The Bastards of Pizzofalcone (24 page)

Palma broke in: “Wait a second, what highly placed contacts? Did this architect try to threaten you two?”

Romano gave Di Nardo a nasty look: now Palma, like every commissario he'd ever known, would demand that the investigation be halted to avoid trouble.

He related what the architect had threatened to do and admitted that he'd been on the verge of losing his temper, and that if it hadn't been for Di Nardo, whom he gestured toward without looking in her direction, he'd probably have laid hands on the man.

Palma surprised everyone by saying: “Ah, you should have told me that right away. If that's the case, we have to keep investigating. Go drop by the girl's home and talk to her parents. See what they have to say about it. If something emerges, anything at all, that suggests we're not getting the whole story, we'll take this guy and question him seven ways to Sunday. All right?”

Everyone was stunned. Palma, Ottavia Calabrese decided, was the Perfect Man; she fantasized about kissing him.

Lojacono broke in, doffing his overcoat: “The two of us, on the other hand, spend our afternoons at the yacht club, sipping cocktails with elegantly dressed aristocrats. Anyone want to swap assignments?”

Palma spread his arms wide: “Someone has to do some work around here. Come on, tell us all about it.”

The lieutenant summarized the day's events, including the visits to the concierge and to the forensic squad. Aragona threw in, bitterly: “I'm not even going to tell you the look on the face of that asshole from forensics the minute he heard where we were from. I'd have liked to slap him silly! If it hadn't have been for Lojacono who . . . who made a phone call, he wouldn't have told us a thing, not a goddamn thing.”

Palma nodded: “I understand, yes. Still, next time, let me take care of it, through official channels. That way, they'll stop trying to get in our way.”

“The incredible thing,” Lojacono commented, “is that they blame us for what happened. That was all before we even got there; what do we have to do with any of those guys?”

From the far end of the room came Pisanelli's deep voice: “We knew those guys, as you call them. They were our colleagues, same as you and me and him and her. Men with a hard job and not much money, and sick children to take care of, and debts. Men who fell into temptation, when all their job gave them was a mountain of shit in each hand, same as it does us every day of the week.”

Silence fell. Everyone was looking at the deputy captain.

“That doesn't mean they're not criminals, let me be perfectly clear. Especially because they didn't just skim some money off the top, they also sold nasty shit to innocent kids and fried their brains. And that's one thing no one will forgive them, and won't forgive those who decided to keep this place open: the fact that those guys could have been any of us.”

Palma tried to shift the topic away from those bitter thoughts: “Anyway, they're going to have get used to the fact that we work hard here, and we do a good job. If they can't, too bad for them. As far as I'm concerned, this Bastards of Pizzofalcone thing just makes me laugh. Ottavia, do we have any news for Lojacono and Aragona?”

Calabrese tapped open a couple of files on her monitor. “A little something, yes. The autopsy report came in, and it confirms what the doctor says he mentioned to you at the scene: a fractured cranium was the woman's sole cause of death. Otherwise, she was in good health for a woman of her age. Practically speaking, the doctor tells me in this email, the woman would have lived to be a hundred if someone hadn't decided to bash the back of her head in with a blunt object.”

Romano snickered: “Oh, that's rich, a perfect state of health can only be certified with an autopsy. Better than a CAT scan, eh? My compliments to the doctor, Calabre'.”

Ottavia continued: “In fact, there's nothing like an autopsy to determine one's state of health: I may put you up for one, Romano; if you ask me, big and strong as you are, the results would be outstanding. In any case, that's not the only news we have for Lojacono. My friend the IT expert called, and he told me that the analysis of Festa's computer is almost done. And you want to know what?”

She fell silent, clearly enjoying the moment. Palma thought to himself that she was irresistible.

“Come on, don't leave us hanging! What did your friend find out?”

Ottavia couldn't believe she'd become the center of the commissario's attention.

