The Deliverance of Evil

by Roberto Costantini

  “Yeah, the one Dustin Hoffman drives.”

  “It suits you. You’re as good-looking as he is, but taller.”

  It was dark by the time we got to her hotel.

  “Thanks for rescuing my bag. And thanks for the tour,” she said, turning toward me.

  I couldn’t tell whether she was teasing me or being serious.

  “And I’m sorry about your gelato,” she continued. “If it weren’t impossible to park here in front I’d ask you to come in with me—the gelato at this hotel is exceptional.”

  I put the top up and left the car directly under a sign that said no parking. all vehicles will be towed. On the windshield I left my own sign, one that clearly said, police. on duty.

  The vanilla gelato came with strawberries and whipped cream, and champagne was delivered as she was taking a shower. She stepped out of the bathroom in her robe, and I opened the bottle.

  “You won’t believe it, Michele, but this is the first time I’ve strayed in seven years of marriage. I’m a little nervous.”

  “Let me take care of it. Just sit back and relax.”

  She laughed as I slipped the robe off of her and lowered her naked body onto the bed. She laughed as I tied her wrists together with the belt from the robe. She laughed while I placed the sleep mask thoughtfully provided by the hotel over her eyes. She laughed some more as I spread the vanilla gelato, the whipped cream, and the strawberries on the most sensitive parts of her body.

  Then I began to eat my dessert.

  Sunday, July 18, 1982

  I DIDN’T GO BACK TO see Teodori. I didn’t even phone him. After my ice cream treat, I dozed off between the hotel’s elegant sheets and slept like a baby.

  I left early in the morning. The elegant lady was going off to Florence where she was to meet her husband, who was arriving from London. I had the impression she’d perhaps enjoyed things too much and gave her a wrong number so I wouldn’t have her in my hair again, then went back to my apartment in Garbatella where I went back to sleep.

  The telephone woke me toward midday. I thought it would be Teodori and answered rudely in a sleepy voice. I’d taken a day off and didn’t want anyone being a pain in the ass.

  “Michele, you sound awful. Rough night?”

  It was my brother, Alberto. I’d completely forgotten about his invitation for lunch and an afternoon of cards. His girlfriend was back home in Germany visiting her parents, and he didn’t have one of his usual working weekends. He’d invited Angelo and me for lunch, and then a colleague of his was to join us for some poker.

  My exemplary brother was excellent at everything, even cooking. A cum laude degree in engineering, a job as an executive for a multinational, good contacts in all the political parties, with the exception of the extreme far right, a beautiful apartment with a terrace, and a girlfriend who would be the perfect mother to his future children. I should have hated him, but I admired him instead. Not only had he gotten me out of trouble, but he’d never made a big deal out of it, and because his manner wasn’t my father’s utilitarian moderation, which was the acceptable side of arrogance. No, Alberto was a moderate in his soul; he believed compromise was the source of well-being and happiness for everyone.

  Angelo was already there when I arrived; he and Alberto enjoyed cooking together, and their styles complemented each other. Alberto was a sophisticated chef, Angelo a down-to-earth cook. My job was to set the table, clear the table, and put the dishes in the dishwasher.

  We ate pasta salad and Caprese salad and sipped white wine. It was extremely hot, but the terrace had a little pergola roof.

  “You look tired. Aren’t you sleeping well?”

  There was no irony in my brother’s question. As usual, he was simply worried about me.

  “It’s so hot and noisy at night. Thank God it’s Sunday and everybody’s at the beach. Last Sunday everyone stayed in town to see the game.”

  “Italy’s win was so good for the country, though. Sales taxes alone were far above average.”

  “A country whose citizens pay taxes on the basis of soccer results isn’t exactly a great civilization.”

  Such a country deserves a police captain who drives around pedestrian zones in his Duetto to pick up female tourists.

  We talked politics so that we could talk about ourselves without making personal judgments, because we are the way we see the world. And the way I saw it was still quite brutal. On the one hand there were the honest and innocent, usually the impoverished. On the other there were the criminals and cheats, including the many in suit and tie who sat on boards of directors, in government, in public administration, and in the Vatican.

