Horoscope

by Claudio Ruggeri

  “So, why did you come here?”

  The two policemen glanced at each other hoping that the intensity of their look explained to the other their considerations without the need of speaking. At the end Parisi answered.

  “Let’s say that we are making an investigation in parallel and ... I can assure you that you are not the subject.”

  “Ok, I believe you.”

  “Now we can go, Sica, by your leave...”

  “After you, please.”

  The group said good bye on the threshold of the flat and the two policemen left.

  Once into the car they could exchange their feelings freely.

  “Do you think he swallowed the bait, Vincent?”

  “I don’t know, but we will discover it soon. Let tap all his phones, then place a car here in front of the house and ask the colleagues to film all people coming in and out from the building.”

  “Ok, no problem. Are we going back to the office, now?”

  “Yes, we must investigate on this Mario, the mad brother of Sica’s lover.”

  Shaking the snow off his shoulders and head has almost become a habit for the Commissioner, who by then didn’t notice it any more.

  It took them more than half an hour to gather all the material about Mario Cavallini. Once this stage had been concluded and all documents placed in a folder, Germano started examining them aloud.

  “Thirty-seven years old, he qualified in the Agricultural Technical Institute with good marks... he has been working as an employee in a building company for three years but then he was dismissed with the accusation of being a thief; he found another employment as worker but a year later he was dismissed again, and then he did only occasional works, many of which also illegal, considered that no contribution were paid to the National Social Security Institute...”

  “Nothing more, Vincent?”

  “Wait a moment, please... ten years ago he was accused from a neighbour for having killed three of her five dogs with some poisoned baits, then the charges were withdrawn and there were no consequences.”

  “So, nothing important, I would say....”

  While the two policemen continued to cast perplexed glances at each other, a sort of an alarm started to ring, the sound came from the desk, which had been chosen as operational base for that day.

  “What is it, Angelo?”

  “It’s a device I placed that informs me when some receivers I’m interested in are used.”

  “To whom does this one belong?”

  “To our friend Sica, we immediately received the authorizations. Let’s listen to it.”

  “Hello”.

  “Maria? Francesco’s on the phone.”

  “Well! What a pleasure to hear my brother! What’s the reason of your call?”

  “I’m calling you because today something really strange happened to me.”

  “Tell me.”

  “This morning a policeman called me, and then they came here.”

  “Maybe they are investigation on that report... you could expect it, Francesco.”

  “At the beginning I thought the same but the policeman who came, a certain Germano, is the same who is in charge of the investigations on that serial killer, I recognized him.”

  “Maybe he’s in charge also of something different, more than the murders...”

  “Excuse me, Maria, but with a killer of that sort about, why should he come here to lose two hours with someone like me? And during a holiday, too? It's all very fishy, besides there are two policemen on guard in the street.”

  “Even if it’s true, what’s the problem? They cannot think you are the killer, isn’t it?”

  “Who can say what they are thinking... however later I’ll come to you, as I promised.”

  “Hurry up, so we can spend some days of holiday together.”

  “Ok, see you later.”

  Germano had already taken the headset off before the last phrase, he had taken his notebook and continued to flick it through, seemingly looking for a phone number.

  “What are you doing, Vincent?”

  “Who are the policemen on guard there? Fiorini and Venditti?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Please call them immediately and ask them to go to Sica’s sister. But tell them also that we will send another team to help them right now.”

  “Do you fear that...”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want to take risks.”

  “So, I’ll immediately call Pennino and Piazza, if he’s there.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Once concluded the operation, just to be sure, the Commissioner decided to examine also the last file of the previous search, the oncologist’s one.

  “Gianni Braghesi, forty-three years old, married but with no children, with a medicine degree and a specialization in oncology, he was accused by a patient for having asked money to let him skip the waiting list for an operation...”

  “He’s under house arrest, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is. After the first report several patients confessed that Braghesi had asked them money too ... I try to call him.”

  Germano dialled the number of the doctor’s mobile found in the file, but the voice he heard wasn’t Braghesi’s one, but the one of the telephone operator, informing that it was impossible to reach the customer required.

  Turning over the pages into the folder, the Commissioner found another phone number and dialled it. He tried a few times until Parisi intervened and asked him if he didn’t answer.

  “The first time I had the impression he answered but I’ve been cut off. I tried again but it’s engaged. I fear that all this snow caused problems to the lines...”

  “It could be. My sister’s phone hasn’t been functioning for two days...”

  “I see. Considered that doctor Braghesi is under house arrest we should find him at home, isn’t it?”

  “You are right.”

  “Ok, let’s take the car and pay him a visit, so maybe we can go home for lunch today.”

  “Yes, but this time we will have lunch in my house.”

  “Ok, while we go I’ll call Arianna and ask her to get ready.”

