The medical examiner was a serious, conscientious professional whom Ricciardi had valued on other occasions. A fifty-year-old man, he had gained substantial experience in the war, in the Veneto: he had been on the Carso, between 1916 and 1918, and had also been decorated. His name was Bruno Modo, and he was one of the rare few whom Ricciardi addressed informally.
“So, Bruno? What can you tell me?”
“Let’s see: puncture wound, slashed carotid artery. Bled to death, on this point there’s no doubt. On the other hand . . . ” He indicated the surroundings with a sweeping gesture. “A small ecchymosis under his left eye, on the cheekbone. One blow, maybe a punch. At first glance, nothing else: I see no other traumas, no skin under the nails . . . no marks on the knuckles . . . no tears on the scalp . . . ” As he spoke he moved around the corpse stretched out on the floor and observed it through glasses perched on the tip of his nose. Occasionally he lifted one of the hands or brushed aside the hair. Delicately, though, with respect. That’s why Ricciardi liked the man.
“When, do you think?”
“Oh, not long ago. A couple of hours, I’d say, maybe even less. But I’ll be able to tell you more later, at the hospital.”
Later, at the hospital. When all that’s left of you, Ricciardi thought, looking at the body, will be bits and pieces sewn together somehow and the lines of an opera aria sung in the dark. No more complaining about your costume. The next one, your last, will be sewn on you without regard.
“Listen, Bruno. Could the weapon be a shard from the mirror?”
“I wouldn’t say weapon. Seems to me it would be impossible to wield such a sharp piece of glass without cutting yourself, and I don’t see traces of blood on the possible handhold. I’m leaning more toward the opinion that he fell on it, bodily. See how thick and pointed it is. It just might fit the facts: he takes a punch and ends up in the mirror. He’s a big guy, look how heavy he is, tall and corpulent.”
Maione interjected respectfully. “Doc, can you tell how he crashed into it? I mean, can you by chance see how he ended up in the mirror?”
“No, Brigadier. I don’t see any other bruising. But it doesn’t mean anything; he could have shoved it with his elbow, his shoulder. He was wearing a heavy wool pullover, it could have cushioned the blow. Then he fell on the chair and bled out. It doesn’t take much with this type of wound: a matter of seconds. Look around, the room is inundated.”
Ricciardi glanced briefly at the image of the tenor, his knees slightly bent and his hand raised. Is that the hand you broke the mirror with? And what are you crying for? Aren’t you a clown?
“All right, if you’re done here, let’s move to the stage.”
Ricciardi and Maione’s arrival was greeted by a chorus; it was the right place for it after all, though the chorus was one of vehement protests. Some wanted to know if they were under arrest, others complained that their family was waiting, some were hungry, some cold. Everyone wanted to know why they were still being held. Ricciardi slowly raised a hand and there was silence.
“Settle down. I’ll send you home soon. First I have to see you, I have to figure out who you are. All those who perform onstage, move to the right. Staff, technicians and orchestra members, to the left.”
There was momentary confusion: it was an unscripted choreography. Some jostling, a little irritated grumbling, and two large groups were formed. Three, actually: left standing in the middle was a man dressed as a priest.
“And you? Make up your mind. Aren’t you wearing a stage costume?”
“Well, you see, Commissario, it’s not a costume . . . I’m don Pietro Fava, Assistant Pastor of San Ferdinando.”
“And what are you doing here? The victim was already dead when they found him. Who called you?”
“No, no, Commissario, I . . . well, to tell the truth, I sneaked in.”
There was general laughter, somewhat nervous. The stage manager stepped forwards, running his hand through his thick red hair.
“Commissario, I can explain, if you’ll allow me.”
“Please do.”
“Don Pierino here is an old friend, you might say. He’s an opera lover, a great fan. He thinks no one knows about it, but for two years now, with my permission, Patrisso, the gardens’ caretaker, has been letting him in. He doesn’t bother anybody, he stands on the landing of the narrow staircase and watches. We’re used to seeing him, without him it feels like something is missing. The singers, the orchestra players consider him a lucky charm.”
