temptation in florence 03 - bankers death (18 page)

“No.”

“Did you see a knife or something that could be used as a knife?”

Simonetta and Carlina looked at each other. “No.”

“Did you know the victim?”

All three shook their head. “He waved at me when I drove past,” Carlina said. “We exchanged a few words once, when I almost had an accident here.”

“An accident?” He frowned. “When was that?”

“Some days ago. I can't remember exactly.” She frowned and tried to remember. “Actually, I think it was on the day when Valentino was stabbed.”

“Tell me more about this almost-accident.”

She shrugged. “It was at lunch-time. I was on my way back to Temptation, and a man stepped onto the road. One of the tourists, no doubt, not looking where he went. I swerved to avoid him and almost fell. The newspaperman saw it and said he was a lunatic. That was it.” She put her head to the side. “You don't think it has any relation to the case, do you?”

“I don't know.” He frowned.

“The newspaperman said he knew Mama.”

Garini looked at her for an instant. “Really?”

Carlina closed her eyes. Maybe she shouldn't talk to him without thinking first. Had she incriminated her mother now? “I believe she bought magazines there and chatted a bit with him. No close relationship, as far as I could make out.”

“I see.” His face didn't betray any thought.

“How about you?” Garini looked at Maria. “Did you know the victim?”

“No.” Maria shook her head. She was still so pale that she looked almost translucent.

“I didn't know him, either.” Simonetta said. “I don't think I ever bought anything here.” She turned to Maria. “Come on, Maria, let's go home. Fabbiola wants to wash the corn this morning. That'll help us to stop thinking.”

Maria nodded and got up.

“I'll go to Temptation.” Carlina looked at Garini. She wanted to feel his kiss, wanted to be in his arms. After the events of the morning, she felt fragile and unbalanced - as if the slightest disturbance would make her collapse in a storm of tears. She stiffened her spine.
No time to lick your wounds
. She forced herself to give Garini a non-commital smile and turned to her Vespa.

He watched her go with a sudden feeling of loss. If only she wasn't linked to this crazy family who kept getting into trouble. She was shaken to the core, and he wanted to be close to her, to protect her.
Nothing doing.
He had a job to do.

Clenching his teeth, he turned back to the newspaper booth. The fingerprint team and the photographer had just arrived, as well as the pathologist, Roberto, who waved at him with a cheerful grin before he ducked into the booth. Garini followed him and checked the identity of the victim. Giorgio Pulo, sixty-seven years old, living in the north of Florence, born in Sicily. The worst part was still to come - he had to break the news to his family. He called the office and gave Piedro the task to get as much background information as possible about Giorgio Pulo, then drove to the outskirts of town where the victim had lived in a run-down apartment block on the ground floor. Garini pressed the bell and steeled himself.

The door squeaked open, and a mixed smell of detergent and fried onions wafted out. An improbable blonde stood in front of him. Her hair was fluffed up with so much hairspray that it looked like spun sugar, and her make-up was thick enough to cover most of the wrinkles on her face.

“Signora Pulo?” Garini guessed.

“Yes. What do you want?” She was chewing gum with a hectic movement of her jaw. “I don't want to buy anything.”

He took out his identity card. “I'm from the police. I'm afraid your husband met with an accident.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide. “Is this a joke?”

“I'm afraid not.”

She scrutinized his card, then took a step back. “Come in.” Without another word, she led him to an over-furnished living room. Little light came through the window that was framed with heavy velvet curtains. “Sit down.”

Garini sat next to her on a red plush sofa that had seen better days. The wall was covered with several pictures of a clown with a huge red mouth and a face painted all in white. Others showed a circus tent, a caravan, and a director with a red cylinder on his head. It was signed with a thick felt pen across one corner “To Beppo”.

She looked at him with hard eyes, her jaw still working. “Now tell me everything.” It sounded unemotional, as if she was used to commanding.

Garini decided to come straight to the point. She didn't look as if she wanted to have the news broken gently. “Your husband was stabbed this morning inside his newspaper booth. He died almost instantly.”