  The flat where doctor Braghesi reluctantly lived was in Rocca di Papa; to reach the main square of the village the policemen literally passed through two walls of snow, which had been heaped up on the edges of the street by the emergency services.

  Parisi decided to park the car near the square, because the slope leading to the building was closed to traffic, due to the snow.

  After having taken all the necessary documents, the two policemen left the car and began to go up. Hardly keeping their balance, they faced the one hundred metres slope they had to cover.

  Once reached the top, Germano checked again the address and asked the baker where it was. The man pointed at a little alley only twenty metres far.

  As soon as they took it, they immediately found the building they were looking for. In order to reach the entrance door, however, they had to face half a dozen steps, wholly covered with snow and ice.

  While Inspector Parisi was going to ring the bell, Germano let it notice that the door was slightly open, so they crossed the threshold directly.

  The heavy steps of the policemen resounded all over the building; according to the order of the names on the entry phone, they guessed that Braghesi probably lived on the third floor, after a quick calculation they realized they still had two flights of stairs to cover.

  At that very moment they heard the entrance door slam and the voices of two people that were probably saying goodbye. Then, they heard the noise of the steps of someone coming upstairs rather quickly.

  When Germano recognized the person who seemingly followed their same route, jumped.

  “Di Girolamo! What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “And you, what are you doing here?”

  “Parisi and I are here for a simple inspection, but...”

  “Someone called us, Commissioner.”
>
  “What?”

  “Someone called the police station and said that in the flat of a certain Braghesi we would have found a body...”

  “Did you come alone?”

  “Yes, I thought it was a joke...”

  When the three policemen reached the flat they found the door half-closed. After having verified that all of them were armed, Germano ordered to burst into the flat.

  They tried to make no noise and move at no more than two metres one from the other, in this way they reached the kitchen, where they found a body, probably doctor Braghesi, lying on his back on the floor.

  Before getting closer to the body, they finished checking the house but, even if in the air there was still the smell of the gunpowder, there was no sign of the killer.

  Germano approached the body to be sure he was dead, even if it was quite impossible he was still alive, considered the two bullets that had been shot at point-blank range in his head.

  At that point, the Commissioner remembered that on the steps he had covered some minutes ago there were no footprints, so he deduced that the killer was still inside the building.

  After having asked the police station to send all the available policemen, included the forensic department, Germano beckoned the two Inspectors to follow him.

  Out of the flat, they divided their tasks: Parisi should examine the last floor, while the Commissioner and Di Girolamo the two lower ones.

  At the ground floor, that deafening silence was broken by the shouts of a woman who opened the door and frightened seeing the two men moving with caution and pistols in hand.

  Germano was reassuring the woman, when Di Girolamo called him.

  “Please come here, Commissioner.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Here are some stairs, let’s go down.”

  At that point the woman was asked where the stairs led and, evidently uncomfortable, she told that they led to the garages.

  They went down the stairs but they found no trace, nor noise of the person they were looking for.

  Once inspected the entrance of the garages and noticed there was no other escape except for the one used by cars and there were no footprints on the snow in that corridor, at least in the exterior part where there was a lot of snow, the two policemen asked themselves from where the killer could have fled.

  When the Commissioner remembered that Parisi had gone up to the last floor, he immediately began to run, calling his colleague at regular intervals, as if by calling his name the distance which separated them could shorten.

  Germano and Di Girolamo went up the stairs very quickly. Once reached Braghesi’s flat they called the colleague aloud.

  Angelo Parisi peeped out from the upper floor, nodding them to keep silent, because his inspection wasn’t concluded yet. After a sigh of relief the Commissioner nodded him not to move and wait they reached the third floor, too.

  Once all together, the three policemen completed the inspection in a few moments, then Germano pushed the elevator button, that was the only place, except for the interior of the flats, they didn’t have inspected yet.

  With their pistols levelled, they waited the cage to stop in front of them, then Parisi opened it wide but there was no trace of the killer.

  Considered that it was impossible to go out from the roof, because no trap door was visible, Germano concluded that it would be better to go outside the building, where they could have an excellent view both on the exit of the garages and on the pedestrian one.

  Going out Germano watched the steps where some minutes before he had risked to fall down and noticed a detail.

  “That’s strange... these footprints are too many to be only ours, look at that step, there are six footprints.”

  “They probably belong to the cleaner, Commissioner...” Di Girolamo answered.

  “Which cleaner?”

  “The one that opened the door for me when I arrived, maybe he left them while going out.”

  Germano suddenly turned to his colleague and let him notice that it was quite impossible to find a cleaner on a holiday.

  At those words Di Girolamo turned pale and suddenly realized he had seen the face of the author of those brutal murders.

  Suddenly, the big tension accumulated in those frantic moments immediately after the discovery of the body, suddenly left them.

