“Ciao, Lupa!” D’Intino sadly bade the dog farewell, and together the two men left the office.
That was a nice little assignment that would keep them occupied for at least another couple of days.
Now the desk was free of the papers of the De Rege brothers, the official nickname of the D’Intino–Deruta duo. Rocco saw a note from Caterina: “De Silvestri from Rome. It’s important!”
Rocco looked at the clock. It was too early to call the Cristoforo Colombo police station in the EUR district. And Rocco didn’t have the Roman officer’s home number. The fax was blinking: he only noticed it at that instant. Rocco got up. He went over to the machine and tore loose the sheet of paper.
Dear Dottor Schiavone,
This may not amount to anything, or perhaps it actually may prove useful. A report came in about a missing person. The name made me sit up in my chair. I hope it can be of some use to you. Corrado Pizzuti. He seems to have disappeared last Saturday from his home in Francavilla al Mare, in the province of Chieti. I remember this man very clearly, as I feel sure you do. In the meantime, I’m continuing my search for people who may have escaped or been recently released from prison and who might have anything to do with you. I’ll get back in touch as soon as I have news.
Yours, Alfredo De Silvestri.
Rocco crumpled up the sheet of paper. Corrado Pizzuti! Of course that name meant something to him. It was the seventh of July 2007. And he’d been driving the car.
It would take him almost eight hours to get to Francavilla al Mare. There was no time to waste.
FLAVIO BUGLIONI HAD BEEN RINGING THE BELL FOR HALF AN hour. Luckily a woman walked out the front door and warned him: “Listen, that intercom doesn’t work.”
“I have to go to Roberta Morini’s place . . . Is she in?”
“How would I know?” she replied. “I’m not her damned mother!” But then, with unexpected courtesy, she left the front door open. “She’s on the third floor!”
“Grazie.”
The apartment building was an unsightly structure dating from the seventies, and the staircase hadn’t seen a paint job in all the years since. An abhorrent array of cracks, stains, and chunks of plaster that had simply fallen off was covered with a map of giant graffiti informing the residents “Bebbo and Marta, together since 11/27/2010” and “I cant stand being without you,” without an apostrophe. He decided that taking the elevator would be too risky and instead climbed the two flights of stairs. The tenants had decided to take their own individual and idiosyncratic approaches to nameplates. Some had made them out of paper, others in metal, and a few had simply written their names directly on the door itself. Apartment 7 on the third floor had two different surnames: Morini and Baiocchi. Flavio leaned his ear against the door and pushed the doorbell. He heard it ring inside the apartment. At least this one worked. Rapid footsteps. Then a woman who looked to be forty-five or so opened the door. Half her hair was black from the roots up; the rest was a stringy blonde. Her face looked tense, her eyes were reddish, and she wore a pair of jeans and a green sweatshirt with “University of Ohio” written on it.
“What is it?”
“I’m Flavio Buglioni. I was looking for Enzo . . . Enzo Baiocchi.”
“My father isn’t here.”
“Listen, I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s something pretty serious.”
“Well, I can tell you that I don’t give a flying fuck about my father. Or about anything he might have done. For all I care, he can drop dead in the middle of the street!” And she tried to shut the door. Flavio leaned in on it. “No, hold on, hold on. Please, let me come in!”
She looked out at him: the man was polite, and he had a look of despair on his face. She couldn’t even say why, but she let herself be talked into opening the door and standing aside. “Okay, but let’s make this quick, eh? I’m cleaning house.”
The stench of spinach and onions was infesting the air. A little kid, maybe nine years old, was sitting at the kitchen table—or in a room that served indifferently as kitchen and living room—with several pens in his hand. A notebook lay on the table in front of him. The boy looked up at him without a smile.
“You, Tommà, do your homework! The boy wouldn’t go to school today. He says he has a fever . . .”
At last the child smiled. He was missing an incisor from the front of his mouth. He started writing again. “All right, go ahead.”
“In front of the boy?” asked Flavio.
“In front of the boy,” replied Roberta.
