Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone (34 page)

Old man Borrelli hadn't hesitated in the least in his response to Romano's question: “It's Lena. It can't be anyone but her. She was with us for more than a year: a good-looking girl with red hair, that's why she didn't occur to me. She had this giant head of hair. Dodo was crazy about her.”

“Of course we don't have any evidence, Cavalier. It's just a theory, but it's worth digging into. Do you have any idea where she lives? Or where she works?”

Borrelli burst into a fit of coughing; Romano waited for him to catch his breath.

“No. But I'm sure that Carmela kept her documents, she never throws anything away.”

“Cavalier, if you could . . . you know, it might amount to nothing, but we have to move fast.”

“In five minutes you'll have everything via fax. Keep me informed.”

Borrelli had underestimated his secretary; three minutes later Guida walked into the room waving a sheet of paper.

The Xerox of the passport wasn't very clear, but it was possible to make out the face of a scared-looking young woman.

Palma read aloud: “Madlena Miroslava. Born June 12, 1971, in Krivi Vir, Serbia. Currently residing at Corso Novara 13. Come on, guys. I'll send a car straight to the address, you get busy on the phones with operators, employment officers, everyone you can think of. I want to know where she works and who she lives with. And if she dyed her hair blond.”

Y
ou're sick, I'm telling you. Sick in the head. Do you even realize what you're saying? You know what happens in prison to people who kill kids? Plus you're a foreigner and the boy is Italian . . . I don't even want to think about it.”

“If you start thinking about what's going to happen to us behind bars, you're already screwed, it's as if you were already in prison. You just have to make sure they never catch us.”

“But if they . . .”

“I don't want to hear another word! Say it one more time and I'm out of here, and you'll be left all alone with this mess on your hands.”

“And . . . and if . . . God, I can't even bring myself to say it.”

“Listen to me, Dragan. Listen to me. We have to make sure they never, never find him. Because as long as they can't find the body, there hasn't been a murder either, you see? That's the law. I saw it on TV. They just can't ever find him.”

“But how can we make sure of that? We . . .”

“We'll cut him into pieces. And we'll bury him along the road, at night, in lots of different places.”

“No. No, no, no. No! We'll take him with us. We'll take him away with us. If anyone asks, we'll just say he's our son.”

“You're joking. He's ten years old, not three months. He'll talk, and then that'll be it.”

“But how can you talk like that? You loved him. You dressed him, you fed him, you spent a whole year with him. And he loves you, he . . .”

“That's an advantage, he trusts me. We'll put him to sleep first, he won't suffer.”

“But don't you realize? He's a child, he has his whole life is ahead of him . . .”

“Listen, asshole: It's either his life or ours, can't you see that? We don't have a choice. When I left home, I left two of my own children behind, and I haven't heard from them since. Do you think they don't haunt my dreams? Do you think I don't wonder about them? If I abandoned
them
, I can certainly abandon him.”

“That's not the same thing, fucking hell! You're talking about killing him! It's one thing for a stupid kidnapping to go wrong, it's a whole other thing to murder a little boy and cut him up into pieces!”

“We don't have any other options. We're just wasting time. If we stay here they'll find us, and then it'll be over. We just need to do it. Right now.”

“No. We can run away and take him with us. We can escape, I have phone numbers, addresses. We can stay in Italy, maybe, until things have died down. And as for him, he's not going to talk because he's afraid. I can make sure he won't talk. I can take care of him.”

“You don't even know how to take care of yourself, you're just a big ox. If you're not man enough to do this thing, I'll do it for you. And then we'll go.”

“No, you won't do it either. We'll leave the phone here. And he'll come with us. Alive.”

“I'm not going to let you ruin my life. I won't let you. Sooner or later, we'd give ourselves away, we'd make some mistake. Or else he'd talk to someone and they'd find us. Don't you understand? It's us or him. We have to kill him, cut him up into pieces, and hide until we can figure out a way to get out of the country.”

