Adam's Rib

by Antonio Manzini

  Another shitty day.

  HE HAD JUST GOTTEN INTO HIS CAR WHEN HIS CELL phone rang. He wasn’t at the top of his game. It was the second day in a row that he’d forgotten to turn it off. An unforgivable error.

  “Who’s busting my balls?”

  “It’s Alberto. Are you in the office?”

  It was the medical examiner. “No. I’m on my way in now.”

  “So where are you exactly?”

  “What do you care? What’s up?”

  “What did I tell you yesterday? I need to talk to you, urgently.”

  “As soon as I get to the office I’ll call you back.”

  “Listen, it’s something about Esther. And I think it’s something you’ll be interested in.”

  “I swear I’ll call you. You can count on it.”

  “You don’t want me to tell you what it’s about?”

  Rocco rolled his eyes.

  “You do know, Rocco, that dead people have stories to tell, don’t you?”

  “Maybe not out loud.”

  “Sure. But their presence is enough, and if you keep your ears pricked, they tell you stories, and how. Believe me, the other day Esther Baudo had some terrible things to tell you.”

  “Fine. Then let’s meet at police headquarters in twenty minutes or so?”

  “No. You come see me.”

  “Have you noticed? It snowed all night long.”

  “That happens quite often in Aosta, or is that news to you? What’s the matter? Are you afraid of a hip fracture?”

  “Well, at least wait until they can clean the streets, no?”

  “Oh you pathetic yutz, I’m here at the hospital and have been since seven, and the streets were already perfectly clean. And explain this to me: how come I can get places with the snow and you can’t?”

  “You’re such a pain in the ass, Alberto.”

  “Listen, Rocco, I worked Saturday and Sunday, because that poor woman’s body had to be buried. Have you ever heard of something called a funeral?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, I attend quite a lot of them. All right, let me see if the car will start and I’ll try to get over to where you are.”

  “You have a Volvo XC60 all-wheel drive, hundred and sixty-three horsepower, not even a year old, and you’re telling me it might not start? Come on, get your ass in gear.”

  BUT INSTEAD ROCCO WENT STRAIGHT TO THE OFFICE. He had no intention of swinging by the hospital. He’d find some way of luring Fumagalli to police headquarters. It wasn’t laziness, and it wasn’t a lack of interest. Quite the opposite; he was eager to hear whatever news the Tuscan doctor had for him. But he couldn’t bring himself to go to the hospital, and especially not to the morgue, one more time. To have that stench wash over him again, to look at those metal gurneys and those enormous filing cabinets that held the bodies of people who were no longer among the living.

  He was starting to be sick and tired of people who were no longer among the living.

  He was hurrying down the main hallway in police headquarters, eager to avoid a meeting with a bustling, early-rising Deruta, when something in the passport office caught his attention. The door hung ajar. He tiptoed closer on his crepe sole shoes and took a peek into the room, and didn’t like what he saw there, not one little bit.

  Officer Italo Pierron was using his tongue to explore the oral cavity of Inspector Caterina Rispoli. They were just standing there, eyes shut tight, arms wrapped around each other like a couple of octopi. In their heads, they weren’t in Aosta police headquarters: they were stretched out on some beach in the Caribbean, or maybe just in a bedroom somewhere. Rocco was tempted to cough just for the fun of seeing the two lovers’ blushing faces, but then he thought better of it.

  Revenge is a dish best enjoyed cold. In fact, as long as we’re in Aosta, freeze-dried.

  HE HADN’T EVEN GOTTEN TO HIS OFFICE AND HE WAS already shouting: “Pierron!”

  The sound of scurrying feet and the young officer appeared, panting: “Here I am. What’s up?”

  Rocco looked at him. His shirt collar was undone, his tie was loosened, and his lips were chapped as if someone had gone over them with sandpaper. “What the hell were you doing?” he asked.

  “I was going over burglary reports.”

