At four PM on the dot, Maione joined Ricciardi out front of the entrance to the Teatro Splendor.
The commissario gazed quizzically at the brigadier’s dusty boots, and Maione immediately tried to clean them by rubbing them against the back of his trousers, justifying himself: “Forgive me, Commissa’, I took a little trip out in the country. What about you? Have you had anything to eat?”
In a flash, Ricciardi’s mind turned to Livia. The woman’s concern, fear, and references to a looming threat, devoid of any precise details. The thought that she might be in trouble fed his anxiety; but he also was forced to admit to an obscure surge of emotion that he’d felt when he squeezed her arm, a body memory that he thought he’d deleted without a trace.
“I just had an espresso,” he replied, forcing himself to push those memories out of his mind. “Maybe we’ll be done quickly here and we can head home for a bite of dinner.”
They didn’t have to wait long. Before five minutes were up, they saw Erminia Pacelli arrive, the dresser who had been guarding the lead actors’ dressing rooms; the only witness to the lead actors’ last quarrel.
Maione emerged from the shadow of an apartment building, his lapels raised tight to his throat to ward off the cold.
“Signo’, buonasera. May I have a word?”
The woman stopped, alarmed. Her stout physique looked even more robust in her too-long overcoat, with a masculine cut. Rebellious tufts of red hair poked out from under the cap pulled down over her ears.
After a moment’s hesitation, she replied: “Actually, Brigadie’, I’m about to start work: I wouldn’t want to be late. Can we speak the day after tomorrow, when we reopen?”
Maione shook his head and pointed to the entrance of a small café.
“I’m afraid not, Signo’. But it won’t take long, trust me.”
Making no secret of her unwillingness, Erminia followed him into the café. As soon as she spotted Ricciardi sitting at a table, a pained grimace flashed across her face.
“Please, I need to get to work on time. Signor Renzullo is keeping a very sharp eye on things ever since the tragedy.”
The policemen caught the subtext: the woman felt less protected without her guardian angel.
The commissario said: “Signora, we’re on the verge of concluding our investigation. You’ve told us about Gelmi’s brief visit to his wife just before the beginning of the second performance.”
Erminia sniffed.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Do you confirm that you never left your post the whole time?”
The woman tried to hedge her position, retreating behind her usual laconic wall.
“No. I never left my post.”
“And are you sure that no one entered Gelmi’s dressing room while he was away? Think carefully.”
There was a moment of silence, and then the woman replied, brusquely: “Forgive me, Commissa’, but you’ve already asked these questions and I’ve already answered them, I believe. So why are you detaining me here?”
Before Maione had a chance to upbraid the witness for her disrespectful tone of voice, Ricciardi dug in at her: “Because we’re trying to give you another opportunity to tell the truth. We’re convinced that someone managed to get into the lead actor’s dressing room and managed to insert the fatal bullet into the Beretta’s magazine. Now we’re just trying to establish exactly what you’re lying about: whether it was that you saw no one or that you never left your post. That’s the reason we’re having this conversation.”
Erminia clamped her mouth shut: her small, mistrustful eyes darted from one interlocutor to the other. She kept both fists clenched and her stance was reminiscent of a boxer ready to weigh in.
“I didn’t . . . I never budged . . . it seems to me.”
Maione prompted her like a schoolteacher trying to help a recalcitrant pupil: “What do you mean by ‘it seems to me’? You were so positive about it until just a second ago.”
“It seems to me, it seems to me!” the woman blurted out. “I can’t remember every detail, you know. I certainly never saw anyone, that much I can assure you. As to whether I might have stepped away for a moment and someone . . .”
The commissario nodded; this was the answer he’d been expecting.
“All right, let’s talk about other things. As you must know, we’ve talked to your husband.”
“Yes, so he told me. He’s a little . . . You’ve seen him, right? He lives in a world all his own. And I have to take care of the family.”
“It was a very interesting conversation. We learned what Michelangelo Gelmi has done for you and the gratitude that you feel toward him.”
The woman ran her tongue over her dry lips.
“He’s helped us enormously, but now he’s gone and he may not be coming back, am I right? So now we’re going to have to take care of ourselves. I tried to explain that to Cesare. He believes that even now, even without the captain, we’re untouchable, but that’s not the case. We’re barely hanging on by a thread.”
Ricciardi studied her impassively, practically without blinking.
“That’s right, it’s ‘we’ that are hanging on by a thread, isn’t it? You’re not the only member of the family that works in the theater, are you? There’s your daughter, too.”
The woman’s head retracted ever so slightly, sinking between her shoulders a bit. Maione was focused on every movement she made, and from time to time he turned his gaze to the Teatro Splendor entrance.
“Yes, my daughter works there, too. But she’s so good at her work, she doesn’t need any help.”
The brigadier broke in: “And what does she do in the show, Signo’? Seamstress, costumes, backdrops?”
Erminia turned, her cheeks flame red as if she’d just been slapped in the face.
“How dare you? She’s not a dresser. She’s a dancer, and the best of them all, not one of those little amateurs who . . .”
Ricciardi stopped her.
“She’s the redhead, isn’t she? She resembles her father, even if she has your hair color.”
A tear rolled down Erminia’s right cheek, and she quickly dried her eye.
“She takes after him more than looks. My husband was a good dancer. He was capable of doing a great many things, before . . . before the war. Italia was born in 1913. We named her that because he is a patriot and cares about the fatherland. But afterward, we saw just how much the fatherland cares about him.”
The bitterness of that statement was palpable. Ricciardi decided that he could hardly blame her: Cesare Pacelli had experienced a fate that was, in some ways, worse than death.
He asked: “We know that your daughter is engaged; to a fine young man, we’ve been told. Is that right?”
She shot him a defiant glance.
“Why, is there some law against that? She’s pretty and talented, doesn’t she have the right to a sweetheart of her own?”
“Indubitably. But I’d like to ask you who he is. Because, with the workload involved in the revue, it must be difficult to find the time to see anyone outside of work.”
Erminia puffed up her chest.
“For your information, he is a serious and impressive young man. He’s an artist himself, here at the Teatro Splendor. For now, they’re just dating, but soon he’s going to come to have a talk with us at home.”
Ricciardi felt a lurch in his stomach. The idea of someone meeting his beloved’s parents to talk about marriage brought his mind back to what was about to happen in the Colombo household that very same evening.
He let out a brief cough.
“So they’ve been together for just a short while?”
“For a month and a half. But they love each other dearly, she’s very happy, and . . .”
Maione interrupted her, decisively.
“Who is the future husband, Signo’?”
The woman turned to look at him and replied proudly: “Aurelio Pittella, the mandolinist. I’m told he’s the most talented musician in the city, even if he’s still just young. He’ll become a maestro. A real maestro.”