The Hawthorne Season

by Riccardo Bruni

  “No more time, you have to decide,” Patrizia says.

  “I’ll stay.”

  “I know, but not now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You have to open your eyes. You have to go back and talk to her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she needs you.”

  “But how do I go back?”

  “Ask for help, yell.”

  “But I can’t even open my eyes, how can I scream?”

  “You have to, come on.”

  “Let’s try to stay calm, okay?” says Aurelio Magliarini. Donato opened the door to the closet and found the lumberjack inside. Donato takes a step back and puts his left hand back on the gun.

  “What are you doing here?” asks the carabiniere.

  “I came to see Falconi, but he’s not here . . .”

  “And so you hid in the closet?”

  “Aggggh . . .”

  As Magliarini tries to find an answer, a strange moan comes from the darkness of the closet. It sounds like a lament.

  “What’s that?” asks Donato. “Is there someone here with you?”

  “Aggggh . . .” The moan again.

  Donato looks at the floor; there’s something in the corner. It looks like a rolled-up carpet. And next to it . . . is Rodari’s gray fleece.

  “Step aside, Magliarini, and turn on the light. Look, I—”

  A sharp pain.

  Then darkness.

  Katerina is holding the cast-iron skillet she took from the kitchen. As soon as she realizes it has blood on it, she shrieks and drops it to the ground.

  “Calm down,” says Maglio. “Help me drag him inside and we’ll figure out what to do with all of them. What a mess. We need to get the fuck out of here. Now.”

  “As it is we’re all in for it. Get a gun and go help him in the woods, what are you waiting for?”

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Maglio’s screams crescendo. “What a mess! I’d love to see how we get out of this one.”

  “You have to go help him.”

  “I don’t have to do shit! Just stop it. Don’t you know it’s all gone to hell? Don’t you see what a mess this is? I’m getting the fuck out of here, that’s what I’m doing.”

  Maglio goes to the cabinet and grabs a shotgun. He opens the drawer and takes some boar cartridges. He loads two, then shoves the others in his pocket.

  “You can stay if you want, wait for him to come back,” he says. But when he turns to speak to Katerina, he sees her there, petrified.

  Her husband is standing in the living room. He’s holding a bow and arrow.

  “Gerri, what the fuck are you doing?” asks Maglio.

  “You’ve been having some fun here, haven’t you?” says the bartender.

  His eyes are wide, his expression rigid.

  “Look, Gerri, we have a big mess on our hands,” says Maglio. “But if we stay calm, we can still get out of it. Now lower that bow and let’s talk it out. Right, Katerina? Tell him that everything is fine and that we need to talk.”

  “My love . . . ,” Katerina tries to say.

  “Shut up, slut.” Gerri’s voice has a finality to it.

  “Don’t say that, friend,” says Maglio. “It’s not what you think . . .”

  “You had an orgy, didn’t you? You had your fun. Dirty perverts.”

  “Gerri, you’re mistaken, look, I—”

  “Shut up!”

  Maglio responds by pointing the shotgun at him. “Gerri, I’m telling you, that language isn’t necessary . . .”

  “I say it is.”

  The arrow leaves the bow. An instant later, the shotgun fires.

  Viola arrives at the Crow’s Rock. It’s covered by trees. She only has a few seconds to do what the kid in The Shining did. She jumps on the rocks. Now her tracks lead him there. If she manages to climb up the Crow’s Rock, she can go down the other side and into the cave.

  Maglio’s eyes are crossed. They are looking inward in a grotesque attempt to observe the arrow that has traversed his skull and nailed it to the English mahogany frame of the broken display window. His body jerked like a mad puppet at first. Then he was still. His mouth wide open. Katerina turns to her husband. Gerri is hurt. He’s losing blood like a busted beer keg. But he’s still standing and is loading another arrow onto the bow.

