Poisonville

by Massimo Carlotto

  Visentin had served as legal counsel to his old friend in a disagreeable case involving an inheritance. He had been successful in the case against Marizza’s sisters, relying on the usual nitpicking detail, a formal shortcoming that everyone else had overlooked. Since then, neither of the sisters acknowledged him in public, or spoke to him in private. But his friendship with Guido was as sound as ever. And so he chose to adopt a direct approach. If it hadn’t been Guido, he would never have taken such a gross risk. His usual approach could be summed up by the phrase: “Ask for a pear if an apple is what you want.” But things were different with Guido.

  “I am very worried about Francesco. His alibi lends itself to ambiguous, dangerous interpretations.”

  Marizza nodded wisely, wrinkling his nose as if he’d noticed a bad smell.

  “This matter of the DNA. You know how these things can be, mistakes can be made . . . In other words, Guido, I’d like it if you were personally responsible for doing the testing, and not just one of your assistants. I . . . only trust you.”

  Marizza gazed at him without expression. “Nowadays, I leave those tests to my assistants, I don’t spend much time in the laboratory anymore.”

  “I would be infinitely grateful,” Visentin insisted.

  Marizza slumped back into his imposing leather office chair, a gift from his staff for his twenty-year anniversary. He grimaced, as if the stockfish and polenta from the baccalà alla vicentina that he’d eaten for lunch had risen to the back of his throat. Then he leaned forward, speaking in an archly confidential tone of voice.

  “There’s a machine that we use in the forensic lab. About a month ago, it caused a real problem, it skewed the DNA results on a piece of evidence. Luckily, it was just a paternity case, so we were able to rerun the test. But in a case like this . . . If the machine damaged the evidence, it would be impossible to reconstruct. And even if there were still traces of sperm in Giovanna’s body, they would no longer be usable. Too much time has gone by.”

  “I know.”

  “This involves a murder . . .”

  “This involves my Francesco.”

  “Certainly, certainly.”

  Visentin realized he’d ventured too far. He shifted tone, as if they had just met at the country club, enjoying a glass of prosecco.

  “How is Elisabetta?” he asked.

  “She’s doing well. She’s well liked on the job. They say she’s a talented art restorer. I think she’s ready to take the next step, but you know what public institutions are like. Talent isn’t enough.”

  “Is Volpi still the director?”

  “That stubborn old cuss won’t retire . . .”

  “Perhaps the time has come to make way for young blood. When this is all over, I could invite the old gentleman to the trout-fishing lake. And let him catch all the trout . . .”

  “As long as Elisabetta never finds out. That girl has her mother’s sense of pride.”

  “It’ll be our little secret.”

  The two friends smiled in complicity.

  Visentin stood up. “Fine. I’m very pleased.”

  When he was at the door, Marizza’s voice reached him: “Francesco is a good boy, certainly not the kind of boy who would . . .”

  “Certainly not,” said Visentin, as he turned to look back.

  “Fine,” Marizza echoed.

  There was nothing more to be said.

  * * *

  Whenever she had an important meeting with Antonio Visentin, the Contessa Selvaggia Calchi Renier made an appointment with her hairdresser. She did it to ensure that her hair gleamed with that coppery highlight that, as Antonio always said, gave her a dangerous resemblance to Rita Hayworth. The irony in all this was that Antonio was the only prominent man in town who had never been her lover. What bound them together was much more important than sex. It was a tie that transcended emotions and had its foundations, one might say, in their shared sense of taste. No one else could claim to have a fraction of the aesthetic sense that Antonio put—not into winning a case, but winning resoundingly, over-winning. No one had a better instinct than he did for the perfect timing in driving home a thrust or withdrawing from an excessively risky business deal without looking weak. Antonio, and Antonio alone, knew how important it was to her to occupy center stage—no matter whether it was a business conference or opening night in a new concert season. If he had never been a lawyer, he could certainly have became a great director: he glimpsed things before others did, he knew how to guide his protagonists, and he knew how to describe—even recount—a new business opportunity to any audience. Antonio had never lorded it over her that he had been born a Visentin, while she had had to become a Contessa. If it hadn’t been for Antonio, this difference would have condemned her to a role as a co-star, a decorative gewgaw, a role to which her late husband would gladly have relegated her, if he had been strong enough. She owed the single most important thing to Antonio Visentin: her public recognition. When her husband was still alive, Antonio had encouraged her in her efforts to rejuvenate the ancient fortunes of the Calchi Renier family, he had suggested the best strategies, and he had woven around her that network of consensus that had culminated in the creation of her masterpiece, the Torrefranchi Foundation. It had all happened so quickly, in the few dizzying years in which the Northeast had transformed itself from a land of farmers and emigrants into the wealthiest and most productive industrial region in all of Europe. A free-market network, a promised land of productivity that not even the most reactionary and pompous apparatus of government intervention could hobble or restrict. This is what she and Antonio had in common: a love of the modern, a love of the new.