  In my younger years I had dreamed that this system would explode and drag the wheeler-dealers who infested Italy into the mud, shamed and ruined. But the only ruin was mine. I cooperated with the secret intelligence service as soon as I realized that my neo-fascist friends had become murderers, manipulated by special interests and attacking entire groups of innocent and defenseless people. They had dishonored our ideals. But the intelligence service was linked to those same special interests, as I came to understand during the kidnapping of Aldo Moro in 1978. At that point, serving the state in an official capacity became the only way for me to avoid spiraling out of control.

  “I’ll never let myself be caught up in that dirt, Alberto. I think I’ll relax for another couple of years and then go back to Africa and hunt lions and take idiot tourists on vacations.”

  Alberto shook his head, somewhere between amusement and concern.

  “Italy was a poor country ruined by the war. Now it’s risen up again. These politicians, Catholics and Communists, industrialists and the Church, also did a few good things, don’t you think?” my brother said.

  “They’re the ones who advised Mussolini to go to war and then abandoned him. They were all over industry and in the Vatican. Then, suddenly, at the end of the war they all were anti-Fascists.”

  “That’s just not true. It was Mussolini who declared war and decreed the racial laws. Anti-Fascists were persecuted and killed by Fascists, just like the Italian military killed members of the Libyan resistance.”

  Only Alberto could risk making a comment like that in front of me and not suffer any consequences.

  My high school history teacher in Libya was a skinny guy with a beard who wore a parka, jeans, and gym shoes. A young left-wing teacher who had accepted that poverty-stricken position in Tripoli in order to have a permanent job. He never missed an opportunity to tell us what he thought of our colonialist grandfathers and fathers. One day, an hour before recess, he was talking about Italo Balbo, Marshal Graziani, and the criminal clique that deported and massacred the Libyan resistance. I knew this to be true, but this guy had no right to talk about it and link our colonialist families with actions like those.

  Together with two kids who thought as I did, I went up to him in the courtyard during break.

  “My grandfather came to Libya in 1911. He organized the olive-oil industry. He and other Italian colonists built roads where there had been only sand, made the water drinkable, and set up the vocational schools for young Arabs. Is he a criminal?”

  The teacher was smoking, and that also irritated me, given that it was forbidden for the students. He gave us an icy look.

  “We’ll discuss it in class, Balistreri.”

  I was beside myself. The advice my father and my brother Alberto gave me frequently, Always count to ten, vanished. It was as if I’d finally discovered who I was and was fed up with having to hide it. As I gave the teacher a shove and he fell to the courtyard cobbles, I knew that my life had reached a turning point. I’d read somewhere that very few of our adolescent actions have a determining effect on our adult lives. Well, that was one of the few.

  While the teacher was shouting and all our classmates watched us with their mouths open, the three of us grabbed hold of him. I would have preferred to do it on my own, but it would have been impossible. I took his legs and the o
ther two an arm each. We carried him to the goldfish pond like that and chucked him into it, along with our fears and school careers.

  I smiled at my brother again. He knew what I was thinking.

  “Thank you for reminding me. But this decadent and corrupt democracy will hand the country over to the Communist party or, worse still, into the hands of the Red Brigades.” I was fully convinced of this, while Alberto was very relaxed about it.

  “It’ll never happen, Michele. You underestimate the Catholics’ pragmatism and you overestimate Communism. It doesn’t make sense anymore—it’s over.”

  Naturally, as ever, he was right and I was wrong. It was a debate that had been going on all our lives, with variants cropping up according to the circumstances. It was a kind of mantra on our disagreements.

  Angelo listened with interest, but in silence, to these discussions of ours, but never offered an opinion. It was one of his ways of getting to know us. While Alberto went to make the coffee, I was left alone with him. We sat there with a last glass of wine and a cigarette watching the slow Sunday traffic crawling alongside the Tiber five hundred feet below.

