Out of Season

by Antonio Manzini

  “That’s right, and we’ve found some cash here, too. It’s 20,000 euros . . . all in small bills. . . .”

  Italo looked at Rocco, who winked back at him. “Certainly, sir. I’ll alert headquarters.”

  The deputy chief ended the call. “Now, take the 17,000 euros that are left over. And hurry up, before the others get here. . . .”

  “For real, Rocco?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking? A little bit of funding for a worthy cause.”

  “Which worthy cause?” Italo asked, as he hurried to hide the bundles of cash in his pockets and his jacket.

  “Let’s not forget that Chiara is waiting for us. Come on, get moving.”

  Rocco and Italo had left the officers from headquarters to take care of the Posillipo Pizzeria and had gone back to Via Chateland 92, the address of the late Carlo Figus.

  “Rocco, do you mind if I don’t come up? When I’m inside that place, I start to feel a little queasy.”

  “Here, chew this.” And he handed him a gummy fruit candy.

  “Will it make me feel better?”

  “I couldn’t say. But at least it will leave you with a good taste in your mouth.”

  Carlo Figus’s mother answered the door. She didn’t smile. She reversed her wheelchair out of the way to allow the policemen to enter. “You came back to see me . . .” she said. She was wearing the same cardigan with Mickey Mouse stitched over the heart.

  “This isn’t a visit of pleasure, Signora.” In the meantime, Italo gazed in horror at the garbage that filled the apartment. He was nervously chewing his candy, but the smell of age and mold was too powerful and penetrating to be stopped by a mere gummy candy.

  “Why? What have I done?” and the woman’s eyes grew enormous behind her lenses.

  “You? Nothing. But I need you to tell me the truth.”

  “Do you want an espresso?”

  “No, thanks. It’s about Domenico Cuntrera, a.k.a. Mimmo. Did he come here?”

  “I don’t know him.”

  The woman wasn’t much of a liar. She’d dropped her gaze and was scratching her shoulder.

  “Signora, let me ask you a second time: Where is Mimmo Cuntrera?”

  “I told you I don’t know him,” she said, her voice quavering and both hands clutching the wheels at her side. “What would I know about it? Why are you asking me these questions? Why are you treating me like this? Weren’t we friends, you and me? Weren’t we friends?”

  “We’re friends, Signora, and if you’ll answer my question and tell me the truth, we’ll be even better friends.”

  She turned her chair. “How am I supposed to know? What do I know about it? I don’t know him.”

  “The coupons from the pizzeria, Signora. You showed them to me the last time I was here. Who gave them to you?”

  “I don’t have coupons from any pizzeria. I don’t have them. I don’t know . . .” and then she came suddenly to a stop.

  At the center of the path carved out through the mountain of objects the skeletal figure of Adelmo had appeared. Carlo’s grandfather. Weary, leaning against the door frame, he looked out at the policemen confined in that garbage dump, arguing with his daughter. He had raised one hand. He wished to speak. He slowly pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his mouth, looked at Rocco, and then said: “He came here. More than once. Starting the day Carlo died. Yesterday, too. He came here.”

  “What did he want, Signor Adelmo?”

  “I don’t know. He kept asking: where is she? Where did Carlo put her? He even started searching for her here, under all this . . . all this filth . . .” and Rocco thought he saw the old man smile. “Under all this garbage, anything could be hidden, even a corpse, and no one would ever know.”

  “But what was Cuntrera looking for?” the deputy chief insisted in a gentle voice.

  “He just kept saying the same thing: where did Carlo hide her? Where did he take her? But I swear to you, Dottore, I don’t know what he was looking for. When he left, he said: Idiots! That’s what he called us. Idiots!”

  “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “What have I got to lose?” and with a sweep of his arm he took in the dump he lived in, his daughter in a wheelchair, and himself. “You tell me.”

  The deputy chief turned toward Italo. He reached out for a bag that the officer pulled out of his trousers. “Here, Signor Adelmo. This will help.”

  The old man maintained his composure. He looked at the bag without touching it. “What is it?”

