The Deliverance of Evil (5 page)

“We’ll send a description to the border patrol and Interpol,” he said at last.

He was lying, and knew he was lying. Perhaps he could push procedures forward by alerting colleagues on the Italian borders, but being a pain in the ass to Interpol over grown woman who had disappeared a little over twenty-four hours ago, without any sign of kidnapping or act of violence . . .

Alessandrini decided to take pity on him and rose from his seat.

“Very well, Chief Superintendent Teodori. Please thank the head of the rapid response team for assisting us.”

Us. Who was this
us
? Himself and Elisa’s parents? Or the Vatican higher-up who had called the Minister of the Interior? Perhaps the pontiff himself?

There was a knock on the door. Father Paul appeared, looking younger and more lost than usual.

“Your Eminence, I going San Valente if no more use to you.”

The American priest’s Italian was really improving.

“Wait for me downstairs, Father Paul,” Alessandrini told him sternly.

I had the feeling that what happened next wouldn’t be pleasant for Father Paul, whose eyes wandered around the room and came to rest on Elisa’s desk, where they remained for a second. Then he went out, followed by the Cardinal.

. . . .

“This is serious, Balistreri,” Teodori said. He was sweating like a pig while he tried to fill his pipe, and he was spilling tobacco all over Elisa Sordi’s desk. I realized that the meeting and the impromptu search of the evening before had compromised anything Forensics might find in the room.

Capuzzo looked at me in alarm. He knew what I thought about detectives who smoked a pipe: low-grade imitators of Maigret. But I didn’t say anything. My absence from the office could cause me some difficulties, but fortunately I had Angelo and the faithful Capuzzo to cover for me.

“Serious? Why is that, Teodori?”

“Because this isn’t just any old residential complex.”

He was irritated, as if it were the most natural thing in the world that investigative efforts should vary according to what was being investigated. He had the yellowish eyes of someone who suffered from liver problems and had blotchy skin that also suggested heart troubles. He made me feel sick, him and what he represented.

“Because of Cardinal Alessandrini?” I asked ingenuously.

Teodori swept his heavy, sweaty hand over Elisa’s desk, disturbing several papers.

“Not just that. Someone far more important than the cardinal lives in the other building: Count Tommaso dei Banchi di Aglieno, senator and president of the Italian neo-monarchist party.”

“I saw him yesterday afternoon. Then I saw him again when he was leaving at about a quarter past six,” I offered innocently.

“I know, and do you know where he was going? To a meeting with the Minister of the Interior,” Teodori said. He shook his head with concern. He was conveying what kind of person would have a meeting with a powerful Christian Democrat minister on a Sunday afternoon. The kind of person the count was.

“But he was with his wife,” I said.

“He must have dropped her off somewhere on his way to see the Minister. Don’t you get what we’re dealing with here?”

I had understood, but Teodori felt obliged to inform me in detail. This was a great family with castles, estates, and its roots in medieval Italian history. The count’s father’s brother had fought on Franco’s side with the Fascists and after the war had run off to Africa, where he’d accumulated great wealth and property. Count Tommaso’s father had fought with the 10th MTB squadron and, when the association between the House of Savoy and Mussolini was broken off, had remained on the King’s side. After the war he presided over the pro-monarchy committee that lost the referendum in 1946 and following this dishonor had shot himself in the head. Count Tommaso was fourteen years old and had assumed the burden of bringing the monarchy back to Italy.

Elisa Sordi, on the other hand, was a beautiful young woman from a working-class neighborhood who stumbled into a luxurious residential complex where she was surrounded by powerful men.

“Capuzzo, naturally you checked if there were—”

“Everything, Captain Balistreri, everything. Despite the crazy celebrations, no deaths reported. Just some injuries from fireworks and a few kids who fell off car roofs—nothing serious.”

“All we can do is wait,” said Teodori.

“Well, apart from alerting our colleagues on the borders and Interpol,” I added sarcastically.

Teodori turned his yellow eyes on me. He wondered if I was more ignorant or arrogant.

“Naturally,” he said. “But let’s hope this beautiful young lady is recovering somewhere from a long night of celebrating.”

Clerics and aristocrats. Mussolini had always distrusted both their tribes. He’d flattered them to keep them happy in order to hide the basic distrust he felt. And I felt the same way too. But I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be fucked over as he had.

We agreed to touch base with Teodori the next morning. Then I tried to find Angelo, but he’d already left. I called Paola’s apartment. Cristiana replied.

