Hermes
D a y s c u r r e n t
Before entering my office, I was approached by one of my investigators, who came to inform me that a lawyer had just arrived to accompany the testimony.
Fernanda was still sitting in the chair, spinning a half-full bottle of water in her hands. Suelen sat in a chair farther away but without losing sight of her.
“Come on, you have to give your testimony, your lawyer is here.”
I led her to a sparsely furnished room, very different from the environments she was probably used to, and we were followed by Suelen. There was a desk with a clerk, a middle-aged man typing at an astonishing speed. Near the keyboard, stacks of police reports, each narrating a tragic death, where we tried to bring some comfort to the families while seeking the culprits.
In front of the desk, two plastic chairs—one occupied by a man around forty years old, his hair slicked back with some gel, revealing a symmetrical line in his hairstyle. Completing the decoration was a huge cabinet that occupied one wall; there was no air conditioning, only a large fan.
“Doctor, I would like to have a few moments alone with my client,” the lawyer said, standing up and brushing an imaginary speck of dust from the elegant dark blue suit he wore.
“Very well,” I agreed, signaling the clerk to leave the room, and I closed the door behind me, leaving them alone.
“What do you think, doctor?” Suelen asked, leaning against the wall while the clerk moved away to smoke a cigarette by the window.
“I don’t know. The only certainty I have is that I need to decide whether she will be held in flagrante delicto or not,” I replied, still with an uncomfortable inner conflict, because although no one knew, Fernanda Cervino Abrantes had been my fiancée years ago.
“When I came up from the garage, I saw some TV reporters standing in front of the building.”
“It’s going to be hell!” I imagined the circus the press would make.
At that moment, the lawyer opened the door.
“We’re ready, doctor,” he announced.
Suelen called the clerk, and we entered the room. I sat on the edge of the desk while the investigator leaned against the wall behind Fernanda and the lawyer. The clerk stared at me before we began. That testimony could take any course, from the easiest to the most difficult. I just couldn’t predict which.
“All right, Fernanda, you have the right to remain silent, but if you want to testify, you can start by telling us what you remember f
rom yesterday.”
Nanda
“If you’re not honest with me, I won’t be able to help you,” said Dr. Alencar, trying to understand what had happened to lead to this tragedy, while it was just the two of us in the room.
“I’m telling the truth, I don’t remember anything,” I repeated for the third time, psychologically exhausted, in shock from Roberto, shaken by Hermes.
“I’m your lawyer, you need to trust me.”
“What do you want me to do? Lie?” That was when the lawyer gave up and decided to call the police team back for the interrogation.
Never in my life did I imagine I would go through something like this. A crime? I wasn’t part of that world; my life was focused on doing good.
The only events with Roberto that I really enjoyed were social actions. Donating books to adult literacy centers, participating in the company’s activities at the orphanage we sponsored, supporting the social inclusion program... why were so many people now putting the spotlight on me?
I closed my eyes for a few seconds, trying to remember the person I had been, but almost none of that Nanda Hermes knew remained — a lively girl, adventurous and with a heart bursting with love. Well... the love still survived inside me, but it hurt, it was painful, and the figure of Hermes wounded it even more.
I opened my eyes again and looked around the room, remembering being face to face with a clerk years ago when I had met Hermes, in a much less hostile atmosphere. Today, for the second time in my life at a police station, again accompanied by him, no longer as an investigator but as a chief, I only didn’t have a sense of déjà vu because, unlike the past, he wasn’t there to protect me — maybe he was there to accuse me.
“All right, Fernanda, you have the right to remain silent, but if you want to testify, you can start by telling us what you remember from yesterday,” he said to me with an indifferent expression.
“I want to cooperate, but I don’t remember much,” I glanced at Hermes desperately, but he had perfected that poker face, the difference being this time he no longer betrayed himself with his eyes — I admit I drank too much, I lost consciousness.
There was nothing but coldness in his expression.
Those years, or maybe the profession, had made him a cold man. Where was that young, loving, and dreamy man I had met years ago, the one I had fallen for and sacrificed myself for?
I loved him, and he knew nothing about me, nothing about my decisions or actions.
And now, there, surrounded by the police team, I had no idea how or what to start telling. There was a blur in my memory, which I attributed to being excessively drunk. That bothered me extremely because I couldn’t affirm everything they were looking for from me.
Obviously, I also wanted to know what had happened! But I couldn’t go so far as to commit a crime. I looked at the makeshift bandage on my hand, and it said nothing to me.
Throughout the interrogation, my sentences were fragmented, and when recounting what I remembered, I told the facts in a disorderly way. Hermes tried to guide my explanations by questioning facts that could give us a chronological order that made sense, while the clerk typed at an impressive speed on his computer keyboard.
