Twins (Mellizos)

     Leandro and Vicente Acuña were twins, and so similar that not even their parents could tell one from the other. It wasn't infrequent that one of the two would be naughty only for the other to take the rap. In their student years it was definitely an advantage. They would meticulously share their study-load; if there were eight topics, each one of them would study four and hand in two copies of the same exam, one under 'Leandro' and the other under 'Vicente'. For that pair of chancers organic synonymity normally constituted fun diversion, and when they were on their own they went back over the day's pranks, guffawing with laughter.
     Leandro was a centimetre taller than Vicente, though no one was tall enough to notice. Furthermore, they both wore caps, one green and the other blue, but they would swap them unscrupulously.
     The problem occurred when they met the Brunet sisters: Claudia and Mariana, both of whom were identical twins and disturbingly similar. Predictably, the Acuña brothers fell in love with the Brunet sisters and vice-versa. Undoubtedly they fell in love with each other, but who with whom?
     Claudia thought she was in love with Leandro, but it was Vicente who received her first passionate kiss. This error also spawned an internal conflict between the Acuña brothers, and it was not entirely forgotten in the laughter that followed.
     On another occasion, Vicente went to the cinema with Mariana. When the film drew to a close and the lights came on she looked that the bare arm of that evening's twin arm and said, with a little surprise and a little sarcasm: "You didn't have that mole yesterday."
     The conclusion of that intertwined chain of events was rather unexpected. One evening where Claudia was in a taxi next to her father, the driver fainted all of a sudden and the car crashed into a wall. The driver and her father were badly injured, but they lived. Claudia, on the other hand, died in the accident.
     At the funeral, which was very busy, Leandro and Vicente embraced a teary and anguished Mariana. Shortly after, she pulled away from the double hug, and turned unsteadily towards the room where the body of poor Claudia lay. The twins stayed on their feet, with a respectful silence, like simply two more people in a host of mourners.
     After a few minutes, Mariana reappeared. With a napkin, standing in for the absent tissue, she wiped the latest burst of tears from her cheeks. The twins looked at her inquisitively, as if asking: "Well, who's it going to be?"
     Then she included the two of them with a declaration that was an irrevocable sentence: "I hope you both understand that now I am half of my own self. Thanks for coming, now get out. I don't want to see either of you ever again."
     They left, of course, taciturn and with their heads down. Hours later, back at their house, Leandro spoke: "Little brother, I think our double-act has finished. From now on, we need to be different. I'll die my hair blonde and you keep the beard. What do you reckon?"
     Vicente agreed, with a very serious gesture, and could only muster the effort to say: "Ok. But I suggest that tomorrow we go to the photographer's to get the last picture of us as twins."

Who Killed the Widow? (Quién mató a la viuda?)

     The press had given the crime a huge, nearly scandalous, amount of coverage. The fact that Umpiérrez's wife (Argentinian, originally from Córdoba) was an upper class widow and also a part of what is called the financial homeland in Río de la Plata, the story made an impression on the various social strata (Argentinians, Uruguayans) in Punta del Este.
     The body had not been found in her lavish mansion, surrounded by a luxurious lawn, but rather chained to the stern of one of the yachts that fill and adorn the port's jetties in summer.
     A fortnight had passed since what the journalists had called, like always, "a gruesome discovery." The police had followed a multitude of leads without the slightest result. In the police stations and at the newspapers in Maldonado, Punta del Este and Montevideo, calls came in every day providing information anonymously that was invariably false. In situations such as these, jokers come out of the woodwork and multiply like rabbits.
     Eventually, Gonzalo Aguilar arrived from Buenos Aires. He was a famous private detective, to whom the distressed Umpiérrez family had handed over the responsibility of the case and its eventual resolution.
     After two draining weeks of gathering information, paperwork, interviews, searches, analyses, investigations and speculation, the journalists pressured Gonzalo Aguilar to give a press conference. The meeting took place in a large conference in the most lavish hotel in the resort.
     The reporters' relentless bombarrdment of questions did not bother the detective, who always accompanied his ambiguous answers with a sarcastic smile.
     After two hours of exasperating discussion, a journalist from Buenos Aires - who was slightly more aggressive than the others - let slip a comment that approximated a judgement:
     "I must confess that I find it disappointing that an investigator of your stature should have come to no conclusion on who committed the crime."
     "Who told you that?"
     "Perhaps you know who the killer is then?"
     "Of course I know. At these professional heights, not knowing who it was would be a disaster that my professional reputation could not allow."
     "So? Who is it then?"
     "So, and take note, boy. I am the killer."
     The detective opened his briefcase and took out an expensive revolver. Almost instinctively, the mass of journalists shrank back in a spasm of fear.
"Don't be afraid. I bought this beautiful gun in Zurich ten years ago. It was with this gun that I killed the poor lady, after a brief but disturbing spin on board her yacht, Neptune. Allow me, logically in the name of professional discretion, to spare you the motives of my attack. I do not wish to tarnish her memory or mine. And now: my pride cannot allow another colleague, especially if he is from the same country as me, to discover the identity of the architect of this mysterious death. Ah, and besides, as I have always liked the guilty person to suffer his punishment, I have decided to see that justice is done myself. In other words, you have a great front-page story. Please, do not be frightened when the gun goes off. And I'd also like to request an almost posthumous favour: may one of you make sure that this beautiful revolver accompanies my ashes."