Kill the Father

by Sandrone Dazieri

  Santini nodded. “What about Hurtado? Did he let anything slip during the interview?”

  De Angelis shook his head. “He clammed up. In part thanks to that dickhead lawyer of his, who gives him such excellent legal counsel. And who also just happens to be Torre’s lawyer, by amazing coincidence.”

  “Minutillo,” Santini said. “What about Hurtado’s other friends?”

  “Unfortunately the preliminary investigating judge refused to confirm the arrests, due to a lack of solid evidence of a crime,” De Angelis repeated.

  “Are we still arguing about solid evidence?” Santini asked. “With people like this?”

  “That’s right,” said De Angelis. “I had to order their release.”

  One of Hurtado’s other friends was Jorge, who at that moment was walking down the streets of Rome with a song in his heart and wings on his feet. He wouldn’t have bet a bent penny on his chances of getting out of jail this easily, not with the mess that had gone down in Torbella, even though he hadn’t resisted arrest when they’d finally run him down in the cellars. Instead, he’d spent just a single night behind bars, enough time to say so long to Santiago, who was resigned to the fact that he was going to spend a good long stretch in there. When he’d called Anita with his last remaining ounce of battery, she’d burst into tears of joy. She’d already been making up the package to send him behind bars, with several changes of underwear.

  “I told you I always land on my feet, didn’t I?” he’d pointed out to her, boasting of his unfailing good luck.

  “You’re coming home, aren’t you?” she’d asked. “I want to see you.”

  And he’d sworn he would. He loved her, after all, plus where was he going to find another sweet setup like this one, with a girlfriend who never busted his balls even if he stayed out all night or brought a bunch of friends home, the guys from his posse? And she never objected, though every time they left the apartment was littered with garbage. She wasn’t even jealous; all she cared about was not having to actually watch him fooling around with other girls.

  Jorge and his girlfriend lived in the San Basilio quarter, in one of the nearly three hundred apartments of a public housing project that looked from overhead like a gigantic and horrible letter U, with a dirty pink facade. The complex was a filthy mess: the stairs always stank, and there were little kids crying first thing in the morning—you could hear everything because the walls were made of tissue paper—but the rent was nothing. The original tenant had been Jorge’s grandmother, but when she’d died he’d moved in. In spite of the fact that the housing authority sent him letters every now and then warning of an impending eviction, Jorge knew they’d never actually take action. He couldn’t even begin to count how many others there were just like him, with no right to live there, in that building, and even more in the neighboring buildings. What was the city going to do, toss them all out to live in the streets?

  When he got out his keys and opened the apartment door, he expected Anita to come running to hug him, but nothing happened. “We-e-endy, I’m home!” he said, imitating Jack Nicholson’s cavernous voice in The Shining, the way he did when he was kidding around. But still, nothing happened. “Anita?” he called. Could she have gone out to buy him something to eat? Or maybe she was just in the shower. As he was opening the bathroom door to see, he noticed a drop of red on the hallway floor, almost perfectly circular. He brushed his finger over it; it was sticky.

  Blood. A drop of blood that had splattered onto the floor but still hadn’t congealed. Jorge noticed another drop not far away, and then another and another. Anita must have cut her finger or something like that, but it was strange that she hadn’t run into the bathroom to medicate the cut, because the line of drops led straight into the bedroom. There was one drop in the middle of the hallway where he was standing, as if Anita had cut herself in front of the door.

  Somewhat apprehensively, Jorge called her name again, then stepped into the room.

  Anita lay sprawled on the floor like a bundle of rags, and beneath her spread a puddle of blood so big that Jorge understood immediately that there couldn’t be a drop left inside her. On the bed, cleaning the blade of a knife with a piece of paper, was an old man with eyes so pale and blue they seemed transparent.

  “You and I have a little talking to do,” said the man whom Dante called the Father.

  Jorge tried to yell, but nothing came out.

