Kill the Father

by Sandrone Dazieri

Gravel quarries are located above shallow water tables, and once you stop quarrying, especially if you’ve dug too deep and you haven’t capped the site, the water starts to rise.

  The secrets that the Father and his men had sealed in the drums were now buried under millions of gallons of water. The quarry had turned into a lake.

  18

  The sixth-floor office on Via San Vitale reeked of stale cigarette smoke and the leather of the old red couch pushed against the wall. Listening to the street noises coming in through the glass window panes, Curcio decided that every city had a different voice. Sometimes in the morning with his eyes closed, half-asleep, he had a hard time remembering where he was; he’d try to figure it out by listening to the sounds. Even the light changed, the dawns and sunsets were never the same. But the sounds remained the same.

  At ten at night, awake now for twenty hours, Curcio was struggling against exhaustion. He crumpled the empty candy pack and looked under the desk for the trash can, remembering a second later that he didn’t have one yet. The office had been readied in great haste, installed in a conference room of the Anticrime Division, until Rovere’s old office could be emptied of his personal effects after the state funeral scheduled for that Sunday. That was fine with Curcio: he was in no hurry to sit in a dead colleague’s chair, though it would hardly be the first time he’d done it.

  Someone knocked at the door. It was a young police officer, fair-skinned, with freckles here and there; on his nose a large bruise was starting to fade.

  “Officer Massimo Alberti, sir,” he said as he snapped to attention.

  “Take a seat.” Curcio pointed him to the chair. “I have a few questions I’d like to ask.”

  Alberti hesitated for a moment, then obeyed, sitting stiffly. “Captain . . . have I done anything wrong?” he asked in a worried voice.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Curcio replied. “Deputy Captain Caselli called you the night she escaped from the hospital. We see that from the phone records.”

  Alberti blushed violently. “Captain, sir . . . I didn’t know what she’d done.”

  “If someone thought you had, you’d be in handcuffs right now,” Curcio said sternly. “What did she want from you?”

  Alberti stuck a finger in his collar, as if it were throttling him. “She wanted me to look up a name for her in the system.” His voice dropped. “The name was Luciano Ferrari. But she didn’t tell me why. I didn’t know he was . . .” Alberti broke off.

  “Dead. I can imagine. You just assumed you were doing a favor for a superior officer, even if she was on leave.”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “You realize that you could go on trial for what you did? Especially for not having reported it. You’ve barely started, and you could already have derailed your career.”

  Alberti looked down. “I know that, Captain, sir,” he murmured.

  “Then what did the deputy captain say or do?”

  “I didn’t talk to her again. They told me that Ferrari tried to kill her.”

  Curcio shook his head. “You don’t talk about investigations currently under way if you’re not involved. Why did the deputy captain ask you? She had plenty of other colleagues she could have turned to.”

  “She didn’t tell me, sir.”

  “You have some idea?”

  Alberti blushed again. “I think that . . . she didn’t have a lot of interactions with her other colleagues. And that she saw me as . . . harmless.”

  Curcio scanned him; the young man was anything but a complete idiot. His expression softened and broke into a half smile. “When did you meet her?” he asked in a gentler tone.

  “I was ordered to take her to the Vivaro mountain meadows, the day that the boy was kidnapped. Luca Maugeri.”

  “Who gave you the order?”

  Alberti gave him the name of one of his direct superiors and told him that he’d volunteered to help search for Luca and his mother when they were still believed to be lost. He had to guess that the order had come from Rovere, because he’d taken Colomba straight to him.

  Curcio smoothed his mustache. “Then did you take her home?”

  “Not immediately,” Alberti said, relaxing slightly when it became clear that Curcio wasn’t interested in him. He took off his cap and set it on his knees. “First I took the deputy captain and Captain Rovere to a local restaurant, where they talked.”

  “About what?”

  “I wasn’t present for the conversation, sir. But afterward the deputy captain was evidently quite upset. The following day I was ordered by Captain Rovere personally to take her to the residence of Signor Dante Torre. Then I took them both back to the mountain meadows and after that to a meeting with Judge De Angelis.”

  “In the district attorney’s office?”

