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On the following day, a tragedy occurred.
It was one of those days when Carla Mezzogori, on the way to her job place, usually stopped for a while to see her nephew and sister-in-law and, upon arrival at their house, her sister-in-law just appeared at the doorway having a face expression different from usual. The despair was clearly noticeable, the despair of such a person who has already lost everything and nothing else has been remained.
“What’s the matter, Marisa?”, Carla asked while entering the apartment, “What’s happened?”
After a while, her words have lost for a few instants because of what she saw in front of, and after taking some time to recover from the shock, asked: “How did it happen?”
The sister-in-law kept quiet for some instants before responding to such question, and then merely said these words: “I don’t really know how to explain”.
After wiping the tears streaking on her face, she kept saying: “So I did find him upon returning home. For a while, I went to buy something into the supermarket nearby, I could have been out maybe for… twenty minutes, thirty minutes at maximum.”
For an instant Carla stared at her hemiplegic nephew, lying on the floor of the dining room, and then moved close to the opened window.
“So far, do you have any rough idea what has happened here?”, asked Carla Mezzogori, in a broken voice.
“The only thing that comes to my mind is that someone could have entered the apartment through window in the attempt of robbery and has faced with Marco.”
“Did you check if you miss anything in the apartment?”
“Not yet. It didn’t come to my mind at all”, answered the sister-in-law, “I’m still shocked.”
“I think the best thing to do is to call the Police.”
“Frankly speaking, I don’t see it necessary for the moment”, she objected, “At first, I would prefer to get better from all that just happened to me.”
“As you like”, said Carla, without arguing, “however, I suggest you to call the Police so that they can start investigating as soon as possible.”
“I won’t forget to do so”, nodded the sister-in-law, unable to hide her intention to cut it short, meanwhile Carla, upon arrival at home, talked to her husband Giuseppe, who in return, advised her to inform the inspector Zamagni on this matter.
“As part of the Police Forces, Zamagni could help us more than anyone else, or even takes charge himself of the case investigation”.
His wife agreed.
While Stefano Zamagni had just finished organizing the whole documentation on his desk related to Daniele Santopietro’s case as well as the letter sent right after the conclusion of Atropos Association’s case, his cell phone began to ring.
“May I?”, asked Carla Mezzogori on the phone.
“I was just checking some stuff, anyway, never mind. Tell me please.
“Well... do you remember Marco, my hemiplegic nephew?”
Zamagni nodded.
“Last night, on my way home after work, I went to his apartment just to see him for a while, and upon arrival, I found myself in front of a scene which I wouldn’t ever wish to be.”
“What happened there?”
“It wasn’t known exactly what’s happened”, started to tell Carla Mezzogori, ”however, my sister-in-law was in tear and my nephew laid down dead on the floor. He was alone at home, this is what my sister-in-law told me. Perhaps...”
“Oh, for God’s sake! I’m so sorry”, said Zamagni to the lady after hesitating for an instant and stopping her seemingly in mid-flow. “Any clue on the cause of death? Probably he might have fallen down for some reason? Or you think it’s about an attempt of robbery?”
Even the inspector Zamagni didn’t really know how to deal with the situation that suddenly has come upon him.
“Seeing that the window was open, one assumption, though not reliable enough, is the robbery attempt. My sister-in-law will check if she misses something in her apartment, and I guess she has just did it last night or will do it today. She confessed to me that first of all, she would need to get over the shock occurred to her all of a sudden.”
“I got it”, replied Zamagni.
“If there has been a robbery attempt, for sure the perpetrator will be accused for murder. Isn’t it so?”, asked Carla Mezzogori.
“Yes, sure, if it comes out that such assumption is true”, returned the inspector, without taking any position.
“Would you be willing, I mean you and your colleagues, to go there and make an inspection onsite?”
“Frankly speaking, I am a little busy with some other tasks, but however, I will do a favor to you, as my friend, and will go right now to see the situation over there”, nodded Zamagni with a gesture of approval, “It is truly important that nobody should spoil anything in the apartment, although my impression is that the crime scene has been already stepped in, though unintentionally.”
“Yeah, probably”, said the woman, “I’m afraid that my sister-in-law has touched any object or thing in the apartment.”
“That’s clear. In such a situation, I believe it will be very difficult for anyone who will be in charge of this case, to succeed in capturing the perpetrator.”
