Ricciardi shrugged his shoulders.
“As you think best. If you please, let’s take a seat in that café. It won’t take long.”
Carlotta turned and headed straight into the café, where she took a seat at a table set slightly apart from the others, at the far end of the little room. Her confidence in selecting a place to sit confirmed in Ricciardi’s mind that this was exactly where the girl had had her meetings with Roccaspina.
He ordered an espresso, and Carlotta asked for a glass of milk. Ricciardi observed her at some length: the delicate features of the young girl were evolving into the woman that she would eventually become: strong-willed, powerful, aware of her beauty. Now that he had her before him, the picture that he had sketched for himself seemed even more convincing.
“I’ll speak in hypothetical terms, Signorina. This is all just the fruit of my imagination. And I’m going to imagine that you began a romantic relationship with Romualdo Palmieri di Roccaspina; perhaps after meeting him in your father’s office, or else at the yacht club. A cheerful, likable, romantic man, deep down, a fun-loving gambler. And handsome, too. Very attractive to a young woman who no longer feels she’s a little girl, and is ready to be a grown-up woman. You began to see each other on the rare occasions offered by your life as a girl living at home and attending school. For instance, in the early morning; perhaps in this very café, and at this very table. Where you could look into each other’s eyes, and whisper sweet nothings. Even a caress or two.”
Ricciardi’s voice flowed lightly. Carlotta stared into the middle distance; she seemed to be dreaming.
“Then something must have happened. For your father, Roccaspina was the best of business; the money came from Duke Marangolo, who even guaranteed it would be paid back in full. There was no risk: an enormously wealthy man, who was sick to boot, provided the money to lend out, offering sizable profit margins. And in fact for a long time it all went well, with frequent visits and excellent relations. All of a sudden, however, the lawyer, the ruthless profiteer who made all his money by loan-sharking, and who was therefore devoid of scruples or misgivings, decided to wring the neck of the goose that laid the golden eggs. He was no longer willing to act as an intermediary, and he cut off all ties with Marangolo as well.”
Carlotta slowly shook her head. Ricciardi went on.
“Actually, he had found out about the two of you. How did that happen? Did he see you, run into you by chance? Did he overhear you talking? Did Roccaspina himself tell him, in an impetus of sincerity?”
The girl didn’t reply. Ricciardi continued.
“It was at that point, in any case, that your father stopped giving extensions and refused to lend him any more money. Roccaspina found himself with his back to the wall and came to your home the morning before the murder. You were at school, perhaps that’s exactly why he chose that time to come over. They quarreled, bitterly. Everyone heard them shout, but no one understood what they were saying. They were talking about you, isn’t that right?”
Silence. Outside, the stream of young people heading to school increased, spreading through the air a cheerful sound of laughter and conversation. The commissario resumed.
“He didn’t say anything to your mother, I believe; actually, I’m quite certain of it. He wanted to settle the matter on his own. Who can say, maybe he just didn’t want to worry her. He decided to go to the Convent of the Incoronata, where he was the administrator and where, as chance would have it, he had been the day before on business. The Madonna dell’Incoronata is a convent, certainly: an ancient, renowned convent. But it is also a boarding school. And the lawyer Piro, who had visited the convent the day before in his capacity as its administrator, went back to the boarding school the following day, in his capacity as a father.”
For the first time, Carlotta looked up at Ricciardi, and her eyes were aflame. The commissario saw the pure hatred that inhabited that mind, but he wasn’t afraid of it. He continued.
“I understood it late, I was stupid. I couldn’t see. And yet you yourself, when I asked you yesterday whether you knew the reason for that double trip, referred to the Incoronata as the boarding school. And Laprece, the chauffeur that you fired immediately for fear he might talk, said the same thing. And you were the one who fired him, not your mother, because when he came in to tell Brigadier Maione about it, Laprece said: Because now that the father was dead, they didn’t need me anymore.
“You have a strong personality, Signorina. Your mother, who must have guessed something or who you might actually have told what happened, is afraid of you.”
The young woman grimaced. She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a cigarette, lit it calmly, and started smoking while she looked out the window.
Ricciardi went on.
“That very same evening, when you went to tell your father goodnight, unaware of what had happened, he told you of his decision to put you in boarding school to break off that relationship. Just as he had told Roccaspina himself, on the morning of that day. His radical approach to the matter made you see red. He spoke, grim and determined, and you walked up and down in the room, perhaps denying, or else coming up with excuses. When you found yourself right behind him, over by the window, you struck. A single, mortal blow. You were never going to allow yourself to be locked up in a religious boarding school.”
Carlotta hadn’t changed expression, with her elbow on the table, the cigarette smoldering between her fingers, her eyes focused on the street outside.
“No one saw, no one heard. Impossible to think that at that time of night and with that heat, in such a silent and densely inhabited area, anyone could have gotten in from outside. In fact, no one did get in: the murderer was already inside. And the murder weapon, the one that no one could find? I have come up with an idea of my own.”
With a rapid motion, Ricciardi leaned over the table and yanked the hair stick that held Carlotta’s hair up in a bun. Her hair, loose now, cascaded over the girl’s shoulders, but she didn’t even change position. The commissario looked at the object, holding it midway beween himself and her: a silver wedge, pointy and about eight inches long, surmounted by a geometric decoration.
