The Paradise Prophecy

Before Ruiz played the message, Callahan asked him to bring the phone into the living room. She wanted Martinez to listen in. It seemed like the right thing to do, considering this was allegedly his investigation.

Moving to the sofa and two chairs near the center of the room, they all sat, then Ruiz placed the phone on the coffee table, touched the speaker icon and pressed play.

What they heard was a surprise to all of them.

It began with a loud clattering sound, as if the phone had hit the floor and rolled. Then Gabriela’s voice echoed, her words unintelligible. She seemed to be babbling incoherently, but it was impossible to tell. She started to cry, her voice blurred by tears but rising in volume and intensity-

– “No . . . Stay away from me!”

The plea had been directed at someone, yet there were no other voices in the room.

She began to cough now, violently, sobbing, struggling to breathe, begging to be left alone. This was abruptly followed by a commotion-feet shuffling, stumbling, crashing, Gabriela crying and coughing and gagging, continuing to beg.

Another crash was followed by a long silence, interrupted only by the sound of her rapid breathing, a cough or two.

She was close to the phone now, and after a moment she said something, then repeated it twice. But the words came out as little more than a croak, barely audible, her anguished whispers too soft to be understood.

Then, after another moment of silence, she began to scream.

Ruiz cut the message off mid-scream. He looked at Callahan with wounded eyes, then quickly averted his gaze, as if he couldn’t quite handle the human connection. He’d be exposing too much.

“I can’t believe I wasn’t there for her when she called.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Phone service is always spotty in places like that. There was nothing you could have done anyway.”

Ruiz just stared at the floor.

Callahan felt for him. Even for a detached outsider like her, that hadn’t been easy to listen to.

She glanced at Martinez, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair, looking more rattled than usual, then got to his feet and gestured for her to join him over by the piano.

She followed him, bracing herself for whatever it was he had to say, knowing she probably wouldn’t like it. She studied the Gustave Dore illustration as he spoke, keeping his voice low.

“There, you see? I was right. What we just heard wasn’t natural. Not even close.”

“Easy now, we’ve got sound and no picture, and that’s a pretty big leap. Someone had to be in that room with her.”

“Nobody human-I can assure you of that. The only voice I heard was hers.”

Callahan was reminded of what Ruiz had told her. About Gabriela hearing voices when she prayed. Could there have been more to it than that? Could she have had some kind of psychotic breakdown and done this to herself?

If so, that still didn’t explain the how. And Martinez was right. On the surface, none of this seemed natural.

But his superstitious hysteria was starting to grate.

“Look,” she said, “let’s come back down to earth for a minute. What I heard on that phone was a woman who was obviously terrified. And despite how it may have sounded, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t alone. I’m guessing the person in that room was someone she knew.”

“Someone we all know,” Martinez said.

Callahan struggled to avoid rolling her eyes and pressed on. “You don’t achieve the kind of stardom or wield the kind of influence Gabriela had without making enemies. And with all the people she was surrounded by, there has to be someone who would want to-”

“De Souza,” Ruiz told her.

They both looked over at him. He was on his feet now, moving toward them, his eyes more bloodshot than ever. “Jose de Souza’s the one you want.”

Callahan was surprised he’d overheard them. “Who’s Jose de Souza?”

“The leader of the Favela Paraisopolis drug cartel.”

“What’s their connection?”

“In the old days, Gabriela did some courier work for him, and she’s spoken out against him many times since. She was pressuring the police to clean up the slums. Even talked about taking a trip there to encourage the children to honor God and stay away from drugs.”

“And you didn’t feel the need to mention this?”

“I told the officers at the scene. But at that point everyone seemed to think that Gabriela had committed suicide.”

“We haven’t completely ruled that out,” Callahan said. “But at least we’re getting somewhere. I take it Gabriela’s interference in de Souza’s life didn’t sit well with him?”

“He threatened her more than once.”

Callahan turned to Martinez. “Your men must have mentioned Mr. Ruiz’s suspicions. Have you talked to this guy?”

She wasn’t surprised when Martinez shook his head. “That’s easier said than done. He rarely leaves the favela. And he’s heavily protected.”

She sighed. “I don’t know how you manage to do it, Detective, but you continue to disappoint me.”

“We can’t just walk in there and demand his cooperation. It would take far more manpower than we can-”

“I don’t care,” Callahan said, “we need to interview him. He’s the best lead we’ve got.”

She could see by the look in his eyes that Martinez was still clinging to his fear. The man was useless.

Having something concrete to focus on gave her hope. But before she approached de Souza, she’d have to reinterview all the witnesses. Maybe one of them would remember seeing him at the concert that night. Maybe he’d been right there in the audience, waiting for Gabriela to go backstage.

Callahan thought about the sound of Gabriela’s voice at the end of the recording, when she’d uttered those last few unintelligible words. It was barely a croak yet somehow purposeful, as if she were trying to send a message.

Was she giving them a name?

The man who had done this to her?

De Souza?

Callahan gestured toward the table. “Don’t touch that phone,” she said, then crossed the room to the foyer where she had left her backpack. Unzipping it, she pulled out her own smartphone and an audio cable, then moved to the sofa and sat.

Setting her phone next to Ruiz’s, she connected one end of the cable to its input, and the other end to the iPhone’s output jack. She had a forensic audio application installed that would allow her to clean up the recording and enhance the sound.

She called it up, then pressed play on the iPhone, transferring the message in real time. When it was done, she called up the audio wav-a graphic representation of the recording-and scrolled to a point near the end, where Gabriela’s whispers were barely more than a few tiny spikes on a straight line.

Callahan isolated this section and normalized the sound, which enlarged the spikes and raised the volume by several decibels.

Then she clicked play, surprised by what she heard.

“Defende eam,” Gabriela croaked. “Defende eam . . .”

The same two words she’d scribbled in the margin of Paradise Lost.

Protect her.

Callahan turned to Ruiz.

“There it is again,” she said. “ ‘Protect her.’ Are you sure you can’t think of anyone Gabriela wanted to protect? Someone in danger? A child, maybe? One of her fans?”