Buried Strangers by Leighton Gage Read Free Book Online Page A

you saw them?”
    “Last time,” she said.
    “You mentioned a letter.” Tanaka put a forefinger on Sergeant Lucas’s report. “Where is it?”
    “Here.” Clarice opened her purse, took out an envelope, and handed it to him. It was still sealed and quite thick. He bent it back and forth between his fingers.
    “What’s in it?”
    “Augusta worked for Dona Inez Menezes,” Clarice said. “Dona Inez owed Augusta some money. Augusta asked me to send it to her. I bought a postal money order and wrapped some paper around it so it wouldn’t attract attention.”
    Tanaka scrutinized the front of the envelope. There was a stamp in red ink: RETURN TO SENDER.
    “How did you get it?” he asked.
    “Get what, Senhor ?”
    This is like pulling teeth, Tanaka thought.
    “This address,” he said.
    He showed her the front of the envelope.
    “Oh. That. The man wrote it for me.”
    “What man?”
    “The same man who got Edmar the job.”
    “And the same man who took the family away?”
    “Yes. He drove the van. He brought another man with him to drive the truck.”
    “Can you remember his name?”
    She closed her eyes and pursed her lips. Tanaka waited, tapping his fingers on the desk. “Roberto . . . Something,” she said at last. “He’s a carioca. ”
    It didn’t surprise Tanaka that she could identify the man as a carioca, a native of Rio de Janeiro. He wouldn’t have had to tell her where he was from. She would have heard it, heard all those sibilant s’s that littered the speech of everyone who came from there. As to the name, Roberto, it wasn’t going to help. There were only a few names more common.
    “You’d recognize him? If you saw him again, I mean?”
    Clarice nodded.
    “Me, too,” Ernesto said. “I helped load all of their stuff onto the truck, and some of it was heavy. The lazy bastard just stood there, giving orders. He didn’t lift a finger. Typical fucking carioca.”
    Cariocas, most of Brazil agreed, were indolent. This time, Clarice didn’t tell her husband to shut up. Apparently, she agreed with his evaluation.
    “Describe this carioca,” Tanaka said.
    “He has black hair. I think he puts oil in it.”
    “Taller than me?” Tanaka asked.
    “Yes.”
    That was no surprise. Almost everybody was taller than Yoshiro Tanaka.
    “Show me,” he said. “Show me how big he was.”
    She stood up and hesitantly held up a hand, palm down-ward, about thirty centimeters above her head.
    “Beard? Mustache?”
    She sat down again.
    “Mustache.”
    “Eyes. What color?”
    “Brown . . . I think.”
    “He wears a chain,” Ernesto said, “with a big fucking medallion from Flamengo hanging on the end of it. Can you beat it? Flamengo. Here in São Paulo. Cheeky bastard.”
    Tanaka grimaced. The medallion was an affront. The team was anathema to fans who hailed from São Paulo, and those fans included Yoshiro Tanaka. The medallion was also new information, something Lucas hadn’t put in his report. Tanaka made a note of it.
    “The address?” he asked. “He wrote it himself?”
    She nodded.
    “Do you still have the paper?”
    “No. I threw it away after I copied it into my address book. Did I do wrong?”
    “Can’t be helped,” Tanaka said. “You’re sure you got it right?”
    “Augusta’s oldest daughter, Mari, has a friend,” Clarice said, “a girl named Teresa. She came to see me. Her letter was returned, too. What Teresa had, and what I had, was the same.”
    “And the Lisboa girl hasn’t written to this . . .”
    “Teresa. No. And she promised she would. There has to be something wrong.”
    “Just because your letter was returned? Just because nei-ther of them have written?”
    Clarice opened her mouth in surprise.
    “You mean Sergeant Lucas didn’t write up the part about the shop?”
    Tanaka was puzzled. “Shop? What shop?”
    Clarice lifted her eyes in exasperation.
    “But that was the whole point, ” she said. “ That’s why we came here in the first