Temporary Perfections

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  “A while ago I read a good book by a Dutch psychologist. It’s called Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older, and it talks about that very phenomenon. It’s really interesting.”

  “Just hearing the title makes me anxious. There are times when I feel like I’m losing my balance and falling over. It’s not a pleasant feeling.”

  I knew what he was talking about. In fact, it’s not a pleasant feeling. We sat in silence, with those words hanging in the air.

  “All right, let’s forget about time rushing by and my midlife crisis. You said on the phone that you’re looking into the disappearance of Manuela Ferraro.”

  “Yes. As I told you, her parents came to see me, accompanied by an old civil law colleague of mine. They asked me to examine the file and see if I could find any grounds for further investigation. Last night I read through the documents, and of course the first thing I noticed was that you were in charge of the investigation.”

  He nodded, and said nothing. So I continued.

  “I want to know what you think about her disappearance, aside from what you wrote in your reports.”

  I refrained from asking him explicitly if he thought further investigation was merited. Even a well-balanced and intelligent person like Navarra can be touchy about certain things. I figured something might emerge if we just talked it over casually.

  “It’s never easy to form any solid theory in a missing persons case. In my experience—and I think statistics back me up on this—once a certain amount of time has gone by the percentage of positive outcomes in missing persons cases is very low.”

  He stopped as if he’d just thought of something important.

  “You know that Detective Tancredi is a first-class specialist in this type of investigation, right? He’s built up an incredible body of experience with missing children. I think you know him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Tancredi and I are friends.”

  “Well, if you’re a friend of Tancredi’s, I’d ask his opinion. I won’t be offended. In any case, aside from what happens in general, you want to know if I have any ideas of my own, above and beyond what’s written in the reports.”

  “That would be helpful, in fact.”

  Navarra pressed his lips together. He scratched the back of his neck. He rocked his head gently from side to side, as if he were weighing the wisdom of confiding in me what he really thought. Then he must have come down on the side of taking the risk.

  “If I had been able to dedicate a lot more time to this case … no, let’s say if I had been able to dedicate all my time to this case, I would have looked into that young woman’s life in Rome. I had the impression that her two friends—Abbrescia and Pontrandolfi—weren’t telling me everything they knew, that they were covering up something, but I don’t know what. Let me be clear: the first target of my investigation was Cantalupi, Manuela’s ex-boyfriend. He’s a spoiled brat, a conceited and overindulged little playboy who just makes you want to slap him silly. But according to the phone records he was actually in Croatia when Manuela disappeared, and he didn’t come back to Italy until four or five days later. In other words, unless we’re willing to consider the possibility of teleportation, there was no way he could have been in contact with the girl when she went missing.”

  “The fact that Cantalupi was in Croatia is proven only by the cell phone records.”

  He looked at me with a smile.

  “Believe me, I wasn’t happy to give up the idea that this guy was somehow involved in the girl’s disappearance. And I thought the same thing you’re thinking—though I hope you don’t mind my saying that it’s kind of crazy: Someone else could have used the phone. But the cell phone records show calls made to his phone from his home, so they must have been made by his parents. Anyway, since I didn’t like the guy, I went ahead and did some informal checking on my own. I talked to the captain of the boat that he took. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it. On the days in question, that little shit was on the other side of the Adriatic Sea.”

  While he was talking, I decided the theory that Cantalupi had given his cell phone to someone else in Croatia so that he could establish an alibi in advance before hurrying back to Italy to kidnap or murder his ex-girlfriend was silly. Why would he bother? I felt foolish having thought of it, even though a seasoned professional investigator like Navarra had entertained the same thought.

  “But you were saying about her two friends?”

  “Right, her two friends. Let me start by saying that I always try to be very cautious about my instincts on whether a witness or a suspect is reliable or sincere. You know a good way to tell if an investigator is a fool?”

  “No, tell me. It might come in handy.”

  “Ask him if he can tell when someone’s lying. The ones who say they can tell, who think it’s impossible to trick them with a lie, are the biggest fools around. They’re the ones a skilled liar can wrap around his little finger with the greatest ease and enjoyment.”

  “I know a couple of prosecutors who claim that they know immediately if a defendant or a witness is lying. And in fact they’re the biggest idiots in the district attorney’s office.”

  “They’re probably the same ones I’m thinking of. Anyway, that was a bit of a digression, but I’m trying to say that I take my impressions about the truthfulness of someone I’m interviewing with a grain of salt. That doesn’t mean that I ignore my instincts entirely. I think of the interview as an opening and try to explore more deeply.”

  At that point I asked him if he would like a coffee or anything else. He said, yes, please, he had just been thinking how much he’d enjoy a cappuccino. I called the café downstairs, ordered two cappuccinos, then looked over at Navarra.

  “So?”

  “So, I had the impression that something wasn’t quite right when I talked to the two young women.”

  “What wasn’t right, in particular?”

  “That there were things they didn’t tell me. Let me give you an example. At a certain point, I asked Nicoletta, Manuela’s roommate in Rome, and then the other one, if Manuela used narcotics.”

