There were nearly as many crime scene technicians inside the house as there’d been reporters outside. Some were taking photographs, some mixing luminol, some dusting for prints. And, in charge of it all, was Lefkowitz, the chief crime scene technichian.

“Brought a few friends, I see,” Hector said, looking around him.

“I brought everybody I’ve got,” Lefkowitz said. “Nobody wants to nail those bastards more than me. I’ve got a bet with a cousin of mine in the States. He actually thinks the Americans are going to get into the quarter-finals.”

“They just might. They almost did last time.”

“The Americans? In the quarter-finals? You’ve got to be kidding. They don’t care about football. Not our kind, anyway.”

Hector wasn’t there to talk about football. He got down to business.

“They took down my car’s number plate when I came through the gate. You’ve probably already thought of this, but…”

“Did we get a copy of the gate records? Yes, we did. And there’s one car we’ve yet to identify. It arrived at 2:00 AM, left at 5:00.”

Hector rubbed his hands. “A lead,” he said. “Thank you, Lefkowitz.”

“The Lefkowitz giveth, and the Lefkowitz taketh away,” Lefkowitz said. “We ran the plate through DETRAN. It doesn’t exist.”

DETRAN was the regulatory body that controlled car registrations in the State of Sao Paulo.

Hector chose to be optimistic.

“It might be from out of state,” he said.

“The other states are being checked as we speak. Another possibility is that the guard got the number wrong, so we’re also trying partials.”

“Other than the gate I came through-”

“Additional gates? None.”

“Damn! Somebody talk to the neighbors?”