Glass Souls

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Manfred took it for granted that this would meet with her approval. He trusted that their kiss, stolen in the moonlight amidst the chirping of crickets, meant that they were all but engaged. Who could say whether Manfred’s eyesight would be good enough to see deep into her soul of glass. And who know if that would be enough to spare her from from inflicting pain upon him. What’s more, she felt unequal to the challenge of withstanding her mother’s determination, and she felt sure that her mother would be wholeheartedly delighted to embrace the long-awaited husband-to-be of a daughter who gave her nothing but worry. And perhaps it really would be best for everyone.

  Choking back her tears, Enrica went to crush tomatoes and bottle them.

  Bottles made of glass. As was her soul.

  VIII

  After Bianca left the room, Maione said: “Commissa’, if you ask me, you just took on quite a thankless job. You don’t know anything about the details of what happened with her husband, because quite rightly you mind your own business and pay no attention to hallway gossip.”

  Ricciardi looked at him, perplexed.

  “What do you mean?”

  Maione shrugged his shoulders.

  “And for that matter, you don’t even read the papers. Well, let me bring you up-to-date. The Piro murder was quite the story, this summer. A case that involved high society, the wealthy and the aristocrats. You know that there’s an ongoing war between the groups: there was a time when there was no difference, but now there are always more and more penniless noblemen than there are aristocrats getting rich. Do you follow me?”

  Ricciardi made a face.

  “More or less. But go on.”

  “Anyway, this Ludovico Piro was a lawyer, but to the best of my recollections, what he did was lend money to the nobility. He could be found in all the finest drawing rooms, everyone in the city knew him. Early one morning he was found dead in his office, stabbed in the throat or something like that. Our men were on the scene of the crime immediately, but before they so much as got a chance to start asking questions, the Count of Roccaspina shows up and says: it was me. And that was that.”

  “Yes, that’s what the Contessa told us. But she is also certain that her husband never left their home the night of the murder.”

  Maione nodded.

  “That’s right. For days and days it was the talk of the town. The case involved prominent citizens and everybody had something to say about it. The Fascists took advantage of the opportunity to attack these decadent aristocrats, and the aristocrats retorted: You see what happens the minute you give moneylenders and loan sharks entry into our clubs? The count was in debt to the lawyer, he was a heavy gambler, cards, lottery, and the racetrack. You know the way it works, don’t you? The heavier the losses, the greater the determination to win it back, and then the losses only grow. And so on and so forth. Then, of course, that opened the door to even worse, as is always the way.”

  Ricciardi got to his feet and strolled, hands in pockets, over to the window. Outside, the September day was bursting out in all its loveliness.

  “Delicate material to handle, you say. I understand. Being able to pin the murder on the count was a convenient solution for everybody. Everyone in their proper role: the loan shark squeezing him dry, the count in despair, swept away by an outburst of rage and frustration. But convenient solutions often conceal other things. The contessa . . . A strange woman.”

  “Yes, she’s an odd one,” Maione admitted. “She seemed determined, and quite convinced. But no sign of grief.”

  Ricciardi turned to look at him.

  “Exactly. No sign of grief. And yet, as his wife, she ought to have been heartbroken. We should have seen tears, imprecations. Instead she was perfectly calm, almost cold to her husband’s plight.”

  “Then, in your opinion, why did she come here, Commissa’? What did she want from you?”

  Ricciardi turned back to the window and looked out.

  “That’s what convinced me, you know. If she had come begging me to help, I wouldn’t have had any reason to believe her story. Instead, she didn’t even ask me to get her husband out of jail; she just told me the truth as she saw it. I think it’s worth doing a little investigating, and for that matter I don’t believe we have anything urgent on our plate right now.”

  Maione thought it over rapidly. This was exactly what Ricciardi needed. Something to sink his teeth into, a lead to follow. To keep from being held prisoner of his own personal hell.

  “Nothing indeed, nothing at all, Commissa’. Just think, it turns out the Fascists were right after all, this has become a safe, quiet city.”

  Ricciardi swung around.

  “No, Raffaele. It never has been, and it never will be. Who did you say it was that handled this case?”

  It was to Commissario Paolo De Blasio’s embarrassed surprise that he saw Ricciardi appear in the doorway of his office. Like practically everyone at police headquarters, he had only the rarest of interactions with that taciturn and vaguely sinister Cilento-born officer, and like nearly everyone else, he felt that he couldn’t place his trust in a man with no known vices. He shared the general opinion that, with that face and those absurd eyes, Ricciardi even carried something of a hex about him, a whiff of Neapolitan iella, or evil eye, and so, like almost everyone, he did his best to steer clear of him.

