A Few Drops of Blood (3 page)

Angelina laughed. “How did you figure that? You’re right, though. My superiors wanted to try out the
confinato
on me. You know how that goes.”

“
Confinato
?”

“If someone bothered Mussolini by their mere existence, the person got charged. No evidence required. Il Duce merely declared,
‘Quest’ ‘uomo mi da fastidio.’
This person annoys me. Most of them ended up on the island of Lipari. Most didn’t survive.”

“You won’t miss home?”

“No. It was time to go. Should I be watching my back here, too?”

“No. But only because they’re lazy chauvinist sons of bitches.”

“They?”

“You find a place to live?”

“I’m staying with a cousin until I get settled. She has a terrific place up in the Vomero.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, I’m going to be spoiled. My love is coming in three weeks. We’ll never be able to afford anything as nice.”

“What does he do?”

“She,” Angelina said in a lowered voice.

“Sorry. She.”

“She’s a veterinary assistant. Lucky there’s work here. What about you?”

“Love life?”

“Yeah.”

“A recent casualty,” Natalia said.

“Oh.”

“Occupational hazard.” Natalia glanced at the resume on her desk. “You’ve spent time in Naples, I see. Know your way around?”

“Pretty well—from visiting my cousin, the gynecologist. Now, hers is a nice job—delivering babies. You have kids?” Natalia shook her head.

“Me, either. Giuletta—my girl—she loves them. If things work out, maybe we’ll adopt.”

Natalia tapped the resume. “I see you speak French and some English. How’s that?”

“The French I took in school. I got good in English because of my mom’s sister and her husband. They own a café in New Orleans. The summer I finished college, I lived with them and waitressed in their place.”

“How was that?”

“A little difficult. They couldn’t understand why I made such lousy cappuccinos, being from here. I couldn’t understand what was so great about America.”

“You didn’t like the US?”

“Loved it. But the same mob lowlifes ran their neighborhood, just like in Palermo. My aunt told me to shut it. I was to bring the local gentlemen their coffee when they came by to collect and ignore their sexist remarks … and that they never paid. This is what they’d left Italy for, worked so hard for?”

“Pity.”

“My cousin in New York went into nursing and did all right. But her brother? The hoodlums recruited him when he was sixteen. He gave up his schooling. Turned drug dealer and got addicted himself.”

“That why you ended up in law enforcement?”

“Partly, yeah.” She paused. “By the way, I want to thank you.”

“What for?”

“I’m no good when I don’t work. They were going to shelve me.”

Natalia held up a hand. “Don’t thank me yet.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“I’d like you to familiarize yourself with the cases we’ll be handling.”

“Yes’m. I’ve been reading the case notes about the two victims on the horse.”

“Good. You ready to jump in?”

“Affirmative.”

“I want you to interview his colleagues at the Museo Archeologico. How does tomorrow sound?”

“How about today?”

“Even better, Carabiniere Cavatelli. Go to it. I also need you to look into some domestic violence at the museum director’s home about a year ago. A boyfriend the director beat up badly enough to require medical attention.”

“Should I request the hospital records?”

“Yes, but find him first.”

Angelina departed.

She found him at the café next to the auto repair shop. He appeared to be reading a report.

“Maresciallo.”

“Officer Monte. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I understand you were talking to my new partner. Not your role, is it?”

“Just trying to be helpful is all. Show her the ropes. Your partner isn’t from here.”

“There were certain innuendos. And apparently you suggested she should come to you—as a spy. It’s highly inappropriate, to say the least.”

“Not innuendos, Officer Monte. Concerns. I’m not so charmed by you as the colonel. I’ll say it to your face: Your friendships with certain people are in direct conflict with your role as a Carabiniere.”

“My personal life is not your business.”

“I will do whatever is necessary to safeguard the mission of the Carabinieri. Is that clear? Keep up with your social life and you could be putting your new partner in danger. She doesn’t know the players. Let me put it to you this way.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You’re the nature lover. It’s like throwing a baby bird into a street of cats.”

