A Few Drops of Blood

by Jan Merete Weiss

  “The good old days?” Natalia said. “When I was in the Third Form, the sisters made us go down into an ossuary beneath a church. The dead were bones, skeletons fully dressed and standing upright, except for the young virgins and girl children. They lay on the ground with crowns on their heads.”

  “Sounds creepy,” Angelina volunteered.

  “So,” Natalia said, “what do we have here?”

  Francesca flipped open her file. “There were traces of animal blood on both bodies and in the surround.”

  “Animal blood?” Natalia said and took a sip of coffee.

  Francesca nodded. “Pig, cow, goat … A lot of traces in the swabs that came back from the crime scene.”

  “You think they were doing animal sacrifices?” Angelina asked. “Part of some weird ritual?”

  “No, Officer Cavatelli,” Dr. Agari said. “I believe the two died where animals are butchered.”

  “A slaughterhouse.”

  “Right,” Francesca said. “The knife used to mutilate was most likely a butcher’s blade designed for dismembering cattle.”

  Natalia said, “Camorra are known partners in at least three abattoirs, and I’m sure they have their hooves in many more.”

  “God,” Angelina said, grimacing. “What didn’t they do to these two poor people …”

  “The question so far avoided,” said Natalia. “Sexual activity?”

  Francesca glanced at her report. “Vincente Lattaruzzo suffered tears in the mucosal lining of the rectum and colon. Likewise Bagnatti, who also suffered perforations of the bowel and near the sigmoid curve at the top of the rectum that leads into the ascending colon. Both would have required emergency medical care and surgery had they survived.”

  “Were they raped?”

  “Both men were anally penetrated but not by a penis.”

  “Hand balling?” Angelina said.

  “What’s hand balling?” Natalia asked.

  “Fist fucking,” Angelina said.

  “The slow introduction of a hand into a body cavity,” Francesca explained.

  “A hand?” Natalia said, incredulous.

  “By the way,” Francesca said, “you did note where Vincente Lattaruzzo’s testicles were found?”

  Natalia balanced her cup on the wide arm of the chair. “In the other victim’s mouth, yes.”

  “Symbolic perhaps?” Francesca said. “Maybe he talked out of turn. And the killers wanted to make their point. The cosmetics might have been a further insult and humiliation of the victims, Nat.”

  “Including the white dots at the outside corners of their eyes?”

  “White dots?” Angelina said.

  “She’s still reading the reports,” Natalia said. “We’re keeping Corporal Cavatelli quite busy.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Agari said. “First week on the job.”

  “Compared to Palermo, it’s a picnic so far.”

  “She’s still in the honeymoon phase,” Natalia said. “Her boss hasn’t transformed into an incompetent ogre yet.”

  “Don’t listen to Captain Monte,” Francesca said. “Hasn’t ever happened. We’ve worked together—what?—seven years. You’ve done well and come far, Nat.”

  “Starting out late as I did, I had to try and make up for lost time.”

  “Which you most certainly did,” Dr. Agari said.

  Natalia flipped open a postmortem loose leaf on the coffee table and turned to a color close-up of Vincente Lattaruzzo’s eyes. Angelina leaned forward to look.

  “See?” Natalia said. “Heavy coke users once put cosmetic white dots next to their eyes to obscure the gray caste. It used to be common, a subtle sign of one’s decadence. A much dated practice now.”

  “Were drugs involved?” Angelina asked.

  “Nothing of note in their systems. Insignificant traces of cocaine and marijuana in both bodies.”

  “So they had no serious levels of drugs in their blood?”

  “No,” said Francesca. “Though they may have wished they did, given what they endured.”

  Angelina made a face as she skimmed through the autopsy photos. “Slaughtered in an abbatoir and delivered to the contessa’s garden butchered. Lovely.”

  “You have anything on the worker’s shirt at the scene?”

  “Very old, very stained with badly deteriorated dried blood. Not from either victim. Eight stab marks in the fabric: seven slits in front, one in back.”

