When Delegate Moreira arrived at Dona Dolores and Seu Durval’s house, he had no idea what he was going to find. An old friend of the family, he had never received a professional call to come to their home. But Durval had been clear on the phone. There was a dead man in the couple’s kitchen.
He asked Almeida, his assistant, to wait outside and entered through the front gate without ringing the bell. The house was old but very well maintained. A garden with rose bushes, aloe vera, and bromeliads lined the tiled path to a terrace filled with ferns. It felt like stepping into a botanical garden. Sitting in one of the terrace chairs, visibly disturbed, was Joana, the couple’s maid.
– Hi Joana, it seems you have a problem, huh?
Joana lowered her face and mumbled something that Moreira didn’t understand.
– Durval? – he called out loudly while tapping the knuckles of his fingers on the front door.
The door opened, and Durval greeted the delegate with just a glance, without the usual warm handshake or the ready jokes he always made. On the contrary, Durval was taciturn and worried. It seemed that the situation had affected everyone in the house.
Upon entering the living room, Moreira saw Dona Dolores sitting on the sofa, one hand over her chest, as if she were about to have a heart attack. The other arm was thrown to the side on a cushion.
Moreira looked at Durval and then at the hallway leading to the kitchen; he knew the house well.
Durval nodded.
Without saying anything, Moreira went to the kitchen.
Durval sat next to the woman. He held her hand and gently said that everything would be fine, that Moreira would solve the case without further complications.
– Durval, I don’t think I can ever go back into the kitchen. I think it would be good for us to move away from here.
– Don’t say nonsense. We’ve always lived here. We’ll have the blood cleaned up, and everything will be as it was before.
The two remained silent. Durval tried to hear any noise from the kitchen. Moreira must have been investigating the body, moving it from side to side perhaps, in order to find some clue as to how it had ended up there. But he heard nothing.
After a few minutes that felt like hours, Moreira returned to the living room. He walked slowly and sat in the armchair with a serious look on his face, but without looking at Durval or Dolores.
– So? Do you have any leads? Are you going to investigate whose body it is?
Moreira looked at Durval, and a slight smile appeared on his face.
– Is this some kind of joke, Durval?
– What do you mean, man? What joke?!
– There’s nothing in the kitchen.
Durval’s eyes widened, dumbfounded. He looked at the woman, asking for a translation of what his friend the delegate had just said. Dolores felt a chill run up her spine, making her moan as if she had entered a freezer.
Durval spoke slowly to avoid making mistakes or stumbling over his words:
– You didn’t find the body in the kitchen?
– Nothing.
Durval jumped off the sofa and quickly walked to the kitchen. Dolores stared at Moreira, dumbfounded.
Durval entered the kitchen. The place where the body had been was empty. He looked under the table. Nothing. Not a drop of blood, much less a body. Just the white cat on the table licking its paws.
Episode IV continues in the next edition.