Aragona strolled through the front door of the police station whistling a little tune, very proud of himself. With an immense spirit of sacrifice, he’d forced himself to come into the police station monstrously early, and in fact it was a good solid half hour until the beginning of the shift. He was really savoring the looks he expected on everyone else’s faces when they walked into the squad room and spotted their hardworking colleague already at his desk. What would they do then, deprived of their usual opportunity to mock and deride him?
What’s more, he didn’t want to set himself up for a brutal dressing down by Palma. The fear that the precinct under his command might soon be shut down because of an unsuccessful investigation into the double homicide had stoked his superior officer’s hysterical tendencies. Better to avoid him.
He trotted up the stairs with a cheerful burst of energy, threw open the door, and found the entire team arrayed before him, immersed in a strange silence. He took off his glasses, checked the watch on his wrist, the clock on the wall, and then again the watch on his wrist, establishing beyond a doubt that they were perfectly synchronized. And at that point he threw both arms wide.
“Why, what the . . . Tell me the truth, you all sleep here, don’t you? Are you a theatrical troupe on tour, prison convicts, or something else of that kind? It can’t be: It’s not even eight in the morning yet!”
“Arago’, shut up, this morning isn’t the time for it,” Romano retorted, in a foul mood. “Didn’t you read Palma’s message summoning us all here at this time of the morning? It’s a good thing for you that you came in earlier than usual, otherwise he would have skinned you alive.”
The officer pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
“No, I had it turned off. Is there some regulation that it always has to be turned on? Why, what’s happened?”
Palma appeared. In a break with routine, he was neat and tidy, well turned out, tie knotted, jacket buttoned. Even his hair looked kempt, and he’d recently shaved. He was carrying a small stack of paper.
He checked to make sure that everyone was present, and then let his gaze linger briefly on Lojacono, seated at his desk with the documentation concerning the Vico Secondo Egiziaca case spread out in front of him.
“Buongiorno, thank you all for coming in early this morning,” he began. “As some of you know, last night Cosimo Varricchio, the father of the two murdered kids, turned himself in of his own free will at police headquarters, and was questioned by Dottoressa Piras in the presence of the chief of police and a couple of high officials: the chief of the mobile squad Gerardi and Commissario Di Vincenzo, designated successor to be put in charge of the investigation in case we were judged to have failed. I am pleased to be able to tell you those of you who weren’t present that Di Vincenzo was eventually ordered out of the room by Piras.”
There was a stirring of triumphant surprise among all those present. Nearly all those present. Alex limited herself to returning Ottavia’s smile, while Lojacono remained impassive.
Palma continued staring at him. He went on: “Given that the questioning of Varricchio was determined to be dispositive, later this morning there will be a press conference to inform the news media that we have finally made an arrest for the double homicide. I’ve been invited to attend, which means that the work done by the team in this police station has been fully recognized. It’s a major achievement, and it chases away a number of our lingering phantoms. The danger of the precinct being mothballed hasn’t been eliminated entirely, but if nothing else, we have shown that we know how to do our job.”
A sense of uneasiness seeped through the room. Why was Palma speaking in such understated tones, at complete odds with the substance of his words?
Pisanelli gave voice to the general sense of bafflement.
“But listen, boss, if everything’s going so well, why aren’t you happy? Is there something that’s bothering you?”
Palma replied without changing his expression.
“Yes, yes there is. Last night, at the end of the interview, and in the presence of Gerardi, one of our most relentless enemies, Lieutenant Lojacono expressed serious doubts about the theory of Varricchio’s guilt. And by so doing, he made it clear that we don’t all agree on just who it was that murdered the two kids.”
What ensued was a moment of collective awkwardness. Lojacono didn’t lower his gaze before Palma’s hard-eyed glare.
“But what did the guy say?” asked Romano. “Because I’m starting to get the idea that he hasn’t confessed.”
At this point, Palma snapped.
“Because as we all know, guilty parties invariably confess, right? If we only sent people to prison who had made full confessions, then the whole problem of overcrowded prisons would be a thing of the past. Of course he hasn’t confessed. But he has no alibi, he definitely has a motive, he admits that he was in the apartment and that he had an argument with his son, in fact, that he even laid hands on him. And he displays absolute indifference to what happened to the two kids. He hasn’t even asked for a lawyer to be present.”
