“Talking on the phone is beneath the great man, eh? Is this helpful to the Clemente or the Enrico Brocca case?”
The youth did not understand.
“Get him on the line.”
The phone went thunk as it was put down on a table again. Eventually the voice was back to tell him that Cantore did not want to talk on the phone, because it was a confidential matter.
What the hell. He had promised Giulia he would find her father’s killer.
This was part of the price to be paid.
37
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 7:30 P.M.
Alessandro Cantore was in the farthest, most inaccessible, and darkest part of the lab, as if he was trying to avoid Blume. He was powerfully built, his bulk exaggerated by his proximity to a very young and wispy girl who was looking into a microscope. Heavy hands clasped behind his back, he was slightly bent over her and seemed to be peering into the waves of her thin hair with the same intensity of interest with which she was gazing at whatever was wriggling under the lens. He straightened up slightly as Blume entered. Although Cantore’s big face and square spectacles, which resembled a pair of old TV sets, were fixed on him, Blume was not entirely sure that he had been noticed. The Scientifics all had a haunted white and slightly absent look as they stared intently at their samples of blood, dust, semen, skin, hair, soil, spit, and poison.
Blume leaned against a table scattered with chemicals, litmus paper, and a Gordian knot of electric wires leading to various blue and infrared lights, and waited to be acknowledged.
The director had a booming Venetian accent. “Are you Bellun?”
“Blume,” he corrected in a neutral tone. They had met three times before.
“Ah, that’s right.” Cantore tottered on the edge of an apology, but held back. “Come into my office, we can’t talk here.” He nodded significantly at the slip of a child looking down the microscope. She did not seem to have heard a word. She had not, in fact, moved at all.
Cantore barged past Blume and led the way through the middle lab, ignoring the startled looks of two whey-faced interns sloshing a liquid around in a reagent tray.
“In here,” he instructed, pointing at a pale green door that looked like a utility cupboard. He opened the door with his shoulder.
Blume followed, expecting to find himself in a claustrophobic hole. In-stead, the office was roomy. It had space for two bookshelves, and Cantore’s desk was the size and shape of a ping-pong table. It was piled with papers and books, and someone, presumably Cantore himself, had been using plastic petri dishes for ashtrays.
Blume sat down on a chair so low that his eyes were just level with the surface of Cantore’s overflowing desk. Cantore busied himself stacking the piles of paper, cups, and ashtrays into even higher mountains. With a final grunt of satisfaction, he positioned himself carefully in the center of the frame, sat, and glowered down his paper canyon at Blume.
“Clemente case,” said Cantore. “I hear you’re off it. Pity. I was looking forward to more dog hairs.”
“That’s what must be so good about your job, Professor,” said Blume.
“A dog hair this week, who knows what trea sures next week will bring.”
Cantore clapped his hands twice, either celebrating Blume’s sarcasm or marking the end to the opening formalities. “I think I remember you now. Awkward foreign bastard,” he said.
“I’m investigating a new case,” said Blume.
“There was tons of evidence!” shouted Cantore. “Not in your new case. I’m talking about the Clemente case. Positively tons of it. Either the killer was an idiot…”
Blume waited. “Or?” he said eventually.
“Or nothing. The killer was just an idiot,” said Cantore, and burst out laughing. “So what we have here”-Cantore thumped at the desk as if indicating a photograph, but Blume couldn’t see anything-“is a bar of soap with a great big perfect thumbprint, three fingerprints. The same prints were found on the body, on the wall, on the bathroom mirror, in the wardrobe, on the front door, on a box of shopping, everywhere we looked.”
“And they belong to Clemente’s killer?”
“Not all the victim’s friends were cooperative in giving their prints, and we’ve still got some unaccounted for, but, yes, let’s say they belong to the killer.”
“But you got no result from the AFIS database,” said Blume.
“I sent them to Guendalina-you know Guendalina?”
“No.”
“Nice girl, Guendalina. She manages the AFIS database. Always helpful. Lovely woman. Really very…” Cantore lowered his voice so suddenly that Blume missed the rest. Then, returning to full volume, he continued:
“So anyway, I told Wendy-that is to say, Guendalina-what the case was, and she told me she had heard it was very important, and was being much talked about up there in the corridors of corruption.”
“And?” prompted Blume.
“She got nothing. But you know this.”
Blume asked, “Why did you call me?”
Cantore hoisted two plastic bags above his head with an air of triumph. One contained a torn pink booklet that Blume recognized as an old-fashioned driver’s license, the other a green and red credit card. “Enrico Brocca’s driver’s license.” He glanced up at his other hand. “And his credit card,” he added. “Your new case.”
Blume looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“We got prints on them,” explained Cantore.
“You’re only getting around to that now?”
“No, we got these print ages ago. Level two friction ridge identification, but the print on the license is excellent.”
“Great,” said Blume. “And you ran them through the AFIS database?”
“Yes. But we got no match,” said Cantore, settling back in his chair, and disappearing for a moment behind the papers.
Blume leaned forward to bring him back into view. He did not understand what Cantore was saying. He asked, “No match? I already knew there was no match on the AFIS. If there had been, we’d have arrested someone by now.”
