The Bastards of Pizzofalcone (37 page)

He sighed. Teodoro hadn't been completely wrong: sometimes it was an ordeal to take on the grief and shadows that ordinary people carried within them. Luckily, many of those who sought confession were familiar to the parish priest, as fully three of the four waiting that day were: a widow getting on in years who still had impure thoughts that engendered equally risqué dreams, dreams that she inevitably found herself regretting guiltily the instant she woke up; a pious teenage boy going through a difficult puberty, who sometimes gave in to the impulse to torture small animals and spray-paint walls; a wife who cheated on her unsuspecting husband with the next-door neighbor, the real father of her son. Serial sinners, who cleansed their souls with a few prayers before going back to stain them again, always with the same petty sins.

The fourth individual, though, was new to him. As he hurried toward the confessional, his oversized vestments flapping all around him, looking just like a little boy wearing one of his mother's dresses, Brother Leonardo thought of Giorgio Pisanelli. Something about the man's posture as he knelt in prayer, or perhaps his pained countenance, reminded him of his friend.

As he was listening to the confessions of the widow and the boy, Leonardo thought back to the policeman; after his wife's suicide his desire to go on living had slowly drifted away, as had all his ties to the world. Even Giorgio's phone calls with his son were increasingly infrequent and brief; Giorgio himself had confided that he sometimes felt uneasy asking for news about the life of someone who had become a distant acquaintance, even in his memories. And then there was the illness for which, in spite of Leonardo's nagging, the deputy captain refused to seek treatment.

Leonardo loved Giorgio. It pained him to know that his friend took no comfort in his faith, but he knew that he could hardly force it upon him; he wished that he could make up his mind either to rededicate himself to life, or else to let go of it entirely. This partial despair, this obsession with the suicides he was investigating, were evidence only of negative courage, of an obstinate kind of survival that was somewhat perverse.

The man Leonardo had never seen before took the sacrament, kneeling with a sigh. “Father, forgive me for I have sinned,” he said.

The old man told Brother Leonardo that he was newly retired, that he'd been alone for years, that until just a few weeks ago he'd lived for his work alone, and now he saw no one, neither friends nor relatives; Leonardo was reminded even more strongly of Giorgio, and the monk felt a stab of sorrow. The man spoke of the relationship he'd had for many years with a coworker, a married woman: a long and tragic love affair. He told the priest about her unexpected death, and the immense void that it had left in his heart.

He told him that he had committed no grave sins, at least not in the conventional sense, anyway: but that for some time now he'd yearned intensely for death. He was a religious man, and he knew that toying with the idea of death was a sin, and a grave one. He lacked the courage to put an end to his life, and in any case his life was not his own, as he knew very well: but to wish for it so devoutly, Father, and to ask God for death in every prayer, every blessed day, wasn't that in itself a turning of his back on the Lord's will?

Gas, thought Leonardo. This is a case for gas. He lives all alone, without anyone else; no one goes to see him, no courtesy visits, no phone calls. It'll be too late by the time he's found, if the windows are tightly shut.

Giorgio, Giorgio, Leonardo thought, my poor friend. Don't you see what a great grace it is—for those who want to escape from a life of pain, an existence made up of silence and shadows, where every memory is a knife to the heart—to find someone to take up that burden? Don't you see how hard it is to help these poor wretches, without letting them stain their souls with the most horrible sin of all? Don't you see that the one who performs this act of extreme charity is delivering them to Paradise?

The old man interrupted his confession to weep over his own loneliness and Leonardo, as he waited for him to recover, mused about the chorus of angels that would sing as the man entered the Kingdom of Heaven, angels that Leonardo's own kindly hands would accompany on that final step, the step that even the angels lacked the courage to take; he thought about how each angel would be able to tell the Holy Father what a blessed man Leonardo had actually been.

He whispered the man's absolution. And, pulling a pen and a piece of paper out of his cassock, he said: “My son, tell me where you live. I'll come call on you myself, now and then, to keep you company. And to bring you spiritual comfort.”

