A Few Drops of Blood

by Jan Merete Weiss

  The maid brought in platters of grilled sardine. Then pasta al forno and a basket of focaccia just out of the oven.

  “This is amazing, Nella. You went to too much trouble.”

  “Nonsense, Francesca. I always feed myself very well. And I like to extend that civility, if you will, to those I care about. I never take it for granted—the privilege of being fed. During the war, all we thought about was food,” she said as they served themselves. “And I was one of the fortunate ones. But I never take the next meal for granted. We had a handyman. A lovely man, part of the family, you might say. He contracted TB. And it was too dangerous to take him for medical help. He survived the winter. In the spring he was a living skeleton. I asked if there was anything he wanted, anything I could bring him. And you know what he wanted? Cherries. We had several trees on the property—gorgeous things. I prepared a basket for him and brought it to his room. He was able to eat at most half a dozen. The next week he was dead.”

  Francesca passed the bread to Natalia. Through an open window they could hear the rain’s gentle patter.

  “I made a conscious decision then that life was too short to waste being miserable,” the countess continued. “At least personally. But then can we will ourselves to be happy? Foolish to use the term ‘happy’ perhaps. Accepting might be a better term. Everything passes—good and bad. I understand your case is officially closed?”

  “Not yet,” Natalia said. “For the moment we seem to have reached a dead end.”

  “Funny how things seem to be at an end when you don’t even realize it. And then when you think they are, well … they never are—not entirely. Case in point—the war. Am I going on too much?”

  “Not at all,” Francesca said. “Please.”

  “All right. At the end—but we didn’t yet know it was the end and weren’t sure we would survive to see it—the Germans were desperate. They killed innocent people, children included. Rape was the norm, if you can imagine such a thing. Change your mind yet?”

  “No,” Natalia said. “Please. Go on.”

  “They burned farms. Slaughtered innocent people. But every afternoon without fail I read to a group of neighborhood children in our garden. I was determined to have something of ordinary life, something beautiful.”

  “I never knew that,” Francesca said. “How brave.”

  “Brave? I don’t know. Forgive me for saying it, but I worry about you girls. The kinds of things you are exposed to. I suppose the work is interesting.”

  “That it is,” Natalia said.

  “Fascinating, actually.” Francesca took a sip of wine.

  “Not morbid?” the countess asked.

  “That most definitely,” Francesca laughed.

  “Not my business, but do you have boyfriends, if they still use that term?”

  “I do, but I suspect I won’t much longer,” Natalia said. “Not the present one anyway. I can’t speak for my colleague.”

  “I’m between boyfriends.” Francesca dabbed her mouth with a linen cloth and pushed back from the table. “This is fantastic, Nella, but I’m afraid I have to eat and run. I’ll come back when I can spend more time.”

  “On Saturday? No time for coffee?”

  “Afraid not. Barbaric, isn’t it? I have to check on something at the morgue. Never a dull moment.” She kissed the countess’s head. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “What about you?” she asked Natalia as the maid saw Francesca out.

  “I’m in no rush.”

  “Terrific. I’ll have my driver run you home.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Natalia said.

  “No, absolutely. I insist. I’m so glad I haven’t bored you. Plus I have these terrific dolci. I hope you like caramel. They make them for me specially.”

  The women repaired to the living room for coffee.

  “This is nice. Having female company. Don’t misunderstand me—my husband was a wonderful man—he understood me. But one advantage—perhaps the only advantage of being a widow, I’ve found—is that I can do what I want to do, when I desire. Quite a luxury. No one to answer to. It almost, but doesn’t quite, make up for the loneliness.”

  “Gianni Scavullo was captured,” Natalia said, suddenly changing gear. “You didn’t mention that when I spoke with you about Cantalupo.”

  “Only because I didn’t think it was relevant. Yes. Papa saved him from arrest. It was sheer bravado. He shamed the Germans into releasing him, protesting that he was just a boy. But the Gestapo grew suspicious of my father and took him for interrogation.”

