Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  “It’s very simple. I got drunk, I went whoring, I slept, I got drunk again, I slept again, and then I finally woke up. And then I went down into the street and I went to get an espresso in a café; there was a television going and I heard about what had happened. I asked directions to get here and I made my fucking way right over.”

  Gerardi addressed Piras in mellifluous tones.

  “Dottoressa, do we really have to put up with such language? This is—”

  Laura waved her hand in his direction, annoyed, as if shooing away a fly.

  “Just where did you spend all this time?”

  “In a pensione over by the central station. It’s called Da Lucia, I think. The whore took me there. I paid for three days. And I brought the alcohol with me.”

  Palma asked Piras for permission to put a question himself, and she agreed.

  “Signor Varricchio, can you tell us whether the reason you came to town had anything to do with your children? Whether you met them and, if so, when?”

  “I wanted to take Grazia back home and as you can see, she would certainly have been better off if she had come home with me. I went to the apartment where they live . . . where they lived, but she wasn’t there. Only her brother, my son, was there.”

  Lojacono shot a glance at Piras and asked: “Can you remember what time that was?”

  “The train got in at 5:35 in the afternoon, an hour late, and I went straight over to their house. It took me half an hour, I prefer to walk. So it must have been about six o’clock.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  The man fell silent, furrowing his brow in thought. Then he answered: “Twenty minutes, maybe. I didn’t check the time.”

  Alex studied him. A father, a daughter. Not love, but ownership.

  “And what happened during that twenty minutes?” she asked him.

  Varricchio turned to look at her.

  “I hadn’t seen him in a long, long time. He hadn’t even come to visit his father. You know my story, don’t you? Never once had he come to see me in prison, to look me in the face, never once had he come back to the village since I was released. I wouldn’t have recognized him, if I’d seen him on the street. They say that blood has a voice. Then I must be a little bit deaf, because I never heard it.”

  The officer insisted.

  “Let me ask you the question again: what happened in the apartment?”

  “I told him: you do as you please. You’re clearly ashamed of your father, you studied here, you’ve always done what was best for you. As far as you’ve been concerned, there never was such a thing as your family, so do whatever you like. But your sister is coming home, because that’s where she belongs.”

  “And what was his answer?” Lojacono asked.

  A leering grin flitted across Varrichio’s face.

  “That I’d broken the family by getting myself thrown into jail for killing a man. That I just needed to leave them alone, him and his sister. That Grazia was a good young woman, and she had every right to enjoy a good life. I asked him: just what does a good life mean to you? Being a slut in the city, or going to live with that useless idiot of a singer-songwriter of hers?”

  His tone was distant, coldly descriptive. As if he were reading the transcription of a conversation. Piras broke in: “In short, you had an argument and the discussion degenerated from there.”

  “Dottore’, I’m his father. It’s not as if I’m going to hold in certain things. I gave him a smack in the face.”

  That admission caught everyone off balance.

  “So you’re saying you laid your hands on him.”

  “I’m saying I gave him a smack in the face. Can’t a father give his son a smack in the face, or has the world turned completely upside down when it comes to that as well?”

  The police chief coughed.

  “Did he hit you back?”

  Varricchio almost burst out laughing.

  “Seriously. You actually think that sons can turn around and hit their fathers, nowadays. No, he didn’t hit me back. He said that I needed to leave, that if I didn’t, he’d call you, the police, and he’d have me arrested again, and that that’s exactly where I belong, behind bars. He’d never go back there as long as he lived, and he didn’t want his sister to go back either.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I laughed in his face. I asked him: if I refuse to leave, what are you going to do to me? Will you kick me out the door? At that point, he changed his tone. He asked me: Do you understand that your daughter is grown up now, that I’m a grown-up too, and that we’re no longer the children you left behind when they put you behind bars? Then he actually offered me money.”

  “Money? What money?” Lojacono asked immediately.

  Once again that same leering grin appeared on Varricchio’s face.

  “He said that he was going to earn enough to keep his sister like a lady, and even enough to let me live comfortably back home without ever having to work another day in my life. At that point, I looked around at the pigsty they lived in, and I had another laugh and said to him: I see how much money you have, I see how nicely you’re both living.”

  Lojacono was utterly focused now.

  “Did he say anything else to you about the money? How was he planning to—”

  Di Vincenzo, deciding that Piras’s warning to remain silent had expired by now, impatiently addressed the police chief.

  “I’ve had enough, Dottore, what’s the purpose of all these questions? Are we or aren’t we interested in understanding whether this man, an ex-convict with a criminal conviction for murder who’s only been out of prison for less than a year, came expressly up here from his hometown to murder these two poor kids? I don’t understand the purpose—”

  Piras whipped around on him like a tiger, her upper lip bared to reveal her teeth.

  “Di Vincenzo,” she snarled, “I warned you. Get out of this room right now. You have no jurisdiction over this investigation.”

  Di Vincenzo turned beet red and stared at the police chief again.