“I have no idea what you’re gonna decide to do next, however thanks for your attention and involvement.”
“I will do my best, but I can ensure you nothing”, was the answer of Zamagni who, after hanging up the phone, went to inform captain Luzzi for his absence in office due to a sudden incident happened.
III
Once arrived in via delle Rimembranze and exactly at the place Carla had indicated, Zamagni saw her waiting for him, and after a while, both of them went upstairs to the apartment of Marisa Lavezzoli in which Carla introduced the police inspector to her sister-in-law.
“Nice to meet you”, said Zamagni.
“Good morning”, replied back the mother of hemiplegic boy. “What’s the matter with you coming in this hour?”
“He’s a trustworthy person whom I know for a long time and just thought he’d come here and have a quick look at the apartment, in the attempt to realize what had happened here”, explained Carla Mezzogori pointing to Stefano Zamagni, “I should have been at work, instead preferred to take one day off in order to be here with him. It seemed right to do so.”
“Frankly speaking, I’m quite shocked by what just happened here”, returned Marisa Lavezzoli, “Perhaps it would be better if I stay alone for some time.”
“I don’t mean to bother you, madam”, the inspector tried to calm her down, seeing her upset, “It will take you only few minutes. Carla has told me roughly the general situation and I just wanted to have a look at the apartment. I have no idea who’s gonna take on the responsibility of this case, as it’s not my job to tell it, but what I can suggest is that you make a report to the police authorities describing in detail what has happened.”
During all the time Zamagni spent talking to the mother of the victim and her sister-in-law, he was also looking around the place, noticing that the apartment was poorly furnished with the minimal stuff at a very low cost.
“Where was the dead body taken to? Did they take it away for the autopsy?”, then he asked the mother.
The woman nodded.
“Tell me a little bit more. What did you say to the persons who came to pick up the body of your son? When did you call them?”
“I went out for a while to buy some groceries, as I always used to do, then once back home, I found my son laid down on the floor”, the woman began to explain, “I had left a window open to allow some air inside the room, without thinking at all of somebody who could enter forcefully in attempt of robbery. Unfortunately, I found my son alone and probably a fight could have occurred between them. When Carla, my sister-in-law showed up, the incident had happened a short while ago, and after she left away, I called the ambulance saying that I found my son dead upon my return home. Unfortunately I was quite shocked and wasn’t aware of what had happened, therefore I merely declared the above without going into details such as the open window and all the rest that I just mentioned right now. The fight and robbery attempt are only my delirious thoughts, probably because of my instability from this tragic incident.”
“Fine, now I think I have a rough idea of what had happened here”, nodded Zamagni, “However, I’d better get back to work now. I said before to the captain that I would leave shortly for something urgent, while now, I absolutely need to go back and continue what I was doing, otherwise he’s gonna be angry with me.”
The inspector said goodbye to Marisa Lavezzoli and left her apartment together with Carla Mezzogori.
“What do you intend to do next?”, she asked, while both were going down the stairs.
“I don’t know”, answered Zamagni, “I have no idea right now what is the best thing to do. In particular, your sister-in-law mentioned the open window, as an eventual attempt of robbery, but all this has been happened in such a short time? Furthermore, is it possible to measure more accurately the length of time passed from her leaving till she came back home? I wanna say that whoever is going for a robbery attempt should have the material possibility to make it happen, should have the sufficient time to come in, commit the act of robbery and then run away. If then, he comes across an unpredictable situation, of course that the robbery is not supposed to happen quickly. I wouldn’t wish the robbery attempt to be an assumption simply arisen by the “delirious thoughts” of your sister-in-law due to the shock she just experienced. In fact, the open window could be just a detail that misleads us in our inquiry on what had really happened. Are you sure that your nephew hasn’t fallen down accidentally? In this case, the solution would be only with such a statement “nothing was found”. A natural death or something of this kind, and that’s all.”
“As far as I know Marco, I strongly believe he hasn’t moved out the room. At least, in normal circumstances. I think something more or less unexpected has happened indeed”, returned Carla Mezzogori.
“I see”, said the inspector after all, “In any case, we need to wait for the results of autopsy.”
“All right!”, she nodded.
“Excuse me now, Carla, but I absolutely need to get back to my pending jobs. I should begin with the verification of some important documents and after all, I wouldn’t want the captain getting angry with me as I’ve been out for long hours. I promised him to get the job done very soon and still need to begin with it.”
