Palma made his entrance into the squad room just after Lojacono and Alex had returned.
The commissario seemed upset. He didn’t bother to say hello, he just started talking right away.
“So here’s the way things stand: they already have a team ready to replace us on the Varricchio case. The excuse is that in this fucking city the television news and the press are talking about nothing else, and the police force can’t afford to be made to look like fools. I acted like a madman, I said that we’re working hard and working well, that a great many people are involved and that we have to be given at least the time we need to interview them. In response they started raising their voices and saying things that I don’t even want to repeat here.”
If someone like Palma, usually so decorous, had begun using curse words, he must be churning with adrenaline, thought Ottavia.
Lojacono spoke for them all.
“So how did it end?”
“I just outshouted them. I told them that I expected them to give me a written document detailing exactly what missteps we had committed and how they would have done better in the same situation. Luckily, Piras was there, and she backed me up. She’s monitoring the investigation as the magistrate responsible, and she reiterated her full faith and confidence in the work we’re doing. They had to eat crow, and believe me, they didn’t like it, but they had to put up with it, for now.”
Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.
To the surprise of his colleagues, Pisanelli let himself go in a burst of exultation.
“Well done! I can just see them there, sitting in the front row, all the rival officers: they’re just itching to get their hands on our territory, which is centrally located and therefore entails regular interactions with the prefect and his lady wife, the mayor and his lady wife, and the police chief and his lady wife.”
“Exactly. What’s more, the officials who rejected the lot of you are eager to prove that they were right and that I, the police chief, and Piras were all dead wrong. But let’s not waste any more time on this piffle. Romano, Aragona: where are we with the molested girl?”
Romano broke in brusquely.
“Case closed, chief. Just as we’d imagined, it was pure fantasy; the girl was just looking to be the center of attention. We’re certain about it now, believe me. And I can guarantee you that no criminal complaint will be filed.”
Palma shot a contented glance at him and at Aragona.
“Excellent, once things have settled down, you can tell me the details. Starting today, the whole team is working full-time on the Varricchio case. Lojacono, Di Nardo, any news?”
Alex, leafing through her notebook, brought her colleagues up to date on the state of progress, including the visit they’d paid to the university that morning.
When Alex was done, Ottavia weighed in: “I have something, too. The medical examiner’s report has come in: they were very fast, clearly they’re getting plenty of pressure, just like we are. If you like, I can read it to you all.”
“We’re all ears,” said Palma.
“All right, then: as far as the young man is concerned, ‘the body presents, in the vicinity of the occipital region and the adjacent left parietal region, multiple stellate lacerations and contusions due to successive blows inflicted with a blunt object possessing a projecting edge, traces of which can be found, in negative relief, at a number of separate points on the scalp surface—’”
“Meaning someone smashed him over the head repeatedly,” said Aragona under his breath.
Ottavia went on, her eyes glued to the computer: “ . . . upon the removal of the pericranial soft tissues, evidence was found of a left occipital-parietal fracture, with multiple fracture lines, two of which are full-thickness lines.”
“What are full-thickness lines?” Alex asked.
Romano replied brusquely.
“It means that the blows shattered his skull. Through and through.”
Ottavia got to the conclusion: “Cerebral hemorrhage and locuses of multiple cerebral lacerocontusion in the left posterior and cerebellar occipital and parietal cerebral region. Area of lacerocontusion also concerning the right frontal lobe, due to recoil.”
There was a detectable surge of horror in the room. To some extent, the impersonal technical language only made what had happened to the young man even more atrocious.
“The killer came up behind him,” Aragona said coldly. “One blow, then another and another, as he took it out on him. Driven by blind rage, and a lot of it, in any case.”
Lojacono, impenetrable as always, nodded as if he were repeating a Buddhist precept.
“That’s right. And rage multiplies the force of the blows.”
“Now listen to what they write about the sister,” Ottavia resumed, and heaved a deep sigh. “Hemorrhagic infarct of the deeper facial tissues, fracture of the nasal septum, and a circular fracture line at the right zygomatic arch. Infarct of the suprahyoid and infrahyoid muscles, with fracture of the lesser horn of the hyoid bone. Presence of foamy hematic material in the trachea and in the greater bronchi. Examination of the osseous segments of the cervical spine showed a fracture of the left superior facet of the axis vertebra. Array of signs pointing to violent mechanical asphyxiation, with hemorrhagic infiltration of the neck organs.”
