Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone (5 page)

By now they were almost back to the precinct house. “The thieves knew what they were looking for,” Alex said, “they wanted the safe. But they couldn't have found much of anything, at least according to Parascandolo.”

“But he was lying, there's no doubt about it. I wonder what was actually in there and, most of all, why he lied to us. We're going to need Ottavia and the President's help working this one. Maybe they can uncover something.”

Alex snickered: “The President . . . so Aragona's infected you, eh? The nicknames of the Bastards of Pizzofalcone. In that case, can I call you the Chinaman?”

“Oh, I'm used to it, that's what they called me even back in school . . . Listen, can you keep tabs on the forensic squad? The minute they have something, let's go talk to them. I have the disagreeable feeling that our friend Parascandolo with his flower-print shirt has lost much more than he's willing to admit.”

Di Nardo sighed: “What an unpleasant couple they were, though. How depressing to see two people who live together and hate each other the way those two do.”

The young woman was thinking that, all things considered, it was nice to be back in the communal office where the mood was, more or less, one of good cheer.

That's what she was thinking, until she walked through the door.

T
he woman who came striding through the museum's atrium seemed more irritated than fearful. She'd stopped at the entrance, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the dim light, then she'd spotted the knot of people with the two nuns and the policemen and had headed straight for them.

Romano observed her as she approached. She was well-dressed and very sure of herself. A man with a thick head of gray hair and a beard trailed two steps behind.

“Sister Angela, what's this I hear? Where is Dodo?”

The nun flashed her a smile, then shot Aragona a sidelong glare, as if everything that had happened were somehow his fault.

“
Buongiorno
, Signora. Unfortunately, there was an incident this morning, and we thought it best to call in these gentlemen here to give us a hand. Apparently, Dodo . . . wandered off, and we can't seem to find him. I'm quite sure, though, that . . .”

Romano interrupted her and introduced himself, and then added: “My partner Aragona and I just got here. They called us because the boy has been missing for more than an hour. You're the mother, I imagine, Signora Cerchia.”

The woman scrutinized him. She was imposing and impeccably groomed; she wore a navy blue jacket over a dress the same light blue color of her eyes. Her features were regular; she had a wide mouth and a nose that had been surgically reduced so that there was too much empty space in her face. She turned to look at Sister Angela: “You actually called the police? He's probably right outside playing on the grounds with some friend. Did you look carefully? Or maybe he just fell behind, sometimes he gets distracted, he lives in his own little world. Did you check the bathrooms? He might have fallen asleep.”

Aragona puffed out his cheeks: “Signora, I'm not sure I'd be so confident that this is a simple matter. My partner told you that more than an hour's gone by. Don't you think these two nuns here would have checked the bathrooms before calling us? Now why don't you tell us whether your husband, or an aunt, or anyone else might have come to get the boy without the nuns' being told. If that's the case, then we'll just make a couple of phone calls, case closed, and we can all go home.”

The woman furrowed her brow: “Listen, you, what are you trying to insinuate? That I wouldn't be aware if someone decided to pick up my son before the end of the school day? No, the answer is absolutely not. No one was supposed to come and get him, no one but me or someone I specifically send has permission to pick him up.”

“Signora Cerchia . . .”

“And don't call me Signora Cerchia, I haven't been Signora Cerchia in years. My name is Borrelli, Eva Borrelli.”

Romano tried to calm things down: “All right, Signora Borrelli. We're all working toward the same objective: we're trying to figure out where the child is and we're trying to get him back here.”

“Then do your job, damn it,” the woman hissed. “Find him!”

Without getting any closer to her, the man who was with the woman murmured: “Eva, sweetheart, try to calm down, please. It'll all turn out fine, you'll see.”

Aragona looked him up and down, his gaze lingering on the man's shapeless corduroy trousers: “Just who would you be?”

The woman replied: “He has nothing to do with what happened. In any case, he's Manuel Scarano, my boyfriend. Manuel, if you don't mind, keep out of this.”

