The Bastards of Pizzofalcone (8 page)

The medical examiner was having none of it: “Aside from the fact that there's no stink in here, because this is a relatively fresh corpse, didn't it occur to you that there's a stiff breeze blowing? And we're up on the fifth floor, after all. If there had been documents and papers, by now you would have ruined everything.”

Lojacono decided it was time for him to speak up.

“Right. The doctor has a good point. I'm sorry we got here late, we could have secured the crime scene ourselves.” He walked over to the man, who was putting on a lab coat and a pair of gloves. “Hello, doctor. I'm Lieutenant Giuseppe Lojacono, and this is Corporal Aragona, from the Pizzofalcone precinct house.”

The doctor looked them up and down, still frowning.

“Pizzofalcone, eh? New blood. Well, let's hope it works. Certainly, you'd be hard put to do worse than the guys you're replacing. I'm Lucio Marchitelli, medical examiner. I'm the lucky guy who usually gets called in this part of town.”

Lojacono looked around. It was a strange place: the room was enormous, with two balconies—one whose shutters were open—and two entrances. A table, four chairs. An olive-green leather armchair. A long wall adorned with a single piece of furniture made of dark wood, a built-in cabinet with five deep shelves filled, in row after row, by just one kind of object: glass spheres, with fake snow inside.

The uniformed cop who had been talking to the doctor came over, giving Lojacano something that half-resembled a military salute: “Officer Gennaro Cuomo, lieutenant. We were the first to arrive, from police headquarters. At your orders.”

Lojacono was looking at the floor. The body, facedown, was that of a middle-aged woman, her pink dressing gown hiked up slightly on her legs. A pair of socks, a slipper on one foot, another slipper a few inches away. The face was gray, and it rested on one cheek. The eye that was visible, half-open to the panorama of life's end, was expressionless. The mouth gaped partly open. A face with regular features, Lojacono thought; but her body was plump, the ankles swollen, the legs stout.

Not far from the body was an overturned tray,
caffe latte
, cookies. A broken mug.

He turned back to look at the corpse: on the back of the head, a dark stain, a patch of blood. The carpet the woman was lying on was stained as well, near the head.

“Who found the body?”

Cuomo quickly replied: “The Bulgarian housekeeper, and her name is . . .” he consulted a sheet of paper, carefully sounding out the words: “Ivanova Nikolaeva, Mayya; her Christian name is the last one. A girl, really, she's in the next room crying, she says she doesn't want to see. The victim was named Cecilia De Santis, married name Festa; her husband is Arturo Festa, a notary. The housekeeper says that he's not home and she has no idea where he is.”

Lojacono spoke to Aragona.

“Talk to the housekeeper. Get her to give you the notary's office number, a cell phone, some way of getting in touch with him. I want to know where he is.”

The officer headed toward the apartment's interior, glad to have a specific job to do. Lojacono focused on the doctor, who had, in the meanwhile, been joined by an assistant who was jotting down notes on a pad while the medical examiner danced his minuet about the corpse.

“Now then, Matte', first of all, tell the city morgue attendants, when they get here, that they'll have to wait a while, because we're going to log clothing and everything else as evidence here, that way we can avoid contamination during transport. Are you ready? Okay: start writing.”

Extracting instruments from a leather bag he'd set on the floor, he began reciting his litany. His hands moved strips of cloth, inserted thermometers, pushed limbs aside with slight movements; the dead woman cooperated with docility, like a doll, like a mannequin. Lojacono listened, carefully registering the information: he knew how important these first facts could be.

“Room temperature taken in proximity to the cadaver: 20° C. The radiators are on, but they're turned down low. The cadaver is prone, with the head rotated to the left, the right hemiface pressed against the surface of the floor, right arm semiflexed, and left arm extended along the torso. Lower limbs extended and parallel. The feet present as intrarotated . . . just put down ‘in opisthotonos,' Matte', I'll know what it means. She's wearing a dressing gown, satin, rose-colored, the sash in place, a nightdress, antique white with lace trim, flesh-colored panty hose, a pair of panties the same color, also lace. Around the neck we note the presence of a white cord. Upon turning over the corpse, we note that the extremities of the cord are attached to a pair of eyeglasses, with burgundy frames, for reading; the right lens appears to be broken at the level of the nosepiece on that side. We herewith note that the garments have been removed for the purpose of being produced individually as evidence, for whatever potential subsequent biological investigations might be considered useful. Length of the cadaver, 169 centimeters, with gynecoid adipose tissue distribution.”