By the time she got to the last few words, Ottavia Calabrese’s voice had started to falter. The woman had instinctively raised her hand to her throat.
Alex’s eyes were open wide.
“So you’re saying that first he smashed her face in, and then he strangled her? Is that it?”
“Not necessarily,” Lojacono replied. “Maybe he just put a hand on her face to make her shut up, then he strangled her. In any case, he did it with enormous violence.”
Romano nodded.
“Sure, that makes more sense. It doesn’t say anything about lacerocontusions, so he didn’t beat her. He didn’t want her to scream.”
Pisanelli spoke in a low voice, as if he were in church.
“It’s different from the young man. With him, it was rage, here it’s desperation.”
Aragona turned to Ottavia.
“Okay, but did he screw her? I mean to say, you know, did he rape her?”
Setting aside the rather abrupt, direct manner, which was certainly less than elegant, that was the question that everyone else had on their lips.
Ottavia scrolled through the document with her mouse and resumed from the point where she had stopped.
“‘Overall indications of violent mechanical asphyxiation in the context of manipulation of the neck. Vascular constriction, sympathetic inhibition, and cardiocirculatory arrest. The search for elements of objective correlation to sexual violence yielded no results: perineal, vaginal, and buccal swabs; absence of any lesions, either cutaneous or of the mucosal, that can be morphologically ascribed to other parties. No signs of previous sexual relations.’”
The silence that followed was heavy as a blanket, and every bit as suffocating. Alex and Lojacono saw Grazia’s beautiful body stretched out on the bed before their eyes again; the others imagined it.
Aragona murmured: “No. He didn’t screw her. Maybe she put up some resistance. Then her brother arrived, and—”
Lojacono stopped him.
“No. Her brother was seated, he was writing, he even had his pen in his hand. It doesn’t add up.”
Alex was shaking her head.
“The rage. The extreme violence. Biagio sitting peacefully at the desk. Grazia with no signs of rape. It could have been . . . ”
Pisanelli continued her sentence as if it had been his own thought.
“ . . . anyone. Her boyfriend, come to ask her for an explanation of the photographs . . . ”
Romano: “ . . . her father, who wanted to take his daughter back home . . . ”
Aragona: “ . . . Cava, the guy from the modeling agency, who couldn’t come to terms with the idea that she no longer wanted to pose for him . . . ”
Ottavia: “ . . . one of the young men: Biagio’s colleague or the two young men from the apartment next door.”
Palma ran his hand over his face.
“Please, let’s proceed in an orderly manner and without any preconceptions, or we’re just going to get ourselves confused. Any news from the forensic squad?”
Ottavia was already on the phone. After a brief exchange, she hung up.
“They’re almost done. We’ll have the report this afternoon.”
“All right,” said Lojacono. “There’s time to talk to Vinnie and his friend, Mandurino, and we can just hope we catch them at home. But we also need to figure out the thing about the money, the thirty-seven hundred euros that Grazia asked Cava to pay her for the photo shoot. It’s too strange of a figure not to have some meaning.”
Pisanelli threw both arms wide: “I’ve reached out to my banker friends, and neither of the two victims had a checking or savings account in the neighborhood. And, as you know, the registry for these things has been centralized, so we can rule out the idea that either of them had any relations with these banks, which are the most prominent ones. I don’t think it makes any sense for someone to go and deposit a rather modest sum, all things considered, outside of the normal banking insitutions, or to use a front or false identity. And since it seems clear to me that murder for purposes of robbery can be ruled out entirely, if the money isn’t in the apartment, then it means that they went out and spent it.”
“Sure, but how?” asked Palma. “But for now, let’s not waste time on conjectures. Lojacono, Alex: you swing by and talk to the Varricchios’ neighbors. Romano and Aragona: after lunch, head over to the laboratory of the forensic squad and get them to give you the report, which will save us time. If you have to, wait there. Take advantage of the opportunity to ask for a list of the things that they inventoried in the apartment, maybe the money was there, hidden under a floor tile. Then we can all check back later.”