  Now times were changing again, and even faster this go-round. That was why she was worried. She needed Antonio more than ever, his strength and his courage. Giovanna’s death and the suspicions hovering over Francesco threatened to ruin everything. Now it was up to her to build, to fabricate if necessary, a public acknowledgment toward the Visentin family. A public acknowledgment of innocence.

  “Contessa, we are home,” announced the Romanian chauffeur as he parked the black Mercedes in front of the staircase of Villa Selvaggia.

  “Thank you, Toader, I won’t be needing the car again today.”

  As she climbed the steps with a gait that a thirty-year-old woman would have envied, Giorgio, the imperishable butler of the Calchi Renier family, stepped forward and announced: “Counselor Visentin is waiting for you, Madame Contessa.”

  “Ask the cook to prepare a karkade tea.” She wasted no mawkish sentiment on Giorgio; he was a reminder of her husband, and just as much of a snob as he had been while he lived. If it weren’t for Filippo’s objections, she would have sent him to a nursing home long since.

  “Immediately, Contessa,” said the butler with a ceremonious bow.

  “Contessa,” Selvaggia thought to herself. This title of respect, with which she was addressed by housemaids, butlers, chauffeurs, superintendents, secretaries, lawyers, business partners, executives, union leaders, prelates, and accountants, still stirred her soul. Contessa is a title usually acquired at birth. She had become a Contessa, eradicating completely her station at birth, eliminating even her peasant surname.

  As she swept into her office, Antonio rose promptly to greet her with that unfailing gallantry that he would display even if there were a cocked pistol held to his forehead. But his expression was glum, and Selvaggia immediately had her worst fears confirmed.

  “I have just been informed that our sons have exchanged blows at the Bar Centrale. I’ll spare you the details,” said Visentin.

  The Contessa rolled her eyes heavenward. “That’s not helpful.” She patted the empty space on the sofa by her side. “Sit here, next to me,” she said with a kindness she never used with anyone else, not even with Filippo.

  Visentin heaved a sigh. He pulled a cigar out of his inside jacke
t packet. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  She smiled. “You know I like the smell of your cigars.”

  Antonio lit his cigar a little more hastily than usual. He leaned back into the backrest of the late Venetian sofa.

  “You must persuade Filippo to withdraw his statement,” he said and, after gazing into her eyes thoughtfully for a long moment, he added: “And if Filippo were by chance to remember that he left Francesco a little later in the morning, Francesco would be entirely free of suspicion.”

  “Filippo will do precisely what I tell him, rest assured,” the Contessa shot back confidently. “However, considering the way matters now stand, the new version of his testimony will not be enough. Idle gossip can be more damaging than an appeal-proof verdict, as you long ago taught me. We must think of the Foundation. The business structure is in a very delicate phase of transition, as you know all too well.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Selvaggia saw a gleam in the eyes of her personal lawyer. She smiled at that virtually imperceptible manifestation of vitality. “We need a public acknowledgment.”

  She intentionally used those precise words, even if Antonio at that juncture would be unable to grasp their more profound meaning. “We own a broadcasting company. Let’s use it.” And in order to leave Visentin the time necessary to appreciate her strategy, she plucked the cigar from his fingers and indulged in a deep and voluptuous drag.

  “Well, maybe that reporter at Antenna N/E, Beggiolin. He has a big following in town.”

  “That’s exactly who I was thinking of,” smiled Selvaggia, returning his cigar to him.

  * * *

  My father lived in an Art Nouveau villa that had belonged to one of the earliest major industrialists in the area—a pioneer in the field of farm machinery. His factory was demolished decades ago, and his heirs had chosen to change their line of work and place of residence. My father bought the villa immediately after my mother’s death and I had never lived in it, what with boarding school and the university. Papa decided not to remarry, and his only companions were his domestic servants and the family of the concierge who had lived with him for many years now.

  Severina, the concierge’s wife, opened the gate for me and gave me a melancholy smile. Sergio, the butler, opened the door just as my finger was about to touch the buzzer. He greeted me with a deferential hauteur, like a movie butler, and showed me into the living room. A comforting fire was crackling in the little fireplace. Papa sat watching television. He gestured for me to sit down beside him.

  On the screen I saw the images of the piazza and the café. Beggiolin appeared on screen, pointing to the interior of the café.

  “Here, in the Bar Centrale, a few minutes ago, according to reports from numerous eyewitnesses, Filippo Calchi Renier and Francesco Visentin engaged in a fistfight. That alone would be a minor piece of news—though we must say that when two scions of two such important and respected families brawl in public, the town’s image is badly tarnished as a result—were it not for one significant detail. Filippo Calchi Renier has publicly accused Francesco Visentin of murdering his own fiancée, the unfortunate Giovanna Barovier . . .”

  My father picked up the remote control and turned the television off.

  “Nice work,” he said with a cutting tone. “They’ve been running and rerunning this piece for more than an hour. They stop for a commercial break, and then they run it again.”

  “I know, I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “You have no excuses, Francesco. And don’t try to feed me nonsense about being upset and losing control. There are things you just don’t do. It could result in my being hauled before the board of the order, and as you know, I’m the chairman. I would have no choice but to resign.”