The doctor crouched down near the face, sighing: “Eyelids open. Corneas slightly opaque and the presence, at the corners of the eyes, of Sommer's sclerotic patches. Oozing from the rima oris is a rivulet of pinkish liquid. Discharge of hematic material from the left ear, which has gathered partly on the floor and partly around the pavilion of the ear and the homolateral cheek, soiling them. Upon a preliminary external examination, tissues of a pasty consistency were found in the left occipital region, as per subgaleal collection. Despite the presence of dense scalp hair, it is nonetheless possible to perceive that the dermis of the occipital region appears to be affected with a shift in hue toward the reddish-blue range. Further inspection also reveals, at the center of the dyschromic area in question, a small wound, roughly 1.5 centimeters long, which, upon preliminary inspection and delicate manual divarication of the margins of the wound, allows glimpses of connective tissue strands as in a lacerocontusion, with modest blood loss. The remaining skin surfaces are free of traumatic lesions.”

He turned the body over, gently pulled open the dressing gown, and lifted the nightdress.

“We note the presence, in the paraumbilical region, of an old scar, with an axis of roughly one centimeter. Two other scars, each with an axis of more than 0.5 centimeter, are located on the line of the anterior superior iliac spine, 5 centimeters to the right and left, respectively, of the median line. This scar cluster can be attributed, with high probability, to a laparoscopic surgical procedure. The body is negative for the presence of extraneous material beneath the fingernails, which moreover appear to be intact, with white nail polish normally applied. Cadaverous rigor mortis is underway in all regions. Presence of hypostasis at anterior site, as produced by prone posture, with the exception of the decubitus areas, already immune to probing via digital pressure. Rectal temperature of the cadaver is 26.5° C. The inspection is concluded at 9
A.M.
And also write, Matte', that the window was locked.”

Beyond a contrite Cuomo who stood looking down at the tips of his shoes, Lojacono took in the panoramic view offered by the open window. An extraordinary spectacle composed of wind, sea, and sky, with the peninsula enclosing the bay as distant backdrop. He decided that if he ever had the good luck to live in such a place, he'd just sit and stare out the window all day long; he wouldn't get himself killed, wouldn't let himself get bonked on the head while he was wearing a dressing gown.

“Doctor, do you have any idea of when it might have happened?”

The medical examiner got to his feet with some effort, removing his latex gloves.

“Lieutenant, for now we can state that this woman died between nine and eleven hours ago. She suffered a violent cranial trauma at the nuchal site. More than that I can't tell you. There don't appear to be any signs of struggle. Now we're going to transport her to the morgue, where we'll perform an autopsy.”

With a curt nod he left the room, just as the men from the forensic squad arrived in their white overalls. Soon a different performance would unfold: cameras would flash and dust would be scattered over all the surfaces, as the team searched for tracks and prints. But something fundamental was missing, and the lieutenant hoped it hadn't been carried off by the murderer: he knew very well how greatly their chances of identifying the guilty party depended on the immediate discovery of that something.

Lojacono crouched down.

Right under the leather armchair he found himself eye to eye with a Hawaiian ukulele player, who was smiling at him from inside a glass globe.

The globe was smeared with blood.

W
arrant Officer Francesco Romano is thinking back to the night before. To his return home, to be exact.

He's thinking as he sits at his desk, looking out the window at the wind pushing the clouds, while these new coworkers bustle busily around their useless desks, as if they're moving in. Who gives a damn about a new desk, he thinks. What am I, an office clerk? An accountant, a bookkeeper? I'm a policeman. Or at least I would be, if they'd let me do my job.