“They’re not here. Paola had tickets for
Aida
at the Caracalla Baths. Can you come and pick me up, Michele?”

I made an excuse. I’d gotten all I’d wanted from her, and I didn’t want to risk her leaving her fiancé. I wanted to spend the evening drinking and trying to score in some bar, far away from the luxe life, illustrious people, and Elisa Sordi.

Friday, July 16, 1982

F
OR SEVERAL DAYS THERE
was neither sight nor sound of her. Teodori, whom I spoke to every day on the telephone, maintained that the girl’s disappearance could be an “elopement,” possibly even abroad. She had done it secretly, perhaps, because she was lacking the courage to be open about it.

I tried not to think about it, squashing the thought like an annoying insect. I hadn’t seen or heard from Angelo and had shut myself away between the office and the studio apartment in Garbatella, rotating the casual female company picked up in Trastevere’s bars and dives. I was smoking more than usual, drinking more than usual, and screwing more than usual. More than anything else, I didn’t want to be alone. As if those things could keep away the gnawing pangs I felt over Elisa Sordi.

Teodori called me on the Friday. A homeless man sleeping on the banks of the Tiber just past Ponte Milvio had found a woman’s body. I raced over there with Capuzzo, as if by going fast we could make up for the time I’d wasted back when it counted.

On the dry riverbank, exposed by the summer drought, a group of policemen stood around a dead body. The corpse, which was naked, had been attacked by insects and was in an advanced state of decomposition. It was covered with injuries from rats and shrubs along the river, along with obvious knife wounds and cigarette burns. Although heavy blows had devastated the face, I could see it was that of Elisa Sordi. There was no mistaking that incredibly beautiful hair, the figure, the color of her skin. I had seen other corpses, but this death was new to me; it went way beyond the usual violence.

Teodori was standing in front of the body, white as a sheet. His hands were trembling, and he was sweating feverishly in his absurd suit and loosened tie. Capuzzo was holding on to his stomach and trying to breathe deeply, his mouth gaping wide. I had to take control of the situation. I sent Capuzzo away before he threw up. A forensic pathologist was bent over the girl’s corpse.

I approached Teodori. “We should clear everyone away so that Forensics can—”

“Of course, of course!” he said. He gave orders, and then we were alone with the pathologist.

“Is it Elisa Sordi?” Teodori asked me. It was as if she were a relative and I was there to identify her.

I nodded yes, then walked away to have a cigarette. At the top of the hill, a line of the usual curiosity seekers had formed along the road. They were lazily licking away at ice cream cones, craning their necks in order to better enjoy the spectacle. I called Capuzzo and two officers and told them to break up the crowd. When I had finished my cigarette, I went back to Teodori, who was talking to the medical examiner.

“She’s been dead for days. There are signs of violence. It was a slow and painful death. Unless she was dead before she was beaten and burned—we’ll know after we do an autopsy.”

Teodori looked lost in thought.

“What was the cause of death?” he asked.

The medical examiner shook his head. “I don’t think she drowned. She must have been dead already when she was dumped in the river. Cardiac arrest or suffocation. She’s been dead for several days, maybe even since Sunday.”

I saw that young, devastated body with different eyes. I thought of that summer twelve years ago, in 1970, when I was escaping over the sea from what I had left in the sea, and from the mistakes I never wanted to call sins, as Christians do. That cycle of feelings that leads to a kind of paralysis: guilt, remorse, repentance. The lifeblood of the soul. Wounds that never heal.

. . . .

Elisa’s parents were sitting on a bench in the police station. A friend had told them after hearing news of the discovery on the radio. It was the wonderful new world of news in real time with a plethora of private radio stations hunting for the sensation that only bad news could guarantee. No one was taking any notice of the two poor things. Police officers and members of the public walked past them, going about their everyday business. From an open office door you could hear the laughter of those making plans for the weekend.

When they saw me coming, they rose to their feet like two well-disciplined schoolchildren and immediately I realized I couldn’t look them in the face. Mr. Sordi put an arm around the shoulders of his Giovanna, who was crying silently. In the summer half-light of that squalid office, my eyes went from Amedeo Sordi’s gray jacket, which was too large for him, to the furrow in his brow now deeper than the lines scored from cheek to mouth in his pale complexion, to the single tear running from Giovanna Sordi’s eyes, to the beam of July sunlight that came in through a window and reflected on the glossy photo of her daughter she held in her hands. They spoke not a word and asked me nothing.