“I had to threaten him, and remind him of just how much of my homework I let him copy when we were taking the same computer class, but he finally gave me the information. Now then, there's nothing special on the hard drive, just the usual things: deeds, basically, and legal texts and other things of that sort. So they decrypted the password for his email, and here too, except for some spam, it was all just work-related.”

Aragona decided not to conceal his disappointment: “Because this old mummy still uses homing pigeons or something to send messages to his mistresses. Goddamn it.”

Ottavia shook her finger no: “In fact, right at the very end, something interesting did emerge. Very interesting. Unfortunately, I couldn't talk him into sending me a copy, because it'll be submitted to the investigating magistrate once the overall exam is complete, but I did get him to read it to me over the phone.”

She waved a sheet of paper in the air. Palma laughed: “There's no stopping her, if a woman gets something into her head, she'll do whatever it takes. Okay, so tell us what you found, don't keep us on pins and needles!”

Ottavia read from the sheet of paper: “It's an email sent to the online travel agency IlTuoViaggio.com, one of the most popular ones on the web. Basically, fifteen days ago the notary reserved a trip for two to Micronesia: three stopovers; the last leg via biplane. Departure scheduled in two days.”

They all sat openmouthed. The first to come out of his trance was Aragona. “Where the fuck is that, Micronesia?”

“Oceania,” Pisanelli replied. “More or less on the other side of the world.”

Di Nardo asked: “But don't you have to provide names, when you make reservations for a trip like that? I don't know, IDs, passports . . .”

Calabrese nodded: “That's right, Di Nardo. That's exactly right: you have to provide IDs. And the notary did just that: he provided IDs, complete with first and last names and dates issued. A very thoroughly documented email; in fact, my friend tells me, he asked whether it might not be useful to scan the IDs.”

Lojacono was expressionless, like a Buddhist monk trying to levitate.

“That means we know what names he made the reservations under, and that the departure was scheduled for four days after the death of his wife. What about the return trip?”

“No return trip,” Ottavia replied. “They were one-way tickets.”

Palma was confused: “Are you saying the notary planned to leave for Micronesia and never come back?”

Romano thought it over: “Not necessarily. Maybe they just wanted to leave the return date open, and decide later when to come back. Sometimes people do that, especially for long trips.”

Aragona was baffled.

“Whatever the case, round-trip or one-way, it strikes me as pretty serious evidence, it substantiates some of our suspicions. The notary plans and arranges a trip overseas, one-way, with his lover, and, as chance would have it, four days before the happy couple is scheduled to fly away, the beloved wife, the sole obstacle to their dream of bliss, dies after having her head bashed in with one of those glass balls with the fake snow inside. All this must mean something.”

Pisanelli scratched his head: “All things considered, our young colleague here isn't all wrong. After all, as Anna Ruffolo told us, lately our friend the notary had been going around showing off his redheaded girlfriend right and left.”

Ottavia, however, still had a point to make: “Why don't any of you ask me whether I'm done, before you start leaping to conclusions? Doesn't it even occur to you that you ought to ask under what names the reservations were made?”

No one said a word; everyone was clearly disoriented. Ottavia went on: “Because the reservations were made for Arturo Festa, the notary; and for his wife, Cecilia De Santis. The victim.”

The news fell into a well of bafflement and silence. Ottavia decided she'd kept them on tenterhooks long enough and added: “But in the email making the reservation, the notary explicitly requests confirmation of the clause in the contract that allows him to change one of the names up to twenty-four hours prior to departure. In case of serious impediment.”

Aragona leapt out of his chair: “There you go, guys! We've got him! He made the reservation under his wife's name to keep from looking guilty, and then he was planning to substitute her name with his lover's at the very last minute! Death comes under the heading of serious impediments, doesn't it?”

“There's something strange about all this,” the commissario said. “If you plan to kill your wife, you can't seriously think that four days later they're going to let you fly off to Micronesia in a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat, hand in hand with your lover.”