“Don’t worry”, she reassured him, “Go back to your uncompleted jobs. Thanks for your particular attention and interest you’ve shown so far.”
“It has been my pleasure”, returned Zamagni, “For anything you may have, please don’t hesitate to tell me. The worst that may happen is that I couldn’t have enough time, but nevertheless, in one way or another everything will be solved.”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
Both said goodbye to each other, and then the inspector got back to work and the lady went home.
Once back to his work desk, Zamagni found the same huge piles of paperwork waiting for him, the same ones since he left office for going to Carla Mezzogori, then sat down, and after a while started to review the documents related to Daniele Santopietro’s case.
After about one hour yielding no positive result, in which he wasn’t able to find the connection between Atropos Association, that voice on the phone and Santopietro, the inspector took back the letter sent to him before, but coming to no conclusion at all.
He wasn’t finding any connection that could probably help him get a possible solution, therefore he put the letter aside, stood up and went to buy some drinks at the vending machines in the hallway.
While drinking some lemon ice tea in can, he saw his colleague Finocchi coming right there.
“Hi Stefano.”
“Hi Marco”, said the inspector, greeting back to him.
“How’s going on?”, asked the agent, “Did you take up work again after the case you’ve handled with Atropos Association?”
“Pretty much”, answered Zamagni, “I meant that I got plenty of rest since the completion of that case, and now I’m still trying to gather some data available in order to find out the connection between Santopietro, the voice of that man over the phone and the letter I’ve received, but didn’t find any clue for the moment. Probably my reference view is not the right one.”
“Yes, it could be so”, nodded the agent, “Let’s get together and review all the details. Perhaps we can find out something helpful for our further inquiry.”
“All right.”
“If you can wait me for a moment, I’ll go and take a drink just for refreshment.”
“Of course”, said Zamagni, “May I offer it to you?”
“Ah, no... I already owe a pizza to you, next time I have to pay it out, therefore don’t even think to offer me anything to eat, otherwise we’ll never be equal”, returned Marco Finocchi.
“Nevermind.”
“Well, how did you spend those few days of vacation?”, then asked the inspector.
“Nothing special. Just relaxed. What about you, any interesting thing you’ve done?”
“Either me, nothing special, except for an evening party out with my friends, drinking with them.”
Zamagni nodded.
“Shall we leave?”, suggested the agent throwing away the can into the trash bin.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
As soon as arrived at Zamagni’s working desk, both met with captain Luzzi who was waiting for them right there.
“That’s the way how you should work?”, said the superior in a serious tone of voice.
“I’m sorry captain, but I needed to have a fresh and cold drink, and afterwards Finocchi showed up and took also something for himself. Maybe we’ve wasted time, but now promise that we’re gonna set to work really hard. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything that would help us to make the connection between the facts and the people in the inquiry process, but I guess everything will become easier as we’re already two persons instead of one”.
“I was kidding if you understood me right”, the captain said to them, ”Among other things and the documentations on your working desk, I noticed the letter that was sent to you before. But I forgot to tell you something important. The expert that examined the text carefully, wasn’t able to decode those words written over there, however he found that the letters are in Greek.”
“Ah.. therefore, I confirmed the impression I had when reading the text for the first time”, admitted Zamagni, “I never have learnt Greek, hence didn’t know what to say, but now we are sure about it.”
“Yeah. The point is that unfortunately, this expert lacking a full proficiency of Greek language, has failed to provide us with the text decoding. We need to have the decoding from somebody else.”
“Sounds good, meanwhile me and Marco will take care of the rest.”
“I think you’d have no time for now”, said Giorgio Luzzi.
“I’m not clear at all”, said the inspector, “What’s up? Is something else so urgent that we’d rather leave this at a later time?”
“We still don’t know for sure, but I guess we’re gonna get to know very soon.”
“May we have a little bit more of information?”, asked Zamagni kidding.
“You’re right. Now I’m gonna explain it better to you”, returned the captain.
“We’re listening very carefully”, said Finocchi.
“Do you remember a hemiplegic boy?”, the captain began to speak, turning to the inspector.
“...Marco?”, asked Zamagni, after a moment of hesitation.
The agent Finocchi turned around, with a hugely surprised face.
“Ah, sorry, I didn’t think it was about him”, said immediately Zamagni.
“I don’t really understand what you’re talking about”, returned Marco Finocchi to them.
