A Vine in the Blood (A Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation) - Softcover

Leighton Gage is the author of five novels in the Mario Silva series: Blood of the Wicked, Buried Strangers, Dying Gasp, Every Bitter Thing, and A Vine in the Blood. He spends part of each year in Santana do Parnaiba, Brazil, and divides the rest of the year between Florida and the Netherlands. He is married with four daughters.

Chapter One

Less than an hour after Juraci Santos was unceremoniously
dumped into the back seat of her kidnappers’ getaway
car, Luca Vaz crept through her front gate and poisoned her
bougainvilleas.

The way he figured it, he didn’t have a choice. And it
wasn’t his fault. It was the fault of that lying lowlife, Mateo
Lima.

“You’re sure about the color of these bougainvilleas?”
Juraci had asked when he was planting them.

“I’m sure, Senhora,” he’d assured her. “Blood red, like you
told me.”

“Guaranteed?”

“Guaranteed, Senhora.”

“All right, Luca. But you’d better be right. Because, if they
flower in any other color. . . .”

She left the threat unspecified. But a threat it was—and
he knew it.

Three weeks later, the roof fell in: Luca learned that those
new plants of hers were about to flower in a color his wife,
Amanda, had described as the palest purple I’ve ever seen on a
bougainvillea. If Juraci Santos, a woman known to be as vindictive
as she was distrustful, discovered the truth, he’d be in
big trouble.

Luca’s advance notice of the situation stemmed from the
fact that he’d swiped one of the cuttings and planted it to
the right of his front door. Unlike the bougainvilleas along
Juraci’s wall, it had been standing in strong sunshine for the
last three weeks and Amanda, with her sharp eyes, had spotted
the first little bud. She’d taken him by the arm, led him
over to the plant and pointed.

“Isn’t this bougainvillea supposed to be red?”

“It’s not red?” he asked with a sense of foreboding.

He wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t told him. Luca
wasn’t just color blind; he suffered from the most severe and
rarest form of the malady: achromatopsia. He saw the world
in black, white and shades of gray.

Six people in the world, and only six, knew about his condition.
Unfortunately, one of them was Amanda’s no-good
brother, Mateo, who owned a flower and shrub business, and
whom Luca blamed for his current troubles.

The truth of the matter was that Mateo Lima was a nasty
son of a bitch, and there weren’t many people in Carapicuiba,
or the surrounding communities either, who were willing to
buy flowers and shrubs from the likes of him.
Nor were there many people willing to hire a guy who was
color blind to care for their flowers.

So there they were, Luca and Mateo, stuck with each other.
The survival of Mateo’s flower and shrub nursery depended
upon Luca’s work as a gardener. And Luca’s continued
employment depended on Mateo keeping his mouth shut
about Luca’s condition, which Mateo, the blackmailing
bastard, had made clear he’d do only if he became Luca’s
exclusive supplier.

It was remotely possible, of course, that Mateo had made
an honest mistake about those supposedly blood-red bougainvilleas.
But Luca didn’t think so. The most likely possibility
was that Mateo was trying to pull a fast one because
he had no blood-red bougainvilleas in stock.
The other possibility was that Mateo had been having a
joke at Luca’s expense. He found color blindness funny.

Either way, Mateo had underestimated the consequences
for both of them. If Juraci saw those bougainvilleas flowering
in pale purple, she’d have a fit. And then she’d shoot her
mouth off to all of her neighbors. Luca would wind up losing
his customers; Mateo would be stuck with his flowers and
shrubs, and both of them would soon be scratching to make
a living. That was why the bougainvilleas had to go before
they brought flowers into the world.

Killing bougainvilleas, as any gardener will tell you, is a
tough proposition. The normal technique is to dig them out
by the roots. Luca would have to be subtler than that. He’d
have to make it appear they’d fallen victims to some mysterious
blight.

After giving the problem some thought, he decided on
his instrument of death: herbicide coupled with industrialstrength
bleach. He mixed up the concoction in a four-liter
jug, set his alarm clock for quarter to five in the morning, and
by five-thirty on the day of the kidnapping he was creeping
through Juraci’s gate. He missed encountering her abductors by
about fifty-five minutes, a fact that undoubtedly saved his life.
He, like the kidnappers, had chosen his time with care.
One of her maids had mentioned that Juraci was a night owl,
and that she seldom retired before two or three in the morning.
But Luca always smelled freshly-brewed coffee when he
arrived, which was usually around 7:00, sometimes as early
as 6:45. That led him to believe that the maids were up and
about by 6:30 at the latest.

