Shadows on the Lake

by Giovanni Cocco

  Stefania remained silent, staring at the little spoon in the cup of her cold cappuccino. She watched the people walking by outside the bar.

  “Don’t start playing the victim now,” said Giulio. “You already knew from our first meeting how I felt about this whole affair.”

  “I thought that with all these new facts in the case you might change your opinion.”

  “What new facts? Let’s try to recapitulate. The facts are that we happened purely by chance to discover a dead body dating from the war years. We know that he was young, male, blond or red-haired, tall, wore glasses, had broken a leg sometime before his death, and he had two holes in his head, as if he’d been shot. We found other lesions on the vertebrae and ribs, of less obvious origin. He had with him a cigarette case bearing the initials K.D. and a partial piece of feminine jewelry, and he was wearing clothes with metal buttons on them. Are we in agreement on all that?”

  “Fine, go on.”

  “The corpse was found among the ruins of a mountain cottage, in a sort of underground burrow or inside that thing that you call a nevera. Based on a number of details concerning the form and orientation of the ruins, we hypothesized that the cottage was originally entirely aboveground and that later the embankment collapsed on top of it. We also thought that this might mean that someone had perhaps hidden or placed the body in the cottage, and then brought the house down or else had the embankment that was behind it come down on top of it. What else? The cottage stood in a rather isolated area near the San Primo Pass, very close to the Swiss border but far from the customs office, and just a stone’s throw away from the gorge of the torrent. The lake was visible from there, though far off. Have I left anything out?”

  “No, that’s a perfect summary.”

  “At that point you tried to get some information from the current owners of the cottage, to find out whether there was any foundation to the hypothesis of the willful destruction of the building, and whether, in short, they knew anything about the affair. The official answer was a firm no all down the line, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it for the facts. Now begin the hypotheses. You started investigating the Cappelletti Durand family—without authorization into the bargain—by piecing together some information obtained from, let’s say, confidential sources. You found some old photographs, death certificates, testimonies of various kinds—of a very ‘informal’ nature, if I may say so. Little scraps of events that occurred many years ago. Then you gathered some information on Villa Regina, talked to the former owners, and established the relationship between the two families. At this rate, if all goes well, you will have reconstructed a bit of local history. But investigations, my dear, are something else entirely.”

  “Listening to you talk, it sounds like I haven’t done anything for weeks.”

  “I’ve said nothing of the sort. You’ve done some excellent research; you’ve found out many things about that family. Which would be perfect if the Cappellettis were the target of your investigation. It’s too bad they’re not. Why don’t you realize this? The Cappellettis exit the stage the moment they tell you they’re unable to give you the only information that you can ask of them—that is, information about that cottage. And the matter ends there. If you’re unable to prove they’re lying about the cottage, or that they’re somehow involved in the young man’s death, you haven’t the right to pull them back into the game. That’s just it, and it’s exactly what Arisi will tell you, especially if you mention the Cappellettis without giving him a convincing answer as to why you’re so interested in them. And one minute later he’ll shelve the case, since that’s what he’s been wanting to do from the start.”

  Stefania pushed her cup into a corner and sighed.

  “So what should I do, in your opinion?”

  “If I were you, I would propose closing the case myself. That way you’ll deprive Arisi of the satisfaction of doing so himself. And I wouldn’t say anything to him about the Cappellettis.”

  She suddenly felt very tired when climbing the stairs of the forensics offices. Nobody’d come back from lunch yet, even though Selvini had said they were just going out for a sandwich.

  She sat down in front of the big window in the hallway, looking outside distractedly. It was past one thirty, and Camilla, who got out of school early that day of the week, must have already been home. She dialed the number.

  “Hi, Cami, how are you?”

  “Why are you calling me, Mommy?”

  “Just to know how you are. Is Martina all right?”

  “She’s in the kitchen warming up the food for lunch. She said we’re eating Mexican today, because something Mexican just opened up around here and they even brought us Mexican presents with the food.”

  “Real Mexicans? Wow! Anything for me?”

  “You don’t like beans, and so . . .”

  “So, no beans, no present? I get it. Well, enjoy your lunch. I’ll be home early today, so maybe tonight we’ll go out for pizza.”

  “Can we go to Spizzico? They’re giving away kites.”

  “Okay, we’ll eat at Spizzico.”

  She sent her a silent kiss.

  Selvini, in the meantime, had returned.

  “Sorry I’m late, Inspector, but the line at the bar was really long. Have you found anything interesting?”

  “I need a further enlargement of this part of the picture: the people sitting and the people standing in front of the staircase. Both rows.”

  “We can try, but I can’t say how legible it will be.”

  “I would also like confirmation that these two”—and she pointed to Margherita and Maria in the family portrait—“are the same people as in this photo,” and she indicated the candy striper and the nurse.

  “We can see right away. We’ll scan them and then compare them. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  A few minutes later the two photos appeared on the monitor, one beside the other. Selvini started manipulating buttons and keyboards, breaking up the images into pixels and selecting the areas of interest. He enlarged the desired details and put the images up on the same screen.

