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“Neapolitan?”
“No. Milanese. I’m the Neapolitan in the family.”
“So, you’re saying that you’re a Neapolitan who roots for Juventus and that a woman from Milan taught you how to make espresso?”
“Plus I’m tone deaf,” the man added. They both laughed.
Another sharp clack from the next room. Rocco turned around.
“You want to play some pool?”
“Why not?”
“Look out, those two are a pair of professional sharks.”
Rocco slurped down the last of his espresso and strode into the next room, finishing off his strudel in a shower of crumbs down the front of his overcoat.
There were two men. One wore the jumpsuit of a manual laborer, the other a suit and tie. They’d just set the cue ball down on the table and were about to begin a game of straight pool. When they saw Rocco they both smiled. “Care to play?” asked the man in the jumpsuit.
“No, you guys go ahead. Mind if I watch?”
“Not at all,” said the one who looked every bit the estate agent. “Just watch me dismantle Nino, here. Nino, today I’m not taking prisoners!”
“Ten euros on the best out of three games?” asked the manual laborer.
“No, ten euros a game!”
Nino smiled. “Then I’ve already made my end-of-year bonus,” he said, and shot the deputy police chief a wink.
The estate agent took off his jacket while the laborer chalked his pool stick with a vicious grin.
Clack! And the three ceiling lamps that illuminated the green felt of the billiards table went dark simultaneously.
“Well of all the damned … Gennaro!” shouted the estate agent. From the bar the proprietor called back: “The power always goes out when it’s windy like this!”
“Try paying your electric bill, and maybe that’ll stop it from happening!” called the man in the jumpsuit, and he and his friend shared a hearty laugh.
But Rocco remained straight-faced, leaning against the wall, lost in thought. “Holy shit!” he said, between clenched teeth. “I’m an idiot! Why didn’t I think of it? What a shitty profession this is!” Cursing, he left the game room before the astonished eyes of the two pool players.
“Albe’, tell me that what I’m thinking doesn’t hold up!”
“Run it by me again, Rocco,” said the medical examiner, as he leaned over Signora Baudo’s corpse.
“When I walked in, I switched on the light. And it short-circuited. So that means it was turned off before, right?”
“Okay, Rocco, I’m with you.”
“Obviously, when she fell the poor woman yanked loose a couple of wires. When I flipped the switch I caused a short circuit. What does that mean? That she hanged herself in the dark. How did she do it? She lowered the blinds, fastened the noose, and let herself drop?”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Fumagalli, “and so?”
“So it must mean there was someone there with her. Whoever it was must have lowered the blinds after she hanged herself. Jesus fucking Christ!” Rocco cursed through clenched teeth.
“And listen,” Fumagalli said, “as long as you’re here, I have something else to point out. Look at this.” He pointed to the victim’s fair skin.
They walked over to the corpse, which Deruta and Rispoli had lowered to the parquet floor. “The cable is too thin to leave a bruise like that. You see it?” Alberto Fumagalli pointed to the purple stripe on Esther’s neck. It was a couple of finger widths wide. “When the cable dug into the flesh, it just left a narrow stripe; you see it? In other words, it wasn’t this cable that strangled her. That much is clear. And did you get a good look at her face?”
Rocco sank into the leather armchair in the den. “Of course. She was beaten up. Do you know what that means?”
Fumagalli said nothing.
The deputy police chief continued with a low rattle, from the chest, a distant sinister gurgle like a rumble of thunder, warning of an oncoming storm. “That means this isn’t a suicide. It means I’m going to have to deal with this thing, and it also means a series of pains in the ass unlike anything you can even imagine!”
Fumagalli nodded. “So now I’m going to take this poor creature to my autopsy room. And you’d probably better call the judge and the forensic squad.”
Rocco suddenly jumped out of his chair. His mood had shifted as quickly as a wind at high elevation suddenly bringing black rain-heavy storm clouds where minutes before the sun had been shining.