“You aren't going to touch him. He's asleep right now. I'll wrap him in the blanket, I'll put him in the car, and we'll go.”

“I'll kill him. I'll kill you, too, if you make me.”

“No. No, you won't.”

“Try and stop me.”

A
sk any cop.

It pokes you, like a thorn in the ass, like some mistake you can't seem to pick out in a photograph.

It's a forgotten chore, something urgent you've put off and keep on putting off.

It's the closet door hanging open, and you notice it from bed, when you're already under the blankets, and you know you won't get a wink of sleep until you get up and close it.

Go ahead and ask, ask any cop.

 

Reports started pouring in quickly: At first they all seemed promising; then it was nothing but dead ends. Guida came and went, shuttling between phone and fax, now with a broad smile under his bald dome, other times with a sad, sad face.

Yes, Madlena Miroslava had lived at Corso Novara, no. 13. No, she didn't live there anymore, and hadn't for five years. Yes, the concierge remembered her. No, she hadn't left a forwarding address. Yes, she must still be living in the city, because she had run into her on the street just a year or so ago. No, she hadn't told her where she was working now, in part because she, the concierge, liked to mind her own business. Yes, she'd signed up at the local employment office. No, she wasn't using their services anymore. Yes, she'd given her address. No, it was still the address listed on her passport. Yes, her phone number was listed. No, it appeared to have been out of service for months. Yes, she'd come to Italy ten years ago on one of the minibuses that ferried illegals over the border, the police informant working immigration had told the police team sent out to inquire. No, as far as the informant knew she hadn't returned home.

It wasn't that unusual for a foreigner to vanish into thin air: An under-the-table job implied a certain skill at covering one's tracks, even concealing one's place of residence. And so they were coming up empty-handed.

Romano's phone rang.

“
Buongiorno
, Dottore. This is Carmela Peluso, Cavalier Borrelli's secretary.”

“
Buongiorno
, Signora. Go ahead.”

“I heard from the cavalier that you're trying to track down Lena, the girl who worked here as a babysitter five years ago.”

“That's right, in fact, thanks so much for the copy of the passport that you faxed us, it really is a piece of luck that you still . . .”

“Six months ago we received a phone call about her.”

“You what? How . . .”

“It was a request for a reference.”

“Ah, I see. And of course you don't remember . . .”

“Of course I
do
remember, perfectly. I have right here both the name and the address of the person who called. The young woman had said that she had worked here and the signora who called wanted us to confirm that. You should know that I make a habit of keeping notes on everything.”

“An excellent habit. Please, tell me what you have. I'm ready to take it down.”

“Lucilla Rossano, Via Giotto 22, in Vomero. The phone number is 081.241272222.”

“I can't thank you enough, you've been. . .”

“It just occurred to me that, after all, the boy doesn't have anything to do with it.”

“What?”

“Nothing. The cavalier is eager for news. Keep us posted. Have a good day.”

 

Signora Lucilla Rossano was home, and she picked up on the third ring.

Once she was certain that she wasn't being audited, and after she'd been informed that she could be charged with obstruction of justice if she refused to cooperate, she willingly confirmed that Signorina Lena from time to time—that is, from time to time on a daily basis—had come to work at her home, earning six euros an hour, all in tips, of course; that Signorina Lena looked after Signora Lucilla Rossano's two children, because after all she had to go out and earn a living, that asshole ex-husband of hers, who was swimming in money but didn't pay his taxes and claimed to be penniless, hadn't been paying her alimony, hadn't been giving her a fucking red cent, sorry, eh, excuse my French, but when you've gotta say it you've gotta say it; that for the past week Signorina Lena hadn't shown up for work because she claimed she was sick, but Signora Lucilla Rossano, who was doing the best she could with her kids and her job, just assumed she'd found a better-paying job but that, since she was probably still on probation, she didn't have the nerve to tell her yet; and that now she had no idea of how to get by, with the two little demons that the asshole ex-husband had dumped on her, ruining her life.

