Free Requiem for a Killer by Paulo Levy Page B

room. Her hair was as white and as
sparse as a cloud, her skin dry and transparent like a papyrus
sheet of paper, barely hiding the bluish veins visible on her
shins, arms and temples. They looked like ivy winding around a
piece of wood. Dornelas got up and put his hand out.
    “Nice to meet you. My name is Joaquim
Dornelas. I’m a police inspector.”
    “Good morning, Inspector,” said the old
lady, ignoring his outstretched hand and crossing the room toward
the door, which she opened wide.
    “I hate this door always being closed. It’s
such a small house. I feel cooped up in here,” said the old
lady.
    She turned to Dornelas.
    “Are you who’s taking care of Dindinho?”
    “In a way, yes,” he answered awkwardly.
    “What do you mean, ‘in a way’?”
    ‘ Crooks are all the same,’ thought
Dornelas. ‘They all have a mother who’s not only willing to
forgive them, but who more often than not deny their child’s guilt
to their death bed, even if he had committed war crimes.’ Out
of respect for her Dornelas didn’t want to get right to the point.
But he couldn’t dodge the question either.
    “The only way I can, finding the person who
killed him.”
    “What did you say?” replied the old lady,
cupping her hand around her left ear. Dornelas noticed the hearing
device stuck in it.
    “Finding the person who killed him,” he
repeated in a loud voice.
    “Oh, I see,” she said in a sad but resigned
voice.
    Maria das Graças got up and went to the
kitchen. She returned with another chair that she placed next to
the first.
    The old lady sat down.
    “I’m tired of so much death in this family,
Inspector,” she said sorrowfully. “I’m seventy-eight. I’ve lived
too long. I’m tired of seeing the people I love being torn out of
my life. That’s the way it was with my husband. And now my son.
Enough suffering!”
    She stretched out an arm and grabbed her
daughter’s hands that were clasped in her lap. Maria das Graças had
lowered her eyes. Dornelas felt like giving her an affectionate
hug, but this was neither the time nor the place. He sat back down
on the couch and gave his full attention to the old lady.
    “My son had a black heart, Inspector. He was
born with it and he died with it. It’s silly to think we choose
what we do in life. It’s life that chooses what we do, where we go.
My son was born a drug dealer. His fate was sealed in the cradle.
When we moved here and that drug gang crossed his path, I knew
right away that sooner or later someone from the police was going
to come through that door and tell me he was dead. We know. A
mother knows. It can’t be explained, you understand?”
    “Perfectly.”
    “The only happiness I had was that he lasted
longer than I expected. May he rest in peace. Hallelujah!” The old
woman raised her arms, gazed up at the ceiling, lowered her head
and was silent. Maria das Graças did the same thing. Dornelas
didn’t know what he should do, caught in the embarrassing silence.
He didn’t want to seem indifferent to their pain, but he had a job
to do.
    “Could I ask you some questions, please?” he
asked cautiously.
    The old lady sighed and nodded in
agreement.
    “Okay then,” he said as he settled on the
couch. “Do you have any document with a photograph of your son, or
with his fingerprints?”
    Mother and daughter looked at each other
doubtfully.
    “As far as I know my brother never had an
official ID card,” said Maria das Graças.
    “But his birth was recorded as soon as he
was born, in Minas Gerais,” the old lady completed.
    He knew that there are no fingerprints on
birth certificates, but with any luck there should be footprints of
the newly-born, which, at this point, would be a big step forward
for Dornelas. As thin a thread as it was, this could be the first
and only concrete indication that it was José Aristodemo dos Anjos
who belonged to the corpse on Dr. Dulce Neves’ table.
    “Would you have his birth