Free The She-Devil in the Mirror by Horacio Castellanos Moya

said it so gently it caught me off guard. I
actually listened. He went back to the subject of Yuca, and Kati, and Olga
María. He assured me he had no intention of judging anybody’s private life, much
less a person who’d been murdered in such a brutal way, but his job consisted of
pursuing all possible lines of investigation, and one of them was pointing to a
crime of passion, though this wasn’t the only or even the most important one. He
told me he had specific information about Olga María’s relationship with José
Carlos and with Yuca, and he understood why I’d prefer not to talk about those
things, how I’d fiercely defend my friend’s private life, but the information he
had led him to believe that I was aware of these relationships. That Deputy
Chief Handal spoke so gently, without any hostility, that I couldn’t get upset,
my dear. All I managed to do was ask where he’d gotten his information. He told
me he couldn’t reveal his sources, in his line of work he had to maintain strict
confidentiality—he would keep anything I told him in the strictest secrecy, I
should trust him. His goal in questioning me was only to dig a little deeper
into the relationships Olga María had with her friends, not to create a scandal
or anything like that, just to tie up the loose ends of that line of
investigation. That’s what he said, then he added that his work was apolitical,
that he never had any intention of messing with Don Gastón Berrenechea’s
reputation, much less that of his wife. And maybe because I’m so tired of all
this, maybe because his tone of voice was so gentle, maybe because when all is
said and done the man is doing his job because he did arrest the murderer, well,
the truth is I began to answer most of his questions. I told him, yes, José
Carlos was in love with Olga María, they’d met on several occasions, in his
studio, and Marito didn’t know anything about it. But I made it clear to him
that I didn’t know anything about any pornographic pictures or any blackmail,
the truth was I considered José Carlos incapable of doing anything of the sort.
Then I told him in no uncertain terms that if he wanted me to keep talking he’d
have to tell me where he’d gotten that photograph of Olga María. He repeated
that he couldn’t tell me. I asked him if there were other photos or if this was
the only one. And since he kept his mouth shut, my dear, so did I. I told them
the interview was over, to please leave because I felt very tired. Here comes my
mother. Wait a second. She says the Brazilian telenovela is about to start. Yes,
we watch it together, hard as that is to believe. I know, I also never imagined
my mother would like a telenovela like that—it’s so risqué, so sexy. But she’s
taken even more of a liking to it than I have: she hasn’t missed a single
episode. I love it. In a totally different league than that Mexican garbage,
only servants watch that. But it bugs me that it’s so long, it seems like it’ll
never end; the one I like best is that Holofernes—what a hunk, my dear,
incredible man, gorgeous, but with such a horrible name; I wonder what his name
is in real life. If it weren’t for Holofernes I’d have stopped watching that
telenovela. The truth is there’s ten more minutes before it starts; my mother’s
always jumping the gun. Anyway, I pretended to be tired, I didn’t want to talk
anymore, but that Deputy Chief Handal was determined to finish the job, because
he didn’t budge, he asked me if Olga María’s relationships with José Carlos and
Yuca had overlapped, which had come first, if either one knew of the existence
of the other, if Marito suspected or knew anything. I told him more or less what
we know, but without going into many details, because when all’s said and done
the guy already had the information, it didn’t do