  “My love . . . Gerri . . . you can calm down now. It’s me, Kati, your Kati. You’re hurt, let me take care of you. Let’s forget about everything. And everything will always be like it was this morning. We had a nice time, didn’t we? We stayed in bed. I . . . I didn’t want to leave you.” She moves toward her husband, very slowly, with her hands outstretched, to calm him down. “You were upset when you didn’t see me, weren’t you? It’s that . . . I had to come here because . . . let’s leave it all behind us, my love. We can pretend it never happened. You’ll see, everything will be fine.” She steps past Maglio’s body. “Remember when we stood in front of the priest? Remember the honeymoon? The cruise? The two of us, alone . . . let’s start again from there, let’s leave right away. As long as it takes for your wound to heal. Can’t you see? You’re losing a lot of blood, my love.” She’s standing just a few feet from her husband. “We’ll say that you came to save me, because these people wanted to hurt me. You came here and he pointed the gun at you and you saved me. And then we’ll go off on our cruise, like back when we loved each other so much. And we can love each other again. I’ve never stopped loving you. Let’s leave this all behind us and go, what do you say? Let’s go off together, the two of us alone, what do you say?”

  Falconi is exhausted. The girl had wanted to run. But enough now. She’s here. She must be here. The tracks lead to the rock, and the snow around it is pristine.

  “You’re here, aren’t you? I know you’re here. And here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to find you. And after I do, no one else will ever find you again, you fucking little bitch.” Falconi starts to walk around on the rocks. She must be here somewhere. “I worked hard on this project. And you keep getting in the middle. I deserve that money, do you understand? I deserve to leave this place. Was that so wrong? In a few years nobody will even live here. Only old people. What then? Was it so wrong to make a little money for ourselves? I was going to sign, take the money, and leave. But no, first that lawyer bitch. She called me and told me she could give me a hand. She could help me reject the permit. I told her to keep it to herself, but she refused. I offered her money, but she refused. It’s where he grew up, she said. She wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, she said. But she sleeps now. That lumberjack didn’t even mean to break her neck when he grabbed her. But that’s how it went. And then that ballbuster, Mirna. She wanted to send everything to hell because I wanted to be with someone thirty years younger than her, who makes me fuck like I’ve never fucked in my life. Hard choice, don’t you think?”

  A noise. Viola gives herself away.

  Falconi walks around the rock.

  Run, Grazia, run! You’re almost there and you have to reach Viola.

  The slightest sound was all it took. The floor of the cave is covered in brush, and Viola would have been safe in there, had she not stepped on a wrong stone and fell, making a rustling noise. And then suddenly Falconi stopped talking. In a second, he will be pointing his shotgun at her. Viola is frozen with fear. She sees him coming around the rock.

  But then on the other side of the rock, a bush moves. Viola sees something like a black spot. And Falconi turns. Viola takes advantage of the distraction and slips into the cave. One shot. A cat sound, something like a scream. It was the black cat from the Gherarda. He had saved her.

  Viola stays in the hole. She can hear Falconi’s footsteps around the rock. She sees him. He’s less than three feet away from her. When she entered the small cave, she damaged the bush that covered the entrance. It was all mangled. If he turns, he’ll see it.

  Falconi turns. His eyes are on her. For a moment he seems to be looking at her. Yet he do
esn’t see her. It’s as if Viola suddenly became invisible. The forest. The gnome. Can it be?

  “Falconi, drop the gun and put your hands in the air.” Her mother’s voice. She’s here.

  Falconi approaches the rock. He’s right next to Viola. She can smell his sweat, his rotten breath, his breath heavy like a beast’s. And she can see he’s smiling, a kind of satisfied smirk, as he takes the rifle and raises it. He’s seen her. He saw her mother and now he’ll shoot both of them. She has to do something. Falconi has his finger on the trigger. He’s about to shoot.

  “No!”

  Viola moves the rifle, the shot misses. But Falconi grabs her by the arm and drags her out.

  “Well, well, Marshal!” he screams, satisfied. “We have a surprise for you.”

  He’s clutching her arm hard, he’s hurting her. And now he presses the double-barrel against her throat.

  Grazia comes out in the open.

  “I’m here, Falconi! Let her go,” she says with her hands in the air, showing him the pistol she’s no longer pointing. “Let go of my daughter, please. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  Viola is scared. She’s crying.

  “Hush, my love. Mama will make it better, you’ll see.”

