by Grace Brophy
Two reports had come in during the night. Both were in folders on his desk. From the handwritten labels, he could see that one report was from Croatia and the other from Rome. He was particularly surprised by the early report from Rome, which normally treated Perugia the way the questore treated Assisi, as a backwater town worthy of no special favors and getting none. He assumed that the murder of an American, the niece of a friend of the PM, had sparked the prompt response. What had been bothering him since yesterday evening, though, was the identity of the person who had provided the questore with information on Sophie Orlic. The previous night, Carlo had known that Orlic didn’t have an alibi for Friday evening. Only three people other than himself had direct access to that information: Elena, Piero, and Fulvio Russo. Italian pragmatism at work, Cenni concluded. Carlo and Fulvio are sworn enemies, but when their interests collide, they help each other out.
The report on Paola Casati contained nothing of interest, just one short piece of paper listing her address in Rome and the information that she was a student of art restoration, currently working at the Borghese Gallery. No police record, not even a parking ticket. The folder containing the Orlic report was thicker than he’d expected. He thumbed through it quickly and found it contained two documents. The originals of both were in Slavic but English translations were included—a tribute to the power of the uni-lingual Americans, he thought with a sigh.
“Buongiorno Alex, may I interrupt?”
Cenni looked up in surprise. The questore was standing directly over him. It was barely 9:00 and their appointment was not until 10:00. The ear-to-ear smile that Carlo displayed, dazzling in its perfection of symmetry and whiteness, was always good for a few laughs among his subordinates. The latest rumor was that Togni and the PM shared the same dentist, a man known for capping every tooth in his patients’ heads, whether they needed it or not, and even more celebrated for squeezing in a few extra teeth for the cameras. The questore’s smile held no comfort for Cenni. He knew from past experience that the greater the display of porcelain, the more onerous the meeting would prove. Ah well, he thought warily, returning Carlo’s smile with fewer teeth but with equal insincerity, this is going to be more difficult than I’d thought.
He waved to the chair in front of his desk. “Carlo please! I’m still reviewing some of the reports on our cast of suspects, six so far and growing. I’d hoped to finish before our meeting at ten. Can you wait until I finish?”
“Oh Alex! Surely not six!” Togni added, dusting the seat with his handkerchief before sitting. “I understand this Croatian— the woman who found the body—had a number of runins with the American, actually threatened her in the street, and in Assisi of all places,” he tacked on with emphasis. “City of peace and all that,” he added, in case Cenni had missed his point. “Unless she has an unbreakable alibi—and I understand that she hasn’t—she seems to be the likely suspect.” His smile grew by two additional molars waiting for a response. A long silence ensued, broken only by the buzzing of two flies copulating on the windowsill.
The questore, the first to yield, as usual, spoke. “For Christ’s sake. Alex, can’t you swat those things? They’re damn annoying!” And when Cenni didn’t respond, “You know the PM’s anxious for us to make a quick arrest. He wants as little yellow journalism as possible surrounding this case.” He paused, confounded for the moment; perhaps he’d noticed the small dints on either side of Cenni’s mouth, a signal to those who knew him well that the commissario was amused, or perhaps he was struck by the incongruity of his own words. “Well, the Leftist press, anyway. They’re always out for the PM’s blood, if you know what I mean. An early arrest and conviction would do a lot to keep the press quiet. What say you, Alex?” he asked, his tone now pleading. “Do we have enough evidence to arrest this woman?”
“She doesn’t have an alibi for what we believe is the time of death,” Cenni responded. “But neither do any of the other suspects. We’re still waiting for the postmortem report. If what we’ve learned so far turns out to be fact, the uncle has the strongest motive for murder—money! Minelli left the bulk of her estate to him, if she didn’t change her will. We’ll talk to her lawyer in New York tomorrow. And from something the wife said, the family can use the money. What’s more, if the rape were faked by a woman, as we discussed last night, the Casati women—all three of them—have as strong a motive as Orlic.”