The last thing these parents needed were the condolences of a young policeman frustrated with his own failure. In the end, I managed a rote “I’m sorry for your loss.” Then I shut myself in my office. What was I sorry about? The destruction of a young life? Two parents who might as well have lost their own lives? That weekend I might not go dancing and get drunk in one of the clubs by the beach. I might not fuck anyone that weekend. That would go on for several days, a week perhaps. Then I’d start my routine again: office, poker, whiskey, women, sleep.

But those two parents would never sleep easily again. Every night they would look into their only daughter’s bedroom, as empty as the rest of their lives. And they’d think of me, blind drunk, saying “Perhaps Elisa’s gone to watch the game with some friends.”

I squashed the thought angrily. What was done was done. Only the future counted.

I downed a bottle of whiskey and reflected on the fact that this wasn’t the kind of childish melodrama that usually nourished my baser instincts. I was no longer the “Michelino” who watched Westerns, the fearless cowboy who killed all the bad guys. I was a man of thirty-two who didn’t give a shit about anyone, not even himself. I knew the reasons well enough—they were all very clear.

So, what the fuck was I looking for? Did I want to seek absolution? Did I want to escape eternal regret by tracking down the evildoers? And what was evil?

It changed little; fate was not in agreement with me anyway.

Saturday, July 17, 1982

T
HE HEAD OF HOMICIDE
handed the investigation over to Teodori. At first I wondered why they’d chosen someone of retirement age who was past his prime. I still didn’t understand all the subtleties of politics, in particular the politics of the Christian Democrats.

What I did know was that there were powerful forces surrounding Elisa Sordi’s death. A luxury residential complex, a cardinal, an aristocratic senator who wanted to bring back the king to rule Italy: spiritual power on the one hand, temporal power on the other. On the other side, two parents from the working class and some girl of theirs from the outskirts. In all probability she’d asked for it, mixing with bad company or some random meathead attracted by her exceptional beauty.

I was assigned to be Teodori’s deputy in the investigation because I was the precinct captain and was familiar with the residential complex, its inhabitants, and the victim. I’d even been on Via della Camilluccia that day, just before Elisa Sordi went out for her last walk before the World Cup final. I’d spoken with her that afternoon, as the phone records showed. That was an accident, of course. I’d been looking for Dioguardi. In any case, I was Teodori’s ideal stooge.

It was another indication of the superficiality of the Italian police’s bureaucracy that no one in the Flying Squad went to check the personal details in my file. If they had, they’d have kept me a thousand miles away from the paradise of Via della Camilluccia and that inquiry.

Reconstructing the facts was the easy part. After lunch, Elisa worked in her office. Her mother spoke to her just after 6:00, immediately after my call. Before 6:30 the concierge had gone to her office to pick up a file to take to Cardinal Alessandrini. But no one saw Elisa Sordi when she left at 6:30. By that time, the complex was deserted. I had seen Paul leave, and then all the others afterward. The priest from the neighboring parish confirmed that he had seen the concierge, now in a village in India, in the front pew at Mass that evening.

When I went to Teodori’s office for the first time, his young secretary, Vanessa, caught my eye right away. She was tall and wore her black hair in a pageboy. She was narrow through the hips and chest, but she had great legs.

Teodori had a small office, a clear sign he wasn’t held in much esteem. The posters on the walls were of Italian seaside resorts in the middle of winter. Pretty depressing. He was slumped behind a desk that was in chaos, pipe tobacco all over the place, no air-conditioning, and a ceiling fan that made his papers fly around, adding to the general disorder.

“The problem is that we don’t know whether the girl was taken away before, during, or after the match. The first results of the autopsy indicate that she was already dead on Sunday, but it’s impossible to give a precise time with the body in the condition it’s in.” Teodori’s tone was grave.

“We don’t know whether she was taken forcibly or went with someone of her own free will,” I objected.

Teodori gave me a funny look. “Balistreri, don’t let your imagination run wild. The violence lasted for a long time. A psycho did this. An animal who gets pleasure from making people suffer.”

“Okay, but maybe she knew this animal.”

“Sure—one of her friends from her neighborhood,” Teodori agreed. The Sordis’ working-class neighborhood was certainly a long way from Vigna Clara and Via della Camilluccia, but it was hardly a notorious breeding-ground for maniacs.

I tried to object. “Elisa’s parents say she didn’t have a boyfriend. She was always in the office or at home studying. She never went out at night. Every so often, on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon she saw Valerio Bona.”

