“What do you mean, missing?”
“Nobody knows what’s become of him,” said Tatiana. “He’s not home, his cell phone is switched off, and they found his car near the bus parking area, in Pescara.”
“Oh, fuck . . .”
“Listen, Vittorio, by any chance, did Corrado come to the bank recently? Did he make any large withdrawals . . .”
The teller looked at Barbara. Then Tatiana. She had dark circles under her eyes. “Yes, he came in . . .” he replied. “Four days ago.” An electric shock writhed under the Russian woman’s skin. “But he made a deposit. Two checks.” He thought he could see the young woman deflate a little.
“No withdrawals?”
“No. Why?”
“Because if he had withdrawn cash, it might have meant that he’d gone on the run to hide out, who knows where . . .”
“On the run? To hide out? What on earth are you talking about?”
“It was just a supposition,” Barbara replied.
“No. I’m sorry. Tomorrow morning I can check and see whether he used an ATM anywhere.”
“Would you do me that favor?”
“Certainly, glad to. Of course, I never said a thing to you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But has something happened?”
“We don’t know, Vittorio. He’s been strange for days, now. And he just left, dropping everything, without so much as a word.”
“Well?” Dario shouted from the court. He’d already taken his position. “Are you going to let me win by default?”
“Go play your tennis match, Vittò . . . and thanks,” the bookseller said, giving him a kiss on each cheek. Tatiana limited herself to a handshake. “I’ll keep you posted . . .” And with a series of darting leaps, Abrugiati went back to his game, gathering tennis balls as he went. It was his serve.
Barbara and Tatiana left the blazing glow of the spotlights illuminating the tennis court and plunged back into the darkness of the tennis club, following the little lane that led back to their car. “I’m sorry,” said the bookseller. “I’m so sorry.”
“We did our best.” Tatiana tugged at her jacket as if she’d just been run through by a shiver of unexpected cold. But the air was warm, springlike, and a light breeze brought the scent of the sea and the coming summer. “I hope they find the body, at least.”
This time Barbara lacked the strength to contradict her. She had no arguments left to make. Only fleeting hopes. And she knew that hope, when pitted against logic, usually loses.
“I WASN’T EXPECTING YOU AT THIS HOUR OF THE DAY,” SAID Alberto Fumagalli, shutting the door to the morgue behind him. “But tonight I can’t take you out to dinner. I have other plans.” And he shot him a wink.
“You have a woman?” Rocco asked.
“What woman! Poker, four of us, to the death. It’s me, the head physician in traumatology, an anesthesiologist, and a damned male nurse who skins us alive every time.”
“What are the stakes?”
“A thousand euros!”
“Really?”
“At ten percent,” the medical examiner modified the statement.
“Wait, a hundred euros? All this ruckus over a hundred euros? When you decide to raise the stakes, give me a call.”
Alberto put his hands on his hips. “So let me get this straight . . . are you saying that at a thousand euros you’d join the game?”
“I’d join the game and clean you out.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll organize it!” And he raised his hand in a feigned karate chop to threaten the deputy chief. “Look out!”
“Listen, Alberto, I have an important question. That pharmaceutical, the medicine you found in Cuntrera’s body.”
“Hold on! Let’s be specific. We established that it was urethane from an examination of the glands. But the substance is extremely volatile. We’re still waiting to get a trace of the actual poison.”
“Well, so what are you saying, was it or wasn’t it?”
“It was!”
“My God, it’s hard work talking to you.”
“Don’t I know it. Well, what do you want to know about it?”
“Where did you say you could find it?”
“It’s rare . . . Nobody uses it anymore. There are people who might still use it for veterinary applications, but like I said, it isn’t easy to find it. It’s very complicated. That is, if you think there might be a pack of it in Varallo prison, you’d be wrong. Or in the hospital. Or in this morgue.”
“Understood. Veterinary applications, you said?”
“Yes. But why?”
“Because little by little, your favorite deputy chief is putting together all the pieces of the puzzle. Good luck on poker night.”
Alberto scratched his nether regions.
