“Inform the man in charge of this investigation about this discovery.”
Colomba thought she must have misheard. “Captain Rovere . . . Torre is delirious! We’ve put him face-to-face with a situation that resembles what happened to him, and it’s driven him around the bend.”
“That whistle might be evidence in a case of kidnapping and murder,” said Rovere stubbornly.
“Now I’m starting to think you’re delirious, too.” Could it be that Rovere’s desire to screw Santini was so powerful that it was driving him crazy? “If I try to tell De Angelis anything of the sort, he’ll laugh in my face.”
“The responsibility for that will be his, not ours.”
“I’m pulling out of this, Captain,” said Colomba coldly.
“You’re free to do that, starting this evening. But for now, wait until someone can get there. I’ll alert De Angelis myself,” said Rovere and ended the conversation without saying good-bye.
Well, go fuck yourself, thought Colomba. But his reaction still left a bitter taste in her mouth.
An hour later, Santini was the first to arrive. In the meantime, Dante might have said at the most three or four words, and he’d refused any offers to take him home. The CIS deputy chief’s car was followed by a station wagon with the insignia of the VCU on the doors. Colomba had already seen the two technicians riding in that car the previous day.
“And we’re back,” said the older member of the pair as they got out of the car. “I’m starting to hate this place.”
Santini walked straight over to them. “Whose idea was this bullshit?” he asked.
Colomba concealed her embarrassment by keeping her face impassive. “Figure it out for yourself, genius.”
“I’m going to make you pay for this.”
She pointed behind her. “The pole in question is right there. Why don’t you shove it up your ass?”
Santini nodded to the forensic technicians. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
The two technicians, who weren’t wearing the white jumpsuits they trotted out on special occasions, photographed the whistle, then placed it in a sterile evidence bag. Santini stayed glued to Colomba.
“Are you afraid I might hang up another one?” she asked him.
“You know you’re going to be lucky if they send you to stamp passports when you get back from leave, right?”
“I should take lessons from you about how to kiss the asses that count. How’s every little thing with De Angelis? Do you take him coffee in bed?”
Santini stared at her with loathing. “You’d better be careful what you say.”
“I am. Just think if I wasn’t.”
Colomba sat back down next to Dante while the technicians dusted the pole with fingerprint powder and found a tangled mess of prints.
“He’s back,” said Dante in a low voice. “After all these years.”
“We’ll see what the lab has to say,” she replied diplomatically.
“I’ve always known he was still out there somewhere.”
Santini’s shadow loomed over them both. “The technicians are done, Caselli. Tell your friend he has to come with us for a little chat with the magistrate.”
“No,” said Dante without looking at him. “And you can talk to me, you know. I’m not deaf or retarded.”
“I know who you are, Torre,” said Santini. “I have colleagues who’ve experienced your ‘consultations.’ And none of them liked it.”
“Maybe that’s because they didn’t know how to do their jobs.”
Santini leaned over him. “You care to repeat that?”
Colomba stood up and squared off. “Quit trying to be a tough guy.”
“Out of the way.”
“Can’t you see he’s not well?”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Oh, you don’t?” Colomba took a step forward, and Santini was forced to retreat. “He was the victim of a kidnapping that left him severely traumatized, he suffers from claustrophobia, and he’s under medical treatment. If you drag him around against his will, you’ll be cited for intentional infliction of emotional distress and abuse of power.”
“You’re the one who got him into this, Caselli!” Santini said, clearly exasperated.
Colomba felt a stab of guilt. “That’s true. But from here on in, it’s entirely your responsibility.”
Santini made an effort to appear reasonable. “The magistrate wants to talk to him. What should I tell him, to call on him at home?”
“And why not?”
“Because that’s not the way it works!”
One of the two technicians laid a hand on the CIS deputy chief’s shoulder. “About a mile from here there’s an autogrill; the restaurant’s entirely surrounded by plate-glass windows. What do you say, would that be acceptable to you, Signor Torre?”
Colomba leaned over Dante. “If you say no, I can take you home right away.”
“I have to do this.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Let me be the judge of that, Deputy Captain, if you don’t mind.”
“Well?” said Santini. “Are you good with this fucking autogrill?”
“I’m good with it,” Dante replied.
While Santini was working out the details on the phone with De Angelis, the older technician smiled at him. “He acts like that, but he’s not a bad guy,” he said. “He’s just a piece of shit.”
“Do you know each other?” asked Colomba.
Dante shook his head and seemed to lose interest in the conversation.
“We’ve never met in person, but I know who he is,” the technician explained to Colomba. “Do you remember the case of the nursery school in Putignano?”
“Of course.” It had happened just after the Disaster, and the story had managed to penetrate through the blanket of indifference enveloping her. In spite of the fact that she’d been in bad, extremely bad shape, it had still struck her as incredible that anyone could have believed it. The entire teaching staff of a nursery school had been accused of abusing the children in extremely imaginative ways. With no evidence except for the claims of the parents. But in fact, a great many people had believed the charges. “Does he have anything to do with it?”
