A Deadly Paradise (8 page)

What did excite Cenni was the interview with the child who’d found the bodies. Her name was Anita Tangassi, which was the name of the current owner of the pink house. She was nine and a playmate of the child who was killed. He was a bit surprised at the difference in ages, as the murdered child, Bianca Lanese, had just turned seven. The interview had taken place in the local barracks. Three people were in the room in addition to the police and the child: Marta Vannicelli Tangassi, the child’s mother; a neighbor, Lorenzo Vannicelli; and the local priest, Father Alberto Lacrimosa. A stenographer had taken most of it down verbatim, even the bickering between the mother, the priest, and the neighbor. The interviewer was the chief investigating officer, Commissario Giuseppe Landi. Cenni highlighted the parts that were of particular significance:

COMMISSARIO LANDI: Anita, what made you decide to visit your friend’s house instead of going home for lunch as you usually do?

ANITA TANGASSI: Bianca’s father sent her a doll with blonde curls. The curls grow if you wind a key in her back. We were going to play dolls after school. She wasn’t at school, so I went to her house.

COMMISSARIO LANDI: When you rang the bell and no one answered, why didn’t you go home? Why did you go inside?

ANITA TANGASSI: The door was unlocked.

SIGNOR VANNICELLI: You’ve done that before, haven’t you, Anita, gone inside without being asked?

ANITA TANGASSI:
(Nods her head “yes” in response.)

COMMISSARIO LANDI: When you went into Bianca’s room and saw her lying on the floor, did you touch anything?

ANITA TANGASSI: I touched her head. It was red with blood. It was sticky and I wiped my hands on my dress.

SIGNORA TANGASSI: You should have washed your hands in the sink. You can never get bloodstains out.

(Child began to cry and Commissario Landi offered her a
chocolate bar.)

COMMISSARIO LANDI: Anita, did you go into Signora Lanese’s room?

(Child hesitated; looked over at Signor Vannicelli, before
answering.)

ANITA TANGASSI:
(Shakes her head “no.”)

COMMISSARIO LANDI: Anita, why didn’t you look for Bianca’s mother to tell her your friend was hurt?

ANITA TANGASSI: The house was scary. I was afraid.

SIGNOR VANNICELLI: That makes sense. Or are you expecting a nine-year-old child to do your job and go search for the killer?

(Exchange of words between Commissario Landi and Signor
Vannicelli.)

COMMISSARIO LANDI: Anita, why did you go home after that? You had to pass by the carabinieri. Why didn’t you stop at the station and tell a policeman about Bianca?

(Child hesitated before answering.)

ANITA TANGASSI: The police take bad children away and put them in jail. I’m supposed to go right home from school for my lunch.

(A footnote was added that Signora Tangassi worked in the
family’s grocery store during the day and left her daughter’s lunch
prepared for her at home.)

SIGNOR VANNICELLI
(addressing the child’s mother):
Now, do you realize how ridiculous it is to threaten Anita with the police if she doesn’t eat her vegetables?

FATHER LACRIMOSA: Children need instruction and discipline. Marta is an excellent mother, and she doesn’t need criticism, certainly not from a Godless atheist like you!

(Argument between the mother, the neighbor, and the priest,
with everyone talking at once.)

COMMISSARIO LANDI: Where did you and Bianca usually play together?

ANITA TANGASSI: My uncle lets me play house in his cellar. We played there sometimes, and yesterday we played dolls at the back of Bianca’s house. We used the woodshed for a dollhouse.

COMMISSARIO LANDI: Did you or Bianca ever see any strange men hanging around when you were playing together?

(Child hesitated; looked over at Father Lacrimosa and then at
Signor Vannicelli before answering.)

ANITA TANGASSI: No.

CENNI WAS SURPRISED at how thoroughly documented the interview had been. It was six pages long, and in many ways better than the tape-recorded interviews they currently conducted. The stenographer had actually noted the child’s gestures and had recorded the sidebars between the adults in the room. When Anita began to cry, the stenographer had even written down the mother’s response to the proffered chocolate bar. “Remember your manners, Anita, and say thank you.”

