The other two women didn’t even try to pretend to work. Lina, the older employee, stared insistently out the window that overlooked the courtyard, expecting to see the notary arrive; the other one, Marina, sat with downcast eyes, her fingers knit on the desktop before her.
Arturo Festa arrived after about an hour, toward eleven o’clock. He seemed to be in an excellent mood. He was a handsome man, just short of sixty, tall, gray-haired, dressed in an elegant, sporty suit, a healthy, natural tan glowing on his face and neck, which had been left uncovered by the open collar of his shirt. The shoulder bag he carried could have contained everything he’d need for a couple of days away. He was alone.
He sensed something was wrong the minute he walked in. Lina started toward him, but Aragona stepped quickly between them.
Lojacono stepped forward and said: “Notary Festa? I’m Lieutenant Lojacono from the Pizzofalcone precinct house, and this is Corporal Aragona. We need to speak to you; can we step into your office?”
The notary furrowed his brow, catching the eyes of his employees. Imma once again burst into tears.
“Certainly. Please, come right this way.”
A large door at the far end of the room led into the notary’s office; a single, multipart bookshelf covered the walls floor to ceiling, which gave the place the warm and reassuring ambiance of a library. The desk was large and old; a slab of glass protected the elaborately carved desktop, clearly a valuable antique. Sitting in front of it were two leather chairs. On the other side of the office, an oval table, with eight chairs.
The notary pointed to the chairs with one hand, but neither Lojacono nor Aragona sat down, so he too remained on his feet.
Then Lojacono said: “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but it’s my duty to inform you that your wife, Cecilia De Santis, was found dead this morning, in your home, by the housekeeper. It seems that her death was the result of a violent act.”
His words fell into silence. Festa turned pale and staggered, propping himself up against the surface of the desk. He went on staring at the two police officers, as if he were expecting them to tell him that it had all been an absurd, macabre joke. He raised a trembling hand to his throat, then said: “No. No. You’ve got it all wrong, no. That can’t be. It isn’t her. I . . . we spoke just last night. No. No, I tell you.”
Lojacono sighed.
“I’m afraid not, notary. There’s no mistake. And the death can be timed to late last night.”
Festa turned to look at the closed door. He really was overwrought, thought Lojacono, or else he was a remarkable actor.
“I . . . I need to go to her. I have to see with my own eyes. I need to go home.”
“That would serve no purpose, Notary Festa. Your wife has been taken away. Later, you can identify her body at the morgue, but the young woman, the housekeeper, confirmed that it was her. I’m sorry.”
The man walked around the desk, dragging his feet. Suddenly, he looked like an old man. He let himself drop into the chair and covered his face with his hands. A few seconds went by, then he showed his face again. It seemed filled with an immense grief.
“Who . . . who could have done this? And what kind of violent . . . I mean, what exactly happened?”
Lojacono tried to understand the nature of the notary’s reaction. Experience had taught him that no grief seems more real than counterfeit grief.
“Apparently several valuable objects are missing, pieces of fine silver. Neither the apartment door nor the downstairs entrance were forced open, which means that your wife allowed her attacker to come in, or else he had a set of keys. Your wife . . . received a blow to the back of her head, possibly with an object that was found on the floor, stained with blood. We don’t believe that she suffered.”
The notary nodded, and his lower lip began to tremble. He was doing his best to keep from crying, but the tears poured out in spite of him, streaking his cheeks.
“Objects, you say. So it was a burglary, is that right? Cecilia was killed during a burglary? And where, in which room? And with what object?”
Lojacono didn’t want to reveal too many details, because you could never tell: perhaps the notary might betray knowledge of some detail that he wouldn’t otherwise have been able to possess.
“Your wife was found on the floor, in the room where she kept all those snow globes. And as for the object used as the murder weapon, until we’ve heard back from the forensic squad, we can’t really say.”
Festa nodded again, continuing to weep in that strange, silent way. Then he spoke to Lojacono again.
“I’m at your service. How can I help you find out how . . . who did this?”
Lojacono sighed. This was going to be the hard part.
“Before anything else, I have to ask you where you were last night, between 8 PM and midnight. And if there’s anyone who can vouch for it.”
The notary shot a glance toward the door that led to the open-plan office where the employees worked. Lojacono did his best to guess what he was thinking: perhaps he was wondering if someone had already revealed to the police that the Capri story was nonsense.
“My wife thought I was on Capri for a conference, and that the reason I didn’t return was that the seas were too choppy. Actually, I was in Sorrento.”
Aragona asked: “And just why would you have told this lie?”
The notary looked at him without expression, then answered Lojacono: “I was with . . . with a person. And I didn’t want Cecilia to know it.”
Lojacono pulled out his notebook and asked: “In what hotel were you staying? Did you register in the normal fashion?”
“No, we were staying at the home of friends of mine. They’re away, and they gave me the keys to their villa.”
