The dogs of Rome cab-1

by Conor Fitzgerald

  “Did you receive any strange phone calls recently?”

  She glanced upward and leftward as she sought to remember.

  “No.”

  “Anyone new arrive at the house?”

  She hesitated. “Not that I know of.”

  “Did your husband mention any new friends?”

  “My husband would not mention his latest friends to me.”

  There. He had hit something. “What do you mean?”

  “By what?”

  Blume said, “He wouldn’t mention his latest friends. Are you talking about girlfriends?”

  To her credit, she did not waste time on pretences. She said: “You can’t say girls. They were older women. They fell for what they thought was his big soft heart. A man who likes animals that much can’t be bad.”

  “And was he-bad, I mean?”

  “Oh no. Poor Arturo. He was a good man. He was just a bit vain. Vain and lonely, I suppose. Maybe not even vain considering the old babbione he chose.”

  “He knew you knew?”

  “I guess he must have. We never talked about that side of things. Could one of these… women have anything to do with what happened?”

  Seeing no point in pretending otherwise, Blume said: “That’s just what I was wondering.” Then he added, “Did you notice any change in his daily schedules?”

  “I told you, Commissioner, he did not have a regular working day like other people. And I’m so busy myself I could hardly notice. I am often in Padua.”

  “Your electoral district.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you are often away from home?”

  “I would go so far as to say I am mostly away from home. I spend far more time in Padua than in Rome.”

  “I see,” said Blume. But he didn’t see. If you were married to someone, he reckoned, you should live with them. If you weren’t willing to live with them, then it was going nowhere.

  Blume was not sure what to make of the woman he was talking to, and he had a feeling he would not have been too keen on Arturo, either. She cared for politics and the environment, he for animals, neither of them for the other. That left the child as their common moral center: the child with the books in alphabetical order and the image of his stabbed father in the middle of his home.

  “So you wouldn’t notice if he, say, had been coming in later than usual?”

  “Not immediately, but I would probably have heard about it from Angelica or Tommaso.”

  “Who’s Angelica?”

  “Our babysitter-nanny, I suppose. She’s there most days.” Sveva Romagnolo allowed a note of bitterness to creep into her tone. “Or was. She seems to have been scared off. At any rate, she’s vanished.”

  Blume glanced quickly at D’Amico. This could be significant.

  “Vanished? The babysitter has vanished?”

  “Well, no. Not vanished exactly. She phoned this morning, as a matter of fact,” said Romagnolo. “She said she needed time off to recover from the shock. As if I don’t-oh, never mind.” She brushed invisible dust from her arm, and thus dismissed the useless Nanny Angelica from the conversation.

  “And what age is Angelica?” Blume wasn’t so sure he wanted the subject dropped so quickly.

  “Oh, let me see… sixty-five, seventy. It’s rather hard to tell with those fat southerners.”

  Nando broke his silence. “I am a southerner,” he announced.

  “Indeed?” said Romagnolo. Blume had rarely heard a word that conveyed less interest.

  D’Amico crossed his arms and relapsed into silence.

  Blume continued to ask her about new friends, changes to schedule, strange phone calls, and she continued to tell him that she had nothing to report.

  “You were in Padua with your son.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the idea was to spend the weekend there?”

  “Yes, but I got called back for an emergency vote to be held on Monday. Berlusconi is threatening to use a confidence motion- you read the papers.”

  Blume did not. He hated politics. “So you came back on Friday afternoon. Why not Saturday?”

  “My son was getting bored. He’s still too young.”

  “Arturo was not expecting you?”

  “I made sure to phone ahead, tell him I was on my way back.”

  “At what time did you phone?”

  “Half past ten from Padua station.”

  “OK,” said Blume. “Now, this nanny person who looks after the house. When does she come?”

  “Every other day.”

  “And she does all the cooking, cleaning…”

  “Sometimes she cooks, but Arturo did his own cooking, too. She cleaned, looked after Tommaso.”

