The Discordant Note

by Claudio Ruggeri

  Germano’s answer was a half-heartedly smile, after which Mother Alberta understood that the commissioner had already discovered what the teacher had to make amends for.

  A few moments later, the two said goodbye, with the promise to see as soon as possible for the list of students and former students on which the nun would have been working in the days to come.

  Before heading to the last destination of that long afternoon, Germano preferred to make a phone call to the office, to ask how they were doing and if there were any developments.

  “Hello”.

  “Angelo, it’s me”.

  “Hello Vincent, then?”.

  “I just went out from the orphanage and now I am going to the Young Artists Club; I did actually understand something more about Brandenburg, what about you, instead?”.

  “We're still working on it, we’ll have some news tonight”.

  “Well, then let's see around nineteen in my office, tell the others as well”.

  “Alright Vincent, later”.

  “See you later, thanks”.

  The Young Artists Club, as also reported on the brochure, had the task to promote both literary and musical works of boys under the age of twenty-five.

  On his arrival, the commissioner was greeted by a young woman dressed in skimpy clothes, who invited him to follow her; in this case as well, there was a director who Germano would have to talk with.

  The room where he spent his time working, was actually more like a small apartment, with quite modern furniture and, judging from the type of wood, they must be also very expensive.

  The director introduced himself as Augusto Rossi, forty-seven years and with two degrees in plain sight on the wall just behind his desk.

  He received the commissioner with stupid jokes that would not sound funny to a ten year old boy, either; Germano immediately began to wonder if the person in front of him was seriously a perfect fool or if he was just playing the part.

  “Please, sit here, Commissioner”.

  Germano sat down on one of the three chairs on the opposite side of the desk behind which Rossi had already took his place.

  “I'll try to be brief Mr. Rossi ...”.

  “Call me Director ...”.

  “Um ... if you like ... I'll try to be brief, Director”.

  “Tell me”.

  “As I already told you on the phone, I'm conducting an investigation on Ralf Brandenburg’s murder ...”.

  “That crazy man!”.

  “Why are calling him like that?”.

  “Because he was really crazy, he used to live in his own world”.

  “Okay ... but beyond that, is there something that has somehow strengthened this conviction of yours, Director?”.

  “What do you mean?”.

  “I mean ... just tell me about one of his crazy behaviors”.

  “Well ... actually, there have never been problems between us, it’s just that ... he was a bit strange, that's all”.

  “I see, did Brandenburg use to come here often?”.

  “Yes, it was two or three times a year, it was one of our honorary member and always wanted to be informed if there were any young talent in music”.

  “It's never happened that you suggested to the Master the name of one of the boys?”.

  “Not really”.

  “Why not?”.

  “Usually the kids come to us already built”.

  “Do you consider a twenty-five years guy already built? And sorry if I dare, who did not want to learn something more from someone like Brandenburg, a musician known almost all over the world?”.

  “Let's say that the service that we provide is far different ... we promote the works of young people to make the world know about them and ...”.

  “Excuse me, Rossi, but I don’t want to waste my time, I’ve a curiosity; who is financing all this?”.

  “It's a state program, Commissioner, the State finances the project annually so that disadvantaged people can have the chance to get noticed”.

  “I understand, Mr. Rossi ... before I go, I have another curiosity of mine, would you answer to one last question?”.

  “Sure, Commissioner”.

  “Is the half-naked girl at the entrance considered, again for the purposes of reimbursement by the State, a young artist worthy to be known, as well?”.

  That last question, of course, didn’t need an answer; the commissioner, indeed, was already with one foot outside the director's office when he spoke those words, and with both outside the building that housed Rossi’s Club when he was finally able to take that stupid expression off from his face, a result of Vincent Germano’s cryptic words.

  The commissioner returned to his car a little twisting his mouth; before leaving, however, he wanted to make a phone call.

  “Hello”.

  “Piazza, do you hear me?”.

  “Yes, Commissioner”.

  “News about the research on scooters?”.

  “We have fifty-seven names only within the province of Rome, Commissioner, and we have already made ​​an initial screening by eliminating those who do not pay stamp duty or insurance of the vehicle”.

  “Well ...”.

  “We have started to analyze person to person but we are still working on the third one on the list, it will take longer than expected”.

  “Wait a second, Piazza, look only among the orphans, okay?”.

  “The orphans, Commissioner?”.

  “Exactly, delete from those fifty-seven names, the one who are over the age of fifty, then, about those who remain do a check and discard those who still have a living parent, I have the impression that the list will be quite thin in this way”.

  “Okay; Parisi called me before and told me that we would meet in your office, all together, at seven, Commissioner, but I do not know if I can make it in time”.

  “Listen, Piazza, for now, just start to discard all the names you can with the help of the traffic police, then we will take care to call every single registry office to have both family status and any other information which might be useful about those people, okay?”.

