By My Hand (10 page)

Ricciardi decided to be conciliatory. He'd appreciated the consul's approach, the way he'd shared with them the difficulty in which he found himself.

“Don't worry, Consul. I assure you that, if and when we capture the guilty party, you will be informed immediately; you have my word on that. But only after their arrest, let me be perfectly clear, not before. I don't want to find myself with a suspicious suicide on my hands. Then it will become a matter to be settled between you and the highest levels at police headquarters, and knowing them I have no doubt that you'll be able to come to an understanding; I'm uninterested in communicating with press outlets and public opinion.”

Maione shot him a look. He was accustomed to not immediately grasping the commissario's strategies, but this struck him as too far removed from the principles that he shared and understood. It was obvious: Garzo would consider it a heaven-sent opportunity to gift wrap the murderers and hand them over to the secret police or who knows who else, as long as it meant a pat on the back from on high. And so much for justice.

The consul nodded his head slowly: the solution offered by Ricciardi struck him as acceptable.

“All right. But I'm warning you, Ricciardi: don't try to wriggle out of your end of the bargain. It says here that you're a man of your word, but this matter is much bigger than this legion. Remember that we will stop at nothing in our quest to preserve our role.”

Ricciardi nodded agreement.

“Fine. Then we have a deal. We want full freedom of action within your organization, though. We'll have to speak with those who worked with Garofalo, as well as those who knew his professional history, how he advanced his career, what his past was like: the people he talked to, who he confided in. And what kind of investigations he worked on, which ones he'd been working on recently.”

Freda stood up.

“Yes, of course. I'll call someone right away who can accompany you to Garofalo's office and answer all these questions. Unfortunately, I wasn't in direct contact with him very often and, to tell you the truth, I didn't much like him. He was too cloying and obsequious; I find that people like that are always dangerous. Then there was the matter of his promotion . . . But Seniore Spasiano, Garofalo's direct superior officer, can tell you all about that. I'll summon him now, you can even wait here if you like.”

Ricciardi got to his feet in turn.

“
Grazie
, Signor Consul; we'll wait just outside the door, we don't want to intrude any longer.”

They saluted; then on the way out the commissario stopped and asked:

“Sorry, one last thing: Why the painting of Saint Sebast­ian?”

The consul, who already had the intercom in hand, seemed surprised at the question; then he turned and looked at the painting, as if he were seeing it for the first time.

“Ah, that? He's the patron saint of the national volunteer militia. Only the Good Lord knows why.”

M
aione exploded the minute they were alone in the hallway.

“Commissa', this one you're really going to have to explain to me,” he hissed, looking out of the corner of his eye at the usher, who stood to attention, motionless behind the desk, some ten feet away. “Why would you promise to alert these fanatics when we catch the murderers? We might as well just give them a call when we think we know who it is, that way we can save ourselves the effort and risk of carrying out the arrest ourselves. For all we know, it was one of them: if so, they can sing the song and accompany themselves on guitar. What could be more convenient?”

Ricciardi smirked.

“You see, Raffae', I had to think on my feet. It occurred to me that if I told him no, as would normally have been my instinct, they'd simply take us off the case and some innocent citizen might have paid the price. These folks aren't kidding around: if there's the slightest doubt people just vanish and no one ever knows what became of them. So I decided it was the best course of action to make that promise, so that it might allow us to find out what happened and who did it. Besides, as you know, once we've made the arrest, what happens next is out of our hands anyway; and do you think that someone like Garzo wouldn't do his best to make these maniacs happy, if there was anything he could do for them?”

Maione stood shaking his big head, still unconvinced.

“I don't know, Commissa'; your line of reasoning makes sense, I can't argue with you, but I just don't like cutting deals with these people. They scare me. Did you hear how they knew every detail of our lives? Even what happened with poor Filomena; to hear them tell it, she was practically my lover. And all about your financial situation, and Signora Rosa. Those damned spies!”

