Section three. The homicide squad. This was all about Cardinal Alessandrini and the power of the Vatican. So much for it being a free country. The Pope chose the head of the government; the cardinals chose who was to investigate the presumed disappearance of an adult girl.
I drank some whiskey to calm myself and smoked yet another cigarette. Then I took a taxi to Via della Camilluccia. Waiting for me in Elisa’s office were Capuzzo, Cardinal Alessandrini and an obese man with his tie loose and his thin white hair disheveled who introduced himself as Chief Superintendent Teodori. They were sitting around the desk. I had the impression that Alessandrini recognized the crumpled T-shirt and jeans he’d seen me in twenty-four hours earlier, but he made no comment.
“Good afternoon, Balistreri,” Teodori said by way of greeting. He didn’t shake my hand or indicate that I should sit. His tone wasn’t exactly cordial.
Well, I wasn’t going to be intimidated by a priest and a fat bureaucrat with a desk job. I didn’t say hello to anyone, just took a seat.
“You know the story, Balistreri,” Teodori said.
Old policemen irritated me in general; they were out of place. It was a profession to have from age thirty to fifty, then retirement. That is, for the unsuccessful, obviously.
Better to starve to death than find yourself at fifty still in the service of this fucking country.
Besides, as my high school teachers said, Michele Balistreri didn’t recognize authority either by age or profession. “Severe problem with ignoring authority, linked to childhood traumas in his relationship with his father” as the psychologist diagnosed years later when he examined me for recruitment into the Secret Service.
“I’ve already arranged for a bulletin to be issued, Teodori,” I said. I used just his last name, no title, exactly as he’d addressed me. Then I looked at Cardinal Alessandrini. “But I see that divine justice considers this insufficient.”
Teodori’s face got red, but Alessandrini smiled.
Real power wears a mask of cheerfulness.
“Don’t take this the wrong way and please excuse me, Captain Balistreri,” he said, emphasizing the title for Teodori’s benefit, “but there are precise rules to follow in these situations, and you have followed them. In my opinion, however, this is not a normal situation.”
And obviously between my judgment and his, it was his that counted for more. I didn’t refer to this in any way—there was no need. Besides, the presence of Teodori bore ample witness to it.
“The cardinal knows Elisa Sordi and her family well, and he says it is highly unlikely that she has stayed away for so long,” Teodori explained, as if I were a stupid child.
I decided not to help extricate Teodori from the difficult situation by telling him what he should do.
He turned to the cardinal, a little embarrassed.
“Naturally, Your Eminence,” he said, “Captain Balistreri has followed the proper procedures.”
I noticed the slight trembling of his sweaty hands. The room was stiflingly hot, despite the fact that the window was open. Elisa’s flower was still sitting on the windowsill.
“The rapid response team will handle this case from now on. The local precinct will continue its investigations, but they’re going to be stepped up,” Teodori continued, addressing the cardinal.
I looked at Capuzzo, who was staring at the floor. It wasn’t true; there was nothing to step up. Teodori was telling the cardinal a lie.
The cardinal read my thoughts.
“In what way will they be stepped up, Chief Superintendent Teodori?”
I saw the fat man turn pale and look at me uncertainly. But I was damned if I was going to help him out—the semiretired bureaucrat could sink in his own shit.
“We’ll send a description to the border patrol and Interpol,” he said at last.
He was lying, and knew he was lying. Perhaps he could push procedures forward by alerting colleagues on the Italian borders, but being a pain in the ass to Interpol over grown woman who had disappeared a little over twenty-four hours ago, without any sign of kidnapping or act of violence . . .
Alessandrini decided to take pity on him and rose from his seat.
“Very well, Chief Superintendent Teodori. Please thank the head of the rapid response team for assisting us.”
Us. Who was this us? Himself and Elisa’s parents? Or the Vatican higher-up who had called the Minister of the Interior? Perhaps the pontiff himself?
There was a knock on the door. Father Paul appeared, looking younger and more lost than usual.
