Merenda looked up from his notebook. “You already have an idea of how she was killed, dottore?”
“Cause of death?” Dr. Bottone raised an eyebrow, and Trotti was reminded of the day when Bottone had come down to the beach at the Lido to identify a piece of corpse that had washed ashore.
Nearly twelve years ago.
Bottone laughed a dry little laugh and then turned as Leopoldi, the assistant, sprightly and grinning, wheeled the stretcher into the laboratory.
Dr. Bottone rolled a fresh pair of plastic gloves over his long, dry fingers. He stretched his arms like a pianist before a concert.
“I regret not having been able to get down to San Teodoro. The amount of blood spilled can tell you a lot about the nature and the timing of a wound.” He turned back to face Trotti. He took the coffee percolator in a gloved hand. “But I’ve got the photos from Scientifica. Surprised, perhaps, that there wasn’t more blood, given the nature of the wounds. Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to drink?”
Trotti shook his head. The laboratory assistant shifted the body—still covered with a sheet on to the autopsy table. Bottone switched on the overhead light. With the other hand, he filled his Orioles mug with coffee.
He drank, his eyes hidden by the glint of his glasses. “Poor thing.”
Leopoldi opened the evidence case and placed the seven Polaroid photographs of the body as it lay on the floor in the flat at San Teodoro. He ordered them in two neat rows on the tabletop, where Dr. Bottone could refer to them.
Trotti noted that Boatti’s nose appeared pinched. The laboratory seemed to get even more chill.
Trotti sneezed.
Leopoldi set out a series of wooden spatulas, plastic jars, glass slides.
“Poor thing,” Dr. Bottone repeated flatly. He looked down at the grey feet while testing the microphone of his recorder.
The body was no longer human, Trotti told himself; it was dead and the inert limbs that poked from beneath the thin sheet had nothing to do with the woman who had once been alive and well.
Coffee-flavored bile caught at the back of his throat.
Dr. Bottone finished his cup of coffee with a purposeful click of his tongue. He checked the label attached to the big toe of the cadaver. Then he turned on the cassette recorder. “Dottor Davide Bottone, forensic doctor at the Policlinico of this city, medical examiner under oath for the Polizia di Stato, in the presence of Signorina Amadeo, procuratore della Repubblica, the Commissarii Merenda and Trotti and the officer . . .”
“Tenente Pisanelli,” Pisanelli said.
Leopoldi was carrying a circular saw. The teeth of the blade were sharp and spotless. He smiled brightly as he plugged the lead into the heavy-duty socket.
Bottone pulled back the sheet.
“A woman, believed to be Signorina Belloni, Rosanna, approximately forty to forty-five years of age, height one meter sixty, weight sixty-three kilos.”
Trotti had got to his feet.
Dr. Bottone switched off the recorder and turned to Signor Belloni. A thin smile. “Signor Belloni, in the presence of the procuratore, I must ask you to step forward. As Signorina Belloni’s closest relative in this city, I must ask you to identify the corpse.” He held out his hand and gestured to Signor Belloni to approach. “Can you identify this corpse as that of Signorina Rosanna Belloni of Piazza San Teodoro in this city?”
The blood had been carefully washed from the bruised and battered face. The hair had been pulled back with an elastic band.
The old man, leaning on Bottone’s arm, peered forward. The patrician features were pale and taut. The blond eyelashes batted nervously in the harsh white light.
“Signor Belloni, is this your niece?”
The man did not move. He stared down unhappily at the inert, swollen jaw.
“Is this the body of your niece, Signorina Rosanna Belloni?”
He turned and glanced at the young procuratore. Then at Merenda.
“Please identify the corpse.”
He mumbled something.
“I beg your pardon.”
“It is my niece,” the old man said, a hand going to his bow tie. “This corpse was once my niece—but it was never Rosanna. My niece, but no, not Rosanna.”
31: Geraniums
“Then where the hell is Rosanna Belloni?”
They hurriedly got into the Lancia and Pisanelli drove. The heat was almost pleasant after the chill of the morgue.
“We should’ve waited,” Pisanelli said.
“No need,” Trotti shook his head. He was smiling—a rictus that revealed neither pain nor pleasure. “I’ll get a synopsis from Bottone later.”
“Bottone’s going on holiday.”
Although the city was almost empty, there was a jam where Strada Nuova crossed Corso Mazzini. Pisanelli cursed. “Why don’t they go on holiday, instead of cluttering up the city?” He angrily placed the revolving beacon on the roof and switched on the siren.
“The vigili are rounding up the vu comprà,” Boatti remarked. “The mayor wants to send them back to Africa while there’s nobody in the city. Our Christian Democrat mayor.”
“The sooner the better.” Pisanelli put the car into reverse. “Damned Africans.” He pulled hard on the steering wheel and turned down one of the side streets beside the university. A couple of oncoming cars drew to one side, stopping in the shade of the ocher buildings, beneath the geranium boxes.
“You must know where she went, Boatti.”
“I thought Rosanna was in Milan, Commissario.”
“She can’t just vanish.”
“Rosanna never told me she was going away.”