THE STACK OF PAPER ON HIS DESK HAD GROWN EVEN TALLER. D’Intino and Deruta were carrying out their assignment with Germanic precision. He poured a handful of dog kibble that he kept in the office into Lupa’s bowl, and then glanced over at those endless lists. Hostellerie du Cheval Blanc, HB, Le Pageot, Milleluci. They’d even gone to the Vieux Aosta, his residential hotel. The cretins had underlined his name three times and added an exclamation mark. Who knows what that was supposed to mean. Italo walked in without knocking. “Hey, can I bother you?”
“Come on in.” And he set down the sheets of paper. His favorite officer was gray in the face and had circles under his eyes.
“May I?” Italo asked, pointing to the sofa.
“I have to warn you that that’s Lupa’s sofa. If she jumps on you, don’t blame me.”
The officer sat down, and not three seconds later, the puppy had jumped up next to him, asking to be petted. Italo refused. “Don’t worry, I have much more serious problems.”
“Like what?”
“Caterina . . .” Italo said.
Rocco threw both arms wide. “What’s the matter with you people? Are you taking me for a marriage counselor, too? All right, let’s hear it, what’s the problem?”
Italo sniffed loudly. “The problems, Rocco. Plural. First of all, she doesn’t seem to me to be particularly interested in starting a family. And she doesn’t want me to move in with her.”
“Eminently understandable. Have you taken a look at yourself?”
“Why don’t you take this seriously for once? She says that she needs some space. She doesn’t want me around the house, she likes being on her own. I say she has another man!”
“You don’t understand a thing. You’ve only just begun, you have to give a relationship time to grow, don’t you know that? The two of you are like onionskin paper, you set something down on it that’s a little too heavy and CRACK! The whole thing rips in half.”
“How long?”
“How am I supposed to know, Italo? Wait and see, she’ll ask you when she feels ready.”
“But then what if I’m not ready anymore?”
Rocco burst out laughing. “Italo, you’re never going to find another girl like Caterina. Calm down and get a hold of yourself!”
“You know what I say? I say that I’m not sure if I want to go on like this.”
Rocco interrupted him brusquely. “If you take a look at the chart that you yourself hung up outside my door, you’ll notice that advice to the lovelorn, if I’m not mistaken, ranks up there at the ninth level of pains in the ass. So do your best to appreciate just how hard I’m trying here. Now I’m going to ask the question that ought to constitute the acid test so that you can resolve this matter once and for all: Can you imagine a life without her?”
Italo thought it over. He looked at his hands. “A life without her?”
“Exactly!”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, when you have the answer, come on back and we’ll finish the conversation. But it has to be an honest answer. Considered and reconsidered. Is that clear?”
“That’s clear . . .”
He knew that it created a certain awkwardness just
to ask the question. Few males would know how to answer that question with any certainty. And he could see that Italo Pierron’s uncertainty was, for him, tantamount to opening a big clear highway straight to Deputy Inspector Caterina Rispoli.
“Now listen. Do you have anything to do tonight?”
Italo threw his arms wide.
“Fine. Then you and I have a date. Make sure you’re wearing plainclothes. Black, if you can manage it.”
A gleam of excitement appeared in Italo’s eyes. “Are we going to make some money?”
“No. We’re going to find something out. This is work, my friend.”
“Too bad. There’s not going to be a shot at any more money, is there?”
“You picked up several thousand euros not even a week ago! Or have you already forgotten that bucket full of cash that we found behind Mimmo Cuntrera’s restaurant? Try to be patient. And remember not to be too greedy.”
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” suddenly rang out, making Rocco’s cell phone vibrate on his desktop. “Where the hell is it?” as he searched under the sheets of paper Deruta and D’Intino had brought him. “Where the fucking hell is it?” And at last he extracted it from the tangled mess of paper. “Schiavone here . . .”
“Ciao, Rocco, it’s me, Furio!”
“Hey, my friend . . .” And the deputy chief waved Italo out of the office. He waited until the officer had shut the door behind him. “What’s happening?”
“Listen up. Seba and Brizio have managed to track down the pistol that shot Adele.”
“That’s good news. So . . . ?”
“Paoletto Buglioni had used it. Then apparently he gave it to his brother.”
“Flavio?”
“Exactly. There’s just one thing. Flavio seems to have disappeared. It’s clear that he gave it to Adele’s killer. But now he’s holed up somewhere. And if you ask me, we’re not going to be able to find him.”
