The Deliverance of Evil (8 page)
I
PRESENTED MYSELF PUNCTUALLY AT
eight in the morning at the Homicide office, ready to put up with Teodori’s displeasure. Vanessa shot me a smile while she finished applying black polish to a long fingernail. It was the first time I’d seen her in a miniskirt.
I gave her an admiring glance. “You’re looking pretty this morning.”
“I’ve got an appointment with my landlord. I’m behind on my rent.” She said it seriously, without looking at me, as she finished off her nails.
Teodori was in his office with a cappuccino and a brioche. His watery eyes were more yellow than usual and his cheeks were pale. But he was cheerful, even smarmy. He wanted something.
“Come in, Captain Balistreri. Do take a seat. Would you like my secretary to get you a coffee?”
I declined; his sudden kindness made me suspicious.
“There’s been some progress,” he began, dunking the pastry in the cappuccino so that some of the coffee overflowed onto his desk. “We have the autopsy results. Death definitely occurred on Sunday, a few hours after the game at the latest. The pathologist can’t pinpoint the time exactly, but based on the state of decomposition and taking the Tiber’s water temperature into account, he’s sure it wasn’t any later than that.”
He paused for effect. “So, the murder took place between six thirty, when Elisa Sordi left Via della Camilluccia, and midnight.”
I understood very well why this was good news for Teodori. All the illustrious suspects had an alibi, while Valerio Bona did not. I decided Teodori’s good humor was such that I could risk smoking in his office, and I lit a cigarette. He didn’t even notice.
“The victim has multiple lesions, hematomas from heavy blows, stab wounds, cigarette burns, and bites. It was long and painful. At least half an hour. She suffocated after a cloth or a cushion was placed over her mouth.”
“Were the wounds inflicted before she died?” I asked.
“The hematomas, yes, including the one that fractured her cheekbone and her right eye socket. As for the bites, the cuts and the burns, it’s hard to know given the state of the body. Also, some of the cuts and bites may have been caused by branches or by rats. There’s one other important point, however: there was no sexual violation.”
I took in the information with some surprise.
“No penetration in any orifice?” I asked, incredulous.
I hadn’t realized Vanessa had come in to take away the cappuccino cup. She stood there, a mocking smile on her face, waiting for Teodori’s answer. It was the second time something like this had happened to me, but Teodori’s secretary was a very different person from Elisa Sordi. She was merely amused by the question’s obscene nature and by our embarrassment.
“Would you like anything, Captain?” she asked as she picked up Teodori’s empty cup.
I gave an explicit glance at her long legs in order to make my response crystal clear.
“Not for the moment, thanks, Vanessa. Perhaps something a little later, though.”
The young woman went out and Teodori, a little unsettled, continued speaking.
“It’s a good thing you were with Dioguardi the whole time; otherwise I’d be forced to consider you a suspect, especially given your history with women.”
His tone was jocular, but not entirely. And I didn’t like that kind of joke, even less coming from someone like Teodori.
“Chief Superintendent Teodori, I’ve never hit a woman in my life, let along cut one or suffocated one. And unlike the man we’re looking for, I enjoy good old-fashioned penetration.”
Teodori handed me the pathologist’s report.
“Not so fast, Balistreri. One more thing has come to light. Read it for yourself.”
Signs of pregnancy terminated in the previous fifteen days.
No different from the rest, neither more nor less. This was my first thought, transgressive and cruel, accompanied by a small sense of relief, which was shameful. Elisa, like all the rest, was no saint. And in part she was asking for it.
“We need to interview all her male friends. At school, in her neighborhood, Valerio Bona,” said Teodori.
“And those living on Via della Camilluccia, of course.”
Strangely, Teodori smiled.
“Certainly, Via della Camilluccia as well, but let me handle that.” He put on a bold and courageous face.
Now I understood all his tiptoeing. Cardinal Alessandrini must have kept his promise. But the pressure from the Vatican’s high spheres was suppressed, and it all came down to Teodori’s courageous and independent decision. Nevertheless, he didn’t want me under his feet with my doubts about those illustrious citizens.