  Glancing around as if in search of someone’s support, De Blasio invited Ricciardi in. De Blasio was overweight and nondescript, a man in his early fifties who showed considerable skill in threading his way through the twists and turns of the bureaucratic labyrinth and particularly well known for a pathological terror of getting into trouble. He had the short man’s complex, and in fact that was the one topic that could truly get on his nerves, and so he remained perennially seated behind his desk, with a wooden dais beneath his feet and a couple of cushions on the seat of his office chair, raising him sufficiently to make it look as if he were of normal height. One of the favorite pastimes of personnel at police headquarters was to figure out ways of making the little man get down off his artificial pedestal for the sheer sadistic fun of embarrassing him. In fact, despite the substantial lifts he wore in his shoes, De Blasio inevitably found himself face-to-face with his interlocutor’s belt buckle.

  Ricciardi came straight to the point.

  “De Blasio, you were in charge of the murder case involving a certain Piro last June, weren’t you?”

  De Blasio furrowed his brow in wary concern.

  “Yes, that was my investigation, in fact. But in practical terms we didn’t have to do a thing, the guilty party turned himself in immediately Count Romualdo di Roccaspina, as you may have read in the papers. But, please, take a seat.”

  Ricciardi remained standing in front of the desk, his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on his interlocutor’s face, who was now squirming on his double cushion.

  “I don’t read the papers, myself. I don’t have the time. Tell me exactly what happened, if you please.”

  The man coughed, uneasily.

  “Listen, what are you trying to say with this comment about the newspapers? What do you think, that while you’re working we’re taking it easy? Getting information is part of our job. And do you mind telling me the meaning of all these questions?”

  “Each of us spends our time as we see best,” Ricciardi replied tersely. “I’m investigating a case that might have some connections with the murder in question, nothing more. Certainly, if there are secrets I don’t know about or confidential matters at stake, then I’m happy to work through official channels. If you prefer, I’m happy to have Garzo put in a request directly, or I can go to someone even higher up.”

  De Blasio jerked in his chair. If there was one thing that he did his level best to avoid, and with maniacal obsessiveness, it was any contact with his superior officers, and, specifically, with Garzo, the deputy police chief who was i
n charge of all investigative activity, a bureaucrat completely devoid of imagination, who never tired of nitpicking and fault-finding in all of the work done by his underlings.

  De Blasio thought fast.

  “Why of course, full collaboration among colleagues, I’d never act otherwise. The thing is I really can’t tell you much, we went over and . . . ”

  Ricciardi stopped him with a wave of his hand.

  “Hold on. Start from the very beginning, and don’t leave out a thing. When did you get the call? And from who?”

  De Blasio sighed in defeat. Now he had to get down off his chair and go in search of the report.

  With a leap he landed on the floor, vanishing from sight behind the desk save for his neck and head, and then headed straight for a metal filing cabinet by the wall. He climbed onto a wooden step that had been specially placed next to the cabinet and pulled open the first drawer, muttering to himself.

  “Now then, let’s see . . . I keep everything in strict chronological order . . . lately it’s not as if much has happened here in the city. Ah, here we are: you see, a thin file, practically speaking there’s nothing here but the report on the crime scene and the confession itself.”

  He jumped down from the step and hastily clambered back onto the heavily padded armchair, where he clearly felt immediately much more at his ease.

  “Well, then: the call came in early on the morning of Friday, the third of June. A phone call to the switchboard. I went out with Cozzolino and two police privates, Rinaldo and Mascarone. That Mascarone is an idiot, he was a driver but he couldn’t find his way to Santa Lucia; the few times that there was actually a car available, it took longer than just walking. In any case, you’ll find everything right here: address, phone number . . . ”

  Ricciardi interrupted him.

  “Who found the corpse? And who was home?”

  De Blasio ran his finger over the page.

  “Everything, you’ll find everything in this report. I’m a real stickler, as you probably know. The corpse was in the office, the housekeeper found it when she brought him breakfast. She was terrified, absolutely terrified, she was babbling: it took us half an hour to get two words out of her, a young woman from the area around Avellino. The wife was still at home, a harridan who barely speaks, a cold one, like a slab of marble, and his son, a boy aged twelve. The daughter, sixteen, had already left for school, and learned what had happened to her father when her mother sent the chauffeur to pick her up.”

  “What was the position of the corpse?”

  His colleague narrowed his eyes in concentration.

  “Wait, aside from what is written in the report, I want to remember clearly. He was slumped over the desk, his head twisted to the left. There was blood on the desktop, but not really all that much. He was wearing a suit and tie, he either hadn’t gone to bed at all or he’d gotten up very early; the autopsy report stated that death had taken place sometime between midnight and two in the morning.”

  “And the wife couldn’t say whether or not he had gone to sleep?”

  The little man shrugged his shoulders.

  “I guess not, she said that she’d gone to sleep early, when her husband was still in his office, and since she slept soundly she hadn’t heard anything. To tell you the truth, the impression I got was that this guy often didn’t sleep with his wife. Their place is nice and big, they have plenty of money, and maybe the lawyer had a room of his own and the signora preferred to skip over that detail. In any case, the dead man was fully dressed, and there was a pile of promissory notes on the desk. I’d guess he was doing some accounting.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “He had a nice big hole in his neck, on the right side, which you’re not likely to strike unless you’re left-handed. A long knife, or something of the sort. He must have died almost instantly, and since the wound perforated the larynx, he died in silence, too. End of conversation.”