T
he idea came to Ottavia as a chaotic morning drew to a close.

The phone hadn't stopped ringing for a second; the national TV networks had pulled their news vans up early and parked outside the front entrance, blocking traffic so that cars honked endlessly and irritatedly in the steady rain; Guida, at the door, was directing traffic, sending TV journalists and camera operators brandishing large shoulder-mounted television cameras this way and that.

What's more, Palma had been asked by police headquarters to take part in a press conference that would lay out exactly how the suspected murderer had been identified and captured. The commissario told them all in the large open-plan office that he'd done his best to fend off the request, saying that the case's successful resolution was all due to the more than competent professionals who had come to work for him; that they should ask someone who was used to holding press conferences to do it instead, since none of them was interested in the spotlight. They were policemen.

They had agreed not to identify, except in internal reports, Lojacono and Aragona as the investigators in this specific case: it was to be considered a shared success, and it was useful to attribute it to the structure as a whole. Now let's see if they decide to shut us down, Aragona had quipped sharply, though he admitted to himself that, deep down, he really would have enjoyed going in front of the cameras. For that matter, if it hadn't been for Aragona's mention of the fact that Russo had shouted that she was pregnant within earshot of the notary's employees, it would never have occurred to Lojacono just what effect the news might have had on De Lucia who, at that point, had felt entitled to organize an elopement with the victim.

The killer, who had signed his own confession, hadn't asked for a lawyer, and so the court had appointed one. He seemed to have lost interest in his own fate. Palma had arranged to inform the notary, who was incredulous; the commissario suspected that he, too, felt a certain amount of guilt over what had happened.

Around one o'clock in the afternoon, glancing in dismay at the phone that simply wouldn't stop ringing, Ottavia said: “What do you say we all go out for a pizza tonight, someplace without a landline and where there's no cell phone coverage?”

Palma, standing by the rain-streaked window, exclaimed: “Why, of course, what a magnificent idea! And of course, the dinner's on me!”

Romano nodded, as did Pisanelli, and Di Nardo said: “I'm in.”

Lojacono spoke up: “I know the perfect place. I'll call ahead and make a reservation.”

Aragona burst out laughing: “Oh, now that's too much. The only out-of-towner is the one who knows the perfect place! How does make the rest of us look?”

 

Letizia had reserved a private dining room in the back for them. Palma had told them to bring whomever they wanted, but they'd all showed up alone.

Aragona joked that they might as well just have ordered in pizza at the station house, and that this confirmed that cops are sad and solitary individuals: the quote came from who knows what American TV show, and it earned him a chorus of
fuck you
s from his colleagues. Palma asked Ottavia why she hadn't asked her husband to come. She blushed and said that Gaetano preferred to stay home with their son; she couldn't bring herself to confess that she hadn't even invited him.

Letizia was an attentive and magnificent hostess. She brought her guitar and sang a number of songs in dialect for them, songs that were greeted with rounds of delighted applause. Lojacono's colleagues made jocular and repeated reference to the way she looked at him, and he in turn told them how he and Letizia had just become good friends, since he went there for dinner every night.

“So how come you don't weigh 350 pounds?” asked Pisanelli, dipping another chunk of bread in the bowl of ragù.

“Forget about that, why don't you take her to bed?” asked Aragona, eyeing Letizia's generous breasts dreamily as she served tables in the other room, which earned him an elbow in the ribs from Romano. “Why, what did I say wrong? What's the matter with that? She's nice, she's a great cook, she's a real hottie, and she's clearly crazy about Lojacono. He's a cop, not a priest!”

“Friendship is a beautiful thing, Arago',” Lojacono retorted. “I don't want to ruin it.”

“Why not,” Di Nardo said under her breath, “it's not as if sex necessarily ruins a friendship. It's just another way of communicating, that's all.”

Lojacono thought about this, and Laura Piras popped into his head. Just another way of communicating. In the meanwhile, Marinella had stopped answering his phone calls; tomorrow he'd have to call her mother to find out if his daughter was okay. He hoped with all his heart that nothing had happened to her.