  “Yes, I read that in the statement. Both of them said no, as far as they were aware, except for the occasional joint.”

  “Right, but the thing was how they said it. There was something about the answers both of them gave to that question that didn’t convince me entirely. I followed up on that line of questioning a little bit, and both of them shut down. I had nothing concrete to work with, so I had to drop the matter. But I was left with a very distinct impression that they hadn’t told me everything they knew. And the one who seemed most uncomfortable was Nicoletta Abbrescia.”

  “So did you talk to your superiors or to the prosecutor about your concerns?”

  “Sure I did. And by the way,” he added, as if he’d just remembered that he was giving me confidential details about an investigation that was officially still open, “the conversation we’re having right now never happened.”

  “It never happened. So what did your superiors and the prosecutor have to say about it?”

  “My captain shrugged it off. And all things considered, I can see why. What were we supposed to do with my suspicions in the absence of any concrete evidence? I tried suggesting that we follow the two girls for a couple of days. He looked at me as if I’d just morphed into the creature from Alien. He asked me where I wanted to act out this American detective movie. In Rome, obviously. And was I supposed to authorize my own mission to Rome? And while I was at it, would I be paying for it out of my own special reserve fund, since they’d just cut the budget for fueling our patrol cars? So I suggested tapping their phones, requesting their call records. And he told me to talk to the prosecutor about it.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I went to the district attorney’s office and talked to the magistrate in charge of the investigation.”

  “And what did the magistrate say?”

  “He was pretty nice about it, all things considere
d. He asked me whether I was planning to justify a wiretap request by writing that Inspector Navarra is doubtful about the truthfulness of two people who have information about what happened. He asked me if I had any idea what the judge would likely respond. I told him that, yes, I could imagine, and we dropped the matter, meaning that I never even submitted a written request. Obviously.”

  Just then, the delivery boy arrived, carrying our cappuccinos on a tray. Navarra held his cup with both hands when he drank, like a child. There was some milk left on his upper lip. He wiped it off carefully with a couple of paper napkins, the way a person might who knows what happens when you drink a cappuccino, and who therefore takes appropriate steps. Calmly and deliberately.

  I really liked his simple, precise sequence of actions. All he did was wipe a little cappuccino foam off his lips, but I thought I’d like to be the kind of person whose actions are so careful and conscious.

  Navarra crumpled up the napkins and then resumed speaking.

  “So, in short, we did what we could. We’re so overworked, we have mountains of files on our desks, and we have to work our way through them. Among other things, technically, we don’t even have a crime report. I mean, the young woman …”

  “Of course, of course. The young woman is no longer a minor, there’s no explicit evidence that her disappearance is directly linked to a crime, there is no way of ruling out the possibility that she simply wanted to get away from everything, and so on.”

  “And so on. It’s unlikely, but she might have had a reason for leaving. She might not have wanted to be found.”

  I looked him in the eye. He returned my gaze, then shrugged.

  “Okay, okay, I don’t believe it either. But there was nothing more I could do. Unless, like I told you, I devoted myself to this case full time. And since I couldn’t do that, I was forced to close the case and work on other things. But maybe you can manage to uncover something I missed.”

  He said it without a hint of sarcasm, at least as far as I could tell. But the idea struck both of us as fairly unlikely.

  “So what do you plan to do?” he asked, as he pushed his chair back.

  “You know better than I do that my chances are very slim. If you couldn’t find anything, I doubt very much I’ll be able to.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that. Investigations work in mysterious ways. Sometimes, you do everything right, by the book, and you don’t find a damned thing. And then, when you’ve finally set your mind at ease that there’s nothing else to be done, something random happens and you’re handed the solution, all wrapped up and tied with a bow. With this kind of work, more than any other, there is no technique or planning or experience that’s half as important as a piece of dumb luck. And you might just have that piece of luck this time.”

  I shrugged and shook my head, but I liked what he’d said. He’d encouraged me. I was an absolute beginner as far as investigating went, but where strokes of dumb luck were concerned, I’d always done all right.

  “I think I’ll try to talk with Manuela’s two girlfriends, the ones who go to school in Rome. And I’ll talk to the guy you like so much, the ex-boyfriend. I don’t know whether it’s worth trying to talk to the girl who gave her a ride from the trulli to the train station in Ostuni.”

  “Anita Salvemini. I’d definitely have a conversation with her.”

  “Why?”

  “It will almost certainly be a waste of time. But sometimes, very rarely, it happens that a person, interviewed again at a different time, maybe in a slightly less stressful setting, is able to remember details she forgot or overlooked the first time. It may happen that a shred of memory surfaces, and that it turns out to be the one detail that allows you to unravel the whole ball of wool. It doesn’t happen often, but it wouldn’t cost you anything to try talking to that young woman again.”

  “Do you have any other advice for me?”

