CHAPTER 5 (Tell me lies)
I sat on the side of the bed. How do I play this? I picked up her body, and I washed it, I washed me out of her. I scrubbed me off her. Then dressed her, and placed her back in the bed. I got into my car, and went to the nearest pub, I sat at the bar, and had two drinks, I left, just after twelve a.m. when I arrived home, I had a cup of coffee, and switched on the television. It was time for Ian, to take over.
IAN: “Shit, it’s so late, Marisa is going to go ape shit. I looked in the oven for my dinner. No dinner? Her car is parked in the garage. I went up to the bedroom. She was lying on her side. I guess pretending to sleep. So I showered, and got in to bed. I touched her, as I covered myself with the sheet. “Marisa, I am sorry I am so late. Roberto and I got stuck on that case. Marisa?” She didn’t move. “Goodnight babe.” I went to sleep. I was up at four, and in the shower. When I came out, she was still lying on her side. I switched on the light. “Enough with the silent treatment, I told you, I was sorry.” I reached out for her hand, then stopped, her eyes looked at nothing. It just stared. I dialled the emergency number, and then Roberto, I was inconsolable. “Roberto, I think she had a stroke. I got home, had coffee, I went to bed, and she never woke up.” The ME called Roberto one side, I sat in tears, my poor wife. I never even knew she was ill.
“Ian, Marisa…..”
“What? Roberto was it a stroke? Will she be fine? What amigo?”
“She’s dead.” I shook my head. “No, I slept next to my wife, no-no! check again.”
“Ian, she is dead, the ME, will tell you everything after the autopsy.” I stood frozen. Dead, no, my wife is not dead. Roberto took me by the arm, and moved me into the kitchen when they brought the body down. I lost my shit. That black bag thing, no. No not again. “Ian, come with me to the morgue. Come. Don’t be alone now. And change, you are not running today.”
I have heard those words before. She is dead, you are not running today. It screamed in my head. I had another scalding shower, and changed into a suit. “Dead, Ian, you are not running today.”
Roberto brought me coffee, I didn’t want it, I needed the ME to tell me it was a mistake. I put the cup town. And I sobbed. The ME called Roberto one side. Then they asked me to step into the office. “Senhor Alvesio. What time did you get home?” I looked at Roberto, he knows, we had drinks together. “Around, or after twelve, Roberto and I had drinks.”
“Yes, he told us, he also told us that you left early to have supper with your wife.”
“Doc, stop it, please, just stop. What the fuck are you getting at?” Roberto patted my shoulder.
“Ian, Marisa has been dead for hours, that is why we need to know what time you arrived home.”
“No, see Roberto, we had drinks, I got home late, she was so mad at me, she never made me supper. I had coffee, a shower, I said good night to her, and we slept.” The ME asked me if she answered me? “No, I just told you, she was pissed at me, I covered her, and we went to sleep. When Marisa is mad at me, she pretends to be sleeping, so no she wouldn’t have answered me.” Roberto patted my shoulder. “Who can you go to for the day Ian?”
“Roberto, you know Marisa is all I had.”
“Then I will come with you to your home, pack a bag and spend the night with me and Alipha.”
I went with Roberto. There was yellow tape all over the bedroom. “Don’t touch anything, just take your clothes. This is a crime scene.” I raised an eyebrow. “Are you joking, do I look like I am in the mood for games, Roberto?”
“Ian. Calma, I will explain it all to you.” I drove to Roberto’s house. Alipha was in tears, we held each other for a long time, she set me up in the spare bedroom. Roberto asked me into the study, and poured me a cognac. I don’t like hard drink. I guess, he wants me to calm down, he got me through the last death. “Ian, I need to ask a few questions, as a friend, will you answer me here? I don’t want you to come down to the precinct. A cop found another body in the early hours of the morning, but right now, I want to talk about you and Marisa.” I nodded, and sipped the horrible drink. “You left the pub, around seven-thirty, then where did you go?” My head was killing me. “I stopped at another pub, I wanted to watch the game, and I told you I got home around twelve, I don’t check my watch every time I take a piss, Roberto.”
“I know amigo, I am not insinuating anything. Marisa died, between ten and eleven. She was murdered, the ME, says she was suffocated.”
“I got home around twelve, did I sleep next to corpse the whole night?” I ran to the bathroom and puked. Roberto asked me for the name of the pub. They did verify, that I was there for about an hour, from before eleven until just after twelve. “Do you think the ‘Canary’ killed my wife, because I am helping you?” Roberto lit a cigar.
“It might be, we have too many unanswered questions. I will call her parents, they can deal with the funeral arrangements, I know you have no love lost between the three of you, so I will keep them away from you, and I am sorry, Ian. I am sorry for your loss.” Ian went to the room and closed the door. I asked Alipha, to call me if he left.
ROBERTO: I had Ian’s cars impounded, the Uber and the Fiat. Then I went over to the ME, he was finished with the autopsy. “What did you find?” He motioned for me to follow him into his office.