Ottavia looked at Lojacono.
“Giuseppe, why don’t you think that it was him?”
Lojacono continued staring at the commissario, who waved his hand to indicate he should speak.
“I’m not saying that it wasn’t him. I’m just saying that we don’t have any proof that clinches it. In practical terms, he’s in the same position as the young woman’s boyfriend, or anyone else who can’t prove that they were somewhere else during the hours the double homicide took place. And the truth is that Varricchio has a point: since he’s an ex-convict and a Calabrian, he’s guilty until proven otherwise.”
Palma raised his voice.
“How can you think that I’d base my actions on such flimsy prejudices? If that’s the way I operated, none of you would even be here! He has no alibi and—”
Lojacono interrupted him, calmly.
“He could have denied having a fight with his son. He could have said that he’d been welcomed in affectionately and that he’d had nothing to do with the argument overheard by the neighbors. He could have pretended to be upset and in despair. He could have denied any disagreement with his daughter, and we would have had nothing to use against him.”
Aragona broke in.
“Well, he’s certainly not a relaxed individual, if he murdered someone with his bare hands. And those two kids were murdered with such a violent beating that—”
Romano hushed him.
“Arago’, you never miss an opportunity to talk bullshit, do you? Because all that a guy has to do is make a mistake once, and then anything that happens in the radius of three hundred miles to anyone he’s ever met is his fault? Lojacono is right: If we don’t have solid evidence, then we have to go on searching.”
Stung, Aragona shrugged his shoulders, grabbed a magazine off Lojacono’s nearby desk, and from that point on feigned utter disinterest in the conversation.
Palma looked at Romano, in astonishment.
“And now you’re putting in your two cents. Didn’t you all hear me say that we’re going to cease investigating? Of course we’ll continue, but in the meantime, at least, we won’t have the case taken away from us.”
Alex spoke, as if to herself.
“And in the meantime, a man who may be innocent will sit in a jail cell, thinking over and over again about all the mistakes he made in his life, perhaps feeling indirectly responsible for the deaths of his children. Worse than hell.”
Palma ran his hand through his hair.
“All right, then, let’s do this: let’s reverse the order of the process. Convince me that Varricchio isn’t guilty. Give me one reason to believe that it wasn’t him. You do realize that he vanished entirely for three days, and he didn’t even know that we were looking for him? The minute we release him, I guarantee, that’s the last we’ve seen of him. We’ll never find him again.”
Ottavia sensed the commissario’s dismay and came to his assistance.
“That’s right. We can continue the investigation all the same. If we identify another culprit he’ll be set free, otherwise we’ll go on sifting through the evidence. It’s not as if the attorney general is going to indict just on the basis of suspicion and flimsy clues.”
“There are still too many details that don’t add up, as far as I’m concerned,” said Lojacono. “A person doesn’t have an outburst of rage, kill their son, pretend to leave, slamming the door behind them, and then wait for their daughter to come home and than assault her, simulating a rape. What’s more . . . ”—and here he searched through the sheets of paper on the desk in front of him—“there is this six-minute phone call between brother and sister at 6:32. What did he do, then, did he leave the building, make a call from his son’s cell phone, talk to his daughter and tell her to come home with the intention of murdering her as well, and then go back inside?”
Palma shrugged his shoulders.
“Theoretically, it’s possible. Just as it’s possible that he simply came back later. In other words: it’s conjectures that suggest we should arrest Varricchio and it’s conjectures that lead us to think it might not have been him. But if the only way of keeping our hands on the investigation is to—”
“The money,” Alex murmured. “There’s still the matter of the money.”
“What do you mean?” asked Pisanelli.
The young woman turned to look at him.
“I keep wondering: what became of the thirty-seven hundred euros that the young woman was paid for her photographs? She knew that she could have earned a great deal more, Cava had told her so and I believe him, because he was obsessed with her, as is proved by the phone calls. So why did Grazia want that exact sum of money, and why did she want it so urgently?”
Lojacono filled in the point that his partner had raised.
