In the meantime, the local constabulary continued its quest to establish a chain of evidence to prove that the robbers, while responsible for the victim's death, had not intended to cause it. And, what's more, that the death of Malhaes had nothing to do with what the colonel might have already exposed, or might have still kept shielded from pubic view about the dictatorship's repressive practices. Together the two law enforcement entities returned to the scene and scoured the Malhaes' home and property -- said to contain several houses -- interviewed the neighbors, and sought information throughout the district on the whereabouts of the fugitive perpetrators.
In the course of these searches, according to news reports, federal agents removed three more computers, several unspecified digital devices, appointment books and documents dating from the time of the military regime, to include reports on actual operations that Malhaes' may have directed or participated in. It should come as no surprise that details on the contents of these records have not been made public, but it has leaked out that one of the three computers seized by the feds was missing its hard drive.
Several days into their inquiry the police began to suspect that the handyman Rogerio Pires was himself an accomplice in the crime when he balked at providing details for composite sketches of the two thieves whose unhooded faces he had undeniably set eyes upon. This was because the two turned out to be his brothers, Anderson and Rodrigo, and Rogerio had indeed known of their plans in advance, although he claims to have opposed the crime, but did nothing to prevent it. By what means Rogerio was persuaded to confess has not been reported.
Assuming there are beans to be spilled here, it seems unlikely that Rogerio and the other two Pires brothers - not yet apprehended but inevitably headed to jail -- will spill them. Inside the kind of prison, unspeakably inhumane, where the Pires boys will be jailed, inmate murder is an extracurricular activity. If the three brothers are conspirators they would be wise to accept their meager compensation, and keep their own counsel, hoping upon release to gain a chance to serve again wherever shady employment is offered. Since they are not likely to face charges of murder in the first degree, their sentences, by American standards, will not be long.
The other principal eyewitness to the events under examination, the colonel's widow, has allegedly shown a much less urgent impulse to practice discretion. Since the day after she learned of her husband's death, Cristina had avoided speaking with reporters. But it is now being suggested that she was far from silent within her closest circles. Two similar accounts of what Cristina is supposed to have shared with acquaintances or intimates have appeared in print, one citing a neighbor who spoke anonymously, and the other in the voice of her late husband's godson, identified as Joaquim Sarmento Souza.
In an unsigned article distributed by Agence France Presse, Souza related that during the robbery and/or rubout, Cristina is said to have heard the intruders speaking over a radio, and that it sounded as if they were receiving orders. "You haven't killed him yet?" she heard a voice ask. "This is taking too long. You have an order to kill him." Also, according to Souza, Cristina said she heard one of the assailants ask "if my godfather remembered a family he had killed in Duque de Caxias (a contiguous municipality), and that he said no." This last, whatever it's provenance, clearly refers to some extralegal act of extermination in which Malhaes was suspected of playing a role. Unfortunately the AFP dispatch sheds no light on whether Souza came by this astounding account directly from Cristina or heard it second hand, and therefore, however tantalizing and suggestive, it is for now only hearsay.
Then there's the matter of additional post mortem findings that were due out the end of this week, but which have yet to appear. If I understand the process correctly, analysis of tissue samples removed from the cadaver, along with DNA-rich evidence inadvertently deposited by the perpetrators, was expected to more completely flush out how the victim died, and who was on hand to witness or speed his demise. But it is now reported that the police are balking at having the results made public. The agent in charge of the homicide division, Pedro Medina, speaking at a press conference several days ago, described the awaited report as "not important" because it might hamper the ongoing investigation. Medina stressed that, since his unit's top priority was to catch the fugitives, the report might tip their hand, especially if it names the "third man?" The thought occurs, of course, that this man's identity might need to be protected.
Is what appears as obfuscation and double talk by the investigators to be taken simply as the legitimate privilege of the police to play a close hand in a controversial case until all the facts are in? Or do Brazil's Civil Police, viewed institutionally, have some skin in this game in what looks like an effort to eliminate the assassination hypothesis entirely, and, depending on the arrangements they have established within the local communities where they operate, to suppress talk of vigilante practices which they have traditionally ignored or tolerated? Despite the rising popular outcry in Brazil directed at corruption, it seems widely expected that the police will operate outside the law as circumstances dictate. And thus far those in government at whatever level haven't mobilized the political will to bring the country's civil, much less military, police under tighter statutory control.
Operating on a loftier political plain than the police, the proud and patriarchal Brazilian Armed Forces have, since the creation of the truth commissions last year, stubbornly refused to join the national conversation in Brazil on the public's right to know the extent to which the military dictators used torture and murder against those who resisted their rule. Suppression of information that might undermine self perpetuating prerogatives to operate without close supervision or beyond public scrutiny is what unites the interests of the police in the Fluminense Lowlands and their military counterparts who might have acted to silence a big mouth like Paulo Malhaes as a warning for others to think twice before following his example. For the moment the case rests here.
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