  “The blood,” Natalia said. “How old?”

  “Decades. Half a century?”

  “The sign of an old score settled?” Natalia said. “A killing avenged?”

  Dr. Agari nodded. “Possibly.”

  It was Camorra custom for a wife and mother to remove the shirt from the slain. The women would kiss the wounds and suck at the blood of the beloved, saying, Likewise may I drink the blood of the man who killed you.

  The shirt would be handed down from generation to generation, preserved until the time of vengeance. Had an ancient blood debt been settled there in the contessa’s magnificent garden?

  Natalia thanked Francesca for her time and departed with her young partner.

  “So,” Angelina said, as they left the morgue, “you think we have a Camorra hit? A vengeance killing?”

  “An old vendetta? Could be.”

  “So what now, Captain?”

  “Well, Scavullo is practically broadcasting his involvement, though he’s made sure he’s left nothing to connect him. He’s not insane—certainly homophobic. But why draw attention to himself?”

  “Perhaps it was business or, as you said, the settlement of an old score for someone else. That fits him more than any other theory.”

  “Who’ve we got? Who do we press next?”

  Angelina stopped and ticked them off on her fingers. “Stefano Grappi? Director Garducci? Ernesto Scavullo? Persons unknown?”

  Natalia squinted in the bright sunlight. “Garducci. We’re overdue on a run at Garducci.”

  “Good,” said Angelina. “I’ve come up with more ammunition.”

  A lone royal palm towered over the entrance to the museum. It had survived there for years despite the pollution from the heavy traffic on Cavour. Somehow the pink brick of the giant edifice had not been completely tarnished. Likewise the large marble columns that flanked the entrance, dirty though they were. And somehow, despite the roar of cars and motorbikes, the parked cars and hulking tour buses, Natalia always felt a sense of tranquility as soon as she climbed the steps and made her away across the tuff stone.

  In the soaring vestibule, the security guards greeted them with a friendly salute. A lone tourist stashed a lime green backpack in a tiny metal locker in the coatroom as they passed through the turnstile. Some unseen docent lectured loudly in German; the halls carried her voice into the cavernous lobby.

  As a student, Natalia had liked the Farnese Collection on the ground floor in the corridor of river deities and for many hours had strolled between the fountain sculptures, imagining them and the fountains as they once were, water flowing from the mouths of cherubs, angels, gargoyles, lions, dragons, the breasts of women. She’d liked the gem collection on the second floor the best.

  Natalia led the way through the gift shop and out onto the courtyard’s unkempt grass. Greek and Roman sculptures were placed without seeming rhyme or reason, many of them broken and eroded. Along the corridor hung large stone sarcophagi engraved with assorted mythological scenes—Prometheus, centaur Nereidi. Myths to comfort the dead, Natalia thought, long after it was of any use to them. Among the ragged greenery, she recognized a Japanese camellia, the lone bloom a sudden white glow.

  “Is this where?” Angelina said.

  Natalia hesitated. Where? Ah. Her partner meant the garden where Garducci and Vincente had been discovered: lovers in the darkness, away from the world.

  “Yes,” she said. “By the way, Colonel Fabio wants to give us Marshal Cervino to help with the case.”

  Angelina glanced at her superi
or. “Didn’t you warn me against the marshal?”

  “Yes. He’s a great cop and a hopeless misogynist. Not a fan of women on the force.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  Natalia grimaced. “Fabio is applying pressure.”

  Going down a long gallery and up a graceful staircase to the second floor, they passed through a collection of Pompeii treasures and followed a wine-colored carpet down a long grey corridor to a door. They disregarded the request to knock and entered. Dr. Garducci’s secretary glowed in the light of his computer screen, his dark hair curly and his eyes like coal.

  “May I help you?”

  “We’re here to see the director.”

  “Have you an appointment?”

  Angelina shook her head. “No.”

  “Oh … let me check.”

