teenaged boys, smoking pot and sitting on a seat ripped from the rear of a car. Each of them had a gun and regarded Gannon as if he were new merchandise.
Alfonso gave a little whistle and led him down an alley that was slivered into yet another ascending canyon of stairs. This one opened to an oasis of well-kept houses, painted neatly in coral pinks, blues and lavenders. They were small houses with clean stone walls and ornate metal gates. Most had flower boxes in the windows.
Pretty, Gannon thought, as Alfonso stopped at one and unlatched the gate. They stepped into the cramped stone landing that welcomed them to a sky-blue house with a bone-white door.
“Santo.” Alfonso nodded to the door, holding out his hand for payment.
Gannon gave him another forty reais then knocked.
The door opened to a man in his fifties. His haunted, tired eyes went to Alfonso then traveled sadly over Gannon. His white mustache was like snow against his leathery skin.
“Pedro Santo?” Gannon asked.
The man nodded.
Alfonso spoke to him in Portuguese and the older man looked at Gannon.
“Do you speak English?” Gannon asked
Pedro Santo shook his head.
Gannon turned to Alfonso who shouted in Portuguese to some girls down the street who were skipping with a rope. One, who appeared fourteen or fifteen, approached them. Alfonso spoke a stream of Portuguese to her. She looked to Gannon and said in English, “Hello, sir. My name is Bruna. I will try to help you. I am learning English from the British ladies at the human-rights center where Maria Santo has many friends.”
Bruna listened intently as Gannon told her that he was a journalist from New York with the World Press Alliance and needed to talk to Pedro Santo and his wife about Maria. After Bruna translated, Pedro opened his door wider, inviting them inside.
The house was immaculate but small with a living room and adjoining kitchen. Pedro Santo introduced his wife, Fatima, who was washing dishes at the sink. Pedro spoke to her in Portuguese and she gave Gannon a slight bow then began fixing him a fruit drink, indicating he sit in a chair at their kitchen table.
A moment of silence passed.
Over his years as a crime reporter, Gannon had come to learn a universal truth—that it didn’t matter if it was Buffalo or Rio de Janeiro, a home visited by death was the same the world over, empty of light. Like a black hole left by a dying star, its devastation was absolute.
When Fatima Santo set a glass before him, Gannon noticed her hands were scarred and wrinkled from years of cleaning the houses of the rich. Her eyes were dimmed with tears, her body weighted with sorrow. A gold-framed photograph of her murdered daughter was perched on the shelf above the TV, draped with a rosary.
“Please tell them—” Gannon turned to Bruna “—that I give them my sympathy for the loss of their daughter.”
Bruna nodded then translated, softening her voice as she grasped Gannon’s intentions. That small act, the inflection of Bruna’s voice, won his immediate respect, for he realized that in Bruna, he had the help of an intelligent young girl.
Gannon began by asking Pedro and Fatima to tell him about the kind of person Maria was. Bruna put the question to Fatima, who buried her face in her hands and spoke in a voice filled with pain.
Bruna translated, “She says that Maria was a good girl who went to mass and worked hard at important jobs in big offices. They wanted her to leave the favela for a better life but she insisted on remaining in Céu sobre Rio. Maria wanted to make life better for everyone, the children of the favela, the whole world.”
Pedro spoke in a deep, soft voice to Bruna, who nodded.
“He says that is why Maria worked with the human-rights groups, the earth groups, the unions. She was committed to social justice.”
A motorcycle thundered by, rattling the door, distracting Gannon momentarily as he resumed taking notes.
“I am interested in the kind of work Maria did for these causes.” Gannon gestured. “Did she keep files, records or notes here?”
Bruna translated and Pedro led them to a small bedroom, neat and evocative of a monk’s cell. It smelled of soap and contained a single bed, a dresser with a mirror, a desk, posters from Amnesty and other global and environmental groups. In one corner stood a four-drawer steel file cabinet.
As Pedro spoke to Bruna, there was a burst of shouting outside and