  “A reimbursement for your grandson’s stupidity. Go on, take it, it’s important.”

  Adelmo reached out a trembling hand. He took the bag, which crinkled in the old man’s arthritic fingers. “We need to get going. So long, Signora Figus. So long, Adelmo.”

  Rocco executed a smart about-face and, followed by Italo, retraced his steps to the front door of the apartment.

  “How much did you give him, Rocco?”

  “I gave him 11,000 euros. You and me are going to have to make do with six thousand. For our living expenses.”

  “Excellent!” said Italo.

  “Now let’s get busy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because now there’s no doubt about it. Chiara has been left all alone!”

  Rocco’s office looked like a metro station at rush hour. Summoned urgently to attend, all the surviving officers of police headquarters had gathered there. Rocco looked at them. Aside from Italo, Antonio, and Inspector Rispoli, the rest of the landscape was dispiriting. D’Intino, with his tiny eyes, like a boiled fish, Deruta and his enormous hulk, Casella, the young man from Vomero whose name he couldn’t remember, and another couple of officers old enough to retire soon.

  What am I going to do with this motley crew? the deputy chief wondered as he laid the map out on the table and explained the daunting task that lay before them. “We need to find a house, probably isolated. So we’re going to avoid population centers. And we need to look for it in this triangle that extends from Salirod to Promiod and Saint-Vincent.”

  “Fuck,” someone murmured.

  “But there’s one thing that helps us. The snow. It started snowing Tuesday night and I believe that—seeing that the kidnappers died early Monday morning—no one’s gone back to the hiding place. So we need to look for a place where there are no tire tracks, footprints, and most important of all, where no one’s shoveled the snow.”

  “All right. Well, that’s something, anyway,” said Casella.

  “So now, how many are we?”

  Inspector Caterina Rispoli counted. “Ten counting you, Deputy Chief. A couple of us will need to stay behind at police headquarters, right?”

  “Caterina, what are you going to do? Are you coming or staying put?”

  “Certainly, I’m coming. Who gives a damn about a fever?”

  “Excellent. How many cars do we have?”

  “Six. But one has to stay here, in case of emergencies,” said Italo.

  “So, five?” asked Rocco.

  The Neapolitan officer hesitantly spoke up. “Actually, one of them has had the engine flooded for the past three days.”

  “Then, four?”

  “And D’Intino wrecked another one.”

  “You’re saying we have three cars?” Rocco asked. “Just three cars?”

  “Yeah, but with three cars we can fit fifteen people!” said Deruta, trying to instill a note of optimism in the proceedings.

  “Deruta, we need to split up into groups of two. We need at least five vehicles. All right, I’ll take my own car, and that way at least we have four.”

  “I have a motorcycle,” said the young officer from Vomero.

  “In this cold?”

  “If all you’ve got is lemons. . . .”

  “Do you have two helmets?” asked the deputy chief.

  “Certainly. I’ve got two.”

  “All right then, Deruta and D’Intino in the first squad car. You’re a well-established pair.”

  “Yessir.” />
  “Italo and Inspector Rispoli in the second car.”

  “Very good.”

  “You, young man, you ride on your motorcycle and you’ll take Casella with you.”

  “But why me?” the other officer objected immediately.

  “Because that’s the way it is. Bundle up warm, take a couple of aspirins, and climb on. You two!” and he pointed at two older officers Rocco had never seen in all his time in Aosta. “What are your names?”

  “Officer Curcio,” said the one with the beard.

  “Officer Penzo,” said the bald one. Rocco smiled. Curcio and Penzo were a pair of soccer players on A. S. Roma that he never could find to complete his soccer card collection. “All right then, Curcio and Penzo, you take the third squad car, and Antonio and I will take mine. We’ll all meet downstairs in ten minutes.”

  “Ahem, Dottore?” Italo grabbed him by the elbow.

  “What is it?”

  “Car number two is out of gas.”

  “Well, fucking hell. . . .” Rocco pulled out his wallet and gave Italo fifty euros. “There. And that makes a hundred.”