  “She did the washing? Made the beds, changed sheets, that sort of thing?”

  “Yes. She did that sort of thing.”

  “Always?”

  “Always.”

  Blume looked back over his notes, and started asking the same questions again. When he asked her again about Arturo’s enemies, she said, “What? Weren’t you listening before? I’ve already told you all I remember.”

  “Just in case you forgot someone.”

  “I’m not going to repeat myself. If you weren’t listening, maybe your colleague was.” She nodded at D’Amico, who bowed his head slightly lower.

  Blume stood up. D’Amico did the same and, a moment later, so did Romagnolo.

  “Frankly, the political aspects are outside my competence,” said Blume.

  “All I can say is that I shall be vigilant and keep you completely informed.”

  Blume stuck out his hand, which she took very lightly and briefly. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  She accompanied them back in silence through the spacious living room, empty of grieving relatives and friends.

  16

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 6 P.M.

  When they got downstairs, D’Amico opened the door and they walked out into a blare of cicadas. The shadows had lengthened and the light had faded, but it was still hot.

  Blume looked at the cars parked on the road outside and asked D’Amico, “The Holy Ghost was not transported here by an official car, was he?”

  “I hope not, because if he was, we’re not the most observant policemen in the world. He can’t have used a car from the pool, either, or you’d have recognized it.”

  “You’d have recognized it, too,” said Blume, pulling out his cell phone. “I think they’ve replaced maybe two vehicles since you left.. Ferrucci?” he said into the phone. “Yes, it’s me. I need you to get me the address of Di Tivoli, Taddeo-yes that’s the one, the guy on TV

  … Hold on, I’ve got D’Amico here, he can write it down for me. Via Alcamo, six. Yeah, I know the street. Thanks.”

  D’Amico was looking at the address he had just written down. “Can’t say I know this street.”

  “I only know it because it’s near where I live,” said Blume. “It’s a short street. A dead end, if I remember right.”

  It occurred to Blume that in the three years D’Amico had been his junior partner, not once had he invited him back to the house. D’Amico was married, had two kids of indeterminate age.

  They climbed into the car.

  “So now we go to Di Tivoli?” asked D’Amico.

  “He’s the one who made the documentary with Clemente about the dog fighting,” said Blume. “He seems like an obvious person to talk to. Unless you can think of something better.”

  “Maybe we should report back to the vicequestore first,” said D’Amico.

  “Sure. You do that. But first drop me off at Di Tivoli’s.”

  “If I bring you there, I may as well stay.”

  “So stay,” said Blume, without much enthusiasm.

  D’Amico drove all the way down Via Cristoforo Colombo with his brow furrowed as if he was trying to remember something. As they passed Via Appia Antica, his countenance cleared and he said, “I know who Di Tivoli is.�
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  “I just said, he’s the guy made the documentary-”

  “No. Before that. I remember Di Tivoli got kicked off the air around 2001 because… I don’t know, he was annoying or something.”

  Blume said, “Yeah. It’s good the way there are no annoying people left on TV anymore. You sure he didn’t get kicked off air because Berlusconi and his minions came to power?”

  “No, he slapped a guest or something. It’s probably on YouTube.”

  “I think I might remember,” said Blume, who never watched television. “He was gay or something, wasn’t he?”

  “Who? The guest? I can’t remember. Good reason for hitting him, though.”

  “I meant Di Tivoli,” said Blume. “Maybe not gay, but a bit camp. Used to march around the studio trying to be outrageous.”

  “No,” said D’Amico. “You’re thinking of that curly-haired queen on Canale 5. The one who’s an expert on everything. Di Tivoli is the one with the sexy girl co-host.”

  “That hardly narrows it down.”

  “Sexy girls with glasses,” amended D’Amico. “Leftists.”

  “By leftist you mean they have brains?”

  “Just glasses. Myopia, money, and attitude. But there was something else… This is it.” D’Amico parked in front of a No Parking sign attached to automatic gates.

