by Jan Weiss
“Her thesis adviser, Professor Lattanza,” Natalia said. “A young novice monk related to Gambini. Maybe a cook-and-baker at a café she frequented. Oh, I need you to sign off on a search request for the premises of Gina Falcone and a criminalist’s search of Teresa Steiner’s rented room.”
Donati puffed out a circle of smoke. Natalia slid the search authorizations across to him to sign. The colonel scrawled his signature with a flourish.
“Gambini acts like a civilized man,” he said. “He’s not. Please remember, the Camorra is even bigger and older than our organization. The Carabinieri were born out of distrust—to make sure no one ministry would have all the military and police power. Our forefathers spread it out. Which is why we answer to the minister of the interior and the minister of the exterior and the minister of defense and whoever the hell else they can think of saddling us with. But the Camorra, it is not that—or even like a crime syndicate. It is like a second government. It has its internal rivalries too, but they are far more … final. Be careful.”
“Yes, sir,” Natalia said.
“Filthy habit,” Donati crushed the half-smoked cigarette into a glass tray. “Keep me posted.”
Natalia and Pino went back to their office. She sat down and opened the Vesuvio’s Bakery file.
“Gambini didn’t light the match, Natalia.”
“Gambini never touches the match, the gun, the knife.”
“Yes, that’s why he’s Boss Gambini. And why you’ll never prove he was involved. Besides, it’s not your job to fix everything that’s gone wrong.”
“What is my job, then?”
“The Vesuvio’s arson death is in the past, Natalia. Turrido is alive. Teresa Steiner is newly dead.”
“You’re right.” Natalia set aside the folder. Exhaustion was part of every investigation—both physical and emotional—and it was getting to her. “What is the point?” Natalia’s voice surprised her. She shoved her notebook into her bag, hugged herself trying to get warm. “The Camorra are everywhere among us.”
“That’s the wrong question,” Pino said.
“What is the right question, then?”
Pino took off his sports jacket, and hung it next to Natalia’s. He was wearing his shoulder holster today. “I don’t know what the right question is. That is complicated. There is not one question, obviously. But I do know that we have to find out who killed her.”
“Right. We start with Dr. Francesca.” And off they went to the morgue in the basement.
Natalia blinked at the unfriendly fluorescent light, and there was a smell she and Pino both hated—formaldehyde. It was lunch hour. Dr. Francesca Agari was alone in the lab, hunched over a microscope. She got up when they came in, long legs unfolding. She was wearing black stockings and a short black skirt, heels, and a white lab coat over a turquoise sweater. Natalia pulled a frumpy sweater out of her bag. It was missing buttons and there was a moth hole at the neck. Pino shivered, having forgotten his.
“Put this on, Sergeant.” Dr. Francesca took an extra lab coat off a hook on the wall and handed it to him.
“Grazie.”
“My pleasure.” A warm smile for him.
Pino, standing close to Dr. Francesca, picked up a scent of her perfume. As usual, Dr. Francesca’s hair was sleek, with a range of tones from brown to gold. Pearl earrings adorned her ears. Natalia recognized the large teardrop design: Mariel had bought a pair in Milan. They were luscious and expensive. Fashion was a hedge against everything, a wonderful distraction. It made sense. Francesca’s job was unpleasant, certainly, but on the positive side she ran her own show and dressed to kill.
Pino and Natalia had an open invitation to attend the autopsies themselves. But, except for the rare occasion when it was crucial to an investigation, they rarely witnessed the procedure. Better to have Francesca fill them in secondhand.
“As suspected,” Francesca began, bringing them up to date on the autopsy of Teresa Steiner, “the knife went deep into the heart, severed major arteries. This caused Teresa Steiner’s death. The bruises on her neck are quite severe, but strangulation did not kill her. Similarly, the frontal stab was almost an afterthought. The first and primary wound was in her back. From a right-handed assailant.” Francesca demonstrated on Pino, holding him as if they were dancing. “Delivered from close in, as if in an embrace.”
“Interesting,” Pino said. He stepped back from Francesca, crossing his arms for warmth.
