything. You leave Edson alone.”

“No need to get upset, Senhor Mello.”

“People in authority make him nervous. He had a difficult childhood, spent some time in an orphanage.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Silva said, “but we have to talk to him. Where is he?”

“He’s out in back, messing around with his pigeons.”

“I’ll go get him,” Goncalves said.

“No. No, you won’t,” Mello said, protectively. “If anybody has to get him, I will.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Silva said.

Under Arnaldo’s watchful eye, the two suspects were left to cool their heels in the living room. The other three cops busied themselves with a thorough search of the premises. Silva didn’t really expect to find anything, but decided to be thorough since they were there anyway.