  “No, in an autogrill. Signor Torre suffers from claustrophobia. You ought to see the place he lives—”

  “And the reason for this meeting?” By now Curcio wasn’t bothering to conceal his interest.

  “I wasn’t told. But I believe it had something to do with the kidnapping. Later I drove the deputy captain here, first—” He stopped, embarrassed.

  “At this point it would be better if you told me everything.”

  “The deputy captain had a dispute with Deputy Chief Santini. I believe that . . . they actually fought physically.”

  “As a result of the meeting at the autogrill?”

  “Signor Torre had been unwell. I believe that . . . the deputy captain blamed his state on Deputy Chief Santini.”

  Curcio let himself slump in his armchair. “Then you drove her home.”

  “Yes. And that was the last time I saw her. Except for when I went to see her in the hospital.” Alberti hesitated again. “Captain, sir . . .”

  “I’m listening.”

  “She wasn’t the one who killed Captain Rovere,” he said with downcast eyes. “I don’t know why she ran. I don’t know why Ferrari tried to kill her, but . . . she’s innocent.”

  Curcio sighed. “You can go.”

  Alberti snapped to his feet, put his cap on his head, and saluted. As he opened the door to leave, he ran almost headlong into Infanti, in shirtsleeves and tie, who was holding a couple of pieces of paper and was about to knock on the door.

  “Captain Curcio, do you mind if I bother you?”

  Curcio made an effort to remember his name. “Come in, Infanti.”

  “If I may . . .” Infanti laid the printout of a police report on his desk. “The carabinieri in Modena have received a tip from a street vendor who says that he recognized Deputy Captain Caselli and Dante Torre not far from his stand, while they were purchasing foodstuffs. The deputy captain had red hair, but otherwise the description matches.”

  Curcio didn’t miss the fact that he’d called her “the deputy captain.” Another one who doesn’t believe she’s guilty, he noted. “Have you already forwarded the report to the colleagues at the CIS?”

  “Not yet. First I wanted to let you know.”

  “Leave the report with me, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Curcio sat staring at one of the two sheets of paper for a good solid minute, his chin in his hands. Then he decided that his residential hotel would have to wait for him a little longer.

  According to the code of etiquette of police hierarchies, it was always the lower-ranking official who was expected to go to the office of the higher-ranking official, but Curcio decided he could break the rule for once.

  He headed down the central hallway of police headquarters and walked downstairs. There weren’t many officers in the building, considering the time of night, and almost none of them greeted him; most of them didn’t know who he was yet.

  On the floor below, he followed the signs for the CIS and knocked on the third door, the only one where the frosted glass was still lit up, then walked in without waiting for an answer. Santini raised his head from his computer and, when he recognized him, looked
surprised. “Captain Curcio!” He stood up and extended his hand. “Your first day never seems to end.”

  “And I can’t imagine what it will be like tomorrow.”

  “Any problems, Captain?” Santini asked.

  “I just wanted to bring you this report sent in by the carabinieri of Modena,” he said, handing him the sheet of paper. “A sighting of Caselli and Torre.”

  Santini took it. “Thanks. You shouldn’t have bothered.” The surprised expression had been replaced by a watchful one. He knew that that couldn’t be the real reason for the visit.

  “I wanted a chance to stretch my legs,” Curcio said.

  Santini scanned the sheet of paper. “This confirms our thinking. That Torre is helping to cover Caselli. Modena is on the way to Cremona, where Torre’s family lives.”

  Curcio sat down, apparently uninterested in what Santini had to say. He started toying with a pen.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” Santini asked.

  Curcio smiled. “What was Naples like?” he asked in a tone of idle curiosity.

  Caught off guard, Santini went back to his desk and sat down in turn. “Excuse me?”

  “What was Naples like when you were there?”

  “The Scampia gang war was under way. It was brutal.”

  “I worked with one of the judges from the anti-Mafia team two years ago.” He mentioned the name, and Santini nodded. “He thought quite a lot of you. He said you did a good job.”

  “Thanks very much.” Santini grimaced. “Captain . . . what are you trying to tell me?”

