Lucia was bewildered, lost. Raffaele changing his clothes in the middle of the day, Raffaele coming home to wash up, pat his face with cologne, and go back out in civilian attire, and especially Raffaele refusing an offer of food. She felt a stabbing pain behind her stomach and placed her hand on her abdomen: indigestion, she decided.
But she was wrong.
Ricciardi walked along next to a well-dressed, silent Maione. He’d even tried asking him whether something had happened to him, but the brigadier’s expression made it easy to guess that he was in no mood for conversation. Actually, everything was conspiring to spoil the large policeman’s mood: the heat, the stubborn insistence of his superior officer that they walk to where they were going, the dark brown jacket that he could barely button in spite of his nutritional sacrifices, and the picture, which he couldn’t get out of his mind, of his wife going to buy fruit from the cursed, albeit award-winning purveyors of fruits and vegetables, Ciruzzo Di Stasio and Sons. Homicidal impulses alternated with the certainty of an imminent fainting spell, due variously to the heat or the hunger, or a combination of the two. He felt something like a contraction behind his stomach and, as he walked, he raised his hand to his sternum. There, he thought, the onset of a myocardial infarction.
But he was wrong.
For his part, Ricciardi was thinking. Capece and his pistol on the one hand, Ettore and his stonewalling on the other. And the possibility of an armed burglary gone wrong, or of a third man who had not yet made his public entrance onto the stage of the duchess’s life: just who, for instance, had seen her home, that night? Witnesses had seen her leave the theater alone, but there was no reason not to think that she might have met someone afterwards: the dizzy chaos of the festa would have concealed unusual visitors from sight, in all likelihood.
Serving as a backdrop to these thoughts, Livia surfaced intermittently in the commissario’s mind, staring round-eyed at the four buffoonish clowns as they tried to attack Ricciardi; Enrica surfaced too, sitting at Gambrinus, her eyes filled with tears. His mind instantly raced to the debonair smile of the young man with her, and as it did, he felt a stab of discomfort in his stomach. Maybe I just need something to eat, he thought.
But he was wrong.
XXXII
Now, it was true that Maione was a bad driver, and it was also true that Ricciardi, presented with a choice between driving and walking, always preferred the latter solution; but for that particular route, between police headquarters and the Rione Amedeo, there was another reason, as well.
Some ten days earlier, right on the Via Dei Mille, an automobile had swerved out of control and hit a lamppost head on; it wasn’t going all that fast, but the windshield had shattered and killed the small family that was out showing off its brand new car: husband, wife, and a little boy, riding in his mamma’s arms.
Ricciardi had read about it in the newspaper, and had taken great care to avoid passing by the scene of the crash, knowing full well that the Deed would be sure to treat him to a very unpleasant moment. Now he had no choice, but it was one thing to walk through on the sidewalk, quite another to experience it aboard a bouncing, jolting vehicle propelled by Maione’s hysterical foot on the gas pedal. Walking would be the lesser of two evils.
Walking along under the pitiless hot sun, he braced for the vision the way a boxer prepares for his adversary’s punch. He knew that, however much he steeled himself, it would still catch him by surprise. And in fact the first time he looked up, he was greeted by the sight of man, woman, and child sitting in midair, where there had once been an upholstered bench seat, just a yard away from a steel lamppost that was still bent from the impact.
Without stopping, casting a sidelong glance, Ricciardi saw that the man had been run through by the steering column, as was almost always the case in accidents of this kind; his crushed and perforated thorax was a dark crater in the middle of an elegant cream-colored jacket, his face was startled, with staring eyes and open mouth, and from the mouth ran a couple of streams of blood from the punctured lungs. The phrase that the dead man kept uttering showed that he knew what was about to happen:
“Madonna, the brakes, the brakes, we’re going headfirst into the wall.”
Not the wall, Ricciardi thought. Before the wall, the post. Everything in its proper order.