“According to legend, yes.”
“According to legend?”
“Well, none of us saw him, but the word was that he was acting as a consultant for the defendants’ lawyers. Tons of rumors were circulating about him . . . My instinct is that they were all true.” He smiled. “He tore the plaintiffs’ lawyers new assholes.”
“It didn’t do any good,” said Dante in a sepulchral voice.
“The prosecution was forced to call off the trial,” Colomba objected.
“The defendants had to move away. All of them,” Dante went on. “The parents are still convinced they were right. And the children can no longer tell the difference between reality and the diseased fantasies other people put in their heads. They’re going to grow up twisted and lead troubled lives.”
The technician nodded. “True.”
Santini finished his phone call. “Judge De Angelis is going to meet us at the autogrill in an hour.” Then he added, “In any case, it’s a colossal waste of time.”
In the meantime, a squad car had pulled up in the plaza. When the two officers got out, Santini pointed to the pole. “Make sure nobody touches it or gets near it, okay? And if anyone asks why, say that it’s special orders from the highway patrol.”
“The highway patrol?” one of the two asked, perplexed.
“What’s the matter? Are you deaf?” Santini snarled.
The officer jumped. “No sir.”
“Your friend can ride with you, right?” Santini said to Colomba as he got in his car. “That way you can’t accuse us of having mistreated him on the way over.”
“Drive safely,” she advised him.
7
There were already guards at the entrance to the autogrill when Colomba and Dante arrived, alon
g with Alberti, who was complaining even more loudly about his swollen nose. The restaurant loomed above them, a futuristic bridge structure spanning the highway, overlooking the cars zipping past beneath at high speed. Customers could come in and go out, but access to the restaurant area, a large glassed-in gazebo on the large-scale retail model, had been closed off. During the drive, Colomba’s sense of guilt had ballooned out of proportion. Dante was going to make a fool of himself in the presence of the pack of hyenas that De Angelis and his henchmen really were. And all because she hadn’t had the courage to stand up to her soon-to-be ex-boss. When she overheard Dante calling his lawyer, she felt a tiny flood of relief: that could be the out she’d been praying for.
Dante looked at the entrance to the autogrill the way a condemned man looks at the noose. His internal thermometer was dangerously close to ten, and the two Xanax tablets that he’d popped in the car were just giving him dizziness and nausea. Images of the past flashed through his head. The Father, his silo prison, the light that had filtered through the cracks in the cement. The ice that had formed on the window high above. The stink of his own excrement. His mind echoed to the words of one of the things the Father liked to say most often: You’ll never be as safe as you are here.
At the time, Dante had believed it. Sometimes he believed it even now.
“You’re almost done for today,” Colomba said. “But, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I really am.”
“It wasn’t you who dragged me into it, Deputy Captain. It was him.”
“The Father.”
“Yes.”
This is going well, thought Colomba.
A tall, thin man in a tweed overcoat met them at the entrance to the autogrill, walking in long strides. He vaguely resembled the actor Jeremy Irons at middle age, with shorter hair and tanned skin. Colomba immediately realized that this was Minutillo.
The lawyer placed both hands on his client’s shoulders. “How are you?”
Dante ignored the question. “It’s the Father, Roberto,” he said.
The lawyer shook his head in concern. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Dante replied.
“Then you have to do it.” He shook Colomba’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Roberto Minutillo. If my client has any problems as a result of this, I’ll hold you responsible.”
“Can I speak to you for just a couple of seconds?”
Minutillo looked at Dante. “Go ahead,” Dante said.
They walked away a short distance. “Take him away from here,” Colomba said quickly.
“I can’t force him to go.”
“But did you hear what he just said? He thinks his kidnapper has come back.”
“I’ve learned to respect his views, no matter how bizarre they appear.”
“This goes beyond bizarre. This is madness.”
Minutillo raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Torre was kidnapped thirty-five years ago. And it’s impossible to think that he can identify the presence of his kidnapper from nothing more than an old toy he couldn’t conceivably remember with any precision!”
Minutillo studied her for a few seconds, and the wrinkles around his eyes relaxed slightly. “Thanks for your concern. It’s very commendable. But now we ought to go in.”
Without waiting for a reply, the lawyer returned to his client, locking arms with him companionably. Colomba sighed in frustration. All right, then. One way or another, this would soon be over.
There were officers standing guard around the restaurant, and Colomba was obliged to show her ID before she was allowed in with the others. Dante kept his eyes focused on the outside world the whole time, until they reached De Angelis and Santini, who were sitting at a table by the plate-glass windows. With them was a third man Colomba didn’t know, with a laptop in front of him.
Colomba made the introductions; Santini didn’t even look at her and De Angelis shot her a suspicious glance, but everyone shook hands with the lawyer. On the far side of the room, near the serving counters, were standing two CIS lieutenants that Colomba had seen at the scene of the murder. They were chatting quietly and laughing discreetly. They stopped as soon as they noticed her staring at them.
De Angelis spoke to Minutillo. “The presence of a lawyer is unnecessary.”