  Curcio smiled. “That you and I have two things in common. We both have mustaches, though mine’s better-looking than yours, and we’re both good cops.”

  “I do my best.”

  “Do you?”

  Santini threw his arms wide in exasperation. “May I ask you what you’re referring to?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I’m not in charge of the Caselli investigation,” said Santini. “I just follow the magistrate’s orders.”

  “You’re hitching the cart to whichever horse your master tells you,” said Curcio, and for the first time his voice was harsh. “But it’s the wrong horse. And Deputy Captain Caselli is the wrong target.”

  “And you figured this out in a single day, sir?”

  “The deputy captain was working for Captain Rovere. She didn’t just go crazy and decide to barge into the investigation up at the mountain meadows. If Rovere had entrusted her with a job of that kind and she had accepted it, it meant they trusted each other.”

  “Maybe so. Just as the assignment you mentioned might have sent her around the bend, made her lose her mind.”

  “Or else someone didn’t appreciate the two of them meddling. And that’s why Rovere’s dead.”

  “Tell it to De Angelis,” Santini said slowly and clearly.

  “I’m telling you. Because you’re a colleague. And because I know you believe me. Leaving aside the respect you no doubt feel toward De Angelis or your personal dislike for the deputy captain.”

  Santini struggled to maintain his self-control. “Let me thank you for your suggestion, Captain,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll certainly consider it. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Curcio stood up. “No, nothing. Thanks for the conversation. Think it over. I’d be sorry to see you go down over this case. We don’t have a lot of capable colleagues. Much less with mustaches.”

  He left the room. Santini sat staring at the door for a few seconds; then he snapped the pen Curcio had toyed with in half and threw it in the trashcan. “Fuck yourself,” he said under his breath, but for the first time since that case had begun, he had a bad feeling. It crawled up his spinal cord like an icy millipede. He shook it off and started organizing his trip to Cremona.

  19

  Colomba had woken up at dawn. She wasn’t accustomed to sleeping next to another person, and even if Dante was curled up on the short sofa by the window, she’d been aware of his presence all night as he fell asleep and woke up. She’d dreamed of the Father and the explosion in Paris, her colleagues arresting her, then the Father again, and the silo. At eight in the morning, sick and tired of tossing and turning, she’d gotten up. Dante was still asleep, snoring lightly, his mouth wide open and his face turned toward the window; the roller blinds were pulled up to let in the morning light. He was modestly clad in a tracksuit that had belonged to Wanda’s late husband, and it was too loose and too short for him.

  Colomba had gotten dressed again in the bathroom, and when she emerged she’d found a note on the kitchen table from Wanda saying she’d be back around lunchtime. She was going to take Valle to look for the things Dante had requested the night before, after he and Colomba had returned from their trip to the quarry. Just how Dante had managed to talk him into helping them again, Colomba couldn’t say, but he’d done it.

  Colomba had eaten breakfast alone, a meal that consisted of stale zwieback toast with honey and a whole pot of coffee; then she’d started pacing the house, nervous as a lion in a cage.

  Dante appeared in his ridiculous jumpsuit, his face pale. He looked as if he’d been reexhumed, more than awakened from a restful sleep. “I can’t go on like this,” he said. “Is there any coffee in this house?”

  “Yes. But not the kind you like,” Colomba replied with a tense smile.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve decided to make the sacrifice. In prison it’s going to be even worse, and I’m already going cold turkey like the worst street junkie . . .”

  “I’ll make it for you,” said Colomba. “You go ahead and use the bathroom.” She leapt to her feet.

  Dante looked at her, baffled. “Everything okay?”

  “I’m just sick of doing nothing.”

  “And you’re nervous.”

  “Of course I’m nervous. Aren’t you?”

  “No, Wanda has a substantial supply of Xanax. Or maybe I should say she used to.”

  While Dante was eating his late breakfast, they heard the sound of an engine in the courtyard. Colomba peered out from concealment behind the curtains, gesturing for Dante to keep quiet. It was a flatbed truck equipped with an electric winch bolted to the deck. The winch was bigger than the one you’d see on a tow truck. The cable, however, was smaller and ended in a pair of hooks connected to two very stout-looking chains.