The wife and the son, in contrast, were blithely unaware. That’s a small mercy. Ricciardi noticed that the woman’s head was almost severed; perhaps it was detached entirely from her neck once the woman was already dead. But in that moment, as he looked at her, the head was still joined to the body by a slender strip of flesh on the left side, cut cleanly through by the metal frame of the windshield: the entire neck, including the spinal cord. Above the horror of the artery spraying useless blood like a fountain, the face exhibited a grotesquely complacent smile:
“You’re dying, you’re all dying of envy for our nice new car.”
Look who bought it in the end, thought Ricciardi grimly. And he couldn’t help but take a quick look at the little boy, three years old, perhaps; no more. He’d been run through by a large shard of thick windshield glass; Ricciardi saw that the shard of glass had pierced his chest, first pinning him to his mother, and then the two of them to the bench seat.
As he listened, the commissario discovered where the family had been heading on its outing, so sadly cut short.
“Gelato at the Villa Nazionale, Papà promised me, a nice cup of gelato.”
All this pointless pain, thought Ricciardi as he unconsciously heaved a long sigh. Maione interrupted his grim silence to say:
“Eh, I know, it’s hot out, Commissa’. Don’t you think it would have been smarter to take the car?”
They could tell from a good distance which building it was, because Capece was pacing back and forth in front of the entrance, smoking nervously. When he spotted them he hurried in their direction.
“Ricciardi, Brigadier. I owe you my thanks; not everyone in your position would have shown me this consideration, to let me know so that I could be here. I appreciate it deeply. My children and my wife have nothing to do with this whole matter. They’ve already had to suffer too much, through my own fault. And now this added humiliation, having the police in their home . . . no offense meant, let me make that clear: still, as you must understand, it isn’t easy.”
Ricciardi nodded, gesticulating brusquely with one hand as if to shoo away a fly.
“Don’t mention it. When we can, we always do our best to avoid certain situations; especially when there are innocent people involved. Shall we go upstairs?”
Capece led the way, showing them through an atrium that ended in a broad staircase. The building had clearly seen better days, but it was still a very presentable place. The journalist’s family lived on the third story; when they reached the apartment door, the man twisted the handle of the doorbell. Ricciardi and Maione exchanged a rapid glance, since they’d both guessed that Capece had waited for the two of them to arrive before going upstairs to his own home.
The door was opened by a girl who looked to be about ten years old, and who closely resembled her father; she looked at him in happy surprise and threw her arms around his neck with a joyful cry. Capece was embarrassed but also visibly moved, and he picked the little girl up and hugged her close with glistening eyes. Maione and Ricciardi hung back, to keep from intruding on that wonderful moment of closeness. The brigadier couldn’t help wondering how long it had been since the father and daughter had last seen each other.
In the end, without setting down his daughter, who still had both arms wrapped tightly around his neck, Capece gestured for the two policemen to enter the apartment.
“Prego, Signori, go right on in. Giogiò, darling, these two gentlemen are . . . friends of Papà. Now you be a good girl, get down, and introduce yourself.”
The little girl, once again with her feet on the floor, smoothed her skirt with a very feminine gesture, and curtseyed impeccably.
“Buon giorno, Sign
ori and friends of Papà. My name is Giovanna Capece and I’m eleven years old.”
Ricciardi gave her a half-smile. Maione doffed his cap and said, with a bow:
“Buon giorno to you, Signorina Giovanna Capece, eleven years of age. I am Raffaele and the gentleman, here, is Signor Ricciardi.”
The little girl considered introductions to have been satisfactorily completed. She smiled and said: “I’ll go call my mamma.”
But she was already there, behind her, standing in the doorway. She was a good-looking woman, perhaps just a shade nondescript, thought Ricciardi. Not tall, dressed in dark clothing, Capece’s wife didn’t catch the eye, thought she certainly had no evident shortcomings. Chestnut hair, fair-skinned, she had large lovely eyes and a sweet expression. Her face—and both Maione and Ricciardi noticed it—bore the signs of prolonged suffering, with deep wrinkles under her eyes and around her mouth.
