The Year of the Mantis

by P J Mann

  With a nod, Maurizio entered the common room and went to the vending machine, trying to fit the new pieces to the picture that started to form in his mind. “Another thing to consider is whether the daughter has something to do with the story. I am also keen to believe the whole family created this plan together to get to the money of the victim. Even twenty million divided by three people would be a good reason to plan a murder in detail.”

  “Then, you need to locate and track all the movements of the girl from three months before the murder.” Without averting his eyes from Maurizio, Leonardo reached the vending machine to get his coffee too.

  The silence between them, although interrupted by the chattering and the noises coming from the corridors, overwhelmed Maurizio, but he could hardly hear anything else but the voices of his own thoughts as he reconnected everything together like a braid.

  There must be a red wire that brings together the actions of every single person involved. The discomfort of Luciano’s behavior, his relationship with Irina, this elusive possessive ex-husband, and the apparent innocence of Madlen, must be related to one another.

  The ringing of Maurizio’s phone brought him back from the depth of his considerations. He peered at Leonardo, who was also mentally placing the pieces together, and grabbed his mobile.

  A slight groan escaped him as he realized Berenice was the caller.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Moretti,” he greeted with a hardly concealed annoyance in the tone of his voice.

  “Good morning, Detective, I know you told me not to call you using this telephone number, but I needed to talk to you. Do you have the time to see me?” her voice was far from being apologetic. When she was certain to have good grounds to call Maurizio, she understood she had to overcome every bureaucracy or formality.

  “What’s your emergency?” he asked, sipping the coffee before it would have gotten cold. And unless I order an iced coffee, this isn’t the way I enjoy it.

  His mood got slightly offset at the call, but he also knew that as the case would have been closed, even Mrs. Moretti would have become a distant memory.

  “I was going through my morning routines, when my attention was caught by some noises coming from the apartment of Mr. Calvani. Did you return the keys to his son, or should I presume there is an intruder?”

  At those words, Maurizio froze, and turned his eyes in the direction of Leonardo, and almost forgot about Mrs. Moretti waiting for an answer.

  “Detective, are you still there? Do I have to presume you’re on your way? Should I keep an eye on what’s going on in the apartment?” Her voice reached an excited tone.

  Surprised to hear her voice coming from the telephone he kept glued to his ear, he almost startled. “Oh, Mrs. Moretti, can you wait a moment so that I can check on something?” He muted the conversation he had with Berenice.

  Creasing his forehead, Maurizio looked at Leonardo. “Someone’s in the apartment, and unless it’s someone from your team, we might have the stereotypical assassin who returns to the crime scene. Come with me, we need to find out and to make sure Mrs. Moretti won’t intrude in this matter.”

  That being said, Maurizio turned and started to walk toward the exit, expecting Leonardo to follow him. Unmuting the conversation, he took a deep breath.

  “Mrs. Moretti, are you still there?” he asked.

  “Yes, but what’s going on? What am I supposed to do?” her voice lowered the tone as if she didn’t want to be heard.

  “Remain where you are and don’t go to the apartment. We’re coming to check what’s going on there, whether there’s a thief or it’s Mr. Calvani junior, who’s trying to fetch something he might have forgotten there,” he warned as he reached the parking lot and entered the car.

  “Ok, Detective, but what if the intruder leaves?” she asked.

  “Keep your eyes on the door, and if he leaves, you’ll take account of the time, and we will take care of the rest, but stay away from the apartment.” His voice growled inside the car, as Leonardo entered.

  Pursing his lips, Maurizio glared at his colleague, who kept his annoying nagging expression. “Not a single word!” Maurizio warned.

  He was going to tell him everything, but he needed to have Leonardo silent for a minute. That was the moment when his sarcastic comments were the most unwelcomed. The night he spent sleeping in the home office didn’t help improve his mood, which went on deteriorating by the minute.