Ricciardi sighed.

“They must have a vast network of informers. They even have someone at police headquarters; otherwise, how could they have known that we were coming here?”

The question went unanswered, because the sharp sound of heels clicking just a few inches away made them both jump.

“Seniore Renato Spasiano, at your orders. The Signor Consul told me to take you to the office of Centurion Garofalo and to answer your questions. Please, come with me.”

And he set off, it goes without saying, at a run. Maione rolled his eyes.

 

The office where Garofalo had worked was on the third floor, the top floor of the barracks building. The window looked out on the area opposite the wharves, offering a grim panorama of dead tracks and abandoned railcars. To make up for that, the noises that reached it from both the port and the street were quite muffled.

There was another officer seated at the desk, and when Seniore Spasiano entered the room this officer leaped to his feet with the usual perfect heel-click and Roman salute.

“This is Platoon Leader Criscuolo. He's going over the cases that Centurion Garofalo was working on, for anything urgent that may require action. Go ahead, Criscuolo, you may speak freely. These gentlemen are from the mobile squad, and they're looking into the accident.”

“The accident,” thought Maione. “Accident,” my foot. Garofalo just slipped and fell on a knife. He slipped and fell on it a good thirty times.

Criscuolo, a strapping big man with a ridiculous-looking ultrathin black mustache, replied:

“Seniore, I've reviewed all the documentation on the cases still under way. As you know, Centurion Garofalo was in charge of monitoring small-scale fishing on the city coastline, an area that extends from the port to the island of Nisida. There are reports on inspection up to this month, as required, including the quantities of fish and an inspection of the fishing areas. Detailed lists of the equipment on the individual boats, minutes of the meetings of the district commission. Human error aside, I found no irregularities awaiting report.”

Ricciardi broke in, as a fascinated Maione watched the movement of the mustache on Platoon Leader Criscuolo's upper lip, a mustache that seemed to move independently of the lip itself.

“Excuse me, but what does ‘irregularities awaiting report' mean?”

Spasiano explained:

“As you may know, the legion performs a number of duties, among them, monitoring fishing. There are large fishing boats, the ones with crews consisting of many men, which, because of their size, operate here in the port, at specially designated wharves. Then there are the smaller boats, which is to say boats owned and operated by families, which dock at the beaches of the
borghi
, near Castel dell'Ovo, in Mergellina, in Bagnoli, and so on. Centurion Garofalo was assigned to inspect these small fishing boats. The platoon leader, who worked with him, has checked to see that the centurion didn't have any pending investigations, irregularities detected that had yet to be reported. It's important to be timely, to avoid giving those who have committed some violation the time to rectify it and thus elude further inquiry.”

Ricciardi nodded, pensively.

“I understand. And had Centurion Garofalo recently reported any major irregularities, as a result of which major proceedings would have been undertaken against anyone?”

Spasiano tipped his head in Criscuolo's direction, passing him the ball. The mustache leaped and dived on the motionless lip, like a cat's whiskers.

“No, Signore. Little things, the kind of things you see all the time: non-regulation nets, minor incursions into private waters. Slight infractions. The centurion was highly respected and feared for his strictness; the fishermen knew it and toed the line.”

Ricciardi turned and spoke once again to Spasiano.

“The Signor Consul, earlier, made some reference to Garofalo's promotion to centurion: to be exact, to the way in which that promotion was obtained. What can you tell me about that?”

The Seniore was caught off guard. He looked at Criscuolo, who, apart from a vibration that ran through his mustache, didn't move a muscle. He reddened, opened his mouth, and snapped it shut. Ricciardi decided to lend him a hand.

“The Signor Consul told me that I could ask you for any information that I might find useful. If there are problems, we can just go speak with him.”

Maione smiled warmly. Ricciardi's ability to slip into the cracks of a given bureaucracy was unequaled. Spasiano blinked and gave in immediately.

