The Bastards of Pizzofalcone

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  The monk was trying to catch Yula’s attention so they could order.

  “Aside from the fact that you didn’t tell me in confession, so technically I have no obligation to keep your secrets, I wouldn’t even know who to go tell, you big-headed cop. Ah, here you are, my lovely Yula, two margherita pizzas with extra mozzarella and two potato croquettes, the usual. In a hurry, I’ve got someplace to be. So what else is new?”

  Again, Pisanelli waved vaguely.

  “Well, you know, the last one was six months ago, that man who hanged himself in the bathroom. I managed to speak to his daughter, in Canada; she didn’t even come back for the funeral because she didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket, or so she said.”

  “And what did she tell you?”

  “What do you think she told me . . . that she didn’t understand why I was calling her, that her father ought to be left to rest in peace, that he’d made his own decision, reprehensible but understandable. That he was eighty years old, that in twenty years, he’d never managed to come to terms with her mother’s death. And that the note he’d left explained it all. Nonsense, in other words. That’s what she told me. And then she hung up on me.”

  “And doesn’t that tell you something?” Brother Leonardo asked sadly. “Why do you have this obsession, that’s what I’d like to know. It’s a terrible thing, a mortal sin, a crime against life, to commit suicide. Still, people do it, they’ve always done it, and, I’m sorry to tell you, they’re always going to.”

  Pisanelli furrowed his brow: “There’s suicide and then there’s suicide, Leona’. Some of them are plausible, the circumstances are explanation enough: young men dumped by their sweethearts, drug addicts unable to get a fix, and, in this slowdown, businessmen being throttled by debts and organized crime. But you’re going to have to explain to me why a man would kill himself because his wife died twenty years ago. And just how he managed to hang himself from the overhead light fixture in the bathroom after balancing precariously on the rim of the toilet—even though he’s eighty years old and practically crippled by arthritis. Why he left a note written in all caps: ‘I just can’t go on.’ No signature, no advance warning. He’s just like all the other cases: elderly, lonely, depressed. This has been happening over and over again for the past ten years; all have been in the same neighborhood, all have left very brief notes, written in caps or on a computer, never in their own handwriting. You have to admit it’s odd, don’t you?”

  The monk rolled his blue eyes heavenward as if in despair: “Lord God, maybe You can help him. Would you mind telling me just what is it that you’re trying to prove? That the despair that comes with feeling old, alone, and useless isn’t a powerful enough motive to drive someone to end it all? You know, out there, right in the middle of these crowded streets, there’s more loneliness than you can imagine. Take it from me, I spend my time in the confessional listening to people tell me about the specters that overwhelm their hearts. Many of them lack the sheer physical courage, but trust me, there are plenty out there right now who’d be happy to have done with all this. Sometimes it’s hard to convince them it’s worth it to go on living despite that fact.”

  The policeman waited until Yula had served them their food and the monk had crossed himself before answering: “I already know everything you’re telling me. And I know that you work hard to bring comfort to the people of this neighborhood, as if you really were ’o Munaciello himself. Still, it doesn’t add up, you know? I just see too many elements in common, too many peculiar details.”

  Leonardo was devouring his pizza with unmistakable delight: “Mmm, you tell me how anyone can doubt the existence of God after eating a margherita pizza. Bless Il Gobbo, and bless you, too, since you’re so kind as to treat me to lunch, given my vow of poverty. But to get back to what we were saying, don’t you think that this theory of yours, that a serial killer is murdering depressed old people, smacks a little too much of an American TV show? Here in our country, these things—these particular kind of things at least—just don’t happen. And then I don’t understand what the alleged killer could possibly gain.”

  Pisanelli turned defensive: “I never said that there’s definitely a serial killer. I’m just saying that these cases were filed away far too quickly, that’s all. These dead people deserved a little attention, before being disposed of with a rubber stamp at the bottom of a death certificate and an awkward funeral. And I’m also saying that silence in the aftermath of such an act is convenient for everyone, even the family.”

