Glass Souls

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  There were more than a thousand students, nearly all of them members of the Balilla National Fascist Organization, two hundred of them girls. Among those girls, of course, was Carlotta Piro.

  The activities on offer were numerous, as Maione soon learned with a phone call to the main office; above and beyond the strict domain of academic studies, there was music, theater, and various athletic pursuits. Even before the beginning of the school year, students both male and female were expected to begin preparing for the numerous extracurricular activities that were planned.

  From what they were able to determine, Carlotta was an enthusiastic participant. That day, in particular, she would be taking part in practice for a regional athletic competition. The doorman, visibly perspiring and clearly eager to comply with the brigadier’s demands, had no difficulty providing him with the scheduled end of the school day: the girl was let out at one o’clock, because she was invariably home by two.

  Talking to Carlotta had been Ricciardi’s idea. Even though she had displayed a highly emotional reaction during their first meeting, she seemed more willing than her mother to express her inward thoughts. And she might well remember something that her father had let slip, even by pure chance, concerning the convent of the Madonna Incoronata, something that Signora Piro had failed to remember or for some reason chose not to reveal.

  It was worth giving it a try: they had reached a stalemate, and any information might prove useful in giving their unusual investigation a jump start.

  The front entrance of the school swung open and the boys came charging out, all of them dressed in black, in jacket and tie even though it was still quite hot out. The girls emerged after them, in a much smaller group. Carlotta was the only one to wear a black dress, given her recent loss and state of mourning, but like the other girls she was laughing and chatting excitedly.

  A young woman who wanted to be happy, the commissario thought. She wanted to forget about the death that had come into her home as quickly as she could.

  From the shadows where they had been waiting, the two policemen watched her stop with a couple of girlfriends at the street corner; several young men came up to them and started talking. One of them must have said something very amusing, because they heard a gale of laughter. Another one pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and Carlotta took one.

  She seemed miles away from the girl weeping in her home in the presence of her mother.

  With a graceful gesture, she removed her silver hair stick and let the chestnut blanket of her hair fall over her shoulders; one of the boys pulled her hair, and she shoved him away with a laugh.

  Ricciardi and Maione were almost sorry at the thought that they would soon wipe that smile off her face.

  After a little while, the group broke up, bidding cheerful farewells.

  When Carlotta walked past the atrium, they called out to her. She started and stared at them in confusion.

  “Ah . . . hello. But what are you doing here? Were you looking for me?”

  Maione tried to reassure her, jovially.

  “In fact, we were hoping we might run into you, Signori’. There’s something we’d like to clear up with you, and perhaps you can help us.”

  The girl narrowed her eyes, diffidently.

  “I’ve already told you everything I ought to. And you also spoke to my mother, last night, so I can’t imagine what else you might want from me.”

  Ricciardi broke in.

  “Your mother, Signorina, doesn’t seem convinced that we’re interested in finding out the truth about your father’s murder. And with her rather uncooperative behavior, she’s preventing us from understanding several aspects that remain unclear. Now, in the interest of one and all, it would be best if you answered a few questions. Unless, of course, you have something to hide. In that case we’d take very different steps.”

  The young woman looked startled; she found the idea that she had anything to hide offensive, to say the least.

  “My father was murdered. And the man who murdered him, that cowardly dog, confessed and is going to remain behind bars for the rest of his life. What else is there to clear up?”

  This was the moment to drive in, Ricciardi decided.

  “Your father, in the two days prior to the murder, had his chauffeur take him twice to the convent of the Madonna Incoronata. Do you happen to know the reason for that two-fold visit?”

  Carlotta seemed confused.

  “But . . . my father never told anyone what he was doing or how he did his job. He was very secretive. I believe that the Collegio dell’Incoronata was one of the several institutions whose finances he administered . . . ”

  Maione didn’t let her finish.

  “We know that, Signori’. What we don’t know is why he would have gone there twice in two days.”

  The girl stared at him coldly.

  “Well, why would I know that, Brigadier? Or my mother, or my brother, for that matter? Why don’t you just leave us in peace? Do you have no respect for the sorrow of a family that now may have no future ahead of it?”

  Ricciardi changed the subject.

  “Then let me ask you to make an additional effort: let’s talk about the quarrel that your father had with Roccaspina. Can you tell us anything about what happened on that occasion?”

  The young woman’s eyes lit up with renewed determination.

  “I was here, at school, but my mother and the housekeeper told me all about it. They told me that the murderer was shouting like a madman. I believe that my father must have refused to give him something he wanted, either money or else an extension in his repayment, and he kept shouting that it wouldn’t end there, that if my father persisted in his stubborn attitude, he’d be forced to do something about it. That’s right, that’s what he said.”

  Ricciardi seemed lost in thought. Then he nodded his head.

  “That matches what we know. Perhaps that’s all, Signorina. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Carlotta was relieved, but still doubtful.