“There were fibers, but so small that we had to send them to the SCIS labs in Rome. I don’t expect much to come of them, frankly.”
Francesca’s beeper went off. “Sorry.” She snapped open her phone and conversed. “Pronto. Sì. Sono Francesca.” She was still listening as she said, “I have to go. Three men were just shot to death in their car, a block from the harbor. Broad daylight. They think it’s in retaliation for attacks last week. Two bystanders were hit as well by the sprayed gunfire.”
Her white coat was off and she was gone before they’d even shed their sweater and lab coat.
They spent the rest of the day typing forms and reports. Catching Giulio before he left for the day, Natalia asked him to find her an urban archeologist. It was early evening by the time Natalia and Pino left the office. A few colleagues, smoking outside, nodded at them as they walked by.
Natalia stretched her arms over her head. “Fancy a spin on my chariot? We could come back for your bike.”
“Perfetto,” Pino said, walking with her toward the Vespa.
“Pino!” a female voice called from across the street. A girl was waving her arms at them. Tight yellow pants, midriff showing. Her pink top matched her hair.
“Isn’t that your friend?” Natalia said.
“I’ll be right back.” Pino jogged into the street, intercepting Tina as she headed into traffic, and led her back to the far corner.
Natalia wanted to look away but it was compelling. Her partner seemed to have gotten involved with a kid. The girl acted annoyed. They argued. Pino touched her shoulder. She pulled away from him and ran. He stood for a moment, helpless. “Sorry,” he said as he sprinted back to Natalia. “A mess—sort of.”
“It’s your personal business.”
“She’s infatuated, that’s all. I can handle it.”
“Can she?” Natalia unlocked the motorbike and rolled it away from the building.
“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “She’s just a kid.”
“Sergeant Loriano, come on. Love is love.”
“Captain Monte, you’ve made it clear that you’re not available—to me, anyway.”
It was only when the Vespa started climbing the hill that Pino put his arms around her waist. Near the top, Natalia pulled into a lookout sometimes used as a lovers’ lane. She cut the engine. They got off the bike and walked to the railing. It was quiet. The harbor glittered, and a few ships. Venus pulsed lavender on the horizon.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Natalia took a deep breath.
“I had my first kiss here,” Pino said.
Natalia laughed. “You too?”
“Natalia.”
“What?” Natalia moved away from her partner.
“Cold?” he asked, slipping off his jacket and offering it to her.
“No, I’m fine. Your coffee,” she said, pouring him a cup from her thermos.
“To us,” he said, raising the cup. “Naples’s best.”
“If you hadn’t become Carabinieri, what would you have done?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Poet, maybe. Wandering monk. Probably a bum.”
“Such a pretty view,” Natalia said. “A nice gift for a birthday.”
“It’s your birthday?”
“Afraid so.”
“Tanti auguri. Many good wishes,” he said as he kissed her.
“Natalia?” Pino touched Natalia’s cheek.
“Don’t,” she said. He took his hand away. “For one thing, I am your boss. And even if we wanted to risk that, I think you are conf
used. The girl is living with you, no?”
Pino looked down. “No.”
“Regardless, she is in love with you. Be careful.”
“It’s not the same as how I feel about you.”
“I’m due at my friend’s for our traditional girls’ birthday evening.”
She dropped Pino at his bike and drove to Mariel’s building. Lola’s grandmother lived on the floor below. On the pretext of visiting her nonna, Lola had attended all the birthday celebrations upstairs in Mariel’s flat, including her own, all catered by Lola’s grandmother. It was a thin deception, more for show than to really fool anyone. As everyone knew, the three of them had been friends since childhood.
Mariel lived in the Palazzo, the grand but run-down apartment building where she’d grown up. Her parents ran an art gallery. And Natalia’s mother tended house and her father was a street cleaner for the Municipality of Napoli. Up at five A.M., he left the house by six. A year into adolescence, on a class trip to Galleria Umberto II, Natalia had been embarrassed by the man pushing the mop across the vast marble floors who had called her name. She had pretended not to hear.
