He looked at the translucent figure of the dead boy. Mamma, where are you, Mamma, hug me, Mamma, it kept saying through cyanotic lips. I can’t do anything to help you, thought Ricciardi. But perhaps he could still do something to ensure a little justice for Carmela Calise.
For no apparent reason, the two Iodice women surfaced in his thoughts.
It wasn’t just melancholy she felt now, but concern and furious anger as well. She had waited and waited and waited. She’d fallen asleep at the table set for two, her head lolling on her arm. The sound of a closing shutter from a nearby building had startled her awake. She’d looked up at the clock on the wall: it was eleven.
In the past, a hundred years ago, Raffaele would have let her know if he was going to be late for dinner, one way or another. A police officer, a street urchin, a phone call to the accountant on the second floor who gave his enormous telephone pride of place at the center of the living room table. But now, not a word of notice. For some reason, it had never occurred to her until now: it had been more than a year since the last time he’d let her know he was running late.
She had put away the bowls and dishes and packed up the food, then she’d gotten undressed and gone to bed; it would have been humiliating to leave evidence of her long wait. A few minutes later, maybe a quarter of an hour, she had heard the key turn in the lock. Pretending to be asleep, she’d listened intently as her husband clumsily stumbled around in the dark. He hadn’t gone into the kitchen the way he usually did when work forced him to come home late and hungry; he’d undressed in silence and lain down, doing his best not to cause the mattress to move more than was necessary. A minute later, he was snoring blissfully.
Moving in closer, Lucia sniffed him alertly: she smelled odors of cooked food. Her husband had eaten dinner. But where? And there was another smell, slightly gamy. Possibly a woman.
She turned toward the wall again, and in her heart it began to rain. Had she only smelled a woman’s scent, she might have understood. A man had his needs and she’d been distant from him for years now.
But eating at another woman’s table? Not that. That was true betrayal.
Ruggero Serra di Arpaja opened the window of his study to let in the Sunday air. For the first time in days, he’d been able to get a few hours’ sleep, and he was feeling better.
The summons for Emma had come as a pleasant surprise. He’d been convinced that the two police officers were there to haul him off and pitch him into a black pit of ruin and disgrace, one from which he would never be able to extract himself, no matter the ultimate outcome. But instead, here he was, still able to defend himself.
The air that entered the room came up from the sea; as usual, it carried with it the smell of decay. He thought of Calise, of the powerful, funky must of her apartment. He’d been there twice: the first time to negotiate, the second time to pay; but he’d also seen her the morning she had come looking for him at the university to demand more money still. He remembered the woman’s croaking voice, her geriatric shortness of breath. But she was lucid; was she ever. He’d offered her plenty of money and she’d demanded plenty more. He had accepted, in large part just to get out of that horrible place. Greedy and squalid.
When he went back, he knew it would be for the last time. And then, all that blood. Blood everywhere. When he thought back on it, it felt like a nightmare, nothing but a nightmare; but he felt no pity for that old witch.
From the nearby sea came a seagull’s cry. The street was silent: only a few women here and there, their heads covered, on their way to Mass.
Just to make sure, and to complete his descent into hell, he’d even gone to see him: the other man. He wanted to get a look at him, read his face, study his eyes. He’d found exactly what he expected, an emptiness inside a shell that was pleasing to the eye. And he’d found a new certainty.
With a sorrowful smile, he closed the window.
Attilio entered the Villa Nazionale from the Torretta, at the end of Viale Regina Elena. He liked to stroll against the current of the crowds, knowing full well that the more customary route went the opposite way, beginning from Piazza Vittoria. The reason was that he liked to pass by couples and families, launching fleeting glances and subtle smiles at married women and unmarried young ladies, taking pleasure in their confusion.