“We have to know where Bona was on Sunday from 6:30 on.”

Of course, Bona was from a less well-off neighborhood, too, a member of the violent working class. A perfect suspect.

“We really should find out about everybody else, too,” I put in.

Teodori looked surprised. “Everybody else? Who else?”

“Everybody who lives on Via della Camilluccia, where she worked. She was extraordinarily beautiful—she could have turned anybody’s head.”

Teodori’s eyes were more yellow than usual. This line of reasoning didn’t agree with his liver. “If you’re referring to the senator, I’ve already checked the register at the ministry of the interior. Just for the record, obviously. The senator arrived at 6:50 p.m. and was with the minister from 7:00 to 7:30. From there he went straight home, where he entertained guests, and he didn’t go out again.”

“Who told you he didn’t go out again?”

Teodori shot me a look. “All the general staff of his party were guests at his home, to see the match. Don’t you think that’s enough?”

“There were a lot of people, and maybe in the heat of the excitement,” I said, to provoke him more than anything else.

He ignored me and continued talking.

“His son and his wife came home around 8:00. They watched the game, too, and then celebrated on the terrace.”

How Teodori had come to know these details was a mystery.

“But before that? I saw them going out with the count around twenty past six. What did they do between that time and eight o’clock?”

“I don’t know, and I see no reason to ask them.”

Now Teodori was acting decidedly testy, banging the stem of his pipe forcefully on his desk, staring at a spot on the floor toward which he was directing his thoughts.

“Look, Teodori, I don’t want to be a pain, but I find it hard to believe that there was a forcible kidnapping in the middle of a Roman street, even on a Sunday evening without many people around. She would have reacted. Someone would have heard her screaming.”

“Young man, no one would authorize you to question these highly respectable people just because you find something hard to believe.”

“There’s also the distance,” I added, putting a cigarette in my mouth.

“Please don’t smoke in here. What about the distance?”

I still didn’t know if he was really like this or just trying it on.

“The Tiber runs through all of Rome. The spot where her body was found is close to Via della Camilluccia.”

“Exactly. The girl leaves her office. Someone attacks her and takes her down to the river.”

“But how? By car? In broad daylight at six thirty in the evening? Rome was nearly deserted, but no one heard or saw anything?”

The phone rang and Teodori picked it up.

“No, no, I can’t come right now. Tell the medical examiner I’ll be there later.”

His whole face was yellow. We were wasting time.

“You were saying, Balistreri?”

He stroked his sparse tufts of white hair with his sweaty hands.

“My thought is the murder occurred in a different way. Someone she knew gave her a lift, and they went down there together in agreement onto the riverbank. Perhaps Elisa thought they were only going to talk. And only then, among that foliage, the fury of the assassin was revealed. We need to get authorization to question Valerio Bona and all those in Via della Camilluccia.”

Naturally Teodori decided to start with the working-class kid in the glasses.

. . . .

We tried to find Valerio Bona at his parents. They told us he’d gone to Mass, as he did every weekend, and then he had plans to go to Ostia, where he was participating in a regatta. We could try to speak to him at the sailing club at the end of the race.

It was already lunchtime, and Teodori decided he couldn’t possibly go all that way to Ostia, where he might end up stuck in a traffic jam. When I offered to go alone, he appeared relieved.

“Naturally this would be informal, without a lawyer. He could refuse to speak to us,” I explained.

“We’re investigating a murder, not a bag-snatching. If Bona makes trouble we can interrupt his weekend, and tomorrow morning he can come in for an official interrogation.”

Our wonderful justice system at work: it was already mapped out.

I called Angelo. We hadn’t seen each other since our argument in the Camilluccia complex.

“Want to grab some dinner?”

“I’m not really in the mood, Michele.”

It was time to make a move before the rift between us became permanent. I didn’t want to lose this friendship because of my stubborn pride.

“I was wrong, Angelo, and you were right.”

The only reply was silence. After a while I heard his voice, and it was more friendly.

“It’s not your fault. Even if you’d started looking for her right away . . .”

He was generously coming to my assistance. As always.

“We don’t know, Angelo. Maybe when they called us at the end of the first half Elisa was still alive. Maybe she was even alive after the game.”

He sighed. I felt his suffering over the telephone line.

I changed the subject.

“I have to go to Ostia to question Valerio Bona. We want to know where he was when Elisa left the office.”

“Michele, he’s a good kid.”

