Temporary Perfections

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  Then it occurred to me that I could call Manuela’s mother. Call her directly, without talking to Fornelli. I was feeling energized, and I wanted to move quickly.

  Her cell phone number—hers, not her husband’s—was written in the file and I called her immediately, without stopping to think about it. Her phone rang several times, and just as I was about to hang up, she answered.

  “Buona sera, Signora, it’s Counselor Guerrieri.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, a brief silence. Then she remembered who I was.

  “Counselor, buona sera!”

  For an instant, I was on the verge of asking her how she was doing.

  “I’m sorry to bother you. I just wanted to ask you a question.”

  “Yes?” Suddenly she sounded both hopeful and nervous. I wondered if it had been a good idea to give in to the impulse to call her.

  “I wanted to ask you whether Manuela might have had more than one cell phone.”

  There was a long pause. So long that I finally checked that she was still on the line.

  “Yes, forgive me. I was thinking. Manuela likes phones. She’s always getting new ones. She likes to play with them, you know, photographs, videos, music, video games.”

  “But you don’t know if she had a second phone number.”

  “Well, that’s why I was trying to think. She certainly had a number of different cell phones, and over the years she’d had a lot of different phone numbers, too. But when she disappeared, she only had one. She’d only had one number for quite a while, at least as far as I know. Why are you asking? Have you found out something?”

  It had definitely been a bad idea to call her. I should have waited until Caterina was reachable.

  “It’s only a theory. Only a theory. And almost certainly a theory that won’t lead anywhere. I don’t want you to get—” I was going to say that I didn’t want her to get her hopes up, but I caught myself just in time. “I don’t want you to get any expectations that we’re about to discover anything. I’m working on a few leads that I still have to check out. I’ll let you know.”

  There was another pause. A long and painful one.

  “Is Manuela alive, Counselor?”

  “I don’t know, Signora. I’m very sorry, but I have no way of answering that question.”

  Then I said a hasty good-bye, as if I were eager to escape from a dangerous situation. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through my hair. Then I ran them lightly over the surface of my face, feeling my eyelids, the ridge of my nose, the whiskers that had sprouted on my face since I’d shaved that morning. The friction made a prickly sound.

  At last, I opened my eyes again.

  A second telephone. Christ, a second telephone. There could be anything on the call records for that phone. A second telephone was such an obvious possibility that no one had even thought of it. It was like Poe’s purloined letter.

  I left the office telling myself that I needed to talk it over with Tancredi. He would have known what to do, but he was still in America.

  I felt like going to see Nadia, telling her everything, and asking her what she thought, but I immediately discarded that idea. I wasn’t sure why, but after what had happened in Rome, the idea of going to see Nadia made me faintly uncomfortable, as if I’d somehow betrayed her.

  Absurd, I told myself.

  It’s all absurd.

  I tried calling Caterina again, but her phone was still unreachable.

  So I went home, laced up my boxing gloves, and punched Mister Bag over and over again. As I paused between one round and the next, I talked to him, asking his opinion about the latest developments in the case. He didn’t say much that evening. He just swung there lazily. Then, finally, he let me know I ought to have something to eat, drink a glass of good wine, and sleep on it. Maybe I’d come up with an idea the following day.

  Maybe.

  33.

  I slept badly and had nightmares. When I woke up, I still didn’t have any bright ideas. I got out of bed feeling grumpy, and things only got worse when I remembered what was on the schedule that morning.

  I had an appointment at the district attorney’s office with a client, a physician and a university professor, not to mention an academic power broker, who was charged with fixing a job search and assigning the position to one of his assistants. The other candidate was an internationally respected researcher who had worked for years in the United States at major universities and medical research centers. At a certain point, he had decided to move back to Italy.

  When the search for a chair in his field was announced, he applied, unaware that the position had already been assigned and the job search was a farce. The chosen recipient of the chair was a young researcher, a brainless wonder who was lucky enough to be the son of another professor in the same department. He was known in academic circles for his rigorous lack of morals and nicknamed Little Piero the Greedy.

  The vastly disproportionate difference in the two candidates’ scientific qualifications—obviously, entirely in favor of the candidate who lacked the inside track—was fairly ludicrous. But that detail was of no interest to the hiring panel, and the brainless wonder was given the position. The better qualified researcher smelled a rat. He took legal action: He appealed to the regional administrative court, won the appeal, and filed a criminal complaint against the professor with the district attorney’s office.

  So my client received a summons to appear at the district attorney’s office, on charges of malfeasance and falsification, and I recommended that he invoke his right not to answer their questions. The evidence against him was minimal, and if he agreed to answer the questions of the prosecutor—who was a very smart young woman, unquestionably much more intelligent than he was—he would likely only make matters worse.

  In this case, as in many others that I found myself handling, I had the distinct impression that I was on the wrong side. And in this case, as in many others, I wondered if I really wanted to defend my client. I told myself that I didn’t want to, and then I accepted the case anyway. It was something I really should have discussed with my psychiatrist, if only I’d had one.

