Ricciardi murmured: “An eternal love. A love that extends to death. A love that doesn’t end with death, that turns death into a departure.”
The friar and Maione looked at each other, perplexed.
The commissario seemed to be praying: “A love that is never consumed, you said. There is no point in fighting such love. Better to put an end to it.” He turned toward the friar, pointing to the heart on the desk: “May I?’”
The friar nodded. Ricciardi reached out and carefully took the object.
It was massive, a single block of solid gold. It must be worth a fortune. Ricciardi thought about how many years of obscure and wonderful work Coviello must have done, losing his sight and his health by the faint light of the oil lamp, to piece together enough gold to complete that object of immense beauty.
He turned it in his hands, admiring the workmanship from up close. He tried to sense, from the smooth decorated surface, the emotion, the passion with which its maker had infused it; he tried to recognize, on the metal polished mirror-bright, Coviello’s oblong irregular face, all his sorrow. A flame that is never consumed, that continues to burn.
The inferno. The inferno in a heart.
Ricciardi noticed an arabesque, at the top of the heart, offset slightly with respect to the rest of the design.
“Father, do you have a magnifying glass?”
The friar nodded, picked up a crystal circle with a silver handle, and extended it to Ricciardi.
The commissario held the lens close to the heart and peered through it.
Then he read the name that was at the bottom of the heart of Mastro Nicola Coviello.
LXIII
Across from the front gate that constituted the entrance to the ancient convent that had become the general hospital’s complex, there was a café: a place of refreshment for the family members of the sick in search of a break from their sorrow and worry, and for the physicians and nurses who felt the need to get a little time away from a workplace that could easily become oppressive and sad.
Ricciardi was sitting there, at a table from which he could clearly see the front door, that Thursday morning prior to the final celebrations of the festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
He was waiting for someone.
After leaving the church and the prior, he’d spent all of Wednesday evening at Rosa’s bedside. The old woman’s breathing seemed rougher and more labored than ever. He’d asked for an explanation from Bruno, who’d stopped by more than once, and his friend had simply shrugged. At a certain point he’d placed a hand on Ricciardi’s shoulder and uttered two words: brace yourself. As if it were possible to brace yourself for the loss of a loved one, he had thought to himself. As if it were possible to shake off, through sheer force of will, the dark louring mantle of loneliness.
Early that morning, after a few hours of troubled sleep, he’d set out for the general hospital, where he had his first interview of the day. The little pieces that together formed the overall picture of the investigation were starting to move into place, but there were still a number of gray areas that needed illumination. The previous afternoon, upon their return from the church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the commissario and Maione had agreed they’d only rendezvous back at headquarters late the next morning: Ricciardi would then fill the brigadier in on the findings of that nonmedical visit he was making to the hospital. Maione, beaming and a bit absentminded for some secret reason, hadn’t insisted on accompanying him as he usually did, nor had he detained him with questions. Strange. He’d seemed to have decided to come live full-time at the office, but now he was eager to head home. The commissario had deduced, therefore, that Raffaele had successfully settled some major conflict with his wife. He was happy for him, knowing how important domestic tranquility was for the brigadier. Seeing a smile again on that great broad face was the only good thing that had happened in a long time.
Nonetheless, Ricciardi had asked Maione to drop by the general hospital before dinner to ascertain in his discreet way what time the person the commissario wished to see finished his shift; not that they couldn’t have relied on information from the switchboard, but he’d given Raffaele a rough idea of what he now believed had happened, and it was best to act cautiously. The brigadier had returned in half an hour and told Ricciardi he’d be able to see the person he was interested in tomorrow morning, around seven, at the front gate. While at the general hospital, Maione had gone upstairs and made sure no one had been into Iovine’s office, which remained off-limits to the staff of the obstetric clinic.
“Everything’s all right, Commissa’,” he’d told Ricciardi. “No one enters that room, it must strike them as creepy. I’ll see you tomorrow morning around eleven, and then we’ll wrap this case up.”
As he sipped his coffee, Ricciardi wondered whether certain matters were ever entirely wrapped up. Whether blood, once shed, doesn’t continue spilling forever, red and malignant, defiling the lives of whoever came into contact with that murder for all time. As was true for him.
At last, the person he was waiting to see emerged from the gate. The man greeted the custodian with a nod of the head, then looked around, squinting into the morning light, and started walking directly toward the café. He didn’t notice Ricciardi at first, and when he did recognize him he greeted him with surprise: “Oh, buongiorno, Commissario. What are you doing here?”
“Buongiorno, Dr. Rispoli. I was actually waiting for you. I wanted to buy you an espresso and have a chat. If you can spare five minutes.”
The man took a seat across from the commissario. His curiosity was aroused, but he didn’t seem nervous.
“Certainly, Commissario. When you get out of that place,” and he jerked a thumb toward the polyclinic, “you never really feel like heading home, even if you’re working double shifts as we have been lately. It’s as if you needed to cleanse yourself . . .”
Ricciardi broke in: “Are you doing Iovine’s work, or has someone else already been assigned to replace him?”