“The person you were staying with, notary, you’ll have to give me her name. We need to check your story out.”
The notary seemed to awaken from a state of unconsciousness, as if he’d just now noticed that he was in his office.
“I believe I need to talk to a lawyer. Yes, yes: I definitely need to talk to a lawyer. I don’t think I ought to answer any more of your questions, lieutenant. I’m going have to ask you to excuse me, but right now I’d prefer to be alone.”
Lojacono tried to regain lost ground: “Notary Festa, our questions are meant strictly to ascertain the direction in which we ought to investigate, nothing more. If you have nothing to worry about . . .”
Festa interrupted him in a low but determined voice: “I understand you, lieutenant. But I need to take my own precautions, precisely because I’m not the one who did it. And I don’t want . . . people who had nothing to do with it to be dragged into this.”
“In that case, will you allow us to talk to your employees and check your computer system?”
The notary stood up. He was still grieving, but he was recovering quickly.
“Let me repeat, lieutenant: first I want to talk to my lawyer. I think it’s necessary. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go see what’s happened at my home. So . . .”
As he was pointing to the office door to invite the police officers to leave, it opened, allowing a young, very beautiful woman to enter. She spoke in a strong Sardinian accent: “Buongiorno. I’m Laura Piras, a magistrate from the district attorney’s office, and from this point on I’ll be supervising this investigation.”
XXI
Having left Donna Amalia’s apartment, Romano and Di Nardo lingered on the sidewalk, not sure what to do next. They both thought the old lady was a pathological liar, but what the warrant officer had said about the seriousness of criminal complaints had been true.
After a long silence, Di Nardo, in her usual deep tone of voice, suggested: “I’d go by and ring the doorbell. Just so we can say that we checked it out. The odds are 99.99 percent that they’ll open the door and invite us in for a cup of coffee, and then we can go back to
the old lady and tell her to calm down and stop making crank calls.”
Romano agreed. “Right, we’re already here, what’s the worst that could happen? Even though I feel like a fool, chasing after the hallucinations of a crazy woman.”
They went over to the intercom. There were two apartments per floor, and the only buzzer without a name was on the fifth floor. Romano pushed the button, waited, and then pressed it again, but there was no answer.
The two cops looked at each other, uncertain. Then Di Nardo, on impulse, pushed the button for the other fifth-floor apartment, which was marked “Casa Sprint Srl, Real Estate.” There was a buzz and the street door swung open with a click.
The elevator left them at a silent landing. There were two doors, one on either side of the hallway. One was shut tight, and one was open wide; inside was a desk behind which sat a young woman with dark hair. They realized that this was a real estate agency. The young woman greeted them politely.
“Hi there! Come on in. What kind of apartment are you looking for?”
Romano told her the real reason they were there: “No, thanks, signorina. We just need some information. Is the other apartment on this landing occupied?”
“It was recently renovated, and it’s already occupied. I’m afraid they didn’t use our agency, it was a private transaction.”
“And do you know who lives there? Have you ever seen anyone go in, or come out, or . . .”
The young woman sat pondering for a moment.
“No, now that you mention it, I’ve never run into anyone or seen people come in or leave. But I’m only here for a couple of hours every morning; then I take people around to view apartments. So I couldn’t really say. But why are you interested? Who are you?”
Romano identified himself, flashing his badge: “Routine verification, you understand, for our files.”
Vague references to bureaucracy always reassure people, and the girl was no exception. She took a phone call. The two police officers took advantage of the opportunity to wave goodbye and leave.
They came to a halt outside the door of the other apartment on the landing. Romano rang the doorbell, and the sound echoed inside. Silence. They rang again. Silence. Romano threw his arms wide and turned to head for the elevator, but someone, inside the apartment, uttered a faint: “Who is it?”
At first, they both thought that they’d had some kind of auditory hallucination; then each realized that the other had heard it, too. A woman’s voice, very faint. Romano brought his face close to the door.
“Buongiorno, signora. Could you please open the door? We need to verify a few details.”
A long pause. Then:
“You need to verify? What do you need to verify? Who are you?”
Di Nardo stepped in at this point, thinking that a woman’s voice might reassure whoever was inside.
“We’re from the police, signora. Go ahead and open the door, there’s no danger.”
“The police? Why? What’s happened?”
Romano replied: “No, signora. Nothing serious. We’re just doing a routine check. Could you open the door, please?”
Another pause. Then: “No, I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
Absolute silence, not a sound. The woman on the other side of the door said nothing for a long time, then: “I don’t want to. I don’t want to open the door. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t want to open the door.”
“You said that you can’t. What do you mean?”
“I made a mistake. I said that I didn’t want to. Go away, thank you, I don’t need anything.”
“Signora, who lives with you? Is someone there? Signora?”
After another silence, the answer: “No. There’s no one here. I’m alone. I don’t need anything. I have to go now.”
They heard footsteps moving away from the door, then the sound of music coming from a radio or the television. They knocked again, and the music got louder. They turned and headed for the elevator.
