Buried Strangers by Leighton Gage Page A

something to do with the rest of his life.
    One day, after being turned down for a security job, he got a call from a childhood friend who was running for office in Tarcisio’s native state of Santa Catarina. The friend asked him to look into the background of his political rival, a long-standing federal senator. The senator was a born-again Christian, a moral pillar of the community, and an odds-on favorite for reelection.
    Mello’s investigation uncovered that he was also carrying on an affair with his personal assistant. Brazil is a tolerant place, and the senator’s love life might well have been per-fectly acceptable to the electorate, if the senator hadn’t been married and the assistant had been female.
    Mello’s friend was elected. Word got around. Mello let it be known that his services were available to others, but that he’d only accept work from one candidate for any given office. Homosexual liaisons weren’t the only things that Brasilia’s politicians wanted to hide. Some hired Mello because they hoped to repeat the success of the new senator from Santa Catarina. Others hired him out of fear, hoping to avoid the fate of the new senator’s predecessor. Within a year, Mello had opened an office in Brasilia; within five, he had a staff of sixty-three and representation in five state capitals.
    Mello received Silva in a book-lined office. Back when he was a federal cop, he’d been in the habit of bringing paperback novels along on stakeouts. Two of the shelves were lined with books of that type, their well-thumbed spines contrasting sharply with the expensive jacaranda wood. When Silva came in the door, his old friend came around his desk, gave him a firm embrace, and led him to the couch in the corner.
    “How have you been, Mario?”
    Mello knew about Silva’s wife, Irene. He knew about her drinking problem, about the long-standing depression that had plagued her since the death of her only child.
    “Good, Tarcisio, good,” Silva said, knowing exactly what Mello was getting at by asking the question.
    “She’s better, then?”
    “Oh, yes, much better.”
    She wasn’t, but it was sometimes kinder to lie.
    They passed the time in chat until the coffee was served. Tarcisio had three daughters and two grandchildren, and he loved to talk about them, but he wouldn’t have brought them up if Silva hadn’t. He was a sensitive man and a kind one, unusual traits in someone who’d seen as much of the bad side of human nature as he had. His recital over, he put down his coffee cup and got down to business.
    “How can I help you, Mario?”
    Silva filled him in on the case, starting with the discovery of the graves and telling him about Boceta’s theory.
    Mello’s lip curled when he got to the part about the curi-ous meeting with the minister of tourism. “What’s Cavalcante trying to hide?”
    “That’s what I want to find out.”
    “You came to the right place.”
    There was no discussion of money or fees. Mello’s business depended entirely on the ability to access information. Often, that information was something that his former colleagues at the federal police were able to provide. He never offered to pay, since payment could have been con-strued as bribery. But he was always willing to return favors.
    “Let me see if I already have something on him,” he said, and got up to call his secretary.
    A shapely brunette soon appeared and put a dossier down on the coffee table in front of them. The brunette flashed a smile at Silva, turned, and walked out without saying a word. Mello picked up the folder, leaned back in his chair, and started scanning it. After a minute or two he looked up.
    “Cavalcante never ran for public office,” he said, “but he headed up the Restaurateur’s and Hotel Owner’s Association for almost twenty years. That’s an elected position. During his tenure, he built the association a building in the center of São Paulo, put up a training school for chambermaids and