Sulamita pulled back the sheet, uncovering the naked body of Moacir on the morgue table.
I stepped back in sudden panic, unable to take my eyes off the coarsely sewn cut that began at the pubis and ended high in the chest. That was what I was afraid of, over. The legs had also been cut open and stitched. It’s a common procedure in the autopsy of people who suffer violent deaths, Sulamita explained.
I could barely keep my balance, I was sweating, nauseated at the putrid smell mixed with bleach. It’s the end, I thought, supporting myself against the wall.
Eliana doesn’t know yet, she said. And while she told me that Moacir had been found in his cell, tied to a sheet attached to the bars on the window, a single idea came into my head: I was next.
It was this morning, Sulamita continued, when the prisoners were sunning themselves in the courtyard.
They’re going to kill me, I said. They’re sending me a message.
You think, she answered, that didn’t occur to me when I saw Moacir on the table? That I didn’t think about you and everything you told me the day before yesterday? I wasn’t even supposed to be at the autopsy. I was just leaving my shift. I asked Rosana, the coroner who works here, to let me follow the procedure. I did more than that; I called Joel and asked to read the inquest.
I asked Sulamita if a suicide couldn’t be faked. Maybe, I said, maybe someone tied a sheet to those bars and forced Moacir to hang himself.
Know what we do when a cadaver arrives here? Sulamita said. We sit down beside it and have a chat. A corpse tells all. We turn it inside out, rip it from head to toe, take out the viscera, scalp it, pull out the brain. Look, she said, indicating a deep, irregular groove in Moacir’s neck. This mark is the sign of hanging. If it were a crime, it would be around the entire neck, not just in front. And there would be signs of a struggle. Look here, she said, pointing to the shoulder region, there are no scratches or contusions.
I need protection, I insisted. They killed Moacir, whatever you may have seen in the autopsy. The Bolivians told me they were going to kill him.
I told her in detail about my conversation with Ramirez, said that I’d be the next one and that if I didn’t pay the debt I’d be found floating in the river or hanged like Moacir. I need police protection, I said. I repeated it several times, begging her to believe me, and the more Sulamita asked me to stay calm, the more nervous I became. I said: You’re like those detectives in bad crime movies that get in the way of the investigation and let innocent people die.
Who’s innocent? You? she asked. I didn’t like the way she said it.
I was shaking uncontrollably. You don’t understand, I said. I need protection.
You’re the one who doesn’t understand, she interrupted. Stop talking nonsense. It was a suicide, and it isn’t the police or the Bolivians saying it. It’s me. Yours truly. And what’s this idiotic talk about protection? Do you by some chance want to go to the precinct and confess you’re the owner of the cocaine found at Moacir’s? Is that your plan? If it is, go right ahead. Because those guys only provide protection – and it’s crappy protection that’s not going to solve anything if somebody really wants to kill you – if you go there and do what Moacir never did at any time. Open his mouth. Moacir was very decent. He protected you.
The idea of turning myself in didn’t strike me as totally bad. But if they had killed Moacir inside the penitentiary, why wouldn’t they kill me too?
Sulamita took me outside. Go to the car, she said. She returned minutes later with a Coca-Cola. You’ve got to understand one thing, she said. I really did check. I went to the penitentiary after the autopsy. I spoke to Joel. I spoke with Alfredo, the jailer who found Moacir in the morning. He told me that when he went into the cell, Moacir still had an erection, he had just ejaculated. Yes, it was suicide, she said. All the elements point to suicide.
We stood there, with me trembling and drinking Coca-Cola, while I thought about whether there was some way for me to escape.
The only way out was my plan. Project Cadaver, over.