  “My mother and I don’t like it when people question whether that miserable coward Roccaspina actually killed my father. He’s a foul murderer, he crept into our house in the middle of the night and then took to his heels. We were fast asleep while my father was dying. My mother thought he had simply stayed up late working and I left in the morning thinking that he was sleeping when he was actually dead. He didn’t even let us say goodbye to him. We don’t like it when anyone tries to save the killer just because he’s an aristocrat and has friends in high places.”

  Here we need to make things clear, thought Maione.

  “Don’t worry about that, Signori’: we are certainly not accustomed to having our investigations run by important persons who instruct us not to follow up certain leads. If it was Roccaspina, he’ll serve the sentence he deserves.”

  She gave him a look.

  “And in fact, that’s exactly how it will be, Brigadier. That’s how it will be.”

  And she turned and left, with the afternoon sun glinting off her youthful hair.

  XLI

  Falco made a note of the exact time he saw Ricciardi head off with the brigadier toward police headquarters after speaking with the young woman.

  No, his was certainly not “a job like any other,” as he himself had said, warding off attention. If you were following a trail, you couldn’t allow yourself to be tempted by what you might encounter along the way. Even though it was a risk that one often ran, especially in a city like that one, where relationships and bonds of friendship were constantly intertwining; all the same, it was important not to take one’s eyes off the objective, not to allow oneself to be distracted. Certainly, if you stumbled upon something big, you were duty-bound to inform your higher-ups as soon as possible, but in no case could you lose sight of your quarry. Never.

  But now, Falco wasn’t working. He wa
s following an idea.

  He stood up from the café table, folded his newspaper, and stretched lazily in the still-warm air of that early September afternoon. Certainly, though, the summer was hanging on, he thought to himself. It was stretching into winter, it seemed, cutting the length of autumn. That wasn’t a good thing: rain made his job easier. It made men like him, who were professional watchers, invisible behind their umbrellas, and it made those who were under observation easier to spot, as the passersby became fewer in number, while the cold forced conversations that they wished to eavesdrop upon into the indoors, in the shelter of cafés and bars.

  Rain was better.

  Now, though, if nothing else, the weather was perfect for stakeouts; the comfortable warmth presented no danger to his joints and also allowed him to select ideal corners from which to watch and listen.

  Falco was pleased, now, that Livia was reacting. He had tried to shake her out of it, persuade her to put on some makeup, get dressed and get out and about. He had worked to leverage her womanly pride, he had told her that she mustn’t give the satisfaction of a sorrowful depression to those who had warned her not to move to a provincial city, who had criticized her renunciation of the glittering social life of Italy’s capital and her involvement with a man who didn’t deserve her and who might not even be particularly attracted to the gentler sex.

  Until then, he’d always been very careful to say nothing bad about Ricciardi to Livia. That would have been a fatal misstep. It might have caused Livia to shut him out, by wounding her self-respect. And now it was enough to tell her she was right and steer her malaise toward its logical consequences.

  Now, however, there was also the question of von Brauchitsch. He thought about that as he tailed from a distance the Don Quixotesque silhouettes of the commissario and the brigadier. The German major who was the target of the greatest interest and whom none of his colleagues had found a way of approaching effectively. The major had gone to dinner at the Colombo home, and from what he had been able to learn, he had also invited Enrica, the cavalier’s eldest daughter, to meet him for a gelato that very afternoon. The very same Enrica, moreover, had met Ricciardi at the exit of the yacht club, down by the sea, the day before.

  A coincidence? An opportunity? Falco didn’t know, but he felt certain that the matter needed to be followed up on, and with the greatest attention.

  He had therefore requested and been assigned, in a brief conversation with the man who had a comma carved into his forehead, to monitor, himself in person, the meeting between the young woman and the German soldier. On that occasion he had also learned of a suspicious stroll that Manfred had taken down to the port, in the area around various military facilities; that was, to say the least, an unusual thing for a cultural attaché assigned to learn about archeology in the Vesuvius region to do. The man with the comma had also informed him of something that, if it wasn’t actually a disguise, certainly qualified as a remarkable choice of attire, because according to the report submitted by the agents detailed to him, von Brauchitsch had chosen to dress as a sailor serving aboard a Nordic freighter, with a work shirt, commodious britches, and a cap worn snug and low to cover his head of hair, and as he had come closer to the wharf where the cruiser Goffredo da Buglione was tied up he had started to walk around as if lost, though drawing closer to the warship the whole time. When a sentinel, rather belatedly, had called out to him, asking him to identify himself, he’d immediately apologized, speaking in a language that seemed to be Norwegian, and had headed back without any further deviations to the pensione where he was staying.

  Everything, in other words, pointed to a confirmation of the initial suspicions, which is to say, that the major wasn’t in the city just to ensure that the crew of German archeologists were being given full support in logistical terms. And that clearly meant that Falco and his men were going to step up their surveillance.

