“All the time. That’s the only positive side to the whole rotten business. It’s something for the kids to brag about at school. You know him personally?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s a nice guy, not arrogant at all, always willing to give a kid an autograph. And how about that girlfriend of his, huh? Cintia Tadesco? Now, there’s a-”
“Bitch,” Angela said. “The woman is a bitch. That’s a known fact.”
“How can you say that?” Rodolfo said. “How can you say it’s a known fact?”
“Because I read about her all the time.”
“In that trash magazine you subscribe to?”
“It’s called Fofocas, and it’s not trash. I don’t know why the Artist puts up with her.”
“Hell,” her husband said, “all you got to do is to take one look and you know why he puts up with her. If I had half a chance-”
Angela punched her husband on his arm.
“Hey,” he said, “that hurt.”
“It was meant to,” she said.
“People,” Hector said, “I’m in a bit of a hurry here.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“Yeah, sorry,” Rodolfo said-and reached for another cookie.
“Rodolfo,” she said, “you want me to take that plate-”
“Last one,” he said, not letting her finish.
“Tell me about the last time you saw Juraci Santos,”
Hector said.
“Yesterday morning,” Rodolfo said. “I told you guys about that already.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d go over it again. With me.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure. I was leaving for work. I drove up the ramp to the street and got out of my car to close the gate.”
“What time was this?”
“Somewhere between 8:50 and 8:55,” he said without hesitation.
“You seem pretty sure of the time.”
“I am. That’s when I always leave.”
“I told him there was a shopping list on the kitchen table,” Angela said, “but he forgot to pick it up. I grabbed it and ran out the front door.”
“And all the while,” Rodolfo said, “the Santos woman was standing next to her mailbox, arguing with a postman.”
“You’re sure it was an argument?”
“Hell, yes. I heard her tell him he could go fuck himself. That’s the way she talks, always fuck this and fuck that. The woman has a really foul mouth. The postman saw me looking at him, and he must have said something to her because she looked over her shoulder and spotted me.”
“Did she wave? Acknowledge your presence?”
“Wave? No way. Those days are long gone. All she did was lower her voice.”
“Tell me more about this postman.”
“What’s to tell?”
“Was he your regular guy?”
“That’s the thing,” Angela said. “He wasn’t.”
“A substitute?”
She shook her head. “Not that either.”
“How can you be sure?”
“They always deliver to us first. I checked the box before I came inside. There was nothing there. But, later in the day, there was.”
“This postman, had either one of you ever seen him before?”
Rodolfo and Angela looked at each other, and then back at Hector. Both of them shook their heads.
“If you saw him again,” Hector said, “would you recognize him?”
“I think I would,” Angela said. “I’ve got a good memory for faces. Rodolfo is useless.”
“Hey,” Rodolfo said.
“You are. You know you are. It’s downright embarrassing sometimes.”
“I can’t help it if I’m not a goddamned social butterfly.”
“You could at least make an effort.”
Hector picked up his spoon and tapped it on his cup.
Ding, ding, ding.
“ Senhor Sa,” he said, when he had their attention, “it’s my understanding you heard a disturbance early this morning.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Tell me about that.”
“There was this bang next door. It woke me up.”
“You’re sure it came from next door?”
“I’m sure. Adolph sleeps in our room. He went ballistic, and that’s the direction he was barking in.”
“So you got out of bed to have a look.”
“I did. I looked out the window-”
“Bedroom window?”
“No. You can’t see much from our bedroom. I went down the hall to my office.”
“Can you see her kitchen door from the office window?”
“No.”
“What about her front gate? Can you see that?”
“Yes. And the road in front.”
“Did you turn on a light?”
“In the office?”
“Yes, in the office.”
“I did. I’m in the middle of a project. I have papers stacked up all over the floor. I didn’t want to step on them.”
“What did you see from the window?”
“A car driving away. He floored it. The tires squealed. He kicked up a lot of gravel.”
“And that didn’t make you suspicious?”
Rodolfo shook his head. “I figured him for one of her noisy friends, and I figured him for drunk.”
“And you decided not to complain to the security people?”
“No point. By that time, he was gone.”
“You keep saying he and him. Are you sure the driver was a man?”
“No. It could have been a woman. Truth is, I have no idea.”
“How many people were in the car?”
“I couldn’t say. It was too dark.”
“What did you do next?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, okay, not nothing. I turned off the light and went back to bed.”
Chapter Six
Silva’s flight landed late in the afternoon. It took the best part of another hour for him to get to the Federal