“It’s the way we chose to do this. But if you have any objections, Judge De Angelis, we certainly don’t want to waste your time. We can arrange for a more appropriate meeting at some other time.”
De Angelis shook his head. “Don’t even think of it, counselor. Please have a seat. In fact, everyone take a seat.” He introduced the man with the computer as the lieutenant making the official transcription of the interview. He copied the details of everyone’s IDs, then started a digital recording device. De Angelis stated the date, the time, and the names of those present, then pushed a four-color printout in front of Dante. It was a picture of the whistle, stamped VCU. Colomba noted that they had worked fast. “I’m showing Signor Torre a picture of the whistle found near a parking lot, some five hundred meters from the site of Signora Maugeri’s murder,” he said into the digital recorder. “Do you confirm that this is the same object found by you on today’s date and acquired by my office as an item of evidence?”
“It looks like the same one.”
“You stated to Deputy Captain Caselli, who is present here today, that this whistle is linked to the murder of Signora Maugeri and the kidnapping of young Luca Maugeri. Is that correct?”
“That’s not exactly what he said,” Colomba broke in.
De Angelis raised one hand. “Deputy Captain, please limit yourself to answering only when and if you are asked a question. Please be so kind.”
So kind, my ass, Colomba thought, but said, “Sorry.”
Dante grimaced in sympathy. “Those weren’t the words I said; Deputy Captain Caselli is right. And I believe that for a while I wasn’t especially coherent. What I wanted to say was that this whistle is identical to the one I possessed when I was kidnapped. A whistle that was then taken from me by my kidnapper. To find it again just a short distance from where a child went missing, a child the same age that I was when I was kidnapped, makes me think that it was no coincidence.”
“Could you explain that?”
“I think that my kidnapper left it there. Therefore, I imagine that this is my whistle and that it remained in his possession.”
De Angelis and Santini exchanged a glance.
“The man who kidnapped you is dead, Signor Torre,” said De Angelis, and he enunciated each word distinctly as if addressing someone simpleminded. “His name was Bodini, and he shot himself in his farmhouse before the police arrived.”
“It wasn’t him. Bodini was just a useful idiot who became a scapegoat.”
De Angelis tapped a pen against the tip of his nose. “Yes. I know that you’ve always maintained that version of events . . . Was the whistle in the list of items belonging to you drawn up by your parents?”
“No.”
“And did you speak to the authorities about it after you were freed?”
“No. But I didn’t just invent it now either, if that’s what you’re trying to insinuate.”
De Angelis shot him a look of reproof. “Signor Torre, it’s not my job to insinuate anything. I ask questions, and you are a witness and are therefore required to answer me, even in this somewhat . . . informal setting.”
“Is there already a report from the forensic squad?” asked Minutillo.
“Considering the time frame, only a preliminary report,” Santini replied, “which was shared with me over the phone. There are no fingerprints, no traces of organic material. Difficult to say from the degree of oxidation how long it was exposed to the elements, especially since we have no knowledge of its previous condition. Not for long, in any case. It’s pretty well preserved.”
“Is the year of manufacture compatible with my client’s account?” Minutillo asked.
“Only in
the most general terms. That model of whistle was manufactured in Italy from 1960 to 1977; it could have been any one of those years.”
De Angelis smiled at Dante, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of human sympathy in that smile. “Signor Torre, let’s grant that the whistle is identical to the one you had.” He raised a hand as if to ward off a possible objection. “But I invite you to calculate the odds. How likely is it that this whistle really is yours, placed there by some conspiratorial hand, and not a whistle lost by a hiker or perhaps by a child who was given it by his parent? And that someone then hung it up as an act of kindness, to ensure it would be found by its owner, the way we do with gloves or keys?”
“I don’t need to calculate the odds,” said Dante. “I know for certain.”
“But we don’t. There’s no evidence whatsoever, unfortunately, to corroborate your claims.”
“You’re wrong,” Dante objected.
De Angelis’s smile turned icy. “So tell me. How am I wrong?”
“There are no fingerprints. Do you think that the little boy who lost it simply never touched it?”
“Perhaps whoever found it cleaned off the mud.”
“So thoroughly that they eliminated all traces? Erasing any organic residues, such as any traces of saliva? Or do you think that no one ever blew that whistle? You know, it is what people do with whistles.”
Colomba felt a swell of admiration for Dante. He wasn’t coming off like the fool she’d feared.
“The rain must have washed it clean, Signor Torre,” said De Angelis.
Santini leaned forward, placing an elbow on the table. “Unless whoever placed it there wanted to make sure no one could tell who he was,” he said. “Because he knew that we’d check it against his DNA before anyone else’s.”
“Are you accusing my client of something?” asked Minutillo. If De Angelis’s smile was chilly, Minutillo’s glare was burning hot.
“We’re just talking,” said De Angelis.
“Sorry to interrupt, Judge, your honor,” Santini said, looking over at Colomba. “Deputy Captain, can you tell us that you never lost sight of him for even a second when you came downhill?”
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