But instead, that’s not how it went. Instead, what happened is you didn’t go back to living at all. The world outside was just another prison.
Either space, or money. They’d take either the one thing away from you, or the other. You were obsessed either by the lack of the one thing, or the lack of the other. Space in prison, money outside. Otherwise, there was really no difference.
That’s what he had told him: I’ll give you money. You just leave her alone, let her do as she pleases, and leave me alone too. And I’ll give you money.
The words surfaced again in his mind when he felt the first shudder. I’ll give you lots of money.
What the fuck do I care about money? That’s what he’d said to him, in his language, in that language that he too was speaking again after all this time. What the fuck do I care about money? I don’t even want to know where you get your money, you who live in this miserable apartment, who don’t own a thing, and with all your books and all your scraps of paper, you still live like a bum.
He had confronted him face-to-face, as if he were a man. As if he didn’t still stink of his mother’s milk, as if he didn’t remember who he was, just who it was that he was dealing with, where he came from and why. There he’d been, an inch from his nose, eyes hard behind the lenses of his glasses, the eyes that, he hadn’t been able to avoid noticing, were the same as the eyes he’d seen reflected back at him in that shard of broken mirror, the same eyes that he had narrowed against the glare of the sunlight when he’d finally found himself a free man, no longer behind bars.
He’d seized him by the throat.
Bellowing, he’d seized him by the throat.
His own flesh, his own blood. The reason why—for every day and every minute, for more than sixteen years—he’d dreamed of finally getting out.
The only factor that had allowed him to get through the endless nights. The reason he’d been able to tolerate the silence.
He hadn’t dropped his eyes. And he’d kept his hands at his throat like a lamb, like a child.
If he hadn’t squeezed, hadn’t throttled, it wasn’t because his blood wasn’t boiling in his veins, nor was it because he’d remembered who this actually was. It was because in his eyes there wasn’t fear. There was pity.
I’ll give you money, he had said.
He breathed in the cold air one more time, and he suddenly felt like crying.
XLIII
Romano and Aragona’s return from the forensic squad’s laboratory was awaited with great trepidation. The third day, now, was about to come to an end and there were no new developments on the horizon.
“Damn it, that place is perfect for a murder,” said Alex. “There’s no doorman, and there’s not a single security camera in the neighborhood, I don’t know, in a bank or any other kind of office. There aren’t even any restaurants or bars where a customer or a waiter might have noticed some peculiar doings in the building.”
Ottavia, as usual, was staring at her computer screen: “There’s nothing on the web, for that matter. Just idle chatter. A bunch of young people say that they met Biagio Varricchio at the university or else that they took exams with him, but there’s no one who saw him in the last hours of his life on earth. And then down in their hometown, Roccapriora, everyone talks about Grazia, about how beautiful she was, but no useful evidence is emerging.”
Palma, sitting on the edge of a desk, tried to be optimistic: “Let’s focus on what we do have. The neighbor, as Di Nardo and Lojacono just told us, neither saw nor heard anyone arrive, but he confirms that there was a screaming fight in dialect, and we can take it as virtually certain that the one shouting at Biagio was his father. If we really get all the way to the final timeout with nothing more in hand, then we’ll be forced to assume that it was him.”
“We don’t have any confirmation of that,” Lojacono replied, “and there is no shortage of Calabrians in the city. Better to admit defeat than to point the finger at someone without proof. I’d like to speak to the father, primarily to get a better understanding of his relationship with his daughter. What’s more, if it turns out that it was him, why he left slamming the door after him, after having it out with the young man. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Palma wasn’t willing to abandon his point of view so easily.
“Then where is he now? Why haven’t we heard from him? He must certainly have heard that his two children were murdered. And after all, you can slam a door and then open it again. Maybe he came back a minute later, pretending he was sorry, and his son sat down at his computer and then he murdered him; then he waited for the young woman to come home and then he killed her, too.”
“All right, but still, it’s just a hypothesis, and a pretty far-fetched one, too. Among other things, from his profile, it would seem that Cosimo Varricchio is the kind of guy who acts on impulse, not the kind who thinks things over and then comes back to crack your skull open. Unless I can see a strong motive, I have my doubts. Why should he have murdered them? Because they had failed to show him proper respect? Because they had made him feel useless, secondary? For money? For old resentments we know nothing about? I’m not saying that it’s impossible, but I do want to talk to him and look him in the eye.”
Romano and Aragona walked into the room, chilled to the bone.
“Ah, at last, a little warmth. Believe me, it’s like a Norwegian tundra out there. Is there any coffee?”
Palma stared at Aragona with a look of resignation.
“You’re thinking of coffee at a time like this? Well, what do you have for us?”
Romano set down a bundle of papers on the desk.
“They did a good job. The director, a woman who knows what she’s doing, told us that she knows that this is a high-priority case. They put a rush on everything they could, but it still takes time for certain processes . . . ”
“Sure, sure, okay. Just tell us what we need to know, if there is anything we need to know.”
