And what a woman she was. She had long blond hair, high cheekbones, and a perfect complexion. The areas around her blue eyes and full lips bore no makeup at all. She didn’t need it.
“Senhora Clancy?”
“Yes.”
“Your… husband. Dennis Clancy. Where is he?”
A voice behind her said, in English, “Someone looking for Dennis Clancy?”
“Yes, dear, they are,” the blond responded in the same language. “They say they’re federal policemen.”
“I’m Dennis Clancy,” the man said, stepping into the doorway. “You speak English?”
“Badly,” Arnaldo said. It wasn’t true. He spoke English quite well.
“Splendid,” Clancy said, willing to accept badly as quite good enough. “So Petra won’t have to translate. Come in, won’t you?”
The room was small, the wallpaper faded, the carpet thin and stained. Chipped Formica tables flanked the double bed. A coffee machine stood on the chest of drawers, a television hung from a rack bolted to the ceiling, an armchair graced a corner. The only other piece of furniture, a writing desk, was butted up against a grimy window that overlooked an air shaft. Six sixty-six wasn’t one of the Gloria’s best rooms.
Dennis Clancy closed the door and directed the federal cops to the chairs. Goncalves took the one at the writing desk. Clancy and the woman sat side by side on the bed. He took her hand in his.
“The coffee is quite dreadful,” he said, “otherwise I’d offer you some. You already know our names. What are yours?”
“I’m Agent Nunes. This is Agent Goncalves.”
“Good. What can I do for you?”
“You can answer some questions. Did you arrive in this country on the morning of the twenty-third of November?”
“I did.”
“On TAB 8101 from Miami?”
“Yes. But my visa is perfectly in order, and I haven’t-”
“Just answer the questions, please. Why did you come to Brazil, Father Clancy?”
“Just Mister Clancy, or Dennis, if you prefer. We’ve elected to leave the church.”
“ We? Wait a minute. Are you telling me she’s a nun?”
“He’s telling you,” she said, “that I was a nun. Sister Clare. Before and after that, I was Petra Walder. Now I’m Petra Clancy.”
“You’re married?”
“We’re married,” she said.
“M ERDA,” A BILIO Sacca said.
“Indeed,” Silva said, “and you’re in it up to your neck. Come on. Start talking.”
“I got nothing to say.”
“Yes, you do. Want me to tell you why?”
“Okay. I’ll play along. Why?”
“Because we’re investigating multiple murders, all performed by the same person.”
“Not me. I never killed anybody in my whole life.”
“With only two exceptions, the people who were travelling with you in that business-class cabin are either dead or they’ve been cleared.”
“And one of those two exceptions did the killing? Is that what you’re saying?”
“It’s a distinct possibility.”
“It was the other guy.”
“With you people,” Hector said, “it’s always the other guy.”
“And, in this case,” Silva said, “the other guy is a Catholic priest.”
“So what? Priests can kill people.”
“They can. And maybe he did. But if I can’t pin the murders on him, I’ll pin them on you.”
Tic. Tic. Tic.
“Wait. Wait. Wait. You’re saying you’re gonna pin ’em on me even if I didn’t do ’em?”
“Correct.”
The Brazilian civil police framed people like Sacca all the time. Sacca knew this, and Silva knew he knew it.
“You got no call to do something like that,” Sacca said. “I never done nothing to you!”
Silva shook his head, as if in regret.
“Sorry, Sacca,” he said. “One of the murder victims was the son of the foreign minister of Venezuela. The president wants results. The minister of justice is on my boss’s back. You see the bind I’m in. I’ve got to deliver.”
“And you deliver by framing me?”
“Or the priest. Makes no difference to me, except I figure you’ll be easier.”
Tic. Tic. Tic.
Within Sacca’s world, what Silva was saying made perfect sense. The little burglar rubbed a hand over his face.
“Maybe we can work something out,” he said. “What is it you wanna know?”
“There was a boy in the compartment, traveling alone. Remember him?”
“Yeah, I remember him. I remember everybody. I got a good memory for faces.”
“You were searched when you were going through Customs, right?”
“Right,” Sacca said, cautiously, a wary look in his eyes.
“They didn’t find anything on you,” Silva said.
“Right again. So, what are you-”
“But they found something on the kid.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Ecstasy pills. Your Ecstasy pills. You were smuggling them in from the States.”
“No, I-”
“You got up in the middle of the night, took those pills out of your hand luggage, and slipped them into his. The kid was busted with your pills. They took him away and put him in a cell with hardened criminals. An hour or two later, he was sent to a communal shower.”
“Why are you-”
“Shut up and listen. Someone tried to rape him. He wouldn’t have it. They killed him and raped him anyway. He was fifteen years old.”
Sacca shrugged. “You know what the kid should have done? He should have just let them do it. I mean, he’d be alive today if he had, right? Sometimes you just gotta-”
“You framed him, didn’t you?”
Abilio Sacca opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. At that moment, he reminded Silva of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“I didn’t frame him,” he finally said. “It wasn’t like that at all.”
“No? How was it, then?”
“I want to see a lawyer. I’m not saying another word until I see a lawyer.”
“No deal,” Silva said.
“What do you mean, no deal? I got a right to a lawyer. I don’t have to talk to you guys.”
“Thing is,” Silva said, “I’m under a lot of pressure here.”
“And what the fuck do you think you’re putting me under?”
Silva couldn’t count the tics any more, they were coming that fast. “Ah. But that’s different,” he said. “You’re a convicted felon. I’m a cop.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Talk. I need answers now, right now. I can’t wait. And if you don’t give me those answers, I’m gonna pin those murders on you.”
Beads of perspiration broke out on Sacca’s brow. “Look, how about we do this? How about you turn off that