  “Whoever did it knew her,” I said, without looking at him.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Michele, not as a friend. As a witness and even as a suspect, no problem. But only with Superintendent Teodori in an official capacity.”

  Angelo was sad, and sadness was so out of place in him I was put off from continuing.

  “Just one thing, Angelo. Did you see or hear Elisa on Sunday morning?”

  “I’ve already told you. I was with Paola the whole time until I came to pick you up at five. I called Elisa from Paola’s at about two thirty. She reassured me that Gina would deliver the papers to the Cardinal at five o’clock. There was no need for me to come by. I never heard from her again. Maybe Teodori hasn’t told you, but he’s already questioned Paola about my whereabouts, and about yours, too, Michele.”

  So these were the investigations Teodori felt he was allowed to conduct. Valerio Bona, Angelo Dioguardi, and even Captain Michele Balistreri. The nobodies, leaving the untouchable ones in peace. Well, now it was time to shift gears.

  I left Alberto’s in the late afternoon, and it was evening by the time I arrived at the Villa Alba clinic. A nice quiet place, green and discreet. Visiting hours were long over. The reception area was deserted, except for one old nurse. I quickly showed her my police badge so she wouldn’t be able to remember my name.

  “I’m here to see Claudia Teodori,” I said firmly.

  “Visiting hours are over,” she said stiffly, but not unkindly.

  “I understand, and I wouldn’t normally ask you to make an exception, but we’re seeking confirmation of the toxicology report, and need it now.”

  “But we sent it right after the accident, when she was admitted.”

  “The copy you sent wasn’t legible. The prosecutor’s office wants me to take a look at the original.”

  “Why is it so urgent?” asked the nurse, perplexed.

  “There’s a meeting going on right now. The prosecutor wants to determine whether it was involuntary or premeditated. And the toxicology report is crucial to that.”

  “Premeditated? She was driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Do you think she hit the tree to kill her friend on purpose?”

  In the end I got a look at the clinical file. When she arrived there with some abrasions, Claudia Teodori was out of her mind on amphetamines. Driving in that state was equivalent to firing both barrels of a loaded shotgun in the middle of a crowd. So much for premeditation. Unless the girl knew she’d taken them, which was all still to be proven.

  Monday, July 19, 1982

  I PRESENTED MYSELF PUNCTUALLY AT eight in the morning at the Homicide office, ready to put up with Teodori’s displeasure. Vanessa shot me a smile while she finished applying black polish to a long fingernail. It was the first time I’d seen her in a miniskirt.

  I gave her an admiring glance. “You’re looking pretty this morning.”

  “I’ve got an appointment with my landlord. I’m behind on my rent.” She said it seriously, without looking at me, as she finished off her nails.

  Teodori was in his office with a cappuccino and a brioche. His watery eyes were more yellow than usual and his cheeks were pale. But he was cheerful, even smarmy. He wanted something.

  “Come in, Captain Balistreri. Do take a seat. Would you like my secretary to get you a coffee?”

  I declined; his sudden kindness made me suspicious.

  “There’s been some progress,” he began, dunking the pastry in the cappuccino so that some of the coffee overflowed onto his desk. “We have the autopsy results. Death definitely occurred on Sunday, a few hours after the game at the latest. The pathologist can’t pinpoint the time exactly, but based on the state of decomposition and taking the Tiber’s water temperature into account, he’s sure it wasn’t any later than that.”

  He paused for effect. “So, the murder took place between six thirty, when Elisa Sordi left Via della Camilluccia, and midnight.”

  I understood very well why this was good news for Teodori. All the illustrious suspects had an alibi, while Valerio Bona did not. I decided Teodori’s good humor was such that I could risk smoking in his office, and I lit a cigarette. He didn’t even notice.

  “The victim has multiple lesions, hematomas from heavy blows, stab wounds, cigarette burns, and bites. It was long and painful. At least half an hour. She suffocated after a cloth or a cushion was placed over her mouth.”

