Standing next to his bed, wearing his lab coat, he looked down at him, pensively running his fingers through his white head of hair. He was reflecting on the power of dreams.
Who says that dreams have no power over reality? the doctor thought to himself. You were fine, until you started dreaming. You’d experienced all sorts of things, many of them good: you had three children; you held them in your arms; you played with them and made them laugh. Working every day and sometimes at night, you always made sure that they had enough to eat and drink.
You held your woman in your arms, in tight, sweet embraces. You made love to her, winning yourself a small patch of heaven. You went out whether it was raining or the sun was shining; you sang, perhaps you wept; you smelled the earliest perfume of the blossoms and of the snow. Your gaze met dark eyes and blue eyes; you saw the sky and the moon. There were times when you were thirsty and no one refused you a cool glass of water. Then, Modo thought, you started to dream. And from that day on your happiness wasn’t enough for you anymore. You decided to start climbing the ladder. But tell me this: aside from the sheer difficulty of the climb, how hard you struggled to make the ascent, what ever made you think that you’d be happier at the top of the ladder?
Without changing his expression and without waiting for a reply, the doctor pulled a sheet over the corpse of Antonio Iodice.
The first Sunday of spring was over.
XLIV
As he climbed the stairs of headquarters, Ricciardi ran into Officer Sabatino Ponte. Ponte was a short, nervous-looking man taken on by Deputy Chief of Police Garzo to serve as his doorman and clerk. The position did not appear on any organizational chart, but the little man’s brown-nosing, unctuous personality, along with a few shadowy recommendations from people in high places, had helped him to escape regular police duty and win himself a cushy, comfortable job. Maione, who maintained an attitude of polite contempt for the man, grumbled that he was a dog who commanded just as much respect as his master. Which is to say, none at all, he added with a smirk.
The man had a superstitious fear of Ricciardi; to the extent that he was able, he simply avoided him. When he had no choice but to speak to him, he did his best not to look him in the eye, turning and fleeing as soon as the conversation was over. Something serious must be afoot, to find him at the foot of the stairs at this hour of the morning.
“Buongiorno, Commissario. Welcome,” he said, staring fixedly first at the ceiling, and then at Ricciardi’s shoes.
“Yes, Ponte. What’s going on? Have I put my foot in it?”
A nervous smile twitched on Ponte’s face, and he focused intently on a little crack in the wall, off to his left.
“No, of course not. And who am I, to criticize a man of your stature? No, it’s just that the deputy chief of police wonders if you could stop by his office, when you have a minute.”
Ricciardi was annoyed by the little man’s darting gaze, which was starting to make his head spin.
“What, you mean the deputy chief of police is already in his office, this early, on a Sunday morning? That strikes me as unusual.”
Ponte stared at a patch of floor ten feet away, as if he were following a crawling insect with his eyes.
“No, no, you’re quite right; he hasn’t come in yet. But he said to make sure you speak with him this morning. Before you take any further action on the Calise murder.”
Aha, thought Ricciardi. Maione was right, the sly old fox.
“All right, Ponte. Tell the deputy chief of police that I’ll be in his office at ten o’clock. And let me get a look at your eyes; I think there might be something wrong with your vision.”
The police officer opened his eyes wide, saluted halfheartedly, and turned and ran up the staircase as fast as he could, taking it three steps at a time.
Waiting for Ricciardi at the entrance to his office was Maione, wearing a disconsolate expression.
“The day’s not off to a good start, Commissa’. Doctor Modo called from the hospital. Iodice died last night.”
He hung up the phone. It was the third call he’d made. Once again, he’d received ample reassurances.
In the voices of all three of the people he’d spoken with, he could hear compassion; and from what he could tell, though it was hard to judge without being able to see their expressions, all of them knew about Emma and that man. And about him, as well.
Now the important thing was to resolve the matter once and for all; he could deal with mending the damage to his reputation later. He knew from experience that people forget about every scandal sooner or later. And besides, he didn’t really think there was any hope of finding a solution.
He heard a cough through the walclass="underline" his wife was home this morning. This, too, was good news. Perhaps there were grounds for optimism after all. Ruggero ran the back of his hand over his cheek; he’d better shave and wash up.
So much depended on his image.
Ricciardi, standing by his office window, looked at Maione, who still stood crestfallen in the doorway. Both men could see at a glance that neither of them had slept a wink that night; and both men decided not to mention it.
“I know what you’re thinking, Commissa’. Iodice’s death, as far as this investigation is concerned, changes nothing. But the fact is that now he can’t explain why he did what he did. And this doesn’t seem like the time to go bother those two unfortunate women, his mother and his wife. What should we do?”
“Well, first of all I have to say that you hit the nail on the head with regard to Signora Serra di Arpaja. I found your friend Ponte waiting for me right out front this morning, and he told me to come speak with Garzo before getting started on anything else. Obviously, the phone call has already come through. Have you made sure that Iodice’s family has been informed, as we promised yesterday?”
Maione nodded quickly.
“They were there at the hospital, Commissa’. They showed up at dawn, mother and wife, but no one had the heart to tell them anything until the doctor came in; even though it wasn’t his shift, he wanted to see how Iodice was doing. He broke the news to them.”
Ricciardi shook his head.
“What madness. To kill yourself-a father with three children. He really must have lost all hope. But why? It would have made just as much sense to turn himself in if he had killed her. It doesn’t gel. Normally, someone who commits a murder with that much rage behind it, the way Calise was killed, doesn’t have the sensitive personality that it takes to commit suicide. And anyone who feels enough shame to kill himself doesn’t have the rage inside him to kick a person to death.”
Maione listened closely.
“To tell you the truth, it doesn’t seem all that obvious that Iodice did it to me either. And to see his mamma and especially his wife, the despair on their faces-he must have really been a good man. On the other hand, if it wasn’t him, why would he kill himself?”
“Maybe he thought he’d be charged and he’d have no way to defend himself. Maybe he had other problems. Maybe he just snapped. And, of course, maybe he was the killer. Whatever the reason, we have to keep investigating until we find proof, one way or another. A wife’s sorrowful expression is not accepted as evidence in a court of law.”
Before Maione, who had suddenly blushed bright red, could get out an answer, there was a knock at the office door and Camarda stuck his head in.
“Commissario, Brigadie’, forgive the intrusion. The two Signoras Iodice, mother and wife, are waiting in the hall. They would like to speak with you.”
The two women walked into the office and Ricciardi and Maione greeted them at the door. The wife was the very picture of unconsolable grieving sorrow: her delicate features were ravaged by twenty-four hours without sleep, filled with uninterrupted weeping; her eyes were swollen, her lips red. The mother, with the same black shawl covering her head, seemed like a figure out of Greek tragedy, her face expressionless, her eyes blank. Only her waxen complexion betrayed the hell she had inside her.