  “Put the gun at my feet,” Falconi orders.

  “What are you going to do? Don’t you know it’s over?”

  “The fuck it’s over!” he screams. “Place the gun at my feet, or I’ll have you picking your daughter’s head off a tree, you understand?”

  Grazia throws the gun at his feet. She’s no longer armed.

  Falconi drops Viola’s arm but continues to press the shotgun into her neck. He slowly bends down to pick up the gun. He takes it and points it at Grazia. Viola pushes past the barrel of the shotgun and runs to her mother.

  Grazia embraces her. She presses her head against her chest, as if she were a little girl.

  “Everything will be all right, baby. It’s okay.”

  But she doesn’t know how everything will be okay. Her only hope is that Donato reaches them.

  But Donato is lying on the floor, his head split open with a cast-iron skillet. His eyes are closed, fixed on a distant void, blood streaming down his forehead. A few feet from him, Maglio is nailed to an English-style mahogany cabinet with an arrow through his brain.

  Yo quiero que este

  Sea el mundo que conteste

  Álvaro Soler’s cheerful voice emanates from the crocodile Prada bag by the sofa, filling the room with its melody.

  Giulio is on the floor of the closet. Not moving. Next to him, Adele is wrapped in a carpet soaked in blood. Downstairs, Mirna’s body is in the freezer.

  Del este hasta oeste

  Y bajo el mismo sol

  The crocodile Prada bag is open, and the phone is resting on top of her other things. The caller ID shows the spa where Katerina would have gone this morning. Massages, exfoliating treatments, thermal water, white towels, relaxing music, aromatic and detoxifying tea.

  But now there’s no one to answer it.

  Katerina’s blue eyes are devoid of light. They will never see Sosúa Bay, lined with palm trees along the Caribbean beach kissed by the Antilles sun. Her head is drooping onto her shoulder. She looks like a wax statue, frozen in her expression of stupor. She’s nailed to the basement door.

  The arrow went through her heart. Her husband shot it right through the center.

  And the Latin song about sunshine and love keeps on playing, as blood pools everywhere on the terra-cotta floor.

  Outside the house, the snowmobile’s tracks form a meandering path. It seems that its driver slipped a few times, leaving behind a stream of blood.

  “Falconi, what are you going to do? Are you going to bury us in the woods too?” Grazia tries to stall for time. Donato is her only card left to play. She has to make Falconi talk; in his place people usually need to justify themselves.

  “Why would I stop now?”

  “The footage. It won’t take long for my colleagues to put this together the way I did.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you remember those photos of you and Katerina?”

  “How do you know about those?”

  “Someone was spying on you, Falconi. And they also got stuff they didn’t know how to read. Like certain movements of you and Maglio in your car the night Patrizia Alberti disappeared. You made a few trips that night. And you ended up on GeoService’s land. The spies also picked that up. The Spirits of the Woods had eyes everywhere. The footage shows you carrying something. I would have gone to check myself, but someone else will do it. And the mystery of Patrizia Alberti’s disappearance will be solved.”

  “Where are the recordings?”

  “At the station.”

  “So your daughter will stay with me while you go get them.”

  “Why would I do that when you’ve already decided to kill us?”

  “You’re trying my patience, you know that?”

  “I’m just trying to make you see reason, Falconi. You plan’s gone up in smoke.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice to know!” Falconi screams, as Viola clings harder to her mother, and Grazia hopes she’s getting him on the right track. “Nothing’s gone up in smoke here.” There’s a hiss in the distance. It sounds like an engine is approaching. “What’s that? Who’s with you?”

  “It’s my men, Falconi. You’re trapped.” Grazia has no idea what the noise is. But it sounds like a snowmobile. Maybe it’s the one Donato said he saw in the woods.

  Falconi slings the shotgun over his shoulder and grabs Viola again with his free hand. He pulls her to him and points the pistol at her throat. Viola is crying.

  “What do you want, Falconi?” Grazia asks.

  “I don’t hear anything anymore. Where did the noise go?”

  “They’re surrounding us. It can only get worse from here.”

