Author: JOSÉ GASPAR

“If you don’t want to die, stop getting involved where it’s none of your business.” That was all that was in the letter. Written with letters cut out from a newspaper and glued misaligned on the sulfite paper. Before Inspector Moreira arrived, Dolores had started to feel unwell while reading the message. Durval wondered why…

Durval was all squished in the back seat of Joana’s Beetle. The woman had pushed the driver’s seat all the way back to fit her one hundred and thirty kilos behind the wheel. Durval wondered how she managed to maneuver the car with the steering wheel pressed against her belly like that. Next to her,…

Joana had brought the sopranino along. She knew that Durval preferred the higher-pitched flute when he was anxious or worried. And he was quite anxious and worried in the hospital bed, all broken since he had been pushed off the cliff inside his Corcel. – Better not to play the small high flute, Dolores said…

When Durval opened his eyes, he saw Dolores leaning over him. Her eyes were wide and fixed, her mouth slightly open. The woman looked like she had seen the devil himself. Durval’s sensations came back slowly. The first thing he felt was Dolores rubbing his hand vigorously. — He opened his eyes! He opened his…

The first sensation was an enormous emptiness in the stomach. For a moment, time stopped as the Corcel crossed the edge of the abyss and rolled down the slope. Durval held tightly to the steering wheel and waited for the crash, closing his eyes. It seemed like an eternity passed before the car hit the…

     Durval always wondered why he left Botelho’s house when it was getting dark. He knew that the dirt roads became impassable when it rained, and it always rained in that place. It was almost ten o’clock at night when the limping caretaker opened the gate amidst the fine drizzle, and Durval left the…

— It’s a footprint, no doubt about it — said the professor. Botelho’s lab was in the basement of the house. The ceiling was low, and Durval kept his body bent forward to avoid hitting his head on the wooden beams that supported the house above. The walls were filled with dusty shelves, crammed with…

     The road to Botelho’s house was winding and hard to access. He lived in a site far from the city center. Durval had a map, but he always got lost anyway. Luckily, the day was clear; the dirt roads became impassable when it rained, and Durval’s 78 red Corcel had no traction to…

The corpse had vanished. One moment it was sprawled on the kitchen floor of Durval and Dolores’ house, with blood forming a circular pool around its head, like a halo. And the next moment it was gone. No traces of the dead. No blood. Nothing. — Is it possible the cat ate it? — Joana…

Durval returned to the room and stood by the window. He knew he wasn’t crazy. And if he was, then his wife and the maid were too. The three of them had seen the corpse in the kitchen. But now there was nothing there. — So? — asked Inspector Moreira. — There’s nothing in the…