The jaw continued to mash in an automated motion. She didn't flinch. Her eyes remained dry. “Stupid bastard.”

Garini blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I mean Giorgio.” She jumped up and took a turn around the room, which was difficult in the small space left between the sofa and the wall. After two turns, she stopped in front of him, put her hands on her hips, and pierced him with a dark gaze. Her eyes were narrowed, as if she was trying to take his measure.

Garini returned the gaze, dumbfounded. He had never yet met such a strange reaction from the wife of a murder victim.

Finally, Signora Pulo seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. With a determined expression, she dropped back onto the sofa and turned to Garini. “I've been expecting him to overdo it, but then, he could never get enough.”

“What do you mean?”

She bent forward. “He was a blackmailer. I'm telling you this because I don't . . . I mean I didn't approve of it.”

Garini stared at her, nonplussed, and asked the first thing that came to his mind. “Was he blackmailing you, too?”

She gave him a grim smile that revealed crooked teeth. “No. I was too clever.”

The interview clearly wasn't running along any conventional lines. Part of Garini was relieved that he didn't have to witness the heart-wrenching grief of a wife - but the other part kept shaking its head in disbelief at her cool reaction. It felt as if he had strayed into a bad movie. Again, he relied on his gut feeling and asked the first question that came to his mind. “If you didn't approve, why didn't you get a divorce?”

“There were reasons . . . “ she made a move with her hand, the rings on her fingers flashing. “But that's not important at the moment.”

He frowned. “Can you tell me more about the people he allegedly blackmailed?”

“Absolutely not, Commissario.” She shook her head. “You see, he never told me anything about it. I found it out all by myself and never confronted him with the knowledge. He had a separate account and used to enjoy high living when he went off for weeks on end. He told me he was visiting old friends.” She gave a snort. “Ha. I soon found out about those.” She gave him another look. “I see you don't believe me. Wait a minute.” She turned to a dark brown wooden sideboard and started to rummage around in the lowest drawer. “Giorgio kept his secret banking information here.”

“But that's easily accessible for you. Not good to hide secrets.”

“In the back of the drawer is a secret compartment.” She pulled the drawer out until it came to rest on the carpet, then pressed her finger against the wooden plank that formed the part in the back. “It's not big, and Giorgio didn't know that I was aware of the secret compartment.”

One part of the wooden plank fell out. Signora Pulo fished out a savings account book and handed it to Garini. “Here you are. Have fun with it, and make sure you spend the money on a good cause. I want nothing to do with it.”

Garini lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”

She continued to masticate like an angry cow. “You needn't give me that arrogant look, Commissario. I may not be a high-flying lady of society, but I know what's right and wrong.”

“Why didn't you confront him with it?”

She shook her head. “I'm not sure how good that would have been for my health.”

Garini eyed her. Her story was becoming less believable by the minute. “You're very straightforward with your information. I have to admit that I find your reaction . . . unusual.”

“Because I don't weep and moan?” She shrugged. “Believe me, Commissario; I've seen enough of life. I'm not easily shocked. Besides, he had it coming. I'm actually sort of . . . relieved.”

“Why didn't you file for a divorce?”

“You asked me that already.” She shrugged. “It would have been so complicated. Giorgio spent more and more time away, so I was quite happy with the arrangement.”

“Can you tell me of anybody else who would have profited from his death - apart from the blackmail victims whose names you don't know?” He couldn't help it; his voice sounded ironic.

“Apart from me?” She have a titter. “I can see I'm digging my own grave here . . .”

Garini decided not to mince matters. “Yes, you are. I've never yet experienced a wife who doesn't bat an eyelid upon the news of her husband's death and hands me a motive for several other people on a silver platter within the first minute of our conversation. It doesn't look good, to say the least.”

She gave a snort. “The police. Always the same. When you lie, they swallow everything like a baby, but when you speak the truth, they say you've made it all up.” She shrugged her shoulders and pulled at the collar of her black blouse that revealed a wrinkly cleavage. “You believe what you want. I'm telling you the truth, and I won't budge from it.”