  “Dottore, we’re in your office, not in the courthouse, and so, quite frankly, I don’t see why I need to take orders from—”

  The police chief leaned back in his chair.

  “You’re quite right, Di Vincenzo. So I find myself obliged to order you to do as Dottoressa Piras just requested. Go home, Di Vincenzo. If there’s any need for you to be informed as to the outcome of this interview, I’ll tell you all about it. Buonanotte.”

  Di Vincenzo stood up with a taut, lurching motion and, shooting a glare charged with hatred at Lojacono, who didn’t bat an eye, left the room. Palma hoped never to cross paths with him again: that wasn’t a man likely to soon forget or forgive being humiliated.

  Piras turned back to Varricchio.

  “Answer the question, please. Did your son tell you how he planned to obtain that money?”

  Varricchio shook his head.

  “He said that he only needed a short time to get it and that it had to do with the work he did. Nonsense. Anyway, I just left.”

  Alex was dubious.

  “Without any more fighting?”

  Varricchio leaned toward her.

  “What was I supposed to do, Signori’? Kill him?”

  The wisecrack was so macabre that everyone was disconcerted.

  That man was devoid of emotions, Palma decided. A man like that could kill his children.

  Lojacono was the only one to maintain his composure.

  “Listen carefully. I’d like to know how you got into the apartment. Also, when you left, did you meet anyone else?”

  The questions astonished just about everyone, including Varricchio, who furrowed his brow, struggling to remember.

  “I rang the doorbell and he came downstairs and opened the door for me. He recog
nized me immediately; just as well because, like I told you, I would never have recognized him. When I left . . . no, I didn’t run into anyone. I slammed the door and left.”

  Palma looked at Piras meaningfully: the man had no alibi to ward off suspicion.

  The prosecutor nodded and the commissario asked: “Then what did you do?”

  Varricchio shrugged.

  “I waited downstairs in the street for a while, to see if Grazia would arrive. Then I figured that maybe, slut that she was, she wouldn’t come home at all, and standing out in the street like that was freezing me solid. And so I walked, at random, until I wound up in a bar. I had several drinks and then I went in search of a whore.”

  Palma persisted.

  “What time did you pick up this prostitute?”

  “I couldn’t say. I’d had a lot to drink. I don’t remember.”

  A moment of silence, then Alex spoke.

  “So you’re saying you just gave up. The first time he said no. You traveled miles and miles, hours and hours, and all your son had to say was no. You could have picked up the phone, you would have saved a lot of time and effort.”

  “No, I hadn’t resigned myself. But they weren’t children anymore, Signori’. I’d lost them. The wasted time wasn’t the hours of that trip, it was the sixteen years I spent in prison thinking how nice it was going to be when I finally saw them again. By now they were just a couple of strangers. And I also found out what I had become, in those sixteen years: a useless man. The real shame, Signori’, isn’t the freedom they take away from you, it’s the man that they kill. And I’m a deader man today than that poor soul I beat to death all those years ago, all because of one beer too many.”

  “Why didn’t you just go back home, then? Why didn’t you just go and catch the first train out?”

  “And what was I supposed to tell the people back home? That not even my own children wanted to see me? At least I could let them think that I’d spent some time with them. That they’d taken me in for a few days. That they’d said: Papà, stay with us for a while, that way we can tell you what we’ve been up to in all these years.”

  The police chief ordered the two uniformed officers to take Varricchio to another room. The night was giving way to a chilly dawn.

  Piras ran a hand over her tired eyes.

  “What do you say? He has no alibi, he has a motive, and he had opportunity. He admits that he was there.”

  The police chief nodded.

  “What’s more, he’s an ex-convict, with a notorious reputation for out-of-control bursts of rage. Even behind bars, he was involved in a couple of brawls.”

  Gerardi, the director of the mobile squad, who had kept his mouth shut up to that point, out of fear of winding up like Di Vincenzo, decided that his time had come.

  “In any case, he wasn’t captured as a result of the investigations undertaken by the Pizzofalcone police precinct. That at least should be made clear.”

  Palma snapped.

  “Let’s not talk nonsense, we were hot on his trail. And as far as that goes, we weren’t likely to find him as long as he was shut up in a pensione over by the central train station.”

  Piras came to his aid.

  “The commissario has a point. Let’s order his arrest and go on home.”

  What Lojacono said next stunned everyone.

  “But what if it wasn’t him? Are we going to toss him behind bars on the basis of mere suppositions? Someone whose two children were just murdered?”

  Palma stared at him aghast, as if his own dog had just bitten his hand while he was petting it.

  “What . . . on earth are you talking about? He has no alibi . . . And did you hear the tone of voice he used? We’re grieving about those kids more than he is! The Dottoressa, too, thinks—”

  The lieutenant stood up.

  “Everyone reacts to tragedies differently. Maybe it was the trauma that’s causing him to act this way. In any case, boss, I’m not saying he’s innocent, I’m just saying that there are matters that have yet to be looked into. Why would he have killed them? And how would he have done it?”