  “Get over to the hospital and pick up Fumagalli. He says he has something to tell me. Now, he’s going to tell you he can’t come, but you tell him I just got stuck in a meeting with the chief of police.”

  “Right, got it. Listen, Rocco . . .”

  “At headquarters you call me sir.”

  “Ah right, I was forgetting. It’s just that there’s no one here and I thought . . . anyway, listen, sir, the head of the forensic squad, Commissario Farinelli, called you, a number of times.”

  “I’ll call him back. You have anything else to tell me?”

  “No.”

  “Then go do what I told you to, for Christ’s fucking sake.” And Rocco slammed his door right in Officer Italo Pierron’s face. Who at first felt slightly hurt. And then decided that maybe his boss had just woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. He definitely hadn’t smoked his morning joint yet, and that was probably the reason for such a bitter mood. When he got back, he would surely find Rocco as relaxed and friendly as ever.

  “ONE THING YOU SHOULD KNOW, ROCCO, IS THAT THE cannabinoid receptors are in the basal ganglia, which are connected to the cerebellum, which directs nerve impulses. Also, the hippocampus, which controls memory and stress. And the cerebral cortex, and there we’re talking about your cognitive activity, and such.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Alberto?”

  “That if you go on smoking it’s going to do you serious harm. To say nothing of the tachycardia!”

  In fact, the smell of grass was unmistakable in Rocco’s office, and there was no point trying to conceal the truth from Alberto Fumagalli. “I don’t smoke much, and only in the morning. It helps me.”

  “It helps you how?”

  “It calms me down and it opens up my mind. I become creative and I can even stand looking at a fucked-up face like yours.”

  “It’s a miracle.”

  “What is?”

  “That you managed to find a wife at all, you know?”

  “That’s a subject I’d recommend you steer clear of. I tend to lose my sense of humor.”

  “You’re right, sorry. Still, just between you and me, stop smoking joints. I’m telling you as a friend.”

  “You’re not my friend.”

  “All right then, as a doctor.”

  “You’re not even a doctor. Doctors cure sick people.”

  “Well?”

  “Tell me what chances of recovery your patients have.”

  “Well, if you say so.”

  “So tell me what’s so amazing.”

  “Can I get a cup of coffee?”

  “No. The coffeemaker here is even worse than the one you have at the hospital. But just wait a second . . . why not?” Rocco got up and opened the office door: “Pierron!” he shouted.

  Italo came in through a side door: “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you go get us a couple of espressos from the bar?”

  Italo looked at Rocco without understanding. He’d never asked him to do such a thing before.

  “Which part of the question did you miss?”

  “Can’t you ask Deruta?” he said with a smile.

  “No. I’m asking you. Wait a second!” He turned to Alberto. “Do you want something to eat, too?”

  “No thanks, just coffee.”

  “So just two espressos, Italo. Don’t take forever, though,” he warned, then closed the door.

  He went back and sat down across from Fumagalli. “Well, what did you find out?”

  “First, tell me why you’re not in a meeting with the police chief. Your officer told me that he’d dragged you into one.”

  “True. But in the end I managed to get the matter taken care of because I knew you were coming.�
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  “Let’s run the numbers. It took me less than ten minutes to get over here. And you were having a meeting with the police chief. Then you had enough time to smoke a joint; let’s say that took another five minutes. But to judge from the faint aroma in here, I’d say you finished that joint at least seven or eight minutes ago. Therefore you started smoking that joint the minute Officer Pierron started driving over to get me. To complete my thought process, you had a conversation with the chief of police that lasted, if it ever took place at all, less than a minute. So you know what I think? I think that you never even laid eyes on the police chief, that you just dreamed up an excuse not to have to come see me. And in summation, I would say that you’re a lying liar, barefaced and shameless. QED.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Only if you tell me that I was right.”

  “You were right. Shall we move on to the things that matter?”