  “Painful memories,” Natalia said.

  “Yes, they are.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I am not as fragile as I may appear.”

  “They imprisoned him on information provided by another local, a dedicated fascist named Lattaruzzo,” Natalia continued.

  The contessa didn’t immediately respond, merely sat thinking.

  Natalia said, “According to Vincente’s unpublished manuscript, your land holdings were confiscated and awarded to the Lattaruzzos. You were evicted, alone, at fourteen.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you survived.”

  “I was among the fortunate. I was provided a roof over my head, flour and eggs.”

  “You had the protection of the Resistance,” said Natalia.

  “In the form of the Scavullos. Yes. My father had saved Gianni Scavullo. The family in turn risked all to try and rescue my father. But they couldn’t.” She put aside her tea. “My father was a man of principle. There weren’t many such men left in our world then. The times made for odd alliances—communists, democrats, monarchists, liberals, devout Catholics, clerics, Sicilian mafia, and of course, Camorra.”

  “That’s a partnership hard to imagine,” Natalia said.

  “Believe me, if it hadn’t been for camorristi like the Scavullos or libertarians like Papa, we would still be giving the fascist salute and celebrating Il Duce’s birthday.”

  “Might Ernesto Scavullo have been avenging your father in killing Vincente Lattaruzzo and the other unfortunate man?”

  “I can’t imagine … certainly not on my account.” She paused mid-breath, visibly distraught. “When I was young, I dwelled on revenge. At that age, you think you are powerful and obligated by family. Time eroded my pain and the anger. The actual culprit is long dead. I grew up. I met a man I loved.” She sipped her water glass. “Vincente wasn’t even born yet.”

  “Were you aware Vincente Lattaruzzo intended to include some of his family’s history in his book on the war—his grandfather’s fascism, the help from the Camorra you and your mother received after the Armistice that paid for your farm’s restoration?”

  “No.”

  “He was given to sensationalizing. He even included the story of your father’s betrayal by his own grandfather. Also your meeting him, all these years later … and your long-standing relationship with the Scavullos. The loan of funds back in the 40s, invitations you accepted to their weddings and christenings, your faithful visits to Don Gianni Scavullo in prison twice every year of his imprisonment.”

  “They were close—Gianni and Father. I felt indebted and grateful.”

  “I understand, but would you have wanted that made public? The media in your driveway, tabloids railing about your family’s ties to the Naples underworld?”

  The contessa sighed and sat back. “I see your point. You think Gianni Scavullo may have exacted retribution for the sins of a previous generation, ordered Vincente Lattaruzzo and his companion delivered by his son’s associates to my garden like … a trophy?”

  “Something like that. Possibly, yes.”

  “And all along I’ve taken it as a heinous crime committed by someone with a deep hatred of homosexuals, a sociopath. Or a deranged lover cast aside. But Gianni Scavullo?” She shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe that.”

  “Ernesto qualifies as both homophobic and brutal, I assure you,” Natalia
said.

  “A blood debt repaid. Well …” Countess Antonella Cavazza looked away. “But it’s true. The war did things to us. Inhuman things.” She suddenly stood. “A blood debt,” she repeated. “Crushing, if true. I’ll confess something: When Vincente appeared at the museum board, the past came rushing back. I could barely stay in the same room with him. I thought God was taunting me. Yet he was so young, completely charming.” She recovered her glass and took a sip. “Upset as I was, I felt no anger toward him. He had no responsibility for his grandfather’s deeds, after all. If you live long enough, you find the soul itself becomes a kind of palimpsest … the distant past, shimmery and vague.”

  Chapter 23

  Natalia turned onto Arcangelo a Baiano. A third of the way up the block, one of the men from the social club got off his chair and sauntered up the street behind her. The lookout. Checking on where she was going, who she was talking to. And reporting it to the next in the chain of command.