“You don’t know where I can find your father, do you?”
“No. Who are you?”
“I’m a friend. He came to see me ten days ago. Since then, I haven’t seen him.”
“Does he owe you money?”
“That, too . . .”
“Yeah, well, you can go whistle for the money. Chalk that up as a lesson.” Roberta looked at the man’s hands. He had a tattoo on his thumb. Five dots. He wasn’t from the police. “Anyway, he was here, just ten days ago. He slept here, too. Then, God willing, he left and he isn’t coming back.”
“And you haven’t heard from him since then?”
“If he ever decided to call, I’d hang up in his face. Can I ask why you’re looking for him? Aside from the money, I mean . . .”
“It’s a nasty story. The less you know about it, the better. Do you have any idea where he might be?”
“No. I don’t know. As far as I know, he was supposed to be behind bars. But instead, he’s out on the loose. So he must be hiding out somewhere. If you happen to find out where he is, let me know. That way I can tell the police and they can put that rat back in prison where he belongs!”
Flavio knew that Enzo Baiocchi tended to leave a bad taste wherever he’d been, but to hear what the guy’s own daughter thought of him shook him up a little. “Aside from you, Signora, does he have any other family?”
Roberta thought it over. “No . . . I don’t think so. Aside from an elderly cousin, a lady who lives in the country, and who knows if she’s even still alive. When I was a little girl, I went to see her once. Half crazy, she was. Lived with twelve cats and a nanny goat. She was his aunt’s youngest daughter. But she’s gotta be dead by now.”
“In the country, where?”
“Huh . . . hold on a second and let me think . . . see if I can remember.” Then she turned to look at her son. “Tommà, what’s the name of that town where your grandpa’s cousin lives? The one I told you about, who lives with all the cats and the nanny goat?”
The little boy thought it over for a second. “Pitocco!” he said, in a low, rheumy voice, the last sound you’d have expected from him.
“There, that’s right. Pitocco.”
“Where’s that?”
“Near Guarcino.”
Flavio smiled faintly. “Do you remember the name of this aunt of his?”
“No. But you just ask where the house of the crazy woman is. They’ll be able to point you in the right direction. Want some free advice? Just forget about my father. He’s nothing but trouble.”
“Yeah, I sort of noticed . . .”
IT WAS ALMOST FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON WHEN ROCCO FINALLY pulled up in front of the barracks of the constables of Francavilla al Mare, practically next door to Pescara but technically in the province of Chieti. He’d spent longer than he’d expected taking Lupa out for various walks and poops and pees. It seemed as if there were some kind of curfew in effect in the little town. Except for the fact that there were some stores still open, not a living soul could be seen out on the streets. Just a few sickly-looking trees, tested by the winter and not yet recovered, withered palm trees on a narrow waterfront embarcadero, as lifeless as the apartment houses, all of them clearly vacation homes locked up tight until the sun came out and the weather warmed up. Breakers were smashing down heavily against the rocks and the sand.
Ciro Iannuzzi, bored and tired, was leafing through a motorcycle magazine and not bothering to look up at the pe
rson in front of him. “Go ahead . . .”
“I need some information,” said Rocco, leaning closer to the glass partition.
“There’s a tourist office,” Ciro replied, chewing his gum. The sound of someone talking while snapping a cud of chewing gum was one of the things that turned Rocco Schiavone’s blood jet-black. He held his breath and then asked again. “This has nothing to do with tourism. It’s a sensitive matter, so if you don’t mind, I’d like—”
The constable looked up at Rocco. He smiled. “Is this about your wife?”
“What, do they make you learn stand-up comedy before you can work as a constable around here?”
“Listen here, my good man, unless you have something urgent, you can just hightail it out of here . . .” And he pointed him to the door.
“Shall we start over from scratch? All right, then, buonasera. Now, Mr. Constable, sir, it’s your turn to say buonasera.”
“So you’ve studied stand-up, too, haven’t you?”