Trotti unwrapped a sweet. “You’d better give me the Milan phone number.”
“I’ve already told you I phoned her sister in Milan the night of the murder.”
“Night of the murder.”
“The night I found the corpse. Monday night—the first thing I did after alerting the police.”
“Why?” Trotti turned in his seat.
Boatti shrugged. “I phoned the sister in Milan and the brother in Foggia—don’t ask me why. Because it was the right thing to do.”
“Why isn’t the sister at the autopsy?”
“Stepsister—she’s not a blood relation.” Boatti paused. “Listen, Trotti, if Rosanna had been in Milan staying with her stepsister, you don’t think the woman would’ve told me? And you don’t think she’d’ve told me if she thought Rosanna had gone on holiday?”
“Then where the hell is Rosanna Belloni?”
Boatti shrugged.
“Where the hell has she gone?”
Instead of answering, Boatti spoke softly into the hand-held recorder.
Pisanelli at the wheel of the Lancia Delta cut across Piazza Vittoria and along via Lanfranco. Vanizza’s, the furriers, was open, hoping no doubt for out-of-town customers attracted by an advertising campaign on television—elegant women, the covered bridge and Alain Delon.
Many of the bars were closed for the Ferragosto.
“The brother in Foggia,” Pisanelli said, glancing over his shoulder. “What did he say?”
Boatti switched the machine off. “What?”
“When you phoned the brother in Foggia, what did he say?”
Boatti shook his head. “No reply—I imagine he’s on holiday.”
“And Rosanna never told you she was going away?”
“It’s rare for me to stay in the city during August.”
“It wasn’t the first time she’d gone on holiday?”
“Normally when Rosanna goes away, she lets her mail pile up—not that she has much. Famiglia Cristiana. That sort of thing. Letters from the bank. And she had some shares, too.”
Trotti asked, “You know where she got the Jehovah’s Witness stuff from?”
“I always thou
ght she was a practicing Catholic.” Boatti shrugged, then said to Pisanelli, “Rosanna didn’t say anything about going away—other than that she was thinking of taking Maria Cristina somewhere. But not for Ferragosto.” He shook his head. “I assumed Rosanna was in Milan for a long weekend.”
“In mid-August?”
Again Boatti shrugged.
“In the past where’d she go in August?”
“Last year she spent ten days in Foggia—she took her brother’s children somewhere in the Gargano.”
“Then I think we’d better phone her brother again,” Pisanelli said. “Don’t you, Commissario?”
Trotti was staring through the car window. He did not speak.
“A few years ago she went to Ravenna. But that was before. She stayed with a colleague who had a small pensione there.”
“In Ravenna?”
“About two or three years ago.” Boatti paused to sigh. “I remember Rosanna sending me a postcard from Emilia. I don’t know if she’s ever been back.”
The siren echoed emptily off the high walls of the city.
“You know where Rosanna stayed?” Trotti turned to look at him.
“In Ravenna?” A shrug. “I never paid much attention.”
“Why not, Boatti?”
“We—my wife and the children—don’t normally stay here in August. Rosanna was always back before us.”
“She went to the same place? A hotel?”
Boatti shrugged. “Chiesa or Chiesi—a name like that. A spinster like Rosanna, who had once taught in the same school.” He shook his head unhappily. “I really don’t remember.”
They reached San Michele and Trotti got out of the car before Pisanelli has stopped. He half walked, half ran into the courtyard and up the marble steps, two at a time, to the large wooden door. He rang insistently on the polished brass bell.
It was midday.
The maid in uniform took her time before opening.
“Signora Isella?” Trotti said, pushing past the woman.
The maid held her hand to her chest. “The signora has left.”
“What?”
“For the Dolomites—she left early this morning. She’s going to stay with her son and the grandchildren.”
Outside, the police siren on the car roof died a mournful death. Trotti was sweating. “Damn it.” He turned, rubbing the side of his head. “Damn it.”
“You are the policeman gentleman who was here yesterday?”
He nodded, his attention elsewhere. “Damn.” Through the open front door, Trotti could see Boatti coming ponderously up the marble stairs. He turned back to the maid, “You’ve got the phone number, signorina?”
“Phone number?”
“Where Signora Isella is staying.”
The woman—she had a simple, plain face beneath the white maid’s hat—shook her head. “I’m leaving for home tonight.” She added with a certain pride, “I live at Mirandolo Po.”
“I want to contact Signora Isella. How can I phone her?”
The maid shrugged.
“She has an address book?” Trotti looked at the woman for an instant and then brushing unceremoniously past her headed towards the room where he and Boatti had taken tea the previous day.
“The signora takes everything with her.”
“How was she going to the Dolomites?”
A frown.
Trotti repeated the question, “How’s Signora Isella getting to the Dolomites?”
“She’s driving up with her son.”
Trotti turned on the flat Ticino switch. The concealed lighting flickered before coming on, revealing the cherubim and seraphim caught on the ceiling in their silent, eternal quest for carnal satisfaction. “Where’s her writing stuff?”
The maid made an unhappy gesture towards a Venetian desk, then stepping towards it, turned on the shaded lamp.
