The Bastards of Pizzofalcone (34 page)

Lojacono listened attentively: “So the signora knew. And you and the notary knew that she knew. How does one resolve a situation like that? What were you waiting for?”

Russo stood up and walked toward the window. Outside, the clouds were gathering, dark and menacing.

“Lieutenant, do you know this city? It's three cities, really. One city, the one that really matters, is just a small town with a population of a few thousand. A second city consists of everyone with a job and a salary, who live from the 27th of one month to the 27th of the next, hoping they'll be able to afford a beach vacation. The third city, with a million or so inhabitants, gets by and tries to survive as best it can.”

A fat drop of rain hit the pane of glass and started sliding down it.

“Getting into the first city is no simple matter. Not because it's inhabited by a better sort of people than the others are, let's be clear on that: they're almost all idiots, inane, shallow individuals who haven't faced a real problem in generations and wouldn't know how to if they did. But they have money. Lots and lots of money. And they won't let go of a cent, not for any reason.”

Lojacono and Aragona noticed that the description matched the one that the Baroness Ruffolo had provided of her milieu at the yacht club; though they were coming at it from opposite directions, the two women were in complete agreement.

“Arturo and I weren't born into that world. We didn't get in by birthright, we don't have any institutional role or position. But we're better than them, far better. We've had problems, we know our way around them, we know how to evaluate them, and we've overcome them. So we know how to solve their problems too, and in fact we do solve them.” Here she turned to look at the two policemen, keeping her arms wrapped tight around her chest. “So they use us. They can't do without us. But there's a big difference between needing us and welcoming us. Cecilia, Arturo's wife, knew that she was in a position of strength and made the most of it. She pretended not to know about me and her husband, and thought that she could hold onto her position. But there was one thing she hadn't, shall we say, taken into account.”

She paused. Aragona asked: “Namely?”

“I'm pregnant. I'm going to have Arturo's baby.”

The words exploded into the silence like a gunshot. “Did the signora know that?” Lojacono asked.

“No, that's something I found out very recently myself, just a couple of weeks ago. I have very regular periods, I took the pregnancy test the second day after I missed mine. Arturo and I are the only ones who know; I went to tell him in person, at his office. I wanted to see the look on his face when I told him.”

“And what look was there on his face when you told him?”

Russo walked back around the desk and sat down.

“At first, he was happy, overjoyed. He comes from a family of farmers, he's accustomed to thinking of children as blessings from heaven and she couldn't give him any. She couldn't have children. Then, and this is what I expected, he started to bring up a series of problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Problems like: how will I tell her, now what'll happen, how can I work around the fact that all of our property is in her name, what's going to become of the clients that are friends of hers, and so on. All problems having to do with her.”

More drops fell on the pane of glass, in the silence.

The woman leveled her green eyes at Lojacono's: “Lieutenant, let's not beat around the bush: that woman was the only real obstacle standing between me and the thing I wanted. I saw this man and took him for myself before he even realized who I was. Women, real women, women who know what they want—that's what they do. He and I are of the same breed: we're both good at what we do and we both have claws. Her social position was useful to him, at first, but now he can walk on his own two feet. We both can. I just needed to bring him around and now, thanks in part to this baby, I'd succeeded. It was just a matter of time.”

Aragona asked: “A matter of what time?”

Russo went on talking while looking in Lojacono's direction: “The time to talk to her, and he was going to do it. Just a little more time, and he'd have done it.”

The lieutenant stared at her, expressionless: “But he hadn't done it yet. And in the meantime the signora is dead. Murdered, to be exact.”

“Yes. And I can understand that, from your point of view, the conclusion is obvious. But that's not what happened, you know: it wasn't us. We were together, at the villa in Sorrento, doing our usual pale imitation of normal life: a woman cooking for her man, a man chatting with his woman, laughing as if the outside world didn't exist. We didn't do it. But we have no way to prove it.”

Lojacono asked her, just as he'd asked the notary: “Why did you agree to talk to us, Dottoressa? What drove you to do that?”

“You're trying to catch the murderer, no? If we hadn't talked to you, you'd have been convinced that we had something to hide. And Arturo's lawyer was afraid that we might somehow contradict each other or ourselves. But how can we contradict ourselves if we tell you the truth?”

Lojacono nodded.

“I understand. But you have no proof. And the only sure thing is that the signora is dead.”

“It's true, her death is one sure thing. And I won't deny that, as far as the future goes, that solves a few problems for me; but only if you succeed in tracking down whoever really did it. Right now, it's worse for me: it isn't going to be easy for Arturo to rid himself of memories, images, and souvenirs of a life spent together. It's one thing to think back on a tear-streaked face screaming at you, railing against your betrayal, quite another to remember a gentle smile and the memory of a caress. How can you compete with a photograph?”

Lojacono nodded again.

“Dottoressa, who do you think did it? Do you have any suspicions, any ideas?”

The woman thought it over at length and then said: “No, I couldn't say. Maybe just some thugs, this city is scary and the police can't do much, no offense. But I actually don't know much about the life she led. I have to admit, though, that I've never heard anyone say anything bad about her, and believe me, that's a rare thing in certain circles; people would have been especially happy to offer me any gossip they could come by. Instead, never a word. Her only passion, an innocent one, was for those glass balls; I wonder if she could read the future in them. She was a good woman, and I certainly never had it in for her. Things happen, people meet. That's all.”

 

When they got outside it was raining, really starting to come down. They ran flat out until they reached the car and got in, just managing to avoid getting drenched.

Aragona cleaned his eyeglasses with a paper tissue, taking an almost priestly care.

“You go in to question someone with one set of beliefs, and pretty soon, you realize you have to throw them all away. I expected someone completely different; this is an ordinary woman who got herself knocked up by the first guy who came along; hardly some dark lady who drove a mature professional to commit murder. So we're back to square one.”