  “Here we are. You can work this yourself, it’s very easy. Click on the area you want to enlarge, then reduce it or move it as you wish. You can even print something if you like. I loaded some paper in the printer, so you can get some clear pictures. But just a few details, if possible, because it costs an arm and a leg, and the funds are always late arriving from Rome. At any rate, we’ll be in the office next door if you need anything.”

  “Thanks. Don’t worry, I should be able to manage by myself.”

  She began to study the images. The women in the two photos not only looked like each other, they were identical. Maria and Margherita. It was them. There was no doubt about it. Some time had passed between the two photos, and Margherita’s facial features had sharpened. In the second photo she looked more mature, more conscious, and no longer wore her hair in braids, but had it carefully done up. A young lady, in short, though the smile and the sparkle in the eyes were the same as in the first snapshot. And she really was very beautiful, just as Germaine Durand had said. Maria, too, was exactly the same as she’d been described: tall, imposing, even more so with her starched Red Cross bonnet. Aquiline nose, cape, head rising above the rest. And then the expression. A proud, self-confident gaze directed straight at the camera. A decisive, defiant-looking person.

  Power, control: these were the things the image called to mind.

  She ran the cursor over one face, then the other, exploring the details slowly, centimeter by centimeter. On Margherita’s neck there was a sort of gray shadow. She tried to center it, but as she tried to enlarge it, the outlines blurred.

  “How can I get a further enlargement of this detail?” she asked Selvini after knocking at the door of the next office. “The object might be a pendant or just a
shadow, I can’t really tell.”

  “Further enlargement might make it difficult to maintain a legible level of definition. But let’s try. Just one second.”

  Selvini sat back down in front of the screen and started moving the image around in a series of zooms. Fascinated, Stefania behind him followed the cursor’s comings and goings. Actually the mechanism was quite simple: the part of the photograph being explored became smaller and smaller while the pixels got bigger and bigger but also more and more incomprehensible, especially when each detail was seen on its own. It became therefore necessary to refer continually back to the overall picture to understand what one was seeing, or what part of what one was seeing, with each new manipulation.

  “Here, Inspector, have a look at the areas of interest to you. Is that better now?”

  “Well, I can see, but I can’t make out very well what I’m seeing.”

  Selvini did a couple of zoom-outs.

  “I’ve selected the columns marking the limits of the image you’re interested in. You can see the upper body of the woman over the head of the blond man sitting down. All this black here is the cape of the Red Cross nurse to the side. This is the man’s face. Now I’ll enlarge his shoulders. See the hand resting there? The white in the background, on the other hand, is the bib of the other nurse’s uniform.”

  “There’s a hand?”

  “It looks like a hand to me. Here, see for yourself, just lightly resting on the soldier’s shoulder. You can see just four fingers, but I’d say there isn’t any doubt.”

  “Freeze the image for a second, please. No, there’s no doubt that’s a hand. Does it belong to the nurse or to the candy striper beside her, in your opinion?”

  “I don’t think it belongs to the candy striper. I think it’s the hand of the nurse above the soldier, because the one on the left, from the position she’s in, could never have reached that far.”

  “I think you’re right, Selvini. Please print this image for me.”

  “As for that other detail, that, instead, is a band reflecting the light. It might be a necklace or a light chain, and this could in fact be a pendant.”

  “Isn’t it possible to enlarge it a little more?”

  “The problem then becomes bringing it into focus,” said Selvini, fiddling with the keyboard. “I would say that this is the biggest we can get it. At least with this machine.”

  Stefania looked at the new enlargement, perplexed.

  “I can’t see much here.”

  “It seems pretty clear to me that it’s a chain. See these little shapes in sequence? They’re not spherical, so I would rule out that they’re beads in a necklace. They might be rings, or else links in a metal chain, also because they’re reflecting the light, and since the object is worn around the neck . . .”

  “It can only be a chain necklace. And what can you tell me about the pendant?”

  “It’s oval in shape, also metal, with smooth edges. And rather thick, I’d say.”

  “In what sense?”

  “It’s not slender like a normal pendant. It’s fairly wide, to the point that you can just glimpse a wedge of shadow on the side. It must also be relatively heavy, since it seems to be pulling the chain downwards.”

  “Okay, print these up for me, too, as well as the previous group shot, the one with the nurse, the blond man, and the candy striper to the side. I’ll send someone to pick them up tomorrow. Meanwhile, could you send me advance electronic copies by e-mail? Thanks for everything, Selvini.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  She needed a little walk. She rang the office. Piras answered, which rarely happened.

  “Everything quiet there?”

  “Routine stuff, Inspector. Two evictions, a drunken hobo at the San Giovanni station throwing empty bottles at patrolmen, charges filed against the priest of the parish of Santa Eufemia.”

  “What did the priest do?”

