Bella Italia (19 page)

Mandelli got up from his chair, took the handcuffs from the inside pocket of his jacket, and placed one cuff on the deliveryman’s wrist. He clicked the other on the heavy oak leg of the sofa. “Don’t move; you are under arrest. We will remain here, but need to talk to one another and what we say to one another is none of your business.”

Mandelli walked out of earshot from the deliveryman, and deliberated with the other detectives for a few minutes about which steps they should take now. They agreed and Mandelli unlocked the handcuff attached to the sofa leg.

“Let’s go,” he said to the deliveryman, who appeared frightened and confused. Meekly, he walked with the three of them to the hotel’s parking lot. When they got to the edge of the lot, Mandelli pointed to a ditch about twenty-five yards farther. He gave the deliveryman instructions, and Parolo walked with the man.

“What we’re doing here is strictly against the law,” Ranocchia said.

Mandelli nodded. “You are totally right, and I could care less about that.”

“Well, I feel the same way,” Ranocchia answered, his eyes fixated on Parolo, who sent the deliveryman into the ditch and laid himself down at the edge.

“It’s worth the risk,” Mandelli offered. “If we end up arresting the Monster of Garda tonight, all of Italy will be at our feet.” He grinned calculatingly. “An arrest like that will also look very nice on our résumés. But you can bet on it: if we call this in to the office now and the boys from the bomb squad start to take over from here, I guarantee you that one of our superiors will end up taking all the credit and glory.”

Ranocchia brought the deliveryman’s ID, which he had taken from him, out of his inside pocket. “If this guy ends up blowing himself up, at least we know what his name was. That’s more information than we had up until now, right?”

Mandelli nodded and looked over at Parolo, who had placed himself at the edge of the ditch and had positioned himself in such a way that, in the case of an explosion, only a small part of his face would be in the danger zone. He could see how the deliveryman slowly ripped off the box’s colorful wrapping paper. On guard because of the strange circumstances and the way that the police had responded, he carefully took the lid off the box.

Instinctively, Parolo pulled back and faced away. He closed his eyes, put his fingers in his ears, and waited for the explosion. But instead of the expected gigantic bang, it remained quiet. Parolo peered over the edge again and saw how the deliveryman, per their instructions, placed the lid next to the box. He stayed seated in the same position, placed his hands on his head, and started rocking back and forth with his upper body.

Martuccia entered Tardelli’s office. After the lineup he’d gone home to eat and to spend some time with his wife. With any luck, he would have been able to sleep at home tonight. But if anything important happened, he had to go back to the station immediately. That was the case right now.

He had felt conflicting emotions in the car ride to the station. He had really enjoyed being at home with his family, but he was also very upset that an important arrest had been made when he wasn’t there. He was dying to hear all the details. Tardelli had only told him on the phone that they had arrested a serious candidate.

When he walked in, he could tell by Tardelli’s facial expression that he did not have good news. Tardelli nodded absently as his eyes rested on a sheet of paper that lay on the desk before him.

“Mandelli, Ranocchia, and Parolo will be here shortly,” Tardelli muttered. “Then we’ll take the suspect off their hands, so they can take a break.”

Martuccia pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. “Who will replace them?”

“Esposito and Bianchi are already in place,” Tardelli said. He tapped his nail on the paper and clucked his tongue.

Martuccia didn’t understand Tardelli’s discontent.
They have the guy
, he thought. Unless it was another false alarm, because that was definitely the impression his colleague was giving him.

“Davide Cassani,” Tardelli said. “After Mandelli called me about the arrest, I looked up this Cassani in our computer system. We are talking about a twenty-eight-year-old junkie from Verona without a permanent address or residence. He’s been in contact with the police frequently, starting at the age of sixteen, all for minor crimes, and mostly related to his heroin addiction. He spent a total of two years in jail.” He shook his head, clearly discouraged. “You expect me to believe that some low-life drug addict, a repeat offender, is supposed to be the big Monster of Garda? That a junkie living on the streets is the same person who prepared these meticulous murders down to the very last perfect detail, left no evidence, and managed to stay off our radar all this time. And is a brilliant genius who nervously makes a rookie mistake now, when it matters the most? I’m not so sure we have the right guy here.”

