A Death In Calabria

by Michele Giuttari

  ‘Police!’ the NOCS commander cried. ‘Come out with your hands in the air!’

  Ferrara joined him.

  In a narrow room, sitting on small stools, four vague figures could be made out in the dim light. None of them reacted in any way. The officers shone their torches at them, revealing three men, all of a certain age, and a woman. The men, their faces furrowed with deep lines, could well be local shepherds. The woman, on the other hand, was well groomed and did not look at all local. She had a pair of knee-length rubber boots on her feet and a black woollen cloak round her shoulders. None of the figures moved.

  ‘Who are you?’ Ferrara asked, hand tight on his gun.

  ‘We’re friends.’ The answer had come from the man who looked the oldest. He was staring at Ferrara, thinking, Look who’s back, the Fox of Aspromonte!

  ‘Friends of who?’

  ‘Just friends,’ the man replied, with a slight sneer on his face. ‘Four friends.’

  ‘Let’s see your papers.’

  The other two men took their identity cards from their wallets and handed them over.

  ‘What about you?’ Ferrara asked the older man and the woman.

  The man answered first. He had a battered face and an unkempt beard. ‘I left mine at home.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘San Piero.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Francesco Puglisi.’

  ‘What about you?’ Ferrara asked, turning to the woman.

  ‘I don’t have any papers.’

  Her features were hard, her eyes weary, her attitude contemptuous.

  At that moment they heard voices coming from the far end of the cellar. Ferrara walked in that direction, followed by a few officers. In a small room, the NOCS men had discovered a man and a girl. The girl was sitting at a small wooden table with a loaf of corn bread, a piece of Soprassata sausage and a few pieces of cheese on it. The man, who was very young, was standing next to her.

  ‘Are you Alfredo Prestipino’s daughter?’ Ferrara asked.

  She stared at him, a faraway look in her eyes. After a moment or two, she nodded.

  Ferrara did not ask her any more questions.

  He moved a couple of yards away, radioed the two officers who had stayed with Prestipino and gave them directions. ‘I’ll expect you in a few minutes!’

  Before long, he heard footsteps approaching.

  It was Alfredo Prestipino, between the two officers. As soon as his daughter saw him she stood up and ran to his arms.

  ‘Daddy!’ she said, in tears, hugging him.

  ‘Maria,’ he replied, in a cracked voice. There was a lump in his throat.

  ‘Daddy, let’s go back to New York. I don’t want to stay here any more.’

  ‘Yes, Maria. We’ll go soon.’ Two big tears began running down his cheeks.

  Moved, Ferrara walked back to the other room.

  ‘You’re Alfredo Prestipino’s wife,’ he said to the woman.

  ‘I am Angela Fedeli.’

  ‘Your husband’s through there. Come, signora.’

  She did not reply immediately, but stared at Ferrara. He in turn stood looking at her, as if studying her.

  ‘Signora, your husband’s here!’ he repeated.

  ‘He was my husband,’ she replied, without taking her eyes off him, almost as if in defiance. ‘He’s not my husband any more. My name is Fedeli.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘To me he’s dead. I am a Fedeli. Now tell me, are you in charge here?’

  ‘I’m one of the people in charge.’

  ‘Then let me go home. My daughter can do what she wants. She’s already come of age. May the Madonna bless her.’

  ‘We have some formalities to get through first.’

  ‘Yes, Angela, they have to do their duty,’ Don Ciccio Puglisi interjected, his voice still hoarse.

  ‘Then be quick about it,’ she replied, coldly and without hesitation.

  The little group followed the police officers.

  Angela Fedeli took Don Ciccio by the arm and walked beside him in silence.

  She had made her choice: she would remain loyal to the secret code of the ’Ndrangheta. She had a duty to redeem the honour of her own family, the honour that her brother Rocco had offended. Her future would now be here, in San Piero d’Aspromonte, together with her mother and people who thought just like her.

  Alfredo Prestipino walked to the helicopter, still hugging his daughter, the person who meant most to him in the world.

  ‘Chief Superintendent Ferrara, come here!’