“And that’s not all. Biagio promised Foti that he would help him record a CD. And Cosimo Varricchio, too, told us that his son was certain that he’d be able to ensure financial security for himself and his sister, and even for him, the father, if he would just leave them alone. It’s clear that he expected a significant cash influx, before long. Something much bigger than just thirty-seven hundred euros.”
Palma stubbornly shook his head.
“Maybe he was just talking nonsense to get rid of his father and maintain good relations with his sister’s boyfriend. Or else he’d invented a scientific system for betting on horse races. Let’s not talk nonsense, if you please.”
Aragona was leafing through the magazine, sprawled in his chair.
“Certainly this obsession with the thirty-seven hundred euros was a family trait,” he said in an offhanded tone, as if he were having a conversation at the bar.
Palma turned beet-red with fury.
“Aragona, don’t you understand that when we’re having a serious conversation nobody wants to hear your wisecracks? I don’t—”
Lojacono had turned toward his colleague, his curiosity piqued.
“Why do you say that?”
“Didn’t you read the article about this business over at the university?” Aragona replied. “Or do you just look at the pictures?”
Lojacono exchanged a glance with Alex.
“But it’s just an interview, Professor Forgione mentioned it to us, there isn’t any—”
Aragona tapped his finger on a page.
“Lookie here.”
Lojacono read aloud.
“Question: ‘Dottor Varricchio, you are considered one of the most promising young scientists in the country. Tell us something that might encourage other young people to enter the world of research.’ Answer: ‘Many people assume that this is a sterile world, where there are no opportunities to make any real money. That’s not true. A patent, which costs more or less thirty-seven hundred euros, can allow you to sell the results of your research to a manufacturer, and in some cases, it can even make you rich. Young people today can think of research as a significant source of revenue.’”
A sense of bafflement was seeping through the room.
“Well?” asked Romano. “What’s so odd about that? All right, it was a reference to a sum that—”
Alex leapt to her feet, her eyes glittering as she stared at Lojacono.
“A patent. She paid for her brother’s patent. And that’s why Biagio preferred working at home over the past few months, in spite of the fact that he had no internet, forcing himself to put up with a great deal of inconvenience with the laboratory at the university.”
Palma was confused.
“So . . . what does all this mean? It doesn’t have anything to do with the father’s visit and—”
Lojacono was rummaging through the files on his desk.
“Romano, on that list . . . where the heck is it . . . I clearly remember, among the things he had in his wallet there was . . . Here it is!” He raised a xerox triumphantly into the air. “A return receipt from a registered letter. You can clearly read the addresss of the recipient, see, boss: ‘Trademark and Patent Office, Rome.’ This is it!”
Palma turned to look at Ottavia, as if seeking help.
“I don’t understand, what does this have to do with anything? . . . We’re investigating the fact that Varricchio worked at home instead of going to the laboratory. So he submitted a request for a patent, what of it?”
As if Alex hadn’t heard him, she said to Lojacono: “The key. He didn’t even have to knock to get in.”
The lieutenant nodded.
“He went to demand an explanation. An explanation for everything, and he thought he had a right to demand it.”
“Certainly. He was paying, and that meant, in his head, that he was buying.”
By this point, Alex and Lojacono were just talking directly to each other, as if there was no one else in the room but them. Romano had the impression he was watching a ping-pong match.
The lieutenant added: “And, of course, nobody knew anything. That was in both their interests.”
A smile spread across Alex’s face: “Until the sister arrived. That’s when everything went to hell, when it all slipped out of control.”
Aragona was sick and tired of that call-and-response.
“Listen, if you’d be kind enough to explain it to us, too, you’d be doing us a favor.”
Lojacono stood up and grabbed his overcoat.
“Boss, I’d recommend you postpone the press conference. I have a feeling you’ll be announcing a very different piece of news, by the time the morning’s over. And please, trust me, sell it as well as you can, because you’re absolutely right: Your team is on top of things. The very best. Come on, Alex, let’s go.”
Before heading out, in front of the appalled eyes of the whole officeful of officers, Di Nardo planted a kiss on Aragona’s cheek, telling him: “Officer Marco Aragona, you’re a goddamned genius.”
He swept off his eyeglasses with a self-conscious gesture.
“You’re right about that. But later you’ll explain exactly why, right?”
Alex was already chasing Lojacono down the stairs.