The Ways of Evil Men Read Online Free Page B

not going to help?”
    Borges looked pained. “I really wish you wouldn’t put it that way. You can come to me with a murder that has taken place in this town, and I’ll do everything I can to help. But it’s unfair of you to expect me to get involved in anything that happens outside the city limits.”
    “And that’s your final word on the matter?”
    “I’m sorry. But it is.” It wasn’t as if Osvaldo hadn’t warned her. Borges was giving her exactly what he’d predicted: zero help. Jade gritted her teeth, held her temper in check and left to try the mayor.
    H UGO T OLEDO didn’t just head up the municipal government; he was also a cattle rancher, one of the Big Six. Theproperty that had made him rich had all been Indian land less than forty years before, so Jade didn’t expect much help from him either. But she had to try.
    He posed the same questions as Borges. What did he, as mayor, have to do with something that had occurred on a federal reservation? And if Doctor Pinto were to autopsy the bodies, who’d pay for it?
    She gave him the same answers she’d given the delegado and got the same response. This time, though, Jade
did
lose her temper and ended the interview by storming out of his office.
    Two men had already spoken to her about Doctor Pinto. She decided that her next step should be to talk to him personally.
    “A thousand Reais each, my dear,” he said when she asked how much he’d charge to autopsy the bodies. “The lab tests, of course, would be extra.”
    “That’s a lot of money, Doctor Pinto.”
    He looked at her over his spectacles. “A doctor, like everyone else, has to earn his bread,” he said. “In a case like this, Senhorita Calmon, you wouldn’t be paying me just for the time I’d spend working on the bodies, you’d be paying me for my years of expertise. And there’s another aspect you have to consider: if I made an exception for you, I’d be setting a precedent. The news would get around. Soon other people would be appealing to the better side of my nature. You know just as well as I do how small this town is. Before long, I’d be besieged with people asking me to donate my services. And then where would I be? It’s a question of survival, you see. Still, I don’t want to be intractable about this. How about if I meet you halfway, give you a volume discount? Shall we say two thousand for four?”
    “I don’t—”
    “And I hope you don’t think I’ll be going with you when you dig them up.”
    “Your testimony, Doctor, would be fundamental at a trial. It’s essential you be present while the exhumations are taking place.”
    “And spend a night in some Indian’s hut?” The doctor shook his head. “Who knows what kind of vermin infest such places?”
    “We could bring a tent.”
    “Me? Sleep in a tent? At my age? No, Senhorita Calmon, I’m seventy-one years old and I’m no boy scout. If you want my collaboration, you’ll have to bring the bodies to me.”
    “It’s not that far, Doctor Pinto, and there’s quite a serviceable road for much of the way. You wouldn’t have to sleep at the site. We could go back and forth in a single day.”
    “Could we?”
    “Yes. I’ve done it often.”
    He stroked his chin. “How long would it take to get there?”
    “Only a two-hour drive.”
    “And the walk?”
    “An easy forty-five minutes.”
    “Forty-five minutes? Through the rainforest? With the heat, and the insects?” He shook his head. “No, my dear, I think not.”
    “Just one day, Doctor. That’s all I’m asking. I could bring a crew. They could exhume all the bodies at once. Then you could go from one to the other.”
    He shook his head. “Nothing good comes from being too hasty, young lady. And besides, even if I was willing, which I’m not, would you really want to spend that much money on a few Indians?”
    “Yes,” Jade said, evenly, “I would. But I haven’t got it.”
    Doctor Pinto held up his two hands, palms upward, in agesture