Rispoli lit a cigarette, with a sad grimace: “No such luck, Commissario. It will be months before they assign a new director to the professorship, and therefore the clinic. You can’t imagine how slowly the bureaucracy moves, and a civil war is no doubt already underway throughout Italy over this post. I can assure you that poor Tullio’s murder is being viewed as a winning lottery ticket for many doctors at various universities. Countless hands are outstretched to grab this brass ring; I can only imagine the phone calls that are being made in a quest for the right recommendation. And until that’s settled, my colleagues and I will have to pick up the slack.”
Ricciardi sipped his coffee.
“What about you? Don’t you aspire to succeed Iovine? After all, you were his first assistant.”
“No, Commissario. The university career path means that, at most, I can hope to take that job in a smaller teaching hospital somewhere else, and then, perhaps, come back: but I have no desire to do that. First of all I’m already too old to aspire to a university chair like this one; moreover, I don’t have the academic credentials. I’m someone you might call a hands-on physician, good for the operating room and for rounds, certainly not the kind of doctor who does research or writes scientific papers. In fact, that’s why Tullio picked me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Rispoli exhaled a puff of smoke: “He would never have taken someone ambitious to work alongside him, someone he would have had to watch out for. What he needed was someone reliable, someone who could run things when he was away.”
Ricciardi shifted to a more comfortable position in his chair.
“Still, the night that Graziani’s wife died, neither you nor Iovine were on duty.”
“That’s not unprecedented. In fact, though, since I wasn’t working that night, he shouldn’t have left. But then . . . well, but then you know what happened. He did leave, and the rest i
s history. I was summoned urgently, but I got there too late, after Tullio had already tried to do the impossible. Like I told you the other day, Commissario, in all likelihood the woman would have died in any case. These things do happen.”
Ricciardi nodded.
“They do. A few minutes ago, you said that Iovine would never have taken on someone he’d have to watch out for. Why not?”
Rispoli crushed out the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray.
“Because he was determined to hang onto his position, Commissario. Like almost everyone who makes their career the central pillar of their existence. Tullio was like that, no one around him who might undermine his status: the great professor, the grand luminary. I was perfect; I was an assistant. And an assistant I shall remain, although now to someone else.”
Ricciardi strained to detect rancor or sarcasm in the doctor’s words, but he sensed none.
“And what happens, when a person makes his career the central pillar of his existence? What might he be willing to do?”
The doctor stared long and hard at Ricciardi: “Commissario, I don’t understand. Why have you come to see me this morning? What do you want me to tell you?”
Ricciardi waved his hand in the waiter’s direction and called for another espresso.
“I need information about the past, Rispoli; about how Iovine became who he was, about how he attained his position. Information about a time, perhaps, before you knew him, but that you might have heard about from people in your line of work.”
Rispoli was bewildered: “But . . . Commissario, I don’t understand: what does the way Tullio advanced his career have to do with anything? He’d held the chair for a great many years, what . . .”
The commissario interrupted him with a sharp gesture: “I know that. And please, let me be the judge of what’s useful and what’s not. These are things that, if I took the time and dug through the archives, I could find out anyway: but it would take more time, and I want to resolve this case as quickly as possible, if for no other reason than to keep innocent people from winding up in serious trouble just because they happen to be unable to prove they weren’t here that night. That’s why I’ve come to see you, and why I’m trusting in your good sense. Otherwise, I’ll say goodbye.”
Rispoli said nothing. Ricciardi realized that he was mentally calculating what problems he might cause for himself if he gave the commissario the information he’d asked for, and what problems he might cause for himself if he didn’t. Then he nodded, and he too ordered another espresso.
“I’ve worked with Tullio, I told you, for many years. I’m pretty good at what I do, and when he chose me I was honored—at least until it became clear to me how he wanted to use me and my professional skills; but since I was willing to accept even that, and there’s plenty of work but also an excellent salary that always arrives on time, let’s just say that we built a good partnership. And I should tell you that everything I’d heard about him was fully confirmed.”
“And what had you heard about him?”
“I’d heard that he was determined and hardworking; but that he was unwilling to share what he knew, that he guarded his expertise jealously, and was even a bit of a money-grubber. In short, a perfect boss if you stayed in your place and made no mistakes. As far as I was concerned, there were no problems, because in the end he gave me free rein.”
“What about in personal terms?”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly effusive. We eventually were on a first-name basis, and sometimes we’d make small talk, but nothing more than that. Recently, he’d shown me his new car, which he was very proud of; but we didn’t talk much about our lives outside of work.”
Ricciardi wanted to know more: “What about the past? Did he tell you anything about that? I don’t know, memories, references to his own time as an aide or an assistant . . .”
Rispoli smiled, with a gleam of malice: “No, I’d say not. And for that matter, from what I heard when I was still a student, there certainly wasn’t anything he’d be eager to tell.”
The commissario grew more alert: “Why not? Tell me everything.”