“That’s right. At the police academy.” Rocco looked at the constable, who narrowed his eyes, uncomprehending. “I’m a deputy chief of the state police, my name is Rocco Schiavone, and you can just thank the good Lord above that there’s a pane of glass between us, otherwise by now you’d be picking your teeth up off the asphalt. Did you think that was funny?”
The constable turned serious. He stood up. “Couldn’t you have said so right away?”
“Why, you fucking stupid dickhead? There isn’t supposed to be any difference between me and someone who isn’t a member of the police, as far as you’re concerned, asshole! Do the job they pay you for. So do I have your full and undivided attention, now? Do you think you can answer my questions?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Corrado Pizzuti.”
“Certainly, Corrado! When was it, Saturday? Tatiana reported him as lost!”
“What is he, an umbrella?”
“I mean to say, no one can find him.”
“Who’s Tatiana?”
Just then, Lisa, the lady constable with dyed-red hair, came in with a smile on her face. “What’s going on, Ciro?”
“The gentleman here is looking for Corrado.” Then he lowered his voice “He’s a deputy chief of police . . .”
“Ah!” said the lady constable. “Yes, Tatiana reported him as a missing person.”
“Yes, we’ve established that. Where can I find this Tatiana?”
“Down at the Bar Derby, on Piazza della Sirena. It was Corrado’s bar. But now she’s running it.”
“Grazie.” Rocco turned to go.
“So, Dotto’, is it something bad?” asked Ciro.
TATIANA AND BARBARA, THE FIRST WITH TEARS IN HER EYES, the other with a distinct quiver of excitement, had told the deputy chief everything they knew. Their suspicions, their suppositions, the days of anguish, and then the news of the discovery of the car at the long-distance bus station in Pescara. “Did you know Corrado?” Tatiana had asked him.
“Let’s just say that my life and his intersected a few years ago . . .”
“He had some bad priors, didn’t he?” asked Barbara as they walked along the waterfront esplanade on their way to Pizzuti’s apartment.
“Quite a few” was all Rocco had to say in reply. He certainly couldn’t tell her about the seventh of July of six years ago. That was something personal, his own private matter, something that only De Silvestri at the Colombo police station and his friends Seba, Furio, and Brizio knew about. Lupa trotted along after the little trio, attracted by smells she’d never breathed in before. Behind the low wall of the promenade was the beach, and beyond the beach was the sea. Every so often the little puppy would climb curiously onto the parapet and observe that strange gray-blue liquid that made so much noise and sprayed white foam in all directions as if it were ravenous for a biscuit.
Via Treviso was deserted. “Here, this is the front gate of the apartment building. Corrado lives on Staircase A, on the mezzanine floor. Shall we ring the doorbell and get them to let us in?”
Rocco nodded. Lupa caught up with them.
“Signora, I’m Tatiana, Corrado’s friend. Could you let me in?”
“No!” replied a bitter voice, curdled by the passing years. The woman hung up the intercom. Rocco sighed. “What a pain in the ass.” He rang the buzzer again.
“I said I’m not opening up!”
“State police, Signora, open up this fucking gate!”
The woman on the other end of the intercom thought it over. “Police?”
“That’s right. Do it now!”
The old woman on the second floor did as she was told. They went into the courtyard and headed for Building A, and the woman looked out the window to keep an eye on them. As soon as Barbara looked up, the old woman withdrew behind the curtain.
They buzzed up to the tenant again to ask her to open the apartment house entrance, a glass-and-metal door. This time the old woman didn’t even reply. She just buzzed the door open.
“Where are we going to go now, though?” asked Barbara. “We don’t have the keys.”
Rocco said nothing. Corrado’s door was the first one on the right. “I’m going to wear this damned thing out,” said Rocco as he pulled out his Swiss Army knife. For a while now it seemed as if he hadn’t been doing anything but picking locks. The good thing was that he was getting his old skills back.
“What are you doing?” asked the bookseller with a smile.
“What do you think, Signora?” And twenty seconds later the mechanism clicked the door open. Barbara and Tatiana exchanged an uncertain glance. Finally Barbara worked up the nerve to ask the question. “Can we be certain you’re actually from the police?”