Like in the Rummolo murder. There too, it was a hair stick. And there, too, it was the Roccaspinas.
“Something like that. Your rage, your despair, a burst of madness. You went back to your bedroom, but you didn’t get any sleep. I can’t imagine how long you thought about what to do. The minutes, the hours were passing and the time was nearing when your mother would wake up and, not finding your father in bed, would go to look for him. And so you asked the only person who would have done anything to save you. Literally anything.”
Carlotta crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray and calmly began to gather her hair in her usual hairdo. She picked up the hair stick and put it back into her hair.
“You went to wait for him outside his home, or else here, at the usual place and the usual time. You told him everything, maybe that you had done it for him, or even for the two of you. To keep your love alive. Did he think it himself or did you suggest it to him, that if they discovered the truth, your life would be over? A parricide, a murderer without any mitigating circumstances. Whereas he, if he had confessed, could get the mitigating circumstances of serious motives, the outburst of wrath, tempted by a mocking provocation: everyone had heard the quarrel, everyone knew about his huge debts and the fact that your father held him in his fist. And his name, too, would carry a certain amount of weight, as would the reputation of his family. He convinced himself, or perhaps you talked him into it. And he confessed.”
He fell silent. The girl heaved a deep sigh and leveled her cold eyes at him; then, slowly and sarcastically, she started clapping her hands.
“Bravo. Bravo indeed, Commissario! You have a very vivid imagination. I’m very fond of these new novels, and surely you’ve read some, that talk about murderers
and conspiracies, and clever, bright policemen who unveil the mysteries. Have you ever thought of writing one? Maybe I could help you. The plot you just laid out for me is a nice one, but I think it still needs a little work. What do you say, shall we work on it?”
Now it was Ricciardi’s turn to listen. The girl began.
“Well, now, let’s see. First of all, I think the characters ought to be developed a little more completely, don’t you? The protagonist’s father, for instance. You said it right, a man without scruples, someone who thinks of nothing but money. But we ought to add, someone who cares nothing for the happiness of his family: a social climber, someone who has no notion of allowing others to choose for themselves. And if the nobleman who made the confession were rich instead of powerful, then the age difference would count for nothing. Nor the fact that he was already married. In the fictional narrative, we could have him introduce his daughter to Duke Marangolo, an old man about to die, in the hopes that the elderly duke might fall in love with her; perhaps that might actually be the occasion on which they first meet the count. What do you say? Nice, don’t you think? The young girl whose father wants to toss her into the arms of a wealthy old nobleman instead throws herself into the arms of the penniless nobleman. That strikes me as an interesting plot twist. As is the idea of sending the girl to a religious boarding school, perhaps with a view to the possibility that she take her vows and become the mother superior of the very same institutions that are the source of his income. Sure, vows, just think.”
She lit another cigarette, smiling as if she really were thinking about a story to write.
“And then there’s the count—we need to do a little work on how we’ve presented him, too! We ought to explain that he’s married, yes, but that he hasn’t had any real relationship with his wife for many years. And that’s because, let’s say, she’s a harsh woman, rigid as a piece of wood, cheerless and without any dreams of her own. She hasn’t known how to be a companion to him, she’s never helped him, she’s abandoned him to his fate. There, now she’s perfect.”
She took a long, contented drag on her cigarette.
“But let’s get back to the count. He found in the girl, in her joy of living and her desire for the future, a new hope. What do you say, that could even be the title: A New Hope. If we don’t tell about this part, then the character becomes incomprehensible. Everything collapses. And then we have to depict the girl’s mother, a weak woman, fragile and petty, ignorant and entirely at her husband’s beck and call. Easily manipulated, that much is true, and always dependent on others to know what to do. From the father to the daughter. Perhaps that could be the moral of the story, maybe they rememble each other more than she’s willing to admit.”
She chuckled, ironically, and went on, as if the grip of some delirium.
“And then the secondary characters are very important in stories like this one. The chauffeur, for example: he’s a damned busybody who’s always sticking his nose into other people’s business, and maybe he got to chatting with the lawyer about why he was out at the Convent of the Incoronata twice in two days . . . ”
Ricciardi had heard more than enough. He interrupted her, in a flat voice.
“What did you tell him, to convince him? How did you manage to send him to prison in your place?”
The girl smiled, blowing a plume of smoke toward the commissario.
“Ah, ah, ah, Commissario! You’re abandoning the world of fiction in order to step into the real world, and that’s not how we do. That’s a risk that writers run, but they have to resist the temptation. In the novel, now, maybe the girl has explained to the count that when he gets out, she’ll be there waiting for him. She’ll still be a relatively young woman, she’ll love him even more than before, and she’ll be so grateful to him that she’ll give him a future he could never dream of otherwise. The crazy count only has to make sure he spends as little time as possible in prison.”
Ricciardi stood up brusquely. He was having trouble breathing.
“It seems to me that you have no intention of confessing, Signorina. No intention of telling the truth and bringing peace to the many people who are suffering and will suffer for what you’ve done.”