As he left the room Rocco glanced at Deruta and Caterina. “Rispoli, call the forensic squad in Turin. Deruta, go do what I told you and D’Intino to do this morning.”
“But we’re supposed to do the stakeouts at night,” the cop shot back.
“Then go get some rest, go make bread with your wife, just get the hell out of my hair!”
Like a kicked dog, Deruta shot out of the apartment. Caterina asked no questions. Unlike Officer Deruta, she had learned that when the deputy police chief’s mood turned sharply black, the best thing was to shut up and obey.
“Pierron!” Rocco shouted, and Italo’s face appeared immediately at the door to the living room.
“Yes, Dottore.”
“Scatter the people who are rubbernecking out in the street. I want the names of the Russian woman who was the first to enter the apartment and that half-dead warrant officer. Tell Casella to get busy and make sure nothing comes out in the newspapers. Question all the neighbors, and have someone call the district attorney’s office. This is another pain in the ass of the tenth degree, Rispoli, you understand?” And though he had used her name, he was no longer speaking to the unfortunate inspector who was busy talking on the phone to someone in Turin. Right now Rocco was talking to everyone and to no one, waving his hands as if he were perched on the edge of a cliff and trying desperately to regain his balance. “This is definitely a pain in the ass of the tenth degree, no doubt about it!”
Italo nodded, sharing his boss’s opinion wholeheartedly. In fact, he knew that the deputy police chief had cataloged the sources of annoyance or pains in the ass in life by degrees, or levels. From level six on up.
In Rocco’s own personal hierarchy of values, the sixth level of pains in the ass included children yelling in restaurants, children yelling at swimming pools, children yelling in stores, and just in general, children yelling. Then there were salespeople calling with special offers of convenient bundled contracts for water, gas, and cell phone, blankets that come untucked from under the mattress leaving your feet to freeze on winter nights, and the apericena—Italy’s latest trend in dining, a blend of aperitif and dinner. The seventh level of pain in the ass included restaurants with slow service, wine connoisseurs, and colleagues at the office with garlic on their breath from dinner the night before. The eighth level included shows that went longer than an hour and fifteen minutes, giving or receiving gifts, video poker machines, and the Roman Catholic radio station, Radio Maria. At the ninth level were wedding invitations, baptism invitations, First Communion invitations, or even just party invitations. Husbands complaining about wives, wives complaining about husbands. But the tenth level, the highest ranking of all possible pains in the ass, the very maximum degree of annoyance that life—that old bastard—could possibly stick him with to ruin his day and his week, towered high above the rest, unequaled: an unsolved case of murder. And Esther Baudo’s death had just turned into one, right before his eyes. Hence the sudden mood shift. For anyone who knew him, this was a mood swing to be expected; for anyone who didn’t, it was an overblown reaction. It was a case of homicide, and it sat there, useless and relentless, wordlessly demanding a solution that only he could provide, asking a mute question that he and no one else would have to answer. To get that answer he’d have to delve into a filthy well of horrors, plunge down into the abyss of human idiocy, scrabble around in the squalor of some diseased mind. At times like this, when a case had just blossomed like a flower of sickness among the underbrush of his life, in those very first few minutes, if Rocco had chanced to lay hands on the guilty party, he would have gladly and ruthlessly wiped him from the face of the earth.
He found himself sitting at the center of the living room. In the adjoining room, Alberto Fumagalli was working silently on the victim. The other officers had melted away like snow under bright sunlight, each to carry out specific instructions. He rubbed his face and got to his feet.
“All right, Rocco,” he said in an undertone, “let’s see what we have here.”
He pulled on the leather gloves he had in his pocket and ran his eye around the apartment. A chilly, impersonal eye.
