Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone (33 page)

He was no more than twenty yards away when he saw her walk up to a man in a jacket and tie who was sitting at an outdoor table, enjoying the fresh air and an espresso. He stood up and shook hands with her. You could see it plain as day on the face of the damn hyena, the infamous vulture: He was pleasantly surprised to find himself face-to-face with such a beautiful woman. He gestured for her to sit down, and she thanked him with a graceful nod. She smiled at him.

You're actually smiling at him. You're smiling at him, while you kill me. While you erase me from your life, making a clean break, wiping me away like an insect off your windshield.

He swerved up onto the sidewalk, two wheels off the road: A woman pushing a baby stroller jumped aside and almost fell over; a man keeled over the hood of his car, cursing.

Romano got out of the car, mechanically flipping down the sun visor so the police insignia could be seen. Seeing the look on his face, no one said a word; the man who had cursed actually held up one hand in a gesture of apology.

He ran full out the twenty yards separating him from Giorgia, his heart pounding in his ears, his face twisted in a mask of anger. His mind kept repeating like a mantra: a clean break, a clean break.

Giorgia saw him coming, and the smile vanished from her face like a lightbulb burning out. She saw him, and she recognized the fever and the fog that clouded his thoughts. She saw him, and thought of running; she looked around in desperation.

He recognized the terror in her eyes, and that only stoked his fury further. He went over to the table; she was riveted to her chair, hands half-raised, ready to ward off blows.

The voice that emerged from Romano's mouth sounded like the roar of a wild beast: “A clean break, eh, Giorgia? A fucking clean break and you erase me from your life. You already have the documents, don't you. You had them made up in advance, didn't you?”

Romano grabbed the table and gave it a shake, overturning the man's empty coffee cup and his half-drunk glass of water; he was forced to jump backyards to protect his trousers.

“Hey, what the . . .”

Romano didn't even turn around: “Shut up, you piece of shit. You and me can talk in a minute.”

From behind Giorgia's dark glasses leaked a tear. And deep inside Romano, something cracked.

“Now you're crying? You're crying? Without even listening to me, without giving me a chance to . . .”

She turned and spoke to the man she'd been meeting, who'd taken a few steps back. All around them, everyone was watching them, curiosity and pity on their faces.

“Dottore, I apologize. This is . . . this
was
my husband.” Then she turned to Francesco: “Dottor Masullo runs an accounting firm. And he was thinking about hiring me, if you hadn't once again found a way to ruin everything.”

She stood up and walked away.

Leaving behind a marble statue of a policeman with a broken heart.

A
sk any cop.

He'll tell you that certain ideas are like a sharp rock under your beach towel, they keep you from sleeping, and you turn over and over again, trying to find it so you can get rid of it, but you can't.

He'll tell you that the idea sits there, right below the level of conscious thought, waving hello with its little hand and thumbing its nose at you, irritating and elusive.

He'll tell you that it's the idea's fault that his brow is furrowed as if he had a headache, that he seems to have his mind elsewhere when you speak to him.

Any cop will tell you that certain ideas, until they surface entirely, are like a toothache.

 

Ottavia looked as though she had a toothache. She was distracted, absent; every so often she seemed to think of something, and she'd break off a conversation without warning and go over to her computer and type something quickly, only to shake her head and stand up, angry.

Palma watched her and worried.

Actually, they were all worried. They knew that in the case of little Dodo they'd come to a critical juncture: If the kidnappers contacted them again, they could devise the moves necessary to catch them; otherwise the case would be handed over to the special investigative branch.

The commissario had heard that police headquarters was considering reaching out to certain officers stationed in the north, who would come down especially to work on the case; experts who intervened only once the terms had been set for the payment of the ransom and the liberation of the hostage. No one liked the idea of jurisdiction being taken away from Pizzofalcone, no one was willing to give up easily, and that gave Palma a sense of just how much the Bastards, more and more each day, were becoming aware of themselves as an entity: no minor thing for people who until just recently had been thought of as scum. For him, too, the defeat would be difficult to accept; he couldn't stop thinking of the expression on the child's face, looking up at the video camera, as he walked off to meet his fate, hand in hand with his kidnapper.

In the bullpen, discussions were moving forward fitfully. Even Aragona was silent. He was looking out the window, where the sunshine shattered into a thousand sparks glinting off car bodies and the rooftops of the old buildings that sloped away downhill toward the sea; he seemed absorbed in an attempt to puzzle out a secret code. Alex and the Chinaman were out investigating the Parascandolo burglary, Romano was double checking the stakeouts on the Borrelli and Cerchia residences.

Pisanelli was perusing files. He was on edge and taciturn like the others. That night word had come in of another suicide: an elderly man who had told his neighbors more than once that he just couldn't face it anymore. He'd left a farewell message and then swallowed a bottleful of sleeping pills. Palma wondered why his deputy was so obsessed with those deaths; it was clear that the larger motive behind them all had something to do with the economic slowdown and the spread of loneliness, which was by now a social blight. Probably his fixation was a product of his personal history, and the fact that his wife, too, had committed suicide. He made a mental note to invite him to lunch and talk it through once they'd wrapped up the case of the kidnapped boy.

He was thinking that over when he heard a cry from Ottavia's desk: “That's what it was! I knew I'd think of it eventually. Boss, I know who took the boy. Believe me, I know.”

It was the first time Ottavia had ever spoken to him using the informal “
tu,
” and that made an impression on Palma—even more than the news. Pisanelli and Aragona turned to look at their coworker. Francesco Romano came in at that very moment and joined the group; no one noticed his distraught expression.