Cenni paused to let what he’d just said sink in, then leaning across the desk, he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Listen Carlo, I agree with you about the Leftist press. It’s out for blood these days, ever since the PM’s party recommended that we fingerprint all non-EC applicants for residence. L’Unita is particularly vicious in its denunciations, accusing everyone in the government, the police in particular, of being fascists.”
He dropped his voice further. “Remember, Carlo, we still haven’t lived down that incredible botch two years ago, when Russo arrested that retarded Albanian for the stiletto murders. Our friend in Assisi got a nice pat confession from the boy after some tender coaxing. We looked like fools, worse even, when two more Albanians were iced in the same way, and the killers turned out to be a members of a homegrown neo-Nazi group. The newspapers were delighted with that one, particularly when the Albanian’s lawyer provided pictures of the kid’s bruises to the press.”
The questore’s dapper little presence had noticeably deflated, his smile now a shadow of its former self. Satisfied that he was well along in achieving his purpose, Cenni leaned back in his chair and raised his voice, this time to an authoritative tone.
“Carlo, take my word for it. If we arrest this Orlic woman for murder, the press will scrutinize every move we make. God help us if it turns out she’s innocent! Certainly we need to keep the PM pacified,” he said, lowering his voice again, “although it’s doubtful he’ll survive all his scandals. But let’s remember we’re in Perugia. The PM had very little support here in the last election. If he goes down in the next election, why should we go with him? And we will if we’re perceived as supporting him. At least, let’s present the appearance of neutrality.”
Cenni knew the questore very well and realized immediately from Carlo’s now-puckered upper lip that he’d stepped over the line. Carlo Togni had yet to be neutral in anything if there might be something in it for him and, on principle, even if there wasn’t, but God help the subordinate who remarked on it. The look of acquiescence on his face was gone, his displeasure now evident, and instead of capitulating on Orlic, he took a deep breath and reasserted his authority by standing. Even in elevator shoes, he was inches shorter than Cenni. Whenever he felt at a disadvantage in one of their discussions, he would manage, somehow, to stand while Cenni sat. This was a particularly difficult maneuver if they were in Cenni’s office, and it was one that Cenni usually took pleasure in thwarting. But this wasn’t a disagreement over assignments or promotions, and Cenni was more interested in winning his point than in annoying his boss.
But before he could attempt to salvage the situation, the questore, in that disconcerting way he had of changing moods in a moment, did it for him. He walked toward the door and looked outside, checking for eavesdroppers. “I see your point, Alex,” he said as he walked back toward the desk. “But how can I explain to the PM that the Croatian is walking around free, particularly if she’s murdered an American! You know how anxious he is to stay in with the Americans, the little sh . . . sycophant,” he added, smiling to demonstrate his neutrality with respect to the PM. “What’d you say, Alex, anyone else we can arrest besides a member of the Casati family? Nothing permanent, you know, just to keep the PM happy for a few days.”
He looked so pleased with himself, so charmed by his own tractability in coming up with a compromise—keeping the PM off his back without aliening his favorite, and always intractable commissario—that Cenni knew he would have to agree to arrest someone, so long as it wasn’t a Casati.
“There’s always the boyfriend,” Cen
ni acknowledged. “He has an alibi of sorts, but we haven’t substantiated it yet. He’s Canadian,” he added as an apparent afterthought, knowing he’d get some objections from Togni on that point but prepared to counter them. “We can put him under house arrest and tell him it’s for his own safety; then if his alibi is substantiated, he won’t have any cause to complain to his embassy.”
“For God’s sake, Alex. How does that solve our problem with the press or with the PM? Canadian, American, they’re all the same,” Togni said querulously. “And a Canadian is non-EC, the same as a Croatian.”
“True, but the Left won’t see it that way. For them, the only people who are extra-community are Albanians, Eastern Europeans, and anyone from Africa. And the PM’s even easier to please. The Americans and the Canadians are not getting along these days. The Americans won’t object if we arrest a Canadian. The opposite, I expect.”
