“I was . . . very young when she was born. I was just seventeen. I’m twenty-nine now.”
“And you look much younger than that, believe me. My compliments.”
A waiter arrived with the espressos.
“Please, don’t keep me on tenterhooks. What has Martina done? What did she say?”
Romano seized the opportunity.
“Why, what might your daughter have done or said?”
The woman started to get up: “Unless you immediately tell me who you are, I’m going to have to put an end to this conversation.”
The two policemen exchanged an uncertain glance. Then Romano said: “Signora, don’t be frightened. Our job is in fact to ensure that nothing bad happens, or if it’s happening, to make sure it stops. We’re both officers from the Pizzofalcone police precinct, but we’re here to speak with you on a completely informal, friendly basis. The principal and the Italian literature teacher contacted us. They’re worried about Martina. But I think you already know all about that.”
Romano and Aragona expected her to react with anxiety, anguish, or else indignation. Instead, Antonella drew a deep sigh and focused on the espresso demitasse, as if she thought she could find answers in it.
“So it’s come to this. We’ve reached this point. The police, no less.”
Aragona spoke softly: “Signora, you have no reason to be angry with the teachers: they’re mothers, too, it’s only human for them to worry. We read the essays that your daughter wrote and . . . we believe it’s perfectly legitimate to ask some questions, to be frank.”
The woman said nothing, still holding her head low.
Romano added: “On the other hand, it certainly happens sometimes that kids with overactive imaginations dream up things that don’t match up with reality. Maybe that’s what happened with Martina, perhaps she just felt lonely and she invented a parallel life. And it might be that she hasn’t even told you about any of these things.”
Signora Parise suddenly raised her head, and Romano found himself under the cold fire of those green eyes. Then she said: “There you go, officer. Bull’s-eye. Maybe she never even told me about any of these things. Or maybe she tried, but I refused to listen.”
Aragona was confused.
“But why would you refuse to listen?”
“Because these things are false, that’s why. Otherwise I would have come directly to you, and at a dead run. Or else I’d have killed him with my bare hands. But none of it’s true.”
“How can you be so sure?” Romano asked her.
The woman’s face had turned pale, strained. Her features had tightened, and two lines around her compressed lips gave the policemen a preview of what she would look like as an old woman.
“Because I know my husband. He’s a simple, good-hearted man, and Martina and I are all he has in the world. He isn’t a pervert, he isn’t a madman, he isn’t a maniac.”
Romano leaned forward. From the very beginning, he wished he’d never had anything to do with this whole matter, but now that he was in it, he wasn’t willing to be dismissed out of hand.
“Then why in the world would your daughter have decided to dream up anything of the sort, can you tell me that? And what’s more, describing certain scenes in an essay she was assigned to write for a class.”
Signora Parise’s lower lip began to tremble.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. My daughter and I talk all the time. I don’t know why she felt the need to . . . I can’t even bring myself to say it. But I do know, and I know it for certain, that there’s not a word of truth to it. I won’t dignify this nonsense with a police report, in fact, if anything, I’m tempted to sue the school for excessive zeal, but since it’s also clear to me that they had only the best of intentions, I’ll just pretend the two of you never came to see me.”
She stood up and started out of the café. Aragona only stopped her when she had her back to the little café table.
“Signora, wait a second. Maybe you can explain something to me that I don’t understand, and maybe I’m crazy. But how can you bring yourself to sleep peacefully, to come here to work, to walk down the street, to shop for groceries and cook dinner with the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, there’s someone in your house that’s molesting your daughter? She’s no more than a little girl, for fuck’s sake. Don’t you understand that?”
The woman stood motionless, like a mannequin, then her shoulders bowed forward. At last, they heard her voice: flat, low, steady.
“Sometimes, I bring her with me. I bring her with me when I have to come back to work here, in the afternoons. I bring her with me, so I don’t have to leave her alone at home.”
And then she hurried out of the café.
XII
The waltz of the dancers in white around the corpses had almost come to an end when the assistant district attorney Laura Piras burst onto the scene of the double homicide.
As usual, she was in a hurry, with the look of concentration on her face that always gave whoever was talking to her the constant sensation that they were wasting her time.
As usual, she was moving quickly and yet, it had to be said, gracefully.
As usual, she was dressed in a dark suit—jacket and trousers—a sober uniform that however wasn’t able to conceal the soft curving lines of her body, curves that focused the gazes of all the men in the room upon her.
As usual, she immediately took command of the situation.
And, as usual, at the sight of her, Lojacono felt that mixture of disquiet and pleasure that he was growing to recognize so easily.
“Here I am. I’m sorry I’m late, I was at a hearing I couldn’t leave. All right then, what do we have here? They told me that they were a young man and woman. Ah, ciao, Lojacono. So we meet again. And on such a delightful occasion.”
Her voice, ironic and warm, accompanied the sensual effect of the Sardinian accent that made its cadence so distinctive. Behind her was Stanzione, who had accompanied her upstairs.