He drums on the desktop with the fingers of his left hand and he keeps his right hand stuffed in his pocket. He always keeps his right hand in his pocket. To keep it in line. To keep it out of sight. He thinks of that hand as if it were an undomesticated animal, a dangerous dog, not strictly legal, that you can't take anywhere except on a very short leash, with a good stout muzzle. The problem is that Warrant Officer Romano can't seem to put a muzzle on that hand. Even yesterday he couldn't do it.

He had been in an especially bad mood yesterday. His first day on his new job had been the final blow, and he'd plunged into a true depression. They'd sent him to work with a crew of lost men in a station house famous throughout the region for the lawlessness and incompetence of those who had worked there before. He was one of the Bastards of Pizzofalcone. Him of all people, the man who had solved dozens of cases. Him of all people, the most honest and incorruptible policeman who had ever lived. Him of all people.

And you had to see them, his new colleagues. They looked like the contents of a junkman's cart. The policeman's dump, is what this place looked like. One of them might be a Mafioso; then there's a green kid, the hapless product of nepotism, a kid who plays at being a cop; a psychopathic girl who's obsessed with weapons; a good-natured mother and housewife; an old man who looks at a bunch of suicides and sees visions of murderers. And then there's the commissario himself: a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, with all that fake enthusiasm.

How did he wind up there, surrounded by this mess? Why is he, too, sitting there with all the others, in that dump?

Blame it on the hand, he thinks to himself. Blame it on that damned right hand, which is now shut up in his trouser pocket. Until it comes out again, to do more damage.

He remembers the last time, the time that resulted in his suspension. He remembers that little piece of shit, that two-bit idiot Camorrista: you can't touch me, he said over and over, laughing in his face. You can't touch me, you can't do a thing. I know it and you know it too, that I had the drugs on my person; that I was the one who emptied my pistol into that stinking shithead. But since I was careful to toss it down the sewer, after polishing it thoroughly, you can't touch me. And I've got a good lawyer, a first-rate lawyer. You just wait and see, I guarantee you that I'll be out of here tonight before either of you two. And it was true, Romano knew it was true. And his hand had shot out and seized that little asshole by the throat, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Ten days' suspension. And that idiot of a commissario who kept saying to him, foaming like a pig at the corners of his mouth: Roma', you're through in this precinct. Clean out your desk, you're not coming back here. And that's the way it was.

Ten days shut up at home. With nothing to do. He's a guy who doesn't read, doesn't listen to music, doesn't watch TV. What would he watch TV for? To watch stupid movies, with cops who are faker than Aragona, that sunlamped kid who's a parody of himself, only now he's his coworker. Of course a guy would lose his mind, Romano thinks to himself. Of course a guy would do things he wouldn't do normally.

Giorgia. No one but her, to keep him company. And irritate him even more, with those sidelong glances, the way she watched him secretly all the time. How long had they been married now? Eight years. No children, the kids never came, and it was no one's fault: tests, hopeful journeys, figuring out when she would be most fertile, hearing her weep into her pillow at night while she was pretending to sleep soundly. And then silence. Lots and lots of silence. Tons of silence, hanging in the air like some foul stench, like some intolerable miasma.

You cling to your work, in cases like this. Especially if you're good at it, capable. Above all if that work is something you care about passionately, the work you've wanted to do ever since you were a little boy. And then all of a sudden his job goes to hell in a handbasket. Even his job.

The night before, Romano came home but Giorgia wasn't there. She'd gone out. Maybe she'd gone for a walk, or to see that idiot father of hers, her sweet loving daddykins, so she could cry her heart out about her miserable fate.

The apartment was empty and dark. Cold. After his first day spent in the dump, after becoming a Bastard of Pizzofalcone.

When she got back, not even half an hour later, he was sitting in the dark, sunk in silence. She'd come over to him, murmuring some excuse or another; to him, who'd expected to have her support at such a difficult and complicated moment. If she hadn't looked at him, if she hadn't spoken to him, it would have been better. Instead, with that fucking whiny voice of hers, so full of sympathy, she'd murmured: forgive me, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.