Maurizio de Giovanni - Everyone in Their Place

“Commissa’, what’s this, aren’t you going to question the duke and the young master right away? If they were the only ones in the house, and they’re still here, wouldn’t it be best to hear what they have to say?”

His superior officer briefly shook his head, brushing the stray lock of hair from his forehead with his hand.

“No. First I need to know with some certainty what time the duchess was killed, and especially whether there are other findings from the autopsy. To question them now would only mean giving them advance warning. Anyway, you leave Camarda here, tell him to take note of who leaves the house. And to make sure that no one comes in, until ordered otherwise.”

As they were leaving the palazzo, Sciarra and Sivo walked toward them, and Maione told them to make sure they could be reached and not to leave town, neither the two of them nor Sciarra’s family, for any reason whatsoever. The doorman shrugged his shoulders in his enormous jacket and said:

“And where are we supposed to go? We’re not going anywhere, Brigadie’, you can be sure of that.”

Maione conveyed the commissario’s instructions to Camarda with a subtle hint of sadistic pleasure, because he found him munching on a large hunk of bread with fried zucchini. Leaving aside the stab of envy, his stomach noisily reminded him that lunchtime was long gone. Damn that fruit vendor and damn his belly.

They walked part of the way with the doctor; before he veered off toward the hospital, Modo was shaking his head.

“There’s something fishy about this whole thing. What, you stick a cushion on my face, you push down on it so hard that my mouth leaves a mark, and you shoot me through it, and the whole time I obediently let you do it, without even lifting a finger? No, no: there’s something fishy about it.”

Maione agreed, as he huffed and puffed up the Via Diaz hill, sweat coming from his pores like water from a fountain.

“It seems strange to me too. And it also strikes me as odd that no one heard a thing; fine, there was a celebration going on, with all the noise, and the music, the shouting, whistling, and raspberries. But a gunshot is a gunshot, someone ought to have heard it at least indoors.”

Ricciardi looked straight ahead, lost in thought, and, as usual, bareheaded. The few pedestrians they encountered stared at him and stepped aside in bafflement.

“Not necessarily. The bullet was fired into the cushion, and the real question is who was home at the time. Bruno, you need to let us have the results of the autopsy as soon as possible. I have a hunch that we’re going to get some explanations from that.”

Modo snorted theatrically.

“Well, that’s a new one on me! Never once do you tell me: Doctor, take your time, there’s no hurry. Enjoy your Sunday, get some rest, then tomorrow just do your job, however long it takes.”

“All right, how about this: Doctor, at your leisure, let us have a nice clear report tomorrow morning, and no later.”

The doctor stopped in his tracks and stared at Maione.

“Brigadie’, seriously: let’s join forces and kill him now. I want the pleasure of doing the autopsy myself. I’d even work Christmas Eve on that.”

“No, Dotto’, then what fun would it be to work on a Sunday without the commissario?”

Modo shook his head.

“Okay, I understand: everyone’s conspiring against me. Anyway, I wasn’t planning to make more than one visit to the whorehouse in Piazza Trieste and Trento, tonight. Just means that for once it’ll be the whores who are crying.”

Ricciardi waved goodbye with a quick flick of his hand.

“Crying tears of joy. You’ve just given me an idea: they might have murdered the duchess, if that meant being spared a visit from you. Well, until tomorrow morning, then.”

Along the way, Maione informed Ricciardi of all that he’d found out by questioning the help about everyday life at the palazzo.

“The Sivo woman, Commissa’, won’t talk about the duke and duchess willingly. She’s loyal, too many years living in that house. But it seemed to me that the key to it all is the young master; he must have had a motive for going to live all on his own in the attic, don’t you think?”

“I agree: that’s something we need to determine. And we also need to find out whether the duke is actually bedridden or whether, if he really needed to, he could make his way out to the anteroom.”

“No, all three of them were very certain about that point, even Sciarra’s wife, between one sob and the next. It’s been years since the duke last walked, and in fact they’re all expecting him to die any minute. But I have a piece of news for you: do you want to guess the name of the chaplain who comes to say mass at Palazzo Camparino? An old friend of ours: Don Pierino Fava, do you remember him?”

Ricciardi certainly remembered Don Pierino, the diminutive assistant pastor of the church of San Ferdinando, an opera enthusiast who had helped them to solve the murder of the tenor, Vezzi. An involuntary association made him think of Livia, the victim’s beautiful widow, and he felt a surge of uneasiness and a twinge of pleasure.

“I remember him very well indeed; good, he’ll be able to give us some useful information. We’ll have to go call on him. And what do you have to say about the others?”

Maione mopped his face with his handkerchief for what seemed like the thousandth time.

“It’s just not normal, this heat wave. Sciarra’s only technically a doorman as far as I’m concerned, he strikes me as more of a Pulcinella with that enormous nose of his and that floppy outsized uniform. And then there’s the voice, did you hear it? Still, he’s not stupid and he can give us some information. The wife, on the other hand, what with housekeeping and children, and if you take into account the fact that she strikes me as pretty much of a dope, is not going to give us anything more than a confirmation where needed.”

They’d reached police headquarters; the big street door with its shade gave at least the illusion of an oasis of cool.

“Anyway, you keep collecting information where you can find it, but be careful not to alarm anyone. You could talk to some of the people in the neighborhood. One thing you can count on is that nobody minds their own business, and that’s certainly a family in the spotlight. What about that friend of yours, what’s the name? The one who knows everything about everybody.”

Maione’s face took on a wary expression.

“What friend are you talking about, Commissa’?”

“What do you mean, what friend; or should I have called him your ‘girlfriend’?”

A pained look appeared on the brigadier’s face.

“Commissa’, stop making fun. If you’re talking about Bambinella, he’s neither a friend nor a girlfriend, he’s a questionable character and I don’t have anything to do with him. It’s just that since, as you say, he knows everything about everyone, sometimes he can be useful, and that’s all.”

“And that’s all I meant to say, don’t you worry. He can tell us whether in certain circles anyone knows anything about that family, nothing more. See what you can find out. I’m going over to Caflisch to get something to eat, you want anything?”

Maione sighed and spread his arms.

“Not you too, Commissa’? No, thanks. I’m not hungry. This heat kills my appetite.”

By the time Ricciardi got back to police headquarters the sun was already setting. Outside the door to his office he found Ponte, the deputy chief of police’s doorman and clerk; a fidgety mannered little man, who couldn’t manage to conceal the superstitious discomfort that the commissario stirred in him. This fear tended to translate into the unpleasant habit of darting his gaze in all directions without ever looking the person he was talking to in the eye, which annoyed Ricciardi no end.