Standing on the desk was a burnished iron frame containing several photographs. Some were old, and even beneath the glass it was possible to see that the yellowed images had cracked with age. One of the photographs, slightly larger than the others, more recent, and in color, showed three women. One was Signorina Isella. Rosanna was in the middle. Trotti did not recognize the third, younger woman.
“Signorina,” Trotti tapped the photograph, without glancing at Boatti, who had now entered the room, “would you happen to know where Signorina Rosanna Belloni spends her holidays?”
“Signorina Belloni who is dead?”
Trotti touched the back of the woman’s hand. It was very cold. “Perhaps Rosanna Belloni is not dead after all.”
“Not dead?” She put her hand to her throat. “Oh.”
“Try to remember, signorina.”
“I didn’t know her very well—but she was a very nice person. When I heard that she had been murdered . . .”
“Commissario!”
Trotti turned. The maid turned, now both her hands at her throat.
“Commissario!” Pisanelli stood in the doorway, grinning sheepishly. “A postcard in Signora Isella’s letterbox downstairs.” He held out his hand, pleased with himself. “It would appear to be from your friend Rosanna Belloni.”
32: Delta
(“The line between land and water is normally a clear line, drawn by sea coasts, by river banks and by the edges of lakes—the same line that defines the limits of man’s existence. The Po Delta is, however, quite different. Here the meeting place of land and water is mobile, unstable. The river, carrying the detritus of North Italy, robs the sea, extending the land, while at the same time, allowing the tea-colored waters to penetrate inland. Neither land nor sea, a no-man’s-land of the two competing elements.”
Rosanna Belloni had written the postcard in her neat, schoolmistress handwriting, and sent it to Signora Isella. There was a picture of a man fishing in a delta boat, and on the other side, the postmark was Comacchio, dated August 4.
There was also a postscript: “I am very happy—very happy.”
“She’s alive,” Pisanelli had said triumphantly, holding the postcard delicately on the palm of his hand, like a holy relic.
There was a careful signature, but no written address.
“At least, she was in the delta on August fourth.”)
Pisanelli had taken a Ferrara telephone directory from the battered, jumbled ranks of Italian directories that lined the far wall and was now working his way through the hotels in alphabetical order. He stood in the number six cabin, the door open and his head bent forward as he consulted the yellow pages or spoke into the phone.
From time to time he called out to the woman behind the counter, “Another line, signora.”
Boatti was calling the smaller towns—Lido di Nazioni, Porto Garibaldi.
Trotti had taken the Rovigo and Ravenna directories, but after making several brief calls, had given up. The small print tired his eyes. He needed his glasses.
Rosanna was alive.
Trotti had managed to speak to the Questura in Chioggia, Rovigo, Ferrara and Ravenna. It was now time to get back to the office and hope for a phone call.
Not that it really mattered. It would not take a very long time for Rosanna to turn up. Mistaken identity, thank God. Rosanna was alive and a sense of warmth had worked its way into the pit of Trotti’s belly.
(Trotti had almost forgotten about the dead body, the identification attached to the big toe and the whine of the electric saw in the morgue.)
No further need to worry.
Piero Trotti had done his duty. His duty by an old friend, by a woman whom, in his begrudging, surly way, he had admired.
Perhaps even loved.
Piero Trotti could now take a holiday, he could drive down to Bologna. Await the arrival of his grandson.
Although tired, Trotti felt light-headed and very hungry.
A couple of women sat at the counter. One knitted in preparation for the winter while the other stared at the three men. From time to time, in response to Pisanelli or Boatti, she pressed a button hidden beneath the thick wooden slab of the counter.
The only other customer was an unshaven student, most probably waiting for an overseas call. He read a back-to-front magazine in Arabic script.
Again Trotti looked at the postcard, turning it over, looking first at the picture, then at Rosanna’s neat handwriting, and the impersonal message.
“Like something copied from a travel brochure,” Pisanelli had remarked. “Except for the postscript.”
“Alive.”
It was Rosanna’s younger sister, Maria Cristina, who was now lying in the morgue. Trotti glanced at his watch and wondered if Bottone had finished his autopsy. He repressed a shudder.
Maria Cristina—not Rosanna—had been murdered.
“Lido di Scacchi!”
Possible, of course, the card was an alibi.
Perhaps Rosanna had beaten to death her younger, troubled sister—the only way to put an end to an intolerable situation. Perhaps the younger sister had tried to blackmail Rosanna. Blackmail to get money for drugs.
“Lido di Scacchi,” Pisanelli was calling from the telephone booth, one foot in the stuffy cabin, one foot on the marble floor. “We’re in luck, Commissario!” He held a hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. “Lido di Scacchi, at the Pensione Belvedere.” He was grinning from ear to ear. Pisanelli was having a good day.
Trotti got up from the red plastic chair and took the receiver.
“Whatever made you shave off your mustache, Pisa?”
“It’s now you notice?” Pisanelli ran a hand across his mouth. “Six months and now you notice?”
“I prefer the mustache.”
“Commissario, I can go now and have lunch with my friend?”
“Pronto?” Trotti said into the phone.
Black August Page 13