Just then, however, the woman’s gaze seemed to be illuminated from within. She was staring at her husband, with the hint of a smile and an expression of unconditional devotion that verged on the shameless.
In fact, Capece was clearly uncomfortable, and looked away from the woman. He addressed the two policemen, without even bothering to say hello to her.
“This is my wife Sofia. These gentlemen are Commissario Ricciardi and Brigadier Maione. They’re here to . . . to ask a few questions.”
Almost a minute went by, during which the woman never took her eyes off her husband, while he looked at Ricciardi and Maione looked at the floor. For his part, the commissario continued to observe Sofia’s ecstatic expression, thinking just how nice it must be to have a wife who looked at you like that; and also how powerful the passion must be that a gaze like that communicated. In the end, the woman seemed to awaken from her trance, and stroking her daughter’s hair, said to the girl:
“Darling, go play in your room now. Then I’ll come join you.”
The girl curtseyed again and left. As he watched her run off, Ricciardi asked:
“Is she your only child?”
Sofia answered before her husband could speak, with a proud smile: “Giovanna also has an older brother, Andrea. He’s out studying, right now, even if he’s still on summer vacation. A smart and conscientious young man, just like his father. He’ll be back soon.”
The three glanced at each other with a certain awkward discomfort, even though there didn’t seem to be a speck of irony in the woman’s words; indeed, she went on smiling at her husband, as if this were the most normal situation in the world. Once again, Ricciardi wondered how long it had been since the man and woman had seen each other and why the wife failed to display any bitterness toward her husband. For his part, Capece seemed unwilling to emerge from his dull grief: in his face and on his clothing, filthy and rumpled, he still bore the marks of sleepless nights and too much wine.
“If you please, Ricciardi. Come this way, have a seat in the drawing room.”
The apartment, at least the rooms they walked past, was tidy and clean: everything in its place, the scent of lavender, wallpaper and curtains without tears, rips, or wrinkles. Yet it was lifeless.
It seemed like a diligently executed performance, more than a home where a family lived.
They sat in the drawing room. Sofia seemed completely unruffled; and yet her husband had just introduced their two guests as policemen, and she couldn’t be unaware of what had happened, and the fact that the whole city was talking about it. Ricciardi tried to read the woman’s attitude, as she sat beside her husband on a sofa.
“Signora, forgive the intrusion. As you may have heard, sadly, a horrible thing has happened. The unfortunate death of . . .”
“The Duchess of Camparino, of course, I know. No one’s talking about anything else these days. And I also know that the lady was an acquaintance of my husband, who was helping her to write her memoirs. That was why the two of them were spending so much time together: for work. These are hard times, you know, Commissario: a man who wants to make sure his family lacks for nothing must often work more than one job. And my husband, who’s talented and smart, is a very hard worker. And he’s a wonderful father and husband.”
Sofia’s rant ended in an awkward silence. Maione was raptly staring at the porcelain figurine of a peasant girl, as if it had been doing the talking. Capece was staring intently at his wife, with a mixed expression of horror and compassion. Ricciardi nodded.
“I see. All the same, since your husband was one of the last people to see her alive, we must ascertain whether he is aware of anything that may be useful to our work. Could you tell me where you and your family were, on the night between last Saturday and Sunday?”
Sofia at first seemed confused, and then she burst out laughing.
“Where else could we have been? Here, of course. Like always. The children were in their bedrooms and my husband and I were in ours. Sleeping. Why, where were you that night?”
Ricciardi and Maione exchanged a surprised glance. Capece went on staring at his wife, without any change in his expression; in the meanwhile, she had placed a hand on his leg, as if to keep him there. As if she were afraid he might fly away any minute.
The Commissario went on in the same tone of voice.