  “Okay, then I’ll come to your office as soon as I finish here”.

  “Great, see you later”.

  For convenience, the appointment was postponed to eight in the evening, but already a quarter of an hour before the scheduled time, Germano's office began to fill with people.

  Inspector Piazza had already briefed the colleagues on the conversation he had with the commissioner during the afternoon; the fact that Germano had suggested a specific criterion for the inspector to perform a skimming, it made ​​sense to everyone that something new had already been discovered.

  Germano entered last and began to speak even before he had taken his seat.

  “Listen to me, everybody, it is very likely that the boys and girls who used to take piano and violin lessons from Brandenburg were all orphans. I spoke this afternoon with the nun who runs the orphanage from which the greetings cards were sent to the Master; it was the nun who used to suggest the names of the worthy students to the music teacher, not only that, but she, in person, used to accompany the boys to know Brandenburg at his own house”.

  “Did the nun give you some specific name?”.

  “We are still working on this, Angelo, she confessed not to be able to remember all those who came to contact with the Master over the years, but she promised that she will search within the old records of children who were housed in the institute, we should be able to get a list within a few days”.

  “What about the other meetings, Vincent?”.

  “About the first one, the cultural center, I was not told that much while the other one ... well, the story of Young Artists Club is only a sham to get money out of the State that will actually be spent, I guess, for anything but promoting of the works of promising artists”.

  Inspector Di Girolamo intervened, also on behalf of Angelo Parisi.

  “We're still investigating, Commiss
ioner, on those Giulia and Valentina who used to write to the teacher but still nothing came out; we also compared the list of names with those by Piazza but it seems that none of them own an Aprilia scooter”.

  “I understand ...”.

  “However, I have done what you told me, Commissioner, I followed your instructions and was able to remove several names from that list”.

  “Ah, Piazza, very good, how many are left now?”.

  “Six”.

  “Okay, so there are six people nearby who own an Aprilia scooter in gray whose license plate began with 7P, and ...”.

  “Excuse me, Commissioner”.

  “Tell me, Piazza”.

  “I wouldn’t say nearby ... the names relate to the whole province of Rome, close to a million ...”.

  “Okay, okay, I was just saying that we have a good number of people to check without having to go too far ... however, we also know that there are not more than fifty years old and they have none of the parents still alive ...”.

  “One more thing ...”.

  “Tell us, Piazza”.

  “I managed to get in touch with the various municipalities in which these people live, and I was given some details thanks to which I was able to shorten a little bit more the list, but I told them to make themselves available because we would have needed for sure their help later, I did right?”.

  “You did, Piazza, indeed we need to call them all, again, and ask them to send their registry office certificates, photos and any kind of document that relate to them; let’s start now and try to get everything we need before tomorrow morning”.

  “Okay, Commissioner”.

  “You two, Venditti and Piazza, continue to work on this, while Di Girolamo and Parisi will continue to investigate those Giulia and Valentina, we have nothing else for the moment, should be enough”.

  Vincent Germano, at that point, not having more details to share or directives to give, he allowed himself a half hour of solitude, leaning on the chair in his office; he thought that he should call his wife, on vacation from days, to hear how things were going in Amalfi and to reassure her that he would have soon joined the rest of the family.

  Tuesday, July 9th

  The day began with a rough awakening for the commissioner, a black-out had indeed shoot down the alarm that Germano kept on the nightstand next to the bed; only the pastor’s incessant tang succeeded in waking the inspector up with only a few minutes late.

  Germano still managed to be in his office for the time that had been set on the previous evening, but this forced him to finish dressing into his car and to postpone his breakfast.

  At eight twenty of that summer morning, everyone was again around the commissioner’s desk, who was the last to enter but also the first to take the floor.

  “Here we are, do we have some news about those six names?”.

  Inspector Gianni Piazza was the one to answer.

  “Here they are, Commissioner, the dossiers of the six people involved, give them a look”.

  Germano took them directly from Inspector Piazza’s hands and began to examine them page to page.

  He bitterly noticed that among those six people, there was none Giulia or Valentina, which meant that both Parisi’s and Di Girolamo’s investigations had turned out to be nothing more than dead tracks.

  The policemen were waiting for their superior to speak out; however, seeing him jumping fast from one page to another, they understood that they didn’t have to wait that longer to receive instructions.

  His expression suddenly changed, when he saw the photos and the related data of such Barbara Aversa; then, the look that had been sharp and focused until shortly before, suddenly lost itself into a blank stare.

  This went on for several minutes, during which he kept rubbing his lips with his fingers, as if to give the right shape to mustache he didn’t have; his men, who were all around him, began exchanging furtive glances each other, in trying to guess what was going on in Germano’s mind. It was ultimately Inspector Angelo Parisi to break the silence.

  “Vincent, what’s going on?”.

