Death on four legs

Only today was I really willing to check my e-mails. The dead won't read e-mails, but not all of them are curious as I am. Now that I could even find Taurinos on the Internet, who knows I'm going to find out why my mailbox has been so lonely lately. Course people who write to me imagine I couldn't write them back, but how quick does a piece of news about someone's death spread?

E-mails. So many dates I don't know how many. Most of them as one would expect coming from Meire's sentbox. Two of them particularly drew my attention. One of them was dated back to March 31 2009. It was a link sent by her to a news clipping telling of a death occurred in Santos on this day. A man was literally eaten alive by dogs on a deserted street in the quarter of Ponta da Praia in Santos, according to the news. I did frown strongly. The approximate time of the event made it weirder for me: it had happened at dusk. In the message accompanying the clipping, Meire told me the Lopes the clipping referred to was an old neighbor of mine. It took me a while to remember who it was; when I did, my mind walked back to the day when I was returning to the farm Teixeira. I could hardly refrain from my bewilderment. Meire wouldn't find any correspondence other than knowing I knew the guy. Neither could she, because she had no idea what I had been living through. I heard the sound of a horse in the distance.

Another e-mail, with yet another news clipping: a mechanic from São Vicente, killed with a stiletto in broad daylight at Correios Square across from Tumiarú Club, a traditional club in that town. The murder's date was the day following the first, March 31 2009. No one knows how the stiletto ended up in the man's stomach. I knew that mechanic. Identified by the police as Fernando Aita, he was the patient I worked with in 1994, in the first important case I tried to work out. It was really hard to believe. Now I heard the sound of the galloping horse outside growing louder on the dirt road.

For Meire, the only thing that connected the two deaths (and the reason why she had sent the two clippings to me) was the fact she knew I was acquainted with the two victims. I knew this was not the only connection between the two. I was still lost in these thoughts, disturbed, when I heard someone knocking on my door.

I went to answer the door. The other connection between the two deaths was standing at my porch, asking me whether I wanted to go with him to Horns Falls. I told him I did not want to go out. He insisted. I could hardly disguise my disturbed look and he asked me what was going on. I told him I was alright, but definitely did not want to go out. He argued he had come all the way from the farm Teixeira only to invite me to go with him to Horns Falls. I told him that if he had used the telephone he could have saved both the way and the horse. He shrugged and went away on his palomino without hiding his disappointment. My heart still beat fast as though I had just been visited by a shadow, apparition or something worse.

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