The Case of Lisandra P. Read Online Free Page B

“Every wife killer starts off acting devastated, circling around the victim like a crazy man, pounding against the wall with his fists and screaming. Then he confesses.” Eva Maria stood there alone on the step. She looked at the keys lying in her palm, lying like a corpse on the ground. From the sixth floor. That poor girl’s body must have been broken in several places, like any victim of a terrible fall from a great height. They also found such fractures on the bodiesof the
desaparecidos
* that the sea washed back up after a time, fractures that would be impossible for someone to cause with their bare hands or even with a weapon. Even if they really went to town. Eva Maria imagined Neptune surrendering the bodies, to prove the guilt of the arrogant, hitherto untouchable torturers. Neptune the Stern, Neptune the Just, bringing proof of the junta’s abuse of power. Nature helping man to judge his fellow man. A part of Eva Maria was convinced that Neptune would have given Stella’s body back to her, out of pity for a mother’s heart that was dying from not knowing. But another part of Eva Maria knew that Neptune did not exist, and she wondered whether Stella’s body still lay in the depths of the river. Stella, her beloved child: did they get rid of her the way they did the others? One Wednesday evening, with an injection of Pentothal and an airplane and an open door, and her living body hurled from up there into the Rio de la Plata, was she conscious? Was she in tears? Imploring them? Did she scream as she fell through the void? Did she feel her clothing undressing her? Or was she already naked? Did she know that her body was going to hit the surface of the water, that same water that up to now she had only known as gentle and penetrable? She, who loved the water so. How can a mother not sense it when her child dies? Stella cannot be dead, it’s not possible. Eva Maria shook her head to banish the unbearable vision of her daughter’s body lying on the bed of the river. The tears started down her cheeks. Eva Maria looked at the steps plunging downward. If the stairway could talk it would tell her who killed Vittorio’s wife. She would give anything toknow the murderer’s identity. Eva Maria got to her feet. She hoped that some light would be shed on the murder in the coming days and that Vittorio would be exonerated. She hoped above all that she would soon be alone with him, like before; she needed it so badly. She would never be able to go on without him, to go on living. Eva Maria left the building. Then the days passed. She decided to visit Vittorio in prison. She was afraid they might not allow her to visit. They didn’t cause any problems. The only procedure was a mandatory search. It was too good to be true.

Eva Maria opens her eyes once again. She looks at the four keys. One of which is a fake. Vittorio couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw them on the other side of the table. On the right side of the table in this fucking visiting room. The keys to his apartment in Eva Maria’s fingers. At last a flicker of hope. “All this because a kid was afraid of a kiss.” Vittorio had laughed. Too nervously. “You will help me, won’t you? I didn’t kill Lisandra, I could never have killed her, you have to believe me, Eva Maria, you’re my only hope—what can I do locked up in this fucking cell? The cops have it in for me, they’re convinced I killed Lisandra. At the crime scene they found a little porcelain cat, broken, just an innocuous little figurine, they noticed the collection on the shelf in the library, but they also found—evidence more compromising for me—a bottle of wine and two broken glasses on the floor: a tête-à-tête with my wife that turned ugly, it happens a lot, the evening starts out fine but ends badly, but no matter how I told them that those glasses could have been there for several days, that it