It was an old game he liked to play with himself, and it still amused him: bringing a blush to the cheek of even insignificant women, arousing the frustration of the men walking at their sides—so much less enchanting than this dark, athletic, and well-dressed young man—as well as the ladies’ regret at not being alone and able to return his smile. Attilio felt good. He was enjoying his Sunday in the Villa Nazionale, strolling down the broad, sunny path, amid the scent of the flowerbeds and the nearby sea.
And he was luxuriating in the knowledge that in the end, everything would turn out perfectly. Emma was bound to choose him, he was sure of it; even more so now that he’d looked her husband in the face, a defeated, despairing, broken-spirited man. Could there be any doubt? As he inhaled the aroma of the pine trees and holm oaks that lined the wide path, Romor felt invincible.
He planned to stroll the length of the Villa two more times, smiling at the women and doing his best to avoid the wealthy children who raced along excitedly in their horrible little metal-and-wood pedal cars, and then he’d go off for a seafood lunch not far from the church of Piedigrotta. Now that the solution was at hand, there was no longer any point in scrimping. He could afford to indulge in a few minor luxuries. No more depressing Sundays at his mother’s house. He was done going there entirely; it only made him sad, and when he felt sad he could feel the rage swelling up inside him.
He shook his head to drive out these unpleasant thoughts and the irritating memory of his mother’s voice, with her perennial admonishments; today was the first Sunday of spring and he wanted no clouds darkening his radiant horizon. He crossed paths with a family, an elderly couple, a young woman with a small child, and a few adolescents; in their midst was a tall young miss, not quite striking but still appealing. He shot her a smoldering gaze, tilting his head to one side and slowing his gait in a way that he knew to be utterly irresistible; she ignored him roundly, preserving a gloomy expression on her face, as if she were nurturing some secret sorrow.
Your loss, thought Attilio, shrugging his shoulders. Go ahead and be gloomy, if you want. As far as I’m concerned, the world is mine and I plan to enjoy it.
XLIII
Sunday surrounded Enrica without touching her. The world left her out of its colors and tones, and she had never felt so lonely in her life.
Like an automaton, she’d taken part in the family rituals: breakfast, Mass at the church of Santa Teresa, the streetcar to Piazza Vittoria. She wasn’t talkative by nature, and she’d been able to conceal her melancholy; her father and siblings’ excitement about the excursion was something that she and her mother tolerated, certainly not something they shared.
Villa Nazionale, even though it was a place she liked, struck her as noisy and vulgar that day. The carabinieri on horseback in dress uniform rode along the tree-lined path reserved for pedestrians next to the viale; the horses were as restless and uneasy as she was. She continued to curse herself for the way she acted during her interview at police headquarters, for having acted so differently from her true self.
Walking one step behind her parents, leading her brothers and sisters by the hand, and preceding her sister and brother-in-law, who in turn were pushing the baby carriage with her little nephew, she thought that she might grow old without having a family and children of her own, as a result of her grumpy disposition; still, hadn’t her mother always told her that it was her finest quality? The sun flooded the blossoming trees, the children were playing with their cheerful little pedal cars, and a street organ was playing Duorme, Carme’. Sleep, Carmela. How ironic, considering that she hadn’t slept a wink.
From beyond the tops of the pine trees came the slow sound of the calm sea. T
hey stopped at a stand selling seeds and nuts; her father, as always, pretended he was giving in to the pleas of her brothers and sisters so that he could buy a few paper twists of nuts for himself. She loved her family, but today they were intolerable to her. She would have liked to return to the darkness of her bedroom. They started up again, walking in the direction of the zoological park’s aquarium, another obligatory stop on their Sunday promenade, where they’d look at the starfish, feigning astonishment for the hundredth time; it meant so much to her father.
Passing close by the little temple with the bust of Virgil, absentmindedly listening—for perhaps the hundredth time—to her father’s stories about the Roman poet’s feats as a sorcerer, she mused bitterly that the sorceress to whom she had turned hadn’t been of any help to her: quite the contrary. Then she felt a flush of shame at the thought, as she remembered the woman’s atrocious death.