“How’s your daughter, Claudia, feeling?” I asked him point-blank.
He jumped. He couldn’t meet my eyes.
“I don’t follow. What’s my daughter got to do with anything?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just asking. Any good news from the medics? Or from Coccoluto or the judge?”
I wanted to make it very clear to him that I wouldn’t accept any obstacles tumbling down from on high that he was obliged to submit to because of his family troubles. I didn’t give a shit about his concerns.
There was a long silence, and then Teodori looked at me. “Captain Balistreri, my daughter’s eighteen. She lost her mother six years ago to cancer. I’ve never had enough time to spend with her, and she’s had trouble both in school and otherwise. This year she failed her exams. Ten days ago she also failed her driving test, but that evening she snuck off with my car and went to a club by the beach with a friend. They were dancing and drinking all night, and they took some pills. On the way home the car slammed into a tree. My daughter suffered minor injuries, but her friend died. They’re saying my daughter had the pills before they went out, but she insists someone drugged her drink in the club. As you know, there’s a difference.”
He was hoping to attract my sympathy, him and his stupid spoiled daughter, but I’d seen far worse in Africa. Children of three years old wandering the gutters under the open sky, stomachs swollen with hunger, flies clustered around their eyes. I’d never had even a crumb of compassion for the debauched Italian bourgeoisie.
Teodori was forced to accept my presence on the job. The senator had already invited us over and was expecting us at ten o’clock sharp in his private offices on Via della Camilluccia. Teodori made me promise not to ask any indiscreet questions. As if there were discreet questions in a murder investigation.
As I was leaving, Vanessa handed me a business card. “In case you have an urgent need, Captain Balistreri.”
On it was her telephone number.
. . . .
The private offices occupied the first and second floors of Building A, underneath the count’s penthouse. We took a car, and we were at the gate within ten minutes. Teodori parked outside, the first sign that he intended to respect the powers-that-be. Gina’s daughter opened the gate and said that the count’s personal secretary was expecting us on the second floor. I looked toward the terrace and saw the usual reflection. I immediately lit a cigarette and made the usual sign of greeting mixed with disrespect.
“Who are you waving to?” Teodori asked with alarm.
“The count’s son, Manfredi.”
He looked startled. “You know Manfredi?”
“We’ve seen each other a few times from a distance.”
Teodori’s uncertain look betrayed all his tension. He was being forced to take me there against his will and now things were coming out that he didn’t understand.
The Count’s personal secretary was what you would have imagined: an elderly man with gray hair, impeccably dressed with the monarchist party’s badge in his buttonhole. He led us into a drawing room, which was furnished with a few items of antique furniture that were clearly valuable. On the walls hung paintings of great land and sea battles. Heavy curtains blotted out the sunlight. A wealth that was very different from the Roman bourgeoisie; this was aristocratic opulence, dark and serious, and in some ways menacing.
We waited standing, looking at the paintings. Teodori seemed intimidated, as if those painted battles were there to warn him about what was in store for him. The wait was only brief, however; one of the count’s many fixations was punctuality.
I had already met him, but this time the effect was more striking. His cold black eyes sat above an imposing hooked nose, below which was drawn the subtle lines of his lips, mustache, and a well-groomed goatee. He was half a head taller than I was and towered over someone the size of Teodori. While he was shaking his hand I noticed his restrained repugnance over the head of the investigation’s careless appearance.
When it was my turn the grip was stronger than before. He stared briefly into my eyes. “If you wish to proceed with this case you will have to do so in a dignified manner. At least in this residential complex.”
So the little monster with the binoculars had tipped him off about my excesses. Besides, it was his way of giving us confirmation that at any moment he could have chucked us out and blocked the case. I held my tongue.
A waiter brought coffee and bottled water for the count, who turned to Teodori.
“I’m somewhat perplexed by this visit. I agreed to meet with you because the minister of the interior explained to me that there’s been pressure from the other side of the Tiber to clear up any possible implications in this sad business of the girl.”