“Talk to her again about my business, I’ll have you up on charges of insubordination.”

“You took an oath.”

“Watch it, Cervino.”

“On the contrary, it’s you who should watch it.”

She went back to the office and stormed up the stairs. “Bastard,” she muttered. She tried to work, but it was
difficult to concentrate. Cervino had been a thorn in her side for a long time. But he’d gotten bolder since Pino left. Jealous, of course.

Trouble was he had a right to be jealous. Slowly but surely she was being promoted, recognized. Whatever else she might think of him personally, Cervino was a dedicated officer. He lived and breathed his job. She doubted he had any interests outside of the office. And he hadn’t risen despite his dedication. What accounted for that, Natalia wasn’t entirely sure. She had some ideas. His personality was overbearing. He always assumed he was right. And he certainly wasn’t a team player. But then neither was she.

Natalia wasn’t making much headway. She completed a few reports, and it was only as she prepared to leave that she noticed the envelope slipped under her coffee mug. She opened it. Another poem from Pino copied out by hand. Mailed to the station. He was covering all bases.

He’d written and signed it P.

It was folded between sheets of gold foiled paper, the kind Buddhists take with them in death to assure good fortune in their next life. Natalia couldn’t tell if this meant that Pino accepted the end of their relationship and was preparing to move on or if he was yearning for what they’d lost. Natalia still had feelings for him as well—that she
could not deny—but what path to take with regard to them, she had not a clue.

A young man interrupted her reverie. He was skinny, not yet thirty, wearing black jeans and rectangular eyeglass frames.

“Can I help you?” Natalia asked

He nodded in greeting and spoke rapidly. “I was downstairs. They sent me up here to see you, to report a missing person.”

“A relation?”

“My boyfriend,” he said nervously, standing in the doorway.

“Please.” She indicated the chair facing her desk.

“Vincente Lattaruzzo. That’s his name.” He forced a smile. “He didn’t come home last night, the shit.”

“Sir, why don’t you have a seat?”

“It’s happened before. I’m pissed is all.” He shoved both hands in his pockets, still standing on the threshold. “I’m sure it’s a mistake, this. Sorry to waste your time.”

He turned abruptly to go.

“Mr. Grappi.” Natalia motioned him to come in. “Please, sir,” she said. “Have a seat.”

The young man sat down at the edge of the chair, eyes welling up. “He isn’t …?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What … how?”

“We aren’t sure. Do you know Contessa Cavazza?”

He nodded. “She’s on the museum board. They have lunch every month or so.”

“He was found in her garden—shot.”

His face went extremely pale. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Put your head down,” Natalia said. “Between your legs.”

She got him a glass of water and moistened a handkerchief for his forehead.

“I need to see him.”

“If you feel up to it. He’s at the morgue. I’ll have you driven over. We’ll need a statement, too.”

“I’ll be all right. Oh, God.”

“Where is he from, Vincente?”

“Cantalupo, but they’re here—his parents. They own a grocery store … just ordinary working people. How can I tell them he’s dead, their only child?”

Natalia looked at him sympathetically. “We can do that or accompany you if that would help.”

“No, no. Thank you. I should tell them.”

“Let me know if you change your mind. We’ll be talking to them as well.” She came around the desk to see him out. “Oh, one more thing. Until we find Vincente’s killer, we would prefer you to stay in Naples.”

“Am I a suspect?”

“Lovers are always suspect, Stefano.”

Naples began and ended at the sea. It spread along the waterfront, then rose to the cliffs that regarded Mt. Vesuvius across the bay. The rough crescent cliff tops were studded with cypress trees like a bowl turned on its side, Natalia thought when she was ten and saw her city for the first time from the water.

Hers was a melancholy city, its ancient stone streets, cathedrals and
palazzos
darkened by time. Yet it was also a Mediterranean city, scored with light. Palm trees sprouted around many
piazzas
and in the Comunale, a once-noble park that paralleled the docks. Tropical flora bloomed in the Orto Botanico, whose rusted gates were often shut for lack of funds.

