Mario Llosa: Who Killed Palomino Molero?

“Do you think there’s any way he didn’t, Lituma?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I think he did kill her. That’s why he was behaving so strangely out on the beach. I also think he killed himself-that was the shot we heard. Son of a bitch.”

“You’re right,” said Lieutenant Silva. “Son of a bitch.”

For a moment they were silent, immobile, standing among the shadows that danced along the walls, on the floor, over the furniture of the dilapidated office. “What do we do now, Lieutenant?”

“Well, I don’t know what you’re going to do,” he said brusquely, standing up as if he’d suddenly remembered he had something urgent to attend to. He seemed possessed of a violent energy. “But for the moment I’d advise you to do nothing except get some sleep. Until someone comes to tell us about the two deaths.”

Lituma watched him stride purposefully out of the room toward the shadows on the street, making his usual gestures: settling the holster he always wore on his belt and putting on his sunglasses.

“And where are you off to, Lieutenant?” he muttered, shocked and already sure of what he was going to hear.

“I’m gonna screw that fat bitch once and for all.”

Doña Adriana laughed again, and Lituma realized that while all Talara was gossiping, weeping, or speculating about the momentous events which had taken place, she did nothing but laugh. This had been going on for three days. That’s how she’d greeted them and bidden them farewell at breakfast, lunch, and supper-the purest horse-laugh. By contrast, Lieutenant Silva was cranky and out of sorts, as if he’d eaten something that had disagreed with him. For the fifteenth time in three days, Lituma wondered what the hell had gone on between them. Father Domingo’s bells echoed through the town, calling the faithful to Mass. Still laughing, Doña Adriana crossed herself.

“What do you think they’ll do to this Lieutenant Dufó?” rasped Don Jerónimo.

It was lunchtime, and along with Don Jerónimo, Lieutenant Silva, and Lituma, there was a young couple who had come from Zorritos for a baptism.

“He’ll be tried in a military court,” an ill-humored Lieutenant Silva replied, without raising his eyes from his half-empty plate.

“But they’ll have to convict him of something, don’t you think?” Don Jerónimo was eating hash and white rice, fanning himself with a newspaper. He chewed with his mouth open and sprayed food particles all around him. “After all, if a guy does what they say this Dufó did to Palomino Molero, you just don’t let him go free, right, Lieutenant?”

“Right, right, you just can’t let him go free,” agreed the lieutenant, his mouth full and his face radiating his disgust at not being left in peace at lunch. “They’ll do something to him, at least I imagine they will.”

Doña Adriana laughed again, and Lituma felt the lieutenant tense up and sink into his seat as she approached them. He must be on edge: he’s not even chasing away the flies buzzing around his face. She was wearing a flowered dress, very low-cut, and as she walked she shook her hips and breasts vigorously. She looked healthy, happy, and at peace with the world.

“Have another glass of water, Lieutenant, and don’t eat so quickly. You might swallow down the wrong pipe,” said Doña Adriana, laughing, as she patted him on the back in a way even more mocking than the words she spoke.

“You’ve been in a good mood lately,” said Lituma, staring at her without recognizing her. She was a different person, a coquette, what had gotten into her?

“There must be a reason,” said Doña Adriana, picking up the plates from the table where the couple from Zorritos were sitting, and heading for the kitchen. She wiggled her backside as if waving goodbye to them. “Holy Jesus,” thought Lituma.

“Do you have any idea why she’s been like this, so bubbly, for the last three days, Lieutenant?”

Instead of answering, the lieutenant pierced him with a homicidal look from behind his dark glasses and went back to contemplating the street. There a vulture was furiously pecking at something. Then, suddenly, it flapped its wings and flew away.

“Want me to tell you something, Lieutenant?” said Don Jerónimo. “I hope you won’t get mad.”

“If it’ll make me mad, it might be better not to say it,” growled the lieutenant. “I’m not in the mood for bullshit.” “Over and out,” growled back the taxi driver.

“Will there be more killings?” asked Doña Adriana from the kitchen, laughing.

“She’s vamping us,” Lituma said to himself. “I have to pay a visit to Liau’s chicks. I’m getting rusty.” The taxi driver’s table was on the other side of the room, so in order to talk to the lieutenant he had to shout over the heads of the couple from Zorritos, who had been following the conversation with growing interest.

“Well, even if you do get mad, I am going to say something to you,” decided Don Jerónimo, slapping the table with his newspaper. “There’s not a soul in Talara, man, woman, child, or dog, who believes that story. Not even that vulture out there could swallow it.”

The vulture had returned and was sitting there, black and mean, chewing on a lizard it had in its beak. The lieutenant went on eating, indifferent, concentrating on his own thoughts and bad mood.

“And what is ‘that story if you don’t mind telling us, Don Jerónimo?”

“That Colonel Mindreau killed his daughter and then killed himself,” said the taxi driver, spewing food. “Who’d be dumb enough to believe that?”

“Me,” said Lituma. “I’m dumb enough to believe that the colonel killed her and then committed suicide.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Officer Lituma. The two of them were bumped off so they wouldn’t talk. So the murder of Palomino Molero could be blamed on Mindreau. Who do you think you’re kidding?”

“Is that really what people are saying now?” Lieutenant Silva raised his head from his plate. “That Colonel Mindreai was bumped off? And who’s supposed to have killed him?”

“The big guys, of course. Who else? Don’t kid me, Lieutenant. Come on, we’re all friends here. The fact is you can’t talk. Everybody says they’ve shut you up and won’t let you get to the bottom of the case. The usual stuff.”

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders, as if all this chatter meant nothing to him.

“People are actually saying he took advantage of his daughter,” said Don Jerónimo through a shower of rice. “What pigs. Poor man. Don’t you think so, Adrianita?”

“I think lots of things, ha-ha-ha!”

“So people think this is all a made-up story,” murmured the lieutenant, turning back to his lunch with a bitter grimace.

“Of course. To protect the real guilty parties, what else could it be?”

The I.P.C.’s siren wailed, and the vulture raised its head and hunched down. It remained like that for a few seconds, tense and waiting. Then it hopped off.

“So what reason do people give for the murder of Palomino Molero?” asked Lituma.

“Smuggling. Worth millions,” declared Don Jerónimo.

“First they killed the kid because he found out something. And when Colonel Mindreau discovered what was going on, or was about to discover it, they killed him and the girl. And since they know what people like to hear, they invented that filthy stuff about how he killed Molero because he was jealous, that Molero had something going with his daughter, who he was supposed to have abused. The smoke screen was a success. Nobody’s talking about the important thing: the money.”

“Damn but they have terrific imaginations,” said the lieutenant, sighing. He was scraping his fork along the plate as if he wanted to break it.