  As I rode my bike over to the court building, I decided that this was the worst possible morning to see my client: He was clearly guilty of a crime that I considered particularly heinous. He was an unctuous windbag, and worst of all, he wore tasseled loafers.

  There are only a few matters on which I am unforgiving. These include tasseled loafers, but also cords for sunglasses, Cartier pens, money clips, fake leather shoulder bags, cable-knit cardigans, solid-gold bracelets for men, and breath sprays.

  Given these convictions of mine, when we met as arranged outside the office of the prosecuting attorney, a few minutes before the interview was scheduled to begin, I wasn’t in the cheeriest of spirits. After the conventional hellos and other conversational boilerplate—devoid of any genuine warmth (at least on my part)—he told me that he had serious doubts about the tactic of choosing to avail himself of his right not to answer any questions. He thought that he could explain everything, and that it struck him that refusing to answer was tantamount to an admission of guilt and in any case the behavior of a criminal, hardly in keeping with his prestigious position.

  Your prestigious position as a windbag and a sticky-fingered academic who’s slimed his way to the top, I hissed at him in my mind, while somewhere inside me a totally misplaced wave of anger was rising. After all, my client was simply expressing a legitimate doubt about our tactics. Unfortunately for him, he was the wrong person, on the wrong morning, and, worst of all, wearing the wrong shoes.

  “I thought we’d already talked this over, Professor. Knowing the prosecutor and considering the current status of the case, I would reiterate my advice: you should take full advantage of your legal right not to respond to questions. Of course, that is entirely your decision, so if you decide not to act accordingly I can hardly interfere. If you do so, however, let me state here and now that I believe you
would be committing a grave mistake, and I would certainly reserve the right to resign from the case immediately.”

  After I was done talking, I was as surprised as he was at how aggressive I’d been. He stood there for a moment without speaking, taken aback, almost frightened, unsure what to do now. Under different circumstances, his arrogance and pomposity would have come into play, and he would have given me a large and indignant piece of his mind. But we were in the district attorney’s office, one of the most intimidating places in the world. He was the accused, and I was his attorney. He wasn’t in a very good position to take a hard line with me. So he just took a deep breath.

  “All right, Counselor, we’ll do as you recommend.”

  At that point, since I’m no paragon of consistency, I felt guilty. I’d mistreated him, abusing my position of power: something no one should ever do. I spoke in a more gentle voice, as if he and I were on the same side.

  “It’s the right thing, Professor. Then we’ll see what the prosecutor decides to do next, and if we need time to draw up a long and detailed written statement and submit it as a response, we’ll have it.”

  A short while later we entered the prosecutor’s office and declared that we were availing ourselves of the right not to answer. Five minutes after that I was back out on the street, heading for my office.

  I was locking my bike to a lamp post near the front door of my building when I noticed a large black dog with a daunting but very familiar silhouette trotting down the sidewalk.

  When I recognized him, I felt a surge of happiness. Baskerville. Nadia couldn’t be far behind, I assumed, and I whistled to the dog as I looked around for his owner.

  The huge beast loped over to me and when he was close enough, reared up on his hind legs, placing both forepaws on my chest. His tail was wagging frantically and I beamed—proud of my unexpected popularity with a dog—at what good friends Baskerville and I had become in such a short time. To return his cordial greeting, I reached up and scratched him on the head, behind both ears, the way I had the night we first met.

  Behind both ears?

  Baskerville only has one ear, I said to myself. And so that tail-wagging behemoth with both paws planted on my chest and his nose just inches from my face wasn’t Baskerville. I gulped uncomfortably, struggling to read the dog’s expression and figure out whether, having greeted me joyfully, he was now ready to rip me limb from limb. But the monster did seem friendly, and he was licking my hands. I was wondering how I could disengage from my new friend’s embrace without hurting his feelings when a skinny young man hurried around the corner and came toward us. When he reached us, the first thing he did was to snap a leash onto the dog’s collar and pull him away. Then, as he struggled to catch his breath, he spoke to me.

  “I’m so sorry, forgive me. We let him off the leash in the store, and a customer left the door open, and he got out. He’s always trying to get out. He’s just a puppy. He’s not even a year old yet. I hope he didn’t scare you.”

  “No, not a bit,” I said, which was a half truth. When it dawned on me that this dog wasn’t Baskerville, I have to admit an icy shiver ran down my spine, but I didn’t think it was necessary to give this young man all the details.

  “Rocco’s a gentle dog. He loves children. We got a Corso because we wanted a guard dog, but I’m afraid he’s a big softie.”

  I gave him a knowing smile but said nothing more. The young man seemed a little too chatty and I didn’t want to encourage him; the next thing you know he’d be telling me the story of his life, starting with his first pet hamster. So I said good-bye to him and to Rocco, and as they headed off down the sidewalk I leaned down to snap my bicycle lock shut.

  The little padlock made its usual reassuring click. I stood up, and a thought popped into my brain. This new thought was buzzing around, from one side of my head to the other. It was just out of reach, though, and I couldn’t quite articulate it.

  I tried to reconstruct the last few minutes.

