Twenty-four

“What Laura says is true,” Fletch said to Marilia Diniz across the lunch table. “Anyone can tell you any story, and say it is the past.”

Leaving favela Santos Lima totally unsatisfied, Fletch and Marilia led a parade of plucking pixies and curious adults down the hill and along the city street to his car. He had made his courtesies, thanked Janio Barreto Filho for the story, shaken hands with all the adults, thanked Idalina for her coffee and hospitality, generally wished the favela well in the parade of the samba schools that night, but left the airless little house as soon as he could. The heat in the room had become almost unbearable. But the eyes of everyone told him how unsatisfied they were. They had expected the story of Janio Barreto to bring his memories alive so he could tell them before leaving who had been his murderer.

Solemnly, Fletch promised he would think over the whole story.

He and Marilia drove to Colombo, a sparkling clean tearoom noted for its great pastry.

Marilia asked, “Do you still think it is a joke being played on you by Laura and the Tap Dancers?”

“I don’t see how it can be. All those people in the door and windows, all those people in the street had heard the story before, knew parts of it well enough to correct Janio, add elements to it—and all with high seriousness. If it is a trick, it’s the most elaborate trick conceivable.”

Their waffles were warm and tender.

“You have heard the story now,” Marilia said. “What is the answer?”

“How would I know?”

Marilia’s eyes flickered at him. “All right. But use what you do know, use your training. You were trained as an investigative reporter….”

“Yeah: investigating how come the city’s water pipes run an extra five kilometers to avoid the property owned by the water commissioner. Big deal. This is not quite the same sort of situation.”

“Nevertheless…”

“Investigative reporters do not make guesses just to satisfy people with a conclusion to a story.”

“But investigative reporters do think, don’t they?”

“Think about documented facts. How can I think about something that happened on a beach in Rio de Janeiro forty-seven years ago? However long I am in Brazil, I will never be that prescient. Or postscient.”

“What will you tell them?”

Fletch made sure there was syrup on each part of his waffle. “I suppose I’ll tell them the kindest thing I can think of: Uruguayans came and slit his throat and took their boat back. It would be kinder than blaming someone in the favela dead or alive.”

“Janio said he won the boat playing cards.” Marilia chewed thoughtfully. “There is some evidence he did.”

“What evidence?”

“If you stole a boat, even from a different country, wouldn’t you change its name?”

“Of course. I suppose so.”

“The name of the boat was in Spanish. La Muñeca. He never changed its name. They said after Janio was found dead, La Muñeca was missing. Never seen again.”

Fletch sighed.

Marilia said, “And if Uruguayans killed Janio Barreto, why didn’t they kill Tobias Novaes as well? He would have been on the boat with Janio.”

“Perhaps the Uruguayans appeared after they docked.”

“Could be,” Marilia said.

“After Tobias wandered off to become a monk. Marilia, that’s too big a coincidence in timing. How could Tobias wander off to become a monk without telling anyone what he was doing, just before Janio got his throat slit?”

“There had been a storm at sea. I have heard of people becoming very religious, very suddenly, during storms at sea. They make deals. Spare my life, oh Lord, and I will devote the rest of my life to singing Thy praises.”

“Maybe.”

“I think the boat sank. And both Janio and Tobias swam ashore. Tobias to join a monastery; Janio to get his throat slit.”

“That’s fine. It’s great to guess. But how can we know?”

Again, Marilia’s eyes flickered.

Fletch said, “Tobias himself is a good bet as the murderer. Surely he wouldn’t be the first to commit a heinous crime and then, after a while, so weighted with guilt, he hies off to a monastery to spend the rest of his life atoning.”

“True. Tobias could have killed Janio. He could have stolen the boat. But after years of being a monk, could he have lied about it?”

Somewhat in imitation of Tito Granja, Fletch crossed his eyes.

“After years of atonement,” Marilia said, “Tobias would know he would be risking his soul to lie.”

“‘Risking his soul.’” Fletch repeated. “That brings up the father of the girl who was going to be a nun. What was his name? Tavares. Apparently he thought he was going to end up in hell anyway. Why wouldn’t he have killed Janio?”

“He might have. Still, murder is the greatest crime. And there is always the possibility of personal salvation.”

Fletch looked at Marilia’s bracelet. It was made of rotting braided cloth. He had seen many such bracelets in Brazil. He had difficulty understanding the significance of them.

“Fernando,” Fletch said. “Idalina’s father. Certainly he hated Janio. Over a long period of time. He got into a fistfight over him.”

“Kill his son-in-law? Leave his daughter a widow, his grandchildren fatherless?” Slowly, Marilia said, “I suppose so. Fernando apparently thought Janio not a very good husband or father.”

“And he had reason to be envious of him. Fernando could never find work as a bookkeeper. Then Janio shows up with his own boat. Becomes a prosperous man. Even gets to live in a house higher up in the favela than Fernando.”

Marilia, a slim, trim woman, surprised Fletch by ordering one of the bigger, more sugary pastries.

Fletch said, “You know, once you make prophecies about someone, there is the instinct to help them become fulfilled.”

“Fernando said someone would take a knife to Janio and kill him, and it wasn’t happening fast enough to satisfy Fernando, so he did the job himself?”

“I suppose prophets have to work at their reputations, as much as anyone else.”

“Mmmmm. So what will you do, Fletcher? What will you tell these people?”

“I don’t know. I’m not about to point the finger at a monk. Or at the grandfather of the family. Or at the memory of some other deceased citizen whose daughter was deflowered by the victim. Any one of hundreds of people could have done in Janio.”

“Now that you’ve heard the story, will you be able to sleep?”

“Will I?”

They finished their pastries in silence.

Fletch said, “Marilia, tell me about that bracelet you’re wearing.”

Self-consciously she touched it with the fingers of her other hand. “Oh, that.”

“I see many people, men and women, wearing these cloth, braided bracelets.”

“Just a superstition, I guess.” Her face flushed. “You make a wish, you know, for something you hope will come true. As you make the wish, you put on this braided bracelet. You wear it until what you wished for comes true.”

“Supposing what you wish for doesn’t come true?”

Slightly red-faced, she laughed. “Then you wear in until it falls off.”

“You believe in such a thing?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“But you’re wearing such a bracelet.”

“Why not?” she asked, resettling it on her wrist. “It does no harm to act as if you believe in such a thing, just in case it is true.”

Outside the restaurant they stopped at a kiosk. Marilia bought Jornal do Brasil and Fletch bought Brazil Herald and the Latin America Daily Post.

A healthy-seeming curly-haired man of about thirty was leaning against Fletch’s MP. It appeared he was waiting for them.

He spoke rapidly, happily to Fletch.

Then, seeing he wasn’t being understood, he spoke to Marilia.

She answered him, happily enough. While talking with him, she opened the small purse tied to her wrist, took out some money, and gave it to him.

The man stuffed the money into his shoe.

Then he leaned against the next car, a Volkswagen bug.

In the car, Fletch asked, “What did he want?”

“Ohhhh. He said he had been taking care of the car for us while we were away. It is for him to take care of the cars along this section of curb, he said.”

“Is it?”

“He says so.”

“Who gave him charge of this section of curb?”

“No one. It is just something he says.”

Fletch started the car. “If it is just something he says, then why did you give him money? Why didn’t you just tell him to get lost?”

Flustered, Marilia was looking into her handbag, perhaps rearranging the interior. “I suppose I owe it to him because I just had such a nice lunch.”