The officer said: “This way, Dottoressa. You see, the young woman is in the bedroom, while the young man—”
Lojacono interrupted him in a chilly tone: “Stanzione, who said that you could leave your post at the front door? I thought I had made myself quite clear. Get back downstairs immediately or I’ll be forced to file a report.”
He hadn’t raised his voice, but everyone in the room froze. The uniformed policeman pointed to Piras: “But I just accompanied the Dottoressa upstairs. We were the first to get to the scene, after all, and—”
“If the lieutenant gave you a job to do, I suggest you do it. I can take care of myself, never fear.”
Repressing his rage, Stanzione gave a brusque salute and left the apartment. Piras put on a faint grimace of astonishment.
“Wow, this looks fun. It appears that I missed the party. Well, Lojacono, bring me up to speed.”
“They’re almost done surveying the murder scene. I’ll tell you everything we know so far.”
Lojacono provided the prosecuting magistrate with a detailed account, from the location of the corpses to the interview with the next-door neighbors and the young man who had stumbled upon the crime scene.
The woman followed everything he said attentively, chewing her lower lip and nodding; she twisted the ends of her hair with one hand. Lojacono found her irresistible.
When they had finished, Alex came over.
“Buonasera, Dottoressa. Excuse me, Lojacono, but Ottavia called from the police station. When we get back there, she wants to talk to us, she seems to have come up with something new.”
Piras scrutinized the young woman.
“Buonasera, Di Nardo. Well, how do you like things in Pizzofalcone?”
Alex exchanged a slightly confused glance with Lojacono, but then replied confidently.
“I’m very happy to be workin
g here, Dottoressa, thanks for asking. It hasn’t been long, but we’re a good team, we work well together. And of course, the lieutenant is a genuine maestro.”
Lojacono was surprised, he hadn’t been expecting such a wholehearted endorsement from his partner. He bowed ever so slightly: “I learn from you, too, every day, Di Nardo.”
Laura smiled.
“Mamma mia, so much honey I feel sticky. In any case, I’m glad to hear that things are on an even footing over there, I was one of the people pushing to keep the police station open after what happened with the Bastards.”
Rosaria Martone came over, pulling the pair of latex gloves off her hands.
“Oh, buongiorno, Laura. So you made it. We’re done here, we’ll talk later when we have our written findings.”
The magistrate greeted her cordially and said: “You don’t miss a single one, do you? Have you developed any theories yet?”
“If I’m honest, no. There are so signs of a struggle, not even around the young woman, who at first glance would seem to have been the target of an attempted rape. Next to the bed there are some objects on the side table that ought to have been knocked to the floor but weren’t, and are still sitting there. Of course, the murderer might have put them back, but that doesn’t square with the clothing scattered around the floor.”
Lojacono said: “As for the young man, there are no signs of a struggle anywhere around him either, he even still has a pen in his hand. They must have caught him by surprise, which is pretty odd, unless, I don’t know, he had the music turned up high or something like that.”
Martone added: “What’s more, there’s no murder weapon to be found. Someone hit him at least three times on the same spot with a blunt heavy object, but we found only faint traces of blood and hair under the chair. The blunt object must have been taken away.”
Laura turned her gaze from the bed, where the young woman’s corpse lay, to the desk, over which the second victim lay sprawled. As often happened when she was deep in thought, she was humming a soft melody under her breath.
“All right. Seal the place up after the morgue attendants have left. I have a feeling that this crime scene still has something to tell us. Rosaria, I’ll call you tomorrow. But don’t forget: absolute top priority. There were already three reporters and two television news crews downstairs. They’re going to put pressure on us, especially considering the age of the victims.”
Martone said farewell and headed off, accompanied by Alex. The magistrate spoke to Lojacono: “We have the details of the two victims, the person who found the bodies, and the neighbors. We still need to find the father, to dig into the argument, and her boyfriend, who might very well have played a role in all this mess. But, tell me, how are you doing? And your family?”
The ironic reference to Marinella, the daughter who had come from Sicily to live with Lojacono a few months earlier, didn’t escape the lieutenant.
“Fine, thanks. She busts my chops, exactly the same as her mother, and she’s a little too independent: she inherited that from yours truly. Anyway, she’s happy, and she likes it here. To use her words, it’s all ‘fantastic’ and ‘spectacular.’ Now she’s even started school.”
“How about you, are you happy?”
Lojacono pondered the question, as if the answer was incredibly complicated.
“Yes. And relieved, too, because the thought that she was living in Palermo with that lunatic ex-wife of mine didn’t do a lot of good for my peace of mind. Only, now, I just feel an extra burden of responsibility. She’s turning into a woman, you know, and I can’t tell what she’s thinking at any given moment, the way I used to.”
“Still, that shouldn’t stop you from living your life. For example, it seems to me that you and I have a rain check on a dinner together. You think you’ll have an evening free anytime soon?”