His plan was a simple one, and he was convinced he’d be
able to pull it off without a hitch. The only imponderable was
that yappy little poodle of Juraci’s, the one she called Twiggy.
He prayed the dog would keep her mouth shut, because if
the little bitch didn’t, she might wake up the big bitch, her
mistress, and then Luca’s fat would be in the fire.

He’d brought a flashlight, but, as it turned out, he didn’t
need it. The moonlight was bright enough to work by. With
gloved and practiced fingers, Luca dug down to expose the
roots of each plant, severed them with his grafting knife,
poured in a healthy dose of the poisonous liquid and packed
the earth back into place. With any kind of luck at all, the
heat of the sun would cause the sap to rise, thereby drawing
the poison upward into the twigs and leaves.

At quarter past six, after a celebratory cigarette, Luca
began his normal workday. He went, first, to the shed at the
foot of the garden. From there, he took a plastic trash bag
and started working his way up the slope toward the house.
Juraci’s slovenly guests were in the habit of leaving paper
cups, paper plates, and gnawed-upon bones scattered about
the lawn after every barbecue—and she gave a lot of barbecues.
It was one of his tasks to gather them up.

6:30 passed, then 6:40 without a single sign of life from
the house; no yappy little Twiggy running around the garden
pissing on the plants; no smell of coffee.

At 6:45, curiosity and a craving for a café com leite getting
the better of him, Luca decided to investigate. Up to that
point, he hadn’t been alarmed. But when he rounded the
corner and caught sight of the kitchen, he stopped dead in
his tracks.

The door had been smashed—not just forced open, but
completely destroyed. Pieces of solid, varnished wood were
everywhere, a few of them still hanging from the hinges.
Burglars, he thought. And then: Already gone . . . or maybe
not. He started moving again, more cautiously this time. A
rat in the kitchen reacted to the sound of his footsteps by
scuttling out of the door to take refuge under a nearby hedge.
Luca had no fear of rats. He’d killed dozens in his time.
He quickened his pace. From somewhere beyond the dim
opening, he could hear the buzzing of flies. When he reached
the doorway, he stopped again, letting his eyes adjust to the
light, getting his first glimpse of the situation inside.

The flies, hundreds of them, had been attracted by a pool
of liquid on the white tile floor. They were over it, around it,
some were even in it, trapped, as if they’d landed on flypaper.
A few survivors waved their wings, making futile efforts to
escape.

Luca, at first, saw the liquid as dark grey. But then, he caught
a whiff of the steely smell, saw the two corpses from which it
oozed to form a single pool, and realized it must be red.
Blood red.
Chapter Two

The downpour menacing Brasilia for the past hour
was finally making good on its threat. Raindrops splashed on
the Director’s window panes. Mario Silva suppressed a sigh.
He’d left his umbrella at home. He’d get soaked on the way
to the airport.

“Let me have a closer look at that,” Nelson Sampaio said.
He leaned over his desk to snatch the photo from his chief
inspector’s hand. Then he put on his gold-rimmed reading
glasses and squinted at the headline.

Artist’s Mother Abducted.

He could have read it without the glasses. The typeface
was that big.

In the photograph, Juraci Santos looked terrified. Her
face was dirty, her hair unkempt; her upper body, as much
of it as could be seen in the shot, was clad in a dark green
sweatshirt several sizes too small. She had been photographed
holding up a late edition of that morning’s Cidado
de Săo Paulo.

Sampaio tossed the photo onto a pile of newspapers, all
with headlines echoing the one he’d been squinting at.
“Proof of life, my ass,” he said. “These days they can fake
anything. Why diamonds?”

“Cash is too bulky,” Silva said. “A bank transfer could be
traced. Diamonds have universal value. It’s a good choice.”
Sampaio took off his glasses and rubbed the indentations
on the bridge of his nose. “How did those damned radio
people get the news before we did?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s Arnaldo Nunes?”

“In Săo Paulo, visiting family.”

“Good! Saves us a plane ticket.” Sampaio, when he wasn’t
flattering a superior, or planning the overthrow of an enemy,
kept a sharp eye on expenses. “Pry him loose from his bloody
family. I need every available man, I need results fast. Timing
is critical.”

