The Puppeteer (22 page)

“Good?”

“What?”

“The cappuccino—ah, you can’t imagine how much I miss coffee. The other things in life—at my age, who needs them? A good bed, three meals a day—I don’t ask for much more … Although I must admit that I’m not yet completely insensitive to a pretty face and there seem to be a lot about, don’t there, Piero?” He shook his head. “But it’s not women that I miss. And I have my dear Genoveffa, bless her soul.” Behind the glasses, the old eyes wrinkled. “Is it good, Piero, is it good?”

“Signor Giudice, the Bar Duomo is the best bar in the city. You know that. One of the few places where they don’t skimp on the coffee.”

“Arabica.” He tasted the word as if he could taste the coffee, letting it move along his tongue. “The doctors won’t even let me have coffee-flavored sweets.” He laughed abruptly. “Do you still eat those sweets? And you’ve still got your teeth?”

“Like my hair—dropping out.”

Their eyes met. There was no mirth in Dell’Orto’s smile.

“What was it you wanted to see me about?”

“I see that the
Provincia
has an article on the death of the Ramoverde boy.” Dell’Orto shrugged. “I heard about his death
in Milan. I was very upset. Very upset—I see he had changed his name to Maltese. You might not believe me, Piero, but a day doesn’t go by without my wondering about the whole thing.”

Trotti finished his drink and began spooning out the last drops of foamy milk.

“After all these years—I still wonder whether I did the right thing.”

“The Ramoverde affair was a long time ago.”

“Not for me.”

“I don’t think you need worry yourself.”

“I hear, Piero, that you were with the boy when he died.”

Trotti nodded. “But I didn’t know he was Ramoverde’s son. That was something the Carabinieri found out later.”

“Did he suffer?”

“No,” Trotti lied.

“Strange that it was with you that the boy should die.”

“A coincidence.” Trotti put down his spoon.

“My niece’s husband teaches at the university.” A pause as the old fingers moved across the newspaper. “In the Department of Urbanistica.”

“Baldassare?”

“I’m sorry, Piero—this is as embarrassing for me as it must be for you.” He lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. Trotti leaned forward; the old man’s breath carried the odor of herbal tea. “Never really liked him and I have no idea why Guerra’s daughter ever married him. He’s almost twice her age. But the other child did no better—as you know. She ended up a terrorist.”

“Do you ever see her?”

“Her?”

“The second daughter—Lia Guerra?”

Dell’Orto shook his head.

“Do you know where she lives?”

“Piero, after her problem with the Questura, she broke off all diplomatic relations with me.” Without pausing for breath, he continued, “Baldassare’s a man who is full of himself. Arrogant and not really very intelligent, in my opinion. But he thinks he
has power—power because his father-in-law was city architect. He wants you thrown out of the police.”

“Is that all?”

“A horrid man. I feel sorry for my poor niece.”

“And Baldassare contacted you?”

“At eight o’clock in the Hotel Ambassador last night. Just as I was about to go to bed.”

“And that’s why you wanted to see me, Signor Giudice?”

“Piero, you’re a good man. You know that I’ve always had considerable esteem for you. But you must be careful.”

“It is possible that he’s involved in Ramoverde’s death.”

Dell’Orto raised a white eyebrow behind the glasses.

“I think he knew that I was going to Gardesana.”

“You’ve just told me that your being there was a coincidence.”

Trotti looked away.

“What did I tell you? All those years ago, what did I tell you, Piero?”

Trotti did not reply.

“Motive.”

“Signor Giudice, you believed that you’d found a motive for Ramoverde to kill his father-in-law. A trial with judge and jury came to a different conclusion.” Immediately, Trotti regretted the sharpness that he had allowed to enter his words.

“The jury did not agree with me—but that didn’t necessarily make me wrong.”

Trotti shrugged. “It was all a long time ago.”

“Not for me, Piero. You knew the dossiers—there were times when you were my right-hand man. Tell me, Piero, was I wrong?”

“I think that there may be a connection between Maltese’s death and the fact that Baldassare knew I was going to Gardesana.”