  Alberto nodded. Then he pulled a notebook out of his pocket. He opened it. He checked his notes. “Listen carefully. We’re talking about Esther Baudo.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I sent all the documentation to the judge, but I’m talking to you about it directly. There’s something that doesn’t add up.”

  Rocco pulled a cigarette out of the pack on his desk.

  “It bothers me if you smoke.”

  “You bother me if I don’t. Go on. What doesn’t add up?”

  “The fractures.”

  Rocco’s face became a living question mark.

  “Not the fractures associated with the blows to the cheekbone; you remember, right? No. I’m talking about old fractures. I found one to the ulna and one to the radius of her right arm. A couple of cracked ribs, and that’s old stuff too. And then there was her right cheekbone. It shows an old fracture, from . . . I’d say, roughly, a few years ago.”

  Rocco took a long, slow puff. He exhaled the smoke toward the ceiling. “So you’re saying?”

  “One of two things: either the woman practiced extreme sports . . .”

  “No, I don’t think she did.”

  “In that case, there’s nothing left but a car crash. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know to explain it to you. I mean, that kind of damage to her bones.”

  Rocco stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. He stood up and walked over to the window. But he didn’t look out at the landscape. He put one hand over his eyes. “This is a terrible thing, you know?”

  “You think so?”

  “I do.”

  Italo Pierron walked into the room with two small plastic cups. He set them down on the desk. “How much sugar?” he asked Alberto with an ironic smile, but the medical examiner said nothing and just tossed back the espresso in a gulp. The officer realized that the silence, like a highlighter on a blank page, pointed to something very important that had just happened. “What’s going on?” he asked, glancing at Rocco.

  “Come with me, Italo.” Then the deputy police chief looked at Fumagalli: “I’m going to have Deruta take you back to the hospital. Thanks, Alberto, you’ve been very helpful. Like always.” And as he walked past him, he gave him a slap on the back.

  “Aren’t you going to drink your coffee?”

  But Rocco had already left the room, followed by Italo. The medical examiner tossed back the second cup of coffee too.

  “WHERE ARE WE GOING?” ASKED ITALO.

  “Charvensod, to pay a call on Patrizio Baudo’s mother.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “A lot of things don’t add up.”

  “No, I didn’t mean that. What’s going on between you and me?”

  Rocco smiled. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “Because you’re being strange.”

  “Ah, I’m being strange? You’ve been fucking Rispoli and I’m being strange?”

  “No, wait, what does Rispoli have to do with this?”

  “I saw the two of you in the passport room.”

  Italo downshifted and then hit the accelerator. “So?”

  “Italo, you know I had my eye on her.”

  “So what, you have some kind of jus primae noctis?”

  “So what if I did?”

  They drove in silence through a few more curves. “It happened when we were staking out Gregorio Chevax, the other night.”

  “Did you start it or did she?”

  “Let’s just say that I arranged for her to start it.”

  “I want the details.”

  Italo took a deep breath. “Well, I started things, I guess. I said to her: What if Chevax sees us? And she answered: impossible. So then I said: Should we do like in the movies? We could pretend to be a pair of lovers making out, and that would allay all suspicions. She looked over at me and then said: oh heavens, I’m pretty sure I just saw Chevax’s shadow! And she threw her arms around me. And we kissed. And we laughed.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “And that’s all.”

  “Goddamn,” Rocco said, “that took some imagination. Technically you brought up the subject, but she took the initiative.”

  “Yes, but I knew she liked me. I’d known it for a while.”

  “Well, would it have killed you to tell me?”

  Italo pulled up in front of Patrizio Baudo’s mother’s house. Rocco opened the door. “Anyway, don’t get too comfortable. I’m still going to make you pay.”

  “You’re not very sportsmanlike,” retorted Italo, getting out and following him.

  “Whoever said I was?” They started walking toward the house when the door opened and Signora Baudo emerged. She had seen them coming. Her face was worried. She was holding a dish towel and clutching it to her belly. “Dottore, has something happened to my son?” were the first words out of her mouth.