“Sometimes even good kids fuck up.”

Silence. It was his way of showing disapproval. Maybe he was thinking that I was just going after the weakest link in the chain. We said good-bye.

I could easily have taken the train to Ostia, but I didn’t feel like mingling with tourists and beachgoers. I hated public transportation. Although there was no hurry, I put the siren on the roof of my Duetto and got there in half an hour. There was a huge crowd. Cars were parked everywhere. The beach was overflowing with people, and the glistening sea was full of swimmers and boats.

If she weren’t dead, perhaps Elisa would have been there among the those who were eating ice cream, sunbathing, and swimming. Instead, her wounded body was lying in cold storage in the mortuary and her parents were looking at her empty room in a house in the suburbs.

I found the sailing club easily. The regatta was under way. I sat at a table under an umbrella on the terrace and relaxed with coffee and a cigarette. The two-man boats were Flying Dutchman class. Valerio Bona was in one of them. I deduced from this that Elisa’s death hadn’t shaken him up too much. Inexplicably, the kid had irritated me since the first time I’d laid eyes on him. And that gold crucifix round his neck. Elisa was out of his league. He was puny, and he had a small personality, too. That’s what I thought as I sat in the sun and smoked. From there the boats were white dots moving along between buoys on the blue of the sea. I asked the people at a neighboring table, who were using binoculars to watch the regatta, if they knew who Valerio was.

“Of course. He’s been sailing here since he was a child. He’s in the second position in number twenty-two.”

They lent me their binoculars. It took a while to find number twenty-two and get it into focus. What I saw was a surprise. Valerio Bona, wearing a sailing cap and sunglasses, was at the helm, his crucifix gleaming in the sun. His bearing and his every gesture suggested absolute calm and command of the situation. And yet they were at the end of a close-hauling maneuver with over twenty knots of wind. I watched his features closely. Only his lips were moving as he spoke to his partner at the jib. In the stretch before the wind, number twenty-two jib bed over and over, forcing the leading boat to do the same, and in the end Bona succeeded in passing it and crossed the finish line first. Through the binoculars I saw him take off his cap and sunglasses. There was no smile on the little bastard’s face. He appeared to thank his fellow crewman.

I kept watching him as the crews came back to the marina to moor the boats. Valerio Bona was receiving compliments from all the contestants, thanking them in a serious and polite manner as he shook their calloused hands. He was confident, relaxed. Then his gaze met mine and he recognized me. I waved a hand to greet him. His face changed rapidly, and I saw once again what I had seen on the other occasions. He was ill at ease, anxious, insecure. Out of his boat, Valerio was without the shell that protected him from the world around him.

He came toward me, putting on sunglasses to cover his worried look. It would have been too easy to scare him.

“We’ve met before, Mr. Bona. I’m Captain Michele Balistreri and I’m investigating the murder of Elisa Sordi.”

I showed him my badge, but he had already stopped a few feet from my table. “What do you want?” he asked hesitantly. I decided to play bad cop.

“You should get yourself a lawyer. You need to come to the police station for formal questioning.”

His hands were trembling slightly. While he was standing there staring at me, some more sailors came by and congratulated him.

“Way to go, Valerio!” they said, clapping him on the back.

But he was no longer on the waves, he was back on land—a land that he felt was hostile and difficult. Here not even his faith was enough to calm him down and protect him from far worse weather.

“Please sit down. I’d like to ask you some questions. If you don’t feel like answering them, we can always go to the Homicide offices back in Rome.”

My authoritative tone convinced him. He sat facing the sun, staring at the sea, probably wishing he were still out there on a boat.

“When we met on Monday you said that you were a friend of Elisa Sordi’s. Were you her boyfriend?”

I deliberately chose a yes-or-no question so he’d have to answer. He shook his head.

“No, we were just good friends.”

The emphasis on
just
betrayed his disappointment. At the same time, having seen Elisa Sordi myself, I realized it couldn’t have been easy for a guy to be just friends with her.

“How long had you known her?”

He pointed to the sea. “We met right here, last summer. She came to see a regatta with a group of friends, and a friend of hers introduced us to each other.”

“Were you interested in her?”

I could sense the hostility behind the dark lenses. “Elisa was a lot like me. We came from similar families and we were both religious. We lived in the same neighborhood; we were practically neighbors. Most Sundays we went to Mass together.”

I’d never had any sympathy for little couples who go to Mass together, especially since adolescence. Did they go there to pray or to be seen together?