Once they’d checked everything out, they’d headed back to the station house.
The meeting, which Palma had insisted that everyone attend, had been short but intense: it was clear that the choice of strategy and its success or failure would not only determine how the case would be resolved, but also whether or not the precinct would survive.
Lojacono and Aragona had revealed the identity of Cecilia De Santis’s murderer and explained how they had figured it out. The confirmation had come from assembling various observations—from forensics, from the notary’s office, from the luxury housewares store. When they’d finished talking, there had been a moment of intent silence.
Romano and Di Nardo had agreed with Aragona: he wanted to make an immediate arrest, convinced they had all the elements necessary to construct a successful prosecution. Palma and Pisanelli, in light of their more extensive experience, had instead counseled a more cautious approach: they’d seen more than a few criminals walk free because someone had been in a hurry to wrap up an investigation.
Ottavia had nodded: “That’s true. But it’s also true that if we submit all our evidence to the magistrate, someone else will have the privilege of completing the investigation; and if we—and I mean all of us—are convinced that we know who committed this murder, it’s not fair for those guys to get to wrap up the case. Especially if this might determine our future as a precinct. As far as I’m concerned, I’m for trusting Lojacono and Aragona: I bet they’ll get a confession. I’d let them try.”
Pisanelli, noncommittally, had said they certainly risked putting the guilty party on notice, and giving the murderer time and opportunity to prepare a stronger defense; but he also had to agree that, if there was a way to save Pizzofalcone, this was it.
And so now Lojacono and Aragona found themselves standing under a narrow overhang, seeking shelter from the driving rain, the scene dimly illuminated by a streetlight that hung from an overhead cable in the middle of the street and was swaying in the wind. They were waiting for the person who had murdered Signora Cecilia De Santis to be so good as to exit the building across the street.
The tension was palpable, and for the past several minutes neither man had said a word. Every so often Aragona took off his glasses and tried to wipe them off with a handkerchief that was already soaked; Lojacono wondered how the hell he could even see through those preposterous blue-tinted lenses now streaked with rain.
At last, the person who had murdered Signora Cecilia De Santis emerged from the front door. The person stopped at the threshold, looked out at the pouring rain, trying to gauge the distance that needed to be covered in order to reach the expensive sedan that was waiting to be driven to the dry shelter of a garage. The person sighed, and pulled out a pair of black leather gloves.
Lojacono and Aragona emerged from the shadows and briskly crossed the street, indifferent to the puddles they splashed through on the way; they approached the person who had murdered Signora Cecilia De Santis, one man on each side. “Let’s get in the car,” Lojacono said. “That way we can have a little chat.”
Once they were inside, Aragona in the middle of the back-seat and Lojacono in front, in the passenger seat, the murderer said: “That way we can have a little chat. And just what are we supposed to chat about, lieutenant? I’ve already told you everything I know.”
Lojacono said: “No, De Lucia. You haven’t told us everything. We know that, because the first time we talked, you said that the poor signora stayed shut up in her apartment with all the windows and shutters fastened tight, but you couldn’t have known that, because the notary told us that during their phone call his wife had told him that she had just closed the windows and blinds, including the one that the concierge had just fixed, but also that she didn’t usually do that. We know because only you and Rea had the passwords to the notary’s computer, and Rea doesn’t know how to use computers at all; and from that computer, reservations were made for a trip, reservations made with a specific request, that it be possible to change one of the names up to one day before departure, and the name that was to be changed was the notary’s, because the people who would be going on that trip were you and the signora. We know it because that email was sent at 10:13 A.M. on March 5th, and at that exact time, as we know from the probate ledger, the notary was in fact with Signora Rea drawing up a last will and testament on Via Posillipo. We know it because the shopping bag used to carry away the silver that was stolen as a cover and then discarded in a dumpster was the same bag used to bring the snow globe, the murder weapon, into the apartment, because it had in fact just arrived; and you are the one who purchased it, in the store where you regularly accompanied the signora, and where they remember very well who purchased the snow globe, claiming that it was a purchase being made on the signora’s behalf. We know, because the absence of fingerprints at the scene of the crime is due to the fact that you were wearing these gloves, the gloves you use to drive the notary’s sedan, to make sure you don’t smear the briarwood steering wheel with the ink from the promissory notes you handle all day. And we know it because you’ve known and worked for the notary all these years, which makes it plausible that the signora would have opened the door to you at that time on a Sunday night, in a dressing gown. We know everything. The only thing we don’t know is why you did it.”