  “He’s got a garage,” said Blume. “Jesus, I’d give my right arm to have one of those.”

  The main door to the building was open, and they went straight in, nodding curtly to a porter who almost challenged them. The man who answered the apartment door had ginger hair fading to gray, but a lot of it.

  An unkempt tuft fell over his forehead, and he kept pushing at it with the palm of his hand, as if checking it was still there. He was wearing a blue corduroy suit, such as only a slim person should ever wear, and it looked good on him. The frames of his glasses were white. He wore suede desert boots. He was not the host Blume had been thinking of, but he was camp enough, thought Blume. It was probably a job requirement.

  He did not invite them in, merely walked away leaving the door open.

  Blume did not like the lifeless beige and grays, birch, pine, and cork in Di Tivoli’s apartment. But it was no doubt a classy place in a glossy-magazine sort of way. Di Tivoli picked up a remote control, pressed a button, then shook his head and put it down. He picked up another, did the same, and Blume heard the soft whistle of an air conditioner start. A few seconds later, he felt cool air waft by his face. He could do with one of those almost as much as a garage.

  “This heat is killing me,” Di Tivoli said. He spoke with the relaxed slightly sing-song honest-to-goodness accent of Bologna. A smug, self-regarding town if ever there was one.

  Blume looked around. Di Tivoli had brought the trappings of his trade into his home. A bank of high-tech and hi-fi equipment occupied two built-in shelves. A boom microphone stood on a stand. Behind it was an expensive but outmoded reel-to-reel recorder from the 1970s. A higher shelf held a wooden bust of a very ugly old man.

  Blume sat on a sofa, put his bag down, unclipped the flap, unzipped the top, and pulled out a pocketbook. Di Tivoli perched on a matching armchair opposite.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” said Blume.

  Di Tivoli scowled.

  “You know, we’re practically neighbors. I live on Via La Spezia. Know it? On the corner of Via Orvieto, the one with the fish market?”

  Di Tivoli continued to scowl.

  D’Amico made himself comfortable on a sofa with square cushions speckled like a sparrow’s eggs. He stretched his legs out and examined the fit of his socks over his tibia. It would be up to Blume to do the talking.

  “Tell me, how well did you know Arturo Clemente?”

  “Since university days. Off and on over twenty-five years,” said Di Tivoli.

  “Did you also know Sveva Romagnolo back then?”

  “Yes. And Questore Gallone,” said Di Tivoli.

  “Vicequestore Aggiunto,” corrected Blume.

  “The minor gradations of rank in the police are not of great interest to me. All I know is that he’s your superior.”

  “He most certainly is,” said Blume. “So you’ve always known Clemente?”

  “No, we fell out of touch until this dog-fighting campaign.”

  “Did Clemente come to you with the idea for a documentary?”

  “Actually, it was Sveva’s idea. To help his campaign and my career,” said Di Tivoli. “Part of being a journalist in Italy is you go in and out of favor. I had been out for a while since, well, it was a famous moment on TV when I slapped that hick from the Northern League. I’m sure you’ve both seen it.”

  “No,” said Blume. “I don’t watch TV.”

  “It’s on YouTube now. Millions of hits,” said Di Tivoli.

  “Told you,” said D’Amico, and nodded, pleased with himself.

  Blume shook his head. “Don’t visit YouTube either.”

  “Well, perhaps you should learn to,” said Di Tivoli. “Anyhow, this documentary was a comeback. I’d secured a commitment from the director of RAI 2, Minoli, who’s a friend of Sveva. The idea was to make a documentary with a thesis everyone agreed with, regardless of political persuasion.”

  “Everyone loves a dog,” said Blume. “Except me, perhaps.”

  “I can’t stand the filthy creatures, either, but, yes, that was the idea. Hard-hitting, tough scenes, good investigative journalism, scandalous discoveries, but no political party feels alienated. Do you follow politics?”

  “No,” said Blume.