Because the girls were such good friends, a dinner was arranged. Natalia could still see her father nervously squeezing oil into his thick rough hair. Her mother, in her blue serge church dress, was frumpy next to Mariel’s mother, in high heels and a red cocktail dress cut low in the back. Food was served on gold-rimmed china, and there was a servant. Roses decorated the table. Natalia’s mother chattered nervously. Mariel’s parents tried to put her at ease. Her father’s one comment about the evening, a comment he repeated over the years, was that there was not enough meat on Mariel’s mother’s bones.
Five years after their meal, Mariel’s parents were killed on the Autobahn, driving to an art fair in Frankfurt. Mariel was seventeen. She insisted on staying in the apartment; her mother’s sister came for a year. When Mariel could finally talk about her parents again, she said reading had saved her life. That and Natalia’s parents, who treated her like a second daughter.
Now, immediately upon arriving at Mariel’s, Natalia blurted out what had just happened with Pino on the hill above the harbor.
“It’s an illusion, dear,” Mariel said, pouring her friend a glass of wine. “You’re not in love with Pino Loriano. Trust me.”
“I hate that expression—‘trust me.’ It generally means the opposite.”
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m being terrible.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re under a lot of pressure. A girl is dead. Her killer is walking around. You have a difficult job. Impossible. Give yourself a break. Besides, maybe I’m wrong. After all, I haven’t exactly been too successful in the men department.”
Natalia shook her head. “That’s because you don’t want to be.”
“Yes. Maybe.”
“Here’s to you. To us.” Lola smiled as she and Mariel clinked Natalia’s glass.
“To us.”
Mariel handed over presents: a pair of black Capri pants, then an orange chiffon top with a plunging neckline.
“I can’t wear this!” Natalia protested, holding up the top and laughing.
“You are thirty-five, not a hundred and five. Wear it! That’s an order, Captain Monte! Oh, and this is from Lola.”
“Lola?”
“Yes. Me.”
It was a pair of gold earrings, nestled inside a plain black box. They were lavish—a cascade of delicate gold bits, studded with some kind of gemstones.
“Lola, what have you done?” Natalia said, holding one of the earrings up to her face. “What do you think?”
“Gorgeous,” Mariel said. “Let me see those.”
“Girlfriend,” said Lola, “those are sapphires and pearls!”
Natalia gasped. “You’re kidding!”
“So,” Natalia said to Mariel, taking a sip of wine. “What’s the latest with Stefano?”
“Stefano is married,” Mariel said, with a dismissive wave.
“If he weren’t.”
“But he is.”
“Don’t be difficult.”
“Okay. Yes. Maybe. In the next life, I’ll date him—okay? And I’ll spring for a new set of teeth.”
“The next life. You sound like your nonna.”
“I’ve been thinking about her today. Remember how she always said, ‘Sometimes a thing seems like a piece of cake, but then you never know how long the cake has been sitting around’?”
“Yeah.” Lola laughed.
“I don’t think she was talking about cake, but remember her chocolate cake? We stopped in after school at least twice a week.”
“Stop. You’re making me hungry again.”
“You’re in luck. I bought a torta al cioccolato for you—for old times’ sake.”
“You sweetheart.”
“Yes, well … I’ve been thinking about Nonna a lot lately, wondering if she was lonely in her last years.”
“My Nonna loved you,” said Natalia.
Lola’s grandmother knocked on the ceiling to signal dinner, and the friends retired to the floor below to eat and enjoy one another further. The three rarely managed to get together any more. Nonna had outdone herself preparing Natalia’s favorite: branzino, freshly grilled—garlic and parsley added, along with Parmigiano, pine nuts, and raisins.
Around midnight, Mariel stood up. “I’m tipsy. It’s late. You’ll take the rest of the cake with you. I’ll call a cab.”
“Not the whole cake. A piece,” Natalia said. “And no cab. The walk will do me good.”
“Then I’ll walk with you,” Lola said. She went into the kitchen and returned with a large bag.
“Cake and presents. Here.”