“What were you doing this morning between ten and eleven?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was here, at home. Go and prove the opposite, if you can.” She shook her head. “Maybe I should have squeezed out a tear or two after all. You looked sensible enough to cope with the truth.” Her mouth curled into a cynical shape. “It seems I overestimated you.”

“Tell me more about your husband's life, please.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

She sighed. “He was a clown by profession.” She pointed at the pictures. “That's how I got to know him. We worked together for five years and got married after the first. I was doing the bookkeeping and all the paper work at the circus. At first, I was fooled by his charm. He could be very charming if he wanted to be. That's how he found out about people's secrets.” She shook her head. “Amazing, that I should have fallen for him. I'd never before been married, you see, and I guess I just wanted to know how it feels. There's no fool like an old fool, they say.” She shrugged. “He had been with the circus for over twenty years. One day, he told me he'd inherited something from an uncle, and we could stop traveling with the circus. He said it had always been his dream to set up a newspaper booth in the heart of Florence. I only found out about the blackmailing business when we moved here a year ago.”

“Who minded the booth when he was away?”

“Oh, sometimes he got some student or other. At other times, he closed it down, mostly in winter, when there were fewer tourists.”

“Was he in any way different in the last weeks? Or this morning?”

“No.” She shook her head decisively. “He was just like always.”

Garini looked at the pictures. “What was the name of the circus?”

She smiled. “The Bellezzi Circus. We even had a tiger.” It sounded wistful. “I might go back now.”

“Does the name Mantoni convey anything to you?”

She lifted her plucked eyebrows. “Mantoni? No.”

“How about Valentino Canderini?” He watched her like a hawk, ready to register the slightest twitching of a muscle.

She frowned. “Wasn't he killed? I read it in the paper. Good-looking young man. A shame.”

“Is that all you know about it? Did your husband mention this case to you at any time? Did he comment?”

She looked bewildered. “No. Never. But he knew how to keep a secret, Giorgio did.”

Garini took out a picture of Carlina and Emma. It had been taken at Emma's wedding last year. “Do you know these women?” Maybe he should start to carry around the pictures of every single member of the Mantoni family.

She grabbed the picture, her blood-red nails covering half of it.

He resisted the urge to snatch it back.

“Nah.” She shook her head. “I've never seen 'em.”

Good.
The relief he felt exasperated him. For his case, it would have been much better if the murders were in some way connected. As it was, it looked as if two entirely disconnected homicides had fallen into his lap. “Don't be a fool,” his inner voice said. “There may be no proof, but you know in your gut that this is no coincidence. You just have to dig deeper.” Now when had he last thought of a circus performance? It wasn't that long ago . . . The juggling! Maria and Simonetta had juggled like professionals on the evening of Ernesto's birthday.

“Have you ever heard of Simonetta Andretta?”

“No.” She shook her head so hard that the sugary hair structure around her ears started to wobble.

“Maria Focasciu?”

“Nope.”

She seemed to be very sure of herself. Garini dropped the connection to the Mantonis for the moment. He had to ask one more thing. What was the word her husband had said in his last minute again? Now he remembered. “Does the name Alana or Alanna ring a bell?”

“Alana?” She frowned. “I'm not sure. I may have heard it before.”

“Nirvana?”

She looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “You're not talking about paradise, are you?”

“I doubt it.” Garini's voice was dry. “It was the last word your husband said.”

She gave a snort. “It would be like him to expect paradise in spite of everything.” She frowned and shook her head. “But the other word you said . . . What was it? Alana? It reminds me of something . . .”

“Think.” Garini watched her like a hawk. “It might be important.”

She looked at the rings on her fingers, then slowly shook her head. “No. I'm sorry. I've got a feeling that I should know it, but at the moment, I can't place it.”

He gave her his card. “The minute you remember, make sure you call me.”

With a sigh of relief, he escaped from the over-stuffed apartment of Signora Pulo and returned to the office. Without wasting another minute, he called Roberto. Maybe the pathologist had already managed to get some results. “It's me, Roberto. Are you done?”