Officers Camarda and Cesarano stopped at the corner of the vicolo. The former once again consulted the sheet of paper he held in his hand and nodded a confirmation to his fellow officer. They turned onto the narrow lane and walked toward their destination: a pizzeria.
They were relaxed. All they were doing was serving a summons to headquarters for an interview, or possibly to serve as a witness—who could say? It was their last assignment of the day, easy as pie, and then their shift would be over and they could go home.
One of them had two children; the other, three.
Now they were both sitting down. Maione towered over them, like a referee in a boxing ring. The physical impasse had been resolved, but not the psychological one. Ricciardi still made no motion to speak, and Enrica was sitting as if she’d just been embalmed. Maione, with his back to the wall, was forced to intervene yet again.
“Now then: Signorina Colombo, Enrica, residing at Via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi 103. Is that you?”
Enrica slowly turned her face toward the brigadier.
“Buongiorno, Brigadier. The fact that you delivered the summons into my hands and I signed to confirm receipt must mean something. Yes, that’s me.”
Her tone of voice was a shade icier than she might have liked, but she had every reason to be angry. After waiting all this time for him to approach her, she was stewing over the fact that she was meeting the man of her dreams thanks to a subpoena, a “summons for interview concerning matters referenced,” in the words of the document delivered to her that morning.
Maione had run out of formalities with which to fill the time. He looked over at Ricciardi and waited for him to start asking questions, but the commissario showed no sign of wanting to talk. He just sat there, mute. The brigadier was worried, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask his superior officer whether he was feeling well.
He coughed again. Ricciardi emerged from his reverie and shot him an indecipherable glance.
It was becoming clear to Maione that he would have to conduct the interview himself, even though he had no idea why that should be the case. It was as if the commissario were in the presence of a ghost.
“Signorina, do you know a certain Carmela Calise: a tarot card reader by profession?”
So that was the reason for the summons. Enrica had heard about the murder from her girlfriend and it had horrified her. That poor unfortunate woman. She’d seen her just the day before she was murdered; and what a horrible way to die. But this thought was immediately followed by the feeling that she’d been caught in the act, along with a scalding sense of shame: then, he knew! He knew that she had consulted a tarot card reader; perhaps he thought she was a stupid ignoramus or, even worse, a blasphemous disbeliever, who’d turned to a witch to help her solve her problems.
She tensed her lips, eyes flashing lightning from behind her tortoiseshell eyeglasses.
“Yes, certainly. I heard about the . . . unfortunate thing that happened. I’d seen her the day before. What of that? Is it illegal?”
Maione blinked at this unexpectedly aggressive tone.
“No, of course not. We just wanted to know whether there was anything that, I don’t know, might have struck you as odd. In the way that Calise behaved; was she any different than usual?”
Different than usual! As if she were a regular customer, a habitual visitor to that squalid, foul-smelling apartment. She had no intention of sitting there and allowing herself to be insulted.
“Look, Brigadier, I’d only been there one other time, when a girlfriend accompanied me. So I have no idea what Calise was usually like. I can tell you that she asked me a lot more questions than I asked her, about . . . about a matter that is my own personal business. But I didn’t notice anything strange.”
Maione shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“And when you entered the apartment, or as you were leaving, did you notice anything in particular?”
Enrica felt like dying: because of what Ricciardi must be thinking; because he refused to speak to a word to her; because she was being made to look like a perfect fool; because of her damned eyeglasses, and because she hadn’t worn any makeup. All she knew was that she felt like bursting into tears.
“No, Brigadier, just that the porter woman greeted us with a total lack of discretion, staring at me right in the face as if she were trying to remember who I was. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather go. I don’t feel very well.”
Maione, who couldn’t think of anything else to ask, looked at the stone reproduction of Ricciardi sitting at his desk, and waved her to the door with one hand.
Enrica stood up and headed toward the exit. Of course, that’s when the miracle took place: the pillar of salt suddenly came to life and leapt to its feet, reaching its hand out in Enrica’s direction.
“Signorina, Signorina, wait! I have a question I need to ask you, please, wait!”
Ricciardi’s tone of voice made the hair on the back of Maione’s neck stand on end. He’d never heard the commissario so muddled, and he never wanted to hear it again. Enrica stopped mid-step and turned around slowly. She spoke in a low and faintly trembling voice.
“Go ahead and ask.”
Ricciardi ran his tongue over his dry lips.
“Were you . . . did you . . . what exactly did you ask Calise? What were you trying to find out? Please, what was it?”
Maione started at Ricciardi in astonishment. He thought the commissario was about to explode. But Enrica, though shaken by that heartfelt plea, was unwilling to make a deal with fate.
“I don’t believe that’s any of your business. Good day.”
“But I beg you, I implore you . . . I have to know!”
I beg you? I implore you? Had he lost his mind? Maione would have gagged the commissario, if he’d been able. Enrica looked at him and felt a surge of tenderness fill her heart. She resolved the situation in the way that woman often decide to resolve awkward matters, when they don’t know where else to turn. She lied.
“A health problem.”
And she walked out, with a faint nod.
Enrica’s exit was followed by an extremely awkward moment for Maione. He didn’t have the courage to ask Ricciardi what exactly had just happened, nor could he pretend that that stunning spectacle had gone entirely unnoticed.
The commissario had fallen back into his chair, eyes wide open, staring into space, his hands limp on the desktop, his face as white as chalk.
Maione took a half-step forward, coughed gently, said something about having to use the latrine, and left the room, head down.
Ricciardi couldn’t believe it. He’d fantasized endlessly about the possibility of their actually meeting, even though the idea terrified him. How could have acted like such an idiot? He, a man accustomed to routinely gazing upon scenes of death and mayhem, had been incapable of carrying on a normal conversation for a couple of minutes. And now she was gone, offended, furious, thinking the absolute worst of him.
He was despondent.
Enrica was walking at a good clip, going back up Via Toledo toward Via Santa Teresa. The aromatic air blew against her, as if mocking her pain.
She was despondent.
She might have expected anything from that interview, but not that she’d come face-to-face with him, of all people. So, he was a police commissario. But now how could she make him understand that she wasn’t the aggressive person she had seemed in his office? What a fool she’d been, what a fool. She’d allowed herself to be swept away by her anger at being caught red-handed, and, what’s worse, dressed like a member of the women’s army auxiliary corps out of a book by Carolina Invernizio.
She hadn’t been capable of giving him a smile, a kind world, a pretext for an invitation. And what was worse, she’d been unable to think up anything better than a health problem in her attempt to avoid coming off as a gullible romantic. Now he’d think he was dealing with an invalid, a consumptive perhaps, and that would be the end of his nightly appearances at the window. Oh, what a fool.
In the wind, with the promise of flowers wafting down from the forest, Enrica walked, tears running down her face.