The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees

by Serge Quadruppani

  “Do you believe this attempt could have been made by the League?” Calabonda broke in.

  The executive made a skeptical face.

  “Maybe not the League itself, but every movement has its extremists. I’m not formally accusing anyone. Still, that Minoncelli is a damned hothead . . .”

  “We’ll make all the necessary inquiries,” the maresciallo said.

  “I have no doubt,” the executive affirmed. He gestured toward the building’s large doors. “Now if you don’t need anything further from me, I have to begin what is sure to be a long day of work. Of course, let it be understood that I am at your disposal.”

  He reached out to shake the carabiniere’s hand.

  “I’m sure that you will find the perpetrators quickly, Maresciallo. And compliments on your scientific knowledge. You really impressed me,” he concluded, with a faint note of superiority that made Simona want to slap him.

  The black hairs of the carabiniere’s mustache quivered as he shook the outstretched hand and mumbled, “You can count on us. We’ll investigate all possible theories.”

  “Except for the insurance scam angle, ofcourse,” Simona said jokingly, holding out her hand to receive her handshake.

  Signorelli forced a weak laugh. Out of the corner of her eye, the commissario glimpsed an expression on Calabonda’s face that she hadn’t seen before: one of amusement. After he had shaken hands with Evangelisti as well, the executive walked purposefully toward the entrance.

  Calabonda removed his sunglasses for the second time. And to think, thought Simona, to an outside observer, it might look like nothing out of the ordinary is happening!

  “Commissario,” began the maresciallo, clearing his throat. “I still haven’t thanked you for your intervention yesterday, during Berisha’s arrest. Without you I would have found myself in a very difficult situation.”

  “Oh, don’t give it another thought,” said Simona.

  “Actually, yes, I intend to. I’m planning to write to the newspapers to contest the version of the story that Ciuffani is about to put forward.”

  “Please—let it go. I’m used to media controversies. They fizzle out on their own, especially when no one fans the flames. Rather, tell me: How is Berisha?”

  “Apparently still in the hospital. The doctors say his life isn’t in danger, even though he lost a lot of blood. According to Doctor Pasquano, the caliber of the bullet that shattered his knee is the same as the bullet that killed Mauro Danela, the beekeeper who went to destroy Minoncelli’s apiary. By the way, were you able to read my report?”

  Simona shot a look at Evangelisti. She didn’t know whether the magistrate had told the carabiniere he’d keep her up to date on the case’s progress, but she decided to lay her cards on the table.

  “Yes, Evangelisti brought me a copy this morning at the hotel. I only had time to glance at it before he called me to let me know what had happened here. But from what I read, it seems that Danela and Minoncelli were enemies, that he had a serious problem with the fact that he used foreign bees, from Slovenia, or Borneo, or I don’t know where. He said that this bastardized the pure Italian species.”

  “Yes, that might explain why he took advantage of Minoncelli’s compulsory stay with us to go and destroy his apiary. But as far as his death is concerned, we’re totally in the dark. The same goes for who shot Berisha. The thing with the military-style weaponry is very unsettling . . . and if it’s part of a ‘Worker Bee Revolution’ counterstrike, the ecoterrorism angle is definitely worth exploring . . .”

  “And what about Bertolazzi’s death? I didn’t have time to read the report.”

  “We strongly suspect Berisha. I have numerous witnesses who saw him at Minoncelli’s house at the time of the murder. They’re keeping him under watch at the hospital until he can be interrogated. His fingerprints are being compared to the ones found on the weapon—aside from yours, obviously—and I’m waiting for the results.”

  After saying good-bye to the maresciallo, the commissario and the prosecutor walked side by side to their respective cars, which were parked at the other end of the lot.

  After a few steps, Simona asked, “What gaffes did Calabonda make to prompt people to come up with the term ‘to pull a Cacabonda’?”

  “Our maresciallo surprised you, eh? You’re thinking he might not be as stupid as he seems. And you’re not wrong. Let’s just say that he has an extremely rigid sense of his duties and he had trouble adapting to the ways of the valley. For example, he decided to check drivers’ blood alcohol levels right as they were leaving a plaisentif festival— that’s one of our typical cheeses. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with it, but it makes you thirsty . . . The majority of the population saw this as an attack on local custom.”

  “I see.”

  “That’s not the worst of it. We had a strike at a dairy plant. The situation was very tense; the workers threatened to take an executive hostage, like in France. Calabonda plunked down a cordon of men at the entrance, but when one man tried to get through the blockade, Calabonda didn’t believe he was who he said he was. He took him for an agitator and he clocked him with his billy club. The man turned out to be the mayor, come to talk to the workers. Fortunately the mayor didn’t want to press charges, but long story short, word got around the valleys . . .”

  “Your maresciallo is a complex character.”

  The magistrate stopped to look at the commissario. Simona made out a pair of intense, penetrating eyes in that face, totally swallowed up by the beard and topped off by that tuft of uncombed hair.