“How did he know?”

Trotti did not reply.

Dell’Orto said softly, “You thought he was guilty, didn’t you?”

“Who?”

“Douglas Ramoverde?”

It was then that Trotti noticed a plaintive note in the old man’s voice. He looked at Dell’Orto and for a fleeting moment, he felt sorry for him in a way he had never felt sorry for him before. In the twenty years since the trial, the two men had met rarely—and then in 1968, Dell’Orto had gone into retirement, had returned to his villa outside Arezzo. But Trotti could see that the doubts had never left the old man. In his voice, he heard the years of self-questioning.

“You thought he was guilty, didn’t you?”

He was tempted to shrug, but Trotti knew that it would not have been an answer. It was not to repeat Baldassare’s threat that the old man had come to the city. It was for the sake of a long forgotten murder trial that was as important as the faded yellow pages of
Vita e sorrisi
. A sense of responsibility—perhaps of guilt worried him. And it continued to worry him, like a disease that would not go away, like a cancer slowly eating away at the host tissues.

“Because even if the jury set him free—and I was glad when he was absolved—Douglas Ramoverde’s life was already over. It ended the day I had him arrested. It was you, Piero, who went to the Villa Laura—you saw his face that day. He was resigned for the worst, wasn’t he? He knew he would never be a free man again. The insinuations stayed with him for the rest of his life. And was all that of my making? Was it all my fault, because I looked to the motives?”

“Douglas Ramoverde returned to Piacenza.”

A dry laugh. “And then he left Italy for good. He took his family and he no doubt hoped to start a new life in Argentina. And there he died. He died in exile. Like some Roman emperor, it was I who sent him into exile.” He allowed a weary smile to crease his face. “I still have my doubts, Piero.”

“Now his son is dead, too.”

Dell’Orto looked at Trotti in silence.

Trotti said, “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“And you really believe, Piero, that Baldassare is involved in Maltese’s death?”

“A lot of people wanted Maltese dead—he had helped write
an article which virtually destroyed the director of the Banco Milanese—the director and all the people behind him. Maltese knew that—and he had gone into hiding. He knew that he could get killed—and he was. But somebody wanted him to die in my presence.”

“What on earth for?”

“I’ve no idea, Signor Giudice.”

“And the Banca San Matteo affair, Piero?”

Trotti looked at Dell’Orto. “What about it?”

“I read about it in the paper.” He shrugged. “And I saw your name.”

“It’s been taken out of my hands. Under the control of the Finanza.”

“You know Pergola?”

“Yes.” Trotti asked, “Why do you ask?”

“What do you think of him?”

“He’s lucky to be alive. Two bullets in the leg.”

“But what’s your opinion of him?”

Trotti said, “I try not to have opinions.”

“Do you think there could be a connection between the robbery at the Banca San Matteo and what’s happening at the Banco Milanese?”

“Why do you ask?”

Dell’Orto smiled. “My wife has invested quite a lot of money in the Milanese.”

“Why do you ask about Pergola?”

Dell’Orto did not reply. There was silence while he looked at Trotti; it was as if he were trying to decide something in his own mind. “
Cherchez la femme,”
he said softly and then he put his hand to his waistcoat. “I wonder if you remember those letters that spoke about a woman in Piacenza. At the time of the trial.”

Trotti frowned.

“
Cherchez la femme
, Piero.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, perhaps there was a woman. Perhaps Ramoverde really wasn’t at the Villa Laura on the night of Belluno’s death. A woman—a mistress. Adultery—something he would never have
dared admit to his wife. Or to anybody else, for the sake of his good name and his dental practice.”

“What letters?”

“Perhaps I should have paid more attention to them.” Dell’Orto’s smile was weary. “But perhaps I was afraid to admit to my own determination to see Ramoverde found guilty by a court of law.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“There are times, Piero, when I wonder how honest I am.”

Trotti shook his head.

“I didn’t come to see you about Baldassare, Piero.”

“You’ve had a long time to come to terms with your doubts over the Ramoverde affair.”