  He stood up and went to pour himself a glass of prosecco from a bottle chilling in an elegant silver ice bucket. “In any case, that’s not the main problem. You displayed yourself to the world as a violent individual incapable of self-control,” he went on. “And everyone will feel justified in assuming that you killed Giovanna.”

  “To tell the truth, that’s what they already think.”

  He ignored my comment. “From this moment on, you will do nothing on your own initiative. You will do only what I tell you to do. I will take care of everything. I’ve already arranged to take care of the evidence, and tomorrow evening we will go and have a talk with Filippo.”

  “What evidence are you talking about?”

  “The sperm. I talked to Marizza, we won’t have any surprises.”

  I stood up and grabbed the wineglass out of his hand. “Why did you do that? Do you think I’m guilty?”

  “No. But you can never be too sure in cases like this one. I’ve been a lawyer for too many years to leave things to chance. One mistake and you’re screwed. It would be just one more piece of evidence against you because, in case you haven’t grasped the point, you have no alibi after two in the morning, and Giovanna was killed between one and three.”

  “The DNA test of the sperm doesn’t prove anything. I could easily have killed her after her lover left the house.”

  “Precisely. Which is why it is advisable to get rid of any elements that could make your position any worse.”

  I smashed the glass on the floor. “Instead of worrying about me, an innocent man, you should pressure Zan to find the man who killed her. All you need to do is pick up the telephone, and that incompetent fool would actually be forced to do some genuine investigating.”

  My father pointed to the shattered glass on the wet floor. “You see?” he said, in an exaggeratedly calm tone of voice. “You are incapable of dealing with the situation.”

  “I want to know why you don’t pick up that fucking phone.”

  “Moderate your language,” he warned me. “There’s a time for everything. First and foremost, I want to be absolutely sure that you aren’t implicated. Then we’ll think about the investigation. Giovanna was like a daughter to me. You know how much I loved her.”

  “This is only helping the murderer to get away with it.”

  He shrugged. “I can’t help it if Zan is incompetent,” he said in an irritated tone of voice. “And he can’t pursue multiple lines of investigation at the same time. Breathing down his neck would do no good at all. We must make the right moves at the right time.”

  “Then why not have him replaced?”

  He shook his head in disappointment at my naïveté. “That would be the worst possible move. Everyone would think that I had taken him off the case because he had you dead to rights.”

  * * *

  Adalberto Beggiolin was known in the circles he frequented by the nickname of “puddle shark,” a cold-blooded predator that foraged in shallow, filthy waters.

  He was hardly a sniper with a high-precision rifle. He was more comfortable working with a sawed-off shotgun. If you shoot into the crowd, you’re sure to hit something. He looked on newsgathering as an activity akin to carpet bombing. In his view, good reporting resulted in bleeding, screaming victims.

  He was therefore somewhat disconcerted when, following Giovanna Barovier’s death, he received no specific instructions on who to target, either from the station owner or his own producer. Left to his own devices, a predator of his caliber turned blind and stupid. His instinct had led him to savage the first red meat that bumped up against his snout, but this time he’d mistaken his prey.

  His reports on Francesco Visentin and Filippo Calchi Renier had increased the station’s ratings, but something told him that this time he’d fired into the wrong knot of bystanders.

  What Beggiolin lacked was prudence, discernment, and the gift of self-censorship. That was why he failed to make it up to the level of the national broadcast news; that was why he was still swimming in circles in the puddle of local society news; he had become a big fish in a small pond.

&n
bsp; When he was summoned for a meeting with the Contessa, he prepared himself for the worst; he knew that this time he had pissed on the Persian carpet.

  He gulped down the last bit of meatball sandwich that he’d packed for lunch that morning, and left the newsroom without a word to anyone.

  On his way over to the Villa Selvaggia, he tried to remember everything he knew about the Contessa.

  He remembered the things that everyone knew, including the fact that through the Foundation she controlled 70 percent of Antenna N/E.

  In particular, though, he recalled her exaggeratedly protective instinct toward her slightly deranged son.

  He had seen them together, about a year earlier, in the local prison.

  The Torrefranchi Foundation had announced a program for the reintegration into society and rehabilitation of convicts released from prison. The slogan was: “Let’s give them another chance.” The Contessa had been impeccable in her introductory speech. She had dominated that audience of criminals and convicts with a style worthy of a sadomaso dominatrix. Then she had given the floor to her son, who had spent fifteen embarrassing minutes struggling to deliver a short speech that he had committed to memory along with a fistful of sedatives. It was like watching a pathetic Christmas ritual, with Filippo playing the part of the timid and intimidated child reciting a saccharine little poem, continuously seeking his mother’s approval, as she fed him word after word, her lips moving in silent unison.

  That woman was a remarkable piece of work: one minute she was Margaret Thatcher addressing the House of Lords, a minute later she was a worried mother, looking down at her badly brought-up son with a look of beautiful concern.

  As Beggiolin made his way through the spacious drawing rooms of the Villa Selvaggia, he had no illusions. He was expecting the tigress to greet him by clamping her fangs down hard, not certainly by licking the back of his hand.