  The head of the Squadra Mobile, Lorenzo Bruni, was waving his arms, urging him to join him at the edge of a thick wood just after the last houses in the village.

  Ferrara walked quickly towards him. As he approached, he saw two men sitting on the ground, handcuffed. One of them had blood on the sleeve of his jacket. The police officers were holding two rifles.

  ‘They fired at us with these,’ one of the officers said, showing the weapons. ‘The others escaped into the woods and something unfortunate happened.’

  Ferrara’s expression changed. Bruni was still calling to him.

  ‘Chief Superintendent, come here!’

  ‘What is it, Bruni?’ Ferrara asked as he came level.

  ‘Follow me . . . Carracci . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Carracci’s been hit.’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘I don’t know. They shot at us as they were escaping into the wood.’

  ‘Have they been caught?’

  ‘My men are chasing them.’

  They walked along the path through the wood for about a dozen yards.

  Stefano Carracci was lying on the grass. Blood was gushing from the jacket of his fatigues, there was blood in his fair hair and little bubbles of blood emerged from his mouth. Ferrara bent over him and unbuttoned his jacket. His shirt was riddled with holes and covered in blood.

  Stefano Carracci was already dead. He had been hit in the chest with lethal shotgun fire.

  Ferrara closed the eyelids and made the sign of the cross.

  His eyes fell on a piece of paper jutting out of one pocket. He took it and opened it. At the top of the page, in the middle, were the hastily scribbled words Cloned satellite phone. There followed a list of telephone numbers. Ferrara read it. Like a magnet, his eyes were drawn to the last number on the list. He knew it well. It was a number in Rome. A confidential number.

  Was this Antonio Russo’s ‘connection’? For a long while, Ferrara did not move. It was as if he was paralysed. This was a whole new element in the case, one he would never ever have imagined, and which he could certainly have done without.

  New York

  That evening, when Dick Moore returned home, he found a surprise waiting for him.

  The door was not locked, as he had left it in the morning. The lights were on in the hall. Instinctively he put his hand on the grip of his 9mm Glock and slowly walked towards the living room, from which a dim light was filtering. He listened. There was no sound. He took his pistol from its holster and entered cautiously. His eyes met Jenny’s. She was lying on the couch with a glass in her hand, looking in his direction. She’d been waiting for him for several hours. As soon as she saw him, she stood up, went to him and put her arms around his neck. It was a long, warm, patient embrace.

  ‘I missed you so much,’ he whispered over and over in her ear as he hugged her.

  ‘I missed you, too, Dick . . .’ Her eyes were shining with a new light. ‘Do you still love me?’

  He looked at her for what seemed an endless moment. Then he smiled. ‘I love you more than ever,’ he said.

  ‘So do I. I’m sorry for what I’ve done.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologise, Jenny. I understood. I understood and I promise I won’t make the same mistakes again.’ He was about to take her by the hand when he heard an unmistakable whimper. Sam, who had run in from another room, was leaping about a
t their feet, trying to attract his master’s attention.

  That evening was a special evening for Lieutenant Reynolds, too. He and Linda went out to dinner to celebrate the long-awaited transfer, which had finally been confirmed a few hours earlier. He would change location and work more regular hours - a fact much appreciated by Linda, who had started smiling again.

  Epilogue

  Chief Superintendent Ferrara and his wife Petra had been in New York for a week. He had been invited by the FBI, and Petra, as promised, had taken a break from her work. At 26 Federal Plaza, a solemn ceremony was held in his honour and that of Colonel Trimarchi, who was also a guest of the FBI. Assistant Director Moore awarded both Italians medals. Then, in a brief speech, he thanked the Italian police forces for their cooperation, without which they would not have been able to solve the Madison homicides. That wasn’t all. Without their help, they would not have been able to break up a dangerous ’Ndrangheta offshoot before it had had a chance to take root in New York. He summarised the results of the investigation and gave the names of the men who had actually carried out the murders: three members of Harry Baker’s gang, who had disappeared on 2 November 2003. Their bodies would never be found. They were somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

  In conclusion, he underlined the importance of cooperation. ‘In a world in which even the Mafia has become globalised, the best weapon at our disposal in the battle against this terrible cancer is synergy between police forces around the world. We can only win this battle by working together, as we did in this case, where the crucial clues were identified and collected simultaneously at a distance of thousands and thousands of miles.’ Looking in turn at Ferrara and Trimarchi, he said, ‘Once again, thank you to the police forces of Italy.’