Romano grimaced.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing definitive, boss. Many of the things they found are simply confirmations. There’s no semen on the young woman’s clothing, which means that, while we already knew from the medical examiner that she wasn’t raped, now we also know that no one carried out any sexual activity, let’s say, flying solo, on her corpse or on her while she was still alive. The material found under her fingernails wasn’t organic in nature, so that means she was unable to dig her nails into the flesh of her attacker. Martone told me that they were able to examine this material because the necessary authorization from the prosecuting magistrate arrived immediately, something that usually doesn’t happen.”
“What about the blood?” asked Lojacono. “The blood near the young man, or the blood in her room?”
Aragona replied, between sips of coffee.
“It all belonged to the victims; the murderer, whoever it was, left the apartment untouched. And of course, no trace of the murder weapon, though Martone’s assistant, an obnoxious guy whose name, if I remember rightly, is Bistrocchi, thinks it must have been a blunt metal object, considering the damage done by the number of blows inflicted.”
There was a disappointed spell of silence. If any traces of organic substances had been found under Grazia’s fingernails, or even better, drops of blood from anyone other than the victims, they would at least have had something.
“Did they find the money?” asked Lojacono.
Romano searched through the documents.
“I have a complete inventory, the description of the scene of the crime, everything. The only money was seventy-four euros in his wallet and eighteen euros and seventy cents in her handbag. In any case, that confirms, in case there was any need, that it wasn’t a burglar or a robber, otherwise they would have taken that money too.”
“What did they do with Cava’s thirty-seven hundred euros?” Alex asked, un
der her breath. “They didn’t put it in the bank, they didn’t have it at home. Did they pay off a debt? Did they spend it on something?”
Aragona made a face.
“Mamma mia, this is such disgusting coffee; that Guida is a dog. Anyway, I made a point of asking Martone whether there was anything of value, anything new, in the apartment. She said there wasn’t. If they’d used that money to buy anything, they didn’t have it at home.”
Palma heaved a sigh.
“Fingerprints?
Romano tapped his right forefinger on a sheet of paper.
“The fingerprints actually do provide a small bit of help. If nothing else, they confirm our initial conjectures. The victims’ father was there. There are substantial signs of his fingerprints, obtained by means of the usual fingerprint dusting technique. They were compared with the prints that they have on file. Martone says that there’s no doubt about it.”
Palma didn’t bother to conceal a surge of satisfaction.
“Aha. Good. Where were the prints found?”
“They were pretty much everywhere in the larger room; none in the young woman’s room.”
“Did they check the phones?” asked Lojacono.
“Yes,” said Aragona. “The young man had his cell phone on his desk, though that was pointless, because there’s no cell phone service in the apartment, from what we were told. The most recent call, incoming, dates back two days and it comes from a number belonging to Renato Forgione, his best friend. The last outgoing call is to his sister, evidently he’d been out of the apartment when he called her, the night before they were both murdered. They talked for six minutes and a few seconds, starting at 6:32 P.M.”
Romano checked on a sheet of paper and looked over at his partner in surprise.
“Later maybe you can tell me how you remember it all by heart, this stuff. The young woman’s phone was found under a console table in the front hall; Martone said that you spotted it, Alex. By the way, she says to tell you hi.”
Di Nardo concealed the surge of emotion behind a forced cough.
“Were there any calls?”
Romano nodded: “That’s the most interesting angle. First of all, the phone’s screen is broken because it was hurled forcefully onto the floor; it’s not like it just fell and wound up under the piece of furniture. It broke in spite of the rubber case, a horrible thing with bunny ears, they showed it to us. There were no fingeprints on it, except for Grazia’s. Which means that either she threw it herself, and that would strike me as odd, or else the attacker was wearing gloves.”
Aragona lazily completed the information, grinding his right pinky into the corresponding ear and staring with curiosity at the result on the fingertip.
“In any case, after the phone call from her brother, she received six other phone calls, all from the same number, between the hours of 6:34 P.M. and 9:13 P.M. She answered the first and the fourth call; the first time she talked for three minutes and fifteen seconds; the second time for two minutes and twenty-six seconds.”
Romano turned to look at him again.
“You know, you really ought to compete on some TV quiz show. I swear to you all, he only looked at it once, with me, and I can barely remember these things even when I read them.”
Pisanelli snickered: “You can fit a lot into an empty jug. Who was the other phone registered to, if I may ask?”
Aragona blew a short mulberry in the general direction of the deputy captain.
“Carlo Cava. The guy from the modeling agency.”
Everyone exchanged surprised glances. Aragona commented.
“What are you all making those faces for? It doesn’t strike me as that odd that the guy should have been obsessed with the young woman. And after all, he’s one of the potential supects, so I can’t see why anyone’s surprised.”
“Agreed,” said Lojacono, who didn’t seem to move a muscle even while he was speaking. “What surprises me, really, is the time of night. If the phone doesn’t get any bars in that building—and we saw that that was true ourselves the day that the bodies were found, because when Alex tried to call over to here, she was forced to go out into the street—then that means that the young woman was outside at 9:13 P.M.”