Nonetheless, he was disappointed at the number of opportunities Landi had missed. Questioning a young child who’s just seen her best friend’s head cracked open by an ax is not an easy task, but the child’s responses were unusual and should have been scrutinized with more care. She’d cried only once, and that was because her mother scolded her for having blood on her dress. He also wondered how Anita knew her friend was not at school that day. When Cenni had been in school, lunch-hour dismissals were at different times for different classes. Presumably, a child of nine would be in a different class from a child of seven. No doubt there was a reasonable explanation, but Landi hadn’t even asked.

And why did the girl hesitate when Landi asked about strange men hanging about their play areas? She’d looked at the priest and then at the neighbor before answering. There were certainly lots of strange priests in this world (
Mi dispi-ace,
he said mentally, apologizing to his brother the bishop). And who was this neighbor, with the same last name as the mother’s? Why was he in the interview room? Why was he acting as the child’s defender? Wasn’t that the mother’s job?

Alex and Renato had been ten when
The Bad Seed
had finally reached Perugia’s only movie theater. Their grandmother had taken them to see it. It had been the only argument between Hanna and his mother with respect to which he had to acknowledge—although by hindsight— that his mother had been right: she had said the twins were far too young to see horror films. Renato had nightmares for weeks afterwards. Alex did too, but he never told his parents about them.

Children do kill, even very young children. The girl in the film was eight. Leaving aside fiction, there were many recorded cases of murders by children in Italy, although he couldn’t think of one in which the child cold-bloodedly axed its victims to death. Was a girl of nine even capable of lifting an ax to the height needed to strike a lethal blow? Lots of open questions, but later this afternoon he would interview Anita Tangassi and the neighbor who’d found Baudler’s body, the same neighbor who had defended Anita in 1978. He might actually get some answers.

13

“EUREKA! I’VE FOUND IT.”

“Isn’t that redundant?” Cenni asked, not looking up from the document he was perusing.

“My God, Alex, but you’re getting pedantic. And gray! Yesterday, I noticed a few gray hairs along the sides of your head.”

Cenni was relieved to hear Elena address him by his first name. It had taken four years. When they’d first worked together, she’d been very formal, addressing him as com-missario or dottore, and occasionally as
signore.
And then, later, when she’d wanted to annoy him,
capo,
a trick he’d adopted and now used on the questore. Marriage, he decided, was agreeing with her as well as Piero.

He looked up and smiled to show that her references to his pedantry, and in particular to his gray hair, had missed their mark.

“Sit and tell me what you’ve found.”

“Lots of the credit goes to Marinella. I asked her yesterday to research the bank account stuff. She was here last night until ten and back in this morning at seven, claims she beat you in by ten minutes. Don’t forget to say
grazie
when you go by her desk. She still has a huge crush on you, which, considering that you’ve been in Foligno for two years, is nothing to sneeze at. A kind word from you will keep her on air for a month.”

“You want me to encourage her!”

“She doesn’t need encouragement.”

“Forget Marinella,” Cenni said abruptly, afraid he was beginning to blush. “Tell me what you have.”

“Good stuff. The big deposits to the German’s account were made by a Marcella Molin, a/k/a
the Contessa Molin.”
Elena had intended to follow up the a/k/a with her usual speech on the bloodsucking aristocrats who refused to give up their titles, but realized from a twitch in Cenni’s forehead that it wasn’t the right time. She read his moods better than she did Piero’s.

“
Si,
I know who she is. That’s particularly significant when coupled with what I learned last night. Continue. I’ll tell you about it later.”

“The other deposit was made by Marcella Molin’s first cousin, a Saverio Volpe. They both live in Venice. And . . . drum roll, please!”

“Go on.
”

“Molin’s last deposit was made before the German’s death. She cancelled the automatic deposit order yesterday. Highly significant, I’d say.”

“Maybe, maybe not. She could have heard about Baudler’s murder on the news and cancelled the deposit. What about the cousin?”

“Just the one deposit, and it was done manually. No automatic deposits scheduled.”

Cenni pushed back his chair and removed his glasses, which he insisted, to anyone who asked, were for reading only.

“Is there any news on the German’s car, or did she even have a car?”

