Blue Bear_or the Impossibility of Anonymity

by Joseph Grady

  This was a whole new world to me. Now I started looking around the teepee. The answers were not written on the walls. She looked pathetic, like I’d just caught her doing something terribly wrong. I couldn’t decide whether or not to just leave her there and start looking for whoever was really on a vision quest. But she was the only clue I’d gotten thus far, so it only made sense to stick around and see if there was any more relevant information, and perhaps the only thing that kept me there was her shocking indication that she actually had understood my big words. Who is this girl? Playing bad cop had only made things go from bad to worse. I’d have to try good cop.

  I leaned forward and extended one paw onto her shoulder, making a first attempt at sympathy by giving two firm pats and saying, “There, there.”

  I sat back and observed the effects of my sympathy. Nothing. The hysterics and mumbling just went on. I ventured another “there, there.” It turned out to be equally ineffective.

  And so I swallowed my pride. I grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her straight up out of the lawn chair and transferred her into my lap and did what everyone assumes bears are good at. And I guess we are actually pretty good at it. The girl intuited what was going on, and pulled me in tight. I wrapped my arms around her — each of which was bigger than her. She kept on sobbing, but stopped mumbling. By now it was clear that she was hugging out all kinds of baggage that had nothing to do with me. I patted her on the back as I imagined a bear was supposed to do when comforting a young girl. Like I said, completely new territory. She held on tight, filling my blue fur with snot and tears. I rocked back and forth, and, though I didn’t admit it to myself then, I did feel some genuine sympathy for her. The terrifying realization also started to dawn on me: what if this is my new assignment?

  I asked the obvious question that I should have started with. “What’s your name, child?”

  The crying stopped. From somewhere below my chin I heard her say, “Lucy Fox.”

  “Really? That’s a girl’s name?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hmm.”

  This was truly puzzling. Completely unprecedented. What are the odds? Well. Whatever. At least I would have something to do now. It beats doing nothing. About like anything else.

  “Well, little girl, it looks like I’m your spirit animal. You can call me Blue Bear.”

  “Okay, Blue Bear.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  IL PALAZZO

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Lucy repeated again and again. She put her hands over her eyes, looked down and did her best to keep control of herself.

  “Okay, okay, how about we go and wait over there,” said Brian, taking Lucy by the arm and pulling her down the block.

  “No, wait, no,” Lucy gave slight resistance, but still let Brian drag her down the block. “No, you don’t understand, Brian. You don’t understand.”

  She finally rooted her feet on the sidewalk, stopped him, and shook his hand off her shoulder. Like everyone who knew her, Brian had long since learned that sometimes Lucy was to be listened to, but not understood. This was one of those moments. He just stood there and let her have her moment of panic, wishing it didn’t have to happen this time at a crime scene. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked around at everything but Lucy. Lucy’s main focus became controlling her breathing and looking normal.

  In a solid show of support, I stayed away from her, and took the liberty of ducking underneath the police line to check things out. I’d never actually been in a real crime scene before — odd considering all the opportunities I would have had. All kinds of people in classy uniforms ran about from place to place, each one trying to look more important than the next. And of course, in proper Italian style, tasks that should have been carried out professionally, were done, yes, professionally, but also dramatically. Beyond an analysis of their behavior, though, I wasn’t really able to grasp much more about what they were being dramatic about. The guy dead under the tarp exactly matched Lucy’s description of him to me. One of his feet stuck out of the entrance door of Palazzo Mortimer, and the rest of him remained crumpled up by the counter of the porter’s office. The more I watched official people come and go, the less I understood.

  I couldn’t say I was surprised that Daniele Gambetti was the one who found the body. He was Palazzo Mortimer’s porter. Or at least that was his job title. On any given work day, he’d spend most of his time in other parts of the building doing anything and everything that had nothing to do with the porter’s office — or just doing nothing at all. Come to think of it, that’s not too far from what I was doing with my life. Unlike me, though, Gambetti was pushing forty, had an emerging gut, was single, and was always willing to stop and chat with anyone as a pretense for work. Like many Italian men, whenever Lucy was forced to stop and chat with him, or whenever she was anywhere near him, he always seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes anywhere above her neckline.

  At the moment, he was talking to the police explaining how he’d found the body. He included far more detail and passion than necessary, but I sat nearby and patiently discerned the relevant details: after lunch he smoked a cigarette out on the sidewalk. There was no dead body on the floor. Half an hour later, after wandering around upstairs, trying to look busy, he came back to the porter’s office. There was a dead body on the floor.

  That’s all I needed to understand. Whenever they show crime scenes on T.V., they’ve got people who follow the camera around and subtly fill in the audience on all the relevant information. It was a bit of a let down to discover that crime scenes are not nearly as exciting without a narrator. No storyline, no script, and lots of strangers in motion, yelling at each other in rapid fire Italian. I headed back over to the sidewalk.

