Martina shot a fleeting glance at Professoressa Macchiaroli, who nodded encouragingly.
“She’s . . . she’s a young woman about my age, who attends a school a lot like this one. She would be fine, she’d be happy, if only . . . in other words . . . ”
Aragona, by now fully inhabiting his part, perfect follower of the Stanislavski method that he was, pressed her.
“Could you finish your sentence: If only what? Because you surely understand that, from the point of view of television production, what counts is the drama, the challenges facing the protagonist. What does she lack, in order to achieve happiness?”
“She lacks . . . her father. Or actually, no, she doesn’t lack him, she has a father. Unfortunately. Because her father bothers her. Her father is a horrible man.”
Romano tried to delve deeper into the concept: “That is, your father . . . her father doesn’t love her?”
Martina turned to look at him. Her pupils seemed to dilate.
“No, he loves her. He loves her a little too much, honestly.”
“What do you mean, too much?”
Martina’s eyes welled over with tears. Her voice dropped until Romano had to make a real effort to hear what she was saying: “He gets in bed next to her, at night. He caresses her, but not the way a father ought to do with a daughter. He touches her. And sometimes he wants her to touch him back.”
She seemed even younger than her age to Romano. After a long minute of silence, Aragona said: “And does she want someone to help her? Is she hoping, I don’t know, for a hero to come to her rescue, to rescue her from . . . from this situation?”
Martina murmured: “Yes. She really wishes that could happen.”
Romano nodded. Then he exchanged a glance of understanding with the principal, who smiled at the young woman: “All right, Martina. Thank you. You can go back to class now, Professoressa Macchiaroli will accompany you.”
Once they were alone, Aragona said: “It all seems very clear to me. What do we do now?”
Romano looked into the empty air. After a moment’s reflection, he looked at Principal Trani and said: “Let’s talk to the mother.”
X
In the victims’ apartment, Alex observed in fascination as the men from the forensic squad moved around the corpses as if they were onstage. It looked like a ballet, a ballet being danced around death itself. A choreography in which the dancers followed a preestablished trajectory without ever brushing against each other.
Aside from the director of the squad herself, there were six people there: three who reported directly to Martone, and three others from the violent crime analysis unit, responsible for inspecting the corpses and taking traces to be analyzed in the laboratory. They were all dressed in white, silent and focused, skilled at moving from place to place without ever touching a thing.
Lojacono materialized next to Alex. He too was keeping his eyes on the technicians from the forensic squad, following their mute dance.
“I told the three young men in the other apartment not to leave. The one in the tunic objected, and said that he had a class at the university. He’s one determined guy.”
“Very determined, and also rather jealous, I don’t know if you picked up on that.”
“Yes. Jealous of the young woman, not the young man. That’s an odd twist.”
“What do you mean? If you’re jealous, you’re jealous. Male, female, what difference does it make?”
“Of course, of course. I wasn’t saying any different. I just meant that the couple isn’t in perfect harmony, nothing more than that. They looked like a couple of cats with their hackles raised. Not that that necessarily means anything, don’t get me wrong.”
Alex went on.
“I was thinking about the doors. The main door, the one that leads into the shared front hall, was shut; Forgione said that he’d had to ring the bell to get in. While the door to the victims’ apartment was left ajar. Which means that, in theory at least, the only possible access to the scene of the murder would have been through Vinnie and Paco’s apartment.”
“Maybe someone left the apartment and only pulled the main door to the landing shut behind them. The only thing we know for sure is that there are no signs of breaking and entering: either the murderer had the keys or else someone let them in.”
Rosaria Martone’s voice, from behind, made them both start: “Good work, Lieutenant Lojacono. Now you’re trying to put us out of a job.”
The man turned around: “Dottoressa, what an unexpected honor: none other than the director in chief, in person, for the little precinct of Pizzofalcone.”
The woman smiled at him: “Not for you, of course, no disrespect intended. These two young people invited us out. A double homicide isn’t something that happens every day, even in a city like this one. Let’s just say I’m mixing business with pleasure.”
As she uttered the last part of the sentence, she had turned her eyes toward Alex, who was well aware that she’d blushed and therefore turned to look into the room where the young murdered woman lay sprawled on the bed.
“She was raped, wasn’t she? Maybe she put up a fight, tried to defend herself.”
Martone followed Alex’s gaze and the ironic expression of her bronzed face turned sad.
“Maybe so, maybe not, we can’t say yet. In summer, when the flesh is bared, it’s easier to tell if there are marks of violence on the skin, but when it’s cold like this, people are bundled up to the neck, and that makes it difficult. Certainly, the torn blouse and the position of her legs both suggest rape, but still . . . As you know, there are murder scenes that would seem not to leave the shadow of a doubt, whereas the reality is entirely different. There are perverts who like to have fun with the victim, postmortem.”
“So we won’t know till after the autopsy is done?”