The excellent food, the fine wine, the music, and the general euphoria made that night a great success, in spite of the grim misgivings they'd all had.

Aragona, decidedly tipsy, got to his feet: “I'd like to see them call us the Bastards of Pizzofalcone now. Actually, now that I think about it, let them! It's our moniker, no? And really, we ought to give each other nicknames. That'd be fun, don't you think? Tough cops. You, Lojacono, can be the Chinaman, and Romano, here,” and he slapped his colleague on the back, “can be the Hulk!”

Romano glared at him grimly: “Not a good idea, because you'd definitely wind up being the Asshole.”

As they were all laughing, Laura Piras walked in, magnetically attracting the notice of every man in the room. She wore a pair of light blue jeans, boots, and a navy blue raincoat over a white blouse; her informal attire made her look even younger, an impression further accentuated by her hair, which she'd pulled back and tied in a ponytail.

“Hi all, I hope I'm not intruding.”

Palma leapt up to greet her: “Dottoressa, what an unexpected pleasure! Please, come sit with us, we'll order something for you to eat.”

“No, thanks, I've already had dinner. Perhaps just a glass of wine.”

Letizia, as if possessed of a kind of radar, had suddenly materialized in the little room. The two women found themselves face-to-face: the tall and shapely restaurateur; the petite and provocative Sardinian magistrate. Only Ottavia perceived the smidgeon of tension in the smiles they exchanged. Though they were meeting for the first time, each had heard Lojacono speak of the other.

“What can I bring you, signora?” Letizia asked.

“Nothing, thanks,” Piras replied. “I'm only staying for a minute.” She turned to address the table full of people: “I just came by to inform you that, in light of the results of your investigation, there was a high-level, closed-door meeting at police headquarters this afternoon. And it was decided that the Pizzofalcone precinct house will remain operational, effective immediately, and that the current allocation of resources will now become permanent. Palma, you'll receive an official communiqué in the next few days. I hope you're all happy about the news: I know I am.”

Those words were greeted by a burst of applause; in the main dining room, a few curious diners turned to try to get a peek at what was going on.

The party was over; they exchanged goodnights, saying they'd see each other in the morning. They weren't friends, and who knew if they ever would be; but they were a team, and there could be no doubt about that.

Just outside of the restaurant, Piras went over to Lojacono: “I drove,” she said. “You want a ride home?”

Letizia, who was pretending to pay attention to a table of lingering diners, was trying to figure out what they were talking about; the lieutenant had given her a tender goodnight kiss on the cheek, and that had made her happy, but now she saw him with that little short job with the big tits and the large, limpid eyes, and suddenly she was worried.

Lojacono made sure that his colleagues had all left: he knew that he'd catch endless hell, especially from Aragona, if he was seen leaving at night in the company of the famous, unapproachable, and widely courted Dottoressa Piras. He accepted her offer and walked off with her, unaware that he was breaking Letizia's heart; Letizia watched them grow smaller in the distance and thought to herself that if Piras wanted war, then she'd get it.

The drive through the rain wasn't a particularly talkative one. Piras drove fast and sure, respecting lights and road signs, a happy novelty to Lojacono, who had spent the last three days in the car with Aragona. Every time she shifted, the magistrate's hand brushed against the policeman's thigh.

From time to time, Lojacono looked over at her profile, illuminated by the streetlamps that shone through the rain. She struck him as exotic and yet in some way familiar, as if he'd recovered her from some forgotten past.

She looked over at him, taking her eyes off the road for a moment: “What's wrong? Why are you looking at me?”

Lojacono said nothing. Part of him wondered what would happen once they got to his apartment; whether he'd invite her to come upstairs, whether she'd accept or not. Whether they'd kiss. He also thought, with a touch of anxiety, of the state of his bachelor apartment—the leftover food in the fridge; the dirty laundry scattered everywhere—but then he remembered that at least he had a cold bottle of white wine, and felt reassured.