A murmur of assent and numerous smiles confirmed the stage manager’s words. Don Pierino, alone in the centre of his beloved stage, blushed with pride, surprise and embarrassment.
“So,” Ricciardi said, “you know opera, right? And also the theater. But you’re neither a singer, nor an orchestra player, and you don’t even work here. You know everybody, but you don’t know anybody. Good.”
Then he addressed the others.
“Right, the policemen have taken your information: you must not leave the city for the next few days. If someone needs to leave town, he must come to the Questura and tell us. If someone moves from one house to another, he must come to the Questura and tell us. If someone has anything to report, if he’s remembered something, he should come to the Questura and tell us. For now, you can go. Not you, Father. I have to speak to you a moment.”
With a choral sigh of relief, people crowded towards the exit. Only don Pierino was left standing where he was, now looking distressed and anxious. Not that he had anything to fear, but, he thought, the times were such that having anything to do with the police was never a good thing. Then too, he was genuinely saddened by Vezzi’s death. He thought yearningly of the tenor’s voice, that exquisite proof of God’s love for man, that gift to opera lovers that he would never hear again except through the scratchy gramophone he kept in his little room.
IX
The Commissario went over to him, followed, as usual, by the Brigadier, the older man two steps behind. Don Pierino had noticed that the burly officer virtually never took his eyes off his superior for a moment, and was constantly looking around, as though to assure himself that no danger was lurking. He must be very fond of him, he thought.
Ricciardi instead gave him a strange feeling. Seen from a distance, he was a man without any marked features: medium height, medium build, medium-priced clothing. But don Pierino had seen his eyes, when the Commissario arrived at the crime scene. And those eyes . . . those eyes had told him a great deal. Don Pierino, used to searching out and finding the truth behind an expression, had had the impression that he was looking at a multifaceted panorama. There was sorrow: an old sorrow, yet still alive. A sorrow that was an old friend. Loneliness. Intelligence, and a touch of irony, of sarcasm, when the theater director was sputtering beside him. It had only been a moment, but the priest had sensed a complex and troubled personality.
Now he stood in front of him: no hat, a few strands of black hair falling over his sharp nose. Hands in the pockets of his overcoat, which he had not taken off despite the heat. And then the eyes: green, almost transparent. He never blinked, and he wore a slight frown. Loneliness and sorrow, but also irony.
“So, Father: out of your territory tonight?”
“Why, does a priest have territorial limits? I’ve never seen a territory which couldn’t use a priest. No, tonight I was off duty, if that’s what you want to know. But I was still in uniform, as you can see.”
Ricciardi twisted his face into what was meant to be a smile and lowered his eyes for a second. When he looked up again his forehead was smooth, but his expression hadn’t changed.
“Certain uniforms, whether you wear them or don’t wear them, it’s all the same: you always have them on. You, me. Always with our uniforms on.”
“The important thing is not to frighten people, with a uniform. People should feel reassured seeing it. And in order not
to frighten people, you have to not be frightened.”
The Commissario gave a faint start, as if the priest had suddenly slapped him. He tilted his head slightly to the side and stared at him with new regard. Behind him, two steps back, Maione shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The theater, now empty, listened in silence.
“And you, Father? Aren’t you ever frightened?”
“Yes, almost always. But I ask for help. From the Almighty, from people. And I get over it.”
“Bravo, Father. Bravo. Good for you. Now, let’s get to the . . . ‘dolesome notes’, I believe they say. This is the right place for it. So then, you know opera, and this setting. You can help me, since I don’t know either one. Would you make a deal, with a policeman?”
Sarcasm again. No smile, no wink. The unchanging green glass of his eyes.
“A priest doesn’t make deals, Commissario. He has no choice when it comes to the seal of the confessional. And he does not inform. He doesn’t blow the whistle on some poor devil.”