  The police had herded Brian and Lucy into a small group of people standing around. Two men in uniform stood there supervising, while a third and fourth called people over individually, asking them questions, and taking down information on notepads. Everyone was on edge. And when Italians are on edge, they smoke. Lucy’s shoulders tensed every time she heard the sound of a lighter and every time she caught a scent of that soothing smell of smoke. Her sense of smell is terrible, but she knew that one well. Only once, though, did she permit herself to gaze longingly at a cigarette, and she was even able to convince herself that she didn’t want one.

  I shuffled back through the group, up to Lucy and Brian and told her, “Yeah, that’s definitely the tracksuit guy from the park that you were telling me about.”

  She didn’t look at me. She fixed her eyes on a point across the street and moved her lips as little as possible, “I don’t need to know that. You never told me that.”

  “But don’t you think the police will want to know about the keys?” I asked.

  “Blue Bear, look, this is not my problem. Stop talking to me, okay? I need to look normal.”

  Brian went fidgety again. “So I guess you think this is a good time to start talking to yourself?”

  Lucy’s eyes remained on their spot across the street, she ran her fingers through her hair, taking deep breaths.

  “I’m not saying… I’m just saying,” said Brian, “now is probably not the best time to be the twenty-five year old with an invisible friend, okay?”

  “I don’t have an invisible friend.”

  “How many times have I caught you carrying on a conversation with nobody?”

  “Is this really the time for this?”

  Brian seemed to agree. “Just try to look normal.”

  “Said the guy dressed as a clown,” responded Lucy.

  “You can’t always use that one. At least people see me dressed like this and they know I have a job.”

  Lucy went silent again.

  “Why don’t we try and get closer to the scene?” said Brian. “Let’s see if someone from the Palazzo can tell us what’s going on.”

  “No!” She almost yelled. “Don’t you get it? I don’t know anything. You don’t know a
nything. And it’s better that way. It’s not my problem and it’s not your problem. End of story.”

  “But why would this be your problem?” asked Brian. “Do you know something?”

  A guy on a motorino pulled up next to the group and parked on the sidewalk. Before dismounting, he stood there observing everything with confusion, running his fingers through his fluffy koala-like hair. He finally said to Brian and Lucy. “Hi there, mates. What’s going on here?”

  Brian raised his shoulder. “Oh hey, Andrew. Nobody knows. I guess there’s been some kind of murder or something in our building.”

  “Really… struth!” said Andrew, looking concerned, and employing his usual array of unintelligible Australian slang.

  “Yeah, just get in line,” said Brian. “The cops are going to want to talk to everyone.”

  “That’s crazy, mate.” Andrew shook his head. He finally dismounted and joined the group, chatting with Brian. He was the exact same height as Lucy, had an average build, fuzzy hair, and a large nose. “So a weird thing happened to me today, yeah? The University phoned me and said I had to come see them immediately to verify that I’ve got an Italian visa. Otherwise, they said, they would have to discontinue my registration.”

  “But I thought you were an Italian citizen,” said Brian.

  “Right, and that’s just what I told them!” Andrew was born in Australia, but both of his parents were Italian immigrants from somewhere in the south of Italy. “They told me they had records of me being born in Sydney, but no immigration documents. But the thing is, I didn’t need immigration documents, because I’ve already got citizenship and a passport, you know? Anyways, I had to drive over there this afternoon to show them my documents, before they report me to the immigration police.”

  Lucy had long since checked out of the conversation. Her body was still present among the other two, but her mind had wandered elsewhere. She got that same look on her face that people get when at the free throw line or about to make a critical throw in beer pong or drunk ball. And whatever interior psyching up she was doing paid off. By the time it was her turn to talk to the cops, she was perfectly in character.

  “Scusi, signorina, potrei vedere i suoi documenti?”4

  “Eh, sono in camera là sopra, che sono andata a correre.”5

  “Poi nel caso li andrà a prendere. Nome, prego?”6

  “Lucy.”7

  “Cognome?”8

  “Fox.”9

  “Non è di qui, giusto?”10

  “Sì, sono americana.”11

  “Immaginavo. Lei sa che cosa è successo qua?”12

  “M’han detto che c’è stato un omicidio.”13

  “Ha visto o sentito qualcosa?”14

  “No. Sono andata a correre e sono tornata adesso. Non ho sentito né visto niente.”15

  “C’era qualcuno con Lei?”16

  “Cioè, nel parco, no, ma andando a casa mi sono fermata nel bar col mio amico qua, Brian.”17

  “Neanche Brian ha visto niente? Giusto? Me lo potresti indicare?”18

  “Eh, sì, è quello vestito di pagliaccio.”19

  “Ah, ’namo bene. Siamo a posto. Lo farò schedare al collega.20

  Lucy thought she was about to get let off the hook, until the officer added, Intanto se vuole venirci incontro potrebbe mostrare i suoi documenti.”21

  “Va bene, saliamo.”22

  It’s more than unnerving when you need permission from a stranger to enter your own front door, especially if you have to pass under crime scene tape to do so. The main entrance — the only way in and out of Palazzo Mortimer — was just ten yards from the property gate on the sidewalk. The officer escorted her past the spot where, just moments earlier, the body had been found. For her sake, it was probably good that it was gone, but she couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that nobody had drawn a chalk outline.