Ottavia went on: “I couldn't stop wondering just who the woman Dodo left with could have been. I mean, I was wondering why he would have left with her without a word to anyone. I know, we've all wondered that, and we all concluded that he must have known her. But how did he know her? Romano and Aragona asked everyone, and they couldn't find anyone who was close enough to the child to lead him away like that, but who also even remotely matched the appearance of the woman on the video.”

Palma nodded: “Go on.”

“According to the police reports you gave me for transcription, the boy has a shy, reserved, timid personality. He doesn't make friends easily; he'd never go off with the first person to happen by. That means that the kidnapper must be a woman whom Dodo knows and trusts, but no longer sees.”

“Well?” said Aragona. “Is she a ghost?”

Ottavia glared at him: “Do you remember the meeting with Dottoressa Piras? When we updated the information we had on all the people involved? Giorgio had uncovered a bunch of information on everyone, and I'd found something online about Peluso by digging into her Facebook page. I'd pointed out that she doesn't like children, and I'd reached that conclusion after finding out about a minor diplomatic incident caused by a sarcastic comment that she'd posted about a childhood friend who'd become a grandmother.”

“Always delightful, the old witch,” Aragona commented.

“There was an offended reply from the new grandmother, and Peluso had replied with an explanation of how she couldn't stand children and described with real distaste the period when little Dodo spent more time at his grandfather's home than his own. Peluso had complained about it so much that old man Borrelli had been forced to hire a couple of nannies and babysitters.”

“And so?” Palma said.

“I mean, it's obvious, don't you all see? The only person who could have led Dodo away without making him think there was anything wrong would have been one of his babysitters. And since Eva never hired one, because she left the boy with her father, it could only have been one of the women who worked for the old man.”

“Yes, but which one?” Romano asked. “He had so many.”

“Of course, we'll have to get confirmation from Borrelli himself, but generally you keep changing nannies and babysitters until you find the one that's perfect. So, unless someone quit or ran away, the one we're looking for is the last one hired, who would also be the one freshest in Dodo's memory: Let's not forget that the boy spent time with his grandfather until he started school, and now he's almost ten, which means we're talking about five years ago. The last one would also be the one he remembered best, the one he'd trust most.”

After Ottavia spoke, silence descended. Then Romano said: “I don't know. Is it possible that none of the Borrellis thought of it? It seems so obvious . . .”

“It may be obvious,” she replied, “but none of us thought of it either. And after all, what do I know, maybe the woman moved away, or . . .”

Pisanelli broke in: “Or changed her hair color. We've always described her as blond based on the testimony of the other little boy, his classmate, what was his name . . .”

Romano spoke up immediately: “Datola, Christian Datola. She was wearing a hoodie but Christian saw a lock of blond hair emerge. He said she was a blonde.”

“That's right, and so we always thought of her as a blonde, we and the family members. But let's say the babysitter was a brunette.”

Palma was deep in thought: “Could be, it all adds up. Francesco, call the cavalier's house and ask if they remember what her name was, if they have any pictures, photocopied IDs, anything. Ottavia, you find out whether there were any hirings or firings at the Borrelli residence. I'm going to let headquarters know about this new lead. Let's get busy.”

H
e isn't going to call.”

“That's not necessarily true. He could call any minute . . .”

“He's not going to call, fuck! Don't you understand what's happening? He's not going to call, and we're wasting precious seconds, hours of time that in the end are going to screw us.”

“Lena, calm down. If we give up now, no more money, no more fake IDs, no more South America. Nothing.”

“You're a goddamned lunatic, I chose a lunatic. We're not talking about money, we're talking about them throwing us in prison and us never getting out!”

“Stop shouting, please. Don't shout; I can't hear myself think when you shout.”

“It doesn't really matter, it's not like you're doing much thinking anyway. And I can't just leave you here, otherwise you'll get yourself caught, and then they'll catch up with me, too.”

“We can't just leave. We have the kid.”

“There, you see it. Took you long enough.”

“I don't understand . . .”

“We have to get rid of the kid.”

“What do you mean? Leave him here and just run away?”

“You see what an idiot you are? He saw your face, he can describe you in detail; and since you're big and tall, too, they'd have no trouble finding you. As for me, he even knows my name. It would take them five minutes to track us down.”

“Then what can we do? You can't alter the facts, after all.”

“There's a simple solution, and you know perfectly well what it is.”

“. . .”

“We have to do it.”

“You can't be serious. You're out of your mind. You can't really be thinking that.”

“And we have to do it fast.”

“Maybe he'll call right now.”

“He's not going to call, and we both know it. It was a dream, a beautiful dream, but dreams are something people like you and me can't afford. Now we just need to defend ourselves, if we want to survive. The way we've always had to.”

“Listen, let's just run away, plain and simple. Let's leave right away, now. We'll catch a ship, then we'll take another, and another after that, until we've shaken them.”

“The only way that can happen is if they never know who we are. We don't have any choice in the matter.”

“Please, don't say that . . .”

“We have to kill him.”

A
sk any cop.

It could be chain of associations, a muttered word heard out of context, a picture.

It could be like when you see a face you've already seen plenty of times before, you feel sure of it, but the fact that you see it in a different setting makes it impossible for you recognize it.

Or perhaps it's like a sound, one of those random sounds that worm a stupid song into your brain, and the song spins around in there all day long and you can't get rid of it, and you wonder to yourself: How the hell did I get this damn song stuck in my head?

Ask any cop, and he'll tell you that's how it works.

 

Ottavia's idea had been like an electric shock. Everyone was talking, phoning, running around. Even Guida, who had sensed the energy in the air, kept poking his head through the door into the communal office: one time with a tray of espressos, another time offering to run down to the archives if anyone needed him to check something. He wanted to help out: He felt for the boy in the video in every breath he took as a father.