There ensued a silence that, to the two policemen, seemed to last for a thousand years.
The chubby little man sat there with his head bowed, his wet comb-over plastered dismally to his cranium, his thick glasses lenses fogged up, his gloved hands cradled in his lap, motionless. Outside, a gust of rain lashed the windshield.
At last, he looked up, lost in thoughts and memories. And he spoke, repeating as usual the last few words uttered to him.
The only thing you don’t know is why I did it.
Do you think I haven’t asked myself the same thing?
Do you think I haven’t been wondering it every minute, since it happened right up until this very second?
Who even knows why I did it.
All I know is that I did it, and that my life ended at that very instant, along with hers.
He didn’t deserve her, you know. That man didn’t deserve her. He’s a bastard, an arrogant, shallow bastard. He likes women, he doesn’t let even one of them get by him: if you only knew how many young women, mature matrons, even barely legal girls I’ve seen pass through his hands over the years. And I know it, because the bastard used me to cover his tracks. Oh, the lies I’ve had to tell, to everyone, when, instead of working or going home, he was acting the playboy around town.
And he owed everything he had to her; she had even given him the money that allowed him to study for his civil service exam. And his clients, the highly placed friends he was so proud of, they all came from her. He owed her everything.
My position, you understand, is like a front row seat. From where I sit you see lots of things, you understand lots of things. Over the years I’ve seen what kind of a man he is, and I’ve seen what a wonderful woman she is. She was. Because now she’s dead, isn’t she? She’s dead. And I killed her.
He’d tell me: Rino, do me a favor, she wants to be taken here or there, you take the long way round, or pretend the car isn’t working right, stall, give me time to get back, you already know what we’re talking about, right? And he’d laugh, and shoot me a wink. How that wink disgusted me. And he’d say: we understand each other, man to man, eh? What was I supposed to understand, man to man, sitting in my little furnished room, reading a book or watching a movie on TV, while he’s staying in the finest five-star hotels with beautiful women, spending the money he earned thanks to her?
Still, I was happy. I was happy because I got to spend time with her. She was a wonderful woman, you know that? She suffered, she suffered terribly. He thought he was pulling the wool over her eyes, but she understood it all, she knew everything. She kept her pain to herself, and she avoided other people because every friend she saw, male or female, couldn’t wait to tell her all about her husband’s latest exploits. Shitheads, you know: they like to see other people suffer. Sometimes even here in the car, while I was driving, they’d say to her: Don’t you know, can’t you see? I hear that what’s-her-name ran into him on Capri with this woman, and so-and-so saw him in Sorrento with some other woman. But she’d just smile and reply: I don’t care, and she’d change the subject; but I knew how it tore her up inside.
But she’d talk to me about it. She was the only one who’d talk to me. I don’t talk with anyone; that office is a nest of vipers, just put three women together and forget about the Gaza Strip, there’s your intractable war zone. Better to have nothing to do with them. I live a private life, I’m not the kind of guy who’s out and about at night. She was the only person who talked to me.
What else were we going to do? She in her luxury, me in my poverty, we were two lonely people. At least we could comfort each other. And we did.
We got into the habit of going off to Bagnoli, down by the water. There’s a place there, a miserable dive bar, really a kiosk more than anything else: two or three tables. It’s quiet, and no one who knew her would have been caught dead there. She’d send for me, tell her husband that she needed to go shopping for something or other, and right away, he’d say: Rino, go pick up my wife, and take as long as you can. And he’d shoot me a wink. She used to laugh about it, she said it was the only time it was her pulling the wool over his eyes.
We’d sit there and we’d talk and talk. She’d order a tea, hot in the winter, iced in the summer. I’d pay. That was important to me. A man pays for his woman’s drinks, doesn’t he? Even if she’s wealthy, and you’re just a penniless wretch.
He’s rich, charming, handsome; but he’s made of plastic. He always took her for all she was worth, and I wouldn’t even let her pay for her tea. We’d hold hands. I remember the first time, she took my hand; I never would have had the nerve.
