The Deliverance of Evil (13 page)
A
NTONIO PASQUALI CAME FROM
Tesano, a small town halfway up the mountains in Abruzzo. A photo of the place hung on the wall behind his desk at a respectful distance from the rigorously symmetrical ones of the pope and the president of the Republic. His office was a solemn place. It was an office worthy of one of the highest-ranking officers in the Italian police force. Not the highest ranking of all, but the most influential in the circles that counted.
As a boy, Pasquali had shown a marked talent for acting and for politics, and there was a great deal of overlap between the two fields. Young Pasquali divided his time between drama school and the local branch of the Christian Democratic party. His academic progress suffered a little as a result, but he made up for it with a lively intelligence and the help of his father, who had been mayor of Tesano for almost eight years. His teachers looked favorably and with understanding at the bespectacled boy, who was serious but sharp and witty when he needed to be. With his personal gifts and those of his family, it was clear to everyone that Antonio Pasquali would make a career for himself.
After graduating from high school, he spent several months in London studying acting. Then his father insisted he return to the real world. He earned a degree in political science in Rome and passed the police department entrance exam. After completing two years of the course for the rank of detective, his father spoke to the minister of the interior, who was also from Abruzzo and a fellow party member, who was able to confirm that the young Pasquali was a hard worker, decidedly on the ball, and a good communicator.
And so, in 1980, the Minister brought him to Rome as his assistant on secondment from the police and there Pasquali built the network of political contacts that would support him for his entire career. He had friends everywhere, from neo-fascists to the extreme Left, but he remained strictly a man of the center, a man for all seasons, ready to dialogue with everyone.
In the early 1990s, the prosecutor’s office in Milan sprang into action with the
mani pulite
corruption trials. The Christian Democrats and the Socialists disbanded, and Italy’s political system was left rudderless. One evening in 1993, Pasquali’s father and his friend the minister were sitting in the drawing room of the family home in Tesano in front of an open fire, drinking a glass of the local liqueur. The two older men were discussing the by now obvious necessity of repositioning themselves politically. The Christian Democrats were splitting into two parties—one center-left, the other center-right—in order better to navigate the new majoritarian system that was being implemented. Young Antonio, who was rising quickly through the ranks of the rapid response team, proffered a solution.
“You should split up, one in each party.”
The two looked at him in amazement. It was so simple. They agreed that would be best. They’d each join one of the newly formed parties, and then they’d wait to see which was going to dominate the new system. Everyone was well aware that the local electoral system of political favors, which had developed in the postwar period and had ruled for forty-five years, was now at risk of falling apart under the attack of the “Communist” magistrates in Milan and the new power of the media, and they had to find a place in both of the new alliances.
They discussed briefly who should go with whom, but the personal and political histories of the minister and Pasquali’s father were identical. But here too the young Antonio found the solution. He took a coin from his pocket, turned to the minister—who, after all, outranked his father and was also the elder of the two—and said, “Heads or tails, Mr. Minister?”
Then his father asked, “What about you, Antonio? The police rely on political contacts, too.”
Antonio was evasive. He said that in any future scenario it wouldn’t be appropriate for a policeman to have any direct membership in a party; it would be more useful to have a simple sympathetic leaning. Nevertheless, he would think about it. What he didn’t say was that he had it on good authority that there was a new political party brewing. It was going to be a party with limitless funds, and it would incorporate sizable numbers of both Christian Democrats and Socialists and sweep the field. Antonio Pasquali wanted to keep his hands free: his youthful gifts as an actor would be appreciated in the new televised world of politics.
In 2000 he was transferred from the rapid response team to the organized crime division, where he conducted several brilliant busts that led to the arrest of longtime Mafia fugitives whose positions had been filled by other Mafiosi in the meantime. He was careful that no politician, present or past, of whatever persuasion, came to be involved. He was honestly convinced he was serving his country’s true interests.
