“Good morning, Sister. I’m Maione, Brigadier Maione, and the commissario here is Commissario Ricciardi, from the Naples police mobile squad. We’re here to see Sister Veronica, the sister of Signora Garofalo, Costanza Garofalo. There is supposed to be a little girl, as well, and . . .”
Keeping her gaze fixed on Ricciardi, the nun spoke. And she spoke in a shrill, piercing voice, very much like fingernails dragging across a blackboard.
“The little girl is named Benedetta, and she’s my niece. I’m Sister Veronica, of the Reparatrix Sisters of the Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin.”
The woman looked nothing like her sister, who had been slender and of average height, with features that even in the rigor of death could be seen to be delicate and refined. The nun, in contrast, was short and stout, red-faced with a snub nose. Her voice and her posture—her body wobbled slightly back and forth—served to complete a fairly comical picture.
Maione, to break the tension, approached her and respectfully extended his hand.
“Sister, our condolences for your loss.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the nun offered him her hand and the brigadier bowed to kiss it. He found himself touching a small thing clammy with sweat, whose stubby fingers barely protruded from the sleeve of the black habit, and he had to overcome a surge of disgust and the temptation to drop it after a quick squeeze. He got away with miming a kiss an inch or so above the hand, and then he took a quick step back, abandoning the field to Ricciardi. Maione had been excessively heroic as it was, and now he was done.
“Sister, we sent an officer yesterday to inform you of what had happened at your sister’s home.”
“Yes, and just in time, because I was about to take Benedetta back to her parents. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to keep the child here with me; I let her sleep on a cot in my room. She’s always happy to stay, we’re very close.”
Ricciardi studied the nun’s face, trying to read her emotions.
“Could you tell us about any of your sister and your brother-in-law’s acquaintances? Anything that could put us on the right track . . .”
“I don’t know a thing about my sister and her husband’s life. He was an ambitious man, he thought about nothing but his work, and they didn’t do a lot of socializing. I was in charge of the child and her education, in collaboration with my sister. That’s all.”
The shrill sound of her voice, childish and earsplitting, contrasted with the adult harshness of her words. Ricciardi persisted.
“But your sister might have told you something in confidence, I don’t know, she might have talked to you about threats or disagreements that she or her husband may have had with someone.”
The nun went on wobbling, and then said:
“Commissario, I had nothing to do with the affairs of my sister and her husband. I saw him rarely, and then only in passing; he was always at work, as I told you. And since my sister lived very much in his shadow, I never discussed anything with him but a single topic: my niece. And her education.”
Ricciardi met the nun’s gaze and held it. Maione dragged his foot over the floor, like a restless mule.
“Would I be mistaken if I guessed that you didn’t much like your brother-in-law, Sister?”
The nun’s round red face opened up in a sad smile.
“To dislike someone you have to know them, Commissario. And I doubt I saw my brother-in-law more than four or five times in all. What with the party assemblies and his work for the militia, he was never home. And now he’s dead, and it’s his fault that my poor sister is dead, too, and my niece will now have no one but me, a nun.”
Ricciardi focused on this last sentence.
“Why do you say ‘it’s his fault’?”
Sister Veronica held his gaze.
“He was the man of the household; he was the important one. As I told you, my sister was nothing more than a shadow in their home. Whoever it was, you can be certain that they had it in for him, and if they killed my sister, too, it’s only because she happened to be in the way. Your officer yesterday told me something about how they were found: my poor Costanza merely answered the door. The one they wanted was him.”
The wind reverberated in the garden. The temperature in the room seemed to go down even further.
“What are you going to do now, with your niece?” Ricciardi asked. “What are you going to tell her?”
The nun looked out the window.
“She’s a strong little girl. I’ll tell her that her parents have gone away on a trip, and then little by little I’ll give her some hints, and eventually I’ll tell her that they were both killed in an accident, something romantic, a ship that sank, a train that ran off the tracks in some far-off exotic country. And in the meantime, I’ll try to give her the best life possible.”
She stopped for a moment, then turned her gaze on Ricciardi again.
“My sister was very sweet, you know, Commissario. She was a delicate, peaceable, educated woman. She deserved a long life, grandchildren, a comfortable old age. I prayed for her, and for my brother-in-law, all night long. It seems impossible that I’ll never see her again.”
Silent tears began to run down her face. She pulled an enormous handkerchief out of her habit and blew her nose, with the grotesque sound of a toy horn at Carnival; but neither Maione nor Ricciardi felt like smiling.
After a pause, she asked:
“Do you have to . . . do you want to talk to the little girl? I beg you, I’d like her to find out the way that I told you before. She’s so small, only eight years old. Her world consists of fairytales and heroes. I don’t want her first experience of the real world to be confronting the blood of her parents.”
Maione looked at Ricciardi, who nodded.
“Don’t worry, Sister,” Maione said. “We have no need to speak with the little girl, and even if we did need to ask her a few questions, we wouldn’t have to tell her what’s happened. Keep her here, in any case. We might need to talk to her in the coming days.”
