Oriol swallowed the mint he had been chewing since he got off the bus. His wife had slipped a box of spearmint squares into his jacket pocket before he left the house. Its chalky texture did little to cover the taste of resignation balled up in his windpipe. He walked into the gray, square building with shiny, mirrored windows, erected in the late 1960s when Barcelona, like other cities, lost its architectural flare. He went through the metal detector, nodding a familiar hello to the security clerk. He pushed the elevator button for the seventh floor and fixed his gaze as each number on the panel illuminated. He straightened his blue tie as the bell beeped and the doors slide open.
“Hola. Bon dia.” Oriol greeted the receptionist at the train authority’s central investigation center and tried to muster up his warm Catalan smile. “Senyor Puig, si us plau.”
“Yes, he’s waiting for you. He’ll be out in a moment,” she answered him in a Spanish not from Spain. By her accent, Oriol pegged her from Argentina.
Oriol sat on the black leather sofa, pretending to read the latest edition of the soccer magazine he picked up off the coffee table. Barça was again competing for the European Championship, and the city was buzzing with anticipation. Oriol and his friend Pep managed to get tickets for some of the earlier league games, many months before this witch hunt began.
Oriol knew Puig and company were only searching for the truth, exploring all the angles and piecing together how one of their trains and conductors could have possibly killed13 people and injured dozens more. The political fire for accountability was burning their heels. Mostly, Oriol knew they were trying to cover their own asses. He could only the truth would also set him free.