  “Who did the autopsy?”

  A little smile escaped De Blasio.

  “Your friend, Dr. Modo. You are friends, aren’t you?”

  Ricciardi didn’t dignify that question with an answer.

  “Who did you interview?”

  “The family members, the housekeeper. While we were still there, not even a couple of hours later, the murderer arrived and confessed.”

  “That is, he came there? The Count of Roccaspina?”

  The little man nodded.

  “That’s right. He made a fine, unprompted statement, here in police headquarters where we brought him first thing. In the dead man’s office he said nothing more than: It was me. Take me away. And that’s what we did.”

  Ricciardi said nothing, and thought for a while. Then he asked: “Do you mind if I hold on to the reports for a while? I’d like to see if there are matches with what I’m working on now.”

  De Blasio put on a guarded expression.

  “But what case are you working on, now? Sorry, but you know that Garzo insists on being kept apprised of all investigations, and when an official report leaves one office and enters another, there has to be a good reason. I wouldn’t want to get in trouble.”

  Ricciardi gave a vague reply.

  “References to dates and events, a couple of burglaries in that part of town. Maybe someone saw suspicious people entering or leaving a building at that time of night. Who knows, maybe something will emerge. I wouldn’t want anyone to be able to say, at some later date, that due to a lack of collaboration between the two offices, the investigation was in some way hampered. Because, in that case, I’d be obliged to make mention of your refusal. I’d be forced to, in spite of my own best wishes.”

  De Blasio considered Ricciardi. That bastard with his reptilian eyes wouldn’t hesitate to do it, he felt certain.

  He hefted the file folder in his hands, sighed, and said: “All right. But let’s be clear: I’m only letting you have it for this afternoon. Tomorrow morning I want it back, I don’t like letting my reports out of my office. All right?”

  Ricciardi had to lean over the desk to make up for the shortness of reach of his colleague’s arms. He flashed him a grimace that distantly resembled a smile.

  “All right.”

  IX

  Ricciardi and Maione were skimming the reports, written in the classical language of the police bureaucracy, hunting for relevant details between the lines.

  The brigadier, standing behind his superior’s armchair, gave up.

  “As far as I can see, they didn’t do anything wrong, Commissa’. Okay, they might have wrapped up the investigation in a hurry, but the thing is that once someone’s shown up who has means, motive, and opportunity and who can tell you in excruciating detail exactly what happened, what else were they supposed to do?”

  Ricciardi tapped his finger on the sheet on which were written the justifications for closing the case.

  “I’d even be willing to go along with you on that, but I don’t see any conclusive confirming evidence. In practical terms, there was no interrogation of the alleged self-confessed killer, and no comparison of his statements with the objective documented evidence. They simply arrested the Count of Roccaspina and ‘immediately transferred him to the judicial prison of Poggioreale, under the jurisdiction of the authority for public safety.’ And with that, they put the matter out of their minds.”

  Maione shook his head.

  “And, excuse me, but what else were they supposed to do, Commissa’? Just read what it says here: the count told them everything, right down to the smallest details. During the night, having had too much to drink and lost heavily at gambling, the idea occurred to him that he might go see Piro and talk him into giving him more time to repay one of his debts. The lawyer, who was a bit of a night owl, answered the door in person and invited him into his office. There they exchanged angry words, whereupon the count picked up an obje
ct from the lawyer’s desk, he couldn’t recall whether it was a pen or a paper knife, and stabbed him with it. Then he took fright, left the building, and went home. When he awakened, sobered up, he went to Piro’s office to see whether by chance he’d dreamt the whole thing, and instead he found himself face-to-face with both the corpse and the police, in the persons of those outstanding specimens of official valor, De Blasio and my colleague, Cozzolino. At that point, he made a full confession, and the case was wrapped up. Do me a favor and tell me, what’s wrong with that version?”

  Ricciardi continued to read and reread the same pages.

  “First of all, we don’t have the murder weapon. The count doesn’t remember what he used, that’s true, but nothing was found in the office or in the front hall.”

  Maione threw his arms wide.

  “But they asked him about it, don’t you see? And the count answered that he can’t remember, in fact; that maybe he threw it away along the way home.”

  “Well, then, the fact remains that we have no murder weapon. Then there’s nothing about cross-referencing the timing. Where was the count coming from? What time did he leave his nocturnal company? And is it conceivable that no one thought to pay a call on the Piro household?”

  The brigadier walked past the desk.

  “Commissa’, I can see that there are a few elements that look pretty wobbly and you know that I detest from the bottom of my heart both De Blasio and that overdressed fop, Cozzolino. But quite honestly, I don’t know what else they were supposed to do in that situation. They were handed the solution to the case on a silver platter, so they took it. Simple as that.”