“Her lawyer is Dudu Fonseca.”
Sampaio tossed down his pen in disgust.
“Fonseca? That shyster? What’s with that? Pitanguy worked in a pharmacy. She’s nothing more than a glorified shop girl. Where does she get the money to hire a heavyweight like Fonseca?”
“Juraci shot her twice in the spine. She’s paralyzed from the waist down; she’ll never walk again.”
“So?”
“So Vitoria’s bringing a civil suit against Juraci. She and Fonseca are discussing how they’re going to split the proceeds. He wants half; she’s offering him a third.”
“How do you know that?”
Silva didn’t reply.
“Are you listening in on conversations between Vitoria Pitanguy and her lawyer?”
“That would be illegal, Director, a violation of attorney/client privilege.”
“It sure as hell would. But it’s a juicy story. I’m gonna use it.”
“If you go public with that information-”
Sampaio picked up his pen. “I’m not going public with it. I’m going to talk about it at a dinner, that’s all.”
“Still, if it gets out-”
Sampaio waved a dismissive hand. “It’s not going to get out. And, even if it does, can they prove you’re bugging them? No, they can’t.”
“I’m not concerned about-”
“Am I not making myself clear, Chief Inspector? I’m going to use it, and that’s it. Fim do papo. You think she’ll win?”
Silva gave up trying to talk his boss out of divulging the information. “Win her civil suit? Yes, I think it’s likely.”
“And that prick Fonseca thinks so too, otherwise he wouldn’t be wasting his time talking to her. So the money to pay for Vitoria’s defense is ultimately going to come from the Artist?”
“Ultimately, it is.”
Sampaio snorted in disgust. “It’s not right.”
“No. Not right.”
“Couldn’t you just…”
“What?”
“You know.”
“Claim Vitoria got shot while resisting arrest?”
“You said it. I didn’t.”
Silva shook his head.
“It wouldn’t wash. Vitoria was shot with her own pistol, which proves she was unarmed at the time. Also, she was shot in the back. If we made a claim like that, Fonseca would make mincemeat out of us. No, Director, I’m afraid it’s Juraci, or us.”
“Too bad for her then, because it certainly isn’t going to be us. Take me through Arns’s story. Start right at the beginning. Maybe there’s something else I can use.”
Silva took a moment to gather his thoughts, then began.
“One morning, about eight months ago, things were slow at the pharmacy, and Vitoria dropped by Arns’s shop to have a chat. Somehow, they got on the subject of Juraci. Arns told Vitoria how she was always firing her servants, changing her locks. From there, they started gossiping about her son, how there was a rumor he was going to be sold to Real Madrid, how much money he’d earned over the last few years.”
“So that’s when they started thinking about how they could get their hooks into some of it?”
“Not right then. But Vitoria kept thinking about it, and a few days later, she hit Samuel with a ‘what if.’”
“What if we kidnap the Artist’s mother and hold her for ransom?”
“Exactly. At first, he said, he thought she was joking.”
“But, when he found out she wasn’t, he bought into it.”
“According to him, he did’t. According to him, he put up objections.”
“Like?”
“What if someone got hurt? What if he and Vitoria were recognized? What if Juraci fought back and needed to be subdued? How would they go about collecting the ransom?”
“And she kept coming up with answers?”
“He said they made a game of it. But every time they played it, the game became more serious. Eventually, he said, a plan emerged: on one of the occasions when she changed her locks, he’d make up an extra set. That would give them access to her house. No one was supposed to get hurt. They’d use hoods so they wouldn’t be recognized. They’d subdue her with a sedative. Vitoria said she’d have no trouble getting her hands on a drug made to order for the job: Ketamine. Where they got hung up, and hung up for quite a while, was how they could collect the money without getting caught.”
“Until?”
“Until one day Edson Campos came into Vitoria’s pharmacy and started singing the praises of carrier pigeons. She recognized the potential immediately, but she also recognized that the pigeons wouldn’t be able to carry cash. It would be too heavy.”
“So she hit on the idea of diamonds?”
“She did.”
“And Samuel ran out of objections.”
“Actually, he did’t. His biggest objection remained. He was petrified by the idea of getting caught. But she kept wearing him down. She wrote away for travel folders, showed him ads for gold watches and sports cars, painted a life of luxury and eternal bliss. And, finally, his greed got the better of him.”
“So they started trying to find someone to buy the stones, and that bicheiro, Captain Miranda, heard about it, and he got in touch with you.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Samuel said they never consulted anyone.”
“So what did Miranda intend to tell you?”
“We’ll never know. Whatever it was, it would have been a false lead, a dead end.”
“So no one else was involved in the kidnapping? Just those two?”
“Just those two.”
“Who evaluated the stones?”
“Samuel.”
“He’s a locksmith. What does he know about diamonds?”
“He studied up on diamonds, learned enough to make sure they weren’t grossly cheated and bought the equipment he’d need to do it: a jeweler’s loupe, reference books, a set of scales, a hardness kit, a light box for grading, and God knows what else. We found it all when we searched his house.”
“And to convert the diamonds to cash? How were they going to do that?”
“Samuel’s parents are German. He’s got dual nationality. He and Vitoria planned to marry. As husband and wife, they could live anywhere in the European Economic Community.”
“And sell a few stones at a time?”
“A few in London, a few in Paris, a few in Rome. They thought they could go on forever. When we caught them, they’d already sewn most of the stones into clothing they’d be taking with them.”
“Most?”
“Some were lost in transit. A bird of prey attacked one of the pigeons. Some were stolen by the caseiro of the sitio where they kept the birds. Those we recovered. A few Vitoria sold for seed money.”
“Seed money?”
“The cash they’d need to set them up in their new life.”
“Who did she sell them to?”
“Samuel doesn’t know, and she won’t tell us. She’s not talking to us about anything.”