“Grazie, Brigadier. It won’t be easy. Christmas is coming, and she’ll want to know why she can’t return home. I’ll send someone to gather her things: her clothing, a few dolls. It won’t be easy.”
Ricciardi began to take his leave.
“Let us know, Sister, if there’s anything you need. You or the little girl.”
“There is something we need, in fact,” Sister Veronica replied, quietly. “We need for whoever did this to pay, and to pay dearly. So, Commissario, what I’d ask of you, on behalf of my niece and myself, is to find the men who killed my sister and my brother-in-law.”
When they got outside the wind had stiffened and the sea roared, invisible, from beyond the Villa Nazionale, but they both felt they were in a pleasant and hospitable place.
“Mamma mia, Commissa’,” Maione said, “that voice cracks your eardrums. And that hand . . . you have no idea! Phew . . . disgusting, damp, squishy. Poor little kid, the daughter; she’s been left to stay with a strange creature.”
Ricciardi sighed.
“But at least one who loves her. A better fate than that of so many of the scugnizzi that we see on the street. Let’s not waste any time, Raffaele. We have to decide what line of action we’re going to take, and we don’t have much to go on. You heard what Sister Veronica said, no? We have to find the murderers.”
IX
He knew he’d find him there, and sure enough, there he was. Sitting at the far end of the big room, his eyes lost in the empty air, a glass in hand, while the others sang around a cracked, out-of-tune guitar.
He crossed the tavern to reach him, waited for an invitation to sit down that never came, and then took a seat on a stool. The clamor of the merrymaking was deafening. A tavern down a narrow lane near the harbor on a Saturday night.
He looked at him for a long time, then he said:
; “You could at least say hello to me. Do you know the risk I’m running, coming here? They could see me.”
The other man replied, slurring his words, without lifting his gaze from the empty air.
“Well, who asked you to run that risk? Go on, get out of here. That’s what you do best, the lot of you.”
The newly arrived man slammed his fist on the table, making the bottle clink.
“And what you do best is whine and complain. I’m here to ask you just one question: Was it you? I have to hear it from your lips.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the drunk murmured. “And I’m not interested to find out. I told you before, get out of here and leave me alone.”
The music broke off suddenly and two men started arguing furiously. The tavernkeeper moved fast, grabbing them both by the shoulders and tossing them out into the street. The guitarist resumed playing.
“So, was it you? The wife, Anto’ . . . was that necessary, the wife, too? And did it have to be done that way?”
In the eyes of the man who had been called Antonio there was a gleam of interest.
“What are you talking about? Speak plainly!”
“I can’t tell if you’re toying with me or not. All things considered, maybe it’s better that I not know. So let’s just pretend that you don’t know anything, and I’ll go ahead and tell you. Yesterday morning Garofalo and his wife were found murdered. Stabbed to death, the pair of them. Is that clear, now? Now you know. If I were you, I’d get out of town; the first freighter for America, and it’s goodnight Irene. That’s what I came here to tell you, and now my conscience is clear. Good night, Anto’. You can finish getting drunk now.”
He stood up and left, shoving his way through the drunken dancers.
Antonio sat there, his gaze once again lost in the darkness. He gently shook his head and murmured:
“This, too. This, too, you stole from me. Damn your soul.”
X
The week before Christmas the center of the city became one huge marketplace; and police headquarters was right in the center of the center. To reach their office Ricciardi and Maione now had to pass hundreds of beggars, lottery sellers, junkmen, water carriers, shoeshine boys, all busy trying to steal their rivals’ clients. The air was rife with odors, the smell of fried foods, pizza, macaroni, seafood, and candied almonds. You had to take care not to step on the merchandise that was laid out on filthy sheets on the ground: vases, glasses, silverware, and other utensils.
Maione had to dance a pretty elaborate jig, on the toe tips of his boots, to keep from stepping on the open hand, resting on the pavement, of a begging gypsy girl.
“Damn it, it’s becoming impossible to even get through here on foot! And then, all these wonderful smells, how is a poor devil supposed to eat only at meals, and not in continuously?”
Ricciardi, thanks to his considerably smaller build, managed to maneuver with less difficulty.
“Christmas is conspiring against us, too. This investigation is going to be no easy matter, let me tell you. We’re going to wear out a lot of shoe leather, and we’re going to have to make our way through this market more than once.”
When they got to the office, they found, waiting for them at the foot of the staircase, none other than Ponte, assistant to the deputy chief of police Garzo, head of the mobile squad. Like almost the entire staff at police headquarters, Ponte was convinced that Ricciardi brought bad luck, that he had some obscure link to the devil or some other dark deity: because of the unorthodox way he conducted his investigations; because of his complete lack of friends, or of even rudimentary communication with any of his colleagues aside from Maione; because of his disinterest in advancing his career, in spite of his many successes.
Strange, inexplicable things. Which for Ponte, a cowardly and superstitious little man, translated to a simple imperative: to avoid, as much as was possible, having anything to do with him. And to avoid looking into his incredible green eyes, which, as far as he could tell, were a direct portal to hell itself.