  The ship of fools had set sail, and now they truly were on a war footing. The officers watched Rocco reviewing the line of vehicles. He’d given each team a radio.

  “Now listen up,” he shouted, holding the walkie-talkie up high so they all could see. “Channel 2. Is that clear? Channel 2. Come on now, let’s get moving!”

  He hopped into his own car and waved for them to pull out. The column roared into action. Leading the line was Rocco’s Volvo. The young Neapolitan’s motorcycle brought up the rear. Casella’s teeth were already chattering with the cold.

  Hopes were slim. Rocco knew that. But he needed to act fast, his only priority was to save Chiara Berguet’s life. The rest would shake out later.

  “How’s it look to you, Antonio?”

  “Bad, Rocco. It looks bad. Unless we have a stroke of dumb luck, here. . . .”

  “On our drive up, let’s give it some thought. Is there something we’ve missed?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  When they reached Saint-Vincent they went their separate ways. Schiavone and Antonio Scipioni took the road toward Closel. They climbed uphill, one hairpin turn after another. Woods, boulders, everything was covered in a blanket of snow. As soon as they left the inhabited area, Rocco, with one eye on the odometer, slowed down. He started observing the houses.

  “All right, Antonio, we can start scoping out the situation from here.”

  “Which ones should we search first?”

  “The isolated houses, and then let’s check out the dirt roads running off into the woods. They might lead to mountain huts.”

  “Well, I’d start from that one,” and he pointed to a house with the shutters fastened tight. A handsome two-story villa. It looked uninhabited. In the garden, there was no sign of any human presence. The snow had covered the firewood, and there was a swing hanging from a tree branch. “That reeks of vacation home. Still, okay, let’s give it a try.” He stopped the car and they got out. The gate was made of wood and they had only to push to get in. Antonio looked down at Rocco’s shoes: “Certainly, wearing those. . . .”

  “I know!” Schiavone interrupted him, “I know! I’m used to it.”

  They walked into the garden. The vases on the little balcony were empty and only a few snippets of old carnations could still be seen. The snow all around the little villa was pristine. Rocco went up to the door. It was shut, locked tight. He tried to peer inside the house through the little heart carved into the wood. At last he made up his mind. He pulled out his Swiss army knife and went over to the keyhole.

  “What are you doing?” Antonio asked.

  “We need to get in, don’t we?”

  He fiddled around with the lock for a few seconds. Then it opened.

  “Huh, not bad. Is that something they teach you at the police academy down in Rome?” asked Antonio.

  They stepped into the little house.

  It was dark. The electricity had been switched off. They pulled out their cell phones and switched on the flashlight apps. It reeked of stale air, and the furniture was all covered with dusty plastic sheeting.

  “Head down into the cellar.”

  Antonio descended the stairs that led into the basement. Rocco climbed up to the bedrooms.

  Of which there were two. One with wallpaper covered with Smurfs and two brightly colored single beds, the other with a king-sized bed.

  Nothing. He went back downstairs. He ran into Antonio.

  “Well?”

  “Nothing.”

  “One down.”

  “At this rate, though, you know how long it’s going to take us?”

  “All night long, if necessary, Antonio. All night long.”

  As soon as he got back in the car, the radio crackled to life: “Rocco? It’s Italo.”

  “What’s up, Italo.”

  “We went into a house. It looked abandoned. Instead, it had been burgled. What should I do?”

  “Call in a report and keep going. We can circle back later on. Get going!”

  With a sputter of static, the radio fell silent.

  “While we’re searching, would you tell me something?”

  “If I can. . . .”

  “Why were you transferred to Aosta?”

  Rocco gazed attentively at the houses. “Punishment.”

  “For what?”

  “I tend to apply the law with a less than judicious emphasis.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Let’s just say that I got a little overenthusiastic.”

  “Can I ask what exactly happened?”

  “No. I don’t feel like talking about it. And anyway, Italo knows. Have him tell you all about it.”