The mess in the living room was, all things considered, the ordinary mess of everyday life. Magazines lay scattered, sofa cushions shoved aside, a low table across from the television set covered with clutter of all sorts—cigarette lighters, bills to pay, even two African carved wooden giraffes. What didn’t add up, on the other hand, was the unholy disarray in the kitchen. If there actually had been burglars in the apartment, what would they have been looking for in the kitchen? What valuables do people keep in the kitchen? The cabinet doors had all been thrown open. All except the doors under the sink. The deputy police chief pulled those doors open. There were three receptacles for sorted waste: garbage, metal, and paper. He peeked inside. The garbage was full; so was the bin for metal cans. But the container for paper and cardboard was almost empty. There was only an empty egg carton, a flyer for a trip to Medjugorje with a special offer on pots and pans, and a fancy black shopping bag with rope handles. At the center of the bag was a sort of heraldic crest. Laurel leaves surrounding a surname, “Tomei.” Rocco thought he remembered a shop by that name in the center of town. Inside the bag was a gift card. “Best wishes, Esther.”
On the well next to the fridge was a flyer from the city government. It was a map listing trash days. Rocco took a look at it. They picked up paper recycling on that street on Thursdays. The day before. That’s why the bin was half-empty.
The deputy police chief shifted his attention to the cell phone that he himself had placed on the marble countertop. That was another question mark. Who did it belong to? Was it the victim’s? And why had it been shattered? Where was the SIM card?
The bedroom looked like it had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. The burglars had concentrated here, working carefully. While the kitchen looked like the aftermath of an earthquake, in the bedroom you could see the careful hand of someone conducting a surgical investigation. Only the sheets had been tossed roughly aside and, to the attentive eye, it was clear that the mattress had been shoved a couple of inches over from the box spring beneath. The front doors of the armoire swung open, but the dresser and side tables were undisturbed. Under the window, half-hidden behind the floor-length curtains, was a dark blue velvet box. Rocco picked it up. It was empty. He left it on the dresser, next to another framed photograph of the couple. In this one, they were sitting at a table and embracing. Rocco stared at the woman’s face. And he silently promised her that he’d catch the son of a bitch. She thanked him, responding with a halfhearted smile.
The deputy police chief had decided to head home on foot, in defiance of the wind that had started to buffet the powdery snow off the roofs and tree branches, kicking it up in small whirlwinds off the blacktop of the streets. He strode briskly, his hands buried in the pockets of his light overcoat, which did little to keep him warm in that chilly weather. He looked up, but heavy dark clouds had covered both mountains and sky. Looking past the apartment buildings, all he could see were fields covered with snow or dark with mud. The last thing he wanted was to head straight back to police headquarters: he didn’t want to talk to the chief of police, much less explain to the judge exactly what they’d found, partly because he didn’t actually know. People on the sidewalk went past him without a glance, absorbed in their own affairs. He was the only one out without a hat. The wind’s icy fingers massaged his scalp. He was bound to pay for this walk with a sinus infection and a backache. The air was a blend of wood smoke from the chimneys and carbon monoxide from the tailpipes. He walked briskly into the street at crosswalks, defying death. In Rome, someone would have certainly run him over, crushing him to jelly on the asphalt. But this was Aosta, and the cars screeched to an unprotesting halt. He thought about what awaited him, what lay ahead of him. Aside from the Fiat 500 that stood patiently waiting for him to cross, nothing but work. And life in a city that was alien and distant. There was nothing here for him, and there never would be, even if he stayed for the next ten years. He’d never be able to bring himself to chat with old men in the bars about the high points of the local wines or the upcoming football transfers. And for that matter his hesitant, wavering efforts to construct an affair with Nora looked thinner than a piece of onionskin typing paper. He missed his friends. He knew that at a time like this they’d rally to his support, and help him get over that intolerable pain in the ass. He thought of Seba, who had at least come up to see him. Furio, Brizio. Where were they now? Were they still out on the street, or had his colleagues in the Rome police sent them for an extended stay at the Hotel Roma, as the Regina Coeli prison was called? He’d have given a frostbitten finger of his hand for an ordinary Trastevere pizza, a good old cigarette at night, high atop the Janiculum Hill, or a game of poker at Stampella. Suddenly he found himself at the Porta Pretoria. At least the wind couldn’t gust so freely through those ancient Roman gates. How had he wound up there? It was on the far side of town from police headquarters. Now he’d have to retrace his steps to Piazza Chanoux and continue straight from there. He decided that he’d stop in the bar on the piazza. He slowed his pace, now that he had a destination. Then he heard Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” issuing from his overcoat pocket. It was the ringtone he’d put on his cell phone for personal calls.