“Your Eminence, I going San Valente if no more use to you.”
The American priest’s Italian was really improving.
“Wait for me downstairs, Father Paul,” Alessandrini told him sternly.
I had the feeling that what happened next wouldn’t be pleasant for Father Paul, whose eyes wandered around the room and came to rest on Elisa’s desk, where they remained for a second. Then he went out, followed by the Cardinal.
. . . .
“This is serious, Balistreri,” Teodori said. He was sweating like a pig while he tried to fill his pipe, and he was spilling tobacco all over Elisa Sordi’s desk. I realized that the meeting and the impromptu search of the evening before had compromised anything Forensics might find in the room.
Capuzzo looked at me in alarm. He knew what I thought about detectives who smoked a pipe: low-grade imitators of Maigret. But I didn’t say anything. My absence from the office could cause me some difficulties, but fortunately I had Angelo and the faithful Capuzzo to cover for me.
“Serious? Why is that, Teodori?”
“Because this isn’t just any old residential complex.”
He was irritated, as if it were the most natural thing in the world that investigative efforts should vary according to what was being investigated. He had the yellowish eyes of someone who suffered from liver problems and had blotchy skin that also suggested heart troubles. He made me feel sick, him and what he represented.
“Because of Cardinal Alessandrini?” I asked ingenuously.
Teodori swept his heavy, sweaty hand over Elisa’s desk, disturbing several papers.
“Not just that. Someone far more important than the cardinal lives in the other building: Count Tommaso dei Banchi di Aglieno, senator and president of the Italian neo-monarchist party.”
“I saw him yesterday afternoon. Then I saw him again when he was leaving at about a quarter past six,” I offered innocently.
“I know, and do you know where he was going? To a meeting with the Minister of the Interior,” Teodori said. He shook his head with concern. He was conveying what kind of person would have a meeting with a powerful Christian Democrat minister on a Sunday afternoon. The kind of person the count was.
“But he was with his wife,” I said.
“He must have dropped her off somewhere on his way to see the Minister. Don’t you get what we’re dealing with here?”
I had understood, but Teodori felt obliged to inform me in detail. This was a great family with castles, estates, and its roots in medieval Italian history. The count’s father’s brother had fought on Franco’s side with the Fascists and after the war had run off to Africa, where he’d accumulated great wealth and property. Count Tommaso’s father had fought with the 10th MTB squadron and, when the association between the House of Savoy and Mussolini was broken off, had remained on the King’s side. After the war he presided over the pro-monarchy committee that lost the referendum in 1946 and following this dishonor had shot himself in the head. Count Tommaso was fourteen years old and had assumed the burden of bringing the monarchy back to Italy.
Elisa Sordi, on the other hand, was a beautiful young woman from a working-class neighborhood who stumbled into a luxurious residential complex where she was surrounded by powerful men.
“Capuzzo, naturally you checked if there were—”
“Everything, Captain Balistreri, everything. Despite the crazy celebrations, no deaths reported
. Just some injuries from fireworks and a few kids who fell off car roofs—nothing serious.”
“All we can do is wait,” said Teodori.
“Well, apart from alerting our colleagues on the borders and Interpol,” I added sarcastically.
Teodori turned his yellow eyes on me. He wondered if I was more ignorant or arrogant.
“Naturally,” he said. “But let’s hope this beautiful young lady is recovering somewhere from a long night of celebrating.”
Clerics and aristocrats. Mussolini had always distrusted both their tribes. He’d flattered them to keep them happy in order to hide the basic distrust he felt. And I felt the same way too. But I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be fucked over as he had.
We agreed to touch base with Teodori the next morning. Then I tried to find Angelo, but he’d already left. I called Paola’s apartment. Cristiana replied.
“They’re not here. Paola had tickets for Aida at the Caracalla Baths. Can you come and pick me up, Michele?”
I made an excuse. I’d gotten all I’d wanted from her, and I didn’t want to risk her leaving her fiancé. I wanted to spend the evening drinking and trying to score in some bar, far away from the luxe life, illustrious people, and Elisa Sordi.