By the end of 2002, crimes committed by immigrants had become a high-profile political issue. Urged on by popular sentiment and various political parties, the government decided to create a special force to support the rapid response teams in the regional capitals in handling crimes committed by foreigners. The idea of naming Pasquali to oversee all the regional captains was suggested to the then-current minister of the interior by both members of the majority coalition and members of the opposition. He was a candidate with support on both sides: a capable and well-balanced man, an excellent policeman who was attentive to the political world’s demands.
Andrea Floris, Rome’s chief of police, had been appointed to his position by those on the left. He was familiar with Michele Balistreri’s neo-Fascist history, but he also knew that Balistreri—who was the same age as Pasquali—was better qualified for the post, having run Homicide successfully for the previous three years. He asked to speak to the minister of the interior but was passed to the relevant undersecretary who in turn shifted him to his first assistant, a young man not yet thirty with a degree from a prestigious university, who maintained that, given his distant past as far-right activist working with the secret intelligence service, Balistreri’s candidacy would cause incomprehension precisely among the center-left where the chief of police had his political support. Floris countered by saying these were events that went back thirty years and Balistreri had more than redeemed himself for them by serving and risking his life for the state, as well as keeping his distance from all political factions. But this was insufficient for the young man; indeed, keeping his distance from politics actually made him “suspicious.” Balistreri still used terms like
fatherland, honor, loyalty
. This was baggage from the past, an obsolete language, and was indicative of an older generation, the young man concluded. Used to Rome’s political theatrics by now, the chief of police gave in: the politicians didn’t want anyone like Balistreri for the position—a man who didn’t speak to them, didn’t go to their dinners on terraces or in the most exclusive clubs, a man who never spoke to journalists, a kind of maverick already in decline.
But Floris did manage to secure one condition in return for his support for Pasquali: the special team on immigrants in Rome would be the most active one, and he wanted Michele Balistreri to run it. Pasquali didn’t think much of Balistreri, but he agreed in order to ingratiate himself with Floris, whose support was certain to come in handy. At the same time, this meant he could take the opportunity to see that Balistreri did not move to the rapid response team’s fourth section, which dealt with crimes involving property and where the most politically sensitive investigations into fraud, corruption, and false accounting were under way. So he entrusted Rome’s unit dealing with crimes by foreigners to him in the hope that he would go up in flames, after which Floris could replace Balistreri with a more trustworthy person. But Balistreri’s performance had been impeccable for two and a half years.
And then along came the case of the letter R.
S
AMANTHA ROSSI STOLE A
glance at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was half past eight in the evening. The last light of day was filtering through an open window on the second floor, along with the sounds of a few cars headed toward the beach or out into the country. It had been a long hot day, the end of an interminable week of work. She turned off the burner and ladled the soup into a bowl, then sprinkled on some grated Parmesan cheese. Only a little, because a cardiologist had told Assunta, the ninety-year-old woman Samantha looked after, that she shouldn’t eat cheese. She placed the soup in front of Assunta on the chipped Formica table and slowly fed her, one spoonful at a time.
Usually, at exactly ten minutes to ten, Samantha would pick up her backpack and, having kissed Assunta, would run to the other side of the piazza to take the bus to the Termini station and then the Metro to Ostia. At eleven she would be home with her parents in their house by the sea.
. . . .
From eight onward the Bierkeller was a madhouse. It was where Roma from the nearby travelers’ camps, together with those who lived in the poorest housing on Rome’s east side, gathered. After spending a whole day under a blazing hot sun placing one brick on top of another, or at a crossroads cleaning the windscreens of the Roman motorist, they were thirsty. Very thirsty.
A man sat in the Bierkeller’s most dimly lit corner by the bathrooms. He had long black hair. He wore a Lazio soccer team hat and large sunglasses, and he’d been sitting by himself for more than an hour. He’d had only half a glass of beer. In a white bag at his feet sat two unopened bottles of excellent whiskey that he wouldn’t touch. In the pocket of his jeans were several plastic envelopes of cocaine he would never snort.
