Free Buried Strangers by Leighton Gage

talking and started avoiding Tanaka’s eyes.
    That was what he was doing now, five minutes into what had become a hostile interrogation. He sat with his shoul-ders slumped, staring at his hands. They were pudgy hands, like big, brown gloves, and they were splayed palm down-ward on the surface of the steel table. When Ribeiro moved them, they left spots of moisture on the cold metal. The air-conditioning in the interrogation room was cranked up high, but it didn’t dispel the pungent odor of sweat generated by years of interrogations like this one.
    Ribeiro was on the point of cracking. Tanaka knew this, because he’d known hundreds of men like Ribeiro. But then Tanaka did something that surprised Ribeiro: he stood and abruptly terminated the interview. He could see incompre-hension written all over the carioca’s face, but only because he was looking for it. Almost immediately, incomprehension was replaced by a crafty expression. Ribeiro, the stupid bas-tard, was thinking that he’d actually pulled it off, that his stonewalling had brought Tanaka to a screeching halt. It would never have occurred to him that Tanaka didn’t want a confession. All he’d wanted to know was where Ribeiro worked and for whom. Now he did. The delegado waved at the one-way mirror on the wall. The door opened, and a uni-formed guard entered.
    “Bring me the tapes of this interrogation,” Tanaka said, “both the audio and the video. As for Senhor Ribeiro here . . .” he paused, relishing the look of optimism on his prisoner’s face, “take him back to his cell and lock him up.”
    Ribeiro’s face fell as the realization hit him that there was more, and probably worse, to come. His forehead was still creased in a frown, partly fear, partly confusion, when the guard pushed him into the corridor.

Chapter Twelve
    “BOCETA’S CONCLUSIONS,” SILVA SAID, pushing a thin document toward Arnaldo’s side of the desk.
    It was the afternoon after their meeting with the profiler. They were alone in Silva’s office.
    Arnaldo picked up the report and hefted it.
    “One of his usual weighty tomes,” he said.
    Silva nodded.
    “Four pages,” he said. “Took me less than five minutes to read it.”
    Boceta was known for talking long, but writing short. He loved the sound of his own voice, but found composing reports an onerous task.
    “I had enough of him to last me a month,” Arnaldo said. “Why don’t you summarize?”
    “He speculates that a cult or cults from Pará or Amazonas may be networking with a cult in São Paulo.”
    “And?”
    “And nothing. The rest is a detailed account of what hap-pened in Villasboas. He didn’t add a damned thing to what he said yesterday.”
    Arnaldo grunted and shook his head in disgust. He was still shaking it when the telephone rang.
    As it continued to ring, Silva got up and opened the door to his office. His new secretary, Camila, wasn’t at her post. He returned to his desk, punched the appropriate button, and picked up the instrument.
    “Silva.”
    “Answering our own phone, are we?”
    Silva recognized the voice: Ana, Nelson Sampaio’s secretary.
    “I think Camila found another boyfriend in the building,” he said.
    “She did. This time, it’s that tax accountant down on the second floor, the cute one with the blue eyes.”
    “Maybe she’ll get married and leave me.”
    “You can always hope.”
    “Not to interrupt the pleasant chat, but why are you calling?”
    “He wants to see you.”
    “Now?”
    “Now. He’s got the minister of tourism with him.”
    “The minister of—”
    “Where the hell is he?” Sampaio said from somewhere in the background.
    “On his way, Director,” Ana said sweetly. And hung up.
    BRAZIL’S POOR had put the current president into office and then sent him back for a second term. An ex-union leader, he spent much of his time attending to their needs. The reduction of poverty had accordingly become his first priority. His second priority was extending