  “It was Mrs. Moretti, the woman living in the apartment adjacent to the one of Mr. Calvani,” Maurizio explained, trying to focus on driving and to calm down his spirits. “She called to inform that she’d heard some noises coming from the apartment. Now, I am to believe Mr. Calvani recalled some detail he hoped we didn’t notice.”

  Leonardo’s expression changed and turned serious in a matter of a second. That wasn’t the time indeed to nag at his old friend. “Interesting, and in this case, he might have a lot to explain, as the whole apartment is seized, and its access is restricted only to the forensics. I hope he knows what he’s doing, because he won’t leave the building with his own car; he’s coming with us for an interrogation.”

  The rest of the journey went on in silence, with the Police radio as the only background to their thoughts.

  Reaching the building in via Giuseppe Luigi Lagrange, they couldn’t recognize any vehicle belonging either to Luciano or to any of the suspects. Unless he parked in the underground garage? Well, we’ll find out soon.

  The gate of the building was open and, as they reached the main door, it buzzed open. “The efficiency of Mrs. Moretti is surprising.” Leonardo chuckled, amused.

  At the elevator, Maurizio hesitated for a moment. “You take the stairs in case he decides to leave using the other escape route.”

  Without objecting, Leonardo started to climb the stairs; it wasn’t more than four floors that wouldn’t have caused much of any delay to the operation. And besides, he was in better physical shape than Maurizio.

  They met again in front of the apartment, where Berenice was waiting for them.

  “There hasn’t been any other noise coming from there, but I haven’t seen anyone coming out either,” she whispered as she saw them.

  “Are you sure you heard correctly, and the noises came from this exact apartment?” Maurizio whispered back, trying to make sure they weren’t going to arrest a mouse or creaking furniture.

  “Well, there isn’t any other way to find out, but to come inside,” Leonardo added, extracting a couple of sets of latex gloves from his pocket, and plastic protection for their shoes.

  As they were ready, Maurizio tried to open the door, but finding it closed, he turned to Leonardo, hoping he had the keys to the apartment with him. “Were you looking for the keys?” he whispered.

  The unavoidable clicks of the door lock echoed through the whole building, regardless of its metallic sound. Entering as silently as possible, Maurizio turned his eyes at Berenice, whose breath was almost at his neck.

  “You can’t come in. This is an official Police operation. Stay here,” he whispered, fearing that he had to leave Leonardo there watching her, avoiding any intrusion. With a pout, she backed up a couple of steps without saying a word.

  Of course, she knew she wasn’t allowed to enter the apartment, but the curiosity was too strong to resist the temptation of following the two officers in the apartment.

  Maurizio remained to listen to any possible noise coming from any of the rooms, but it seemed as if whoever was there, if any, had left already. A silent home not necessarily meant an empty one, so, he started to move toward the corridor leading to the bedrooms as Leonardo remained close to the entrance, ready to block anyone who might have tried to leave the apartment. With a slow movement, keeping his eyes in the direction of the corridor where Maurizio disappeared, he closed the door behind him, careful not to make any noise.

  It took a few minutes before Maurizio returned once again in the living room. “Nobody’s here,” he declared, slo
wly strolling toward Leonardo.

  “So, this means we came for nothing?”

  “I haven’t said this; I said presently there isn’t anyone in this apartment, but the window in the bedroom of Mr. Calvani junior was open. Do you remember leaving it open or is it possible to find out who forgot it so?” Maurizio’s heartbeat kicked up a few paces. He knew Leonardo and every member of his team. None of them would have made such a rookie mistake, but he needed to hear the confirmation of it from his mouth.

  Shaking his head, with a grimace. “You know me, and you know my team. We would never keep any possible ways for contamination open.” Creasing his forehead, he grabbed his mobile phone, and called one of the officers who took care of the collection of the data.