I would ask her why she put up with it. She’d answer sadly: he’s my husband. I think she actually felt guilty, the bastard made her feel guilty; because she hadn’t been able to give him children, because she didn’t think she was pretty, even though she was, she was beautiful, you know. The two of you never met her, you never saw her when she looked out to sea, or when she suddenly broke into laughter. She was beautiful.
The last year had been pure hell for her. Because now there was this new girlfriend, the redhead. This one wasn’t like all the others, the whores he’d pick up, play around with for a couple of days, and then discard; lunch, an expensive dinner, a hotel, and a bouquet of roses the morning after, roses that he’d send me to buy, slipping the money and a note into my pocket, shooting me that fucking wink. This one was different.
I noticed it the very first time, when she came to the office for some work-related matter. A tough one, no-nonsense, aggressive. He gave her the usual melting glance, and she smiled the way all the others usually smiled, but in her smile I could see the wild animal that had spotted its prey. I wasn’t surprised when they became a couple.
She found out about it immediately, of course none of her friends could wait to tell her. Poor Cecilia. She tried to tell herself it would end, but it didn’t.
I think she clung to the idea that she was still, in spite of everything, his wife; that he might have his flings, but he’d always come home to her in the end. That with the other women he was killing time, enjoying himself, trying to forget the fact that he was getting old; but she, she was his safe haven, where he could show his weaknesses and curl up in Mama’s arms. Maybe he was actually the son they’d never been able to have. Maybe she felt like the mother; and after all, you never abandon your mother.
But that one, the redhead, wasn’t about to let herself be treated the way he treated all the others. The redhead wanted him, she wanted him all for herself. She needed him: prestige, money, connections. In the end, he’d found himself a woman who was just like him. Even worse.
She’s intelligent, the redhead. She’s cunning. Little by little, she even forced him to show her off in public, she didn’t care how it made him look, how it made his poor wife look. When a woman like her makes up her mind, she doesn’t let anyone stand in her way.
One day, she asked to have me pick her up, and I found her puffy-eyed from crying, wearing a pair of oversized sunglasses. He hadn’t come home that night, and he hadn’t even bothered to call; she’d called him herself, and he’d told her, Quit bothering me. And on the phone she could hear a woman laughing in the background. She told me the story, in despair, at our little place down by the water. I did my best to comfort her. She said to me: I should have found a man like you, I really should have. I looked for a man who wasn’t part of the world I grew up in, because that world disgusts me: but I should have found a man like you.
It was then, only then, that I started to think. Before then I hadn’t even dreamed that a woman like her, a queen, a goddess, would do so much as look twice at someone like me. But she’d said it, right? She’d said it herself, that should have found a man like me. So?
She always used to say that, one fine day, she was the one who’d run away. Far away, someplace by the sea, with white sand and palm trees. She’d laugh and say she knew that was the dream of every shopgirl and shampooist, and she’d say that maybe deep down she really was a shampooist. And I’d say that maybe I’d take her there, me of all people, and she’d laugh and laugh. She’d say that to get there we’d have to stow away in the hold of a ship, like African slaves in America. She was so pretty when she laughed, you can’t even imagine.
Then one day the thing with the redhead took place, the day she walked into the firm, went into his office, closed the door, and started screaming like a lunatic, everyone in the firm could hear her. Rea got a look on her face, you’ve seen her, she’s obviously head over heels in love with the notary, as if someone like him is going to even notice someone like her; she came that close to storming in there to defend him. So anyway, the redhead was screaming that now, with a baby on the way, she’d no longer tolerate being hidden in the shadows. That she was giving him a son, something that poor old woman never did for him, and so she wanted the position she deserved. Those were her exact words: that poor old woman. When they heard that, Imma and Marina, those two idiots, looked at each other and burst out laughing. Intolerable: two silly geese laughing at the best woman in the world, all because that bastard couldn’t manage to keep his pants zipped.
Then, that’s when I made up my mind. I had the money, little by little I’d set it aside; but not enough for the trip. For that I’d have to use the firm’s money, the account we use for the promissory notes, where we keep the cash that comes in. The notes are for a lot of money, there’s always a sizable overage, it would have taken them at least a month before they realized it was missing and by then it would be too late, by then she and I would already be on the beach. Happy. At last. Because if we could be happy at Bagnoli, sitting at a rusty table next to a polluted beach, in that magical spot we’d be in paradise.