Martuccia pulled the piece of paper with the information about Davide Cassani toward himself and began to read it. “It does appear highly unlikely,” he said a moment later. “But on the other hand, sometimes the biggest and smartest criminals end up making the dumbest mistakes and end up getting caught after all. Maybe he is in that category. Who knows—maybe to the outside world he lived as a junkie but secretly had access to other facilities?”

“A double life,” Tardelli concluded. “Interesting thought. Besides, you can never know beforehand. Okay, we will go into this interview with a blank slate and see what we can get out of him. He will definitely talk; it’s our job to make sure that he fumbles.”

“Deal,” Martuccia said. “This is the best chance we’ve got. We will squeeze everything out of him until we’re sure, even if it takes all night.”

“What a nice prospect to look forward to,” Tardelli mumbled sarcastically.

“When you called me at home before, you told me how quickly he was arrested while holding that box in front of the Kolwijn’s hotel room. Is there anything else I should know about that?”

Tardelli was about to reply, but was interrupted when the door of his office opened and the three detectives who had made the arrest came to deliver their suspect.

Tardelli looked at Roberto Parolo and nodded to the chair that stood in front of his desk. “Put him over there.”

Parolo did as he was told and stepped back.

“This is what the suspect wanted to deliver to room 38 at the Hotel La Ninfa,” Ranocchia said, as he put down the box with blue bow on the desk.

“What do you want us to do now?” Luca Mandelli asked. “Go back to the hotel right away and continue with our post?”

Tardelli shook his head. “Esposito and Bianchi have already replaced you, so take a break first. Eat and drink something. Afterward, I want to talk to you guys about what happened.”

The threesome said their good-byes and left. A nice break and some food was an appealing prospect to the men, who had been at their post since that afternoon and had barely had anything to eat or drink since. With the reassuring thought that the security of the Dutch family was taken care of for now in the back of their minds, they were going to take their time.

Tardelli took the lid off the box and showed its contents to Martuccia. It was a knife about six inches long. Martuccia couldn’t spot a single spot of rust or any damage to it at all and concluded that the knife must be brand new.

“So you stood in front of room 38 with this razor-sharp knife?” Tardelli asked.

“I didn’t know,” Cassani responded quickly. “I swear to you: I had no idea there was a knife in this box.”

“So you didn’t put it in there yourself then?”

Cassani shook his head vigorously. “I only received the box when I got into the taxi.”

“Who gave you the box?” Tardelli wanted to know.

“A guy I met this afternoon for the first time.”

“Where?”

“On a square in Verona, where we all hang out a lot.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Users, dealers, repeat customers, and people who heard where they can score some dope.”

Martuccia thought he might know which place the junkie was referring to but didn’t want to ask more questions about it. Tardelli was in a good rhythm, and the man across the table from him was a seasoned drug user and criminal who had been in jail. He was someone who obviously had a lot of experience with the police. The whole “good cop, bad cop” routine probably wouldn’t have a big effect on this guy.

He carefully looked over Davide Cassani. The man wore a beige suit that was several sizes too big for him. Underneath, he wore a pale-blue wrinkled shirt. Even though the clothes were obviously used, they didn’t suit his style. He was scrawny, trembling all over. He had thin, black hair, sunken cheeks, not a decent tooth in his mouth, and dirt underneath his fingernails. Was this the man they had been searching for all this time? Anything was possible, but this seemed highly unlikely, indeed.

“How did this meeting happen?” Tardelli continued.

“I was sitting in the square, talking to a group of my friends. He was walking around there, and the moment our eyes met, he casually showed me a fifty-euro bill. I walked over to him, and we started to talk.” He let out a deep sigh. “Man, I wish I had never met him. What a mess this is—I need a fix soon or otherwise I will get very, very sick.”

