Free Target in the Night by Ricardo Piglia Page A

Even the feeling that someone or something was dictating to him was—for him—evidence of their significance. He grew distracted. When he snapped back to, he heard Ada speaking, she seemed to be answering some question from his assistant, the Scribe. Something referring to the telephone call to the factory. She didn’t know if Durán had spoken with her brother. Neither one of them knew anything. Croce didn’t believe them, but he did not insist because he preferred to have his intuitions revealed when it was no longer necessary to confirm them. All he wanted to know from them was a few details about Tony’s visit to their house.
    â€œHe came to speak with your father.”
    â€œHe came to our house because my father wanted to meet him.”
    â€œSomething was said about the will.”
    â€œThis shitty town,” Ada said, with a delicate smile. “Everyone knows we can split the inheritance whenever we want because my mother is incapacitated.”
    â€œLegally,” Sofía said.
    â€œToward the end people saw him with Yoshio frequently, you know the rumors.”
    â€œWe don’t worry about what people do when they’re not with us.”
    â€œAnd we’re not interested in rumors.”
    â€œOr gossip.”
    As if it were a flash, Croce recalled a summer siesta: both sisters playing with newborn kittens. They must have been five or six years old, the girls. They had lined up the kittens, crawling along the tiles, warmed by the afternoon sun; each girl would pet a kitten and pass it to the other, holding them by their tails. A fast game, which went even faster, despite the kittens’ plaintive meowing. Of course he had ruled out the sisters from the start. They would’ve killed him themselves, they wouldn’t have delegated such a personal issue. Crimes committed by women are always personal, Croce thought, they don’t trust anyone else to do it for them. Saldías continued asking questions and taking notes. A telephone call from the factory. To confirm he was there. At the same time. Too great a coincidence.
    â€œYou know my brother, Inspector. It’s impossible, he wouldn’t have called,” Sofía said.
    Ada said that she didn’t have any news from her brother, that she hadn’t seen Luca in a while. They weren’t close. No one saw him anymore, she added, he lived shut away in the factory with his inventions and his dreams.
    â€œWhat’s going to happen?” Sofía asked.
    â€œNothing,” Croce said. “We’ll have him sent to the morgue.”
    It was strange to be speaking in that room, with the dead man lying on the floor, with Saldías taking notes, and the tired Inspector looking kindly at them.
    â€œCan we leave?” Sofía asked.
    â€œOr are we suspects?” Ada asked.
    â€œEveryone’s a suspect,” Croce said. “You better leave out the back.And please don’t tell anyone what you saw here, or what we talked about.”
    â€œOf course,” Ada said.
    The Inspector offered to walk them out, but they refused. They were leaving on their own, he could call them anytime if he needed them.
    Croce sat down on the bed. He seemed overwhelmed, or distracted. He wanted to see the notes Saldías had taken. He studied them calmly.
    â€œOkay,” he said after a while. “Let’s see what these scoundrels have to say.”
    A rancher from Sauce Viejo declared that he had heard the sound of chains from the other side of the door, outside Durán’s room. Then he had heard clearly someone say, in a nervous, hushed voice:
    â€œI’ll buy it for you. You can pay me later, somehow.”
    He remembered the words perfectly because he thought it sounded like a threat, or a joke. He couldn’t identify who had spoken, but the voice was shrill, as if they were speaking in falsetto, or like a woman’s voice.
    â€œFalsetto, or like a woman’s