I made the reservations in his name, but I asked how late I could change the name of one of the travelers. I had all the time I needed. Now I only needed to tell her.
I waited for the right moment, when the bastard was organizing his usual nice weekend with the redhead. I had driven them myself; I knew they wouldn’t be back before Monday. I prepared carefully, I’d have to tell her gently, but also firmly. It would be a difficult decision, I knew that well. But it was necessary, don’t you see? The only way for us to find a little happiness, too; and after all we had a right to happiness, no? Didn’t we have the right to a little happiness of our own?
So I decided to take her an apt little gift, to show her that she could count on me. I went to the shop on Via Duomo, the one where she was a regular customer. We went there often, she so loved those snow globes, the boules de neige, as she called them in a perfect accent. One time I asked her why she liked them so much: and she said that when she looked into them she could dream of a future that didn’t exist, and it would all seem real. She was beautiful when she smiled; but I told you that already, didn’t I?
And so I went to the store, and I looked for a glass ball that would tell her about the place I wanted to take her. That’s how I wanted to tell her. Now she had to stop lying to herself, she couldn’t go on pretending to ignore reality: the redhead was about to have a baby, and he was going to leave her. That was clear.
In that case, we might as well beat them to the punch and run away together. Let him keep all the money, I’d take care of her, I’d do something, I’d find a way.
She opened the door immediately, and there was fear in her eyes. Outside, the storm was raging, the sea was in the air, even up on the fifth floor, and she’d shut herself in. But she opened the door immediately when she heard it was me, and the first thing she wanted to know was if something had happened to him. To that bastard. Not much of a beginning, eh? Maybe I should have understood from that question alone, and stopped right there. At least she’d still be alive. And I’d be a free man. But free to do what?
I told her no, he was fine, doing much better than she and I put together, in fact. That as usual he was holed up in some villa in Sorrento, naked, drinking champagne with the redhead, thinking of the future that awaited them, a future as a happy family: him, her, their child, and Cecilia’s money. I was harsh: it seemed to me that the time had come for her to open her eyes and understand what was already clear to me. Blindingly clear.
She listened to me. She looked at me without speaking. I had to raise my voice, outside the wind and the sea were pounding on the windows as if they wanted to get in. It was like being in a movie.
I told her that we should run away together, that we, too, had a right to be happy. I told her that I’d already made reservations, that she didn’t need to bring anything, just herself, that I’d take care of everything. She ran her eyes over all those snow globes, you’ve seen them yourselves, no? Hundreds of heavy glass snow globes, organized by country, each full of an imaginary future like a gypsy fortune-teller’s crystal ball at the carnival.
At last, she spoke. And she told me that in her heart, in her future, there was no room for happiness without him. That she loved him, that she had always loved him. That he would come back, that he had always come back. That she’d take him back, even with another woman’s child. That in the end money would take care of everything, the way it always had in the past. That she was very sorry for me, very; but that she had no intention of going anywhere.
And she turned her back on me.
I don’t know whether it was her words—that she was sorry for me—or because she turned to go. I felt I’d been erased, expelled. And mocked. How dare she turn and walk away? Was I nothing, no one? Didn’t I deserve, I don’t know, at least a caress, a tear? A sign of regret?
I remember the rage of that moment. I don’t remember what I thought, I don’t remember doing it. But I did do it. I was standing there, in the middle of the room, still wearing the gloves I use when I drive this car, the bag in one hand and the glass ball with the hula dancer in the other. And she turned around and walked away.
Maybe I wanted to stop her. Maybe I just wanted to get rid of the glass ball, which represented all my illusions. Who knows. The fact remains that I threw it. At her, as she was heading for her bedroom, to sob into her pillow like she did every night.
After I don’t know how long, I saw her lying there on the floor, no longer breathing. So I tried to think fast, I was afraid. I took some silver, just the first few things I could get my hands on, I tossed them into the bag, and I left. Then I found a dumpster and I tossed it all in. And then I sat down on a low wall, hoping that the waves would be big enough to sweep me away. Maybe all the way to that island.
Maybe I’d find her there, on the beach, waiting for me with a smile.
She was pretty when she smiled. Beautiful.
Did I tell you, how beautiful she was?