“Buongiorno, Commissario. Brigadier . . .”
Maione made no effort to conceal his repulsion for that policeman who had chosen to become the deputy police chief’s butler; and, knowing the reason why the man spoke without looking his superior officer in the eye, a superior officer of whom he was very fond, Maione became openly hostile.
“Well, look who just crawled out of the sewer. What do you want, Ponte? We’re busy, we’re working a murder, if you can remember what that is.”
Ponte let the irony fall flat; he was a master at sidestepping fights. Looking at a vague point on the floor, he said:
“I know, I know, Brigadie’. And that’s exactly why I’m here. The deputy chief of police would like to see you both immediately.”
“Incredible: we still don’t really know what happened, and Garzo’s already asking for a report. Let’s get it over with and go see him immediately. That way we can get to work.”
The deputy chief of police Angelo Garzo felt certain that he possessed a superior talent for diplomacy. He’d built his career on it, on his diplomacy, although the colleagues he’d surpassed—thanks to various whispering campaigns and personal favors leveraged through influence and connections—might well have seen matters differently.
To tell the truth, his wife’s blood ties to the prefect of nearby Salerno had also played a role. But Garzo preferred to see his personal qualities and determination to reach the top as the chief factors in his professional trajectory.
As he waited for Ricciardi he shot a glance at himself in the mirror, and he liked what he saw. His mustache was his latest innovation. He’d given it plenty of thought. He didn’t want to give the impression that he was someone who took excessive care when it came to grooming; those types are usually loafers, he’d decided. Then, as his sideburns started to frost over with a pepper-and-salt coloration, he gradually came to the conclusion that a mustache would make a perfect companion piece, endowing him with distinction and authority, and he’d nurtured it like a rose garden. The result, he had to admit, was quite satisfactory.
Ah, Ricciardi, Ricciardi. His albatross and his prized possession. Uncontrollable, independent, undisciplined; but also a guarantee of success. With the inestimable added advantage of being entirely indifferent about the advancement of his career. In other words, Ricciardi had no interest in taking his job the way that Garzo, in fact, had set his sights on the police chief’s. This meant that Garzo could claim the commissario’s brilliant sleuthing as his own in the eyes of his superiors, especially those at the ministry in Rome.
Certainly, more than once they’d had a hard time of it: that time that someone murdered the great tenor who was a personal friend of Il Duce, for instance; and even though he had a magnificent confession safely in the bag, Ricciardi had insisted on continuing to investigate until he’d established that the singer was anything but a sterling individual. Vezzi, his name had been. And his widow, who was friends with Il Duce’s daugher, had later come to live in Naples; Garzo suspected that she’d fallen for Ricciardi of all people, the Good Lord alone knew why.
In other words, he was a tiger that had to be ridden, this commissario with his unsettling green eyes. And Garzo was the man to ride him, especially now that he had a new mustache.
Ponte knocked discreetly and poked his head into Garzo’s office.
“Dottore, Commissario Ricciardi and Brigadier Maione, as you requested.”
Maione shot him a venomous glare and hissed:
“Well, look at that, a talking lapdog. But can it bow?”
Garzo put on a jovial, conciliatory air.
“Oh, here he is, the man of the hour! Caro, carissimo Ricciardi, prego, come in and have a seat. Brigadier, buongiorno.”
Ricciardi entered but remained standing.
“Buongiorno, Dottore. You’ll have
to excuse us, but we don’t have much time. We’re investigating a double homicide, and as you’ve always taught me, the first forty-eight hours are crucial.”
The deputy chief of police’s jaw dropped. How dare he, this ridiculous underling, come in and tell him that he didn’t have time for him? Diplomacy, he thought. Remember to be diplomatic.
“In fact, that’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. Ponte informed me that it was during your shift that the call came in for the Garofalo case.”
Addressing Ponte, who was gazing at the ceiling with great interest, Maione murmured:
“Ah, nothing eludes the notice of the secret police.”
“He—by which I mean Garofalo, of course—was an officer of the port militia,” Garzo went on.
“A centurion, to be exact. Which would correspond . . .”
Ricciardi broke in:
“. . . to the rank of captain, from what we’ve been told.”
Garzo smiled, pleasantly surprised.
“I see that the infallible machinery of the mobile squad has already been set in motion. Now, tell me, what do you know about the port militia?”
Ricciardi shrugged his shoulders. He hadn’t taken his hands out of his overcoat pockets, except to push back the rebellious lock of hair that kept falling over his forehead.
“We know that it’s in charge of the movement of cargo and the regulation of fishing.”
“Precisely,” said Garzo, with a smile of approval. “Which, in a major seaport like the one we live in, makes it one of the most important police agencies.”
Maione furrowed his brow.
“Police? I thought that they were only concerned with administrative irregularities.”
The deputy chief of police wasn’t pleased to have a mere noncommissioned officer worm his way into the conversation, but he was determined not to be rude.
By My Hand Page 5