“Still, that’s a big step forward. A very big step forward. Are you in Rome?”
“I have been for a few hours now. Seba and Brizio didn’t want to drag you into it, but I figure these are things you need to know.”
“Why would they have kept me out of it?” Rocco asked, his voice growing louder.
“Seba . . . is convinced that if you find the killer, you’ll send him up in front of the judge. But he wants to have a little talk with him first . . .”
“Understood. I don’t know myself what to hope for.”
“That he gets there first, Rocco. He’s the one who has paid, in person, and more than anyone else.”
“Actually, that would be Adele,” the deputy chief corrected him.
“After Adele, of course.”
Wednesday
Cigarette smoke had filled the car. The night was passing quietly, and it seemed as if all they did at the Turrini residence was throw parties. The lights were still on, and there were a dozen or so expensive cars parked on the gravel driveway. A Labrador retriever was curled up under an outdoor light and was chewing on something red. A rubber ball, maybe.
“How much longer are we going to have to wait?” asked Italo.
Rocco stretched his legs. “Until the guests go away.”
The clock on the car’s dashboard read three in the morning.
“Why did you ask me that thing about the bee?”
“I needed to know . . .”
“Can I at least turn on the radio, Rocco?”
“No!”
Italo heaved a tired sigh. “My balls are aching,” he complained. “Sometimes they tingle. Does that ever happen to you?”
“No. It happens to my ass cheeks.”
“Can I get out and stretch my legs?”
“Stay inside!” the deputy chief snapped seriously. Then he pointed his finger at a spot at the foot of the hill where they had parked. About thirty feet from the low wall around the Turrini villa, there was a dark-blue car with its lights out.
“You see them?”
“Who is that? Bodyguards?”
“No. It’s the cousins.”
Italo looked at him blankly.
“The Carabinieri.”
“Ah! Still? Are they keeping an eye on the villa?”
“If you ask me, it’s the same people who stopped Antonio.”
A silvery laugh, sudden and distant, caught their attention. A number of people had stepped out of the front door to the villa. “Luca Grange, and maybe his wife . . .” Rocco began.
“Cremonesi and two women . . .”
“I know the one on the right,” said Rocco. “Her name is Amelia.”
“Not bad.”
“She turns tricks for four hundred euros!”
“And how do you know that?”
“I just do . . . Who are those others?” asked the deputy chief.
“All right, so the guy in the gray jacket . . . Fuck! He’s one of the commissioners for public works.”
“With his wife, I’d say . . . and the two at the door are Signore and Signora Turrini . . .”
“Look!” said Italo and pointed again at the Carabinieri’s car. Even if it was a good fifty yards away, it was clear to see that the man in the passenger seat had rolled down his window and was taking pictures. “They’re definitely spying on them . . .”
“Sure enough . . .”
“But are we here for the same reason?”
“No. We have to do something much cooler than that. Trust me!”
The guests climbed into their cars and one after the other left the Turrini villa. They drove out the main gate and turned onto the road to Aosta. The owners of the house, on the other hand, had gone inside and had already turned off the ground-floor lights. Now only the lights on the second floor and the little tower were illuminating the darkness.
“Have they gone beddy-bye?” asked Italo, lighting his umpteenth cigarette.
“Yes, but let’s wait just a little longer . . .”
THE CRY OF A NIGHT BIRD ECHOED IN THE DISTANCE. THE tree branches minced up the light of the almost-full moon. The two policemen’s breath was a dense mist. At night, the temperature dropped almost to the level of the winter that had just ended. They moved forward silently, and only a branch snapping underfoot now and again gave away their presence. They reached the villa’s outer perimeter wall, directly behind the main entrance. Rocco looked up at the stone wall. It wasn’t much higher than a couple of yards, but lining the top of it were shards of glass from broken bottles. He spotted a gap between the stones, wedged the toe of his shoe into it, and hauled himself up by the strength of his arms. He gazed down carefully at the sharp blades of glass. “Pistol,” he whispered down to Italo. Italo handed him his gun. The deputy chief slid back the barrel to make sure there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber, pulled out the magazine, extracted a handkerchief from the pocket of his jacket, which he had chosen to wear on that expedition in place of his faithful loden overcoat, and wrapped the handkerchief around the first shard of glass. With four blows from the butt of the pistol and very little noise indeed, he succeeded in shattering the cemented base of the bottle. He moved on to the second broken bottle.