He said “the other side of the Tiber” with a look of disgust. The minister of the interior had asked the count for a favor. Small favors between the powerful. All for the sake of that girl. In those few words and the way he pronounced them was revealed the count’s vision of the world. A no-account plebeian, probably of loose morals, as those people always were, had gotten herself killed, most certainly by another plebeian, and it had all happened far away from the residential complex on Via della Camilluccia.
“Thank you,” Teodori said. “We’ll be quick.”
“I can give you the next half-hour, then I’m off to Parliament for a vote.”
“Then I’ll get right to it. Did you know the young woman in question, Elisa Sordi?” Teodori began.
“One of my employees, Valerio Bona, gave me her résumé. I recommended her to the cardinal, but I hadn’t met her. I don’t normally have any contact with these people.”
He said it exactly like that,
these people
.
“You didn’t even know her by sight? She worked here for a pretty long time,” I put in.
“I may have crossed paths with her in the courtyard, but honestly, I take very little notice of the other building. The two buildings are quite separate, as you can surely see.”
“Turning to Sunday, July 11,” Teodori said haltingly.
“Please proceed.” The count knew perfectly well what this was about, but he wanted to make him feel even more ill at ease.
“We’re trying to reconstruct the movements of all the people present in the residential complex on that day,” Teodori explained.
“And can I ask what this has to do with a crime that was committed some ways away by people who have nothing to do with us?”
Teodori explained apologetically, “Well, it would be extremely useful to be able to reconstruct the victim’s whereabouts that day. If anyone saw her—”
“What time did she arrive on Sunday?” asked the count, cutting him off.
He wasn’t rude, but emphasized with every gesture that we were wasting his time without any reason and that he would decide when the conversation was over.
“Her card was punched at 11:00. Before that she went to Mass with her parents. Then she took public transportation to the office.”
“I had already left. My parliamentary group was meeting at the Hotel Camilluccia, five minutes from here. I got there at half past ten. I returned home a little after fivein the afternoon. I encountered Captain Balistreri below. He was chatting with the concierge. I took a shower, got dressed, and went out again with my wife and son at about a quarter past six. At the time, Captain Balistreri, you were leaving with Cardinal Alessandrini and Mr. Dioguardi.”
I nodded in agreement and the count continued.
“I went to the minister of the interior’s office for a short meeting we had scheduled some time ago. I came back here a little before the start of the game—I had invited several party members over for dinner. Coming back, I crossed paths with Cardinal Alessandrini, who was also coming home. My guests had already arrived. We watched the game and later celebrated quietly on the terrace with a toast.”
Teodori watched me uneasily. He had no idea how to proceed, and if it had been up to him we would have left there and then.
I spoke as gently as I could. “Did your wife and son come with you to the minister of the interior’s office?”
The question signaled a new turn in the conversation. The count shot me a quick glance and then turned to Teodori.
“I understood that you wanted to know whether any of us had seen the girl here.”
“Or anywhere,” I said, without allowing Teodori to respond.
This time the count’s eyes met mine and remained there, but I read no embarrassment or fear in them, just a brief glimmer of respect.
“Do you think a member of my family could have had anything to do with that girl?”
He was alluding to the vast social gulf between the Banchi di Aglieno family and someone like Elisa Sordi.
“Perhaps a chance encounter? Assuming they weren’t with you at the minister’s.”
The count smiled. “No, no matter how often the Minister’s my guest here, this was a brief meeting to discuss some work. I dropped my wife, Ulla, in the city center, near the ministry. The shops were open in the area and she wanted to take a walk. She came home alone by taxi.”
“And your son?”
“Manfredi left at the same time we did, on his motorcycle. He went to do a little weight training at his gym, one of the few in Rome that’s open on Sunday afternoon. He came home a few minutes after I did, just before the game started.”
We had reached a critical moment. “We also need to speak to your wife and your son,” I said.
There was a long moment of silence. I had the impression that the count was weighing the pros and cons. To prohibit an interview with his family would create embarrassment, with the Minister being leaned on by the Vatican, and this would mean in some way contracting an awkward political debt for him. He decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.