  “Why can’t I hear the noise?” Falconi screams. He looks around. But there is something he fails to notice. On the rock behind him. In the white snow there is another white shape that’s moving. His thick ivory coat. His fierce red eyes. His slow, light stride of an albino tiger, his muscles tensing the instant before he pounces. The white cat.

  The engine is off. The snowmobile came to a stop against a tree, just a few feet into the woods. Gerri is hunched over on the handlebars. His eyes are open. Empty. From his left hand, stretched out in front of him, red blood drips down onto the white snow. He’s holding something between his fingers. It’s his gold medal from the 1999 regional archery championships.

  The white cat pounces. In a moment, he’s on Falconi’s head. The cowboy hat falls to the ground. The white beast claws at Falconi, looking for his eyes. To get rid of him, Falconi lets go of Viola. Grazia grabs her and throws her to the ground and then throws herself on top of her for cover should Falconi let a shot escape. Still gripping the pistol, Falconi tries to grab the cat, screaming from the pain of being scratched in the face. The cat digs into his flesh: he’s looking for his eyes. With a scream, Falconi finally wrests the beast from his head, throwing it toward the rocks. His face is bloody, twisted in an expression of anger, hatred, and sorrow. That cat almost ripped one of his eyes out. His breath is shallow, like a wounded animal’s. He points the gun at Grazia, but blood drips into his good eye, and he hesitates for an instant. An instant too long.

  The sound of the shot comes from the trees. Falconi looks up. His mouth wide open, a face of surprise. He tries to figure out where the shot came from, as a bloodstain blossoms like a red rose across his jacket at chest level. He drops the gun, takes a step back, and leans against the rock. Now both of his eyes have gone black. He’s afraid. His surprise has given way to consciousness. He tries to catch his breath, maybe to get more air or maybe to say something. But the second shot doesn’t give him a chance. A new red spot appears across his chest, next to the first one. Falconi’s legs give way, and his back slides down the Crow’s Rock until he arr
ives to his final resting place on the ground. His breath becomes heavy. His eyes still see nothing but blackness. And in a matter of seconds, they assume the unnatural stare of death.

  Barbara lowers the rifle. She looks toward the clearing by the Crow’s Rock. She hands the semiautomatic Remington with its steaming cannon to Akan, who is still sitting on the Gherarda snowmobile, and starts off toward Grazia and Viola.

  PART SIX

  HAWTHORNE SEASON

  “Remember that photograph?”

  ONE

  Carabinieri, forestry, rescue vehicles, lumberjacks, journalists. The GeoService area is buzzing with people. Viola is sitting in the back of an ambulance, sipping on a cup of hot chocolate. Akan holds a blanket over her shoulders.

  “That’ll do it!” yells the guy on the excavator. Grazia walks over. Scalise is next to her. Two men get out of the gray van owned by the Misericordia Funeral Parlor. Their job is to take away all the bodies, arranged in plastic bags, and leave them at the deputy prosecutor’s disposal. They’re working overtime today, and they’re going on their third journey.

  TV crews and photographers also approach the pit.

  The excavator stops, and men gather round with their spades in hand. It doesn’t take much digging.

  There’s a big bag in the ground. Scalise gestures to one of his men to open it a little, and there is Patrizia Alberti’s face. Gray and sunken, but recognizable.

  “We found her, Marshal,” says Scalise.

  “There’s something else here,” says one of the men pulling out the body. “There’s another bag.”

  “Old Peter,” says Grazia, while the others pull him out of the ground. “My daughter told me Rodari’s theory, which seems to be playing out.”

  “Eight dead, Marshal,” says Scalise. “I hope it won’t be ten. Never seen anything like it. A massacre, that’s what it is. An explosion of madness. Two buried corpses, one in a freezer, one wrapped up in a carpet, two nailed with arrows, one driving a snowmobile holding his own guts, and one shot down in the woods by the hotel owner. Good thing the hotel is near enough for them to have heard the shots that lunatic fired at your daughter. I’ll need a detailed report, Marshal Parodi. I urge you to give this matter your complete attention and give me a first draft in the next few hours. Needless to say, we need to enhance the force around here.”