  The man they were looking for had gone, dressed up as a cleaner. He had entered and, after having carried out his task, he had gone out, neat and tidy, even daring to have a chat with those who were chasing him: a real mockery.

  As soon as the support men asked by Germano reached the place, the Commissioner decided to go back to the police station together with the two inspectors. It was useless for them to stay there by then.

  The first thing they did, once they reached the office, was locating the phone call received by the emergency number, the one which informed of the presence of the body.

  Germano felt bitter again, when he realized that the voice of the anonymous who had called the police was the same who had informed them about the twins’ death, some days before. Besides, the killer had called the police directly from doctor Braghesi’s house, after having filled him full of lead.

  “What are you thinking of, Angelo?”

  “Nothing, Vincent... but the detail of the phone call from the victim’s house remembers me something, but I don’t know what.”

  “Maybe that film with Gian Maria Volonté of several years ago?”

  “You are right! In that movie, the Commissioner was the killer... do you think there’s a connection, Vincent?”

  “Maybe. Let’s say that such a move could let us think that the author of the crime belongs to the police department. Besides, if we add the fact that the killer is well informed of several crimes ... actually we could be inclined towards that assumption.”

  “However...”

  “However we must say that the killer can be a great son of a bitch when he wants, I suppose he tries to divert the investigations, in order to let us become suspicious one of the other.”

  Parisi was going to continue the conversation when someone knocked at the door. It was the draughtsman that Germano had called some minutes before from his car.

  Di Girolamo stood up and showed the draughtsman the way. They sat down in the office next to the Commissioner’s one, trying to transfer on paper that face, which the inspector had seen only for some minutes.

  Once alone, Germano and Parisi began to ask themselves from where they could begin this time. They had missed the killer only by a couple of minutes, but they had been enough to add another murder.

  “The next sign of the zodiac is Leo, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Angelo. I’m wondering if it’s right to continue moving as we did up to now or not.”

  “Chasing the previous offenders, do you mean?”

  “Exactly. Maybe we have still a little advantage, after all. How could he know that we got to doctor Braghesi alone? Di Girolamo arrived only a few seconds after us, so the killer probably thought we were all together, isn’t it? He’s convinced he still directs the orchestra, Angelo, and we will let him believe it...”

  “I agree. But I still cannot imagine his motive.”

  “This is the psychologists’ task, Angelo, even if I think he believes he’s a sort of executioner, convinced he can replace judges while doing justice.”

  “Maybe it’s for this reason that up to now we didn’t receive any aid from the exterior, such as a tip-off or a hint. Even if someone knows something, they probably don’t want to help us. In my opinion a lot of people approve this sort of do-it-yourself justice.”

  “I fear you are right, Angelo. Now let’s get down on work again.”

  “Where should we start from?”

  “We could work in parallel both on the next victim and on the killer.”

  “Ok.”

  “First of all let’s see which results we get by entering the word ‘Leo’ in the database.”
/>   “I’ll start right know.”

  The search in the data of the last six months gave them seven names, four of which were immediately excluded because only the victims were connected with the word in hand, so only three cases were left.

  As before, they printed all data connected with the three people they had to analyse, put them in as many folders and then started analysing the first name. Germano read aloud.

  “Antonio Leone[3], fifty-five years old, married and with children. He’s the owner of an ironmonger’s in Genzano and was arrested by our plain-clothes colleagues when, during an inspection, they found him beating his wife in the back of the shop, or rather in the alley with the rubbish bins you can access from the back of the shop.”

  “What do you want to do with him?”

  “Did you already call back Venditti and the other ones which were watching Sica and his sister?”

  “Yes, I called them when we arrived here.”

  “Well, call Venditti and explain that the objective has changed, give him all details about this Leone and relevant shop and ask him to go there.”

  “Ok, wait a moment, I note it down...”

  While Parisi updated his notes, the Commissioner started to examine the second file.

  “Alfredo Bellisari, called The Lion, usurer called like this due to the way he subjugated and frightened his victims, or rather his debtors. After some months in prison now he’s under house arrest.”

  “Should I call Piazza to watch him?”

  “Yes, call Gianni Piazza and ask him to go with Pennino or Fiorini and control this usurer.”

  “Ok, Vincent.”

  “The third one is called Leone, too, but his name is Benito. He was arrested for extortion and he’s still in prison, so I think we could put him aside, for now.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He stole a scooter and then he asked a sort of ransom to the owner.”

  “And then?”

  “Nothing, the victim of the theft went to the meeting for the delivery of the ransom together with two of our colleagues, so Leone was arrested and sent to prison.”

  “Ok, Vincent. For now I’ll put the folders of the cases in the first drawer of my desk, in case we should need them in the future.”

  “Ok, now let’s think of the killer.”