  Rocco on the left, Antonio on the right, they were gazing intently out at fields and forests. The white of the snow glared back on their weary faces, blinding their eyes.

  “What about those?”

  “Too close. There’s a car parked outside. Lights turned on. No, we’re going to skip the ones that aren’t isolated.”

  They wended their way through two hairpin curves without finding traces of houses or side roads, aside from the hiking paths that climbed steeply up the mountainsides. “How many hours of light do we still have?”

  Antonio glanced at his watch. “Not many.”

  “Look here!” A side road that led off into the woods. “Could that be it?”

  “No one’s been down there. Let’s go.”

  Rocco turned around and veered down the side road, confronting the snow decisively. The excellent Swedish handling and the four-wheel drive propelled the car till they pulled up in front of a tumbledown shack.

  “This looks like a hayloft to me,” said the Sicilian officer.

  “Well, let’s go take a look.”

  In the cool air, the odor of burnt wood and resin. No sounds. Only the faint noise of snow falling from tree branches now and again.

  “I say there’s no one here.”

  The roof was old and it had collapsed in several places. The upper story had been picked clean like a carcass in the desert. The lower story, in contrast, was still intact. The door swung wide open. There were only a few bales of hay and the wheels of an old tractor inside. Nothing else. “A complete dud. Let’s go back to the car!”

  Then, as if an enormous hammer had struck him at the top of his cranium, Rocco Schiavone came to a halt in the middle of the snow. Antonio watched as he stared at a fixed point in the distance, glimmering vaguely.

  “Are you all right? Sir, are you all right?” Antonio ran toward the deputy chief. The first thing he did was to look at his feet. He was afraid Schiavone might have frostbite. “Rocco? Rocco, can you hear me?”

  “Carlo’s last name was Figus, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So was that his mother’s last name? I don’t think a Valdostan would have a Sardinian last name.” />
  “Maybe that was her husband’s last name.”

  “Then what was Carlo’s grandfather’s name? The one you accompanied to the hospital?” Antonio put his hand to his chin and stood there, thinking.

  “Hold on. Hold on. Adelmo . . . Adelmo. . . .”

  “Rosset!” Rocco exploded. “Adelmo Rosset!”

  “Yes. But why?”

  Rocco pulled out his cell phone. “Because maybe we have a prayer of a chance.”

  Italo and Caterina had identified a house that matched the description. In the middle of the snow, isolated if you overlooked a small chalet about half a mile away. It looked abandoned. They left the car on the road and climbed up to that alpine hut high among the trees. “Can you do it, sweetheart?” Italo asked.

  “Don’t worry. Either I get pneumonia or I’ll get better.”

  After making their way through a tumbledown iron gate, they reached the house. Just one story. The walls were lined with logs. It seemed to have come out of a Nordic fable. Two old stairs led up to the main door. Italo knocked. No answer. The door swung open. The place was empty. Not a single stick of furniture, bare walls.

  “There’s nothing here.”

  Caterina walked back down the steps and made her way around the house. She bent down to look through a broken window down into the cellar.

  “Italo! I saw something in here!”

  Italo came running. He almost tripped over a rock buried in the snow. “Where?”

  “Here, down in there. I saw something move.”

  They walked around the main wall and found a wooden door leading into the room underneath the house. Italo tried to open it: “Chiara? Chiara, can you hear me? Chiara?”

  The door wouldn’t give. Italo started slamming his shoulder against it, but it resisted the impact.

  “Let’s shoot the lock!”

  “That won’t work, Cate, it doesn’t work,” said Italo, and he resumed pounding at the door, which started to give. He gave one last vigorous blow and the door flew open. Something shot out from behind it at the speed of light. “What the fuck?”

  A piercing yelp and a little creature with dirty white fur was lying on its back with all four legs in the air at Caterina’s feet, wagging its tail and barking in a cheerful, strident voice. “Little one!” Caterina bent over. “He fell inside! Poor little thing!” and she began stroking the little dog’s belly. Happily, the puppy licked her hand, bundled up in the glove.