“Garofalo was the deputy platoon leader. The corresponding rank in the army is second lieutenant. This means that he worked with a superior officer, an officer assigned to a specific area: a sector to be monitored, in other words.”

He stopped, looking down at the toes of his boots. Ricciardi and Maione waited. Criscuolo moved a sheet of paper on the dead man's desk. From outside came the mournful sound of a siren, carried by the stiffening wind. Spasiano went on with his story.

“This officer was the platoon leader Antonio Lomunno. One of the youngest men to hold that rank, ready to be awarded another promotion. The inspection area he was assigned to was smuggling, a terrible problem especially where tobacco and spices are concerned, and with coffee in particular. They were a hardworking team, and they'd uncovered a lot of smuggling operations.”

Another silence. This time they could hear Criscuolo sigh, a sigh accompanied by a quiver in his cat whiskers that didn't escape Maione's notice. The Seniore was clearly having a hard time continuing. His voice dropped an octave.

“One day, Garofalo knocked at the door of the consul's office, without even stopping to speak to the usher first. He said that he had something he needed to show someone, and that he could reveal it only in the presence of the highest officer of the legion. The consul summoned me as a witness, so that if needed I could testify concerning this act of insubordination. Garofalo announced that he had uncovered a large-scale coffee smuggling ring that had been active for many months, perhaps for years. He said that he'd informed his superior officer, Lomunno, of his discovery, but that he'd been told to say nothing about it.”

Maione looked at Criscuolo and saw that the man was staring at Spasiano with a silent note of accusation in his eyes.

“Why would this Lomunno have ordered Garofalo not to say anything?” Ricciardi asked.

Spasiano went on.

“Exactly. The Signor Consul asked the same question. Garofalo reported that he'd even been threatened with disciplinary sanctions by his superior officer if he talked, and that he'd been unable to understand the reason under the circumstances. Later he said that he'd stopped some of the smugglers and that one of them, in order to gain his release, had declared that he paid a monthly sum to Lomunno in order to be allowed to continue his smuggling without interference.”

Criscuolo sighed again.

“I'm sorry, but did this Garofalo produce even a shred of evidence?” Maione asked. “Or is it enough to lodge an accusation when you feel like it, from one day to the next?”

“Of course he did, Brigadier,” Spasiano replied. “We're not savages. Foremost among our considerations was the fact that Lomunno's service record was perfect, as I've told you; he was one of the finest officers in the legion, skillful and knowledgeable, with great instincts and intelligence. But Garofalo said that the smuggler, on condition of anonymity, had revealed the exact date on which he paid his monthly kickback to Lomunno, and that as it happened it was that same day. Garofalo invited us to question the officer, who had just returned to the barracks from an inspection.”

Maione sat openmouthed.

“And you believed him?”

Spasiano shrugged.

“What else could we do? The Signor Consul told Garofalo that, if his charges proved to be unfounded, he'd be punished with expulsion from the corps and that he might well face proceedings for defamation of an officer of the National Volunteer Militia.”

“And what did he say in response?” asked Maione.

“He asked, ‘And if it's true? What would be my reward?'”

Criscuolo puffed out his cheeks, then said:

“May I go, Seniore? I'll finish after my inspection, that way you can . . .”

“No, don't leave, Criscuolo,” Spasiano replied. “It's better that someone else be present to hear the story I'm about to tell. The order comes from the consul, but still, this is privileged information.”

“At your orders, Seniore.”

Ricciardi had listened carefully to this exchange. Criscuolo seemed to be in some discomfort hearing the story, which, in any case, he must have known quite well. Spasiano continued.

“We were so sure that the accusation was false that the consul said in my presence, ‘If it were true, he'd receive the maximum punishment allowable. Corruption is a cancer that the legion cannot allow to spread. You, on the other hand, would be promoted, for having had the courage to . . . to accuse an unworthy colleague.”

A cold drizzle had started to fall, tapping against the windowpanes.