  “My poor friend. You’re transferring your grief onto other people, that’s what you’re doing. Ever since we lost poor Carmen, you can’t seem to accept it. It’s very common, you know. If you only knew how often I’ve seen it happen . . .”

  The policeman answered coldly: “Carmen has nothing to do with this, Leona’. Carmen was a very sick woman, and she simply couldn’t bring herself to face the terminal phase of her illness. And she took advantage of the fact that Lorenzo and I were both away to swallow a bottle of pills. She really did kill herself. These suicides are different.”

  “I was the last one to see Carmen alive, do you remember that? We have her to thank for the fact that you and I even know each other; in her search for some relief from her depression, she turned to faith. And I’ll tell you now what I said to you at the time, that talking to her was like looking into an abyss. She was in despair, psychologically, she’d gone past the point of no return. But I’m convinced that she found her faith, in the end. And that the Lord took her in, even though the thing she did to herself was terrible. She just was too afraid of the pain the cancer was going to subject her to, before the end. Her brain was flooded with fear, and that’s why she did it; not because she had stopped loving you.”

  Pisanelli looked out the window to conceal his tears. Just a few yards away, on the balcony across the narrow vicolo, sheets on a clothesline flapped in the wind like white flags.

  “I talk to her, you know, Leona’. I still talk to her, as if she were alive. I’ll come home, and I talk to her. Sometimes, all night long. Do you think I’m losing my mind?”

  The monk patted his friend’s hand, gently.

  “No, my dear brother. You’re not losing your mind. You talk to her because Carmen really is with you, close to you. She watches you, and she follows you, and she hopes that you can free yourself from your obsessions. And that you take care of yourself, so you can live a long life. Because you do want to go on living, don’t you?”

  Pisanelli met his friend’s gaze with his own tear-reddened eyes: “Yes, Leonardo. I want to live. I want to live so I can know for certain whether these dead people left this world willingly, or if they were forced to. That’s why I want to go on living. And that’s why I keep my prostate cancer to myself and tell no one else about it. First let me crack this case, and then I’ll be glad to die, too.”

  XXXIII

  The offices and laboratories of the forensic team’s inter-regional division, housed inside an old military barracks in the city center, were a cell of efficiency and modernity: to step inside was to travel to a different planet.

  The building itself was austere and gray, built a hundred and fifty years ago for military purposes: a large courtyard, a colonnade, a handsome stone staircase. Then, inside, clean hallways and strong, diffuse lighting, men and women in white lab coats striding briskly out one door and in another, focused on what they were doing, no one loitering or killing time by the vending machines.

  Lojacono and Aragona were received by a guard at the entrance who, after taking their names, pointed them to a small waiting room. A few minutes later, a slender man with a receding hairline came in. His white lab coat was unbuttoned over a light blue shirt and a bow tie festooned with butterflies; a pair of reading glasses dangled from a strap around his neck while a pair for distance perched on the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m Superintendent Bistrocchi, b
uongiorno. And you are . . .”

  The two policemen introduced themselves. When they mentioned Pizzofalcone, the expression of cordial welcome vanished instantly from the superintendent’s face, replaced by a scowl of mistrust.

  “Ah, Pizzofalcone. So they didn’t shut it down after all. What do you need?”

  Aragona attempted his famous dramatic gesture with the glasses, hoping to regain a shred of credibility.

  “We need information about the murder of Cecilia De Santis, on Via Caracciolo, which we presume occurred between Sunday night and Monday morning. You investigated the crime scene, and from what we’ve heard . . .”

  Bistrocchi interrupted him with a sharp gesture: “We can’t say anything; you’ll receive an official report in due course.”

  Lojacono, who hadn’t yet spoken, broke in: “We know that we’ll receive the report. It’s just that, as you know very well, sir, the first few hours are fundamental. And since we know, as Aragona was just saying, that the stolen objects have been found and are now here on the premises, under examination, we thought that . . .”