“She definitely had a car: a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta. Not very posh for a German diplomat! I’d have expected a BMW or a Mercedes. She re-registered it six months ago, without the diplomatic plates, to her address in Paradiso. But where it is now is anyone’s guess. Marinella ran it through the stolen-car registry. Nothing. Later this morning, she’ll check with the local garages. Maybe Fräulein Baudler lent it to the girlfriend with the size-four panties.”

“So speaks the feminist,” Cenni said.

“Sorry,” Elena responded.

THEY AGREED TO meet later in the afternoon, in Paradiso, to talk to Anita Tangassi and Lorenzo Vannicelli, the neighbor who’d found the body. Elena would go ahead to canvass the neighborhood. Perhaps someone had noticed unusual activity on the day of the murder: a stranger in the piazza, a delivery truck, loud voices coming from the victim’s house. The carabinieri had already talked to everyone who lived in Piazza Garibaldi, and Cenni had reviewed their notes. Nothing suspicious had been reported, which was suspicious in itself. Something untoward was always happening in village squares. But the carabinieri were local, and although this helped in day-to-day policing, in cases like murder it could also have drawbacks. They knew the town and its inhabitants well, perhaps too well. Unintentionally, they had formed certain biases that might influence the questions they asked, how they asked them, or who they believed. A fresh viewpoint always helped, and Elena was particularly skilled in getting witnesses to open up.

In the meantime, he was on his way to Assisi to see Piero concerning the threatening letters to Baudler. It promised to be an awkward meeting. Piero and Elena were not just his colleagues, they were his friends; and if his friendship with Piero ended, he could no longer work closely with Elena. She was loyal to her husband, and she had no talent for hiding her resentments. He phoned down for a driver, and, just before he left, ducked into the bathroom. Elena had been putting him on, he decided. Not a single gray hair in sight.

14

CENNI TOOK THE stairs two at a time until he remembered what lay before him. By the time he reached the garage three floors down, he was walking slowly and scowling. He looked around for Mario, his usual driver, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Alex, over here.”

Piero was standing to the side of the garage, the motor of his car idling, and Mario was nowhere in sight. Cenni wondered why Piero was in Perugia.

“I was coming to see you. I was at the desk when you called down for a driver. I hope you don’t mind, but I told Mario I’d drive you to Paradiso. Elena is already there, and she can bring you back. I have to talk to you, Alex. I thought we could do it in the car.”

“And Elena, she agreed to this meeting?” Cenni asked.

“Elena has no idea I’m here,” Piero said, puzzled. “This has nothing to do with her.”

That’s what you think, Cenni thought to himself, but he knew from Piero’s face that he was telling the truth. He’d often wondered how Piero had happened to be born Italian. Not only did he
not
resemble the vast majority of his countrymen with his green eyes, red hair, and Irish freckled skin, he lacked their God-given ability to say what they didn’t mean with every appearance of sincerity, or, as Cenni referred to it, their gift for flattery. Piero would never have made it alive through his twenties in medieval Italy, and the rack would have been wasted on him. Cenni, on the other hand, would have thrived.

“Then perhaps I should drive,” Cenni said. Piero had no respect for stop signs or traffic lights, which would have been okay if he had had any of the instincts of a good driver, which he did not.

“
Dimmi,
” Cenni said after they were on the highway. He was wondering what Piero was waiting for.

“It’s kind of awkward, Alex. I don’t know where to start.”

“At the beginning, where else?”

“You know about my mother’s older brother, Enzo.”

“Not a thing; this is the first time you’ve ever mentioned him. What about him?”

“He’s an alcoholic. My mother stopped talking to him years ago. Says he’s a disgrace to the family.” He hesitated, and Cenni could see in the mirror that Piero was blushing. “I don’t feel that way. He’s my uncle, and after my father died when I was nine, he took me to football games and sometimes in the summers to the beach in San Benedetto. And when I was fifteen and he’d won big on the World Cup, he gave me money to go away with my friends for a week. My mother didn’t have the money, but if she had, she probably wouldn’t have given it to me. You know my mother.”

Piero had been on his way to becoming the classic
mam-mone
when Elena rescued him. He’d spent all his vacations with his mother, and she’d call him at work three times a day, and even on his cell phone when he was out working a case. Yes, he did know Piero’s mother.