“We will see about that later,” Tardelli answered laconically. “I want to hear the whole story first, and then I will think about calling a doctor who may have some medication for you.”

Cassani’s dark eyes lit up for a moment. The thought that drugs or some sort of replacement were in his near future revived him and gave him new strength. “He gave me the fifty-euro bill just to listen to him. I agreed, and we sat down two streets away, on a terrace.”

“It must have been quite a story,” Tardelli said loudly, when he thought Cassani had fallen silent.

“You can say that again, yes. He told me that good friends of his were staying at a hotel just outside of Verona. They were there with their son, who has an incurable disease. He wanted to surprise the family with a package. To make the surprise even bigger, it had to happen at exactly eleven o’clock at night. Not too early and not too late.”

“And he asked you to do this, instead of a regular delivery service? That seems really hard to believe, Davide. If you’re only going to tell me bullshit stories, I’m going to suddenly forget the phone number of that doctor who probably has some very nice treats for you. Because you’re going to have a very long stay in a cell: you’ll be put behind bars for holding illegal weapons. But if you cooperate, maybe I can help to make your stay with us a little nicer. However, if you’re going to keep bullshitting me, then you’re on your own.”

In his indignation, Cassani wanted to jump up, but managed to control himself just in time. Mainly Martuccia’s piercing gaze was responsible for that. “It’s true; please believe me. After sitting on the terrace, we went to buy secondhand clothes in a shop. That’s where he bought this suit for me.”

“Did he buy anything for himself?”

“Yes, I think he did. He tried on some clothes behind a sheet they have hanging up there. But what he bought exactly, I do not know. That’s none of my business.”

“Right, so he told you some strange story, and you bought a few clothes. But what was in it for you besides the fifty euro?”

“A meal, and I could keep the clothes. And later in the day, another extra hundred euro. After the delivery he would pick me up and bring me back to Verona. There I would receive another hundred euro.”

“A grand total of 250 euro, just for delivering a surprise package,” Tardelli said. “For that amount of money, you could have at least ten packages delivered by a professional service—imagine how desperate he must have been?” He made a gesture with his fingers to indicate that he wanted to see the money.

“Your colleagues took it from me. And what I have told you is the truth, even if you don’t believe me. Besides that, he didn’t make a very desperate impression. He looked more like a man who knew exactly what he was doing.”

It only took a quick glance from Tardelli. Martuccia picked up his cellphone, pressed a button, and had a short conversation with Luca Mandelli.

“They did seize 150 euro from him. Three notes of fifty.”

Tardelli put his focus back on the suspect. “Describe the man who asked you to deliver this package.”

The answer corresponded with the description of the man they were looking for.

“Did it never occur to you that the box could contain illegal substances?”

Cassani thought for a moment. “I’m sure it crossed my mind. But the temptation was far too great. It was a simple job, and I would also receive extra money after it was finished, so I could score again. He wasn’t someone from the drug scene, so it wasn’t about the drugs. He just seemed like a nice guy who did what he said he would do.”

“But he still set you up. Just for the record,” Tardelli continued, “where were you this past week each evening after eight o’clock?”

Martuccia understood where his colleague was going with this. There were many more questions to ask, but this one couldn’t be avoided. This conversation was being recorded, and if anyone ever had any questions about it, he would have to cover himself. No matter how pointless the question seemed. The man sitting across from them had no sense of time. He lived from hour to hour, from one hit to the next.

“That’s easy, I’m always in Verona. I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

Martuccia saw that Tardelli pulled open his desk drawer. As far as he was concerned, that was already a little late, but he could understand his colleague’s reasoning. Of course, there were still thousands of questions you could think to ask, each one a bigger waste of time than the other. He had a very strong suspicion that they were both on the same page, which meant, among other things, that his gut feeling was growing stronger. This interview needed to end soon.

“Where do you shoot up?” Tardelli wanted to know.

“Anywhere that I can find a good vein.”

“Pull up your sleeves.”

His arms, abused and deformed from all the excessive drug use, were not a pretty sight.