The next day a heavy silence descended over the Pozzuoli police station. But the excitement only increased in the Fuorigrotta police station.
Malanò organized a press conference and drew up a semi-official list of the journalists who were welcome, making it clear that he’d already cleared that list with the chief of police.
With the confidence of one who had guessed the past, present, and future he placed a telephone call to Captain Adami of Verona, inviting him to join forces with him in a productive working alliance.
“Buon giorno, colleague, this is Rosario Malanò from the Fuorigrotta police station, Naples. I’ve already had an opportunity to converse with one of your detectives, Francesco Coppola, a fellow southerner, but I’d prefer to speak directly with you.”
“Francesco reported to me, sorry, but as you can imagine, I’m swamped on account of recent events with which you’re no doubt familiar.”
“Yes, I can imagine. You must work hard up there.”
“Naw, not really. It’s a quiet province we live in.”
“No, perhaps you don’t follow me, Adami, I meant you work hard in general.” Adami continued not to follow him. “Anyway, as soon as this storm, both media storm and otherwise, passes—because the journalists are jumping around like crazy here—I’ll come see you for a conversation about this very interesting case.”
“If you can’t come up, I’ll be glad to send you any and all useful documents. We are expecting the autopsy results.”
“Yes, we’re waiting for the results on Vialdi’s death too. But you know how things are down here: I’ll bet that your results come in before ours do.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Thanks, Adami, courteous as always. Talk to you again soon.”
“Talk to you soon.”
As soon as he hung up the phone, Malanò felt the need to inform someone sitting in his office of the differences in levels of professional skills to be found in the north and south of Italy.
Detective Liguori pestered chorus girls, criminals, recording technicians, costume makers, impresarios, dancers, dealers, waiters, and a considerable number of other people who had crossed paths with Vialdi. After each conversation, which the detective always managed to pass off as a chance encounter, he jotted down in his smartphone every word spoken, every impression received. In the end he noted: “No recording of last concert.”
He was looking for something new but he continued not to find it, everyone confirmed more or less mechanically a picture of a personality and habits that Vialdi hadn’t bothered to conceal. He saw an order of circumstances and impressions far too emphatic for his tastes. The confirmation of a serial killer at work in the midst of a complicated life, according to script, struck him as a signature in block letters, clearly legible and therefore completely odious.
Blanca waited for Nini in the kitchen, standing and eating her breakfast. She told her that she’d overheard them talking about Tita’s fears and that unfortunately they couldn’t be ignored, especially after the murder of one of Vialdi’s lovers and the killing of the night watchman who had found the man’s body in the stadium. She wanted to talk to the girl’s mother.
“If Tita finds out about my meeting with her mother, tell her that I heard the two of you talking, and you’re free to blame me for being nosy. Don’t alarm her past a certain point, but explain to her that I had no choice but to question her mother. Inform her that this is a legally required procedure.”
“She’ll hate me.”
“Probably so. I’ll have to go to Verona, I’ll ask Sergio to come keep you company.”
“I don’t need a babysitter. I’m grown up now, I’m fifteen years old.”
Blanca lowered her voice in the forceful tone that Nini knew all too well.
“I didn’t ask your opinion and I know how old you are.”
Nini made one last stab by adopting a conciliatory tone of voice. But no was still no.
After a night spent pacing back and forth on his balcony, Martusciello shaved with the bathroom door open, listening with one ear to the morning television news. The irritating words had broken out of their cages.
One special explored in depth the history of serial killers in Italy:
The case of the Neapolitan serial murderer . . .
No doubt, they’re showing a montage with a photo of him and his certificate of residence.
. . . offers one striking geographic fact: up till now the phenomenon of serial killers has been almost entirely unknown in southern Italy; the comparable cases, of which half have been brilliantly solved, occurred in northern localities.
“Northern localities. What is this guy, a real esate agent?”
Advanced industrialization and prosperity, according to the psychiatrist Dr. Di Buni, tend to encourage aspirations to necromania in developed societies.
“What developed societies? Developed into open sewers, is what they are. You’ve all lost. You understand that, don’t you? Progress has been nothing but a con job, an illusion of wealth. Assholes. Them and us both. And so we’re becoming emancipated in the south, we even have our own Bocconi business schools. Degrees in murder. As if our own native industries weren’t enough.”
Now let’s move on to an examination of the suggestive position, clearly sexual in nature and intent, in which the dead body of one of Jerry Vialdi’s lovers was found; Vialdi, a popular neomelodic recording artist, was also found dead . . .
“Santina, would you shut that damned thing off! Hell’s bells and dead slut bodies! There they are, rats like yesterday’s, scurrying around unearthing rotten scabs.”
Santina turned down the sound and stuck her head in the bathroom door.
“They’re just chasing after ratings. That’s the way it works. Just thank your lucky stars they didn’t broadcast the pictures, the way they did with the latest murdered dictator.”
“Hmmph, this detached attitude of yours, scholar that you are, with your finger marking your place in the book, is enough to shatter my nerves.”
“And for me your shattered nerves just bring me back into an acceptable state of normality. Ever since the operation you haven’t . . . ”
“I don’t want to talk about it and you know it. I’m leaving.”
Santina waved farewell to her husband with relief and with equal relief greeted solitude and the new day.