The Last Enemy (37 page)

7

LUCIA OPENED the door, took one look at the two policemen, and stepped aside, not uttering a word.

“Where is she?”

“In the sitting room.”

For a moment Lucia stood silent and watched as they strode down the hall. Just before they reached the sitting room door, she called out, “
Mi dispiace
, Commissario. I didn’t give her Sophie’s letter, she took it from me.
É vero
.”

Cenni nodded. “We’ll talk later.”

Three people turned to stare at the two policemen who burst into the sitting room. The faces of two of the three registered an uneasy anxiety. Umberto Casati and Georgio Zangarelli were standing together by the fireplace with their drinks placed on the mantelpiece above them. From their somber expressions they appeared to have been in deep discussion. Artemisia Casati was sitting in a high-backed wing chair, unbloodied, wearing a white silk evening dress. Her thick short hair was wet and unruly, drying naturally into soft ringlets around her angular face, and except for a light smear of lip-gloss, her face was scrubbed clean, like that of a child just ready for bed. She looked surprisingly unghoulish for a woman who fewer than forty minutes earlier had slashed a man’s throat to shreds. She looked over at Cenni, smiled, and ever so subtly raised the hem of her dress to display a pair of very shapely ankles.

The bitch actually showered and is relaxing with a drink, was Piero’s outraged thought.

Umberto Casati rushed to speak first. “Dottor Cenni, thank heavens you’ve arrived. My daughter’s just told us how that beast—” Before he could say anything further, Zangarelli lightly touched his arm, stopping him in midsentence. “Umberto, let’s hear what the commissario has to say.”

Cenni ignored them both. He walked over to the wing chair and stood directly over Artemisia Casati. “Please stand, signorina,” he said, so softly that Piero, on the other side of the room, nearly missed it. What Piero didn’t miss was the look that Artemisia shot Zangarelli. Not a pleading look exactly, but more like a request for advice, was how he later described it to Elena.

With a slight nod, Zangarelli signaled
yes
and Artemisia stood immediately, almost as though she were a puppet, Piero thought as he watched the scene unfold from across the room.

“Artemisia Casati, you’re under arrest for the murder of Fulvio Russo,” Cenni enunciated slowly and with force, placing equal emphasis on each word. His voice carried into the hallway, and Lucia, who was hidden from view behind the sitting room door, gasped audibly, causing everyone in the room to turn that way.

Cenni added loudly, “Signorina Stampoli, please bring the signorina her coat.” He turned and addressed Umberto Casati. “You’ll want to put some of her things into a bag and bring them to the station house within the hour. We’ll be moving her to Perugia after I complete the paperwork.”

The tension was oppressive and Piero, who had a head cold, had trouble breathing. He felt as though the air were being sucked from the room. He looked first at the count, then at Zangarelli, and finally at Artemisia, waiting for one of them to speak. It was Zangarelli who broke the silence. “Where’s your warrant, Cenni?”

“I don’t need a warrant to hold her in protective custody. I’ll get the warrant tomorrow. I have eyewitnesses to what happened. One of them is a police officer.”

“She acted in self-defense. You can’t arrest someone who acted in self-defense.”

“L’onorevole!”
Piero knew from the tone that no respect was intended. “Self-defense is yet to be proven. What’s not in dispute is that she assaulted a police officer, causing her serious bodily injury. Sergeant Antolini’s in Perugia right now, seeing a hand surgeon.” He looked at Artemisia. “She almost sliced my officer’s hand in two.”

This last accusation seemed to surprise Zangarelli, who turned to Artemisia. “Is it true what he says?”

Artemisia looked away from him and at her father, who’d heard the news about Sergeant Antolini’s injury without visible surprise. “The policewoman, she came out of nowhere,
Papà
. She asked me for the knife and I gave it to her. I think I handed it to her by the hilt, but I was completely distraught. Perhaps I didn’t,” she said, wrinkling her brow and closing her eyes tightly as though trying to recreate the scene. “I don’t think I did what he says, but I don’t remember.
É vero, Papà
,” she said desolately, and turned to Zangarelli. “Help me, Giorgio, I don’t want to go to jail!” she pleaded, reaching out for his hand. One lone tear rolled down her cheek.