Lojacono ran a hand through his wet hair: “Still, she leveled with us, and she openly admitted that De Santis was an obstacle in her way, keeping her from the man she wanted. And we shouldn't underestimate the importance of the fact that she's pregnant: women in that state often start to look at the world differently.”

Aragona thought about what his partner had just said: “Maybe so; but to me she just seemed like she was worrying about the future. I can't see her confronting De Santis and killing her; and I can't picture her maneuvering the notary into killing his wife either, as far as that goes. But I'll tell you one thing, I wish I'd been there when she went into the notary's office and told him about the baby, and he started muttering about how he couldn't, that his friends, that his clients, and what people would think, and so on. I can just imagine how that signorina yelled; they probably heard it a mile away, that's what I'd bet.”

He chuckled, and went on wiping the lenses. And he failed to notice, at first, that beside him Lojacono was sitting wide-eyed, and had turned to stare at him.

When he saw him, he stopped short, glasses and tissue still in hand: “Well? What is it? What did I say?”

His partner started to laugh, softly. The laughter spread, until it had taken over his face.

“You know something, Arago'? I'd underestimated you. In fact, you're a genius, a goddamned genius. A fucking genius is what you are, Arago'!”

Aragona didn't have the slightest idea of what Lojacono was talking about.

Outside, the rain was turning into hail, and large pellets were rattling against the windshield.

But nothing was rattling loose inside Lojacono's head now: everything was where it belonged.

I
t was like a fever. From that moment, time seemed to accelerate, as if someone had pushed the “fast-forward” button on their day.

Lojacono explained his theory to Aragona, discovering as he put it into words that all the tiles of the mosaic were fitting into place, every element now had an explanation, each individual incongruence had been ironed out.

The young man was delighted, as if he'd just been given a priceless gift.

“Fantastic. Fantastic. And it was all right in front of our noses. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's wrap this case up!”

Lojacono shook his head: “No. Not yet. We still have a few things to check out first. Let's get to work.”

And they split up, each going his own way.

 

Lojacono went back to the barracks where the forensic squad was headquartered.

He was drying off in a waiting room when he was greeted by an out-of-breath Bistrocchi, who—the memory of the brutal humiliation he'd been subjected to last time still fresh—didn't hesitate to put himself at the detective's complete and entire disposal.

Lojacono immediately asked after the information that interested him. The man in the white lab coat threw his arms out wide: “Unfortunately, lieutenant, there too we have no prints. Clearly someone was wearing a pair of gloves there too. It's also true that only rarely do we find clear prints on that type of item; there's almost never a direct contact with the fingertips . . .”

Lojacono interrupted him; he didn't have time to sit through a lesson on the detection of fingerprints.

“Listen, sir, all I want is to examine the object. Would that be possible?”

Disappointed, Bistrocchi left the room and returned with a transparent plastic bag. He put on a pair of latex gloves and carefully extracted its contents.

Another plastic bag. A shopping bag

“Here you are, the stolen silver was found in this. As you can see, there's a rip in the side, possibly caused by one of the objects either while they were being transported, or when they were tossed into the dumpster.”

But that's not what Lojacono was interested in. On one side of the plastic bag there was a logo of some kind. He spoke to Bistrocchi: “Excuse me, but could you turn it toward me, so that I can get a better look at what's written on it?”

He leaned forward and read.

The first confirmation.

 

Aragona, heading over to the notary's offices and, as usual, driving at breakneck speed, was hosing pedestrians down, sending tidal waves of rainwater onto the sidewalks as he fiddled with his cell phone: he needed to get in touch with Ottavia Calabrese immediately.

Luckily, she was the one who answered: “Ah,
ciao
, Aragona. I would have called you later: you remember the report you asked me to do on Adrian Florea, the notary's housekeeper's boyfriend? Well, he's clean. No priors, no evidence of any contact with ex-convicts, or . . .”

Aragona sighed loudly: “Of course, just what I expected. I only wanted to run the check to make sure, I saw when I met him that he was a stand-up guy. And after all, we have to stop assuming every immigrant is necessarily a criminal! Tell me something else, though: by any chance did the official report come in from the IT department?”

Ottavia chuckled: “Not yet, they're taking their time. What is it you need, though?”

“I need the date and time that the email reserving the trip to Whatchamacallit was sent from the notary's office. Can you help me out?”

By the time he reached the firm, he had the information. He asked to see the notary, who immediately led him into his private office. Aragona had to force himself not to lock eyes with any of the employees, which Lojacono had so often warned him against.

Once inside, after making sure that the door was securely shut, he asked the notary for what he needed.

The legal professional was baffled: “That's very, very confidential information. It's not the sort of thing I can share with just anybody, we have fiduciary responsibilities to safeguard the secrecy . . .”

Lieutenant Lojacono had warned him of this possible, last-ditch evasion, but time was running out; he wasn't about to be thwarted by propriety. So Aragona said exactly what he and his partner had agreed on: “Notary Festa, if you want to get out of this situation in one piece, there's no alternative. If you can't do it for your wife's memory, do it for yourself.”

And, after thinking it over briefly, the notary picked up his phone and, in a brusque and decisive voice, summoned the signora Lina Rea to his office.

 

Lojacono caught a taxi, and was refreshed by the experience of crossing the city while not gripped by the horrifying certainty that either he or a dozen innocent citizens were about to die.

The rain was falling incessantly and the traffic, already tangled, was only getting worse; the streets were starting to flood. The lieutenant asked the taxi driver how long he thought it would take, and received an eloquent shrug in reply. At that point he tried to call Marinella; he hadn't heard from her since their last, stormy conversation, in the aftermath of her screaming fight with her mother. The girl's cell phone, however, seemed to be off.