  17

  Augusto Stanchetti, Pinna’s old brother in arms, lived not far from the cathedral. Colomba parked Valle’s pickup close to the pedestrian area surrounding the baptistry, across from the stone lions that stood guarding the portal. Dante looked at the lions, trying to place them in his childhood, but he came up empty. No matter what he laid eyes on, his mind drew a blank, with the exception of brief flashes from the period following his liberation. Had he ever climbed on those lions as a child? Had he ever attended Mass in the cathedral? He had no idea. Cremona was insubstantial to him, though he liked what little of it he had seen, especially in the center of town, which still preserved its ancient Roman grid.

  Colomba shook him out of his thoughts. “Who’s going to make the call?”

  “A woman has a better chance of getting him to listen than a man does,” said Dante. “Especially a woman with a pretty voice.”

  “Do I have a pretty voice?”

  “When you’re not giving orders.”

  “But you’re a better liar. You do it.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “Don’t make him run. Don’t scare him. Try to find some excuse to meet in person.”

  “Okay.”

  Dante picked up Wanda’s cell phone and punched in Stanchetti’s number, putting him on speaker. “Stankfoot?” he said when the man answered.

  Colomba started: she hadn’t expected such a brutal opening.

  Stanchetti hesitated for a moment. “Yes. Who’s this?” he asked cautiously.

  “My name is Dante Pinna. My dad was Fabrizio Pinna.”

  She jerked again in shock; Colomba reached out to try to grab the phone out of Dante’s hand, but he turned his back on her to prevent that.

  “Ah. I’m so sorry about your dad. My condolences. How can I . . .”

  “I’d like to see you,” Dante interrupted him. “I urgently need to talk to you. Can I come by your place in ten minutes? I’m with a friend; she’ll come, too.”

  “Excuse me, but I’m eating dinner with my family. I can’t just—”

  “You’d better try to make up some excuse.”

  “Why, exactly, would I do that?”

  “Otherwise I’ll call the police and you’ll have to explain why you told them nothing about my father contacting you before committing suicide.”

  Colomba shut her eyes, and Dante waited while Stanchetti panted into the phone for about ten seconds.

  “And all you want is to see me?” Stanchetti asked.

  Dante flashed a V for victory. “And talk to you. I’d say an hour of your time. So shall I come by?”

  “No, I’ll come to you. Tell me where.”

  “The front entrance to the baptistry, not fifty feet from where you live. I’m in a pickup truck.”

  “All right. See you soon.”

  Dante ended the call with a triumphant grin and lit a cigarette to celebrate.

  Colomba opened her window; now that she’d been able to clean up, the smoke had started bothering her again. “How did you know that Pinna had contacted him?”

  “If you haven’t heard from a person in twenty-five years, when someone says their name you don’t react so promptly. Instead, he clearly had Pinna in the front of his mind, and from his tone of voice, Pinna worried him, too. That means he’d heard from him before the Father hanged him, and he was afraid that sooner or later he was going to be called to account.”

  “He might have read about him in the newspaper.”

  “He reacted too promptly to the nickname, too. That was just a lucky guess, but if he hadn�
�t recognized it, we could have saved our time. Ah, here he is now,” he said, pointing to a man in his mid-forties wearing a quilted tweed jacket and crossing the street. It was definitely colder in Cremona than in Rome, especially at night, when the air turned humid and dank.

  “Do you know what he looks like?” Colomba asked.

  “No, but just look at his shoes. They’re the kind with perforated uppers, just perfect for people who suffer from hyperhydrosis. And if they called him Stankfoot, there must have been a reason.”

  The man pointed at the pickup truck, and Colomba realized that Dante had nailed it. She got out and extended her hand. “Signor Stanchetti? Nice to meet you. Have a seat,” she said, opening the rear door.

  “Couldn’t we go talk in that café over there?” he asked, pointing to the gelateria at the corner. “It’s practically empty.”

  “We’ll be more comfortable here. Have a seat.”