Once they were back in the street, Di Nardo asked: “Now what do we do?”
Romano thought it over. “Technically we checked it out, didn’t we? That is, we went to the place in question, we had a conversation with whoever lives in the apartment, and we heard the actual voice of the supposed victim of the crime tell us that no crime has taken place. Which means we don’t have to investigate any further.”
The young woman was having none of it: “Well, so what? If it’s true what Guardascione claims, that is, that this woman is being held prisoner, that maybe she’s being threatened, she would have responded precisely the way she did. Do you think that having quote-unquote checked it out is enough?”
“Explain to me then, what do you want to do now? At what point would you consider yourself satisfied?”
Alex had no doubts: “I want to see what’s going in that apartment, that’s what I want. If the police come and knock on your door in broad daylight and you don’t have anything to hide, you open the door and you let them in and you offer them a cup of coffee. You joke around with them, you rhetorically wave bye-bye to the nosy old bat, and that night you tell your friends the story down at the bar.”
Romano resisted, but without much conviction: “Maybe she thought we weren’t really cops—these days it’s dangerous to open the door to strangers, even if they identify themselves; or she’s an illegal immigrant, or something like that, and she’s afraid of getting in trouble; or else she’s living in someone else’s apartment and doesn’t have permission to open the door to anyone.”
“Don’t you think all of these hypotheses deserve to be investigated? Plus there’s this: first she said, ‘I can’t open the door,’ and then she said, ‘I don’t want to open the door.’ A telltale slip of the tongue, as far as I’m concerned. Come on, Romano, this smells fishy to you, too. I agree with you, maybe it’s nothing; but maybe there is something going on. And violence against women is unfortunately all too common a phenomenon. Please, let’s get a warrant to go in there, so we can put our minds at rest.”
Romano saw Giorgia, fast asleep, her brow furrowed and her lip swollen; a muscle twitched in his jaw.
“All right then. Let’s go back to the station and talk it over with Palma. We’ll ask the magistrate for a warrant and then we’ll come back and see what’s going on.”
XXII
It was that damned old woman. I know it was her.
That evil gaze, the minute I saw it, I knew it could only bring trouble.
What am I going to do, what am I going to do, now what am I going to do . . .
Police, they said. Maybe it wasn’t true, maybe they were just trying to sell something, trying to rob me, maybe they wanted to do one of those interviews, how would I know . . . Or else they really were two police officers. That’s what I think, that they were two police officers, and the old woman sent them here, the old woman who always watches my windows, from dawn till dark, what the fuck does she want from me? Why doesn’t she just mind her own business, and let me live my own life?
And now what am I going to do, what am I going to do, what am I going to do . . .
He gave me that number, but he told me never to call it. Then why are you even giving it to me? I asked. And he told me: only if something really serious happens, something very, very serious. It’s not my number, he told me. Someone else will answer, you tell him your name, and he’ll let me know. He knows how to get in touch with me.
Now, is this or isn’t this something serious? How would I know?
I can’t afford to lose everything. If for one reason or another he decides that I’m more trouble than I’m worth, that I’m not what he says I am, something beautiful and that’s it, he’ll just trade me in. He’ll get another girl; can you imagine how many girls much better than me he could find? And I’ll be plunged back into the shit, and my family will be ruined, and my
brothers won’t have work anymore. It wouldn’t take much. If I call, maybe he’ll send me away and replace me with another girl.
But what if I don’t call and those two come back? And what if it’s like in the movies on TV, and they come back and knock down the door? What would I tell them—who I am and why I’m here?
What am I going to do, what am I going to do, what am I going to do . . .
If they come back and force open the door, they might arrest me, and that would certainly be worse, even though I’d never tell them his name.
But if they arrest me, then he’ll definitely find another girl to take my place.
No, I’m sure: I have to warn him.
Where is that slip of paper with the number? Here it is. He told me: the only number you can call is this one. No other number. Just this one.
So I’m going to call this number. In a hurry.
Damned old woman, I hope you burn in the fires of hell.
XXIII
Leaving Aragona to keep an eye on the notary’s office, Piras and Lojacono walked out of the building and into the wind that continued to lash the streets.
The magistrate had taken the situation in hand with energy and expertise, sparing the policeman the sad embarrassment of having to put the investigative machinery into reverse in order to get them all out of a bind. The bureaucratic process would take a few more hours, and the notary would have the chance to consult a lawyer, but at least the computer had been seized and, in the meanwhile, they’d be able to proceed with the questioning of anyone they felt it necessary to talk to, first and foremost the employees in that office.
“You see, Laura: from the attitudes I observed, the glances, the expressions, I’m convinced that they know a lot about the notary’s private life. If we leave them alone, they’ll come up with a single, agreed-upon version and we won’t be able to get a thing out of them. That’s why your arrival was so crucial and timely. Thanks.”
The Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 9