“Why don’t we start with the last memory you have of your husband alive?” That wasn’t Hermes, that was just Dr. Chief doing his duty, and now, everything led me to believe we weren’t on the same side.
“We woke up together yesterday morning. Roberto acted as if it were a normal day, any day, as if nothing had happened.” I hated that way he always thought he was in control. I hated it even more when he tended to ignore my decisions. “He chose his suit, matched the tie, didn’t bother to have breakfast, and was driven by the chauffeur to the office.”
“Explain better: ‘as if nothing had happened.’”
Focused, it seemed the only thing that mattered to the chief was to find exactly the answer he needed to destroy me — that’s what his coldness told me.
I loved Hermes, and he wanted me in jail. I could easily read what his body language said.
I considered telling everything about our past to my lawyer and trying to get the chief replaced — there was a huge conflict of interest between us — but that wouldn’t change my life. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, I still loved him, and he ignored that feeling. I wouldn’t be able to tell him why I had left; my love for him was too strong to hurt him with the truth.
What he didn’t know was that anything would be better for me than continuing to live in that prison I found myself beside Roberto — even jail! However, even if I couldn’t remember the facts of the previous night, I wouldn’t take a life.
“Roberto was angry with me.”
“Why?”
“I had filed the divorce papers without his consent.” I brought my hand to my chest, trying to touch the pendant on my little chain over the shirt I was wearing. Nothing in the world would make me part with that amulet.
The chief’s eyes widened at my simple confession, but he quickly recovered; he was a master at staying in control.
The truth was, anything Hermes thought about my life or me was probably wrong. There was only one man I had ever loved in my life, and he was standing in front of me, trying to lead me to my ruin, responsible for deciding to put me behind bars, and I knew he might still hold enough resentment to do it.
As for me... unlike him, I would protect him for the rest of my life.
Two and a half long hours of repeating the same things in different ways, answering the same rhetorical questions. What more did they want from me? I didn’t remember anything after the second or third glass of Pinot because I had already drunk the whole bottle of Dom Pérignon — damn it! I didn’t even know how the Chardonnay got there, let alone the second glass.
Why couldn’t they respect my pain? I was a victim!
“How many more times do I have to repeat that the last time I saw Roberto was in the morning? Why don’t you ask his driver? Or his secretary, who spent more time in bed with him than in the office!” I raised my voice, losing the last bit of politeness I still forced myself to keep, for appearances’ sake.
“Did you know your husband made a will, registered at the notary’s office, excluding collateral relatives — an uncle and two cousins — from the inheritance, leaving everything to you?” That revelation caught me by surprise.
I had married with total separation of assets and had even signed a prenuptial agreement; in a contested divorce, I would leave the marriage with practically no rights.
Any financial matters were handled by Roberto’s uncle, Amadeo, who was the company’s vice president and also acted as CFO — a man around sixty years old, an unpleasant type who, when Roberto wasn’t around, looked at me disgustingly. I couldn’t see how he would allow such a thing.
“Don’t say another word, Fernanda,” my lawyer asked before I could answer, though I was tired of hiding the miserable life I lived, especially in front of Hermes.
He had probably suffered, but I suffered too, every day, every moment, every second of my life — I died a little more with every breath without him. At least that man in front of me had the freedom to make his own choices, exercise his free will, and rebuild his life. He had never been stifled by the traditions and interests of a class with false happiness.
There’s no happiness money can bring if you have to die alone — and that was the only thing life with Roberto had given me besides misery.
“We need to interrogate the secretary,” Hermes told Suelen after a few seconds of silence. “I only see evidence that your situation is not good, Fernanda.”
“But I didn’t kill him!” I shouted. “Anyone can see I have no motive or physical strength, much less was I in any condition to commit a crime!”
“I’m not so sure anymore about the lack of motive,” the chief said, giving me his cold stare. “I won’t ratify the flagrante delicto, but I ask you not to leave the city.”
“What?”
“I recommend you stay at your residence so we can find you when necessary.”
“You’re crazy, Hermes?”
“More respect for Dr. Chief!” Suelen snapped without moving away from the wall.
“There’s no way I’m going back to that house knowing a murder happened there, doctor,” I explained to my lawyer in a calmer tone, but my words were for the chief.
“All right, Fernanda, why don’t you stay at your parents’ house?”
“Impossible! My father and I under the same roof?” Hermes knew that since we started dating back then, my ties with my father had been broken. I wouldn’t leave one prison to fall straight into another.
“As long as you don’t leave the city and notify us, through your lawyer, of where you will be staying, you won’t have any problems. At least not for now. Decide where you want to stay and let us know.”