Rubem Fonseca: Crimes of August

The inspector remained silent.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead,” answered the inspector.

“Are you a Lacerdist or a Getulist?”

“Do I have to be one kind of shit or another?”

“No, sir,” said Rosalvo, seeing the inspector’s expression. “To each his own.”

Luciana Gomes Aguiar, accompanied by her attorney Galvão, arrived at the precinct at ten o’clock. Mattos felt an instinctive hostility toward the woman, because of the composure of her face, because of the elegance of her black pantsuit. She’s nothing but a plutocrat with good manners, he thought. Like Alice.

“It goes without saying,” said the lawyer, “that Dona Luciana is willing to cooperate with the police in discovering the killer or killers of her husband. She would, however, like to be heard as quickly as possible.”

“Before formally taking Dona Luciana’s deposition, I’d like to ask her some questions.”

Luciana acceded with a gesture.

“Did your husband have any enemies?”

“No.”

“Did your husband normally sleep in the nude?”

Luciana didn’t reply. She looked at Galvão as if to ask, Do I have to put up with this?

“Mr. Gomes Aguiar wasn’t killed by an enemy. He was the victim of aggravated robbery, what laymen call armed robbery,” said Galvão persuasively.

“Did he normally sleep in the nude? The body was found naked in the bed.”

“Paulo wasn’t a man of rigid habits,” said Luciana.

“There are days when I sleep in pajamas, others when I don’t sleep in pajamas. I think most people are like that,” said Galvão.

“Has anything turned up missing?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“I didn’t see any feminine clothing in the room where—”

“We slept in separate bedrooms. My suite is on the floor above.”

“It’s a two-level apartment, as you have no doubt verified,” said Galvão.

Luciana’s slender fingers displayed only a diamond wedding ring. The gold ring found in the dead man’s shower was too wide to belong to those fingers. Mattos stuck his hand in his pocket, his fingers touched the gold tooth. The ring was in the other pocket.

“Have you ever seen this ring before?”

“No.”

“It was in the shower.”

“It’s not my husband’s. He never wore a ring.”

“May I take a look at it?” Galvão asked. He put the ring on his finger. “A man with thick fingers.”

“Was your husband having problems with a partner? Or with some employee of — What’s the name of the firm?”

“Cemtex,” said Galvão. “No, he had no problems with either partners or employees.”

“Was Senator Vitor Freitas a friend of your husband’s?”

“My husband had many friends. Senator Vitor Freitas is one of them.”

“What about Luiz Magalhães?”

“I don’t know who that person is.”

“Did you have a good relationship with your husband?”

“They experienced a perfect matrimonial relationship of love and respect,” said Galvão in the tone of voice he used in court.

The inspector recalled a phrase that Mr. Emilio, the maestro of the claque, was in the habit of saying: the best thing in marriage is widowhood. Luciana’s pale countenance displayed no pain, just circumspection and dignity. What kind of person was she?

Mattos called the clerk, Oliveira, and began taking Luciana’s statement.

Luciana Gomes Aguiar and Galvão left. Mattos’s stomach was beginning to ache. The doctor had told him he had a duodenal ulcer, and there was the possibility of the ulcer bleeding at any time. He should eat every three hours, following the prescribed regimen: milk, gummy rice, boiled potato, boiled chicken. Avoid coffee, alcohol, carbonated soft drinks, cigarettes, and spicy foods. Not to worry. Check his stools. If they were dark like coffee grounds, it was a sign of bleeding, and he might have to be hospitalized for emergency surgery.

NOW, MATTOS WAS PRESIDING at the booking of a flagrante delicto crime of battery in which perpetrator and victim were, respectively, husband and wife. Jurisdiction to preside, order a written report, and sign the writ as well as sign the guilty finding, belonged to the commissioner, and the inspector had authority for such only in the former’s absence.

As Mattos was drafting the written report, the commissioner showed up.

“Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” Mattos told the defendant’s lawyer, who was present. He took Ramos by the arm and led him to the hallway.

“Pretend you haven’t gotten here yet. Let me finish this booking.”

“The lawyer saw me.”

“He’s a jailhouse shyster. Don’t worry.”

“What’s the statute?”

“Article 129. Husband and wife.”

“Husband and wife? You’re going to clap the guy in jail just because he cuffed his wife around?”

“Precisely because of that. To me, it being his wife is an aggravating factor.”

“But not to the law,” said Ramos, stifling his irritation. “I took a look at the woman and couldn’t see any signs of injury.”

“They’re under her dress. I’m going to order a corpus delicti exam done on her.”

“You’re being more Catholic than the pope. I can guarantee you the woman’s going to side against us. They’re always against us.”

“Everybody’s against us, always.”

“When it goes to trial, even that ambulance chaser will get the husband off. You know what’s going to happen at trial?”

“Yes. The woman is going to tell the judge that the bruises found in the corpus delicti exam were caused by me.”

“More or less that. Let it go. ‘When husband and wife fight, stay out of sight.’”

On a certain occasion, Rosalvo, who had just finished law school and was studying forensic psychology at the Police Academy, had described Ramos, using haphazardly theories of Bertillon, Kraeplin, and Kretschmer: trapezoidal cheeks, orthognathous profile, deviated parietals, square skull, squat composition, tenacious temperament. Tenacious, squat, orthognathous.

Mattos laughed scornfully.

“You’re laughing? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I know what I’m doing,” said the inspector, frowning again. “I’m going to finish the booking.”

Perpetrator, victim, lawyer, and clerk were waiting for the inspector.

“So then, sir, is everything resolved?” said the lawyer.

“Everything. We’re going ahead with the booking.”

“Sir, my client acted motivated by defense of his honor, immediately after being unjustly provoked by the victim.”

“Tell it to the judge.”

“Sir, even you, an educated individual, unlike my client who’s a stevedore at the docks, a coarse illiterate man, even you would lose patience if your wife told you what the wife of my client told him.”

“I already apologized,” murmured the woman humbly, from the back of the room.

“She’s sorry, she knows she made a mistake, she’s apologized. Didn’t you hear her?” said the lawyer.

“This is a crime calling for public action. I’m not interested in the victim’s opinion. We’re continuing with the booking.”

“Sir, she called my client a limp-dick. Is there a husband alive who can hear his own wife call him a limp-dick without losing his head? Well? Give me a break!”

“There’s no one with more authority to call a guy a limp-dick than his own wife,” said the inspector.

The accusation was written up and signed, and the woman sent for the corpus delicti examination. The husband paid a small bail as stipulated by law and was then released.

Mattos took an antacid from his pocket, stuck it in his mouth, chewed, mixed it with saliva, and swallowed. He had complied with the law. Had he made the world any better?