  “We’re all complex characters, it seems to me,” he observed. “We all have our dark spots. You, for example . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well . . . don’t take offense . . . I’m happy that you are following the investigation up close. But on some level I wonder why you’re so intent on staying here when you could easily be spending your vacation in Sicily.”

  Simona unlocked the car doors with her remote before answering.

  “First of all I don’t like—truly do not like at all—the fact that they stole my weapon to kill a man. And also . . .”

  “Also?”

  “Also . . . nothing,” she said. “I think that’s reason enough, don’t you?”

  “Certainly.”

  Later, as she was driving toward San Giorgio al Monte, she thought back to what had kept her from telling the magistrate the second reason she felt compelled to stay: the impression, as she’d already confided in Marco, that “something important” was happening in those mountains. The thought that had held her back was this:How did Evangelisti know that Marco was waiting for her in Sicily? Was she being watched? And if so, by whom?

  * * *

  As she entered the nameless café on the outskirts of town where she had met him the previous morning, Simona wasn’t surprised to see Giuseppe Felice, sitting in the same spot, writing on a small laptop. He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t hear her come up behind him, and when she placed a hand on his shoulder he jumped violently. Then, turning around, he saw her, and he had a surprising reaction: he bent his arm and held it up in front of his face, like a child afraid of being slapped.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, immediately lowering his arm. “But my editorial director demanded an interview, and you didn’t want to give me one—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  With his chin, Felice gestured toward the newspaper display stand on the counter, where a bold headline appeared on the front page: Bruno Ciuffani’s denunciation of “Tavianello’s Dubious Role in the San Giorgio al Monte Multiple Homicide Investigation: Exclusive Interview.”

  Simona shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “That’s the job. You know what they say: there are no stupid people, only stupid professions. So, did the neural network software work?” she inquired, taking a seat across from the reporter.

  He shook his head “no” and assumed a piti
ful expression.

  “Not a chance. It completely froze my computer. I spent an hour trying to get it to work again.”

  Simona ordered a coffee and waited for it in silence. Ill at ease, Felice fidgeted in his chair, then motioned to close his computer. The commissario stopped him.

  “Wait. The photos taken at the crime scene—are they on this computer, or did you use your software to delete them?”

  “No, there’re still on here.”

  “Can I look at them?”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. Let me see.”

  She moved her chair to position herself next to the reporter. When the coffee shop owner brought her coffee he found the plump white-haired signora and the little redheaded fellow sitting snugly shoulder to shoulder, their heads tilted toward each other as they both looked at the screen. The barista made a face that conveyed both perplexity and an infinite tolerance for his fellow creatures’ perverse behavior. He set the cup down and left.

  “Wait,” Simona said at one point. “Can you go back to the last photo? Yes, that’s the one.”

  She took a moment to study the image. Then she looked up at the reporter and, seeing that his computer was connected to the Internet, she asked him, “If I gave you my email address, would you send me these photos? I promise you that you’ll be the first to know if they lead to any interesting developments.”

  “You really think there could be something interesting in them?”

  “Yes,” she answered, distracted by the arrival of a tall, tan, muscular man with curly blond hair and light blue eyes.

  “Tell me, is that Minoncelli by chance?” she asked, using her eyes to indicate the newcomer, who had just leaned against the bar and ordered a caffè corretto.

  Felice looked up.

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  “Send me those photos?” she asked, getting up. “Write down your cell number for me. I’ll get in touch with you very soon.”

  The reporter nodded. Simona was already walking toward the counter. Minoncelli recognized her and smiled.

  “Look,” he said, “our modest trattoria has turned into a celebrity hot spot.”

  The commissario gave him her hand to shake.

  “It seems to me you’re the celebrity here.”

  The man’s handshake was sincere and straightforward, like his pale blue gaze (and don’t pass judgment on this bit of romance-novel-style sentimentality, dear reader, because it’s perfectly suited to that sweetness so genuine that it caused a lump in Simona’s throat).

  “Would you have a minute to give me some information? Strictly off the record, to be clear. You have every right to say no and I’d understand—”

  The smile widened, revealing some of his perfect teeth.

  “Are you always so courteous with the people you investigate?” he asked. “I’m guessing that you play the role of the good cop during interrogations, while a colleague plays the bad one . . .”

  “I’m not investigating you.”

  “What are you doing, then? Aside from leaving a gun lying around that was used to kill that poor Bertolazzi at my home.”

  Simona ran all five of her fingers through her white mane.

  “I’m trying to make sense of things,” she said. “Trying to make sense of the recent series of events in this valley, because I have a feeling they concern more than just its inhabitants. It’s only an intuition, but I believe that what’s happening here concerns everyone in the country, if not in the world.”

  “No kidding,” said the beekeeper, whose unbroken gaze continued to study her. He let several seconds pass before adding, “Well, you’re not wrong.”

  He emptied his cup, set a coin down on the counter, looked at his watch.

  “There’s something I have to do in the city, but if you want, we can meet back here in two hours. I have to go work in another apiary a couple of miles from here.”

