Leighton Gage - A vine in the blood

“She was. She locked the bedroom door, but it was flimsy. Samuel had no problem breaking in. He was going for her with the syringe when he heard the shots. Up until that moment, he said, the thought that the sisters might be in danger never entered his head.”

“You believe that?”

“Actually, I do.”

“I don’t. I don’t think a jury will either. And then?”

“He threw Juraci on the bed and injected the Ketamine. She fought back. He tossed the syringe aside so he could use both hands to immobilize her. Vitoria told him she’d be unconscious in thirty seconds, but it took longer. So long, he began to believe the drug wasn’t working. It made him nervous. So nervous, he forgot to pick up the syringe when she finally passed out.”

“So now the maids are dead and Juraci’s unconscious. And then?”

“They bundled Juraci into their car. Vitoria waited behind the wheel while Samuel locked the door and smashed it with a sledgehammer.”

“To make it appear as if that was the way they got in.”

“Exactly. The noise woke the neighbor, Rodolfo Sa. Samuel had just remembered that he’d left the syringe in Juraci’s bedroom when he saw Sa’s light go on. He assumed Sa was going to call the security people.”

“Did he?”

“No. But Samuel didn’t know that, so instead of going back for the syringe, he made a dash for the car. Less than ten minutes later they had Juraci under lock and key.”

“Where she stayed until we broke in and rescued her?”

We. Sampaio believed in his own press releases.

“And that’s it,” Silva said. “That’s the whole story. It was, as we suspected in the very beginning, all about money. No other motive.”

“When did they decide to murder her?”

“I think Vitoria had it in mind since the beginning.”

“Arns tell you that?”

“No. And I don’t think she told him, either. She would have known it would make him squeamish. But she kept working on him. Ultimately, he agreed. But I don’t think his heart was ever in it.”

“Juraci never realized that one of her captors was a woman?”

“She had her suspicions, but she was never really sure. Not until the very end.”

“How were they able to get their hands on the Ketamine?”

“Nothing easier. Vitoria simply failed to enter the arrival of a shipment into the ledger. She paid for it with a personal check and fudged the bookkeeping.”

“Okay, let’s leave it at that. I figure I’ve got enough to talk my way through the whole damned dinner, if I have to. And all’s well that ends well.”

“Senhor?”

“Vitoria and Samuel are going to get what’s coming to them. A bicheiro is dead. The filho da puta who sold the Artist to Real Madrid is dead. The Artist’s mother came out of it without a scratch. Her son is itching to kick Argentinean ass, which I have little doubt he will. The President of the Republic is happy. And I get to have dinner with the Minister of Justice. Don’t you think that, all in all, it worked out well for everyone concerned?”

Except, Silva thought, for two young women, shot to death as they kneeled in terror on a kitchen floor.

The Director was looking at him, waiting for a response to his question. Silva groped for something to say.

And then didn’t need one, because Sampaio’s telephone rang.