  The dog had trotted toward me. I’d whistled for him, expecting Nadia to come around the corner any minute. The dog greeted me enthusiastically. I scratched the dog’s ears, and that was when I’d realized it wasn’t Baskerville. A second later the dog’s owner appeared and … wait, wait, back up, Guerrieri.

  I’d scratched the dog behind its ears and that was when I realized it wasn’t Baskerville. That was exactly when this new thought occurred to me. I frantically tried to put the idea into words.

  Pino, also known (to me) as Baskerville, was identified by the fact that he was missing an ear. So he was identified by an absence. A non-presence.

  Deep thoughts, I said to myself in an attempt at sarcastic wit. The barb fell flat. There really was something important there that I couldn’t quite grasp.

  Baskerville. A missing ear. Something that’s missing explains everything. What? Something missing.

  Baskerville.

  Sherlock Holmes.

  The dog didn’t bark.

  The phrase formed in my head, suddenly, and began blinking like a neon sign in the desert.

  A dog failing to bark was the famous “curious incident of the dog in the night-time” in the Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles. Or maybe it was another book. I needed to check immediately, even though I wasn’t yet sure why.

  I went upstairs to the office; no one was there. They were all out visiting court clerks and taking care of business. I was glad to be alone. I made myself an espresso, turned on my computer and Googled “Holmes” and “the dog did nothing.”

  The phrase wasn’t in The Hound of the Baskervilles; it was in “Silver Blaze.” As I read, I remembered. The short story was about the theft of a thoroughbred racehorse that Holmes solved by observing “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” The curious incident in question was the fact that the dog had not barked. Therefore, the horse thief was someone the dog knew well.

  The key to the mystery was something that didn’t happen. Something that should have been there but wasn’t.

  What did all this have to do with my investigation?

  What was missing, that should have been there?

  When the answer began to take shape, a bout of nausea came along with it, like a sudden wave of seasickness.

  I picked up the file, pulled out Manuela’s phone records, and examined them again. I paged through them, and I found clear confirmation of my hypothesis—that is, I failed to find what ought to have been there. I noticed an absence I’d failed to notice until that instant. The nausea grew and spread, becoming so intense that I was sure I’d vomit any minute.

  The dog didn’t bark. And I knew that dog very well.

  I turned on my cell phone and found four calls from Caterina’s number.

  34.

  I wondered if it would be best to wait. Then I immediately decided it would not.

  So I called Caterina. She answered on the second ring, sounding cheerful.

  “Ciao, Gigi. How nice to see your name on my cell phone.”

  “Ciao, how are you?”

  “Fine. In fact, now that you’ve called me, I feel wonderful. I saw that you called me last night, but I turned off my phone. I was exhausted.” She paused, giggled, then resumed speaking. “I went right to bed like a five-year-old girl. This morning I tried to call you several times, but I couldn’t get through.”

  “I was in court. I just got back to my office. Listen, I was thinking …”

  “Yes?”

  “What do you say if I come by and pick you up and we go get something to eat somewhere along the coast?”

  “I’d say yes, what a fantastic idea. I’ll run and get ready. I’ll see you in twenty minutes. I’ll wait for you downstairs, in front of my building.”

  I pulled up exactly twenty minutes later, the time it took to get the car out of the garage and drive to her house. I was just double parking to wait for her when she emerged from the apartment building. She was all smiles as she climbed into the c
ar. She leaned over, kissed me, then fastened her seat belt. She seemed to be in an excellent mood, even happy. She was truly beautiful. Mental images of our night in Rome flickered before my eyes for a moment, like still images edited for subliminal effect into a feature film about something else—a movie that did not have a happy ending. It took my breath away, sadness and desire mixing cruelly.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Where would you like to go?”

  “How about we go to La Forcatella and eat some sea urchin?”

  La Forcatella is a little fishing village on the coast to the south of the city, just beyond the line between the provinces of Bari and Brindisi. It’s famous for its excellent sea urchin.

  The car ran with silent precision along a highway surrounded by fields. The clouds were magnificent and clean; the scene looked like an Ansel Adams photograph. Spring was bursting out all around us, and it communicated a thrilling, dangerous euphoria. I did my best to focus on my driving and on the individual acts involved—shifting up and down, gently hugging the curves, glancing up at my rearview mirror—and I tried not to think.

  There weren’t a lot of people in the restaurant, so we were able to get a table overlooking the water. Just a few feet from us, the waves lapped delicately at the rocks. The air was fragrant, and on the horizon a clear and perfect boundary was visible where the deep blue of the sea pressed up against the light blue of the sky.

  Damn, I thought to myself as I sat across the table from her.

  We ordered fifty sea urchins and a carafe of ice-cold wine. A little later, we ordered another fifty and another carafe. The sea urchins were plump and delicious, their orange flesh offering up their mysterious taste. Between the sea urchins and that cold, light wine, my head began to spin slightly.

  Caterina was talking, but I paid no attention to her words. I listened to the sound of her voice. I watched the expressions on her face. I looked at her mouth. I wished I could have a photograph to remember her by.