  Stanchetti shrugged and got in. Colomba got in next to him. Dante stayed in the front but turned around so he could watch.

  “And you must be Pinna,” said Stanchetti.

  “Remarkable hunch. But feel free to talk to my friend,” Dante replied.

  “I swear I have no idea what’s going on.”

  Dante grinned. “It’s called conversation.”

  “Why did Pinna contact you, Signor Stanchetti?” Colomba asked.

  Stanchetti turned to look at her. “If I can be perfectly frank, because he wasn’t right in the head.”

  “Go on,” Colomba encouraged him.

  “Fabrizio was obsessed with the idea of radiation. He said that his cancer was caused by his military service. He asked me to contact the others from the Annoni Barracks and find out who else was sick, but I’d lost touch with everyone. Like I’d lost touch with him, for that matter. When he called me, it came as a surprise.” He paused. “And even more of a surprise when I read in the papers that he’d been in prison and that he was a friend of the guy who planted the bomb in Paris.”

  “Bellomo.”

  Stanchetti nodded. “Yes. Fabrizio was a brawler back in the day, just like me. We were all a little pissed off, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent us to the Annoni Barracks. But then I changed. I started a family, I got my feet on the ground. He didn’t.”

  “Definitely not,” Colomba said, with a glance at Dante, who nodded almost imperceptibly: Stanchetti was telling the truth.

  “What else did he tell you?” Colomba insisted.

  “He asked me if I remembered a special mission we were sent out on one night. He was convinced that that was when we’d been contaminated.”

  “And you remembered it,” said Dante. There was no question mark.

  Stanchetti nodded again. “Yes. It was one of those odd things you do when you’re in the army and that stay with you later. But the idea that there was radiation is pure bullshit. I work for the city, and I’m in charge of the public green spaces. There’s never been a radioactive leak in Caorso. The nuclear waste remains dangerous for several million years, but now it’s all in France. Then there’s the nuclear core, which actually—”

  “So tell us about this special mission,” Colomba interrupted him.

  “Excuse me, but are you a cop?” Stanchetti asked. “Because I have the distinct impression I’m being questioned.”

  “Do I seem like a cop to you, too?” Dante asked.

  “No, I’d say you don’t.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  Stanchetti smiled. “Well, then, I don’t remember the exact date, but it was in December, before the holidays. The sergeant yanks us out of our cots, then he chooses six of us for a special job. They load us onto a truck and take us out a few miles. Middle of the countryside, blistering cold. There’s a military warehouse, and they tell us to dispose of everything that’s inside.”

  “And what was it you disposed of?”

  “Furniture, medical supplies, books, but especially bags of clothing.”

  Dante stiffened. “Clothing?”

  “Yes. Used. Civilian clothing, not military. It disgusted me to touch it, because the clothing stank and it was filthy. But it was nearly all wrapped up in plastic bags. We burned it all. I remember that Pinna was especially horrified to see the clothing.”

  “Why?” Dante asked, his eyes drilling into him.

  Stanchetti hesitated. “It’s been so many years.”

  “Give it a try anyway,” said Dante, his eyes unwavering. He looked like a snake face-to-face with a mouse.

  “He said the clothing was too small for an adult. Something little children would wear. Or kids, anyway.”

  Colomba and Dante sat in silence.

  Embarrassed, Stanchetti went on. “But probably he was wrong. We burned most of the bags without opening them. And after all, what can a bunch of kids have to do with the army?” Dante and Colomba continued to say nothing, and Stanchetti started to worry he’d said something wrong. “On the phone, Fabrizio told me he thought it was clothing that had belonged to children killed by the radiation. That that place was some kind of a secret hospital, to keep the contamination under cover. But like I said, he was clearly raving . . .”

  Colomba snapped to and pulled the Polaroid out of her pocket. “Pinna said that there was a group of soldiers that came from another barracks. That they wore camouflage, without insignia. Is this them?”

