signing any authorizations for anyone. Senhorita Poli is dead. Murdered.'
The manager opened his mouth, reminding Silva of a fish with eyeglasses.
'Murdered?'
'All I'm asking you to do is to let us have a look in that box. We'll do it in your presence. We won't take anything out or put anything in. You can watch us while we do it.'
'Murdered. My God. Well, in that case…'
The woman in charge of the safe-deposit boxes was introduced as Carmen. She had a picture frame on her desk with photos of two little girls who weren't quite as plump as their mother but who were well on their way.
She smiled, offered a hand to each of them-Silva, Hector, Arnaldo, and Brouwer-and started gathering chairs from neighboring desks to seat them all.
'That won't be necessary, Carmen,' Junqueira said. 'The gentlemen are in a hurry. I'll sign the book,'
'Sim, senhor,' she said. 'And the key?'
'Ah, yes, the key. I'd forgotten about the key.'
'What key?' Silva said.
'There are two keys,' Carmen explained. 'We keep one, and the client keeps the other. You need both keys to open a box. We have ours. You need Diana's.'
Carmen seemed to be on first-name terms with Diana Poli.
'And without that key?' Silva asked.
'We have to drill out the lock. It happens occasionally, people losing their keys.'
'Drill out the lock?'
'Yes,' she said brightly. 'There's a locksmith we always use. But I'm sure it won't be necessary in this case.'
'Why not?'
'Well, you're policemen, aren't you?'
'We are.'
'Then why don't you just ask Colonel Ferraz for his?'
Ferraz had left an authorization, ostensibly signed by Diana and dated a week earlier. Carmen showed it to Silva. It was short and to the point:
Please allow Colonel Emerson Ferraz, RG 186364682, to access my safe-deposit box, number 3601
Diana Poli
RG was the prefix to numbers in a national identity card.
'When was he here?' Silva asked.
'Yesterday afternoon,' Carmen said, 'about an hour after we closed our doors to the public. He just caught me. I'd finished my paperwork, had my purse in my hand, and was on my way out the door.'
Silva, Hector, and Father Brouwer left Arnaldo to wait for the locksmith and adjourned to a padaria on the other side of the street. They sat on the terrace where the smell of freshly baked bread battled exhaust fumes from the passing traffic.
Silva and Hector ordered coffee. The priest asked for a mineral water. 'I don't expect there'll be anything left in that box,' he said.
'No. I don't expect there will be,' Silva said. 'Now, let me hazard a guess. The man she was referring to in the note was Ferraz, right?'
The priest looked around before he inclined his head. 'That bastard,' he said, softly. It sounded strong, coming from a priest.
'I think we agree with you there, Father,' Hector said. 'What's going on? And what's your involvement in all of this?'
A young girl, probably no more than thirteen, came up from behind Father Brouwer and touched him on the arm. He turned in his chair and studied her pinched face, thin arms, and short, dirty hair. She was wearing a tattered smock, once white, and carrying a baby. Father Brouwer looked from one child to the other, sighed, and reached into the pocket of his jeans. 'Buy some milk,' he said.
The girl nodded, closed her hand around the coin he gave her, and moved off without a word.
'Dear God,' the priest said, 'let that be her little sister and not her daughter.'
Hector gave him a curious look. 'How did you know-'
'That the baby was a girl?'
Hector nodded.
'Her ears were pierced,' Brouwer said. 'You asked me what's going on? Where do I start?'
'Start with yourself,' Silva said. 'How did you get involved in what Diana was doing?'
'I work with the poor. Not just the league, but anyone who's poor, anyone who needs help: widows, orphans, the disabled, the indigent, street kids. One of the street kids came to me with a story.'
'About?'
'The murders.'
'The death squad?'
'It isn't a death squad.'
'No? Then why do they make hams out of their victims?'
'To make people think it is.' ? 'Why?'
'This is a law-and-order town, Chief Inspector, run by rich people and crooked politicians who want clean streets. No matter what they say in public, privately they tend to agree that those kids are a plague that has to be rooted out. Except that rooting them out by giving them homes, work, and food is too much trouble and too expensive. They'd rather see some of them killed and hope the others will take fright and move away.'
'So there's a tacit approval of the murder of those children, is that what you're telling me?'
'Yes.'
Father Brouwer picked up his glass and drained it. His hands were trembling slightly, and the glass made a little clinking sound when he put it back on the metal table.
'So why are they being killed?'
'Pipoca said-'
'Pipoca?'
'The boy who came to talk to me. All of the children have street names. That's his. Pipoca. He told me the children were murdered because they didn't pay their debts, not because there was a movement underway to clean up the streets.'
'Debts?'
'Drug debts. He said that all of them had to work hard to support their habits and when someone defaulted… an example was made.'
'So instead of cleaning up the town, it's the other way around. The people doing the killing are forcing the kids to work harder?'
'Yes.'
'And that work is prostitution, petty theft, burglaries, assaults…'
'Yes. All of that.'
Silva glanced at Hector before he asked the next question. 'This Pipoca, does he know who's behind it? The drugs? The killings?'
'Emerson Ferraz.'
'Why didn't you come to us?'
'You weren't here. I didn't know whom to trust. I have issues with policemen, as you may know. And it isn't just the policemen in this town who are corrupt. It's the politicians as well. And that judge, Wilson Cunha. He may not be involved in Ferraz's business, but he's certainly in the pocket of the movers and the shakers.'
'So you discussed it with Diana?'
'Yes. She's from a wealthy family, people who own a great deal of land, but she's always been sympathetic to the needs of the poor. And not just Diana, but her mother and father too. They've been regular contributors to our work.'
Silva's voice took on a harder tone. 'And instead of advising you to come to us, as she should have done, she