“You’re like my Nonna,” Natalia said to Lola’s nonna, “always trying to fatten me up.” She took the bag. “Ti ringrazio tanto. But, Lola, you stay here. Otherwise we’ll be walking each other back and forth until the sun comes up.”
Mariel giggled. “What kind of Carabiniere is afraid to walk by herself at night?”
Natalia kissed her friends on each cheek and picked up another present, a thin blue cashmere scarf. She draped it around her neck. It set off her new earrings splendidly.
“Bella,” Lola said, admiring.
“Be careful,” her grandmother said. “You have your big gun with you?”
“Yes, Mama, I have my gun.” She kissed Nonna goodbye and thanked her for the delicious meal.
Natalia’s heels echoed on the stairs and the street. Most people were home, preparing for bed or already deep in the land of dreams. She passed the Musici per il Momento music shop. The store had been in this same spot her entire life. During business hours, an aria from an opera scratched from a speaker by the door. Farther along, a bouquet of mimosa stood in a pitcher in front of a shrine. A fat candle burned beside it.
Natalia crossed at the intersection.
She could smell a cigarette burning—most likely a donna on her balcony, invisible in the dark, enjoying a smoke. Suddenly there were footsteps behind her. She looked around. There were only shadows. Panicky, she slipped her hand into the special compartment housing her 9-mm Beretta and took hold of the large grip. She had only fired her weapon once in the line of duty. A man moved out of the darkness. A crazy man, his hair wild.
“Hey, Beautiful!” he called.
When he got close, she recognized the first boy she’d ever kissed. His grin was as sweet as when she’d been fifteen and he eighteen, but a couple of his teeth had gone missing.
Gypsy blood, her mother had said when she discovered Natalia and Tomas together in Piazza Gaetano. Her mother’s disapproval only made her want him more. Heavy petting followed. She let him touch her breasts. Shocking, the first inkling of real sexual desire.
“Tomas,” she said, smiling.
Natalia stepped closer. He still had the deep-set eyes that, when they caught the light, appeared to be amber. Tonight they were merely dark, the circles under them m
ore pronounced. Natalia must have spent a hundred hours looking into his eyes back then.
“So.” He took her hands in his. His grip was firm. “I wondered what happened to you. I heard bits and pieces over the years. And my mother always asks about you. She hoped we’d get married.” He laughed. “So did I.”
“It is amazing to run into you. After all this time.”
He let go of her hands. “You’re in law enforcement. And you never married. Did I break your heart?”
“What about you, Tomas?” Natalia asked. “How did you make out?”
“Me? Pretty good. I pour concrete. Supervise it. There’s a living in it. I got three kids. A wife. I married Concetta Milo.”
Natalia recalled Concetta, a tough girl from Tomas’s block. The third of ten children. Her mother cleaned houses. Her father turnstiled in and out of jail. At thirteen, Concetta had frosted her hair, put on short skirts, and came on to any man who looked her way. She could have done worse than Tomas.
“But you look good, Natalia, real good! You kept your figure. My mother always liked you. Said you were too good for me. So … what are you doin’ out so late?”
“Birthday dinner with my girlfriends. You remember Mariel. And Lola?”
“Your old gang. Yeah, yeah. Mariel the reader. And that’s Lola who married Frankie, right?”
“Yes. We still see each other whenever we can.”
“Must be complicated for you with Lola being … never mind,” he stammered. “We should get together too, some time. A coffee. Dinner.”
The moment deflated. She sensed a lame come-on coming on. Hopefully it would be another decade and a half before she ran into him again. We made our choices, she wanted to say, now we have to live with them.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “That would be nice. Great to see you, Tomas.”
“You too,” he said. “Look.…” He took her hands again.
“It’s—ah—late. I better get going.”
Natalia tried to take back her hands from his. He didn’t let go.
“Tomas!” she said, pulling harder. “Cut it out.”
The donna had gone from her balcony. They were alone in the dark street. A shadow moved toward them from the wall and grabbed her purse but didn’t snatch it off her shoulder, just held it.