“Who is it?”
“Darling, it’s me, Nora. Bad time?”
“Yes.”
“So am I bothering you?”
“Why do you insist on asking questions that practically demand a rude answer?” he asked.
“What’s going on? Something wrong?”
“You want to know? Then I’ll tell you. I’ve got a murder on my fucking hands. Satisfied?”
Nora paused for a moment. “Why on earth would you take it out on me?”
“I take it out on everyone. First and foremost myself. I’m heading back to the office. Hold on half an hour, and I’ll call you back from there.”
“No, you’ll forget to call anyway. Listen, I just want to tell you that I’ve arranged a party at my place. A few friends are coming over.”
“Why?” Rocco asked. The recent events in Via Brocherel had run over the blackboard of his memory like an eraser.
“What do you mean, why?” asked Nora, her voice getting louder.
The deputy police chief simply couldn’t remember.
“It’s my birthday today, Rocco!”
Oh, shit, the gift, was the thought that flashed through his brain. “What time?” he asked.
“Seven thirty. Can you make it?”
“I will if I can. That’s a promise.”
“Do what you like. See you later. If you can make it.” Nora hung up. The woman’s closing words had been colder than the sidewalk around Piazza Chanoux.
It’s a chore to maintain human relations. It takes commitment, determination, and willingness: you have to face life with a smile. None of these things were in Rocco Schiavone’s toolkit. Life dragged him rudely from one day to the next, yanking him by the hair, and whatever it was that drove him to live from one day to the next, it was probably the same force that was making him put his left foot, shod in Clarks desert boots, in front of his right foot, similarly shod. One step, another step, as the Italian Alpini used to say to themselves as they marched through the Ukraine in temperatures of 40 degrees below zero in the long-ago winter of 1943. One step, another step, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone kept saying to himself—he’d been saying those words ever since that day, that distant July day in 2007 when his life had been snapped in half once and for all, when the boat had overturned, and he had been forced to change course.
It had been a hot, sticky Roman day. The seventh of July. A day that took Marina away from him forever. And with her, everything that was good in Rocco Schiavone. He’d spend the rest of his life with nothing to guide him but his instinct for survival.
The man walked up to the front door of the apartment building on Via Brocherel. Streamlined helmet and high-impact sunglasses, pink and blue skintight bike shorts and jersey in power Lycra, covered with advertising slogans, white calf-length socks, and shoes with the toe higher than the heel, making him walk like a circus clown.
Click clack click clack, went the iron plates on the toes of his shoes, as Patrizio Baudo walked his bike, stepping awkwardly to accommodate the padding in the seat of his bike pants. He observed the apocalyptic scene on the street outside his building. The police, rubberneckers, and even some guy with a TV camera.
What’s happened? he thought as he kept walking.
He walked up to a petite blond policewoman with a sweet face and big beautiful eyes, and expressed his thoughts aloud: “What’s happened?”
The policewoman sighed: “There’s been a murder.”
“A … what?”
“Just who are you?” asked the policewoman.
“Patrizio Baudo. I live here,” he said, and raised one hand with a fingerless glove to point at the windows of his apartment.
Inspector Rispoli focused on the man’s face, so that she could actually see her reflection in his sunglasses. “Patrizio Baudo? I think that … come with me.”