  Piras stared at him, grim-faced. Only now, now that the shuttering of the Pizzofalcone police precinct seemed to have been warded off, he of all people was putting in his two cents.

  “What do you mean, how would he have done it? First he killed his son, then he pretended to leave the apartment after the end of the screaming fight, and then waited for the young woman to return home, and murdered her, too.”

  Lojacono shook his head.

  “I don’t know about that, I’m not certain. It’s just my opinion, nothing more.”

  The police chief stood up.

  “All right then, let’s all get a few hours of sleep and we’ll all be able to think more clearly. In the meantime, let’s hold him overnight, Laura. Let’s see if he has a lawyer, and if he doesn’t we’ll make sure he has a court-assigned one and then we talk about logistics. We can convene a press conference and announce that we have a suspect. Buonanotte, everyone.”

  On their way out, Palma fell into step next to Lojacono.

  “I don’t know how the fuck you make certain decisions,” he told him in a hard voice. “Tomorrow morning we’ll have a general meeting in the office and decide on a common plan of action. Common, understood?”

  The lieutenant nodded.

  And went to his car.

  XLIX

  Aragona strolled through the front door of the police station whistling a little tune, very proud of himself. With an immense spirit of sacrifice, he’d forced himself to come into the police station monstrously early, and in fact it was a good solid half hour until the beginning of the shift. He was really savoring the looks he expected on everyone else’s faces when they walked into the squad room and spotted their hardworking colleague already at his desk. What would they do then, deprived of their usual opportunity to mock and deride him?

  What’s more, he didn’t want to set himself up for a brutal dressing down by Palma. The fear that the precinct under his command might soon be shut down because of an unsuccessful investigation into the double homicide had stoked his superior officer’s hysterical tendencies. Better to avoid him.

  He trotted up the stairs with a cheerful burst of energy, threw open the door, and found the entire team arrayed before him, immersed in a strange silence. He took off his glasses, checked the watch on his wrist, the clock on the wall, and then again the watch on his wrist, establishing beyond a doubt that they were perfectly synchronized. And at that point he threw both arms wide.

  “Why, what the . . . Tell me the truth, you all sleep here, don’t you? Are you a theatrical troupe on tour, prison convicts, or something else of that kind? It can’t be: It’s not even eight in the morning yet!”

  “Arago’, shut up, this morning isn’t the time for it,” Romano retorted, in a foul mood. “Didn’t you read Palma’s message summoning us all here at this time of the morning? It’s a good thing for you that you came in earlier than usual, otherwise he would have skinned you alive.”

  The officer pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

  “No, I had it turned off. Is there some regulation that it always has to be turned on? Why, what’s happened?”

  Palma appeared. In a break with routine, he was neat and tidy, well turned out, tie knotted, jacket buttoned. Even his hair looked kempt, and he’d recently shaved. He was carrying a small stack of paper.

  He checked to make sure that everyone was present, and then let his gaze linger briefly on Lojacono, seated at his desk with the documentation concerning the Vico Secondo Egiziaca case spread out in front of him.

  “Buongiorno, thank you all for coming in early this morning,” he began. “As some of you know, last night Cosimo Varricchio, the father of the two murdered kids, turned himself in of his own free will at police headquart
ers, and was questioned by Dottoressa Piras in the presence of the chief of police and a couple of high officials: the chief of the mobile squad Gerardi and Commissario Di Vincenzo, designated successor to be put in charge of the investigation in case we were judged to have failed. I am pleased to be able to tell you those of you who weren’t present that Di Vincenzo was eventually ordered out of the room by Piras.”

  There was a stirring of triumphant surprise among all those present. Nearly all those present. Alex limited herself to returning Ottavia’s smile, while Lojacono remained impassive.

  Palma continued staring at him. He went on: “Given that the questioning of Varricchio was determined to be dispositive, later this morning there will be a press conference to inform the news media that we have finally made an arrest for the double homicide. I’ve been invited to attend, which means that the work done by the team in this police station has been fully recognized. It’s a major achievement, and it chases away a number of our lingering phantoms. The danger of the precinct being mothballed hasn’t been eliminated entirely, but if nothing else, we have shown that we know how to do our job.”

  A sense of uneasiness seeped through the room. Why was Palma speaking in such understated tones, at complete odds with the substance of his words?

  Pisanelli gave voice to the general sense of bafflement.

  “But listen, boss, if everything’s going so well, why aren’t you happy? Is there something that’s bothering you?”

  Palma replied without changing his expression.

  “Yes, yes there is. Last night, at the end of the interview, and in the presence of Gerardi, one of our most relentless enemies, Lieutenant Lojacono expressed serious doubts about the theory of Varricchio’s guilt. And by so doing, he made it clear that we don’t all agree on just who it was that murdered the two kids.”

  What ensued was a moment of collective awkwardness. Lojacono didn’t lower his gaze before Palma’s hard-eyed glare.

  “But what did the guy say?” asked Romano. “Because I’m starting to get the idea that he hasn’t confessed.”