  Palazzo Mortimer was a five-story U-shaped structure with three wings. The main entrance faced the street and was in the wing that composed the bottom of the U. The officer and Lucy hurried across the main lobby towards a massive marble staircase. At the same time, a man in a slick suit came barreling down the stairs at them. He held up his arms at them and stopped to look down on them from his spot on the stairs above.

  “Ferma, ferma!” He asked if Lucy was a student resident.

  “Sì, lo sono.”

  “È inglese?”

  “Americana.”

  “My name is detective Luca Speziale, special homicides unit, province of Rome.” He held out his hand.

  “I’m Lucy Fox.”

  “A pleasure.” His English was not great, but workable. “I would like to understand some things about the student residents here. Will you show me where you live?”

  “Um… sure.”

  “You students are retirement home employees?”

  “No.”

  “No matter. Please show to me your residence rooms.”

  “Okay. This way.”

  A narrow hallway behind the fancy staircase led to an ancient elevator. Since the renovation, more modern elevators had been installed at the tips of the U, to carry beds and wheelchairs, but the staff and students were required to take the 1924 elevator. Besides Lucy and the two police officers, two other large men in suits were waiting for the elevator. In typical Italian fashion, they bent the laws of physics and shoved all five of them into the phone booth sized carriage.

  Getting in, Lucy thought she had been lucky to get a spot in the corner, but ended up with Detective Luca Speziale crammed right in next to her. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and unsuccessfully tried to touch and be touched as little as possible. When he had been glaring down at her in athletic position from the staircase, Speziale had somehow seemed impressive to Lucy. For five floors, though, this first impression fell apart as she contemplated his profile in the awkward elevator silence and tried not to breathe too heavily on the top of his balding head, which was right beneath the path of any air coming out of her nose. His lips were extremely long and thin and his closely trimmed beard ran rampant over his face: down from the tops of his cheeks, all the way to somewhere below his tie. What was left of his retreating hair was trimmed the same length as the beard, giving the impression that the beard had orchestrated a coups d’état against his hair and expanded its own sphere of influence to the top and back of his head. The elevator stopped abruptly on the fifth floor. Someone with a range of motion still available to his arm swung open the old gate, and everyone unfolded themselves from the tiny box.

  “Now, explain to me, perhaps from the start,” Speziale turned to Lucy. “What is this building? What was it for in the beginning?”

  “In the beginning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, they built this place at the turn of the century as the Roman residence of the Fasani family,” said Lucy. “You know who the Fasani’s are, right? The rich and famous Italian noble family?”

  “I know. I know who they are. Of course. Everybody in Rome knows them. So it no longer belongs to them?”

  “No, it does.”

  “It does? Then why is it a retirement home?”

  “They lost all their money in the wars and the fascist period. But the old prince, Giovanni, made friends with an Englishman – something Mortimer – who had a lot of money.”

  The group turned a corner from the elevator. The only eyes that watched them as they escorted each other down a long white marble floored hallway with high corniced ceilings and crystal chandeliers were the eyes painted on the numerous portraits of now defunct Italian nobility. Lucy stopped in front of a canvas with two men seated in frock coats smoking cigars.

  “Okay, so this is Prince Giovanni and Mortimer,” explained Lucy. “Giovanni had a title, but no money, and Mortimer had money, but no title, so they were great friends. At some point in the eighties, the Fasani’s really had no more money, so they renovated the whole palace into a swanky series of retirement apartments for upper crust Romans. It got named
after the main investor in the project.”

  “So it’s a retirement home, not a nursing home?”

  “The second floor is a nursing home. Everything else is apartments for people over sixty.”

  “And the Fasani’s still own it?”

  “More or less. The old prince moved in in the ’80’s and died not long after that.”

  “And the current prince?”

  “The current princess,” Lucy turned around and pointed to a painting of a little girl on the opposite wall, wearing cowboy boots and sitting on a rocking horse, “lives in France. She keeps an empty penthouse for when she’ll need to move in. She makes visits on holidays, but that’s about it.”

  “But then why do you students live here?”

  “Um… come upstairs.”

  They approached the turn in the hallway, which should have sent them up another wing of the U-shaped building. But hidden in one of the massive marble framed doorways, was another slender door. Lucy stopped in front of it, fumbling with the zipper in the back of her track shorts as she tried to pull out the correct key. Petrifying visions of the cops recognizing the wrong set of keys raced through her mind. She braced herself, half expecting them to yell at her, slam her to the wall and throw her in handcuffs. It was at least comforting that the officers, like all Italian police, didn’t seem to be in a hurry, nor did they seem to notice that the difficulty in getting the keys was caused by the trembling in her hands.

  Instead, she pulled out the correct key, and the doorway opened as normal. Behind it there was a poorly lit and narrow steel corrugated staircase with no decoration at all. It had once served as a way for butlers and maids to move between floors without being seen. Lucy went first, leading the officers back and forth along the short flights of stairs ending in a steel door that, when unlatched, led to a rooftop terrace. They exited one of those triangle structures that you see on the tops of buildings, that make it look like streams of people emerging from a clown car — even more so when Brian comes out.