Perfect Hatred by Leighton Gage Page A

lawyer, but being a cop
had brought about a shift in his values. These days, with
a few noteworthy exceptions, he couldn’t stomach people
who’d chosen the legal profession. His expression showed it. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “how did you get
into difficulty in the first place?”
She shook her head. “I don’t mind,” she said. “In fact, I’m
glad you asked.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Why?”
“Because I’m trying to explain to you what Julio was all
about, and there’s no better illustration of the kind of man
he was.”
“Go on.”
“He quit his job almost a year ago because he disagreed
with the way his company was cheating the government out
of taxes. Can you imagine? At least half of the companies
in this country cheat the government out of taxes, but my
husband, the crusader, thought it was wrong. So he resigned
because of it. He even blew the whistle to the authorities.” Silva shook his head at the naïveté of the man. He was
quite sure he knew the answer to his next question, but he
asked it anyway.
“What happened then?”
“The company paid off the tax officials, and a judge, and
that was the end of it. For the company, that is, not for us.
Julio made no secret of what he’d done. After that, what kind
of a chance do you think he had of getting a new job?” “Not a good one.”
“How about none at all? We went through all of our savings, we took another mortgage on the house, and I even
borrowed money from my parents. But you know what?” “What?”
“Right up until the last, Julio remained convinced he’d
done the right thing. He kept saying he’d only want to work
for a company that would respect what he did.”
She snorted.
“I sense,” Silva said, “that you found his attitude . . . how
shall I put this . . . excessively idealistic.”
“That, Chief Inspector, is an understatement. We had . . .
words about it. I told him to think of his children.” “And he said?”
“That he was thinking of his children. That he wanted
them to inherit a better Brazil. And to get there, we’d have
to make sacrifices, we’d have to put egotism aside and work
for the common good.”
Silva was beginning to form the image of a prissy, betterthan-thou do-gooder. He didn’t think he would have liked
Julio Cataldo. But his wife was right about one thing: her late
husband didn’t fit the profile of a killer.
“Can you see a man like that picking up a gun and shooting someone?” she said, echoing his thought. “Particularly
someone he respected and wanted to see elected?” Silva rubbed his chin. “No,” he said, “I can’t. And yet it’s
incontestable that he did.”
“Yes,” she said. “It is. But why ? That’s what I want to know.” Jessica looked, for a moment, as if she was about to
burst into tears. But then she took a deep breath—and the
moment passed.
“During those last days of his life,” Silva said, “how was
his state of mind?”
She took a pensive sip of her coffee. “That’s another curious thing,” she said, after replacing the cup in its saucer. “For
about a month he’d been brooding, having dark thoughts,
sometimes sleeping too much, other times not at all. Then,
a week or so before the mortgage payment was due, he came
home radiant. He’d been out all day, looking for work, and
I thought he’d found a job, that’s how happy he was. But he
said no. It was just that he’d dropped by Plínio’s campaign
headquarters on the way home. And he’d been able to talk
to the candidate himself.”
“And that, in itself, caused him to become . . . radiant.” “It did.”
“And you?”
“I told him he should be worrying less about elections and
more about feeding his family. He said he never ceased to
think about feeding his family, and I should show more faith.
He quoted the twenty-third Psalm.”
“‘ The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ?’ That one?” “Yes, that one. I told him I’d love to believe it, but that
the