The invitation was accepted with enthusiasm. In fact, it seemed that the doctor had just been waiting for the chance. Ricciardi settled in to hear a story he already knew full well, with who knows what variations: “Tullio was one of the two assistants to a famous professor, a real genius, a man who had become director of the chair at a very young age: Albese was his name. He was so good that—though he came from a small town and certainly had no noble ancestry which, believe me, should have disqualified him from pursuing this career—he was still a leading light in the academic community. Well, at a certain point, the other assistant, a certain Ruspo who now has a nursing home out Mergellina way, was knocked out of the running by an anonymous letter that accused him of carrying on an affair with a married woman. In medical school circles, the word was that Tullio himself wrote that letter, since he was the only one who could benefit from the ensuing scandal. Aside from the cuckolded husband, of course.”
Rispoli snickered as he sipped his espresso.
Ricciardi asked: “And then what happened?”
“After that, luck played its part, as far as Tullio’s career was concerned. Albese had a heart condition that got worse, and he died. And Tullio happened to be at the right place at the right time, more or less like I was, but with much greater support and far more determination: he had created such a powerful network of friendships and supporters that he was appointed director of the chair, and he remained in that position ever since. Until he fell out that window.”
Every detail matched the information Ricciardi already possessed.
“And naturally in that period Iovine, in order to be able to take advantage of the opportunity when it presented itself, spent all his time at work. That must have been a sorry life for his young bride.”
Rispoli shook his head: “Why, no, Commissario: at the time, Tullio was still unmarried. And he couldn’t have been married, for that matter.”
“Why not?”
“That’s easy: because the woman he married was Albese’s widow, Maria Carmela.”
Ricciardi held his breath. That was the answer he’d been waiting for.
An old automobile went rattling past the café, pursued by a crowd of running, half-naked children.
“How long after Albese’s death did Iovine and Albese’s widow marry?”
Rispoli concentrated: “It seems to me it was exactly two years, once the widow’s strict period of mourning was over. The story was pretty sad, in fact. She was pregnant, four or five months along I believe, when her first husband died. It was Tullio himself who took responsibility for looking after her pregnancy, but it ended badly, unfortunately; you know, primiparous pregnancies are always the riskiest, and the widow had a miscarriage. Tullio stayed by her side, kept her constant company, and in the end they were married. Some time later they had a child of their own, and the baby survived without problems.”
Ricciardi observed the treetops inside the walls of the polyclinic, motionless in the still air of that infernal July morning. He thought of Iovine falling, in the midst of those trees, until he slammed into the walkway below. And he thought about the twisted paths of love and the lust for power, ambition, and tenderness, paths that intersected and split a thousand times as they headed down into the abyss.
He thought of Sisinella, who had been Iovine’s last desperate link to life; the smidgeon of happiness that perhaps she had been able to give him, though in exchange for cash; he thought of a man whose entire life had been consecrated to self-interest and his career. And he thought of Enrica, now far away, perhaps following the path that would lead her to happiness.
He looked up at Rispoli.
“And what was their relationship like? Are you aware of any marital difficulties, any fighting between husband and wife?”
“I wouldn’t know, Commissario; like I told you, Tullio wasn’t particularly open. In the past ten years, I’ve met his wife no more than a couple of times: once at a retirement party for one of the general hospital’s directors, and one summer when they were going on vacation and Tullio dropped by to make sure everything was running smoothly. More recently, she came by one day when her husband wasn’t here; I only caught a glimpse of her because I was scheduled to perform an operation, but the staff gave her a warm welcome: I believe that when she was married to her first husband, she came into the clinic more frequently. But I have no idea what she was like with Tullio. I had the impression of a strong woman, perhaps a little hard; but once you’ve suffered certain losses, you probably become hard, don’t you, Commissario?”
Ricciardi thought it over and then, in a voice so low that it seemed as if he were only speaking to himself, said: “Yes. You do. Suffering hardens you. Thanks, Doctor. You’ve been very helpful.”
And he called the waiter for the check.
LXIV
If any of the passengers had bothered to look around, on the funicular that wended its way up toward Vomero on the morning of that July 14, they would have caught sight—in that little knot of laborers, shop clerks, and civil servants, each on his way to give his personal daily contribution to the growth of the new quarter—the large head of a police brigadier, topped by his regulation cap and adorned with an ecstatic smile.
Life, thought Maione, indifferent to the terrible heat, the mosquitoes, and the sweat-drenched, intrusive, annoying crowd, is so beautiful. Especially when it gives you the rare opportunity to look down into the abyss of despair and then makes you see that it was all just a bad dream, and that upon your awakening, the sun is still shining.
His chat with Bambinella at the Café Caflisch had at first confused him, and then had made him incredibly happy. Lucia wasn’t cheating on him. Lucia hadn’t stopped thinking about him. Lucia was still the wonderful wife and mother she always had been. He, Maione, would no longer have to erase the most secret memories that constituted his past and his very essence; he no longer had to devise dark vendettas; he no longer had to retreat into bleak despair.
The Bottom of Your Heart Page 36