  “The handbooks suggest proceeding in two phases when interviewing a witness. In the first phase, you should let the witness talk freely, without interruption, and you should speak only to make it clear that you’re paying attention to what he says. Then, when he’s done with this uninterrupted account, you should ask a series of specific questions, to clarify in greater depth. At the end, always leave the door open. You should tell the witness that in the hours or days that follow your interview, he is likely to remember some further detail. That detail may seem unimportant to him, and he will be tempted to keep it to himself. You can’t let that happen. You might find the key to the case in those seemingly insignificant details.”

  “So?”

  “So you should tell the witness that if anything else comes to mind—anything—he needs to call us. It’s important because it encourages him to provide you with any information he might have, but it also reinforces the witness’s sense of responsibility. If a witness feels responsible, he’ll keep an open and active mind, and that’s crucial to gathering new information.”

  “With your interests and expertise, maybe you should study psychology, not literature.”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought of that. But like I told you, whenever I think of going back to college, a minute later it strikes me as a stupid idea, at age forty-three, with no prospect of doing anything useful with that degree. And there’s a whole series of thoughts that follows, none of them particularly agreeable.”

  Then, after sitting for a few seconds with a rapt, slightly faraway expression on his face, he said it was time for him to get back to the Carabinieri barracks.

  “Do you think the girl’s still alive?”

  He hesitated for a moment, before answering. Then he shook his head.

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t have the slightest idea what could have happened to her, but I doubt she’s still alive.”

  That was exactly what I thought. That was what I had thought from the very beginning, but it was still hard to hear him say it. His expression showed that he knew that and was sorry about it, but there was nothing he could do.

  “If you need anything else, call me. And of course, if you find anything, call me.”

  Of course. I’ll solve the mystery, generously hand over the guilty party, and then fade back into the shadows. It’s what we always do, we solitary heroes.

  “One day I’d like to watch you launch your paper airplanes.”

  He smiled.

  “I’ll invite you, one day.”

  11.

  That afternoon I called Tancredi. It took three or four tries for the call to go through, and when it rang it sounded as if I were calling overseas.

  “Guido. So, you’re still alive.”

  “Alive, yeah, pretty much. How are you doing? You’re not out of the country, are you?”

  “You don’t miss a thing, do you? Sharp as a tack. I’m fine, and I’m in Virginia.”

  “Virginia? You mean Virginia in the United States?”

  “Yes, that Virginia.”

  “This call is costing you a fortune then. We’ll talk another time. By the way, what time is it there?”

  “It’s eleven. We’re on our coffee break. And don’t worry, I can still afford a few long distance calls. Anyway, nobody else has called me from Italy, so, for lack of anyone better, you’ll have to do.”

  “What are you doing in Virginia?”

  “I’m at the FBI Academy. I’m taking a special international police course. Questioning techniques and criminal profiling.”

  “A course in what?”

  “Techniques for identifying criminals and techniques for questioning witnesses and suspects.”

  “Are they teaching you, or are you teaching them?”

  “They’re teaching me, believe me. It’s a whole other world. You’d find it interesting from a lawyer’s perspective, too. What are you calling about?”

  “I wanted to ask you something, but it’s nothing urgent.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “No, really, it’s not something I can talk about on an international call
. Anyway, it isn’t urgent,” I lied. “When do you get back?”

  “In three weeks.”

  “When you’re back, give me a call. I’ll tell you all about it in person.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me now?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Thanks, Carmelo. Enjoy your trip. Give me a call when you get back.”

  “I’ll do that. I’m having a great time. I wish you could see my classmates. The one I like best is a Christian Turk who found out I’m from Bari. Ever since I told him, he keeps saying that we Baresi—and as you know, I’m not from Bari originally—stole the bones of Saint Nicholas of Myra from the Turks and should give them back. And let me tell you, you’re not allowed to smoke a damn cigar anywhere, except maybe in a garbage dump. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Ciao, Guido, I’ll call you when I get back.”

  We hung up, and when I thought about Tancredi, thousands of miles away, I felt lonely. To ward off that sensation, I decided to do something useful, or at least practical. I called Fornelli.

  The way a person answers the phone—at least when he doesn’t know who’s calling, and Fornelli obviously didn’t recognize my number—tells you some deep truths about him. Fornelli’s voice, with its strong Bari accent, was quiet and bland.

  “Hi, Sabino, it’s Guido.”

  His voice got a little more lively. It took on a shape, and even a little bit of color.

  “Hey, Guido.”

  “Hi, Sabino.”

  “Have you had a chance to read the file?”

  I told him that I’d read the file. I didn’t tell him about my conversation with Navarra, since I’d promised I’d keep it to myself.

  “What do you think? Do you think there’s anything left to try?”

  “In all honesty, I doubt there’s much of a chance of finding anything new beyond what the Carabinieri found in their investigation. Still, there are a few things to check out, just to go beyond any shadow of a doubt.”

  “That’s great. What exactly did you have in mind?”

  Now he sounded very different from the slightly depressed gentleman who had answered the phone moments before. He sounded almost excited. Stay calm, I told him in my mind. Nothing’s going to come of this. Don’t get your hopes up, and above all, watch what you say to those poor parents.