When they had first met, they were both convinced that their hearts were frozen solid, and yet they had also immediately realized that there was an attraction between them, something that Lojacono had even struggled to ignore. But it often happened that his mind, allowed to wander freely, off leash, so to speak, found its way to Laura’s soft, curving figure, a figure that he had been able to observe one evening when she had driven him home, in her car, in the rain. On that occasion, he felt certain, something meaningful would have happened, if Marinella hadn’t been there waiting for him, in the atrium of his apartment building, drenched and shivering, having run away from her mother’s home to come live with him. Since that night, he and Laura had seen each other for work, and they’d talked on the phone occasionally, just to pass the time of day, but they’d never again been alone together since that night.
“Of course, I will. I want to find the time and I will. I just need to work out the timing with Marinella.”
“Don’t you think she can take care of herself? She can eat something, watch a movie, and go to sleep. Or else you could find a babysitter, if the idea sets your mind at rest.”
Lojacono started laughing.
“Stop mocking me. Once you’re a father, your daughter will always be a little girl, right? Don’t fret, I promise I’ll take you out for dinner soon. As for the case at hand, the matter of the father and the boyfriend, we’ve set Calabrese on their trail, and I hear that she already has some news for us: that woman knows how to make her computer work for her. And Pisanelli, too, is bound to come up with something. He knows every stone in the quarter.”
Piras turned serious again right away.
“Excellent teamwork, for a ragtag group of cops that no other precinct in the city seemed to want underfoot. You know that you’re still the subject of considerable controversy, right? There are still people who insist that the Pizzofalcone precinct should be closed. And we’re talking about very influential people.”
“I know. We all know. But the truth is, we’re doing just fine. In some cases, certain defects, combined with other defects, actually become virtues. Two negatives make a positive.”
“And now you’re spouting algebra. Are you and Di Nardo going to be working this case together?”
Lojacono looked over at his partner, who was saying goodbye to Martone at the front door.
“Yes, I expect we will. Palma likes to stick to that rule, whoever gets the first call on an investigation works it through to the end. I’m happy about that, Alex is a good cop.”
“And considering the way she’s talking to our mutual friend, maybe I won’t have to be jealous of her, either.”
Lojacono was baffled.
“What do you mean?”
Laura lowered her voice and gave him a wink.
“Don’t you know? Rosaria likes girls. And your friend Di Nardo seems perfectly comfortable with her.”
Just a few yards away, Rosaria Martone was saying: “Well? How long are you going to make me wait for this second date?”
They’d gone out together a few weeks earlier, after a blizzard of texts and phone calls that Alex had experienced in a furtive and secretive manner, with an overriding sense of guilt. They had gone out for dinner on the other lungomare, or waterfront, the less famous, more intimate one. Rosaria had reserved a corner table, secluded and secure from prying eyes, and in silence Alex had loved her for it, because she had been considerate and sensitive enough to think of that—Rosaria who was unafraid, Rosaria who proudly showed off her inborn self, Rosaria who didn’t lurk in the shadows.
Little by little, during their dinner together, helped along by a couple of bottles of chilled white wine and the gentle sea breeze, Alex had been able to relax. Later, on a tree-lined street that overlooked the calm waters and the silvery wake of the full moon, they had kissed. At first hesitantly, and then with the steadily mounting flame of a deep and immense lust. Hands had sought out flesh, and they had felt like a couple of desperate teenage girls.
Rosaria was more experienced and uninhibited
, but Alex had a blazing fire within her that had been smoldering, starved of air, for far too long. It was she who had been the first to find her new friend’s pleasure, brushing her with feverish knowledge exactly where Rosaria was expecting her. Then Alex, too, had experienced her own climax, over and over again, too many times to count, repaying each orgasm that she received.
I want a bed, Rosaria had said. Maybe not this time, but when you ask me for it. Yes, Alex had replied. I’ll ask you for it. And at that very instant, she wished she could say: Now, now, now. But at home she had told her parents she was out for dinner with her colleagues from the precinct, and she knew perfectly well that neither the General nor her mother would sleep a wink until they heard her key turn in the lock.
The two women had left each other beaming, overheated, and happy. That was the last evening of the fall that still held a bit of the warmth of summer. After that, the cold had come, and Alex had slipped back into the nightmare of her uncertainties, a slave to the thousand little slaveries she had grown up in, crushed by her inability to be all that her father wanted. Still, Rosaria had reached out to her over and over again, guessing at her taboos and her fears, making it clear that she was willing to wait.
She felt something different and very powerful. This wasn’t just another of the many flings she’d indulged in: in some strange way that young woman, so slender and delicate, strong and determined, overwhelmed her. But Rosaria needed to give her the time to emerge from her shell. She desired Alex, with every ounce of her being, but she also feared she might run away, terrified at the thought of being herself.
They had called each other, back and forth, constantly, but still it had taken two dead bodies before they actually saw each other again. It wasn’t exactly a suitable circumstance, but Rosaria hadn’t been able to resist and had spoken to her.
Alex remained silent for a good long time. Her heart was pounding in her ears. She could sense Lojacono and Piras’s eyes on her. It was at least in part to put an end to that uncomfortable silence that she finally answered: “The day after tomorrow. Let’s meet the day after tomorrow, in the evening.”
Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 7