As if talking to himself, Lojacono concluded: “Without even taking into account the fact that, if you were going to make those reservations, the last place you'd do it is on the office computer, since it's the first place the police would go and look, which is in fact exactly what we did.”

Alex Di Nardo wasn't convinced: “True enough. But it's also possible that they hadn't planned to kill her. Perhaps, and this is only a hypothesis, he went to see her to tell her that he was planning to leave her and go to Micronesia, she put up a fight, and he wound up killing her.”

Romano nodded: “With the first thing he could lay hands on, the snow globe. And he was hoping it would shatter into bits, which meant he'd be rid of it, the same way he'd be rid of his wife.”

“Though let's not entirely rule out,” Pisanelli added, “the theory that a burglar just might have murdered her when the poor notary was planning to make things up to his wife by taking her on a second honeymoon, after breaking up with his lover during one last, red-hot weekend together.”

“Or else,” Ottavia concluded, “he asked if he could change the name so he could pretend he had some other commitment at the very last minute, send his wife off to Micronesia with some girlfriend of hers, and stay here to fuck the redhead undisturbed, and then the signora was murdered during a burglary by someone who was in cahoots with the housekeeper, and who happened to find her at home when he expected her to be out.”

“Jesus,” Aragona exclaimed in amazement, “and you think I'm the one who's been watching too much TV, eh? Have the lot of you ever thought of becoming screenwriters instead of cops? You'd make buckets of money, you would. Well, so, we're back to square one, is that right?”

Lojacono threw open his arms: “Not necessarily. What we can say is that the field of hypotheses is narrowing considerably, which is what always happens the more evidence one acquires. For instance, we now know that, with or without his wife, the notary was planning a trip, and that doesn't seem at all insignificant.”

“So now what are we supposed to do?” asked Aragona. “Festa won't talk to us, we can't go see the redhead because she's not officially connected with the case . . .”

Palma reassured him: “There's no reason to think we can't talk to the notary and the young lady. We're working with Dottoressa Piras. And in the meanwhile you have something else to check out, don't you, Lojacono?”

The lieutenant nodded.

“That's right. We need to go find out what the housekeeper has to tell us, Signorina . . .” and here he checked the Xerox of the young woman's ID, “Mayya Ivanova Nikolaeva. Who had the apartment keys, the keys to the door that wasn't forced open. Perhaps she has some explaining to do. Come on, Aragona, this time we can even take the car, which should make you happy. Let's see if we can finally crash head-on into the side of a building.”

L
isten, I don't trust what your lawyer is telling you. If you ask me, we're making a huge mistake.”

“But if you decide to go to a professional, then you have to trust him. That's why we say you've ‘entrusted' someone with your defense, right?”

“Don't try to palm that old saw off on me, I know all about entrusting yourself to a professional. I use that line at least four times a day. You do remember the line of work I'm in, don't you?”

“Of course, of course. But neither you nor I have enough experience in this specific branch of the law, right? We talked about that at some length, if I'm not mistaken.”

“True enough. But it seems to me that the context has changed. Something has happened, hasn't it?”

“. . .”

“And so, we need to rethink our position. And we need to rethink it in a hurry. When was the last time you talked to this goddamned lawyer of yours?”

“Half an hour ago, trust me, if I don't call him he calls me, if you ask me he's planning to make a fortune out of this case.”

“And that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. Follow my reasoning here, please: when you're advising someone on the best path to follow in a given situation, I don't know, let's say it's a merger, or a purchase entailing fractional ownership, or the division of an inheritance, don't you also keep in mind how you can make the most money off the job?”

“Listen, I . . .”

“Do me a favor and don't lie to me, please. This is important, tell me the truth.”

“Well . . .”

“Exactly. And I do the same thing. It's human nature, I think. And what would make this lawyer—what would make any lawyer we decided to entrust our case to—the most money?”