— What do you mean “he is the killer”? That was the question Durval asked Dolores as soon as they entered the house.
He accompanied her to the kitchen where she was preparing a cheese and tomato sandwich for him.
— Do you want milk too?
— Yes, half a mug — he replied.
At the moment she opened the fridge, Durval heard a meow. He looked down and there was the white cat.
— And this cat? What is it doing here?
— It was at the front door when I arrived. It seemed like it wanted to come in. I don’t know whose it is, but it must belong to someone. There’s even a little ribbon around its neck.
Dolores placed the mug of milk in the microwave.
Indeed, there was a red ribbon around the cat’s neck. It even looked like there was something written in white letters on the ribbon. But Durval had no desire to bend down to read it.
— Tell me at once, woman! What do you mean by Botelho being the killer? Don’t leave me in this agony!
— I went to Heitor’s house this afternoon.
Dolores served the sandwich with milk to Durval.
— Heitor, Melinda’s husband? So that’s where you were… What did you go there for?
Durval took a bite of the sandwich and sipped some milk.
— Melinda came here and said they wanted to talk to me. So I went to their house on the corner.
— And? — Durval asked, chewing another bite of the sandwich.
— They showed me a photograph of Botelho when he was young. In a lab. It looked like military stuff. There were some men in uniform behind him. He was in a white coat next to a stretcher. And on the stretcher, there was a…
— A what, woman?!
— It looked like a… body.
— What do you mean “looked like”? Was it or wasn’t it a body?
— It had… — Dolores put her hand over her mouth and sat down.
Durval stopped chewing.
— It had… horns, Durval.
— Horns?
— Yes. It looked like a person with horns.
Durval let out a short laugh.
— A person with horns.
— Yes. They were horns like those of a goat or ram. But it must have been dead, the thing. Its eyes were closed.
— That makes no sense at all, Dodô. You know it doesn’t — Durval took another bite of the sandwich.
— I don’t know. What if Botelho was involved in some government genetic experiment, who knows?
Durval burst into laughter, scattering crumbs of bread everywhere.
— Genetic experiment? And then he made a hybrid of man and goat?
— I don’t know! All I know is that I don’t trust him anymore.
— And why would he be the killer? If he did a genetic experiment, that doesn’t incriminate him as a killer, does it?
— It does. But Heitor and Melinda told me another thing about him.
— What did they say? — Durval stopped eating again.
— They said that on the day the corpse disappeared from our kitchen, they saw him putting a big black bag in the back of his truck.
— Trash.
— But he was taking the black bag from the back of our yard.
Episode XXVII continues in the next edition.
JOSÉ GASPAR
Filmmaker and writer
www.historiasdooutromundo.com
jagramos@gmail.com