  “Were the wounds inflicted before she died?” I asked.

  “The hematomas, yes, including the one that fractured her cheekbone and her right eye socket. As for the bites, the cuts and the burns, it’s hard to know given the state of the body. Also, some of the cuts and bites may have been caused by branches or by rats. There’s one other important point, however: there was no sexual violation.”

  I took in the information with some surprise.

  “No penetration in any orifice?” I asked, incredulous.

  I hadn’t realized Vanessa had come in to take away the cappuccino cup. She stood there, a mocking smile on her face, waiting for Teodori’s answer. It was the second time something like this had happened to me, but Teodori’s secretary was a very different person from Elisa Sordi. She was merely amused by the question’s obscene nature and by our embarrassment.

  “Would you like anything, Captain?” she asked as she picked up Teodori’s empty cup.

  I gave an explicit glance at her long legs in order to make my response crystal clear.

  “Not for the moment, thanks, Vanessa. Perhaps something a little later, though.”

  The young woman went out and Teodori, a little unsettled, continued speaking.

  “It’s a good thing you were with Dioguardi the whole time; otherwise I’d be forced to consider you a suspect, especially given your history with women.”

  His tone was jocular, but not entirely. And I didn’t like that kind of joke, even less coming from someone like Teodori.

  “Chief Superintendent Teodori, I’ve never hit a woman in my life, let along cut one or suffocated one. And unlike the man we’re looking for, I enjoy good old-fashioned penetration.”

  Teodori handed me the pathologist’s report.

  “Not so fast, Balistreri. One more thing has come to light. Read it for yourself.”

  Signs of pregnancy terminated in the previous fifteen days.

  No different from the rest, neither more nor less. This was my first thought, transgressive and cruel, accompanied by a small sense of relief, which was shameful. Elisa, like all the rest, was no saint. And in part she was asking for it.

  “We need to interview all her male friends. At school, in her neighborhood, Valerio Bona,” said Teodori.

  “And those living on Via della Camilluccia, of course.”

  Strangely, Teodori smiled.

  “Certainly, Via della Camilluccia as well, but let me han
dle that.” He put on a bold and courageous face.

  Now I understood all his tiptoeing. Cardinal Alessandrini must have kept his promise. But the pressure from the Vatican’s high spheres was suppressed, and it all came down to Teodori’s courageous and independent decision. Nevertheless, he didn’t want me under his feet with my doubts about those illustrious citizens.

  “How’s your daughter, Claudia, feeling?” I asked him point-blank.

  He jumped. He couldn’t meet my eyes.

  “I don’t follow. What’s my daughter got to do with anything?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Just asking. Any good news from the medics? Or from Coccoluto or the judge?”

  I wanted to make it very clear to him that I wouldn’t accept any obstacles tumbling down from on high that he was obliged to submit to because of his family troubles. I didn’t give a shit about his concerns.

  There was a long silence, and then Teodori looked at me. “Captain Balistreri, my daughter’s eighteen. She lost her mother six years ago to cancer. I’ve never had enough time to spend with her, and she’s had trouble both in school and otherwise. This year she failed her exams. Ten days ago she also failed her driving test, but that evening she snuck off with my car and went to a club by the beach with a friend. They were dancing and drinking all night, and they took some pills. On the way home the car slammed into a tree. My daughter suffered minor injuries, but her friend died. They’re saying my daughter had the pills before they went out, but she insists someone drugged her drink in the club. As you know, there’s a difference.”

  He was hoping to attract my sympathy, him and his stupid spoiled daughter, but I’d seen far worse in Africa. Children of three years old wandering the gutters under the open sky, stomachs swollen with hunger, flies clustered around their eyes. I’d never had even a crumb of compassion for the debauched Italian bourgeoisie.

  Teodori was forced to accept my presence on the job. The senator had already invited us over and was expecting us at ten o’clock sharp in his private offices on Via della Camilluccia. Teodori made me promise not to ask any indiscreet questions. As if there were discreet questions in a murder investigation.