  “You don’t seem to have many interests, Inspector.”

  “Commissioner,” said Blume.

  “You realize one phone call and you’re out of here,” said Di Tivoli. “I could start with Gallone, and work my way up the hierarchy to Manganelli if I wanted.”

  “We police have all sorts of little tricks for bringing people like you down to earth,” said Blume. “Don’t we, Nando?”

  D’Amico looked uncomfortable.

  “Oh, I realize that,” said Di Tivoli. “Which is why I want you to look at that box over there.”

  Blume looked at what he had taken to be an ordinary stereo. He now saw it was a small black computer box with the letters XPC printed on it, sitting next to a wide flatscreen TV.

  “See the orange light? That means it’s recording. I have been recording everything you have said since you came in. You never know, you two might give me material for an exclusive.”

  D’Amico looked even more uncomfortable, and half made to rise, as if to switch the machine off, but Blume caught his eye and shook his head. It was probably a bluff. Surely the guy didn’t have microphones planted around the room. Then he looked again and realized that the microphones were not hidden. A great big boom mike was standing there right in front of them. He had assumed it was a fashionable retro prop, like the 1970s reel-to-reel next to it. Then he remembered how Di Tivoli had picked up a remote control then put it down again before turning on the air conditioning with a second one.

  “That’s fine, Di Tivoli,” said Blume, opening his pad and taking out a pen. “Nothing bad has been said by anyone here. I am assuming that what I say now is going on to a tape?”

  “A hard disk, Inspector. Sorry-Commissioner. You’re not very knowledgeable about these things, are you?”

  Blume looked across at the black box, which winked an orange light in his direction. “Let’s move on,” said Blume. He stood up and began walking around. He went over to the bookcase where the machine with the orange light was humming. On the shelf above was the shining old wooden bust of the bald middle-aged man that he had noticed as he came in.

  “Who’s this, Buddha on a bad day?” Blume reached out his hand and lifted the head from the shelf. The lips were carved into a snarl, the nose was large and bent. A missing section from the top of the forehead added to the belligerent effect. It was heavier than he had expected, and he had to grab hold of it with his other hand.<
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  “Leave that alone!” Di Tivoli showed surprising speed in getting up and across the room. “No one touches that.”

  “OK, OK,” said Blume. Di Tivoli stroked the top of the bald wooden head before returning it reverentially to its shelf, then going back to his seat. Blume wondered if he talked to it.

  “It’s very old,” said Di Tivoli.

  “A museum piece?”

  “Etruscan. From Veio. More than two thousand years old.”

  “And why isn’t it in a museum?” asked Blume.

  “Because it’s ours. Legally. The question was settled a long time ago.”

  “Ours? Yours and whose?”

  “Ours. My family’s. My great grandfather, who was from Veio, bought it in London in 1902 and brought it back to where it belongs.”

  “This isn’t Veio,” said D’Amico from the sofa.

  Blume leaned against the shelves, inches from the black box with the orange light.

  “Don’t even think of touching the computer,” said Di Tivoli.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Blume, then leaned down and pressed the off switch.

  17

  For a moment, it seemed that neither Di Tivoli nor D’Amico had quite realized what Blume had done.

  Di Tivoli leapt up quickly and banged his leg against the corner of the Indian teak coffee table in the middle of the room, causing a slight tingling from the silverware in the dresser on the far side of the room.

  The sudden flash of fear Blume saw in Di Tivoli’s face had already resolved itself into pious outrage once he realized Blume was not about to attack him physically. Then, he pulled out a thin black phone, and the look of outrage was slowly replaced by a smirk. Blume heard his name mentioned twice.

  D’Amico meanwhile pulled out an even thinner phone and went to stand by the front door, murmuring something. Blume stood there in the middle of the room between them, watching one, then the other.

  Moments later, Di Tivoli was back, a swagger in his step. He stood in the middle of the room, adjusted the gray curls on his head and smiled at Blume.