on the keyboard of the car’s small computer terminal, Gannon studied himself in the rearview mirror. Day two in Brazil and here he was in the backseat of a Rio police car. The officers didn’t speak to him as they sailed through Centro’s traffic. He had spent enough time on the crime beat in Buffalo to know that he was nothing more than a package to be delivered. They hadn’t put him in cuffs. They hadn’t been rough. This had to be about last night, or something about Gabriela and Marcelo.
He’d find out soon enough.
They went several blocks before turning onto Rua da Relação and stopping in front of a fourteen-story building—Gannon counted the levels—that looked like an attempt at 1970s Soviet disco-era architecture.
The sign in front said, Polícia Civil.
The officers got his bag and escorted him into a packed elevator. He’d lost track of the floors by the time they reached their destination.
They went down a hall to the squad room. Plainclothes detectives were talking on the phone, reading reports or interviewing people. Gannon’s escorts stopped at an empty desk and put him in a folding hard-back chair beside it.
“Don’t move.”
“What about my passport and bag?”
They ignored him and walked away.
Gannon looked at the desk pushed against the wall to the left that displayed a framed degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. He couldn’t read the name on it.
Under the degree was a corkboard with a calendar, along with memos and an enlarged photograph of a man and boy holding up fish by a mountain lake. The man held up a tiny fish while the boy struggled with a catch that was over two feet long.
Gannon recognized the man as Roberto Estralla. The boy looked to be about ten and had Estralla’s smile. Gannon glanced at the desk, a copy of today’s Jornal do Brasil with the ten victims, file folders, a notebook, and something titled Café Amaldo, which looked like a floor plan.
Gannon was about to lean in for a better view when a hand reached across him from behind and snapped a business card on the table for Hotel de nove palmas.
His hotel.
Estralla then dropped Gannon’s bag and cell phone on his desk before he deposited himself into his chair. He was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, his ID and a shoulder holster holding a pistol.
He set Gannon’s passport on the desk, then tossed a piece of gum into his mouth, chewing hard as he assessed Gannon.
“Are you comfortable, Mr. Gannon?”
“I’d like to know what’s happening. My bureau in New York will be notifying the U.S. consulate.”
“Last night,” Estralla said, “officers at the bomb scene chased a man acting suspiciously in an alley. This hotel card fell from his pocket as he fled. They saw him get into a taxi then contacted the company. After further investigation at your hotel this morning, and by the description and time, we’ve concluded it was you, Jack Gannon.”
Estralla leaned forward.
“What were you doing at the crime scene?”
Gannon’s pulse quickened as the circumstances rose around him. No matter what explanation he offered, he would lose. The threat of expulsion was real. He glanced at Estralla’s fishing photo, reasoning Estralla had a human side. All he could do was play to it.
“When I met you at the scene,” Gannon said, “and later watching the TV news reports, I noticed the wind was scattering papers from the explosion. So I went to the alleys nearby and collected all the papers I could find.”
“These are the papers?”
Estralla removed the originals from Gannon’s bag and began flipping through them carefully.
“I am seizing these.”
“But they’re mine.”
Estralla shrugged.
“I don’t understand why your crime scene people did not protect this kind of potential evidence,” Gannon said.
“They did.”
“Did they? Their work was sloppy. It’s probably why you have trouble clearing crimes down here. That and the reputation Brazilian police have with human rights groups.”
Estralla’s eyes narrowed at Gannon.
“Are the LAPD and the NYPD without sin? And didn’t London police shoot dead an innocent man? A Brazilian student, they wrongly suspected of being a terrorist? All police should not be judged by the actions of a few.”
Gannon chided himself for saying something so asinine to the cop holding his passport.
“I apologize—I was out of line,” Gannon said. “Maybe it’s the stress of two murdered colleagues and of flying down here on short notice where I don’t know the language or the culture, or much else.”
Estralla resumed chewing his gum and reappraised Gannon.
“We had nets on the