  “Everything all right?” asked Dante, who was sitting with a breakfast cookie halfway to his mouth.

  “Apparently someone’s making a house call,” said Colomba. “But I didn’t see who’s driving.”

  The passenger-side door swung open, and Wanda appeared; she didn’t get out right away and was clearly worried about how high she was off the ground. The driver came running around to help her. He was a Maghrebi, and looked about fifty, dressed in a gray suit and red tie.

  “Come take a look,” Colomba told Dante. “Wanda’s here with some guy.”

  Dante dropped the breakfast cookie he’d been about to bite into and peeked out from behind the curtain, moving with exaggerated caution, like a mime portraying a thief. He smiled when he saw the man. “That’s Andrea, my father’s right-hand man. Sort of his henchman, and certainly the only friend he has.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know how much he knows. It’s probably better for you not to be seen.”

  “Okay,” said Colomba. She went to hide in Wanda’s bedroom. Through the door, left ajar, she could easily keep an eye on the front door. The bedroom smelled of Coloniali shaving soap, and Colomba couldn’t help but notice other items of men’s clothing, as well as the oxygen tank and mask that helped Valle to sleep without suffocating, sitting on one side of the bed.

  Meanwhile, Wanda and Andrea had come in. Dante hugged the man and seemed sincerely happy to see him.

  “You’ve put on weight,” said Andrea. “Before long you’ll look like your father.”

  “You’d like that. Then you’d have two of
us to boss around.”

  Andrea laughed briefly, then turned serious. “The truck is the best I could find at the construction yard. The cable is eighty feet long, and they assured me it can pull up a couple of tons. But I haven’t tested it.”

  “It ought to work.”

  Wanda said something that Colomba didn’t clearly catch. She might have asked Andrea if he wanted anything to eat or drink.

  He thanked her but declined. “I have to get back to the office. But first I have to unload the rest of this stuff.” He hesitated and turned back to look at Dante. “Your father asked me to remind you that the offer still stands,” he said with a hint of embarrassment.

  “What makes him think I’ve changed my mind in such a short time?”

  “He knows you’re a fickle guy.”

  “Not lately . . .” Dante said with a hint of melancholy. “I’d help you unload, but it’s probably better for me to stay out of sight.”

  “I understand.” Andrea raised his arms in a sign of surrender. “I’ll get going.”

  He opened the front door, and Colomba moved to keep from being seen through the gap in the door. Her knee bumped against a stack of interior decorating magazines next to the wall, and they fanned out onto the floor. When she bent over to pick them up, she noticed that there was a photo album in the pile, the kind people used to have, with thin paper sheets separating the pages. Feeling nosy but still enjoying herself, she opened it: the first picture, just as she expected, was of a couple getting married in a church, dressed in clothing from the seventies. The woman didn’t look a bit like Wanda, but the groom . . . Colomba realized that the man looking seriously at the priest, dressed to the nines in a narrow-shouldered jacket, was a very different Annibale Valle, forty years younger and at least two hundred pounds thinner. The dark-haired woman in a white gown, then, was Dante’s mother.

  While Andrea unloaded the truck and kept up his bantering with Dante, Colomba sat on the edge of the bed and leafed through the photo album. A couple of black-and-white pictures depicted a seaside city, it might be Rimini or Riccione, with women in one-piece bathing suits and Valle playing beach tennis. Three photos later, Dante’s mother, with a big belly, was smoking on the balcony of their home. Then came Dante, lying naked on a blanket, probably six months old. Colomba couldn’t wait to show it to him, even though she was a little afraid of how he might react. Perhaps seeing pictures of friends and relatives that the silo had erased from his memory, like the people applauding his earliest attempts to crawl, might come as a bit of a shock. Dante believed that all his memorabilia had been destroyed in the fire, but actually something had survived, something that his father had forgotten to show him. It wasn’t that he forgot, Colomba realized immediately. He chose not to. That explained why the album had been stuck in among the magazines in the only room where Colomba, as a guest, should never have set foot. She imagined that Valle must have hidden the album in a hurry when he’d gone in and come upstairs to announce their arrival.