“Forgive me, Commissario. It’s just too funny! My husband? Covering for my husband? That’s the last thing I would do. My husband covers for himself; that’s how he spends his life, covering for himself. And another thing: what would I be covering for? It’s true, he told me what to say yesterday, how to dress, even what tone of voice to use. And what of that? He’s a lawyer, one of the best there is. If I was covering anyone, it was myself, to ward off ridiculous suspicions. Not him.”
Ricciardi decided that the time had come to spring his trap, and he lied without hesitation.
“All the same, Signora, we have every reason to believe that your husband was in Calise’s apartment the night she died. Someone saw him there. Moreover, there were traces of blood on the soles of the shoes he was wearing.”
Emma was dumbfounded.
“But wasn’t it that pizzaiolo that the newspapers have been writing about? The one who killed himself? Why would my husband. . no, Commissario. . it’s impossible. My husband lacks the courage; he’s a very fearful man. He’d never be able to pull off anything of the sort, under any circumstances. He doesn’t act. He thinks. He didn’t even react when. . He just doesn’t take action, let me assure you.”
This was no time to overlook her hesitations, Ricciardi decided.
“He didn’t even react when. . what? This is no time to be less than forthcoming, Signora. Don’t make me think that you’re concealing something serious, or I’ll have no consideration for your well-being. Believe me.”
Emma chewed on her lower lip. There was something in Ricciardi’s tone of voice that scared her. She thought it over a while. Then she spoke.
“Even when I left him. For good. I wanted to run away, leave our home.”
“And you told him this?”
“Yes, I told him. I spewed every ounce of disgust I feel for him right in his face. I told him how I loathed him and how I hated our loveless life together. He begged me not to leave him, and he was crying, an old man with tears in his eyes. .”
Ricciardi studied the expression on the woman’s face; she had flung open the door to her innermost thoughts. This was the moment to push.
“Did he try to change your mind? Did he threaten you? Did he threaten anyone else, say, Calise?”
Emma smiled sadly.
“No. Like I said, he lacks the courage. So when I saw him on his knees at my feet, sobbing convulsively, I just told him.”
“Told him what?”
“The truth. That I’m pregnant.”
LV
He’d found himself a spot in the shadows. Over time, and with experience, Maione had learned how to blend in. Not like Teresa Scognamiglio, who had a natural gift for escaping notice. He didn’t have the build to pull it off, being big, tall, and hairy. Throw the uniform into the mix, and who would be capable of vanishing from sight entirely? Still, over the years, what with the stakeouts, the tailing and pursuit of suspects, he’d learned a thing or two in the way of technique.
The important thing was never to lose sight of the person, so you could stay out of their sight. Filomena walked with her eyes on the ground and never glanced at her reflection. He knew where she worked; she’d told him herself. Now he needed to determine whether Don Matteo De Rosa-the well-known fabric merchant who had inherited the shop from his father-in-law after marrying a woman widely considered to be the richest and ugliest in all of Naples-had really lost his head over Filomena like Bambinella had told him.
Taking refuge in the large entrance hall of an austere palazzo in Via Toledo, he waited for her to finish her shift and to be alone with that man; he wanted to see how he behaved. To get an idea. Just to get an idea. He wasn’t obsessed with her, of course. But he didn’t like gray areas.
He’d ruled out the guappo, Costanzo, immediately. In that city, policemen and camorristi-the Mafiosi of Naples-had learned each other’s languages by dint of doing battle with one another. Maione knew that the face-slash carried a specific meaning; it was a mark of betrayal, adultery. No camorrista would hesitate to slash the face of his beloved if he learned that she had been unfaithful to him, but that certainly didn’t apply to Don Luigi, who was happily married, and married, moreover, to the daughter of the local capo of the Spanish Quarter. If he’d done anything of the sort, it would have been tantamount to slitting his own throat.
Not him, then. So, who?
The shopkeeper, perhaps. From the limbo of the entrance hall, Maione watched him in the brightly lit store; he was diminutive, pudgy, and effeminate, leaping from one bolt of cloth to another, smiling at the women he served like a halfwit. That man didn’t have the strength of body and mind to shave himself, much less slash a woman’s face.
Maione waited patiently for the shop to close for lunchtime. Filomena said good-bye to De Rosa, who didn’t even bother to look up from the cash register. The brigadier had the distinct impression, even from that distance, that her disfigurement made him uneasy.
Not the shopkeeper.
Then who?
Emma looked out the plate glass window, as if enchanted by the stream of pedestrians, automobiles, and horse-drawn carriages. Once again, the dead child informed Ricciardi that his puppy had run away. In the café, a buzz filled the air around them, while from the next room came the sound of a piano, evoking a May gone by, red roses and cherries.
The news of her pregnancy had opened new vistas to the commissario’s eye. It was an irrevocable fact, the kind of thing that could drive men and women to commit unspeakable acts.
“Who else have you told?”
Emma smiled a melancholy smile.
“Just him. And Calise, of course, the second to last time I went to see her. For a change, I told her what fate had in store.”
“Why did you tell her?”
“Because I needed her to tell me what to do. I. . couldn’t make any decisions, unless she gave me permission. It was a curse, pure madness. You’re welcome to laugh all you like, Commissario, but she had become an obsession for me. I tried to resist the impulse; I told myself that I could do without her. Then an invisible hand would push me out of the house and I’d find myself there, in that foul-smelling waterfront, begging for her to tell me what to do, invoking her command over me. I no longer knew how to live for myself. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve never lived: first my mother, then my husband, and now the fortune-teller.”
Ricciardi listened to her every word, his attention riveted.
“And what did she say, when you told her you were pregnant?”
Emma ran her fingers nervously through her hair.
“She asked me who the father was. I was baffled: how could she not know? She, who knew everything about everyone? She knew that I haven’t let my husband lay a finger on me for a long time. That there’s only one man on earth I love. The man that she denied me.”
The commissario leaned forward.
“Denied you?”
Emma began crying as she spoke.
“I met this man at the same time I met Calise. And even though she’d never even laid eyes on him, she urged me day after day to get to know him, to appreciate him, to fall in love with him. And our love grew until it had filled up my whole life. Have you ever been in love, Commissario?”
In his mind, Ricciardi glimpsed a pair of closed shutters, and he felt a fist clutch at his heart with a stab of pain. He blinked, just once.
“Go on.”
“I was going to run away with him. Everything was ready: money, a life together, everything. I’m a wealthy woman, Commissario. Independently of my husband. I’d made the arrangements, and then I got the news that I was pregnant. What joy! A child! And I’d stopped hoping for anything like that. A love child, bound to be as beautiful as the father. I rushed to see Calise, I wanted her to be the first to know. But instead. .”