Sangre De Toro (Old Draft - Now Published!)

Chapter 33 - Come Back Alive

AN: I've recently done some edits to this and Chapter 26. Please let me know if they work OK. :)

Driving to Silvio's farm in his van, Alfonso was extremely worried. The old man was very distressed, and he was reluctant to attend the scene alone. Silvio deserved to be told in person rather than by phone, but these deadly symptoms and their rapid onset suggested poisoning.

'Thanks for coming with me, Rita. Really,' he said.

'Any time. Besides, I've been told to take a week off for stress. It's not like I've got anything else to do,' Rita said, sitting beside him in the van.

'How come? Is it anything you can talk about?' Alfonso said gently. Aside from that evening at the restaurant, Rita hardly discussed her work.

'We went to the plaza de toros a few days ago and made an arrest. I can't believe I made it out without screaming at someone. I had a panic attack. I'm not sleeping. We cancelled the corrida and rescued the bulls. I was in a similar state to how they were.' She leaned back in her seat and sighed as the van drove through a pothole. The roads out here had seen better days, Alfonso thought.

'I've been losing it with this case, with this killer,' she said.

'You're not losing it, Rita. If you need to talk, I'm here, yeah?' Alfonso's phone hadn't beeped since he left.

Alfonso nodded. He too felt jittery and anxious. Neither he or Rita had slept after she'd woken up; thoughts of Sonia and Caroline haunted him. Pilar had found Sonia's issues too much to deal with alongside her own battles with physical and mental illness; Alfonso had never known her well. Her murder was horrific, but he and Pilar had been dealing with so much...

'I'll be fine. Just need to get my shit together,' she said.

'Don't be so tough on yourself. I don't know how you stayed calm in that hellhole. And well done for saving those poor creatures.'

'The answer's simple, I didn't, did I,' Rita laughed bitterly. Her phone went. She picked it up and shrugged.

'Nothing, I guess?'

'Just spam. Silvio still hasn't replied to the text I sent him. I'll try to call him,' Rita said.

'No. Not answering.' Alfonso's van approached the farms. He turned onto the dirt track at the bottom of the hill, the ominous feeling building. As they climbed the hill, Alfonso glanced over and saw the beef herd Pepelito adored, clustered at one side of the field, as far down as they could go.

They looked frightened.

Looking out the window, the battered van bumping along the gravel, he saw Silvio's field was empty. From the road, the fence looked damaged. The barn looked as though it was open, but Alfonso couldn't see Pepelito or Maribel; he gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white as the situation hit him. As he stared at the grassy expanse and at what was lying on the path ahead, he felt his face drain of colour. 

****

A dead silence hung over Silvio's farm as Rita and Alfonso stepped out of the van. The bodies of several geese lay on the path between the farmhouse and the barn. The remaining birds were huddled against the fence. A few looked sick. They all stared at the pair, frightened, their aggression gone. The livestock truck had moved several metres from its usual spot, with its window smashed. Part of the fence was broken.

Lying a few metres away was the body of Silvio himself, face down on the dried mud in front of his home. The old farmer had been killed mafia execution style with a shot to the head.