  Meantime, Maurizio returned to the room, hoping to find something that would have cast some light on the case. I have to admit it was pure luck to have Berenice to keep her eyes and ears open to this apartment. Without her call, we would have given back the keys of the apartment to Luciano, possibly losing some traces that might give us more data to analyze.

  He reached the window and leaned out of it, trying to figure out a possible way from where an intruder could have come inside or left.

  His attention was caught by the cornice. Hmm, it’s quite narrow, but not too much to impede a thief or a murderer to enter or to use as an escape route. I’m wondering where it might lead to.

  Without thinking about it, he decided it was time to get into action like the good old days. The noise of footsteps approaching the room from the corridor stopped him momentarily from his purpose, and as Leonardo appeared from the door, he got a brilliant idea.

  “I called my team. None of them recalled having left the window open. According to them, and also to my memory, we didn’t open it; it wasn’t necessary to the investigation as the murder happened in the garage,” Leonardo informed, placing the mobile phone back in the pocket of his trousers.

  “Then, I guess we might search for every trace and see whether we can get more information about the visit of our intruder. However, now I’ll need your help as I intend to walk the cornice and see where it might lead. I don’t recall having seen it, but if there’s an emergency ladder somewhere, this might be another place where we could focus our research,” Maurizio replied, crossing the window seal, trying to avoid looking down.

  Leonardo cringed at the idea, but perhaps that was a good one. Although he was in better physical shape, Maurizio was shorter and had smaller feet, which could fit in the span of the cornice. “Be careful,” he warned with a whisper.

  Taking a deep breath, Maurizio raised his eyes at the sky, as if to ask for some blessing coming from somewhere. Then, collecting all his determination he began to move carefully, his first steps along the walls of the building. Every sort of dramatic movies came to his mind, but trying to focus his mind on his task, he kept going without letting those thoughts distract him.

  Easier than he thought, he reached the corner of the building. There, a couple of meters away, was the access ladder to the rooftop. He considered the missing of the security cage was something to point out, because in that case the intruder would have been forced to find another access, or escape, for the matter.

  Peeking from the corner, he glanced at Leonardo. “There’s a service ladder. I’m using that to reach the ground floor. Meet me downstairs and call your team to gather here immediately with the complete equipment. We need to find out whether the intruder left any traces which we can analyze.”

  Without waiting for his answer, and already dreading being hung from a narrow cornice, he hurried to walk to the ladder and climb down.

  Never in his life, he recalled being so happy to have his feet on the ground. However, he rushed to the main entrance of the building, waiting for Leonardo, who arrived at the same time. The expression on his face revealed how he felt having to explain everything to Mrs. Moretti.

  “I know,” chuckled Maurizio. “She knows how to get the information she’s looking for.”

  “What’s more disturbing is that she knew who my mother is and where she lives. She also asked me to greet her, next time I see her. How’s it possible that she—” Leonardo wondered, unable to put in words the confusion Berenice could bring to his mind.

  “She knows everything and everybody. She lived longer than us and has more connections than the organized crime itself.”

  With a laughter, they returned to the car.

  “I have called the whole team. They’ll be here in a few minutes, so, perhaps we should wait for them. They don’t have the keys to the apartment,” Leonardo recalled, so they waited in the car for the forensics van to arrive.

  CHAPTER 16

  Aldo and the crew were seated at the table in the small common room of the boat. It was as if a thick curtain had fallen between them, offering an odd silence, which was palpable as none of them dared to make a sound. The slow movement of the lamp, in harmony with the tidal waves of the sea, oscillated to and fro, providing ample light alternately to different sides of the table.

  The creaking of the vessel and the ropes which kept it anchored to the dock broke the silence every now and then. The onset of quiet, caused a nervous twitch on Aldo’s lips.

  With his hands on the table, fingers entwined, he mentally went through the details of the plan for that night, the way they would have murdered Igor and concealed his body to the bottom of the sea. He will be in good company with all the other unfortunate souls, who found their resting place among the waves.