Again the smoothing motion of Dell’Orto’s hand across the
Provincia Padana
. “You’re right, of course.”

Signora Allegra stood waiting in the shadow of the portico. One hand rested on her hip. Trotti wondered whether she was looking at him—her eyes were in the shade—and gave her a brief smile, which she did not return.

“I received a letter, Piero.” The retired judge slipped a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his well-cut suit.

He handed the letter to Trotti.

The paper was thin and had acquired a looseness from having been folded many times. The print was irregular, clumsy—carried out by somebody who was not used to working with a typewriter.

No date. No signature.

“D
ELL
’O
RTO NEVER KNEW
Maltese.”

Trotti shrugged. “He saw him at the murder trial.”

“That was years ago.” Maserati gave a self-conscious smile. “Why should he feel guilty about the murder of someone he scarcely knew?”

“The letter—it shocked him.”

“Judges receive threatening letters all the time.”

“But not twenty years after the event.”

Maserati was one of the new generation of policemen—one of the young men who had been recruited during the years of political tension. They were not interested in policing the streets or coming into contact with the public. Many of them had been to university or technical institutes and Maserati was a technician who was only really happy when given a laboratory coat and a precise task to perform.

“I don’t see how I can help you, Commissario,” Maserati said, adjusting his tortoiseshell glasses.

“Maserati, the records must be here.”

“What year?”

Trotti found himself irritated by Maserati. He was intelligent and hard working—there could be no doubt that since his arrival in 1980, Sezione Archivi had been revolutionized. It was Maserati—without any particular training in archive work—who had insisted upon the computer which now stood in the corner of the
chill room, a green dot blinking on the screen. Now when the need arose for a cross reference, Trotti no longer found himself being forced to hang on to the internal telephone waiting for a piece of information that the woman could never give. Or if she could, it would nearly always be incomplete. Maserati had imposed his scientific approach upon the section. He was competent, extremely well-organized and had a thoroughness that was almost Teutonic. But he was also humorless. To the fastidiousness of an old maid and the cold precision of a Swiss watch, he added a kind of boorishness as if he felt ill at ease with anything other than his machines and their printouts.

“1960—or 1961.”

The laugh was unexpected. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

“Out of luck?”

“Do you realize all the work that this job involves, Commissario? Having to get everything scheduled? Not easy, you know. And Signora Paternoster is away on maternity leave.” Behind the lenses, the eyes were offended and moved erratically. “I’m still working on 1968 and you want 1960.”

“I would like to see the old files.”

“I haven’t gotten around to them yet.”

“But they’re available?”

Another laugh, this time self-justificatory. “You’ll have to go downstairs to the basement. And look under the dust.”

“I’m looking for a series of letters. They’re in the file.”

A sigh.

“Dell’Orto mentioned a series of letters. I need to see them because it’s possible that there’s a connection between the Villa Laura and Maltese’s death.” Trotti added, “It’s possible that Maltese was working on the trial—perhaps he was writing an article. And it’s quite possible that he came up with information that could have caused difficulties.”

“Maltese was murdered because he knew about the Banco Milanese.”

“Why was he killed in Gardesana, then?”

“It might’ve been the only place where the assassins could get to him.”

Trotti said, “It’s important that I see the dossiers.”

“I see.” He wore a white coat and the sleeves were rolled up to his forearms. A repressed sigh and Maserati stood up. “Then there’s nothing for it but to go and look.”

Trotti followed him out of the laboratory and together they went down the two flights of stairs to the basement of the Questura.

Maserati turned on a light.

The walls had been partially painted—the Questura dated from the late fascist era—and in places the grey cement was showing through. Linoleum had been put down. It deadened the sound of their feet. The air was musty and carried the odor of damp paper.

“1960,” Maserati said to himself.

“The Villa Laura killings were at the beginning of August.”

Maserati had reverted to the role of the absorbed scientist. He did not seem to be aware of Trotti’s presence. “1960,” he repeated.

Trotti waited.

The young head turned. “You think it’ll be a child’s game to find the Ramoverde dossier, Commissario?”

“I’m sure you’ll do your best.”