  The man with the comma had also told him that for now Rome wasn’t planning on intervening. Instead, it was important to learn how the information that the German soldier was gathering made its way back to Germany, and therefore, how his orders were conveyed to him. In the meanwhile, it was crucial that they miss none of his moves, not in public, much less in private.

  This fit in perfectly with what Falco wanted most, that is, to get rid of Ricciardi, if possible. Enrica, an essential instrument in his surveillance of von Brauchitsch, was at risk because of her past, and perhaps still present, infatuation for the commissario; Livia wouldn’t look forward to a new life as long as she thought Ricciardi was still attainable. He knew her a little, by now, and she didn’t strike him as the kind of woman to resign herself to a defeat in love. No, if he was to be ripped from her heart, it would have to be root and branch.

  From a safe distance he kept his eye on Ricciardi’s back, the overcoat that fluttered around his legs. He wondered idly what it was about him that could so capture the fancy of the two women. He could even comprehend the interest of the young Colombo woman: it was understandable that a young woman who had turned twenty-five and was in search of a fiancé with whom to begin a family might fall in love with the first man to look at her through a window. But Livia? A woman who could have anyone she chose, the loveliest and most charming woman Falco had ever met. What’s more, a woman with great artistic talent, intelligent and cultivated.

  As he was walking along, following the gentle downhill slope of the street, he wondered what it was he actually felt toward her. The protection that it was his duty to afford her had become a personal matter, as well as a professional responsibility, and it filled his thoughts much more than it ought to have, given that it was his job.

  Well, he wondered, what of it? Did people in his line of work have some ethical guidelines they were called upon to respect? There was nothing wrong with adding a little spice to one’s duty. In fact, it might even sharpen his senses and improve the final outcome.

  He wondered whether what Livia, in tears and half drunk, had said about the commissario was the truth. Not that it really mattered much, the important thing was to be able to construct a plausible scenario. He had learned early that, especially in a field like his own, which consisted of hypotheses and buttressing evidence, far more important than reality was the fundamental perception that could be conveyed.

  One way or another, thought Falco as he sheltered himself from the horde of pedestrians all more or less bustling and busy, obstacles were there to be removed. And the more important what lies behind that obstacle, the more conviction and determination would have to be brought to bear. You, Commissario Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi of the mobile squad at the Royal Police Headquarters, you are an obstacle, and not a particularly forbidding one, objectively speaking, but you stand right in the middle of an important thoroughfare, and therefore you most certainly will be removed. And perhaps we already know how.

  The night before he had taken a look at the file on the murder of Ludovico Piro. He had become curious about the determination that Ricciardi, with Maione’s assistance, had shown in pursuing that investigation, outside of his proper jurisdiction, concerning a case that had been filed away months ago. He knew that his interest in the case had been requested by the Contessa di Roccaspina, who had always maintained her husband’s innocence, according to the official police reports; perhaps the commissario felt the need to work on something during a particularly quiet period. Or else he’d just taken pity on the contessa, who appeared to be in dire financial straits.

  Inwardly, Falco approved Ricciardi’s inclination to compassion: he wasn’t a bad person and, perhaps, in other circumstances, he might even have admired him. Ricciardi was good at his job and not particularly gifted at social interactions, and basically, Falco felt that he could sympathize.

  But he was an obstacle. And he would need to be removed.

  Suddenly, Maione swung around, scrutinizing all the pedestrians moving in the same direction as them. His instincts ha
d told him that someone, in that crowd of strollers, was following them.

  He let a few seconds pass, and then did the same thing again. He saw no one. Reassured, he went on his way.

  XLII

  After their rather fruitless conversation with Carlotta Piro, Ricciardi and Maione found themselves faced with a clear alternative: either admit the absurdity of carrying on such a complex investigation, which had run up against a wall of silence and which no one had authorized, aside from their own consciences, or else continue forward in defiance of everything and everyone.

  Maione let himself drop into the chair in front of his superior officer’s desk.

  “Do you know what the worst thing is, Commissa’? That in this private investigation, which we have to pursue secretly, the ones who ought to be most interested in learning the truth are the toughest to question. The Piro family, for example, seems to be determined to make sure that nothing comes to light.”

  Ricciardi reflected as he looked out the window.

  “That does seem to be the case. I believe that the work our victim did had a number of slightly illegal angles to it, and the deeper we dig, the more frightened his family becomes. They can’t bring him back to life, but they can defend his memory.”

  “And they can defend the money that they still have set aside, Commissa’. Someone might even bring a lawsuit to recover some of it, and if you ask me the real fear haunting the signora and her sweet young daughter is that the two of them will be left penniless. That’s why they fired the chauffeur, too, isn’t it?”

  Ricciardi shook his head.

  “No. I don’t think so. I believe that the chauffeur was fired in order to conceal something else, perhaps the very fact that Piro had gone twice to the Convent of the Incoronata. By the way, Raffaele, do you know where it is?”

  “Why certainly, Commissa’. I wouldn’t be from this city if I didn’t know that. Why, do you want me to go there?”