“I trust your judgment, Alex,” Togni replied, sounding pacified. “I always do. But do you really think he’s the murderer?”
“No! Not the type, and for sure he’s not the one who got her pregnant. I doubt he could,” he added. “But if it keeps the PM and the press quiet, why not?”
“Well, if he’s really not guilty, treat him nicely, Alex. Order in from one of the better restaurants, none of that Assisi tourist junk. Whatever he wants. And let’s hope it turns out to be anyone but a Casati. I trust to your discretion, Alex,” he added, as he started toward the door.
Cenni had just heaved a mental sigh of relief when Togni turned abruptly in the open doorway. “You know, Alex, it’s because of me that Il Lupino is assigned to that backwater haven for religious nuts. Why should the press connect me with his past mistakes if we arrest Orlic for the murder?”
Cenni hesitated as though considering the questore’s point. “Ah, but he wasn’t transferred until a year after the stiletto murders. The Leftist press has a long memory, Carlo. Even worse, the American was murdered in Assisi which, unfortunately, is where we hid Fulvio. The press will make whatever connections suit its purposes. It’s highly doubtful they’ll say: Carlo Togni got rid of Fulvio Russo. More likely, it’ll be: Fulvio Russo was working for Carlo Togni when he beat a confession out of a retarded Albanian. Now he’s working for Togni again. Carlo, we’ve got to be very careful here. Don’t worry about Orlic. I’ve got one of my men watching her.” Dropping his voice again, with a nod toward the open door, he added, “We’re no different from the PM, Carlo. We have our own careers to protect.”
The questore was finally gone, and Cenni had gotten what he wanted, but at a cost. He’d have to put the Canadian under house arrest. I hope to God we can substantiate his alibi quickly, he thought to himself as he took a swig of his now tepid coffee. “Screw you Carlo!” he said sotto voce toward the still-open door. It was going to be another lousy day.
3
CENNI STARED AT the Orlic report with some trepidation. Sophie Orlic had the same type of Nordic good looks that Chiara had had, hair so blonde you could see the sun in it, translucent skin with just the faintest suggestion of the veins beneath. But the similarities ended there. Chiara’s laughter had always been just beneath the surface. It would rise up for any occasion. She laughed heartily at everything, most of all at herself, and just as often at him. She’d had no pretensions, no secrets, and no intrigues. Orlic had smiled just once yesterday, and that only when Piero had tripped on his chair leg as he got up for his third piece of pizza. Yet he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
He had decided last night, right before he fell asleep, that it was the mystery that bewitched him, and in a country built on mystery and steeped in intrigue, he had learned that most mysteries, the sacred and the profane, cease to exist when the structure beneath is revealed, or in her case, the facts of her life, the commonplace events. He’d establish the facts of her life, he decided, and then he’d forget her. He imagined her biography from the little he already knew of her: worked for a doctor, married the doctor, divorced the doctor, childless. Facts are what I need, he thought.
The top document was a brief dossier and contained what he was hoping would cure his malady, the simple data of her life: date and place of birth, family background, education. It was essentially the same information that Orlic had provided on her application for a soggiorno. What was not shown on the soggiorno, though, was that she was a widow with a twenty-year-old daughter. There was little about the dead husband and the daughter other than their names, Sergio and Christina, and a brief notation that the daughter was currently a patient in a state hospital in Zagreb.