Lucia and the count went off together to fetch Artemisia’s coat. “The fur one,
Papà
,” Artemisia called out as they mounted the stairs. Giorgio Zangarelli disappeared into the count’s study, presumably to use the telephone to call in favors, and Piero, still in the sitting room, was talking to the questore on his cell phone, explaining in hushed tones why Rome might be calling him shortly.

Cenni was alone in the vestibule with Artemisia.

Cenni said, “You killed Rita, didn’t you? Fulvio was just your lackey.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Artemisia replied, looking around to see if anyone else were listening.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Cenni snapped.

Artemisia smiled serenely. “Prove it!”

8

CENNI LEFT THE Assisi Hospital at nine o’clock with nothing left to do but wait for morning. Artemisia Casati was in restraints, on suicide watch, her strong aristocratic wrists tied with white linen straps to an iron bed, locked securely in the only quarters that the hospital staff deemed worthy of a countess, a private room with a view of La Rocca. Sergeant Antonio Martini was standing guard outside.

Sophie Orlic was asleep, filled with Demerol, her shapely head swathed in bandages. “A superficial wound,” the doctor told him, “She’ll recover quickly.” Cenni looked in on Sophie before leaving the hospital. Her right arm was flung above her head like a restless child, and like a child she had been crying in her sleep. Her cheeks were wet with tears when he tiptoed out of the tiny cubicle.

Fulvio Russo was also at rest, in a four-by-eight cold storage bin in the hospital’s basement, his mutilated body awaiting the medical examiner’s knife, his head still attached to his torso, but just barely. And Sergeant Antolini was spending the night with Elena’s family, her wound reasonably lashed together by the best (and only) hand surgeon in Perugia. She reassured the commissario repeatedly—he called three times in an hour—that she’d be fine, a little nerve damage perhaps, but nothing for him to worry about.

He spent the last few hours of that tangled day at the home of the questore explaining and re-explaining the events of the previous week. Three brutal deaths in seven days, two of them coming in the midst of an active police investigation,
his
investigation. He accepted Carlo’s dressing-down silently.

After vigorously debating for an hour how much of the night’s events they would report to the prime minister, how much to the press, and how much to the investigating judge, they arrived at an uneasy compromise. As close to the truth as possible, Cenni insisted, given Sbarretti’s quick eye and the number of local police and medical personnel who had been at the crime scene that night. “Not to mention seeing justice done,” he added and watched as Carlo winced.

“Not the full story, Alex, not your version anyway,” Carlo had immediately retorted. “Did you really have to take her out in handcuffs and then perp walk her all the way to Piazza Santa Chiara!”

“It’s not my rule,
No cars on via San Francesco
. The count is responsible for that one—protecting his peace and quiet is what I’m told.” He sounded childish even to his own ears.

“But straight across the Piazza, Alex! With a few thousand tourists in town for the weekend and nothing for them to do at night but hang out in the Piazza. Did you have to humiliate the woman? The count will never forgive you—or me.”

“You tell me how I could get her to the station without going through the Piazza. Stop feeling sorry for her, Carlo; she’s a pathological killer. She murdered her cousin and tonight she killed again, almost twice. Fulvio’s in cold storage with his head attached by a bloody thread, Sophie Orlic has twenty stitches in her skull, and Genine’s lucky to have her hand still attached— her right hand, too!” The questore noticed for the first time the manic gleam in his favorite commissario’s eyes. “If I had my way, the bitch would be sleeping in a cell tonight, in Perugia, and not in luxury in the Assisi hospital, on suicide watch of all things.” He laughed derisively. “Who got you to agree to that? The father? Zangarelli? Or did it take a call from the PM?”

“Never you mind! This whole story of yours, that the Casati woman murdered her cousin—where’s your proof, Alex? I’m not saying you’re wrong . . .”

“No, but you’re hoping it!”

“You have nothing to back it up, other than a stray comment by Artemisia Casati that the piece of thread you found on the victim was attached to her left earring. You insist that only you and the murderer could have know this, but this Croatian woman has an entirely different story. She gave a sworn statement to the carabinieri tonight that it was Fulvio who tried to kill her. And the reason she gave makes perfect sense. In her statement she claims that Fulvio murdered Minelli, and that he tried to kill her to keep her quiet. She even wrote a letter to this effect for her protection before leaving for the cemetery— addressed to you, I might add.”

Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled
, Cenni muttered to himself. “Now you’re taking the Croatian’s word over mine. Yesterday, you wanted me to lock her up and throw away the key. Think on it, Carlo! Fulvio goes to the cemetery with the intent to murder Sophie Orlic, but he’s not carrying a weapon.
If I’m lucky, he
thinks, I’ll find a stray brick along the roadside, or perhaps I can
smother her with my coat sleeve.
Even Fulvio wasn’t that much of a fucking fool!”

“Language, Alex. The wife may be listening.”

“I hope she is. She usually agrees with me,” Cenni added caustically.

“No doubt, but I run the questura, not Romina and not you. There
is
another point of view, Alex. The count concedes that his daughter acted irrationally tonight. He apologizes profusely for Sergeant Antolini’s injury; he’s even volunteered to pay her medical expenses and a nice sum in compensation. His story is that Artemisia is having a nervous breakdown and even threatened to commit suicide. Who can argue with that? The cousin is murdered, the mother takes her own life, and her married lover tries to kill her, all this in the same week. Listen, Alex. You’ve been fighting to keep this Croatian woman out of jail. You’ve succeeded and that’s all you’re going to get. And don’t forget to release Williams. All we need now is the Canadian Embassy breathing down our necks.”

Finally, and with great reluctance, Cenni had agreed to adopt Sophie’s version, that Artemisia Casati had attacked Fulvio Russo in defense of her own life. He doubted that the police would ever learn the full truth about tonight, but most of what he knew, or suspected, he had promised Carlo to keep to himself, for now. “Forget
for now
,” Carlo shot back in anger. You wanted
Il Lupino.
You got him, and without lifting a finger. Case closed.”

9

DO WHAT YOU
will shall be the whole of the law!
Artemisia said the banishing words to herself repeatedly as she looked out the hospital window. The parking lot was directly below, and she could see the last of the visitors returning to their cars. Visiting hours ended at 9:00 and her father had stayed until the final warning bell sounded before kissing her on the cheek. In the five days that she had been in Assisi hospital, it was the first time that he’d stayed so late. He usually arrived at 6:30 and left promptly at 8:00, for his dinner. His habits were set in stone, Assisi stone, Artemisia thought to herself. Even her mother hadn’t been able to budge him: breakfast at 7:00, lunch at 1:00, drinks at 7:00, dinner at 8:00. But this visit he had waited until the very last minute to leave. The first warning bell had sounded before he broached the subject on his mind. He began tentatively, reminding Artemisia of their obligations to Sophie. “We owe Sophie a great deal. Think of all that she did for your mother.” And then, after a slight pause, he added, “And for you, Artemisia. A great deal!” he emphasized, observing his daughter carefully to see her reaction. She said nothing, sitting silent and watchful, waiting for him to continue.

“Sophie needs financial help for her daughter. She’s transferring Christina from the public hospital in Croatia to a private clinic in Switzerland in three days, and I’ve promised to accompany her on the trip, and to help with the expenses,” he added, sheepishly. “After the trauma that Sophie’s been through—that we’ve all been through as a family,” he amended, “she needs our support.”

Sophie’s not family—she’s not even Italian, Artemisia thought without change of expression.

He hesitated again, walking over to the nighttable where Artemisia kept a framed picture of her mother and brother. He nervously fingered the frame, avoiding her eyes. “That apartment she lives in near Porta San Giacomo, it’s a disgrace. I had no idea that anyone in Assisi still lived that way. It has no central heating, just one of those portable gas heaters to use in the winter. You know how dangerous they are. We should outlaw them. Now that I think of it, that apartment may be the very one that Paola lived in with her grandmother before she came to us.” He was still gazing at the picture of his wife and son; then he placed it face downward on the table. Artemisia knew what was coming.

“Paola is going back to Rome in a few days time to continue her studies. We’ll need someone to act as housekeeper. Sophie has agreed to work for the family again, but more as a member of the family than as a servant.” He added, “I thought I would give her your grandmother’s room.” The final bell had sounded. “Of course, when you come home, we’ll have to make other arrangements.”

When she failed to respond, he continued, “You’ll need time to heal and to forget, and you can do that better in the hospital.” He turned to look at her directly, and for a moment Artemisia thought he was going to say something else, something profound, but instead he bent and kissed her briefly on one cheek, English fashion. At the door, he paused for a last look.
“Ciao bella,”
he said, and left.