He lifted his beer glass and winked at three eighteen-year-olds from who were exiting the men’s room. He could see they were the same nationality he was. All had shaved heads and were dressed identically in sleeveless white vests and jeans. Only the tattoos on their swelling biceps and necks differed: a little swastika, an eagle, a two-blade Fascist ax, a gladiator, crossed swords. They were perfect.
. . . .
Balistreri was having dinner at his brother’s house with his deputy Corvu, his friend Dioguardi, and one of his brother’s colleagues. It was a light supper of Parma ham, melon, and chilled white wine, ahead of the poker game to come. Balistreri had cut his smoking down to the strict limits dictated by his unhealthy heart and had almost completely stopped drinking. Playing poker was a substitute pleasure for the many others he had slowly abandoned over the years, and it was one of the few sources of excitement left to him.
. . . .
When Assunta had finished her soup, Samantha led her from the kitchen to the only other room in the apartment, a small sitting room and bedroom. At nine forty Samantha got ready to leave. She carefully checked Assunta’s pills. Samantha had written Assunta a very neat schedule that showed her exactly when to take what. Copies of the schedule were taped to the wall in the bedroom, the kitchen, and the bathroom. She paused to ask the elderly woman one last question.
“Assunta, did the concierge pick up your blood thinner for you?”
The old woman smiled absentmindedly. “I forgot to ask her, Samantha, but don’t worry about it.”
At nine fifty Samantha raced out the door.
. . . .
At nine fifty, he escorted them out of the Bierkeller. The three young men were drunk and high. Not too drunk and high—just the right amount, meaning enough to be a little muddled, but still physically strong and ready for action. The lonely piazza with its gardens was deserted. They saw her running up in great strides like an athlete and then shooting past, leaving all four with their mouths open.
“Wow, what a piece of ass!” exclaimed one in Romanian.
. . . .
Dioguardi was winning. He’d won for more than twenty years. The fact that his blond hair was now peppered with gray and his blue eyes were framed with wrinkles made him no less childlike. He always apologized for winning, and every so often he lost so that his friends wouldn’t be totally humiliated. Alberto played in his regular scientific manner and lost with the same regularity.
“He’s bluffing,” Balistreri said to his brother, who had just passed on Dioguardi’s most recent raise.
“I don’t think so,” Corvu said. “He’s got a sixty percent chance of winning the hand. I think Alberto was right to fold.”
As usual, Dioguardi said nothing. He smoked and drank much more than he’d ever done in his youth, but his bluffs and non-bluffs remained a professional secret.
. . . .
Samantha saw them out of the corner of her eye as she went past. She could smell them, too: a pungent odor of alcohol and sweat. She could feel the eyes undressing her, then the arms that grabbed and held her.
While she was being dragged away struggling and kicking, she could see her bus. It was pulling out and turning around the piazza. One of the men immediately put his arm round her neck and pushed a dirty rag in her mouth to stop her from calling out. With her eyes staring wide, Samantha saw the bus pull away and its tail lights disappearing as many hands pushed her into the brushwood and bushes of the little gardens.
“Mamma!” she wailed. “Papa!”
. . . .
An elderly man walking his dog at midnight found the young woman’s body near a garbage dump. The proximity of the Casilino 900 travelers’ camp and other squatter camps of the Roma people meant that the Balistreri’s special team was immediately contacted. He ended the poker game with his friends and, together with Corvu, rushed to the scene. When he arrived, the medical examiner was already there. But they didn’t need an expert to see that the girl had suffered multiple rapes and had then been strangled.
In less than twenty-four hours, both the press and the city at large were convinced that the perpetrators came from the Casilino camp. The center-right opposition coalition had long used a zero-tolerance approach with the Roma, who received more benign treatment at the hands of the center-left city government that had ruled Rome for years. The murder of the young Italian student detonated a request for the immediate dismantling of all the travelers’ camps and the forced deportation of all Roma people.