  He slipped through a heavy wooden door and disappeared, returned and asked them to follow. Director Garducci’s somber office was rococo and elegant. Heavy damask drapes closed out the sun. A baroque couch and silk-upholstered chairs occupied a large corner sitting area. The director sat at an ornately carved desk, its surface uncluttered, the workspace of a perfectionist used to others taking care of mundane tasks. Behind him hung a fresco from the Villa di Giulia that Natalia recognized from another life.

  He rose and showed them to chairs facing him.

  “What brings the pleasure of your company, Captain, and …?”

  “Corporal Cavatelli,” Natalia said.

  “How do you do? Please, sit,” he said. “I thought my part in your investigation was over.” He folded his hands in front of him, a pale contrast to the hand-tooled leather blotter.

  “On the contrary,” said Natalia.

  Angelina broke in. “Does the name Brazzo mean anything to you—Roberto Brazzo?”

  “He was someone I … saw before I declared myself publicly to be gay.”

  “According to Mr. Brazzo, you and he saw each other a little over a year ago. You wanted an exclusive relationship, though you were still married at the time. When he declined, you lost your temper and struck him, quite severely and repeatedly. Your housekeeper and your wife got him medical attention. There was considerable blood loss and damage to his scalp and face … and your pocketbook.”

  Garducci made a steeple of his fingers but said nothing.

  “Mr. Brazzo banked quite a lot of money soon after the incident. Paid down to buy his silence perhaps?”

  “Are you suggesting that I, in a jealous lover’s blind rage, shot Vincente dead and the other man he was apparently fucking, then hauled the two of them into Contessa Cavazza’s estate in the middle of the night and mounted them atop a bronze steed in a homoerotic pose?” He dismissed the accusation with the briefest wave. “Please.”

  Angelina took out her folder and removed a copy of a photograph. She slid it across the empty desk.

  “Are you trying to shake me?” Garducci said. “I don’t have the—”

  Natalia slid the CAM catalogue across to the director, held open to a page.

  “This was a photographic study recently exhibited at the CAM Gallery. The exhibit drew quite a lot of attention. You may recognize someone in the piece.”

  “Jesus,” he said, staring at the masked image of his former lover.

  “You’d not seen it before?”

  “No,” he said, hand to his cheek.

  “Something of an exhibitionist—Vincente.”

  Garducci didn’t take his eyes from the photograph.

  “You said Vincente was preparing to move in with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stefano Grappi says not.”

  Angelina said, “Did Vincente change his mind, decide he didn’t want a monogamous relationship, like Mr. Brazzo before him?”

  “We’ve been over that,” Garducci said, pushing the photo away, the ruby stud perfect in his sagging earlobe.

  “We won’t trouble you further then, Director.” Natalia rose, Angelina following. “Oh,” she said, turning back. “You may want to retain an attorney.”

  “I have one, thank you.”

  “A criminal defender.” She took an envelope from her shoulder bag and passed it across. “Nearly forgot.”

  “What is it?” Garducci said.

  “An order to surrender your passport by four o’clock today. You’ve been officially cited as a person of interest in the investigation of two murders. Please don’t make plans to leave Naples without securing permission from us. Meanwhile, I’m officially advising you not to try leaving the country. Border crossings and airports have already been alerted. In such an event, you will be made a guest in our humble accommodations. Remand in your own custody would be unlikely. Good day.”

  In the elevator, Angelina checked her phone for text messages. “Your friend Carlo Busto in the Municipal Building is summoning me to the Archives.”

  “I’ll drop you. Meet me back at the station when you’re done.”

  Returning to Casanova, she went straight to Marshal Cervino’s tiny office. His secretary, in short spandex skirt and gladiator heels, guarded the door. Cervino was the only officer besides Colonel Fabio who had a secretary. Whether because of valor in the field or a debt owed, no one was really sure.

  She held up an index finger, phone cradled to her ear, applying purple nail polish at the same time. Natalia brushed past and into Cervino’s lair to stand over him at his desk. A frayed oatmeal-colored carpet and a dead rubber tree were the only decorations besides a teddy bear.