  Someone was playing “Polvere di Stelle” in the apartment below Tina’s parents’ flat. The vinyl was scratched, but the voice was unmistakable: Hoagy Carmichael. A legacy that remained decades after the Americans were long gone.

  Natalia pushed the bell. Nothing. She knocked hard. Someone looked through the peephole. She waited as several locks were disengaged.

  A tall, well-built woman opened the door. Her concession to mourning: black toreador pants, stilettos, and a grey and white silk blouse. The blouse, off the shoulder, a black brassiere strap taut on her plump, bronzed skin. Signora Gracci appeared.

  “Oh, it’s you.” She sounded tired. She looked exhausted, eyes bloodshot from crying.

  Natalia stepped into the foyer. “Can I speak to you alone?”

  “Go into the kitchen a minute,” she urged the glamorous visitor. Natalia wondered who she was.

  The TV was off. There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the apartment.

  “What do you want?” she said. “We’re in mourning here. People will be coming over to pay their respects. I was just going to lie down.”

  “I know you’ve had some hard days, and I’m sorry to bother you at this time.”

  “What is it now?”

  “It’s about the gun, Signora Gracci. You wanted your daughter properly buried in Church ground. But I’m afraid, even when a death is ruled a suicide, we need—”

  “My Tina didn’t kill herself.”

  “Then all the more reason we need the gun.”

  “We prefer to handle it ourselves.” Her chin wriggled. “It would be better if you left. For your own sake.”

  “Tampering with evidence is a felony, signora. Haven’t you suffered enough already?”

  “Like I said, the gun isn’t here.”

  “We had an understanding.”

  “We had nothing. Get away.”

  Natalia punched in Lola’s number. She could meet Nat at the Communale in fifteen minutes. Natalia slipped on her helmet and turned the ignition key. The bike erupted as she revved the engine and took off, zipping through the streets.

  Natalia got there first and sat waiting on the bench nearest the fountain. The air was pungent with jasmine. Lola appeared in a baseball cap with rhinestones and black velvet hoodie. They hugged and sat down.

  “What’s going on with you?” Lola said. “You got me worried.”

  Natalia told all—the parts Lola was not already privy to, which was most of it: the gun going missing from Pino’s flat, turning up in Tina’s, Tina’s committing suicide no doubt using his issued weapon, her own tampering with the slug and obstructing the course of justice by pushing it into the bowels of the ancient walls. Emilinia refusing to relinquish the gun.

  “So she killed herself with Pino’s Glock?”

  “I think so.”

  “But he wasn’t present.”

  “No. God, I hope not.”

  “And you don’t think he killed her?”

  “No, I don’t. But if the bullet comes out of the wall, if it comes out that I knew all along it was his gun that killed her, I’m done. Unless I get the piece back, process it into the system, and carry on like it never left Pino’s hands, we are both done being Carabinieri.”

  “You’ve tampered with evidence, withheld evidence. You could be looking at the end of your career. Fuck, you could be facing jail.”

  “I know.”

  “And what if it wasn’t suicide and somebody murdered her? The Graccis have been doing and being done to for years.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Pick a grown-up for a boyfriend next time around.”

  “I don’t need a lecture here, Lola.”

  “Look, you’re my best friend and I love you, okay? But he wasn’t thinking about you when he fucked Tina. True?”

  “True.”

  “He’s dragging you down, Nat. Your little Buddha boyfriend.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Who else knows besides us?”

  “No one.”

  “Excellent. Second, if you get the gun back and turned into the armorer, Pino will be off the hook.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “You don’t. I’m going to—try to, at least. I’ll call you as soon as I know.”

  Back at the station an hour later, Natalia’s mobile went off. She excused herself to take the call in the fire stairs corridor.

  “I located it,” Lola said.

  “What a relief.”

  “Not really, hon. Gracci doesn’t have it anymore.”

  “Who does?”