The visiting cruise ships reminded Natalia of giant wedding cakes when she was a girl. Freighters and giant container ships loaded and unloaded goods twenty-four hours a day. Nights, they sparkled like miniature cities.

Natalia’s first boat ride was on one of the passenger ferries that crisscrossed the harbor regularly. Most were en route to and from Ischia and Capri. Natalia and her parents chose Procida for their one summer vacation when she was twelve. Procida was the quieter, poorer sister island where fishermen still plied their trade, and goats wandered among scrub and lemon trees.

She tossed the remnants of her lunch to the gulls and turned away, walking inland past dingy Chinese restaurants and a handful of
trattorias
that catered to sailors and stevedores, passing hotels and a few government towers, concrete relics from the 1950s and 60s. Natalia strolled by the dingy buildings and came upon the opulent Palazzo Reale, a rosy jewel fringed by grand palm trees—the castle home of the Bourbon King Charles III, where Natalia had spent college holidays immersed in the paintings and frescoes hung in the overwhelming riches of its huge, lush rooms.

She tread past the ordinary and the extraordinary: the opulent Reale palace and along twisted streets blackened with dirt and age, the splendid glass arches of the Galleria Umberto II and then the opera house, broken down vendor carts and little
latte
trucks.

After a few blocks, grandeur faded as she tramped through her cramped but charming neighborhood in the old city’s center, its humble buildings pockmarked. Laundry crisscrossed overhead, and shrines—mostly simple glass boxes with pictures of the departed flanked by votive candles—ornamented every block. The more elaborate shrines held carvings and pictures of saints surrounded by offerings of flowers amid costume gems.

The poor crowded into street-level living quarters the locals called
bassi
, half a dozen tenants to a room. In one of
them, her neighbor Assunta Sanzari birthed eight children and raised them alone after her husband fled. Some humble
bassi
had been elaborately renovated and decorated for the better heeled. Plazas and weathered monuments completed the mix, relics of Bourbon rule.

Natalia recognized Tomasso, the caretaker, sweeping the sidewalk in front of the imposing
palazzo
where Director Garducci resided. Tomasso was ninety if he was a day and used to work with her father as a street sweeper.

A little early, Natalia stopped in the sundries shop on the ground floor. The proprietress played with her baby granddaughter propped up on the counter beside a hand-carved humidor. The place was unchanged. Cigars and cigarettes lay displayed in heavy glass cases with hardwood frames. Along the wall, more modern display cases filled with beauty products, their packaging yellowed and faded. Natalia surveyed the shampoos and picked up a bottle of conditioner. She was a sucker for hair products, though so far none had tamed her frizzy curls. A couple of German tourists by the door spun a creaky rack of yellowing postcards of Naples, faded black-and-white shots from the twenties.

Natalia made her purchase, tucked it into her shoulder bag, then entered the courtyard and rang Garducci’s bell. His flat was on the second floor. She walked up. Garducci met her at the door dressed in designer blue jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, his gray hair youthfully styled. A ruby stud flashed in one earlobe.

“Please. Come in. Sorry it’s such a mess.”

Mess? The immaculate flat was spacious, light and airy, the wooden floors bleached almost white. Everything was white—walls, drapes, floors—except a black couch. A giant cobalt blue vase held one giant white bloom. Not a thing looked out of place.

“How can I help you?” he said, inviting her to sit.

They settled on his plush couch, Garducci with his arm slung over the back, half turned toward her.

“Such a bizarre tragedy,” he said. He sounded almost nonchalant.

“One of the victims, Vincente Lattaruzzo, was an employee of yours at the museum.”

“That is correct.”

“Carlo Bagnatti—did you know him as well?”

“No.”

“You know who he is.”

“Who doesn’t? A distasteful creature from all accounts. Perhaps someone decided to do us a favor.”

“Do you have any idea who may have resented him enough to kill him?”

“No idea. Must be quite a list. Are there any promising suspects yet?”

“One or two. How long did Vincente Lattaruzzo work at the museum?”

“Five years or thereabouts. I’ll get his work record for you if that would help.”