Judge Magalhães sighed. “He may have been; nobody presented me with a brief outlining the charges. But in jurisprudence, Mr. Wilson, the principle is often stressed that it is better that some guilty go free than that one innocent should suffer. I happen to believe in this principle strongly.” He shrugged. “It is not always an easy decision, but that is my view.”
Wilson smiled. “I’m not here to argue Brazilian jurisprudence with you, Judge. I know even less about it than I do about buying land for factories. At least you’ve given me the answer to the question as to what Chaney was doing in Paraíso.” The thought prompted another question. “You didn’t happen to have had any legal connection with the others. Torres, or Bethencourt, or the one from Paraíso?”
“His name was Limeira. No. I never had them before me, and never heard of any of them before they — died.”
A further thought struck Wilson. “Getting back to Chaney, do you suppose there might have been someone who didn’t agree with your position on extradition? Who thought that a man like Chaney should be — well, eliminated?”
“You’re back to the idea of a death squad,” the judge said accusingly. “I’ve been trying to tell you—!”
“I didn’t necessarily mean a death squad...”
“Then what did you mean?” The judge looked Wilson in the eye; it occurred to the younger man that he would hate to come up against this man on the bench if he were guilty of anything serious. “If you want the truth, Mr. Wilson,” the judge went on, his voice stern, “the people who would have been most upset by my writ, I should think, would be the people who wanted him punished in the first place. The United States officials.”
This charge, at least, was an easy one to answer.
“Except,” Wilson pointed out, “at the time of Chaney’s death, nobody outside of your office knew the writ had been granted. And even if they did, it could scarcely explain the other three killings. With the same gun.”
“I never hinted that the killings were connected; you did,” the judge said, and then smiled a sad smile. “We aren’t working at cross-purposes, Mr. Wilson; our interests are really the same. But we have to learn to trust each other. And while we’re doing so, I hope the killings stop and stay stopped.”
He glanced at the sun calculatingly.
“Lunchtime. We’ll eat at my place.” He started to climb into the jeep when there was a sharp buzz from within the vehicle. The old man grinned at Wilson. “Two-way radio,” he said. “Never had anything like that when we rode horses. It took somebody two weeks to find you out in the matto if there were any messages.” He finished climbing in and picked up the microphone, flipping a switch. “Yes?”
The voice at the other end, transmitting, came in fast, excited. “Judge—!” The words that followed were drowned in an ocean of static. The judge waited patiently, staring at the set.
“Told the boy fifty times don’t talk with your mouth against the mike,” he said, half to himself, and waited until the noise died. “Now listen! Repeat all that and do it slow! And do it with your mouth where I told you to put it. You sound like a caitetú pulling its feet out of mud!” He looked up and winked at Wilson. The voice dutifully came back, quieter this time, and with proper enunciation.
“Judge, another body has just been found. Down by the lake, on the side of the transmission towers. There was the same sign around his neck, and he was killed the same way. A bullet in his body and another one in his head. We haven’t his identification yet because we haven’t touched him. What should we do?”
The old man sat and stared. His face was like carved jacarandá. “Where are you now?”
“Right here, at the lake. It’s under Tower X-57; that’s about the tenth one from the São Luis road; on the Madeira property. In that — well, you know — that lover’s lane.”
The judge’s eyes lifted to stare through the streaked windshield, as if he were trying to see all that distance to the spot where the body had been found. “Wait there,” he said quietly. “I’ll be right along.” He hung the microphone on its hook and looked at Wilson, his face expressionless; his wrinkled hand reached for the ignition. “That was my godson. Looks as if our lunch is going to be delayed.”
“Looks as if,” Wilson said soberly, and climbed in beside the old man.
Chapter 6
It took Wilson over an hour to get through on the telephone and be connected with Captain Da Silva’s desk, and the time spent in the steamy booth had done nothing to improve his temper. Had the delay been due to excessive verbal traffic between the two cities it might have been forgiven; but in this case nearly all of it was spent in trying to convince the local operator that he, Wilson, was an honest man, that he was calling collect because he did not have roughly four hundred telephone slugs and he was in a public booth, that collect calls were, indeed, legal and even commonplace in some places, and that the party at the other end would — on the honor of his mother and father — accept the call and, if properly billed, eventually pay for it. It had been a hard struggle and it showed in Wilson’s sweating face and the frayed edges of his usual good humor. He opened the door of the booth to get a breath of air, and then closed it. The call was finally coming through and it was difficult enough to hear through the interference without having to compete with the huge trucks rumbling by on the cobblestones outside. He squeezed his eyes shut as if that might aid his concentration and jammed the receiver more tightly against his ear.
“Hello? Hello?”
“Who’s this? Wilson?”
“What? Zé? Zé?”
“Wilson? Is that you? Hello?”
There was a click on the line and the interference magically disappeared. Da Silva’s voice seemed to boom in his ear.
“That’s better,” Wilson said, and heaved a sigh of relief. The thought of having spent a torturous hour in that sweatbox only to have the call inaudible had been frightening.
“The operator got off the line. It’s probably time for her coffee break,” Da Silva said shrewdly. “What’s new?”
“There’s been another one,” Wilson said, and opened his eyes. He was pleasantly surprised that his raised voice of a moment before had not brought a crowd to his rescue. “Another killing. Same MO.”
At his end Da Silva reached for a pad, frowning. “When?”
“He was found about an hour ago — make that two hours. I forgot I’ve been in this mummy case an hour. Down an old road near a lake, here.”
Da Silva was scribbling. “Name?”
Wilson consulted a piece of paper. “Joaquim Saldanha Valadares. Looking at him I’d say he’d been around forty, although I agree being shot in the head doesn’t make them any easier to identify — or even to admire. Address, Miracopa Palace, number 614, Rio de Janeiro. Well dressed; but living at the Miracopa you would expect it.”
“Physicals?”
Wilson looked surprised. “Why? We have his name and address. We’re not going out looking for him; we’ve got him right here.”
“For luck,” Da Silva said. “Physicals?”
Wilson sighed. “I’d say about one-eighty in weight, five-ten in height. He also has black hair, a small mustache, and a tiny mole on the back of his left knee. Now, if you’re through with the unimportant stuff, let me go on. He had a business card, or cards, rather, as well as his social ones. Address, Room 867 Edifício Rio Branco. Profession — if that’s the word — Talent Agent.”
Da Silva marked it down. “Any indication of how he got to Paraíso? Or why?”
“None.”
“Any idea of when he was killed?”
“The coroner estimates at least twelve hours, but that’s just a guess. Maybe he’ll be able to be more definite after an autopsy.”