For once, Sampaio was right. Timing was critical.

The felons who’d snatched the Artist’s mother could
hardly have picked a worse time to do it.

The beginning of the FIFA World Cup was thirteen days
away. The nation, as it did every four years, had gone football
crazy. And, in the upcoming conflict, no player was more
crucial to Brazil’s success than the Artist.

What Beethoven was to music, Rembrandt to painting,
Tico “The Artist” Santos was to the art of futebol. He was the
new Pelé. Some alleged he was better than Pelé. With Tico
in form, his team was expected to go on to glory. With Tico
depressed and worried about the fate of his mother, Brazil ran
a grave risk of suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of
the country’s most bitter rival—Argentina.

Even that wasn’t the worst of it. Brazil, the only country to
have won the Cup five times, was hosting the series for the
first time in more than sixty years.

Every important government official, from the President
of the Republic on down, had acquired tickets to the games.
And every one of them had been looking forward to the
grand finale, where they’d rub elbows, mid-field, in the great
stadium of Maracană, and watch Brazil crush the opposition.
Opposition that would, according to the bookmakers in
London, most likely be wearing the blue and white of the
Argentinean national team.

But now, the great elbow-rubbing fest had been thrown
into jeopardy. A serious risk had arisen that Argentina might
rub dirt into Brazilian faces. And, indignity of indignities,
that dirt might be Brazilian dirt.

The task of finding the Artist’s mother had fallen to the
Brazilian Federal Police. If Juraci Santos wasn’t quickly—and
safely—returned, there was no one more likely to be targeted
by the witch hunt that would surely follow than the Director
in charge of that organization.

Nelson Sampaio.

“The Argentineans have a club in Săo Paulo,” he said, biting
one of his nails. “That’s as good a place as any to start.”
Silva eyed him warily. “Start what?”

“Interviewing Argentineans, of course. It’s a question
of cui bono. If Tico can’t do his stuff, who benefits? The
Argentineans! That could be it right there! That could be
the motive.”

Wariness crystallized into disbelief, but Silva was careful to
keep his voice neutral.

“You think a cabal of Argentineans snatched the Artist’s
mother?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Honestly, Director, I don’t think—”

“Call Nunes. I don’t want him sitting around on his
ass waiting for you to get there. I want him over at that
Argentinean club questioning suspects. Tell him that.”

Silva suppressed a sigh. “I’ll tell him, Director.”

Sampaio stabbed the photo with a forefinger. “Did this
come by email?”

Silva nodded.

“We can trace emails, can’t we?”

“Not in this case.”

“Why the hell not?”

“They used a free, web-based account and logged in through
an unsecured wireless link.”

“Whatever the fuck that means.” Sampaio’s language
tended to get saltier when he was under pressure. “Have you
booked your flight?”

Silva nodded and looked at his watch. “It leaves in fifty-five
minutes.”

“Get a move on then.” Sampaio took another bite of nail.
“We’ll continue this conversation when I get there.”

Silva raised an eyebrow. “You’re coming to Săo Paulo?”
“Are you hard of hearing, Chief Inspector?”

The Director loved to throw his weight around.

Unfortunately for his subordinates, he generally threw it in
the wrong direction. Allowing him to go to Săo Paulo would
hinder, not help, the investigation. Silva acted immediately
to defuse the threat.

“I’m sure Minister Pontes will be pleased with your personal
involvement,” he said.

Antonio Pontes, the Minister of Justice, was the government’s
Witch Hunter-in-Chief.

For a while, Sampaio didn’t reply.

Silva knew what he was up to. He was turning it over
in his head: Go to Săo Paulo and assume all responsibility, or
stay in Brasilia and blame Mario Silva and his team in case of
failure?

For Sampaio, a political appointee and a political animal,
it really wasn’t much of a choice. He did exactly what Silva
expected him to do.

“Damn,” he said, “I forgot about the corruption hearings.
I’ll have to stay here. I could be called upon to testify.”

There was not the least chance of Sampaio being called
upon to testify. The congressional corruption hearings were
dead in the water. The politicians charged with conducting
them were stonewalling, some to protect their buddies, some
to protect themselves.

But Silva nodded, as if what the Director said made perfect
sense.

“Mind you,” Sampaio added, “You’ll be calling me with
updates at least twice a day.”

“Of course,” Silva said.

He had no intention of doing any such thing.