  “Ernesto Scavullo.”

  Chapter 24

  The phone chimed again as she drove back home. She had to pull over to answer it.

  “Oooh,” said a male voice. “I get hard just hearing your voice.”

  “Who is this?”

  “You don’t recognize me? You’re breaking my heart here.”

  “Scavullo.”

  “We haven’t had a proper conversation since the wedding. Weren’t you a bride’s maid?”

  “Yes, Ernesto. I’m surprised you remembered.”

  “The bad witches is what I remember: you, Lola Nuovoletta and the lovely bride herself, my sweet Suzanna Ruttollo.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about keeping your nose out of my business. It’s about your boyfriend’s government-issued pistol. The one he used to kill the Gracci girl he knocked up.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You in my pocket, warm and safe, baby.”

  “I’m hanging up.”

  “Oh, no, sweetie. I have a great need to see you. Calabritto Palace. Half an hour.”

  “Why should I come?”

  “Because I have it, and you want it—bad.”

  He broke the connection.

  When she got to the palace, the guard warned, “We close in forty-five minutes.”

  A straggly line of tourists lined up loading onto a last bus departing the lot. Two female statues flanked the entrance. Natalia entered and paid her admission. Paolo stood just inside, holding a Nortel transceiver. He approached, still talking into it. “I’ll call you back,” he said and tried to take her by the elbow. She pulled her arm back from his touch.

  “We’re not friends anymore?”

  “We haven’t been friends for a long time, Paolo.”

  “You’re breaking my heart, lattaia.” Milkmaid. His pet name for her when they were kids. It had started when she turned thirteen and celebrated the arrival of breasts.

  “Don’t call me that,” she said.

  “No? What should I call you? Captain? We knew each other long before all this. Once upon a time, remember?”

  How could she forget? They’d driven to Sorrento in a low-slung, yellow convertible that a cousin had shipped over from New Jersey. Something named after a horse. Top down, wind wild in her hair. Natalia closed her eyes on the hairpin curves and felt her stomach lurch from the excitement. In another hour, they reached the glittery blue
ocean.

  Of course she remembered.

  When she got home, she was sunburned in embarrassing places. Her father broke open several tea bags, soaked them and made a poultice for her face and back. A day later her flaming skin was nearly normal again.

  “Paolo,” she said, “where’s Scavullo? I don’t have all day.”

  “Okay,” is all he said, “okay,” and ushered her into the Lion Room, then stood a respectful distance away. The guard had been paid off or felt intimidated by the Camorra men—or both—and left them to conduct their business.

  Ernesto’s back was to her. He appeared to be studying the massive black marble lion that was centermost in the hall.

  “What do you think?” he said. “Nice, huh?” He turned around. “I’d like to do my bedroom like this.” He indicated the refurbished hall. “You promise not to open your big mouth, and I’ll tell you a secret. I paid for restoring this fucking gallery—you believe that?”

  “Does it matter if I do?”

  “The director is a pussy. Like all of them. The director’s assistant works out with me sometimes. Tells me how much it would do for me if I financed a civic good deed. Talks me into it. Okay, so it’s chump change, but I figure the least the fucker could do is put up a plaque with my name. Maybe with those lights over it, you know?”

  “I’m happy for you,” she said. “You’ll be immortal.”

  “Not happening is what the head guy tells me. The prick gets the money, then says it would be bad public relations for my name to be associated with my donation—the money I put up.”

  “How awful for you.”

  “Isn’t it? I thought about having the little shit topped. Might still. Maybe after he gets me this dynamite painting he’s promised me. They lend them out to major donors like library books. If he comes through before Mama’s birthday, maybe I’ll reconsider.”

  “No place on the board for Ernesto?” she said. “Life has been so unfair to you.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. They don’t think I’m good enough to sit on their effing board is what it is, but when they’re short of cash to meet the payroll, my dirty money suddenly smells sweet.”