Carlotta stood up gracefully, gathering the schoolbooks she had left on a chair.
“But we’re talking about a novel, Commissario. Have you forgotten? I have absolutely nothing to confess. There’s already a man in jail, and he’s the one who actually killed my poor papa, and ruined my life. And I hope the court grants him no mitigating circumstances of any kind, and that instead they sentence him to death, because that’s exactly what he deserves. Now, I’m sure you’ll excuse me, but I have to go to school. You know, I have a future to build.”
XLVIII
Nothing he could do about it, but Maione would be worried not to find him in the office. Still, Ricciardi decided to go directly to the home of the Contessa di Roccaspina.
He felt conflicted. He needed to tell Bianca what he had discovered, but he wished he could spare her the pain of knowing the true motives that had driven her husband to confess to a murder he hadn’t committed.
And that wasn’t all. He needed to meet with Roccaspina again, and tell him that someone had figured out the way things had actually gone. Help him to regain his sense of reality, force him to think about what he was doing to himself and to his wife by allowing that girl to manipulate him.
Bianca received him immediately, dressed in black as usual. She looked weary, as if she hadn’t slept or had slept badly. Looking at her lined face, Ricciardi thought that she seemed far more fragile than the adolescent with whom he had spoken until just a few minutes before, conversing about death and murders in a café in the center of town as if they were inventions, rather than reality.
There was a certain awkwardness between them.
The caress of the previous day at police headquarters had left upon him the memory of the woman’s warm flesh, burning with tears and sorrow. And it had transmitted to her, who reached up and accompanied that caress with her hand, a closeness and support that she never thought she would feel again in her solitary life.
Now, however, it was the commissario’s job to tell the contessa something that she might not ever have wanted to hear; and he discovered to his astonishment that he was afraid that this revelation might drive her away from him.
But it was his duty to talk.
He told her about his intuition at the convent, of how he’d spent the whole evening and much of the night arranging the evidence in its new context, and how he had found a series of confirming details sufficient to close the circle without many possibilities of error.
He told her how he’d met with Carlotta, waiting for her at the same corner where Romualdo probably waited for her; and he saw her start when he revealed to her that at seven o’clock that morning he had been standing in the street outside her building.
He told her about his conversation with the young woman, and about how she had reacted: her chilly calm, her unruffled equilibrium, her ability to withstand his reconstruction of the truth.
He told her that Signorina Piro hadn’t displayed any willingness to confess, and had in fact made a great show of confidence that the count would never retract his story, but would keep her perfectly safe.
When he was finally done, Bianca stared into the air in front of her, shaking her head. Ricciardi was afraid he would upset her, but instead she seemed to be plunged into genuine sorrow.
“A little girl. She’s just a little girl. I saw her from a distance, at her father’s funeral: she seemed heartbroken, strong but despairing. She was supporting her mother, and holding her brother by the hand. How can a person be so false? I beg you to tell me, Commissario, how can someone be so false?”
Ricciardi cautiously tried to sound her out a little further, to pull her out of that maelstrom of sorrow.
“I’ve seen th
ings, Signora, believe me. I really have seen amazing things in my work. And after all, Carlotta resembles her father, if it’s true that he was a man with so few scruples that he was willing to make her Marangolo’s lover.”
Bianca opened up. She smiled sadly.
“Poor Carlo Maria. He has always been a victim of his great fortune. Money makes people lonely: both people who have none and people who have too much. Now that I know what happened, Commissario, I feel hollowed out. I thought I would feel a sense of relief, if for no reason other than that I finally had proof I hadn’t lost my mind. Instead I feel like a failure, both as a woman and as a wife. But also as a friend, since I’ve caused the duke so much pain, forcing him to have dealings with these people in order to help me.”
Ricciardi looked at her, tenderly.
“You’re certainly not the one who’s a failure. It’s your husband who fell into a net from which he was unable to extract himself. And I’d like him to understand that, at least.”
Bianca stared at him, bewildered.
“But . . . but how can this be, Commissario? Now we know the truth, we know exactly what happened, right down to the smallest detail: isn’t that enough to set Romualdo free?”
Ricciardi shook his head.
“Unfortunately, no, Contessa. Unless your husband retracts his confession, we cannot even reopen the investigation. We have no solid evidence, just a reconstruction based on conjecture and vague testimony. Carlotta Piro made no admissions and she does not intend to make any, and there’s no question that her family will rally around her. I can’t imagine that, after all these months, we’ll obtain anything more. I told you about the reticence of the mother superior of the convent of the Incoronata, and I also believe that Duke Marangolo’s testimony would be worthless.
“The only possibility is for your husband to change his mind.”
The woman ran her hands over her face.
“Commissario, I . . . I want you to know that nothing Romualdo can do will change my decision to stop living as his wife. It’s over between us, and the fact that knowing about this relationship does nothing to hurt me is just further proof that he no longer meant a thing to me. But the thought that an innocent man, manipulated by others, should destroy his own life does weigh on me, and greatly. In part because, from what I was able to see, he’s not going to survive a lengthy detention.”
Glass Souls Page 34