“Oh, I see. Better that a poor devil should go to jail, perhaps by omission. And that the true perpetrator remain on the streets, to commit another crime. You’re right, Father. It means I’ll have to look elsewhere for help.”
Maione was surprised: he had rarely heard Ricciardi say so much. He hadn’t really understood the conversation, but he sensed that the Commissario had grown even more disheartened. He could tell by the stiffening of his back, by the way he held his head. The little priest, who looked so cool and composed, rocking on his toes with his hands clasped over his stomach, was giving him a hard time. Like a hunting dog eager to follow the prey’s scent, the Brigadier felt that they were just wasting time. However, his brother-in-law was at his house and he wasn’t eager to go home.
“No, Commissario,” don Pierino said, “that’s not what I meant. Naturally, I will give you any information you need; but don’t ask me, now or later, to help you accuse someone. Yours is human justice. I deal with another justice: one that can also forgive.”
“I won’t encroach on your territory, Father. I wouldn’t let you encroach on mine. I’ll expect you at the Questura tomorrow morning at eight, in my office. Please don’t be late.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away. Maione looked at the priest thoughtfully for a moment, then followed Ricciardi out of the theater.
Despite the fact that it was now eleven o’clock and that he had come out by the side door, Ricciardi found a swarm of journalists and curious bystanders waiting for him, heedless of the raging wind that whistled through the portico. Maione stepped in front and firmly pushed aside those who pressed the Commissario, trying to snatch a comment for the next edition of their papers. Ricciardi didn’t so much as look up; he was used to ignoring the living and the dead who called out to him, even though he always heard them.
During the short walk to the Questura, the two men did not exchange many words. Maione was quite clear on the course the investigation would take starting tomorrow: determining the victim’s final hours and questioning possible witnesses. The Brigadier knew how the Commissario operated, that he looked for possible motives, circumstances, words that could put them on the right track, with maniacal attention to detail. The days would be exhausting. He hoped that by that hour his brother-in-law would be gone at least.
When they reached the Questura, Ricciardi nodded goodnight to Maione and began walking back up Via Toledo. His pace was swift, his head ducked, the wind at his back. The city, which in other seasons at that hour still rang with songs and voices calling out, was already silent that night. Scraps of newspaper swirled in the street, in the swaying patches of light cast by street lamps hung from power cables. His footsteps echoed on the paving stones, acting as counterpoint to the occasional howling of the wind in the recess of some shop or in the doorways of the old buildings. The dead man in Largo della Carità again informed him that he would not let the thief take his things, as he went on bleeding and oozing brain matter. Ricciardi did not bother to look at him.
He was thinking. An open window, given how cold it was, in the dressing room of a man who had to take care of his voice and be cautious about draughts—it didn’t make sense. The spotless overcoat on the blood-stained sofa—it didn’t make sense. The white scarf on the floor, immaculate—it didn’t make sense. The striped cushion, the only one without a blood stain—it didn’t make sense. The locked door—it didn’t make sense. But what if all these things taken as a whole made sense? The boy on the corner of Via Salvator Rosa, with his poor mangled skeleton, asked him if he could go down and play. The image was beginning to fade, maybe it would disappear and he would be able to sleep peacefully. Ricciardi hoped it would happen soon.
He had reached his house.
X
Rosa Vaglio was seventy years old. She was born the same year as Italy, but she took no notice of it, then or later. For her, the homeland had always been the Family, of which she was a staunch, resolute custodian. She had entered the household of Ricciardi di Malomonte when she was fourteen years old. She was the tenth of twelve children and the Baroness had chosen her without hesitation.
She remembered that day as if it were yesterday: the tall, blonde woman, smiling, negotiating the price with her father. She had been friends with the son, a little older than her, until he had gone off to study in Naples, where he remained for many years. Rosa had a keen intelligence and had soon become the person everyone turned to in the grand family villa in Fortino. After the death of the old Baron and that of the Baroness later on, she had kept things going as if they might return from a trip at any moment.
