Alone in the Crowd: An Inspector Espinosa Mystery by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

Author:Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza [Garcia-Roza, Luiz Alfredo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Police Procedural, Crime, World Literature, Brazil
ISBN: 9781429925389
Google: Eq3TW35qatEC
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Published: 2010-05-24T12:00:00+00:00

He didn’t have lunch. At least, not a normal meal. He ate a sandwich with an orange juice in a coffee shop in front of the station. But instead of going back to work, he headed toward the Peixoto District, more specifically to a little room at the back of the building next door to the girl’s. Onofre had just awakened from a nap.

“Just a few minutes,” the guard said, “fifteen minutes a day after lunch. But how can I help you, sir?”

“You may be able to help jog my memory. I was a boy, only twelve, about the same age as the dead girl, and I’ve already forgotten almost everything.”

“If I may ask, Chief, why do you want to remember something that awful from so many years ago?”

“Because I think it may be connected to something else awful that happened last week.”

“I have a good memory. The main thing I do when I work is remember. What do you want to know, sir?”

“If there were any comments about the girl’s death …”

“My memory is better for things I saw than things people said. I remember perfectly the girl fallen in the stairwell and her mother shouting. I remember that people were scared. But what they said … it’s been a long time.”

“Of course you can’t remember what they said, but can you remember if there were any comments, rumors?”

“The people who lived in these buildings all knew the kids who played in the square. They all knew the girl. They were really sorry about her death and felt sorry for the parents, who moved right after the incident.”

“Was there any commentary about whether it really was an accident?”

“I think there was a rumor that the girl hadn’t been alone. But nobody saw anything. Her mother found the body. I got there as soon as she started shouting. There wasn’t anyone else in the stairwell or in the lobby.”

“Why didn’t they call the police?”

“I think because the girl fell, because it looked like an accident. So they called the doctor.… But that’s what I think now; I don’t remember what I thought back then.”

“Do you remember if back then you thought it was an accident?”

“It’s hard to say. It’s more than thirty years ago. Time mixes up your ideas.”

“Do you remember having heard anything about the kids who played out in the square, any friends of hers?”

“I don’t remember, Chief. They were kids.”

Espinosa took leave of the watchman and crossed the square on his way back to the station, a bit uncomfortable about having given Onofre the impression that he was looking for someone responsible for the girl’s death among the children. Though he was.

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