“Well, if it interests you, the no-match will become a definite match when the AFIS database is updated.” Cantore smiled revealing a row of square teeth the color of tea.
“I’m not following you anymore,” said Blume.
He heard a click, a shuffle sound behind him, and turned around to see Principe entering the room.
“The prints from the Brocca murder scene go into the database, obviously, though we can’t associate them with a name,” continued Cantore. “Filippo, I’ll get someone to bring you a chair.”
“It’s all right Alessandro, I can stand,” said Principe from behind Blume. “I see you’ve almost finished explaining it to him.”
“I have finished,” said Cantore.
“No you haven’t,” said Blume. “The no-match on the driver’s license…”
“And on the credit card,” chimed in Cantore.
“And on the credit card,” said Blume. “They are no-matches. What the hell good is that?”
“I didn’t say they were a no-match,” boomed Cantore. “What would I call you all the way down here to say that for? What I said was they don’t match on the AFIS, because the AFIS has not been updated to include them.”
Principe stepped from behind Blume until he was on his left side.
Blume stared down the desk at Cantore, who had stopped speaking and was looking at Principe with a “you-explain-it-to-him” sort of look.
Principe explained: “What he means, Alec, is that there will be a match as soon as the AFIS database has been updated with the fingerprints from the Clemente crime scene. The reason is that the unidentified fingerprints from Clemente’s house and the unidentified fingerprints on Enrico Brocca’s credit card and license are one and the same. The same person did both killings.”
Blume eased himself around to face Principe. “You knew this?”
“The connection between the two cases, yes. Now you have to
use it.”
Cantore bellowed some clarification from behind the desk, “It depends on which time frame you choose to use, Inspector Bellun. It is self-evident that Public Minister Principe and I knew of the connection before you. But we have not known about it for long.”
“Alessandro, it’s Commissioner, not Inspector, and Blume with an M. Let’s use first names and ‘tu’ here.”
“If you say so,” said Cantore.
“Dottor Cantore informed me of the match two nights ago,” Principe told Blume. “I got the road rage case assigned to me, then put you on it. I could not be explicit over the phone.”
Cantore suddenly heaved himself out of his chair. “I am not interested in hearing these details,” he said. “I just thought you should know about the fingerprint match.”
Principe said, “I appreciate it. Do you mind not mentioning it to anyone for a day or two?”
“Why would I mention it ever again?” said Cantore. “In fact, I don’t even see why I should be here. I have too much to do as it is. You’re welcome to use the office, though.”
Cantore passed Principe and gave him a friendly thump on the back, then stood before Blume, a massive form filling his entire field of vision. An enormous doughy white hand emerged from the bulk. “Commissioner Bellum…”
They shook hands and he left.
As soon as Cantore had slammed the door, Principe said, “I was not able to be forthcoming on the phone. There were people in my office.” He gave Blume an appraising look.
“I thought I detected something in your tone,” said Blume.
“That was for appearances.”
“I understand that now… It’s a busy place, the Prosecutor’s Office, especially in Rome. Where were you before you got transferred here? Foggia?”
“Foggia, that’s right,” said Principe. He took a sheaf of papers from his inside pocket, and prepared to read.
“Any interesting cases when you were there?” asked Blume.
Principe lowered the papers in his hand, peered over the top of his glasses at Blume, and said, “Alec, it sounds to me like you’re trying to say something.”
“I was talking to Innocenzi earlier today,” said Blume, watching Principe’s face closely.
“You got to talk to him?” Principe looked surprised. Then Blume saw his mouth open in a tiny o of recognition, and then form a pained smile. “The murder of Innocenzi’s wife. That’s what this is about.”
“Yes, that.”
“Innocenzi works like that, Alec. Divide and rule, sow seeds of distrust, know more than everyone else or pretend you do.”
“I know, he explained it to me. He calls it kompromat.”
“What does that mean?” asked Principe.
“It means he’s got something on you.”
“He’s got nothing on me,” said Principe. “There was no evidence against Innocenzi at the time. Many people thought he had arranged the murder of his wife, but there was nothing to prove it.”
“What did she do? Betray him?”
“I don’t know, Alec. Maybe she did nothing. Motivation was one of many things missing.”
“People kill with little motivation.”
“Sure,” said Principe. “I know that. But there was no evidence, no clear motive, just suspicion. The case would never have stood up in court. And if it had, then it would have required a hell of a lot of fabrication on our part. That’s what the chief prosecutor wanted. I didn’t.”
“You managed to persuade him.”
“It wasn’t that hard. The magistrate in charge was old, ignorant, corrupt. The case was never going anywhere. It was easy to terminate his line of investigation. A lot of people were happy to see me force a change of direction.”
“And you were happy to do as they asked?”
“Sometimes the wrong people want the right thing for the wrong reasons. This was one of those cases.” Principe looked directly down at Blume.
“You have known me for eleven years. It took-what? Half an hour in Innocenzi’s company to undermine that? Decide what you think, then tell me.”
Blume remained silent for a full twenty seconds. Principe settled back on the desk and waited.
Finally, Blume said, “Sorry. I should have thought it through.”