“Marisa was scrubbed clean. Too clean, I found hardly anything on her, but what I did find troubled me. Her vulva, labia and urethra were badly damaged, as if she was raped, yet I could hardly find any semen. If the PERP had used a condom, traces would be found. I found nothing that points to a condom. I did find a little semen deep inside of her, it’s as if the PERP had washed her clean, I sent what I found for DNA analysis. She struggled, but not much, no bruises, but I found fibres inside her mouth and lungs, I sent a cop to fetch me the pillows from the house. You can have it once I took a sample. Marisa and I studied together, I need to find who did this for me, this is personal.”
ROBERTO: On prom night, I drove past Ian’s house, as I did a thousand times, this time the cops were swarming around the place, I have never been inside the house, so I snuck in the back door. Ian was in his bedroom, his room was the only clean place in the house. The dishes had not been washed, the living room, was dirty, I didn’t want to walk in there, bottles lay strewn all over the place. The couch was so old, I looked rat-eaten, and it smelt bad. Really bad, there was no television, no radio, just bare, dirty rooms. With the exception of Ian’s room. I asked him what happened. He told me, he had an argument with his date, so he walked home, to find his Mama, dead in her bed, someone had beaten her to death with a bottle. Looking back, we all suspected her boyfriend. Thinking of Marisa, I had to question doctor Grayston next. Even if the fibres matched those of Ian’s and Marisa’s, Grayston had enough time to make a house call. I will not lock up my friend on, what if’s or plausible evidence, I need to nail the bastard responsible. Ian is too sensitive, he couldn’t hurt a fly. As I recall, his date was found dead the same night, stabbed to death in her car. Ian didn’t have a car. Someone had stabbed her to death with her own car key. It was a gruesome death, so was Ian’s mother’s. He saw a therapist regularly after that, and became a psychiatrist, on his Athletic-scholarship. He lived in the dorms, and never went back home. As I recall, I did hear the washer running when I entered his house, on Prom night, but then Ian was a clean freak he showered a few times at school, so him washing his clothes in the middle of the night, well that was not strange then. Yet. I feel like I am missing something, one thing that will clear Ian of any suspicion. I called Marisa’s parents. They would have the body flown to them in three days-time. They lived in Australia. I will have to suggest, that Ian held a Wake for Marisa, because he would not attend her funeral. He is a suspect, the Chief will not allow him to leave Alvorada. Do I think Ian killed Marisa? I honestly don’t think so. So I went to the hospital, and had a talk to Tristan Grayston.
“Detective Oliveira, my wife is in town. She arrived yesterday morning. Yes, Marisa and I had an affair, she confided in me, she told me Ian was cold, and distant in bed, that he never got naked, that she had never seen him naked, he would do the deed, get up, and go bath. The night our affair started, she told me, she asked him to go faster, he got off her, had a shower, took his pillow, and slept in the other bedroom. I am not making excuses, I am telling you, Senhor, that I felt sorry for her. She was attractive, and her marriage was dead. Yes, you can call my wife, and put an end to my marriage. And no, we had sex the day before my wife arrived, not on the day Marisa died, she said Ian was having drinks with you. Here is my wife’s number. Thanks’ for ruining my marriage.”
ROBERTO: What a gigantic a-hole. I called the wife, and she and the Mother, both corroborated an airtight alibi. Madam would be leaving. Grayston will soon hear from her lawyer. Oh well, at least the man wasn’t a murdered. I went back to the morgue, for body number two. The ME was ready for me.
“Death occurred between eight and ten p.m. She was strangled to death. But no burn marks, on this body, she was scrubbed, and placed sitting naked on a park bench. I don’t think this was the ‘Canary,’ her alcohol conception, is much higher than his other victims, and she had very little drugs in her system. No traces of semen, but they had sex, no damage to her vulva, so I think this was consensual. As for the fibres in the Alvesio murder matched, I bagged and tagged the pillows, and the pillow coverings, and sent it off to the precinct.” I thanked the ME. Then drove to my office. So much was not adding up.
I wished I could call Ian in. I listened to the secondary review. The senior Analyst, was comparing these crimes to each other. My crime scene investigator, was doing the same thing. I stopped them. “What evidence do you have, to sustain these claims? And you do know, you are pointing fingers at Danilo Alvesio?” Only a few of us called Danilo, by his middle name, he disliked his first name.
“Roberto, we know he is your best friend, and we know you will protect Danilo at all costs. But we have a hunch he killed Marisa because she was cheating, an accidental death, we might add. We found no traces of another person, or persons in the house. That points to Danilo. A crime of passion.” I shook my head. “You are grasping, bring me evidence, and I will arrest him myself.” I got up and left. I drove out to a place I had not been to since I joined the academy. I stopped outside Ian’s old house. No one even squatted in that place, since the murder. I pulled on my gloves, and took out my flashlight.
I pulled the door open, decay, mould and old age hit me all at once. The place smelled terrible, they should demolish this house. I went into to the main bedroom. The blood stains, were dark on the walls, and on the bed. The house was closed up, right after the murder. I am not sure where Ian went and lived. I went into his bedroom, by far cleaner still. I sat on his bed. There was something on top of his closet. I pulled a box off, and I sneezed. In the box I found faded photos, of Ian and a man.
ns 18.68.41.147da2