Her lapdog, not her boyfriend; that's what Aragona thought as the man stepped back as if he'd just been slapped in the face. To the policeman, it looked as if Manuel were happy just to have been introduced by name.

Romano tried to jump-start the conversation by turning to Sister Beatrice: “Sister, you mentioned a boy who was with Dodo when someone led him away. Could you bring him here, please?”

The nun gave the mother superior a worried glance, as if requesting permission. Reluctantly, the woman nodded, and Sister Beatrice headed off toward the group of students. She came back leading a chubby, red-cheeked little boy by the hand; as they walked, the boy turned happily to look back at his classmates, relishing his moment of glory. Romano greeted him: “Ciao, what's your name?”

Sister Beatrice prompted him to answer with a ferocious glare: “Christian Datola,” said the child. His pronunciation of the letter “r” was so slurred that it vanished entirely.

“You were with Dodo, when . . . when he left, isn't that right? Can you tell me what happened?”

Christian nodded and then said to Sister Beatrice: “Teacher, when is Dodo coming back?”

“Why do you ask,” Romano queried, “did he say he'd be coming back? Exactly what did he say? Tell me everything, both before and after the moment you lost sight of him. Everything, it's important.”

“We were looking at a painting, in the first room. There was a warrior on horseback, and I was telling Dodo that the painting was wrong, because there was no blood on the sword. If you're killing people, and there were lots of dead people on the ground in the painting, then the sword would have to be covered with blood, no? So then Dodo . . .”

Sister Angela broke in sharply: “Datola, don't wander off topic. Answer the question you were asked, and that's it!”

“Listen, Sister What's-Your-Name,” Aragona retorted, “why don't you let us ask the questions and let the boy answer however he wants. Any detail could prove useful. In fact, do me a favor, since the kid can't talk freely so long as you're around. Go look after your students and stop interfering with our work.”

The nun blushed right up to the hem of her veil, pressed her lips together, and walked away, offended. Romano shot another glare at Aragona for his brusque manners, but deep down he had to give him a few points; the young cop was still at less than zero, but he was rising in Romano's estimation. Datola, immediately relieved by the absence of the nun, whom he clearly feared, continued: “Dodo said that I was right about the painting. By then Sister Beatrice and the rest of our class had moved on into the next room, and we were about to go catch up with them; but Dodo turned toward the entrance and waved hello.”

“Did you see who he was waving at?” Romano asked.

The boy sniffed loudly. “Over there, where you get the tickets. There was a lady.”

“And then what happened?” asked Aragona.

“I went to Sister Beatrice.”

“What about Dodo?” asked the boy's mother.

Christian turned to look at her and shrugged.

“I don't know. I didn't see him after that.”

Romano pressed on: “What did she look like, this lady? Do you remember if she said anything, how she was dressed, or . . .”

“She was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over her head, and I saw some blonde hair sticking out from under it. She waved to Dodo to come over to her. I didn't even see if he did go, because I left the room right away. If Sister Beatrice called roll and we weren't there, she'd get mad and write it in the logbook.”

Romano made sure that Aragona had taken note of the boy's name and, confident that he wasn't going to get any more information out of him, gave him permission to go back to the other kids.

Dodo's mother was beginning to show signs of concern. She kept looking around, as if she expected her son to appear from one minute to the next; every so often she'd confer with her hairy boyfriend. Then she said: “What do you intend to do now? What's next?”

Aragona spread both arms helplessly: “Signora, it's not like we have a script. Do you have any idea who this blonde could be, if in fact she did take your boy?”

The woman stared into space for a moment, thinking hard, then murmured: “No. It could have been anyone, a friend, a chance acquaintance, the mother of another classmate. I have no idea.”

Romano broke in: “All right then, give us your information and go home, maybe the boy has already come home with someone. Are you going to let the father know? If you prefer, we could . . .”

“No, he . . . he doesn't live here, he's up north. I'll take care of it, I'll call him myself. After all, that's my responsibility, isn't it? I imagine it is.”

