April Smith - White Shotgun

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you’re saying the fire bombing of Sofri’s car was not an act of terrorism meant to destabilize the city before the next Palio, or something like that?”

“Unlikely.”

“Do you have any suspects at all?”

“Nothing I can discuss.”

“Please. We are both professionals.”

The Commissario briefly shuts his eyes as if avoiding a painful thought.

Like a thunderclap, Nicosa shouts, “Al diavolo questo!”

“We don’t know,” the Commissario says calmingly. “But we will find out.”

“When? How? What is your plan?”

He leans forward, bringing his skull face toward us. On the wall behind him are photographs of his children, and the usual certificates in gilded frames. His tone takes on elegiac solemnity.

“Signore Nicosa, I must tell you, the coroner’s report is grim.”

“A man of seventy-one is burned to death in his car. How much worse can it be?”

“The fire didn’t kill him, signore . First, he was beheaded.”

The pitiful looks we received from the cops downstairs are now understandable. They already knew what we were about to hear.

I briefly touch Nicosa’s hand. He is wordlessly gripping the chair.

“Then it’s clear. Sofri was killed by the mafia.”

The Commissario nods. “It is a mafia-style killing, meant to convey a message.” His flat brown eyes slide toward Nicosa. “As to the meaning of that message, we should properly ask the victim’s business partner.”

“Sofri was never involved in anything illegal,” Nicosa replies, tight-lipped.

“… Although,” the Commissario continues as if Nicosa hadn’t spoken, “given the timing, it may have had something to do with the killings in the Piazza del Campo.”

I force myself to exhale and relax, hoping Nicosa gets the cue and doesn’t broadcast with telltale body language that we were right in the middle of it. The Commissario may be a high bureaucrat, but he has no doubt been trained to recognize the stiff posture and rapid blinking of a guilty man.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“There were two male victims. One was shot in the middle of the square, right in front of a group of Boy Scouts, the other through the window of a third-story apartment.”

“What is the connection between the victims?”

He doesn’t bite. “We are investigating.”

As if the body in the apartment wasn’t found beside a sniper rifle. As if the bald one lighting a cigarette wasn’t instantly identified by police sources as a mafia operative.

“I mean,” I say naïvely, “what is the connection of these victims to Sofri ?”

“In both homicides, the bullets were fired from Sofri’s apartment.

And he was killed hours later.”

Nicosa manages to ask, “How do you know where the bullets were fired?”

“The ballistics report. We have reconstructed the path and speed of the bullets. In fact, we have the bullets. You see, we are just as good as the Americans.”

He smiles smugly, and I realize he’s been playing us all along, only to get to this point.

I return the smile and ask, “Are you seriously suggesting that Sofri, a seventy-one-year-old scientist with no history of violence, was capable of firing a high-powered weapon from his own window in broad daylight, with a hundred percent accuracy?”

“We don’t know who fired the gun, but we are certain as to where the shots came from. Our theory is that the mafia murdered Sofri and set fire to his car in retaliation for the deaths of those two men. That’s all I can say at this time, and I have probably said too much.”

“Have you given this to the press?”

“Not everything. I reserved it for your ears only.”

“We appreciate your candor,” I assure him.

He nods curtly. Nicosa stands.

“What about my wife?”

“I have pulled in extra officers and assigned every available detective to the case. Our department is under a microscope — the case is all over the Internet, those sick websites that love the misfortunes of famous people.”

“And what progress have you made, with all this police work?”

A pause. “We’re doing the best we can.”

“Non fare sopra te stesso,” Nicosa says.

The Commissario fixes him with an impassive stare.

“Again, my sympathies for the tragic loss of your friend.”

Going down the marble staircase with the bad smell, I ask Nicosa what he said to the chief of police.

“I suggested that he not get above himself. People who get above themselves are generally brought down.”

“Damn right. Talk about arrogant. You were good,” I tell my brother-in-law. “Didn’t let on, didn’t give an inch.”

We scramble down a few more steps and then Nicosa stops. Taking hold of the flaking metal banister, he bends his head, and weeps. Watching from the bottom of the stairs, Inspector Martini waits respectfully.

When we return to the abbey, Nicosa goes straight up to his tower. Giovanni is once again gone. He slept past noon, Sterling says, and then the same kid who took him to school showed up and they left.

“How was he about Sofri?”

“Badly shaken. But he won’t talk about it. When we rolled past the roadblock, he put his hood over his head and just kind of zipped up.”

“Did he say anything at all?”

“He said, ‘This is crazy.’ ”

“What was he doing when you found him yesterday?”

“Like his dad said, he went back to the old neighborhood. He was in the contrada headquarters, eating soup.”

“Eating soup?”

“They have a kitchen set up. I guess there’s always a mama or two around.”

“Well that’s okay, then,” I say.

“Wish I could say that’s true. When I found him, he was high as a kite.”

“That’s disappointing. My talk with him had no effect.”

“When you were sixteen, did you have a clue?”

I take off the worn-out courthouse heels I wore to see the Commissario, letting them drop one by one to the floor.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here. We might as well go home.”

Sterling looks at me with clear eyes. “You understand there’s not a real good chance of rescuing Giovanni from himself.”

“I’m not going to let him just go down.”

“Poor ole Ana. The Invasion of Normandy, all by her own self.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Aw, come on.”

Sterling is lying across the sweet-pea bed with his hands behind his head, wearing nothing but undershorts. The heat of the afternoon funnels through the small arched window like a flamethrower.

“Come on, now.” He pats the sheets. “Come on over here.”

This is a welcome change. I take off my skirt and flop beside him in just my camisole and bikini. Sterling slips an arm under my neck, and I roll against his shoulder, finally safe in protected territory. We are quiet. I breathe the living smell of his body.

“Sterling, the Commissario is dirty.”

“All right.”

“You knew that?”

He shrugs. “What’d he do?”

“He gave himself away. In the meeting with Nicosa. He’s telling us Sofri was killed in retaliation for the mafia bozos being shot from his window. But the only way you could know that is from the ballistics report. And the ballistics report hasn’t been released. Not even internally.”

“Are you sure?”

“Inspector Martini told me. I saw her in the police station on the way out. I asked if she’d seen the ballistics report on the shootings in the Campo, and she was surprised, said nobody has, the lab is days away from even letting the detectives know the results. The only one with access to a preliminary finding is the Commissario.”