Maurizio de Giovanni - Everyone in Their Place

At the trattoria the doctor, as usual, ate for two; Ricciardi on the other hand, toyed listlessly with a forkful of pasta, responding monosyllabically to his friend’s efforts to draw him out in a conversation. His chosen topic, needless to say, was politics.

“Do you have any idea how low we’ve sunk? I find this young man in my waiting room, a student, as far as I could tell, glasses, clean but shabby clothing, the elbows of his jacket looked as thin and delicate as onionskin paper. A Calabrian, perhaps, or maybe from Lucania, I can never tell them apart. But a respectable polite young man. You know the kind, put themselves through school by working on the side, and even send a little extra money home. So I find him sitting in the waiting room, he hadn’t made a sound, patiently pressing a handkerchief against his forehead. So I say to him, yes, young man, how can I help? And he shows me a five-inch cut. Probably a knife wound, and they came this close to taking his eye out, just a hair to the left and he’d have been blind in one eye. I asked him, son, who did this to you? And he said: I fell and cut myself. He fell, my foot! There’d been a meeting of freethinkers, socialists, maybe, and those guys showed up, a squad of enforcers, probably ten of them. He’d been a straggler when everyone took to their heels. Getting the story out of him was like pulling teeth. But in the end, do you know what he said? Doctor, I’ll let you stitch up the cut only if you promise not to tell a soul. What kind of filthy world has this turned into? Can you answer me that?”

Ricciardi sadly shook his head.

“Bruno, I know that things aren’t going particularly well. Believe me: I’ve experienced it personally. But you’re important, for all the people you help and you protect. For once in your life, let me try to protect you, by asking you to take care. That’s right, I’m asking you-I’m begging you-to be careful what you say, especially in public places. Don’t ask me how I know, but I do: there are people keeping an eye on you. And if they locked you up, even if it would mean not having to look at your ugly face anymore, it would be a serious loss for everyone.”

Modo slammed his fist down on the table, making the silverware dance. Heads turned to look at them.

“What’s this, you too now? You’re starting to talk like them? Who did you talk to about me, if I may ask? Don’t I at least have the right to know my enemies?”

Ricciardi laid a hand on his arm, whispering: “There, you see: they’re watching us. These are exactly the kind of situations to avoid. During the course of the investigation into the duchess’s murder, you remember, your last autopsy, I had to question a person. A man who works for their secret police, to be exact: even if I find it repellent to dignify them with the name of police. Still, he wasn’t a bad person, at least, that was the impression I got. And he told me to give you some advice: try to stay out of trouble. Now I’ve done it, at my own risk and danger. Don’t make me regret it.”

Modo considered the matter and calmed down, just as Ricciardi had expected. He wouldn’t risk his friend’s life just to make a point. Plus, it warmed his heart to think that someone like the commissario actually worried about him.

“Fine, you’ve talked me into it. I’ll try to be more careful. By the way, I hear that you caught the duchess’s murderer, or perhaps I should say, her murderess, the wife of that journalist, what’s his name. .”

“Capece, that’s right. But I wanted to talk to you about that, too. Now then, this woman, Signora Capece, is crazy. Of course, there will be an expert evaluation and all the rest, but she’s certainly not of sound mind. So: in your experience, can a person like that do something and then remember only a part of what they’ve done?”

Modo looked at him intently through the cigarette smoke.

“If you explain to me exactly what you mean, I may be able to answer your question.”

Ricciardi sighed:

“Do you remember when you described the condition of the corpse to me? You mentioned a struggle. Broken fingernails, broken ribs.”

“And signs of asphyxiation, of course, I remember perfectly. So what?”

“So Signora Capece told us that she came in and shot the duchess through the cushion, and that the duchess was fast asleep. But she didn’t say anything about a fight.”

Modo shrugged:

“I’ll say it again: so what? Did she fire the gun, yes or no? If she pushed the cushion down onto the duchess’s face, whether it was for one second or thirty seconds, if she braced her knee against her abdomen so she was better able to fire the gun, if the duchess grabbed her dress, breaking her fingernails in the processs-and they were long, well manicured nails, and therefore quite fragile-well, there you are, you have your full clinical picture of the autopsy. It all lines up perfectly, as far as I’m concerned. If you tell me that she’s crazy, well, as you know individuals with mental problems can wield enormous strength without even being aware of it. I remember, during the war, there was a guy. .”

But Ricciardi was too focused to listen to the doctor’s postprandial digressions.

“And the fingers? You told me that there were abrasions on one of the fingers, as if someone had violently ripped off a ring, and the explanation for that emerged in the investigation; but the other finger, the one that was dislocated when she was already dead, given the absence of hematomas? The Signora Capece said nothing about having taken a ring off the corpse.”

The doctor spread both arms wide:

“Ah, well, that’s something I can know nothing about: I’m a scientist, not a seer. I can tell you with great confidence, and in fact I did, that the finger was dislocated after the poor duchess had shuffled off this miserable coil. Whether someone then took her ring or visited a strange and perverse desecration upon her corpse, I have no idea. But forgive me if I say: now you’re starting to look like the lunatic in this story. Signora Capece has confessed, you’ve found the murder weapon, and her confession fits in with all the evidence and clues that you’ve found. Can you tell me what more you want?”

Ricciardi ran a hand over his face as if brushing away a fly.

“You’re right. Maybe it’s just that I can never seem to give up an investigation just like that, that’s all.”

Modo stretched out in his chair, knitting his fingers behind his neck and smiling:

“Of course. If it were anyone else but you, the high priest of crime and justice, I would suggest you come with me to sample the delights of a new bordello that just opened its doors at La Torretta, with a team of French mademoiselles who are actually from Mugnano, but trust me, they’ll take your breath away. But since you stubbornly insist on being yourself, I think I’ll let you go back to your muckraking. But I want to give you a piece of advice, too, in exchange for the advice you gave me: every so often, why don’t you give yourself a little peace. Take some time off, do something fun. Otherwise they’ll be checking you into a room next to Signora Capece, take it from your friend Bruno.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll just have to devote a little leisure time to my favorite pursuit: hunting for dissident doctors. Come on, let’s go get a cup of coffee. And this time, it’s your treat.”

Maione slowly made his way up the last part of the steep uphill street that led to his home, where lunch was waiting. Incredible as it might seem, given how hungry he was, he’d happily have skipped lunch entirely, for a number of reasons: first of all, he couldn’t stand the prospect of another bowl of vegetable soup; next, last night’s spat was certain to mean a chilly silence on his wife’s part, and that meant he couldn’t hope for the friendly conversation that was his one sure way of getting his mind off work; last of all, he’d have to walk past the fruit and vegetable shop run by that damned Di Stasio, who had greeted him with a smile that struck him as faintly sarcastic.