  “He rang the church bells. Three families in the neighborhood filed a complaint about the chimes at night. On the hour, half hour, and quarter hour.”

  “Vespers and funerals?”

  “Did you read the complaint?”

  “No, but I can imagine it. And what did you do about the hobo?”

  “We took him to the emergency room. Once the booze wore off they gave him some hot tea and threw him out.”

  “Well, they couldn’t very well give him free room and board. Okay, then, everything seems under control. I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

  She quickly crossed the center of town, heading towards Piazza Cavour and the lake. It was starting to warm up, and summer didn’t seem far away. A number of bars on the lakeshore had already set up their tables outside, and the days were getting longer.

  She fished her cell phone out of her purse and dialed Valli’s number.

  “Hi, it’s Stefania.”

  “Hi. How are you?”

  “I’m here by the lake. I decided to take a break of about an hour. Feel like some coffee and a little chat?”

  “Right now?”

  “If you’re not already back at work, that is.”

  “I’m struggling with some cadastral surveys. Just give me time to get my motorbike and I’ll be there. Where are you, exactly?”

  “In the little square next to the cable cars.”

  “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  Stefania smiled to herself and went up to the railing, leaning out to look at the water, which sparkled in the sunlight. She closed her eyes and listened to the lapping of the waves against the gravel, with the sounds of the city in the background. A few minutes later she heard the rumbling of a motorcycle. She smiled.

  “Feel like going for a walk? I’d like to go as far as the fountain in Viale Geno,” said Valli, smiling.

  “What if it starts to get late?”

  “In that case I’ll give you a ride back to your office on my motorcycle, as long as you’re not afraid.”

  “Me, afraid? Who do you think I am?”

  They walked along the lakefront chatting and laughing. A cigarette by the fountain of the villa that marked their destination, and an American coffee at the little bar in the square, and it was time to go. As they were about to leave—with Stefania still sitting, and Valli standing behind her—he called to her attention a detail at the top of Monte Croce, and in doing so he’d momentarily laid a hand on her shoulder.

  It was only a moment, but it hadn’t escaped her attention. Nor had the faint scent of aftershave mixed with that of his leather jacket when he drove her back to the station on his motorbike. She’d felt weightless just then, with the wind in her hair, which she’d brushed back with a gesture she thought she’d forgotten forever. As she climbed down from the seat, Valli joked:

  “I’d better leave you here. You never know, a police inspector going around on a motorbike without a helmet . . .”

  She laughed and shook his hand.

  Till next time, Luca.

  Waiting for her on the landing was Piras, looking worried.

  “Inspector, we tried calling you on your cell phone a short while ago, but it was turned off.”

  “What’s going on, Piras?”

  “This envelope came for you from forensics. Dr. Selvini said that if you still need him, he’ll be there till six this evening. And Don Carlo’s in the waiting room.”

  “Don Carlo?”

  “The parish priest of Santa Eufemia. Carboni said you have to handle that case. He’s already been here for almost an hour.”

  “Ah, the bells. What can I possibly do about it? Are we going to silence the bells and risk triggering a religious war?”

  Piras looked at her in horror. He rarely understood irony.

  It took her almost two hours to convince the priest that the complaint might be withdrawn if perhaps he agreed to have th
e bells ring only on the hour, leaving out the half and quarter hours. Don Carlo promised to shorten the chimes a little for the first Mass, at seven in the morning.

  Afterwards, she opened the envelope from Selvini.

  Top-notch work, as always.

  He’d succeeded in getting a tight frame of Margherita, with Maria to the right and the blond soldier sitting in front. She fixed her attention on the details she’d requested: Margherita’s hand on the soldier’s shoulder and the pendant hanging from the chain.

  What did it all mean?

  Nothing, Giulio would have said. The fact that Margherita wore a pendant around her neck was neither here nor there, likewise her resting her hand on the soldier’s shoulder as they posed for the group photo. It might be merely a gesture of sympathy or protection. Or maybe affection. Or understanding. And so? What did that change in the overall dynamics of her investigation?

  Nothing.

  She could ask Madame Durand for a copy of the photo of Margherita with the pendant around her neck. But what for?

  She felt momentarily discomfited and set the photos back in the green folder with the others. She tried to busy herself with other things, but couldn’t stop thinking about that photograph.

  Maria, Margherita, the German soldier. The hand, the military overcoat, the leg in a cast, the glasses. The pendant.

  “Feel like a coffee, Piras?”

  “Sure, Inspector.”

  “How’s your wife doing?”

  As she distractedly listened to Piras tell her about his wife and how bad the poor girl felt, omitting no details as to the vomiting and all the rest, at a certain point she stopped pretending and stared at the frame resting on the desk.

  “The glasses, the leg—the right leg! How could I not have thought of this sooner?”

  “What glasses?”

  “I’m sorry, Piras, it’s nothing—I was just talking to myself. I have to run now.”

  “What about the coffee?”

  “Get one for me, too,” she said, leaving a two-euro piece on the desk.

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