  Bistrocchi didn’t even let him finish: “There’s nothing for you to think, sir. We work always and exclusively through official channels; this is a laboratory, we don’t do things by halves. When we’re done running the tests we need to run, we’ll inform you of our results. And not a minute before.”

  Aragona ground his teeth and spoke to Lojacono: “Because we’re from Pizzofalcone, you get that, Loja’? If we’d come from anywhere else, we would already have been given an informal look at the information.”

  The superintendent didn’t bat an eye: “Think whatever you like. I’m not authorized to preview our reports for anyone.”

  Lojacono said to his partner: “You know what I think, Aragona? That this would a good time to go get a cup of coffee. Someplace nearby.”

  As soon as they stepped out of the barracks and back onto the street, Lojacono pulled out his cell phone. Aragona was seething: “What a ridiculous asshole! And this whole Bastards of Pizzofalcone thing is a real pain in the ass! You tell me: why are we being shamed for what those four idiotic criminals did a year ago, miserable feebleminded . . .”

  Lojacono raised a hand to stem the tide of complaints.

  “Hello? Ciao, Laura. It’s me. Am I bothering you?”

  The pleasant, Sardinian-accented voice replied: “Oh, what a lovely surprise! You know, I was about to call you to ask, off the record, just how things are going. I’m in regular contact with Palma, but I wanted to hear it from someone in the field.”

  “And here I am, calling you from the field. You know I try not to bother you, if I can possibly help it.”

  Piras’s laughter poured out of the phone.

  “As far as that goes, you actually do your best not to call at all, not just to avoid bothering me. What’s up?”

  Lojacono told her that he was standing with his partner outside the offices of the forensic squad and summarized what had just happened with Bistrocchi.

  “. . . and we really need to get the information immediately. You know very well that the first few days after a murder that might turn out to be a crime of passion are fundamental; the more time passes, the easier it is for the murderer or murderers to get themselves organized, and the harder it is for us.”

  “Let me see if I understand, are you saying that you think this was a crime of passion? Not a robbery, or a burglary gone wrong?”

  “I don’t know. There are pieces that don’t match up, the fact that the door wasn’t forced open, the fact that the corpse was pointed toward the rear of the apartment . . . Which is exactly why we need to know what the forensic squad knows. As soon as possible.”

  Piras thought it over for a moment, then said: “All right. Wait a couple of minutes, then go back in. You’ll see, you’ll be given a different welcome.”

  They went to a café and had the cup of coffee, as announced, along with a couple of slices of pizza, which they ate standing at the counter. Aragona commented on how depressing their lunch was. When they walked back into the barracks, fifteen minutes had passed, and they found a mortified Bistrocchi awaiting them, alongside a woman in a lab coat. She was young, very attractive, and clearly in command; she immediately introduced herself: “Lieutenant Lojacono, is that right? Hi, I’m the chief administrator, Rosaria Martone. I supervise this investigative squad. I apologize for the earlier misunderstanding: Bistrocchi here hadn’t been informed of the importance and urgency of your investigation. We’ve brought all the documentation with us,” she said, pointing to the file that Bistrocchi held in one hand. “Would you care to come to my office?”

  She led the way down a corridor, followed by Bistrocchi; as they walked, Aragona shot sweet darts of mental vengeance at the man. The office was a large, clean, tidy room, lit by a window overlooking the interior courtyard. Martone pointed them to two armchairs and a small couch in a corner of the room opposite a large desk cluttered with documents and file folders.

  “Let’s sit down here, we’ll be more comfortable. All right, Bistrocchi, bring us up to speed.”

  The superintendent, who had remained standing, gazed in embarrassment at his fingertips.

  “My apologies, I hadn’t realized that this case was a priority. We’ve completed our examination of the apartment, but the report still hasn’t been drafted . . .”