Romano expanded on the information.
“They were able to determine in the forensic laboratory that the young woman’s cell phone was playing music at top volume from a playlist when it was shattered. That must mean that she came in with her earbuds in, and if there was noise from a struggle or anything of the sort, she simply didn’t hear it. Her house keys were in her purse, where they belonged. So she either opened the door herself and then put the keys away, or else she rang the doorbell.”
“But the neighbors didn’t hear any doorbell,” said Alex.
Palma nodded: “Right, she must have used her keys.”
A meditative silence descended over the room, until Lojacono said: “Did they find anything on his or her person? Anything odd, documents, letters, notes . . . ”
Romano ran down a list.
“No, I don’t think so. In Biagio’s wallet there was his ID, the money I mentioned, his card for the university dining hall, his building badge, a receipt from a certified letter, a bus ticket, his driver’s license, and a Padre Pio prayer card. In her purse, on the other hand . . . hold on . . . ah, here we are: one light-colored lipstick and another dark-colored one, eyeshadow, her house keys like we said, a paperback romance novel, one of those tiny fold-up umbrellas, her wallet with the bills and loose change, her ID card, a photograph of a woman who might be her mother, a note on which is written: ‘This is for you. I love you,’ which might have come with a gift, but which also doesn’t look recent, at least at a first glance. Nothing much. Here are all the photocopies, if you want them.”
“What about in the rooms, in the drawers?”
“On his desk, and on the sofa bed where he slept, there was just lots of stuff about biochemistry. For the computer, we’re going to have to wait, they’re still analyzing it, but they told me that he had no internet connection, which meant there was no email and no history of internet sites visited; he strictly used it for doing calculations and that sort of thing. In her bedroom, there were teddy bears and plush dolls and clothing, as well as the photographs on the wall, which I think you saw. There was also a copy of the release form she signed at Cava’s agency for the photographs used in the advertising campaign. No mention of compensation, of course.”
Once again, silence. Maybe somewhere in the sea of fragmentary information was the nugget that they needed. Maybe, well hidden, there was the piece of evidence that would allow them to figure out who had killed the two kids and why.
Or maybe not. Maybe nothing could explain such a deranged and desperate act.
Palma felt old and weary.
“All right. Let’s give it some thought. If nobody comes up with anything, and if nothing new happens, then tomorrow we’ll hold one last meeting and then we’ll hand the case off to the geniuses at police headquarters. That way, they can teach us the way police work is done. Have a good evening, everyone.”
XLIV
Have a good evening, people.
Have fun, laugh, get excited, feel comforted. Do what you can to get the chill out of your bones from this long workday.
Rid yourself of the dirt and grime, try to be reborn. You can do it, if you make an effort and a little sacrifice; you can pry loose the icy fingers of ugly thoughts from your mind.
You can do it. Or, at least, you can try.
Lojacono was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving, when Marinella walked in to get her makeup.
“Papà,” she asked, “since when do you shave twice in a single day?”
The lieutenant replied vaguely.
“You know, he’s an old friend, I haven’t seen him in ages. I don’t want him to see me looking
shabby, he might think I’m aging badly.”
The young woman burst out laughing.
“Do you know that all the girls in my class are in love with you? They saw you at the start of the school year, when you brought me to school, and they went nuts, they say you’re a heartbreaker.”
“Oh come on, I’m falling apart. But wait, what about you: are you getting made up to go eat a bite at Letizia’s? Don’t you think you’re overdoing it a little?”
“Papà, a real woman never goes out of the house without makeup on, you know what they say: a hint of makeup, a hint of high heels.”
He gave her a sidelong glance in the mirror.
“A real woman? But you’re just a little girl, and I don’t want you to forget it. And listen, you stay in that restaurant until Letizia’s done, then you go straight to bed. That way tomorrow you won’t be exhausted for your math test.”
The two faces in the mirror were incredibly similar, with narrow eyes upturned at the corners and high cheekbones, one face covered with shaving cream, the other half made-up.
“Don’t worry, Papà. You don’t have a thing to worry about. I love math, and you know that.”
Have a good evening.
Or at least try to have one.
Make a serious effort, because for all you know it’s an opportunity. Don’t just think about how to kill a few hours.
It might seem like any old evening, and instead turn out to be “the” evening you’ve been waiting for.
An evening that, if you let it slip by, you’ll never get a shot at again.
Alex pressed her ear against her bedroom door. She couldn’t hear a thing.
She’d told them once again that, after the meeting, she was going out for a pizza with her colleagues. In a tone of annoyance, as if it were an almost intolerable burden, she’d explained to her parents that Commissario Palma cared deeply about team spirit, and that in order to indulge this fixation of his, she’d be obliged to go out to dinner, though she would have been just as happy to skip it: It’s just that, you know, Papà, I’d be the only one to miss it.
Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 25