Rocco, with the door half open, looked at her. “Yes, Signora, do you want to see my badge?”
The policeman’s glare set her back on her heels. “Stay outside, the both of you, what’s inside here may not be a pretty sight.”
He turned on the light. The two women did as they were told, but they still peeked in the doorway to see what they could see. Rocco went into the kitchen. There were two plates in the sink and a dripping faucet. Outside the breakers roared. Lupa followed him with her nose to the floor. She had turned into a veritable vacuum cleaner. In the bedroom the bed was unmade. In the bathroom he found a toothbrush and various toiletries. An empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide lay on its side in the bidet. The bathrobe that hung on a hook on the back of the door was dry. As was the shower stall. He went into the living room. There was a sofa with pillows on it. An old television set. A cabinet with bric-a-brac of various sorts. Next to the sofa, on the light-colored tiles, there were some very distinct dark stains. They looked like rust. Rocco bent down. He imitated Lupa and put his nose to the floor. No doubt about it.
Blood.
He prevented Lupa from licking the blood, and together they all left the apartment. He locked the door behind him. The two women’s eyes were four question marks. “You don’t think he was alone, do you?”
“No. There was someone with Corrado. But what did you find?”
Rocco’s only response was to reach for his cell phone. “I’m calling police headquarters in Chieti . . .” he said.
Tatiana and Barbara listened in silence. Barbara threw her arms around her friend.
“Deputy Chief Schiavone . . . put me through to the mobile squad . . . Francè? Rocco Schiavone here . . . Fine, thanks . . . We’ve got a problem here in Francavilla. Via Treviso, 15 . . . I’ll wait for you here . . .”
“What sort of problem?” Tatiana asked in a quavering voice, even though she already knew the answer.
“Signora, we’re not going to be seeing Corrado again.”
Only then, once she finally had the answer to the nightmare that had been dogging her footsteps for days, did Tatiana roll her eyes upward to the heavens and drop to the ground like an old used tissue.
LUPA RAN FREE ON THE DESERTED BEACH, HAVING THE TIME of her young life. She darted toward the
water, barked at the waves breaking nearby, and tried to bite them. She was flabbergasted when she realized that the waves had no bodies and simply dissolved the minute she tried to sink her teeth into them. Rocco was sitting on the low wall, having turned over responsibility for the investigation to his colleagues from Chieti. Corrado Pizzuti had been murdered. But by whom, and for what motive? Searching the apartment, rummaging through all the drawers, in the armoire, and even in the washing machine, he’d found nothing of any interest except for the two plates in the sink and the blood on the floor. He could feel the burden of exhaustion settling down on his shoulders. The wind was tousling his hair. Far off in the midst of the waves someone was having fun launching a sailboat at full speed.
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on his cell phone shattered his thoughts. It was the office.
“Rocco, where are you?”
“In Abruzzo, Italo.”
“In Abruzzo? Doing what?”
“A hefty helping of my own fucking business. What do you want?”
“Utter mayhem has broken loose back here! The police chief is trying to find you, the judge is trying to find you. An enormous development. There’s a press conference in half an hour! Haven’t you been listening to the radio?”
“No. Why?”
“There’s been a roundup. The ROS have arrested the Turrinis, husband and wife, Walter Cremonesi, Luca Grange, and a couple of city commissioners over the thing with the public works contracts. This is serious business! When will you be back?”
“Fuck!” said Rocco. And ended the call.
BARBARA HAD PUT TATIANA TO BED. THE CPA DE LULLO was watching a TV program on Canale 5.
“Let’s let her rest,” the bookseller had said, and De Lullo had picked up the remote control and turned off the television set.
“So he’s dead?”
Barbara nodded.
“Tatiana sensed it.”
“Right.”
“Why was he killed?”
“I don’t know, Signor De Lullo, I can’t figure it out. There was someone in the apartment with him, and probably whoever that was murdered him. I think it has something to do with his past.”
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