A gang of ultra-right youths attacked the inhabitants of a camp with clubs and knives, wounding several people, including a woman who tried to protect her husband. Though the Roma weren’t strictly from Romania, Italians tended to conflate the two groups, and Romanian flags were burned in the streets. Graffiti cursing foreigners blanketed the city walls. A professional Romanian soccer player on one of the Italian teams removed himself from the roster after suffering terrible insults from the team’s own fans. The press escalated things further. The Italian and Romanian prime ministers met with community leaders, and they promised to work together to weed out the few bad apples involved.
The mayor and his center-left party discussed the problem, but didn’t come up with a solution. Now, with the opposition, the media, and public opinion putting their backs against the wall, they convened a meeting with Chief of Police Floris and Antonio Pasquali in an attempt to settle the issue as quickly.
Since the first day, the investigation had obviously been directed toward the travelers’ camps. Balistreri was alone in refusing to follow that path to the exclusion of others. His reason was a detail that had been kept strictly secret, known only to the top ranks of the investigating team and absolutely unknown to the press and public opinion. On Samantha’s back the letter R, a half inch tall and the same width, had been carved using a sharp blade. And to Balistreri, the carving of a letter on the victim pointed to a level of premeditation that didn’t jive with the blind herd instinct of a group of gypsies, even if they were drunk and high.
Pasquali immediately grasped this as an excellent opportunity to damage Balistreri’s very solid reputation. At the end of the morning, during a press conference with his colleague sitting beside him, he launched into an impromptu theatrical scene using his great talent for dialectical debate. “The head of the special team dedicated to policing foreigners seems to believe that the responsible parties may not be clandestine immigrants,” he announced. He then handed Balistreri the microphone.
Balistreri’s face went dark. “I have no comment at this time,” he said, cutting things short and infuriating the journalists, particularly those in the media agitating the most for the removal of the travelers’ camps and putting the blame on the Roma. The following day, headlines blared,
CAPTAIN
OF
SPECIAL
TEAM
SAYS
“THE
ROMA
AREN’T
RESPONSIBLE.
”
. . . .
All through Saturday night and Sunday morning, the camps were searched. During a blitz by the Carabinieri in a squatter camp not far from Casilino 900, a bracelet with the initials S. R. was discovered hidden under a mattress in a caravan where three young Roma males were living, having arrived in Italy ten days earlier from the countryside around the Black Sea. They had neither jobs nor a residence permit. The DNA evidence was incontrovertible. The three were blind drunk when they were picked up.
After two hours of questioning, they confessed to everything. That evening they’d gotten drunk in a bar with a guy, a fellow Roma, who had also given them cocaine. They’d left the bar about ten and he’d gone up to Samantha, but she resisted, so they dragged her over to the garbage dump. There among plastic bags, table scraps, discarded syringes, and dog shit, they raped her. Taking turns, one held her by the neck, one held her arms and the other raped her. In the end, she’d fainted. Each accused the other of strangling her, then they said it had been this mythical fourth man they knew nothing about. But the traces of organic matter on Samantha’s body were all from the three of them; there was nothing to indicate the presence of a fourth man. When they emerged from the carabinieri station, a crowd of thousands was waiting, howling for blood. The forces of law and order were barely able to hold them back; several officers had to be restrained as well.
The media attacked the Roma community and the police. They focused on the special team and its captain, Michele Balistreri, a former Fascist agitator who might soon be a former policeman as well. But Pasquali didn’t strip Balistreri of his badge. He also knew that the three Roma boys could neither read nor write and were therefore incapable of carving a letter on the murdered girl’s body. His instinct and his cautious nature kept him from acting. He had learned from the Christian Democrats that it was best to have a scapegoat in place and an escape route ready and waiting.