“No, Lieutenant, not necessarily. Do you see that instrument, that sort of lamp? It’s called a CrimeScope. It emanates light at various wavelengths, and it allows us to identify fingerprints, fibers, hairs, and biological substances, such as semen, for instance.”
“What about the clothing? Will a specific analysis be done in the laboratory, too?”
“Yes, but first we’ll finish our investigation here, with photographs shot both with side and direct lighting; we’re actually almost done, and my colleague has already informed me that there don’t seem to be any traces of seminal fluid. So then we’ll take the clothing and transport it to the laboratory for the specific analysis you were just mentioning.”
Alex insisted on the theory that the young woman might have tried to defend herself.
“But she might have scratched him, right? I don’t know, there might be material under her fingernails, or . . . ”
Rosaria smiled, and her voice dropped even lower.
“There might be, it’s true. Unless it turns out that this was consensual: there are some women, you know, who enjoy a fake rape, and there are some men who let things spin out of control. In the meantime, we need to reconstruct the sequence of events of the two murders.”
Lojacono agreed with Martone.
“Yes, that’s fundamental. But she’s still wearing her jacket, so she might have just returned home, or been about to go out—”
Alex completed her reasoning for her: “The fact that he was at the table in one room and she was lying on the bed in another suggests that the first murder took place without the second victim realizing it or being present. In any case, one thing is certain: they didn’t kill each other.”
Rosaria ran the back of her hand over her cheek.
“She was unquestionably a beautiful girl, look at her perfect figure. And look at the picture on the wall: a gorgeous smile. A body and a face like that would be enough to drive someone crazy; people kill for much less. If I were you, I’d look into her lovers, and there must have been quite a few.”
“We’ll certainly be sure to do so, Dottoressa. All suggestions are more than welcome, coming from an expert like you.”
Lojacono turned to gaze at Alex in astonishment. In general she was extremely reserved, and spoke only when spoken to: that ironic wisecrack wasn’t her style.
Martone took it in stride; in fact, her face took on a look of wry complicity.
“Wait, weren’t we on a first-name basis, Di Nardo? No need for formality among women and cops.”
Alex blushed again, and then, as if it had suddenly occurred to her, she said: “By the way: earlier, Lojacono and I spotted something under the console table by the front door. An object with earbuds, maybe it’s a cell phone or a digital music player. Did you find it?”
“Let me go ask.”
A short while later, Martone was back with a transparent plastic bag.
“Is this what you were talking about? Cute, isn’t it?”
It was a cell phone with a shattered screen. From the pink plastic case, which ended in a pair of long bunny ears, extended a wire connected to a pair of earbuds.
XI
The principal hadn’t yet managed to track down Martina’s mother.
While they were waiting, Professoressa Macchiaroli informed Romano and Aragona about the Parise family with her usual garrulous mix of information and personal comments.
“They certainly aren’t rich, but then they aren’t poor either. I’d call them a normal middle-class family; it wasn’t that long ago, in fact, that they would have been considered well-to-do. It’s paradoxical, don’t you think? Before the financial crisis a family that lived on the salary of a bank clerk could get by without difficulties. Nowadays, three people can’t survive to the end of the month on even two salaries. And yet people who are on fixed incomes, now that the blush is off the rose of the so-called gig economy, ought to have an advantage, right?”
Now watch, Aragona is going to heave a sigh of annoyance, Romano told himself.
And in fact, that’s just what he did.
“Sure, Professore’, but maybe you could save the macroeconomic analysis for some other time, what do you say? Instead, why don’t you tell me: what does the girl’s father do for a living?”
Professoressa Macchiaroli made no effort to hide her resentment: “Well, that’s what I was just telling you, officer: he’s a bank teller, in a small branch office in the city center. An ordinary white-collar worker; I remember that during one parent-teacher meeting the mother told me that she’d had to come in alone because the bank manager had refused to give her husband time off.”
“What about the mother?” asked Romano.
“She’s employed in a boutique selling women’s fashion, in the hill district. She told me, again, during a parent-teacher meeting, that the rent is a tremendous expense, that it eats up nearly all of her husband’s salary, so she was forced to find this employment, even though she has a diploma as a corporate secretary. All the same, she’s in the sales sector.”
Aragona snickered.
“This whole cornucopia of words to tell us that the mother works as a salesclerk in a clothing store? One thing I find interesting though is this fact that, in all of your parent-teacher meetings, instead of talking about how the kids are doing at school, you just tell each other about your lives. Now I understand why there are always miles of cars parked in front of the schools, blocking traffic.”
As if he hadn’t heard a word that Aragona had just said, Romano continued speaking to Professoressa Macchiaroli.
“We’ll need the addresses of the bank branch and the store, as well as the family’s home address, of course. We’ll start examining every angle of this story, and if anything comes up, we’ll let you know.”
The principal disconsolately waved the receiver in the air: “I’m afraid the Signora isn’t answering. Maybe she’s busy. Emilia, give the gentlemen whatever they need: we’ve pushed this far, we can’t stop now.”