Her eyes fleetingly met the gaze of a man with an idiotic smile on his face; she looked away as quickly as she could. There was no room in her mind for anything other than a solution to her current dilemma.
Still, there was something familiar about that man. Before erasing his image from her mind, she wondered for an instant where she might have seen him before.
Doctor Modo shouldn’t have been at the hospital at all, but there he was regardless, as was often the case. The night before Ricciardi, in that distinctively cold yet vibrant way of his, had told him the story of the man who had stabbed himself, a man with whom neither the commissario nor the doctor had ever spoken, and he’d felt the urge to come see how he was doing.
Standing next to his bed, wearing his lab coat, he looked down at him, pensively running his fingers through his white head of hair. He was reflecting on the power of dreams.
Who says that dreams have no power over reality? the doctor thought to himself. You were fine, until you started dreaming. You’d experienced all sorts of things, many of them good: you had three children; you held them in your arms; you played with them and made them laugh. Working every day and sometimes at night, you always made sure that they had enough to eat and drink.
You held your woman in your arms, in tight, sweet embraces. You made love to her, winning yourself a small patch of heaven. You went out whether it was raining or the sun was shining; you sang, perhaps you wept; you smelled the earliest perfume of the blossoms and of the snow. Your gaze met dark eyes and blue eyes; you saw the sky and the moon. There were times when you were thirsty and no one refused you a cool glass of water. Then, Modo thought, you started to dream. And from that day on your happiness wasn’t enough for you anymore. You decided to start climbing the ladder. But tell me this: aside from the sheer difficulty of the climb, how hard you struggled to make the ascent, what ever made you think that you’d be happier at the top of the ladder?
Without changing his expression and without waiting for a reply, the doctor pulled a sheet over the corpse of Antonio Iodice.
The first Sunday of spring was over.
XLIV
As he climbed the stairs of headquarters, Ricciardi ran into Officer Sabatino Ponte. Ponte was a short, nervous-looking man taken on by Deputy Chief of Police Garzo to serve as his doorman and clerk. The position did not appear on any organizational chart, but the little man’s brown-nosing, unctuous personality, along with a few shadowy recommendations from people in high places, had helped him to escape regular police duty and win himself a cushy, comfortable job. Maione, who maintained an attitude of polite contempt for the man, grumbled that he was a dog who commanded just as much respect as his master. Which is to say, none at all, he added with a smirk.
The man had a superstitious fear of Ricciardi; to the extent that he was able, he simply avoided him. When he had no choice but to speak to him, he did his best not to look him in the eye, turning and fleeing as soon as the conversation was over. Something serious must be afoot, to find him at the foot of the stairs at this hour of the morning.
“Buongiorno, Commissario. Welcome,” he said, staring fixedly first at the ceiling, and then at Ricciardi’s shoes.
“Yes, Ponte. What’s going on? Have I put my foot in it?”
A nervous smile twitched on Ponte’s face, and he focused intently on a little crack in the wall, off to his left.
“No, of course not. And who am I, to criticize a man of your stature? No, it’s just that the deputy chief of police wonders if you could stop by his office, when you have a minute.”
Ricciardi was annoyed by the little man’s darting gaze, which was starting to make his head spin.
“What, you mean the deputy chief of police is already in his office, this early, on a Sunday morning? That strikes me as unusual.”
Ponte stared at a patch of floor ten feet away, as if he were following a crawling insect with his eyes.
“No, no, you’re quite right; he hasn’t come in yet. But he said to make sure you speak with him this morning. Before you take any further action on the Calise murder.”
Aha, thought Ricciardi. Maione was right, the sly old fox.
“All right, Ponte. Tell the deputy chief of police that I’ll be in his office at ten o’clock. And let me get a look at your eyes; I think there might be something wrong with your vision.”
The police officer opened his eyes wide, saluted halfheartedly, and turned and ran up the staircase as fast as he could, taking it three steps at a time.