“And yet that’s not what your husband says, Signora. Your husband states that he was up and about all night long, making his way through the various taverns down near the port. Are you sure of what you just told us?”
Sofia furrowed her brow in irritation.
“How dare you question my statement? My husband must be confused. I assure you that all four of us stayed home that night, and no one went out. I keep the key under my pillow at night, and I’d certainly have noticed if anyone had taken it, don’t you think? I confirm every word of what I said, and it’s up to you to prove otherwise.”
Well, thought Maione, the Signora was right about that. It’s up to us to prove otherwise.
Just as Ricciardi was about to respond, Andrea, the Capeces’ oldest child, came in. He was a tall young man, with his mother’s complexion and hair color, and at sixteen he looked older than his age. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and he carried a few books bound with a leather strap under his arm. His face was a kaleidoscope of emotions: his cheerful expression was quickly replaced by a look of concern at the sight of strangers in the place, and then chilly hostility when he saw his father. For his part, Capece looked at him with tenderness and started to get up and greet him, but Sofia intensified the pressure on his leg to make sure he remained seated.
“Commissario, this is Andrea, and as I told you, he’d gone out to study. Andrea, Commissario Ricciardi and Brigadier Maione are here to ask a few questions. For some reason, they’re convinced that on Saturday night your father was away from home, instead of here, asleep, like all of us. Can you tell him, too, that that’s simply ridiculous?”
Maione admired the woman’s speed and cunning; she had just informed her son of the situation and spoon-fed him the proper response, as well. Ricciardi hadn’t stopped staring at the woman, after a fleeting glance at the boy.
Andrea, on the other hand, was looking at his father, with an expression of absolute and unmistakable contempt. A palpable sense of tension had just descended over the drawing room.
“Mamma, I was sleeping. You know how it is, I’m a heavy sleeper: I don’t know who’s in the apartment and who isn’t. But if you say he was here, then he must have been here. I would have to guess that a woman knows if she’s sleeping alone or not. Do you need anything else from me? If not, I’m going to go wash up.”
Ricciardi was well aware of how useless the testimony of a minor would be; still, he had the impression that the son’s unmistakable resentment toward his father was the weakest link in the chain that the Capece family was coiling around its own safety and serenity.
“How long has it been since you last saw your father?”
The question dropped into the silence like a firecracker. The boy, who had alread
y stepped across the threshold, froze and slowly turned back to look at Ricciardi. The mother tried to break in, but the commissario halted her with one raised hand.
“Commissario, I’m on vacation, I get up late. This morning, when I got up, my father had already left. And yesterday, when I went to sleep, he hadn’t come in yet. You know, he works at the newspaper; so he doesn’t get in until late. Now, if you don’t mind?”
And he turned and left the room.
XXXIII
Why did you do it? Why, Mamma? This was our chance to get rid of him, to make him pay. To free our faces once and for all of his slaps and the misery that he heaped on us, we who were once his family.
No one could have whispered behind our backs anymore; no more shame; no more slander. We could finally have walked with our heads held high, because everyone would have understood that we are the victims.
But instead you chose to save him. I don’t understand why. It would have been simple justice if they’d finally hauled him off and tossed him into the place he deserved, so he could reflect on all he’d done. Reflect on the crime he committed.
He didn’t deserve our help. He doesn’t deserve a thing. But you still love him, even after everything you had to put up with.
I don’t understand.
In spite of himself, Ricciardi was impressed with the ambiguous nature of the boy’s answer. Like mother, like son, he thought. Maione, on the other hand, was watching Capece, his expression; the journalist’s animated face was reflecting contrasting emotions: mortification, sense of guilt, humiliation. But also a certain fierce pride, the last-ditch defense of a powerful feeling that had outlived its object. Once or twice, he’d opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he’d stopped. In some way, it seemed that his wife’s hand, intimately resting on his thigh, was dominating his will.
Everyone in Their Place Page 23