“How long is that going to take?”
“As long as it takes, you ballbuster!”
Six minutes to clear a decent open space so there was no danger of ripping open one’s flesh when scrambling over the top. Rocco handed the pistol back to Italo, who put the magazine back into the grip while the deputy chief leapt over and found himself on the far side of the wall. Shortly thereafter, he was joined by his partner. They were then on the grounds of the Turrini property. “Are there dogs?” asked Italo, clearly frightened.
“Certainly. He has a Labrador retriever and a German shepherd. So try to keep quiet.”
They crept through a grove of fir trees. A couple of linden trees stood at the edge of the grove. The villa, beyond the trees, stood dark. Aside from a solitary light in the turret, there was no sign of life. “All right, move fast!” And the deputy chief and his junio
r officer, bent over, moved rapidly across the meadow, which glittered with the reflected light of a spotlight glaring from atop the wall about sixty feet away. They reached a stone building. “All right . . . let me see if I can remember . . .” Rocco looked around. Then he made up his mind. “That way . . .” And he moved off toward the right. Italo, who still didn’t understand what they were doing there, followed him faithfully. The stench of horse urine and feces, mixed with straw, was increasingly overpowering. “All right . . . now through here!” Rocco hissed. At last they reached the stables. Somewhere a horse was rhythmically stamping a hoof on the pavement. The deputy chief leaned against the wooden gate. He turned the handle and slowly opened it inward. It was creaking. The operation demanded more time than expected. Schiavone pushed slowly until he had wedged open sufficient space to make his way into the stables. Then, like two nocturnal fish, rapid and silent, the two policemen slid inside. The deputy chief pushed both sides of the heavy wooden gate behind him. In front of them was a long corridor with the stalls of the individual horses on the left and right. A black horse with a long mane had appeared, checking out the new arrivals. As the deputy chief went by, he stroked the horse’s muzzle. “If they pull their ears back, never pet them!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it!” said the officer. “You want to tell me what we’re looking for?”
Schiavone said nothing. They went past all the stalls. At the far end of the structure there were two doors. He tried to open the first one. No luck. He pulled out his Swiss Army knife while Italo continued looking nervously behind him. “If they catch us, we’re in serious trouble, Rocco!”
“If, in fact, they catch us.”
A horse whinnied. Italo started and practically lurched into his superior officer’s arms. “Unless you tell me what we’re doing here, I’m leaving!”
“Go ahead, be my guest.”
Rocco inserted the blade into the keyhole. He forced it two or three times. It snapped open. He opened the door and went in, followed closely by Italo. The room had no windows. Confidently, Rocco switched on the light.
Saddles. Hanging off hooks screwed into the wall, made variously of black and brown leather; the odor of greased leather predominated. On a table sat horse girths, sheepskin saddle pads, gel saddle pads, saddlecloths. On either side were two large trunks. They bore labels with the names of the owners: Max and Laura Turrini. Rocco opened them. Jars, brushes, and grease for the horses’ hooves, a riding helmet, a couple of riding crops, gym shoes, riding boots, an empty document case, a dark-blue jacket with a coat of arms stitched onto the chest. “Nothing!” They switched off the light and left the room. They were back in the dark corridor, which took its illumination from the outdoor lighting and from the moonlight coming in through the higher windows. A little bird flew from one rafter to another. Once again, Pierron started in fright. “What the fuck, Italo, you’re just a jittery cream puff! Man up!” Rocco went over to the second door. This one wasn’t locked. That room, too, had no windows, and once again, they turned on the light. Harnesses, reins, manila ropes, carabiners, and riding crops. On another wall, there were martingales, headpieces, fetlock boots, and bell boots. A set of shelves packed with jars of hoof grease. Horseshoes piled up in a corner. Two folding lounge chairs and three rakes with stalks of hay caught in the tines. “Not a fucking thing in here, either.”
Spring Cleaning Page 25