The checked Moon

by Quelli di ZEd

there is the obelisk."

  "I know where the main entrance is," Brembati said with a hint of irritation. "Is Mancuso there?"

  "Yes, he's here with me," Iamiglio replied, giving him a quick glance. Mancuso was still panting and breathing as if he had been running after a thug for tens of miles.

  "Well, listen to me, it’s not too difficult. If that woman felt the urge to take a night walk in the cemetery and found the way to go in, I want you to find it too and bring her here immediately. She probably used a secondary entrance. There are several along the perimeter of the walls, in small niches on Via Tiburtina. Got that?"

  "Sure, inspector," Iamiglio said, staring at the lights of the radio.

  "Very well," Brembati concluded. "You have raincoats."

  August 13 – 01:26

  Stubbornly working with hammers and chisels on the edges of the marble slab, Oscar and Victor showed in a few minutes that they deserved the money Alida had taken from the bank a few days before.

  While Riccardo was on guard at the entrance of the chapel, Alida followed the exhumation, morbidly attracted by the movements and the ease with which the two men extracted the heavy coffin from the burial recess.

  Oscar had placed the flashlights on the small altar in the back of the shrine. Besides providing light for their movements, they created on the walls a network of shadows as dark as cracks. The air was full of moisture, mould and the smell of withered flowers and burned candles.

  "We're almost there." Oscar's voice echoed as if they had been in a cave.

  Half of the coffin protruded out of the tomb.

  "Need a hand?" Riccardo asked, without abandoning his position.

  "If the old man doesn’t die, we should be able to make it."

  Victor, who had not yet removed his hood – for which Alida was thankful – yanked the coffin by its brass handle. With a last effort they succeeded in laying it on the ground.

  Oscar was out of breath. The old man wasn’t. He sat on the edge of a still unoccupied recess and pulled out a cigarette.

  "See that you don’t leave the butt on the ground," Oscar said.

  Victor ignored him and rubbed the match three times on the wet wall before he could light it. The smell of sulphur added to that of death.

  Oscar leaned on the toolbox, pulled out a crowbar and pushed it under the cover of the coffin. He levered with it and the wood gave way with the loudest noise they had made since they had set foot in the chapel.

  Alida looked away and walked over to Riccardo, who kissed her lightly flushed forehead.

  There were other rumours of broken wood, then that of the cover being placed on the floor as gently as possible, and then the voice of Oscar, tough, authoritative, "Old man, move your ass, the lady has things to do."

  Oscar went out and stood in front of the shrine. "Our job is half done," he said to Alida, "I really don’t give a damn what you have to do with the body of that poor thing, but do it quickly because in an hour at worst I want to be in a place where people speak and breathe. There is a towel next to the crate, you can use it if you want to lay the body on the ground. A minimum of caution seems due."

  Alida felt ablaze. The worst offence she had committed in her life was occupying a parking space reserved for the disabled, now she had just been reproached by a criminal who drew a living uncovering coffins.

  "We’ll be waiting outside, hurry," Riccardo said, moving away from the entrance to let Victor out as well. Alida wondered if the plans of the old man included other exhumations, perhaps also with Oscar.

  Luca's coffin was a few feet from her, defiled and dimly lit by the flashlights, placed too high to light it up properly. She walked to the altar, took one of them and lit up the body, immediately regretting not having entered the funeral home the day of the funeral. At least she would have been prepared to the grotesque effect of the aesthetic treatment made necessary by the shotgun blast that had devastated Luca’s face. Those who had taken care of him had done an amazing job, but they hadn’t been able to prevent his face from taking the unreal and sinister unnaturalness of wax statues.

  Alida remembered the bloodless and unnatural face of Pope Giovanni Paolo II, repeatedly shown in the news during his funeral in St. Peter's Square.

  She had had several days to reflect about how to act, but at that moment she could not move a muscle. It seemed to her that her senses, except sight, had stopped working. She did not perceive any sound, nor smell. Even the sensation of holding the flashlight was gone. She was only allowed to see what she had before her eyes.

  Luca was wearing a suit she had never seen. After what had emerged from the newspapers, that the night of the murder he had been with a younger girl, none in the Menozzatti family had asked Alida to take care of the funeral, realizing full well that the man she married had died twice; once for the shot and once because he was unfaithful.