In the end, after Romano threatened to send over a squad car to pick her up if she went off on one more tangent, Signora Lucilla Rossano answered him, in an offended tone, that as far as she knew, Signorina Lena didn't live alone; she lived with a man from back home, some guy named Dragan Petrovic´, who she claimed was just a roommate and not her boyfriend, at Via Torino, no. 15. They didn't have a telephone. She didn't know anything else but if they did happen to track her down, would they please ask her to get in touch by Saturday, because she, Signora Lucilla Rossano, was supposed to meet a gentleman friend, and she needed someone to watch the two little monsters. Could they do her that favor? By the way, Signora, Romano asked her: What color hair did she have, this Signorina Lena? Ah, believe me, I told her the same thing. You looked so good with your original color, that nice dark red. Did you really have to dye your hair blond so you look just like a hooker?

The confirmation of Peluso's tip reinvigorated the investigation. Palma got on the phone and asked headquarters for two more squad cars, one to send to Via Torino 15 and the other to send to the station house, so that they could be ready if it proved necessary to move quickly on multiple fronts. Then he called Piras and brought her up to speed.

The magistrate wasn't on duty, but her calls were being forwarded to her cell phone, and he found her wide-awake and alert. She asked questions about every detail, made a note of the names she wanted to plug into the databases at the district attorney's office, and tried to focus on the situation at hand. “Palma,” she said, “I don't believe that this Madlena Miroslava just woke up one day, after five years, dyed her hair, and made up her mind to kidnap a little boy she used to take care of. The more I think about it, the more I feel sure that the whole thing was orchestrated by someone in the family, the extended family, shall we say, and that this person was also responsible for writing the notes. We just have to figure out who that is. Now I've got to go, but I'll swing by to see you later.”

When the commissario walked back into the bullpen, Romano was barking the address to the squad car, which was already rolling, while Pisanelli did his best to calm Eva down; the woman, informed by her father of Lena's possible involvement, had immediately called in. How could we have failed to think of it? she kept saying over and over again. The hair color, that's all it took to trick us.

Ottavia, in the meantime, was trying to find anything she could on Dragan Petrovic´, but she'd run up against the worst obstacle in online searches: too many hits.

“Dammit, this is like trying to find Mario Rossi, or John Smith. Does everyone in Serbia have the same name?”

The squad car radioed in, confirming that a certain Dragan Petrovic´ did in fact live in a miserable attic apartment, dusty and drafty, at Via Torino, no. 15, and that the Dragan Petrovic´ in question also had a roommate, a certain Lena, once a redhead and now a blonde, the object of the lustful concierge's frustrated courtship—or so the uniformed policeman had deduced from the dreamy voice in which said concierge had described her. Unfortunately, however, neither Petrovic´ nor the woman was at home. They hadn't been seen in a week; they'd left with a large duffle bag saying they were going on vacation. As far as could be determined, they didn't possess an automobile.

Romano told the officer to ask the concierge if he knew anything else about the man. Where did he work? What did he do for a living?

He waited a few minutes, then the officer came back on and said: “He used to be a menial laborer with a full-time job at the Intrasit plant, that's how he was able to rent the apartment: The landlord only take tenants with steady jobs. Then last year Intrasit went out of business and he found a number of odd jobs—street vendor, construction worker—but basically, according to the concierge, he lives off his girlfriend, who cleans houses in the better part of town.”

Romano passed the information on to Ottavia, who plugged it into her search engine.

“Here we go. There's a Petrovic´, D. in the list of those laid off by Intrasit and taking unemployment. We could do some digging over at the courts; maybe there's more information about him in the accounting ledgers of the receivership administrator.”

Palma was disconsolate: “I doubt there's anything there; at the very most we'll get a copy of an ID. Let's send it over to Piras and start the request working, but I doubt it'll get us much. I wonder where the two of them could be hiding.”