  Martone waved one hand impatiently. Lojacono though to himself that behind the woman’s delicate features and petite stature must lurk a formidable personality: “Bistrocchi, let’s not waste any more time—ours or our colleagues’—with bureaucratic excuses. Summarize the crucial points for us; the precinct will receive the report in due time.”

  The man took a deep breath, switched to a pair of reading glasses, and opened the file.

  “Now then, first of all the points of access to the apartment: there are no signs of forced entry, either on the building’s main door, which is wood on the exterior and metal on the interior, nor on the front door—which is made of wood and is single-paneled—that gives onto the landing, or the second, internal door, which is glass. The apartment appeared to be in excellent condition, both structurally and in terms of plumbing, with . . .”

  “Bistrocchi,” the woman roared. “Get to the point!”

  The man blinked rapidly.

  “Certainly, boss. The only room here described, because it was in a state of disorder, is the living room, which is where the corpse was found. All of the surfaces were carefully analyzed, dusted with hygroscopic and magnetic powders, but no latent fingerprints were found. Likewise, two buccal swabs were performed on the cadaver, and fingernail clippings from both hands were taken as well; here, too, negative results from the analyses performed by the laboratory we operate that specializes in the examination of organic and biological material.”

  Now it was Aragona’s turn to blink rapidly. “Which means?”

  “Nothing,” the director explained. “No prints other than those belonging to people whose prints ought to have been there, I’d imagine.”

  Bistrocchi nodded, turning to the next page. “Exactly. Only the prints of the dead woman, the housekeeper, and two prints belonging to the notary on both the handles of the door leading to the rear of the apartment.”

  “And nothing on the corpse,” Lojacono added, speaking more to himself than anyone else. “No flesh under the nails, no bite marks. She didn’t put up a struggle.”

  Martone nodded. “So it would appear.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Lojacono asked: “What about the alleged murder weapon? The glass ball, in other words.”

  Bistrocchi flipped through his papers.

  “Here we are then: glass sphere with wooden base, found beneath the armchair, etc, on carpet, etc . . . intact, free of abrasions or cracks, etc . . . at the top of sphere we found traces of organic, hematic material, as me
ntioned in analysis attached . . . and hair . . . here’s the analysis. Blood and hair matching those of Cecilia De Santis. The marks are compatible with the wound on the back of the neck of the cadaver. In all likelihood, then, this was the murder weapon.”

  Martone puffed out her cheeks and ran a hand over her face. “Bistrocchi, please. I think what Lieutenant Lojacono wants to know is whether there were any foreign prints on the object. Can you tell us, or are you going to keep us in suspense for a few more hours?”

  The man’s ears reddened, and he said hastily: “A partial print was detected. Made by a glove. That’s all.”

  Nothing. No fingerprints. Never once did things turn out to be simple, thought Lojacono. Never once did they luck out.

  He addressed the director: “At the station house they told us that you were given several articles that might turn out to be the items stolen from the apartment, pieces of fine silver, I believe. Could you tell us something about them?”

  Martone was happy to oblige: “Yes, we received those this morning. They were in a plastic bag, which had been abandoned in a dumpster. There was nothing on the bag or on the objects themselves: two small vases, two picture frames, a centerpiece, and a statuette of a lady dressed in nineteenth-century attire. Not even the housekeeper’s fingerprints; evidently they had recently been cleaned. The thief or thieves wore gloves and didn’t remove them. There are no marks of any kind.”

  Aragona scratched his forehead: “I don’t get it. Why steal a couple of pieces of silver in an apartment overflowing with extremely valuable objects, and then toss them into the first dumpster you see?”

  “Sometimes these things happen,” Lojacono answered. “It might suddenly have dawned on them what they’d done, and they panicked and dumped the loot. Or else they realized that we might be able to trace them through their fence, or whoever eventually bought the pieces. Or else, again, the burglary might have been nothing more than a crude attempt to cover up the real motive. Dottoressa, may I ask a favor? Could I see the murder weapon?”