Principe nodded, apparently satisfied.
But Blume could not quite tell what he really felt. He was angry with himself. If he had stopped Pernazzo, stayed on him instead of keeping his date with Kristin, the child’s father might be alive. Bad enough though it was, he kept this thought in the foreground, because underneath was an even worse one, which was that he had somehow goaded Pernazzo into murder. He had called him a loser, a failure, and so Pernazzo had gone out to kill, while Blume was trying to make Kristin feel sorry for him with talk of his parents.
“Pernazzo’s got an alibi that I don’t think is real,” said Blume, and told Principe about his conversation with Rosati.
Principe unfolded the sheets of paper he had taken from his pocket and began to read. “I hate it when there’s computer stuff involved. It’s all above my head. But the main point is we now have another way into the Clemente case through the unfortunate Enrico Brocca. Or you do. But we may have to use the child as a main witnesses.”
“It wasn’t road rage, it was part of a game,” said Blume.
“A psychopathic game, you mean?”
“Yes. But not just that. Have you ever heard of World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, EverQuest…” Blume could see by Principe’s face that he hadn’t. “I’ll get Pernazzo to explain once he is in custody,” said Blume. “And now it’s my turn to surprise you: Innocenzi gave me the location of Alleva’s hideout near Civitavecchia. The Holy Ghost is flitting down there as we speak. Along with Paoloni. And God knows how many others.”
Principe set aside the papers. “You sent them… Good move, I suppose. I wish I had known first, of course. What do you think they will find there?”
“An empty house, trace evidence. I don’t know. Too little too late, that’s for sure. Nothing that allows us to step back in time and prevent any of the killing.”
“If we could go back in time to prevent murders, we’d both be out of a job,” said Principe. “And how far back would you want to go? To Cain and Abel?”
“I’d settle for last week,” said Blume. His cell phone started ringing. “Or maybe some time before they invented these things.”
38
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 12:30 P.M.
Having remained detached and efficient while killing Clemente, and having successfully battled down an onrush of nausea at the scene, Angelo Pernazzo was disappointed that he threw up as soon as he arrived home. It was the tension, especially on the drive back, he decided. He wiped the toilet rim with some tissue, filled the bath with tepid water and lay in it for an hour until the water was cold and gray. Then he put all his clothes in the washing machine, poured in bleach and washing powder, and set it at the highest temperature. Whatever did not survive, he would throw out. He put on a pair of elasticized gray tracksuit bottoms, a pair of cotton espadrilles, and a red V-neck Roma football shirt. He ate some Ringo chocolate cream cookies, drank a Diet Coke and felt better.
He wiped down the knife with a rag soaked in pink denatured alcohol, enjoying the smell and the glint. Then he put it on his desk next to his computer. That is where he had always kept it since he bought it at a martial arts shop outside the train station in Ostia, nine months ago. He had impressed them, walking in out of the rain, ignoring all the shit on display, asking for a Ka-Bar Tanto that he knew they would have to order from Japan.
Exactly on time, he took his scheduled twenty-minute sleep. When he awoke, he climbed off the sofa with the same sort of feeling he used to get on his birthday morning, when he knew his mother would be waiting in the kitchen with precisely whatever gift he had asked for. The last gift she had given him was a silver bracelet with his name inscribed on it. This was his first birthday without her, but if Massoni came
through on his promise, today Pernazzo would finally get himself a pistol.
He had asked for a Colt Python, but Massoni had laughed at him.
Eventually Massoni agreed to get him a Glock, in exchange for which he wanted Pernazzo to do him a little favor, which was to go to Clemente, tell him to back off, stop disrupting the shows.
“You want me to take him a message from Alleva?” Pernazzo had asked.
“No. Just tell him to back off. Don’t say who the message is from.”
“I could say it was from myself.”
“And how would that work, Angelo? Are you going to threaten the man? Just deliver the message. No source, just a warning. Think you can do that?”
Once Pernazzo had done this favor, Massoni promised, he would get his gun. For fifteen hundred euros. Angelo knew it was five times as much as it was worth, and Massoni knew he knew.
Pernazzo’s first real contact with Massoni had been a fist in the stomach. That was eighteen months ago.
His mother was still dying in her bedroom, and the doorbell had rung. He answered to a massive man with a blue tattoo on his neck. Massoni asked Pernazzo to identify himself and, when Pernazzo did, punched him directly in the solar plexus.
Pernazzo had never received a punch like that. As he lay on the floor, all he could think of was that he needed to breathe in, but couldn’t. The blow had scrambled his thoughts, which re-formed into a single imperative: breathe. His brain started screaming the command, his limbs began to thrash as he tried to obey. Perhaps the worst of it was that he could not make a sound. He lay there jerking, mouth open like a fish, agonizing in total silence. No one had hurt him physically before. Then, finally, the air came whooshing in, making him hoot, gasp, and hoot again. By the time he had finished hooting, he could hear his mother’s anxious voice from the bedroom asking if that was him.
Massoni had taken apart the living room, the bedroom, kitchen. He had done it professionally and quietly. Pernazzo saw he had looked in several places where he had hidden money in the past.
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