Friday, July 16, 1982
FOR SEVERAL DAYS THERE was neither sight nor sound of her. Teodori, whom I spoke to every day on the telephone, maintained that the girl’s disappearance could be an “elopement,” possibly even abroad. She had done it secretly, perhaps, because she was lacking the courage to be open about it.
I tried not to think about it, squashing the thought like an annoying insect. I hadn’t seen or heard from Angelo and had shut myself away between the office and the studio apartment in Garbatella, rotating the casual female company picked up in Trastevere’s bars and dives. I was smoking more than usual, drinking more than usual, and screwing more than usual. More than anything else, I didn’t want to be alone. As if those things could keep away the gnawing pangs I felt over Elisa Sordi.
Teodori called me on the Friday. A homeless man sleeping on the banks of the Tiber just past Ponte Milvio had found a woman’s body. I raced over there with Capuzzo, as if by going fast we could make up for the time I’d wasted back when it counted.
On the dry riverbank, exposed by the summer drought, a group of policemen stood around a dead body. The corpse, which was naked, had been attacked by insects and was in an advanced state of decomposition. It was covered with injuries from rats and shrubs along the river, along with obvious knife wounds and cigarette burns. Although heavy blows had devastated the face, I could see it was that of Elisa Sordi. There was no mistaking that incredibly beautiful hair, the figure, the color of her skin. I had seen other corpses, but this death was new to me; it went way beyond the usual violence.
Teodori was standing in front of the body, white as a sheet. His hands were trembling, and he was sweating feverishly in his absurd suit and loosened tie. Capuzzo was holding on to his stomach and trying to breathe deeply, his mouth gaping wide. I had to take control of the situation. I sent Capuzzo away before he threw up. A forensic pathologist was bent over the girl’s corpse.
I approached Teodori. “We should clear everyone away so that Forensics can—”
“Of course, of course!” he said. He gave orders, and then we were alone with the pathologist.
“Is it Elisa Sordi?” Teodori asked me. It was as if she were a relative and I was there to identify her.
I nodded yes, then walked away to have a cigarette. At the top of the hill, a line of the usual curiosity seekers had formed along the road. They were lazily licking away at ice cream cones, craning their necks in order to better enjoy the spectacle. I called Capuzzo and two officers and told them to break up the crowd. When I had finished my cigarette, I went back to Teodori, who was talking to the medical examiner.
“She’s been dead for days. There are signs of violence. It was a slow and painful death. Unless she was dead before she was beaten and burned—we’ll know after we do an autopsy.”
Teodori looked lost in thought.
“What was the cause of death?” he asked.
The medical examiner shook his head. “I don’t think she drowned. She must have been dead already when she was dumped in the river. Cardiac arrest or suffocation. She’s been dead for several days, maybe even since Sunday.”
I saw that young, devastated body with different eyes. I thought of that summer twelve years ago, in 1970, when I was escaping over the sea from what I had left in the sea, and from the mistakes I never wanted to call sins, as Christians do. That cycle of feelings that leads to a kind of paralysis: guilt, remorse, repentance. The lifeblood of the soul. Wounds that never heal.
. . . .
Elisa’s parents were sitting on a bench in the police station. A friend had told them after hearing news of the discovery on the radio. It was the wonderful new world of news in real time with a plethora of private radio stations hunting for the sensation that only bad news could guarantee. No one was taking any notice of the two poor things. Police officers and members of the public walked past them, going about their everyday business. From an open office door you could hear the laughter of those making plans for the weekend.
When they saw me coming, they rose to their feet like two well-disciplined schoolchildren and immediately I realized I couldn’t look them in the face. Mr. Sordi put an arm around the shoulders of his Giovanna, who was crying silently. In the summer half-light of that squalid office, my eyes went from Amedeo Sordi’s gray jacket, which was too large for him, to the furrow in his brow now deeper than the lines scored from cheek to mouth in his pale complexion, to the single tear running from Giovanna Sordi’s eyes, to the beam of July sunlight that came in through a window and reflected on the glossy photo of her daughter she held in her hands. They spoke not a word and asked me nothing.