Waiting for Ricciardi at the entrance to his office was Maione, wearing a disconsolate expression.
“The day’s not off to a good start, Commissa’. Doctor Modo called from the hospital. Iodice died last night.”
He hung up the phone. It was the third call he’d made. Once again, he’d received ample reassurances.
In the voices of all three of the people he’d spoken with, he could hear compassion; and from what he could tell, though it was hard to judge without being able to see their expressions, all of them knew about Emma and that man. And about him, as well.
Now the important thing was to resolve the matter once and for all; he could deal with mending the damage to his reputation later. He knew from experience that people forget about every scandal sooner or later. And besides, he didn’t really think there was any hope of finding a solution.
He heard a cough through the wall: his wife was home this morning. This, too, was good news. Perhaps there were grounds for optimism after all. Ruggero ran the back of his hand over his cheek; he’d better shave and wash up.
So much depended on his image.
Ricciardi, standing by his office window, looked at Maione, who still stood crestfallen in the doorway. Both men could see at a glance that neither of them had slept a wink that night; and both men decided not to mention it.
“I know what you’re thinking, Commissa’. Iodice’s death, as far as this investigation is concerned, changes nothing. But the fact is that now he can’t explain why he did what he did. And this doesn’t seem like the time to go bother those two unfortunate women, his mother and his wife. What should we do?”
“Well, first of all I have to say that you hit the nail on the head with regard to Signora Serra di Arpaja. I found your friend Ponte waiting for me right out front this morning, and he told me to come speak with Garzo before getting started on anything else. Obviously, the phone call has already come through. Have you made sure that Iodice’s family has been informed, as we promised yesterday?”
Maione nodded quickly.
“They were there at the hospital, Commissa’. They showed up at dawn, mother and wife, but no one had the heart to tell them anything until the doctor came in; even though it wasn’t his shift, he wanted to see how Iodice was doing. He broke the news to them.”
Ricciardi shook his head.
“What madness. To kill yourself—a father with three children. He really must have lost all hope. But why? It would have made just as much sense to turn himself in if he had killed her. It doesn’t gel. Normally, someone who commits a murder with that much rage behind
it, the way Calise was killed, doesn’t have the sensitive personality that it takes to commit suicide. And anyone who feels enough shame to kill himself doesn’t have the rage inside him to kick a person to death.”
Maione listened closely.
“To tell you the truth, it doesn’t seem all that obvious that Iodice did it to me either. And to see his mamma and especially his wife, the despair on their faces—he must have really been a good man. On the other hand, if it wasn’t him, why would he kill himself?”
“Maybe he thought he’d be charged and he’d have no way to defend himself. Maybe he had other problems. Maybe he just snapped. And, of course, maybe he was the killer. Whatever the reason, we have to keep investigating until we find proof, one way or another. A wife’s sorrowful expression is not accepted as evidence in a court of law.”
Before Maione, who had suddenly blushed bright red, could get out an answer, there was a knock at the office door and Camarda stuck his head in.
“Commissario, Brigadie’, forgive the intrusion. The two Signoras Iodice, mother and wife, are waiting in the hall. They would like to speak with you.”
The two women walked into the office and Ricciardi and Maione greeted them at the door. The wife was the very picture of unconsolable grieving sorrow: her delicate features were ravaged by twenty-four hours without sleep, filled with uninterrupted weeping; her eyes were swollen, her lips red. The mother, with the same black shawl covering her head, seemed like a figure out of Greek tragedy, her face expressionless, her eyes blank. Only her waxen complexion betrayed the hell she had inside her.
The two policemen were surprised by their visit; by rights, they should have been at the hospital, arranging to have the body transported to the cemetery. Perhaps, it occurred to Ricciardi, they were here to request police authorization, but there was really no need for that; the operation performed the previous day left no doubt about the cause of death, so an autopsy would be pointless. He gestured for them to have a seat, but the two women remained standing. He turned to address the wife.
Blood Curse Page 20