“So now what do we do?” Aragona asked Romano after she'd left.

Romano thought it over: “Why don't we go over the museum ourselves with a fine-toothed comb; tell the two uniforms outside what we're doing. And seeing as they have security cameras, let's put in a call to the station house for authorization to requisition the recordings.”

Aragona nodded: “And after that?”

“And after that, we keep our fingers crossed.”

L
ojacono and Di Nardo found themselves back in a bullpen whose atmosphere was very different from the one they'd expected. Romano and Aragona were gone; Pisanelli and Palma, standing in front of Ottavia's desk, were waiting in silence for their colleague to finish talking on the phone.

Calabrese sat listening ashen-faced, concentrating, every so often muttering an affirmative word or two into the receiver. Even Guida had left his post at the front entrance and climbed upstairs to the second floor where he stood, looking pained, at the door, as if afraid to interrupt.

“What's going on?” Lojacono asked.

Palma gestured for him to wait until Ottavia was done talking. The woman ended the conversation and stared at the commissario: “Nothing. Not a trace on the grounds or in the museum. And none of the staff, not the guard at the door nor the people at the ticket booth and the information desk, remember seeing him go by. Romano says that if the boy had gone out alone, someone would have noticed; there isn't much of a crowd at that time of day. He and Aragona think the kid must really have left with someone.”

Palma nodded tensely.

“What about the security cameras?”

“Anyone want to tell us what's happening?” Alex asked, looking at her colleagues.

Ottavia answered Palma: “Two of the four are out of order. The museum's already called the company that maintains them three times trying to get them fixed; they've been broken since Christmas because of a short circuit. Of the two working cameras, one is in a room that the boy never reached, and the other one's in the atrium; we might get something from that one. I sent an email to the district attorney requesting an order to requisition the tapes, and as soon as I get a response I'll forward it to the museum. Then maybe Romano and Aragona can bring the tapes here. In any case, I told them to wait there.”

Pisanelli broke in, calmly: “Excuse me, Otta', did they give you the names of the boy and his parents?”

The question fell into a tense silence. For the first time, thanks to the elderly deputy captain's unmistakable train of thought, the possibility that the child had been kidnapped had been made explicit.

Palma tried to calm everyone down: “It's still too soon to say. Maybe a relative came by and got him, or he went to get something to eat with a friend. Children do that kind of thing. Let's hold on, it hasn't even been three hours . . .”

“You know as well as I do that time is working against us, right?” Pisanelli objected quietly. “It's better to get to work. Then if it all turns out to be a tempest in a teapot, as we hope, we've only done a little bit of unnecessary legwork. All right, then, Ottavia: Who are the parents?”

Calabrese consulted a scrap of paper on which she'd scribbled notes during the phone call: “The little boy is named Edoardo Cerchia, but everyone calls him Dodo. The father, Alberto, lives up north, according to the information we obtained from the mother, Eva Borrelli, who lives with the child at Via Petrarca 51B.”

“Fuck,” Pisanelli muttered. Though it had been uttered in little more than a whisper, the word echoed throughout the room: The deputy captain never cursed. “Borrelli's daughter.
Mamma mia
, let's just hope that . . . Borrelli's daughter.”

“Jesus!” said Guida.

Everyone was looking at the deputy captain with a quizzical expression. Pisanelli realized, and turned to Palma: “Edoardo Borrelli is one of the wealthiest men in the city. Eva is his only daughter, and the boy is his only grandson. Believe me, we'd better get moving. And fast.”

Ottavia closed her eyes; Palma ran a hand through his untidy hair, his expression disconsolate.

Alex asked again: “Does anyone want to tell us what's going on, please?”

 

Sitting across from each other in the commissario's office, Palma and Lojacono were both staring at the desktop piled high with papers.

“As you can see, we don't have anything solid at the moment. If you'd all been here, I would have sent you; but you weren't here. You're the most experienced, you know it and I know it, and even if I still hope it'll all turn out to be a ridiculous misunderstanding, this case threatens to be very, very thorny.”