  Time seemed to pass slow, and every minute brought more restlessness to the members, wishing for something to happen that would have saved them from the plan they had to agree to. Suddenly, the weak whistle returned them to reality, and like the flip of the switch, they all stood up simultaneously to get ready. Irina and Igor arrived, and that was their signal they were waiting for.

  Wearing his jacket, Aldo walked to the bridge, and his eyes caught sight of the two visitors. A weak nod with his face, keeping his grave expression, was all he could offer them.

  “So, is everything ready? Are we late?” Irina asked, trying to break the ice, as if to warn Aldo to behave more naturally.

  An uncertain smile formed on Aldo’s face, concealing the turmoil in his soul. His body tightened up with a shiver when the face of Igor appeared in the light of the boat as he moved out of the shaded position he had been in.

  His pale skin and blond hair already caused him to resemble that of a corpse. That might make things easier, at least from a psychological point of view, Aldo considered. “Please, come inside, we’re leaving immediately, before the tide will become unfavorable.” His voice, hardly a growl. I still don’t like the whole situation.

  Expecting to be followed by Irina and Igor, he turned his shoulders to them and walked toward the same place, where a minute before his crew, which were now busy with the routine operation to leave the dock, idled.

  Without saying a word, Irina and Igor walked behind him, and as they reached the common room they took a seat at the table. The feeble light of the lamp barely illuminated the entire room, leaving some corners immersed in darkness, where shadows tended to stretch like the hands of demons, waiting for their victim.

  The ship began its route. Aldo kept his eyes at the pitch-dark sea, hoping to arrive at the designated place for the murder in a short time.

  The door opened, which startled him, “Captain, we’ll reach the place in a while.” Mario’s voice trembled. “Are you sure we’re going to get out clean with it? Isn’t there a better way?”

  “There isn’t.” Aldo clenched his teeth, hissing at Mario’s remark. He’d rather be somewhere else, and find another solution, but that wasn’t an option— Igor had to die. “I don’t like this whole story either, but we can’t turn back anymore. The best way is to go on with the plan and forget about this day.”

  Nodding, Mario raised his hand to smooth his hair. Like a beast in a cage, he restlessly glanced around unwilling to leave t
he cabin. His blood pumped faster through his veins and stumbled back against the wall.

  “You’re going to put all of us in trouble,” growled Aldo. “Take my place and don’t move from here until I return. You know where you should stop.”

  Arching the corner of his mouth downward, Mario lowered his head, averting his gaze from Aldo’s furious eyes. But it wasn’t rage that moved the captain; Aldo’s heart raced too, with all the thoughts swirling in his mind. Going to jail for the rest of his life accused of murder, wasn’t what he had planned. That wasn’t what he searched for when he sought refuge in the sea.

  There’s no other way, and a life is a life, whether it’s the one of a tuna or the one of a human being, he tried desperately to reason and find justification for his future action. He wasn’t the one supposed to get rid of Igor directly. Mario was the one who stepped in and volunteered for the job. We’re all fishermen, and none of us ever killed anything other than a fish. We smuggled goods and people, alright— but to kill?

  He took a deep breath, allowing the night’s scent of the sea to fill his lungs, hoping it would soothe the storm building in his soul, as it did in past operations. He closed his eyes. It should be a matter of a few seconds, go there, kill him and together with the rest of the crew we’ll take care of the body and the cleaning. Come on, Aldo, you need to do this— it’s his life or yours.

  Choosing between murdering a stranger and having his life taken away should have been an easy decision. Of course, I prefer my life— who is he, after all?

  His eyes opened wide and clenching his teeth with a savage growl, he grabbed the harpoon he used for the tuna and stomped toward the common room. That was something he rarely used in recent times; it was an item that could come in handy for many occasions.

  That night, the best would be the murder of Igor, Irina’s father. Something was off and the nagging voice in the back of his head didn’t want to shut up, repeating that this would have given more complications than the promised solution.