The second document was a transcript from a war crimes hearing conducted by a group called “The Committee for Retribution.” He didn’t know the group, but assumed it was one of the many that had formed in the now-defunct Yugoslavia to ferret out war criminals. In this case, the committee was made up of Croats hunting Serbs. They wouldn’t get very far, he thought, as anyone familiar with the Balkans debacle should know. The Orthodox Serbs would simply turn the tables and accuse the Catholic Croats of genocide, if not in the recent war, than in the previous one, which, if Cenni understood Serb reasoning correctly, was justification for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Muslim Bosnians. Whole cities and villages had been destroyed; millions of lives disrupted; tens of thousands dead, maimed, tortured, raped, bayoneted; and he was a cynic. He didn’t like himself for it, but it had all been so senselessly horrific, of absolutely no profit to any of the parties involved, that it was impossible for those on the outside looking in to understand or to grieve. He picked up the transcript and read:
Cases No 53, 54, 55: Sergio, Sophie, and Christina Orlic
In August 1995, Baranj, a village in western Bosnia, which at the time had a majority population of Croatians (52%) and minority populations of Serbians (23%) and Muslims (25%) was occupied by Serbian forces, and all Muslim and Croatian community leaders who were still in the village were brought to Serbian headquarters for questioning. In early September 1995, the village was reoccupied by Croatian forces. At that time, after investigation by the Croatian army, it was determined that 65 Croatian and Muslim men and three Muslim women, all from the same village, had been murdered and their bodies consigned to a gravesite outside the village. After the signing of the Dayton Accord, on December 14, 1995, and the disbursement of United Nations peacekeeping troops to the area, an investigation was begun into these same accusations by the newly formed Committee for Retribution. This report is made in support of the above allegations and is affirmed by the testimony, attached, of Sophie Orlic, who was deposed by this committee on the 15th day of April 1996.
Signed: Josip Nikic, Committee for Retribution Testimony of Sophie Orlic, an Ethnic Croatian April 15, 1996
The Serbs started to shell the village in mid-August. We talked about leaving, going to Zagreb to stay with cousins, but I was three months pregnant and had been ill for most of my pregnancy. Sergio was afraid the trip would be too much for me, and we were both sure that we had nothing to fear. In Baranj, the Croats, Serbs, and Muslims all get along together, we said. Christina’s best friend was Serbian and at least a third of Sergio’s patients were Serbs.
On the morning of August 20, two officers arrived at our home in a jeep. We knew one of them, Andjelko Visnar. He had owned a pharmacy in Baranj until 1991. There were some bad feelings between him and Sergio. Sergio had reported his suspicions to the local medical board that Visnar was adulterating certain cancer medications. The evidence was not sufficient to charge Visnar with a crime or to revoke his pharmacist’s license, but the examining board issued a warning to him based on Sergio’s testimony. He sold the pharmacy after that and left the village. I didn’t know the other officer.
They took us to the Town Hall where they had set up their headquarters. We sat outside the mayor’s office, on the wooden benches for petitioners, for more than an hour. We were the only ones there other than a guard who was posted at the front door. He had a gun but even if he hadn’t, we wouldn’t hav
e tried to leave. Sometimes we heard laughter from inside and Sergio and I would look at each other and try to smile. Christina sat between us. She was holding my hand and she squeezed it very hard every time there was a noise from behind the doors. Sergio told her not to be afraid. Tell them what they want to hear, he said, and don’t provoke them. “I’ll take care of you, Kitten.” That was the last thing he ever said to Christina. Visnar came out of the office. He stood in the doorway and motioned to Sergio to come inside. That was the first time I felt really afraid. I knew when our eyes locked that he hated us.
That was at one o’clock. We hadn’t eaten since early morning and the soldier who was standing guard offered Christina half of his sandwich. At times we would hear voices and laughter from behind the closed doors. I listened for Sergio’s voice but I couldn’t hear it. At two o’clock, Visnar came out again and motioned to us both to come inside. All of the blinds in the office were drawn. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the low light before I saw Sergio. He was seated in the center of the room, in a office swivel chair. His arms and legs were taped to the chair with black masking tape. A white towel was stuffed into his mouth. His eyes were shut, just slits of clotted blood, and he was bleeding from his nose. I don’t think he saw us or even knew we were there. At first I thought he was unconscious, perhaps even dead, but I heard a loud gurgle and realized that he was choking, probably from the blood running down the back of his throat. Christina, who was behind me, screamed. I ran to Sergio before Visnar could stop me and started pulling on the towel. Visnar pulled me away, then slapped me hard across the face. I heard a squish and knew that he had broken my nose.