Instead it was the son, now forty, who came back with his child bride. As she busied herself in the kitchen, that evening of 25 March 1931, sighing over yet another delayed dinner, she gave a quick smile at the thought: her little girl. Actually, little lady Marta was already twenty years old. She looked just like a teenager though, petite, slim, dark-haired, eyes so green they bored into your soul. And all that sorrow.
Rosa had often wondered where that sorrow in the eyes of the young Baroness came from. She had everything she wanted, leisure, affluence, a loving husband. But when she accompanied her on long walks through Fortino’s countryside, amid the pungent smell of goats and the peasants who stopped working to take off their hats, she felt that sorrow walking with them, one step behind. Perhaps it was memories, or regrets. Baroness Marta spoke little. But she smiled at Rosa, tenderly, and caressed her face sometimes, as if she herself were twenty years older.
Rosa remembered the morning of October 1899, the last year of the century, when they sat on a bench on the terrace, embroidering, and Marta had raised her green eyes to her and told her: “Rosa, starting tomorrow we have to sew sheets for a cradle.” Just like that, simply. From that time on, she had become tata Rosa and would be so all her life.
“You know I don’t want you to wait up for me. It’s late for you, you should already be asleep.”
Ricciardi felt the warmth of the house seep gradually into his wind-chilled bones. The scent of wood fire in the stove, the aromas from the kitchen: garlic, beans, oil. The lamp next to his armchair was lit, the newspaper on the armrest. In the bedroom, his flannel robe, soft leather slippers and hairnet. My tata, he thought.
“Oh sure: I go to sleep and let you go hungry. What do you think, I don’t know that you would go to bed without eating? That you would always wear the same suit and the same shirt, if I didn’t lay them out on the bed for you? It’s not normal, thirty years old and no woman. Not to mention, given these times, it won’t be long before they actually start arresting bachelors. With so many attractive young women out there. And you, you’re handsome, rich, young, from a good family. What more could a woman want? That way you can put me in a rest home and begin to live for a change.”
There: she’d said it. Sitting down at the table, he was very careful not to sigh. It would
give rise to an endless tirade and he had an appointment for which he was already very late.
Rosa watched him eat, like a wolf, as usual. Bent over his plate, quick, silent mouthfuls. He denies himself even that, she thought, the pleasure of savouring. He never savoured anything, not food or anything else. In him, the sorrow that in his mother had been concealed became evident. The same green eyes. The same sorrow. She had cared for him all his life, through the feverish nights, the loneliness. All through his years at boarding school she had been there waiting for him, during vacations, holidays, Sundays, letting him find the things he liked without him asking her for them. She sensed the turmoil of his thoughts, though she didn’t know what these thoughts were. She had been his family and he had become her reason for living. She would have given her eye teeth to see him laugh, at least once. She would have liked to see him at peace, not detached from others and from the quickly spinning world which he stood watching from a distance, hands in his pockets and a strand of hair over his face. Not smiling, not saying anything. And yet, what did he lack?
She was moved, a mother’s concern. He seemed like a child again, lost in thought as he ate. He had always liked beans.
Ricciardi had never liked beans, but he would never disappoint his tata; besides he was hungry tonight, maybe because of the chill he felt in his bones. He thought again about the crime scene. If the coat and scarf had been brought into the dressing room after Vezzi’s death, who had brought them? And why? The only ones who had admitted seeing the dressing room after the crime had been Lasio, the stage manager, the wardrobe mistress Lilla and the seamstress. Mopping up the sauce with his bread, Ricciardi recalled the large woman’s enchanted expression in the presence of the stage manager: was it possible they were in cahoots? And the seamstress, that Esposito, was she in on it too? No, too many people. And too much blood. The murder had not been planned, he was certain of that. And the open window? And the small, striped cushion? So many questions and the Incident wasn’t helping him. It happened frequently: what he heard from the victim’s image could also be misleading, and could throw him off track. It was a feeling, a sensation, not a rationally framed message. Grief, rage, hatred, even love.
I Will Have Vengeance Page 4