The last thing these parents needed were the condolences of a young policeman frustrated with his own failure. In the end, I managed a rote “I’m sorry for your loss.” Then I shut myself in my office. What was I sorry about? The destruction of a young life? Two parents who might as well have lost their own lives? That weekend I might not go dancing and get drunk in one of the clubs by the beach. I might not fuck anyone that weekend. That would go on for several days, a week perhaps. Then I’d start my routine again: office, poker, whiskey, women, sleep.
But those two parents would never sleep easily again. Every night they would look into their only daughter’s bedroom, as empty as the rest of their lives. And they’d think of me, blind drunk, saying “Perhaps Elisa’s gone to watch the game with some friends.”
I squashed the thought angrily. What was done was done. Only the future counted.
I downed a bottle of whiskey and reflected on the fact that this wasn’t the kind of childish melodrama that usually nourished my baser instincts. I was no longer the “Michelino” who watched Westerns, the fearless cowboy who killed all the bad guys. I was a man of thirty-two who didn’t give a shit about anyone, not even himself. I knew the reasons well enough—they were all very clear.
So, what the fuck was I looking for? Did I want to seek absolution? Did I want to escape eternal regret by tracking down the evildoers? And what was evil?
It changed little; fate was not in agreement with me anyway.
Saturday, July 17, 1982
THE HEAD OF HOMICIDE handed the investigation over to Teodori. At first I wondered why they’d chosen someone of retirement age who was past his prime. I still didn’t understand all the subtleties of politics, in particular the politics of the Christian Democrats.
What I did know was that there were powerful forces surrounding Elisa Sordi’s death. A luxury residential complex, a cardinal, an aristocratic senator who wanted to bring back the king to rule Italy: spiritual power on the one hand, temporal power on the other. On the other side, two parents from the working class and some girl of theirs from the outskirts. In all probability she’d asked for it
, mixing with bad company or some random meathead attracted by her exceptional beauty.
I was assigned to be Teodori’s deputy in the investigation because I was the precinct captain and was familiar with the residential complex, its inhabitants, and the victim. I’d even been on Via della Camilluccia that day, just before Elisa Sordi went out for her last walk before the World Cup final. I’d spoken with her that afternoon, as the phone records showed. That was an accident, of course. I’d been looking for Dioguardi. In any case, I was Teodori’s ideal stooge.
It was another indication of the superficiality of the Italian police’s bureaucracy that no one in the Flying Squad went to check the personal details in my file. If they had, they’d have kept me a thousand miles away from the paradise of Via della Camilluccia and that inquiry.
Reconstructing the facts was the easy part. After lunch, Elisa worked in her office. Her mother spoke to her just after 6:00, immediately after my call. Before 6:30 the concierge had gone to her office to pick up a file to take to Cardinal Alessandrini. But no one saw Elisa Sordi when she left at 6:30. By that time, the complex was deserted. I had seen Paul leave, and then all the others afterward. The priest from the neighboring parish confirmed that he had seen the concierge, now in a village in India, in the front pew at Mass that evening.
When I went to Teodori’s office for the first time, his young secretary, Vanessa, caught my eye right away. She was tall and wore her black hair in a pageboy. She was narrow through the hips and chest, but she had great legs.
Teodori had a small office, a clear sign he wasn’t held in much esteem. The posters on the walls were of Italian seaside resorts in the middle of winter. Pretty depressing. He was slumped behind a desk that was in chaos, pipe tobacco all over the place, no air-conditioning, and a ceiling fan that made his papers fly around, adding to the general disorder.
“The problem is that we don’t know whether the girl was taken away before, during, or after the match. The first results of the autopsy indicate that she was already dead on Sunday, but it’s impossible to give a precise time with the body in the condition it’s in.” Teodori’s tone was grave.
The Deliverance of Evil Page 6