  A pile of snow beside the sidewalk reached out and nipped at the deputy police chief’s left Clarks desert boot.

  “Goddamn it . . . no, Signora, as far as I know he’s fine. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m so anxious. He went up to Pila this morning on the cable car and he’s had his cell phone turned off ever since.”

  “He went to Pila?”

  “He said that he needed to get up into the mountains, and far away from this . . .” She swept her right hand in a circle to indicate everything around her.

  “No, Signora, you’ll see, he must just have wanted a little time to himself. We came for another reason.”

  “Would you like to come in? Can I offer you anything?”

  Italo was already heading for the house. Rocco threw his arm out to block him. “Maybe you can tell us. It’s just a question. Was Esther ever in a serious car crash?”

  “Esther? No. One time she was in a fender bender, but they exchanged information and the insurance companies took care of it. But why? Is there some complaint from an insurance company?”

  “No, Signora,” said Italo, “don’t worry about that.”

  “It was strictly a formality,” said Rocco, looking down at his shoe, which had already changed color.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a cup of coffee? You ought to get yourself a pair of shoes that are better suited for the snow.”

  Rocco looked at the woman. “You know, Signora? You aren’t the first person to give me that advice.” Then with a smile he went back to the car. Italo snapped her a sharp salute in farewell, then turned to follow his boss.

  “WHAT CAN I TELL YOU? I’D HAVE TO GO DO A SEARCH in the archives.” The man was unhelpful, speaking quickly in an unmistakable attempt to dispose of that unexpected visit from the police as soon as possible. “Do you have any idea of how long that would take me?”

  The hospital’s administrative director looked like anything but the administrative director of a hospital. Crewneck cashmere sweater, dark blue corduroy trousers. He wore a pair of glasses with lenses tinted light blue, like a Hollywood movie star. His flowing white hair clashed with his chubby round face. He sat there, knuckles pressed down on his desktop, and he hadn’t invited Rocco, much les
s Officer Pierron, to take a seat and get comfortable in either of the two leather office chairs facing his desk.

  “Don’t you have a secretary, Dottor Trevisi?” asked the deputy police chief.

  “It’s Wednesday. Wednesdays are always a nightmare. What with scheduled visits and walk-ins, you can’t even imagine the rush. Listen, why don’t we do this: you leave me the note and I swear to you that in less than”—he glanced at the clock—“six hours I can give you the information you need.”

  “Let’s say three hours.”

  “Five.”

  “Four, and we have a deal!” said Rocco, extending his hand. The director took it and shook it without understanding why. He took a sheet of paper and started writing. “Now then, Deputy Police Chief, do me a favor and remind me . . .”

  “Certainly. I want to know whether and when you hospitalized, or even just treated in an emergency room visit, a woman named Esther Baudo. Baudo was her married name. Her maiden name was . . .”

  “Sensini,” Italo put in promptly.

  Trevisi was taking notes without looking up, whispering with his Cupid’s bow mouth each word as he wrote it: “. . . emergency room, Sensini married name Baudo . . .”

  “If you’ll forgive me for putting in my two cents, I’d take a look under traumatology. I want to know how and why.”

  “. . . how and why . . . excellent!” The administrative director looked up. “Well then, if there isn’t anything else . . .”

  “No, actually there is one more thing.”

  “Go right ahead, Dottor Schiavone.”

  “You just try not getting back to me in four hours and I’ll be back with a nice little document signed by a judge.”

  “And would you mind telling me what I’d find written in that document?”

  “Dottor Trevisi, it’s not as if I came to see you because I don’t have anything better to do. This concerns a murder. I hope that I’ve made things clear once and for all. Have a good day.”

  He turned and exited the office, with Italo hard on his heels. Trevisi immediately picked up the phone: “Annamaria? Please come to my office . . . there’s some research I need you to do . . . of course, right now; when did you think? At New Year’s? Who the hell cares if it’s Wednesday!”