  The body had withered to the point that the suit, rather than worn, seemed to be laying on the torso and legs, seemingly too large in several points. His hands were joined on his chest. His fingers had become withered twigs of a lighter hue than that of his coat, and he looked like an old man.

  Death, if it catches you before your time, has a unique value. It is capable of showing how you would have become if your heart had not stopped beating.

  "There are lights," Riccardo cried.

  The blood of Alida froze as if the temperature of the tomb had lowered by 15°.

  "Alida! Hurry up!" Riccardo peered from the entrance of the shrine. "We have to go now!"

  Alida frantically rummaged in the pockets of her coat. The scissors were gone. Either they had fallen on the way or she had forgotten them home. She had imagined that moment a hundred times, since she had involved Riccardo in that insanity, and the scissors had to be used to cut one of Luca’s earlobes. She would have swallowed it once she was back home.

  She looked at the tool box, leaned over and poured its contents on the floor. Hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, nails, files. Nothing useful.

  "Alida! It’s an inspection of the police, Oscar and the old man escaped!" Riccardo cried.

  "I’m done!" Alida hissed, crawling closer to the coffin. "I’m done!" she repeated, opening her mouth and placing her head next to that of Luca.

  August 13 – 02:19

  The agents Iamiglio and Mancuso found the gate of the Menozzatti chapel open. They stopped in the doorway, pointing the flashlights inside.

  "Shit," Iamiglio said. Mancuso said nothing, but seemed to agree.

  They entered.

  Near the uncovered coffin, someone had spilled the contents of a toolbox. Against the wall they noticed the uprooted marble slab.

  Both were familiar with the grim piece of news of which Luca Menozzatti had been the victim; Iamiglio had been in the team sent in the night of the alarm in Via di Torre Annunziatella. What the uncovered coffin was doing on the floor of the family chapel was a mystery whose resolution did not depend on them. They had to return quickly to the car and inform the inspector. Iamiglio told that to Mancuso, but he took time to point the light on the thin face of the corpse.

  "Look there."

  Iamiglio looked at the freshly-torn ear of the corpse and vomited his dinner on his feet.

  August 13 – 02:14

  Alida and Riccardo had not the faintest idea about how to leave the cemetery. Retracing the way they had come was unthinkable. None of them had taken note of landmarks, and walking in the open they would run the risk of running into more cops.

  "There may be more of them," Riccardo said, peering from an outer corner of the chapel of the Capuchins.

  "Are you sure?" Alida asked, one step away from him.

  "If they realized what has happened it’s likely that they have already called for reinforcements."

  "How did they find us?"

  "Maybe it was a normal patrol. Too bad you didn’t switch the flashlights off, now they will see the chapel from afar."

  "I had no time, I got out as fast as I could."<
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  "We have to move, find a hiding place. Come!" Riccardo grabbed Alida by the arm and jumped back in the rain.

  "I don’t see anything, slow down," she implored him, trying to hold him back. There was no way. He would have even dragged her on stone rather than being caught again.

  He turned sharply to the left on a marble staircase, identical to that which had led them to the Menozzatti chapel. He put Alida in front of his body and climbed, pushing her from behind. When they reached the top, they looked around.

  "They’re down there," Alida said, pointing to a spot where the other staircase was.

  Riccardo said nothing. From there they had a very good view. In addition to the light beams of the cops, they could see the entrance of the chapel, still lit by the flashlights they unfortunately had not turned off.

  "Who says they are cops?"

  Riccardo looked at Alida. In fact he had not thought about that.

  Oscar had been too hasty to draw that conclusion, and even faster to escape along with the old man.

  "I mean," Alida continued, "you said that there are people in the cemetery even at night."

  Riccardo looked back at the figures patrolling the plot of the cemetery, at the bottom of the stairs. Their attention was attracted by the light in the chapel. They found the gate open, entered, left after a couple of minutes, penetrating the surrounding darkness with their flashlights. Riccardo put one arm around Alida and they stood still while the men climbed the staircase, no more than ten yards from them. The crackle of a radio could be heard, and a male voice said various agitated words