  Stanchetti looked at the photograph. “I’m not much when it comes to remembering faces . . . I remember that the guys from the other barracks scared me, but now these guys look like ordinary kids to me. Aside from this one,” he said, pointing to the German. “He scares me even now. Maybe he was the one who was in command, but I can’t be certain. I’m sorry.” He handed back the photograph.

  “What else do you remember?”

  “What I told Fabrizio. That I saw the guys from the other company load drums of diesel fuel onto a truck. Fabrizio asked me if I was certain it was diesel in the drums, and I told him I wasn’t sure at all.” First he looked at Colomba, then at Dante. “On account of the nuclear theory.”

  “He thought they might have contained nuclear waste?” Colomba asked.

  “Exactly. But I told him that we’d all have been contaminated in that case, and that doesn’t seem to have been the case.”

  “Why?” asked Dante.

  “Because I know where they dumped them.”

  “How do you know that, Signor Stanchetti?” Colomba enquired.

  Stanchetti leaned against the truck door. His neck was starting to hurt from turning to look the woman in the face for so long. Though she was worth looking at, in spite of the ridiculous hair color. “Like I told you, I work for the city. I’ve surveyed the gravel quarries in the area, and I’d know if there was any radioactive contamination. Gravel quarrying is one of the mining activities that’s pretty prominent in the province of Cremona. Gravel and topsoil. Though most of the quarries have been shut down for years now. Some of them have been turned into dumps for asbestos processing, or else they’ve just been abandoned.”

  “Thanks for the explanation,” said Colomba with some impatience. “Let’s get back to the drums.”

  “I heard a guy from the other company talking to the driver of the truck. He mentioned the Comello quarry, between Piacenza and Cremona, on the Adda River. It had already been shut down then.”

  “And is it one of the quarries you surveyed?” Dante asked.

  “Yes. I remembered it after I got Fabrizio’s phone call. You know how these things work, you don’t think about something for years and then it suddenly pops up . . . I searched through the documents. In 1989 it had been decided that it would be turned into a dump for the processing of industrial waste. That was still possible under the old law.”

  “But it didn’t happen,” said Dante.

  “No. It became a wildlife repopulation area.” Stanchetti’s cell phone vibrated. He glanced at the display but didn’t answer. “It’s my wife, she’s starting to get worried. I really ought to
get back home now.”

  “Just give us the address, please.”

  Stanchetti jotted it down and practically jumped out of the car.

  Colomba got back behind the wheel, entered the information into the GPS navigator, and put the car in gear. They left the center of town and in less than twenty minutes were driving down a country road. “It’s not exactly going to be easy to find a bunch of fuel drums in a dump twenty-five years later,” she said to Dante, who had the look on his face that meant his brain was spinning especially fast.

  “Didn’t you hear what Stankfoot said? They never turned it into a dump.”

  “But the drums can’t be visible. Otherwise someone would have removed them. Maybe the same people who put them there.”

  “There’s a way to find them, I’m sure of it. Don’t the police have those ground-penetrating radar devices?”

  “Sure, we do, and we use them to find buried bodies. But remember, we aren’t the police.” Not anymore, Colomba added mentally.

  “We can buy one. Or we can get a metal detector, the kind that treasure hunters use. My father has plenty of money; we can even hire a hundred or so people to help us out.”

  “While we wind up in prison.”

  “It won’t matter at that point.”

  “Do you think that all the answers are in the drums?”

  “Not all of them. But one answer is, for certain.”

  “To which question?”

  Dante didn’t answer, just pointed to a sign on the county road, just past a small scattered group of houses. The sign read: FORMER QUARRY OF COMELLO—NATURE RESERVE. The arrow pointed to a dirt road, barely visible in the darkness. Colomba turned down it and slowed the car as it bumped over the potholes. When the road ended, they continued on foot, lighting their way with the flashlight they’d found in the pickup truck. It wasn’t hard to identify the gravel quarry: in fact, it was impossible to miss. Now they understood what Stanchetti had been talking about when he mentioned a wildlife repopulation area.