Blood Curse

LIII

It was Ricciardi who told Garzo, the minute Teresa left. She’d been afraid to return home and share a roof with the murderer. But the commissario and Maione made it clear to her that there was no danger until formal charges were filed; in fact if anything, her absence would put the professor on his guard, giving him time to prepare an alibi. Once this whole affair was over, Teresa could take possession of Carmela’s apartment or, as an alternative, return to her village.

Maione and Ricciardi went to report to their superior officer, not without a hint of malevolent satisfaction as they savored the thought of the look on the deputy chief of police’s face.

On some level, his reaction came as a disappointment. Once they were done relating Teresa’s story, and after the professor’s shoes had been exhibited by Maione as if he were displaying the ampoule containing the miraculous blood of San Gennaro, Garzo laid his head back on the immaculate head cloth that covered the top of his armchair and shut his eyes. He seemed to be asleep, but there was a worrisome pink spot on his neck, under his now bloodless face.

After a minute or so, he opened his eyes and smiled.

“That doesn’t mean it was him.”

“What do you mean, it might not have been him, Dotto’? Even though the housemaid told us all the hows and whys and wherefores, and even brought in his bloodstained shoes?”

“Maione, calm down and listen to what I have to say.” And, counting off the points on his fingers: “The girl never actually saw the professor kill Calise; nor did she hear him explicitly state his intention to murder her. We also have no confession. Instead, we have an alibi: the Serras were at dinner with none other than His Excellency the Prefect of Naples that night. Last of all, a pair of muddy shoes are certainly not proof of murder. For all we know, that could be the blood of a dead dog, that is, if it’s blood at all.”

Ricciardi nodded.

“Fair enough, Dottore. You have a point. But you do have to admit that Serra had both the motive, which we can easily verify with testimonies from the other servants, and the opportunity, given that according to Doctor Modo, Calise was killed after 10:00 P.M., by which time the dinner at the prefect’s house would have long been over. Moreover, his evasiveness during the interview. .”

Garzo snorted in annoyance.

“Evasiveness is subject to your interpretation, Ricciardi. Let’s not forget that we’re talking about a person unaccustomed to being questioned like any common criminal. I don’t see any weak spots in the professor’s position with respect to Iodice’s. On the one hand, we have the accusations of a servant and an angry outburst, while on the other we have a debt that Iodice had been unable to pay and a suicide that is tantamount to a confession. Are you so sure that a court of law would find against Serra?”

Maione let out a muffled roar, like a caged lion. Ricciardi, in contrast, silently went over Garzo’s reasoning, which had a certain logic. He needed time. Deep down, he felt sure that given a choice between Iodice and Serra di Arpaja, the latter was more likely to have been the killer; but the way things stood right now, it was no contest.

“Well then, Dottore, how do you intend to proceed?”

Just as the commissario had expected, Garzo’s face went pale again.

“Me? What do I have to do with it? You’re in charge of the investigation, aren’t you? Why don’t you tell me what it is you intend to do.”

Checkmate, thought Ricciardi.

“Right, Dottore. Right. Well then, I think that we should go on investigating: check out what Teresa Scognamiglio told us, flesh out the information we already have. Just a few more days, to get a better idea of what happened, and to make sure headquarters is safe from this wretched individual.”

Garzo drummed his fingers briefly on the desktop.

“Fine, Ricciardi. I’ll give you a day, or actually two, since it’s still early morning. But I want charges brought by tomorrow night. The press has started putting pressure on the chief of police, who, as you know, is allergic to pressure.”

Ricciardi nodded and left the room, followed by a fuming Maione.

Filomena closed the shutters over the only window in the basso on Vico del Fico; a weak light filtered in through the slit over the door. She sat down at the table, smiled at the two people sitting with her, and with a firm hand and slow gestures, she removed her bandages.

Gaetano took a sudden sharp breath and moaned softly, as tears began streaking down his face. Rituccia, her pallor glowing in the darkness, watched calmly, her expression unchanged.

Filomena ran her fingertips over the scar, following its sharp, raised contours. She reached out for the old shard of mirror that she kept for brushing her hair. She looked at her reflection for a long time. Then she laid the mirror down and walked over to her son to give him a kiss. Gaetano took her face in his hands and started to sob.

Rituccia stood up, walked over to the woman, and solemnly kissed her on the slash across her face.

Maione was pacing back and forth in Ricciardi’s office, railing against Garzo, while Ricciardi stood silently in front of the window.

“Oh now, did you hear that idiot? We take him for a fool, and just when I think he’s fallen asleep, he takes us by surprise and out he comes with all this legal mumbo jumbo, like he’s the lawyer’s lawyer! I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it myself! And of course, since the professor from Via Santa Lucia is rich, he must be innocent, while poor Iodice, God rest his soul, filthy, weaselly, lower-class pizzaiolo without two pennies to rub together, must surely be guilty! And after we got the whole story from Teresa Scognamiglio, who heard everything with her own ears!”

Ricciardi spoke without lifting his gaze from the piazza below.

“As much of a fool as you like, and certainly convinced that it was poor Iodice who did it. Still, what he said wasn’t so stupid. The truth is that all we have are clues, in both cases. Both of them had a good motive for murdering Calise. Both of them had an opportunity to murder her. Both of them saw her dead: as we know from Serra di Arpaja’s shoes and Iodice’s promissory note. But what we don’t know for sure is which one of them watched her die.”

Maione stopped. He was unwilling to surrender to the evidence of the facts.

“Yes, but Serra can defend himself and Iodice can’t, Commissa’. So before we lay the blame on the dead man, we should make sure that the living one is innocent. Am I right?”

Ricciardi stood in silence for a few seconds. He was looking out the window.

“Have you ever thought, Maione, about all the things that you can see out a window? You can see life itself. You can see death. You can see, but you can’t do anything about it. So who is he, the man who watches? You know who he is?”

Maione waited, listening. He knew it didn’t fall to him to reply.

“The man who watches is the man who isn’t living. He can only watch other people’s lives go by; he can only live through them. Someone who watches is someone who just can’t handle it, who’s given up on living.”

Maione listened to him. And he understood that Ricciardi was no longer talking about Calise, Garzo, Iodice, or Serra di Arpaja. He was talking about himself.

Even though the brigadier lacked a well-developed sensibility, he did realize that the mood of the commissario, who was already melancholy by nature, had taken a plunge after that interview two days earlier with a witness, a certain Enrica Colombo. And now that he thought about it, this witness resided on Via Santa Teresa, right where Ricciardi lived. Perhaps they knew each other, which would certainly go a long way toward explaining the bizarre direction the interview had taken, the interview that he himself had been forced to conduct because the man who ought by rights to have asked the questions sat in silence. He sat silently and watched.

The brigadier had grown up on the street, and he knew when it was a good idea to keep quiet. There was nothing he could say; he could only sympathize with his superior officer and friend from a distance.