He hadn’t had time to change yet. Sitting in his cycling jersey and shorts across from the deputy police chief, Patrizio Baudo had however taken off his sunglasses and helmet. He’d handed his bike over to a police officer; you don’t leave a piece of fine equipment like that, easily worth six thousand euros, out on the street, even if you do live in Aosta. His face was pale, and there were two red stripes beneath his eyes. He looked like someone had been slapping him around for the past ninety minutes. He sat there in a daze, slack-jawed, staring blankly across the desk at Rocco. He was trembling, hard to say whether in fear or from the cold, and held his hands between his legs, still clad in leather cycling gloves. Every so often he’d raise his right hand and touch the gold crucifix that hung around his neck. “Let me get you something warm to put on,” said the deputy police chief as he picked up the receiver of his desk phone.
Phascolarctos cinereus. Commonly called the koala bear. Patrizio Baudo resembled nothing so much as the little Australian marsupial, and that was the first thing that had come into Rocco’s mind when the man walked into the room and shook his hand. The second thought was to wonder why he hadn’t already detected that resemblance from the photographs scattered throughout the apartment. The proportions, he replied inwardly. You can see them much better in person. The eyes are so much better than a camera lens at judging space and units of measurement. All it took was a quick glance at the jug ears, the small, wide-set eyes, and the oversize nose square in the middle of the face, practically covering the small, lipless mouth. To say nothing of the weak, receding chin. Every detail of that face shouted koala. There were, of course, differences. Aside from the differences in diet and habitat, what distinguished the animal from Patrizio Baudo was the hair. The little marsupial had lovely, cottonball hair, while Patrizio was bald as a billiard ball. This was a habit of Rocco’s, to compare human faces to the features of a given animal. Something that dated back to his childhood. It all started with a gift his father had given him when he turned eight: an encyclopedia of animals that had a section full of wonderful illustrations done at the end of the nineteenth century, depicting lots and lots of birds, fish, and mammals. Rocco would sit on the carpet in the family’s little Trastevere living room and spend hours poring over those drawings, memorizing names, amusing himself by finding resemblances with his teachers at school, his classmates, and people in his neighborhood.
Casella walked in with a black jacket and gave it to Patrizio Baudo, who immediately wrapped it around his shoulders. “How … how did it happen?” he asked in a faint voice.
“We still don’t know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Patrizio’s dead, dark little eyes suddenly flamed up, as if someone had lit a torch in the pupils.
“It means we found her hanged in your den.”
Patrizio put his gloved hands over his face. Rocco went on. “But the situation isn’t entirely clear.”
The man took a deep breath and looked at the policeman, his eyes filled with tears. “What do you mean by that? What isn’t clear?”
“It’s not clear whether your wife killed herself or was murdered.”
He shook his head and ran his hand over his weak chin. “I don’t … I don’t understand. She hanged herself … how could someone else have possibly killed her? Are you saying someone hanged her? Please, I don’t understand …”
Caterina Rispoli came in with a cup of tea. She gave it to Patrizio Baudo, who thanked her with a half smile but didn’t drink any. “Please explain, Dottore. I don’t understand …”
“There are details concerning the death of your wife that just don’t make sense. Details that make us think it might have been something other than a suicide.”
“What details?”
“We’re strongly inclined to think that it’s been staged somehow.”
Only then did Patrizio Baudo gulp down a mouthful of tea, which was immediately followed by a shiver. He once again touched the crucifix with his gloved right hand. Rocco shot Officer Casella a look. “I’ll have you taken home now. Please, take anything you’ll need. But I’m afraid you won’t be able to stay in your apartment. The forensic squad is conducting an examination. Do you have somewhere you can stay?”
Patrizio Baudo shrugged. “Me? No … maybe at my mother’s?”
“All right. Officer Casella will accompany you to your mother’s house. Here in Aosta?”
“Not far. In Charvensod.”
Rocco stood up. “We’ll keep you informed, don’t worry.”
“But who was it?” Baudo suddenly blurted. “Who could have done such a thing? To Esther … to my Esther …”
