A Sweet Scent of Death by Guillermo Arriaga

Author:Guillermo Arriaga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Published: 2002-03-13T05:00:00+00:00

2

Justino scrutinized the area. Adela’s and the murderer’s footprints were still clearly visible. He squatted and measured them: a span for hers, a span and three fingers for the killer’s. He repeated the procedure to make sure. Out of curiosity, he measured his own footprint: a span, three fingers and a bit. The killer probably wore size nine-and-a-half, as he did.

He followed the imprints to see where they came from. Sometimes he lost them, but he went around in circles until he found them again. The loose earth around the prints indicated that both of them had been running and that Adela had not stopped until she was killed. The trail led into a field of high, thickly matted grass, which Justino did not venture to cross. At that hour of the afternoon, this was the favored territory of the fer-de-lance, a pit viper that made his skin crawl. He had seen the effect of its venom on cattle. They bellowed uncontrollably, kicking furiously until they collapsed, strangled by their own spasms. He skirted the expanse of grass until he reached the river bank. Estimating the point at which he had left their trail and following imaginary coordinates, he examined the marshy banks of the river. All he found was deer and coati tracks, but by chance he discovered a narrow cattle path trampled through the brush bordering the river. He pushed his way into it with great difficulty, ducking continually to avoid being scratched by the lower stalks. Passage became almost impossible, but by the time he decided he was ready to give up and turn back, it was too late: he had covered more than two hundred meters; the way back was as daunting as the way forward. He decided to push on. At each step he raised clouds of mosquitoes, which riddled him with bites, though he squashed a few, flailing his arms and hands. Inside his green tunnel, the heat intensified brutally, humidity and mud coating his skin with slime. Sweat soaked his clothes and his back creaked with every step at half-crouch. ‘What the fuck am I doing here?’ he groaned out loud.

He kept on for another two hundred meters, practically on his hands and knees, before suddenly he burst into a huge clearing hidden by a stand of trees. Justino stumbled out of the crawlway and sat down to rest on an abandoned anthill, while a flock of brown jays screeched at his intrusion. He threw a lump of dirt to frighten them off and they headed towards the river, where they continued their ruckus.

In spite of his exhaustion, Justino decided on one last effort in his search to unravel the crime.

The area was unfamiliar to him, but everything pointed to the field of tall grass he had avoided, ending at this clearing. Only here, the grass was shorter and sparser, a natural pasture for the cattle that had discovered it. The looseness of the earth, because of its proximity to the river, recorded every mark; but the confusion of hoofprints made it well-nigh impossible to find the trail.

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