  * * *

  Standing squarely on his feet, Maresciallo Calabonda straightened his sunglasses on his nose until the arcs of his eyebrows disappeared, creating a certain resemblance between his face and the head of an insect. Then he crossed his arms. In front of him the burly, ponytailed man who directed the center’s security team shifted his feet, wiped away the beads of sweat that had gathered on his forehead, and cleared his throat.

  “All right,” said the carabiniere, pointing to the series of monitors behind them, “you’re telling me that these screens are all hooked up to a single computer, located in this room . . .”

  Without turning his head or uncrossing his arms, he stuck his right index finger out over his left elbow to indicate the machine sitting on the desk to the security director’s right. The man drew his head back between his shoulders slightly, which made the folds in the back of his neck that much more pronounced.

  “. . . and that this computer isn’t connected to the outside?” finished the carabiniere.

  The head of security nodded, his ponytail swaying above the collar of his blue uniform shirt.

  “That’s right,” he admitted in an unsteady voice.

  “Then how do you explain the fact that your video surveillance system broke down right as these individuals infiltrated the center’s perimeter?”

  The man sighed heavily.

  “Clearly it was an act of sabotage. But . . .”

  And he went quiet.

  Calabonda smoothed his mustache.

  “But what?”

  “But if I were in your place—”

  “You are not in my place,” the carabiniere said curtly. “Tell me what you have to say.”

  “Well, I’m not sure that one should necessarily jump to the conclusion that there were inside collaborators. I’ve already interrogated members of my staff. One of them confessed to having installed a video game on the computer from a flash drive. For passing the time during surveillance shifts . . .”

  “What?”

  The head guard brought his hand up.

  “It’s a serious thing, and I told him that when our internal investigation was finished he’d be suspended until a penalty could be determined. In any event, it’s possible that game jammed the entire system unintentionally.”

  “Unintentionally? You mean to tell me it’s a coincidence that a terrorist ambush and the breakdown of the security system occurred simultaneously?”

  “You know, the system was down for four hours and the terrorists couldn’t have been on the premises for more than one.”

  Calabonda shook his head.

  “I’m not convinced. Not in the least. You’re coming with me to headquarters, with your man—the one who downloaded the game to the computer. We’ll have time to go over the facts again.”

  The walkie-talkie in the maresciallo’s belt crackled. He brought the device to his ear, listened for several s econds, and mumbled: “Get over there.” Then he got back to the watchman.

  “You’re going to leave one of your men here and have him show three of my men how the surveillance system is secured. Go wait for me by our cars, along with the genius who downloaded that little game. And tell him to bring the flash drive, if he hasn’t already gotten rid of it.”

  As Brigadier Lagazo crossed the threshold to enter, he passed the head watchman on his way out, his head down with an air of mortification.

  “Not the sharpest tool in the shed,” the maresciallo mumbled. “So, what do you have to tell me that’s so urgent?”

  The brigadier reached out to show him a plastic bag.

  “A very interesting piece of evidence.”

  Drawing near it, Calabonda opened it from above and saw its contents.

  “A bottle of whiskey? What’s interesting about that?”

  “We found it in a bush not far from the place where the fence was cut,” the brigadier declared. “And it’s not just any bottle of whiskey.”

  Seeing his triumphant expression, Calabonda, who had had a feeling he was being taken for a ride from the moment he’d arrived at the res
earch center, began to hope.

  * * *

  Marco Tavianello scooped up the last remains of almond granita with a long spoon. Then he picked up the last crumb of brioche with one finger and cleaned his hands with a paper napkin, raising his eyes to watch the fashion show consisting of men in Bermuda shorts and women covered in brightly colored transparent sarongs. He asked himself yet again whether the human species could really be made up of such beings. From that café patio on the island of Salina, the view of the stretch of sea separating them from the island of Lipari was full of the bustling movements of a species of anthropoids that to his mind could not have a place on the same branch of the evolutionary tree to which he himself felt he belonged. It wasn’t just the droves of Milanese that gave him, a Neapolitan, this sensation, even though their mad obsession with building hot-tub-equipped mansions in the middle of the Mediterranean shrubland struck him as potentially extraterrestrial behavior. It was more the things they were talking about, the way they spoke, the way they laughed, their gestures—all of it was so foreign to him that he felt the sudden urge to call Simona.

  He sighed, took his cell phone from the pocket of his long linen pants, hesitated several seconds as he looked at the number, then made up his mind.

  “The person you are trying to call is unreachable . . .”

  What the fuck! He ended the call. What was Simona doing up there, anyway?

  * * *

  Climbing up the narrow roads of a mountain village, walking among patches of blinding sunlight and soft shadows, smells of basil, of pine, of cat piss, of mold and damp and heavy roses. Catching sight of something under a caryatid, something so strikingly white that you can’t tell whether it’s a bedsheet beside you or a blanket of snow overhead, up on the peaks that dominate the horizon. Smelling the coldness of the water even before feeling it on your skin. Thrusting both hands into an icy fountain.

  Finding yourself without looking for yourself, after catching your breath, in a shadowy corner between the cold stone and the burning sun, fully aware that nobody knows where you are.

  Unreachable. What an ugly word for such a beautiful moment.