  Cervino looked up, unlit cigar in his mouth, and noticed her staring at the bear.

  “When I was a kid, my older brother short changed Salvino Grappo two lire on a carton of cigarettes. Grappo shot him in the face. Manny was thirteen.” Cervino picked up the bear from his desk and shook it. “This was his favorite creature. Got it on his last birthday. Battery must have run out. Too bad. He dances and says dirty words.”

  “Marshal, you’re invading my space.”

  “Is this by way of a warning, Captain Monte?”

  “More like a trespass notice. Keep off my patch.”

  “You’re over your head with this double murder.”

  “I’ll let you know when I need your help. Meantime, stay clear. Stop lobbying the colonel.”

  “You have a problem, Captain, whenever Camorra is involved.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. I grew up with the same scum you did, but I never fraternized with them.”

  “Are you offering social advice?” Natalia said.

  “It’s common knowledge you bedded your partner. Maybe we chalk that up to inexperience. We were all naïve once, eh? Matters of internal security are another matter. You need to decide.”

  “Decide what?”

  “If you are with us or them.”

  “Thank you so much, Marshal Cervino, for your concern and wise counsel.”

  Natalia returned to her desk and read the unfinished manuscript by Vincente Lattaruzzo that his publisher had emailed over. When Angelina returned, Natalia said, “How did it go?”

  “You’d better look at this.” Angelina tossed a sheaf of papers on Natalia’s desk and settled in to wait.

  Natalia read the twelve pages of history on the Countess Cavazza and the several photocopies and picked up the phone.

  The same bird greeted her with a lovely five-note trill as she entered the long drive lined with magnolias that eventually led to the garden path. The countess rose as Natalia approached the patio. She wore a silver caftan over billowing white pants that set off her coloring well.

  “Captain, welcome. You look so … official and imposing in uniform.”

  “Thank you for seeing me, Contessa.”

  “Not at all. Happy for the company. I hope you haven’t eaten. I thought it would be pleasant to have a bite in the garden—some fruit and cheese?”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  The countess reached out and brought a blossom to her face. “What fragrance these have. You know them?”
she said. “The garland of Artemis?”

  A bird darted from a neighboring branch and was gone.

  “Artemis of Ephaseus.” Natalia said. “One of my favorite sculptures when I was a student.”

  “Of course,” the countess said. “I remember now. In that article I read about you. You were an art history student before you became a Carabiniere. Isn’t that right?”

  “You have quite a memory.”

  “Only for what interests me, I’m afraid. So what steered you from your course?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “If it isn’t against regulations, perhaps someday you will tell me what happened. Artemis of Ephaseus,” she repeated. “Sometimes I have my driver take me to see the statue on a Sunday, when all the visitors are gone. Being a board member has its perks. Did you know the Museo Archeologico was the only museum standing after the war?”

  “So much was lost.”

  “It looked like the end of the world,” the countess continued. “The price of an ordinary chicken shot up to three hundred lire, and soon a million lire couldn’t have bought one bird. Then Allies bombed the port and the city. Twenty-two thousand dead. Many lived in the streets with rags for clothes. Many died from cholera. And many killed themselves. The Allies advanced. The partisans burned farms. Slaughtered innocent people.”

  “How awful,” Natalia said.

  “It was. On the twelfth of September, 1943, political fugitives who had hidden in the Ospedale Incurabili armed themselves and attacked the fascists’ infantry. Ordinary citizens, Carabinieri, even children, saved the bridge over Via Sanita. As a parting lesson, the Germans torched the university and the magnificent Royal Society library.”

  The countess paused, remembering something.

  “I was hungry but comparatively healthy even as destitution and disease reigned. I wanted to do something for the stricken but lacked any medical training. Mercifully so, perhaps. To be perfectly frank, I am better with creatures than with people. So I took up work with the Venus Fixers. You’ve heard of them.”

  “Rescuers of art treasures.”