  “How would you define, in the language of Music, something that is not in full harmony with all the rest, and then inevitably creates dissonance?”.

  “Such a thing is usually called a discordant note, but what does this have to do with the investigation, Vincent?”.

  “Wait a minute Angelo ... the Master was used to give lessons only in the afternoon, right?”.

  “Exactly”.

  “Listen to me, you Angelo, along with Di Girolamo and Venditti, go back to Brandenburg’s house and search it again, there must be other letters hidden somewhere in that house”.

  “We already searched everywhere last time, Vincent ...”.

  “Yes, but you did it by following a standard procedure, you will need to do differently this time”.

  “What do you mean?”.

  “Search in the most unthinkable places, those that may have been meaningful to Brandenburg ... Take a look inside the piano as well”.

  “The piano, Vincent?”.

  “Yes, right there; there must be other letters, I'm sure”.

  “Okay, we'll keep you updated”.

  “Well, Piazza and I, instead, we're going to pay a visit to Miss Barbara Aversa, I have the impression that she is the right person to clarify many of our doubts ... let's get moving”.

  Germano and his men left the police station a few minutes after that last sentence of the commissioner, on two different cars, directed to two different locations.

  The first to reach it, were Parisi, Di Girolamo and Venditti; the yellow ribbon that marked the crime scene had already been removed but not the seals on the door. The three entered the apartment leaving the flashing lights of the police car on; they needed everything but being mistaken for burglars.

  The search could not take place immediately as the three were still undecided on how they should have interpreted the last words of Germano; they tried, then, to share advices and opinions on how to do an ad personam kind of search.

  At the same time his employees were speaking each other, the commissioner was finally parking in a small square near the historical center of Castel Gandolfo.

  The girl with whom he would have spoken shortly after that, indeed, appeared to be employee in a real estate agency nearby; Germano and Piazza needed more than ten minutes to find it but in the end they succeeded.

  From the side of the road in which they stood, they could peek inside; no customers seemed to be at that time in the agency, but before entering, the commissioner wanted to be sure that the girl in question was really who they were looking for.

  Only for a few seconds Aversa Barbara did lift her face from behind the monitor on which she seemed to be almost glued to; the hair and the eyes, which briefly met that of the commissioner, confirmed the identity of the girl.

  The two policemen, at this point, crossed the street before entering the agency.

  Once they reached the door, Germano motioned Piazza to wait, which actually aroused the surprise of the inspector.

  “You’re not thinking of going inside alone, right?”.

  “Yes, actually, Piazza, it is better that I go in alone; you stay out here and do not let anyone in, not even the owners, if they bother you, just take them to breakfast, okay?”.

  “Sounds good to me, but ...”.

  “Do not worry, the worst thing that could happen to me, it would be to realize that I took a colossal blunder ... it would take valuable time from the investigation, believe me, this would be the worst thing”.

  “Okay, Commissioner, I’ll wait here”.

  “Perfect”.

  Before entering the agency, Germano had to ring a bell at his right side, which sound diverted once again, and now for good, the girl’s attention from the monitor, looking now in the direction of the commissioner.

  She took a few moments before pushing the button to her right, a few inches from her computer mouse.
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br />   When he finally managed to enter, he didn’t feel like smiling or saying something, he just walked towards the desk from which the girl was sticking out, waiting for her to utter the first words.

  Barbara Aversa already knew who Germano was, their eyes had already met before; the only thing she was not sure of, was the real reason that brought that stubborn cop to visit her.

  “May I help you?”.

  The commissioner answered that question with a half smile, the kind that are meant to show that the person is not there to waste its time.

  “You ask me if I need help ... I think there are already plenty information on apartments and villas on those cards out there...”.

  “Listen ... if you’re a nut who wants to get on my nerves, you’d better know that I’m ready to call the police if I need to”.

  “Do not tease me, you know my name, then you also know that the police has already arrived ...”.

  “I do not believe you... and even if it was like that ... what would you want to talk about if not houses?”.

  “Good question, I came to visit you, Barbara, because I wanted to talk a little bit of music, let's say ... I want to talk to you about a discordant note ...”.

  “A discordant note? If you are a good musician, you do not know the meaning of the word itself, or maybe just the definition of it”.

  “It's not always like that though ... I think it can happen to anyone, even to the greatest performers, especially when trying new things, scores of which they did not know the existence before”.

  “Well, Commissioner, there's a first time for everything, I

  guess ...”.

  “Yeah ... even for murder”.

  That last statement froze the conversation between the two for a few moments, making the girl look down, away for the commissioner’s look, in order to clear her mind and try to regain control of the situation, that was, by now, already totally in Germano’s hands, despite she was not aware yet.

  That silence, full of meaning, was momentarily interrupted by Inspector Piazza, which was trying, with light taps of his fingers on the glass door, to capture the attention of the commissioner.