  As everyone was joining in the toast, Petra went up to Mrs Moore and Mrs Reynolds. Moved by the welcome she and Michele had received, she was determined to extract promises from them that they would come to Italy. ‘We’re waiting for you in Florence.’ The two women smiled and said, ‘We’ll be there!’

  On leaving the building, the Italians were approached by a large group of reporters and photographers. One of the reporters managed to shake hands with Ferrara and murmur, ‘Thank you, thank you very much. Grazie, Italia.’ It was David Powell of the New York Times.

  At 8 p.m. that evening, Chief Superintendent Ferrara and his wife Petra had dinner in the restaurant of the Hudson Hotel on West 58th Street, where the FBI had reserved a room for them. Before dinner, they had visited the delightful Sky Terrace on the fifteenth floor. The thirty-foot-high trees, ivy-covered walls and bright, fragrant flowers had impressed them so much that they had decided to spend a good part of their stay right there. What made the hotel even better was the fact that they were not far from the theatre district, Times Square, Columbus Circle and Central Park: to all intents and purposes, the heart of Manhattan, and its most beautiful area.

  That evening Petra had put on a black dress and gathered her hair in a bun. She was wearing a pair of antique earrings inherited from her grandmother, which she put on only on special occasions. Such as now. And she had a single ring on her finger, a gold ring set with a ruby surrounded by diamonds, her husband’s first gift to her.

  They had ordered a bottle of Livio Felluga white wine, and now the waiter was pouring it. He saw them look into each other’s eyes for a few silent moments. He smiled at them and walked away. They raised their glasses in a toast. Then she leaned across and gave him a passionate kiss.

  ‘I’d really like to stay here, Schatzi,’ she whispered. She had the same radiant expression on her face she always used to have.

  ‘So would I, darling,’ he replied, returning her smile. ‘But only for a week, no more.’

  She smiled again and drank another sip of wine. Then raising her glass, she asked, ‘What shall we toast to? Love?’

  ‘Yes, darling, our love,’ he replied. They drained their glasses in one go, and then burst out laughing. When they had stopped, Ferrara said, ‘Now let’s go. The Phantom of the Opera awaits us at the Majestic.’

  ‘Yes, let’s go!’

  And they left the hotel.

  With their arms round each other, like young lovers.

  Author’s Note

  Those readers tempted to start looking on maps for the villages of San Piero d’Aspromonte and Castellanza should be warned that they would only be wasting their time. These villages do not exist and are merely figments of my imagination. It may be that the inhabitants of villages of Aspromonte in the province of Reggio Calabria may see some resemblance to real places. But I want to assure them that I have used them in a purely fictional way, transposing episodes from my professional life.

  The laws of the ’Ndrangheta, on the other hand, are all too real, as has been shown several times, thanks to the work and professionalism of the police forces, not only of Italy, but of other countries, too.

  For those interested in going further into this matter, let me quote a few examples.

  The first codes of rules were found in Nicastro in 1888 and Seminara in 1896.

  During the 1920s, the Carabinieri confiscated a code from a member of the ’ndrina of San Luca, while in the 1960s, it was again the Carabinieri who discovered an example in the house of an ’Ndranghetista in San Giorgio Morgeto. Two more were found by the police during operations in Gioia Tauro and Sant’Eufemia d’Aspromonte.

  In Toronto in 1971, the Canadian police confiscated yet another from the house of a man from Siderno. It comprised twenty-seven pages, covered in almost incomprehensible handwriting.

  The most recent finds date from the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s and were made in the houses of ’Ndranghetistas in Reggio Calabria, Rosarno and Lamezia Terme.

  Other rules have been passed on to investigators by ’Ndranghetistas who have left the organisation and who, whether out of hatred for their enemies or for other reasons, have decided to spill the beans about its code.