To reach the shop where Martina’s mother worked, Romano and Aragona took the funicular railway. Maybe it would have been more convenient to go back to the police station and get a car, but the truth was that neither of them was dying to run into Palma. They would have been forced to admit that he had been right, that the case was worth looking into, and that they had therefore been wrong.
Among other things, Romano still wasn’t entirely convinced of the approach they were taking, and he expressed his concerns to his partner as they teetered, barely maintaining their balance, among the rush-hour crowd that was packed into the car.
“We’ll just introduce ourselves and say: My dear Signora, we have every reason to believe that in your home, while you were peacefully sleeping, this, that, and the other thing are probably happening. She’ll look at us and reply: Excuse me, but who are you? And just how do you know these things? Who told you? How dare you? And what if I simply call the police?”
Aragona was doing his best to avoid the forced proximity to the armpit of an enormous woman, sweating profusely in spite of the biting cold, who was holding on to the handrail. He put on a grimace of disgust and replied brusquely: “Then what do you suggest? That we just head back to the precinct and say: Dear Commissario Palma, call the family court, that way, in a couple of months, once they’ve cleared their desks of the poker tournament they no doubt now have underway, one of those five-hundred-euro-a-session psychologists might even make up their mind to give the poor kid a call and invite her in for a chat. And in the meantime that swine of a father of hers can go on wallowing in his filth.”
He hadn’t moderated his tone of voice at all, and in fact the fat woman now opened both eyes wide, her interest clearly piqued.
“Oooh, Jesus, and what kind of filth is this father inflicting on the poor girl?”
Aragona gave her a hard look and, jammed in as he was by the crowd, answered her with what little breath he was able to muster.
“Signo’, these are police matters, so why don’t you mind your own business. And take a shower, while you’re at it, because you’re killing us all with your armpits hanging open like that. Trust me, you can let go of the handrail, because with the figure you have on you, you couldn’t fall over even if you were riding all alone on the funicular.”
The shop was a luxurious boutique with four plate-glass display windows looking out over the main thoroughfare of the quarter. The clothing on display was expensive, and yet Romano and Aragona spotted at least a dozen customers inside, along with just four salesclerks, and a man who was probably the proprietor.
They decided to wait until there was less of a crowd, but after ten minutes, no one had left the shop. At that point they agreed that Aragona should go in alone, to keep from arousing suspicion, while Romano would wait in a café at the corner. Just a few minutes’ exposure to the cold had been enough to chill the two policemen to the bone.
The interior of the shop, compared to the exterior, was piping hot; Aragona decided that that was why the customers were lingering at such length. He looked around to try to figure out which of the four salesclerks was Martina’s mother and, thinking he had spotted some vague resemblance to the girl in a petite woman with chestnut hair and large dark eyes, he got in line and waited until she was free. When it was his turn, he asked: “Would you happen to be Signora Parise?”
“No, I’m afraid I’m not. What a pity. Are you sure I can’t help you?”
Flattered, Aragona swept off his eyeglasses: “Maybe we could come up with something, if we tried. But right now, I’m afraid I really have to speak to Signora Parise. Would you mind pointing her out to me?”
The woman made a coquettish grimace of feigned disappointment.
“If you insist . . . Antonella! This gentleman wants to talk to you.”
The woman who turned around caught the officer by surprise. Her appearance was as different as could be from her daughter’s. She was tal
l, she had red hair pulled up in a bun, green eyes, and a spectacular body sheathed in a warm brown dress. She looked no older than twenty-five. She walked over, with a vaguely uneasy expression.
“Yes, tell me how I can be of assistance.”
“I need to talk to you, but it’s a confidential matter. Could you step outside with me for five minutes?”
“I’m . . . I’m actually working, I was just assisting that woman and—”
Aragona interrupted: “It’s about Martina.”
Antonella stared at him. There was an inscrutable expression on her face, a blend of apprehension but also grief and sadness: she had the eyes of a suffering mother.
“Wait for me outside.”
She walked over to a coworker and pointed her to the customer she had been serving, then went up to the man at the cash register, an impeccably groomed and elegantly dressed man in his early fifties, and whispered briefly to him. A hostile look appeared on his face, then he brusquely nodded to the woman, who grabbed her overcoat and hurried out of the shop.
Romano was waiting for them at a table in the back of the café. When he saw them come in, he got to his feet and extended his hand: “Buongiorno, Signora. My name is Francesco Romano, and this is Marco Aragona, in case you haven’t been properly introduced. Sit down, make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink?”
Signora Parise sat down, rigidly.
“An espresso, thanks. So can I ask what this is about?”
Her voice had just the faintest hint of concern. Romano, too, noticed how little she resembled her daughter. The officer decided to create the least threatening atmosphere possible.
“Today, at her school, we had the opportunity to make your daughter Martina’s acquaintance. You seem too young to be her mother.”
A glint of fear appeared in the woman’s eyes, though she proceeded to put on a strained smile as she ran her long fingers through her hair.
Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 6