She caressed the shirt, and with one hand she smoothed out a last wrinkle underneath the collar. I’m the wife, she thought to herself. You can look, but don’t touch.
Or I’ll claw your eyes out.
He became aware of someone knocking insistently at the door. He’d fallen asleep at his desk, his face resting on his arm, the half-empty bottle of liquor in front of his eyes. He tried to remember, as he reemerged from the mists of sleep; and he remembered.
Memory swept over him like a wave, renewing the incandescent pain that he’d managed to stifle by getting drunk. He was alone, in his office at the newspaper. He heard the noises from the newsroom, the typesetting of fresh news, tomorrow’s paper going through its birth throes; but it wasn’t the way it usually felt, those sounds gave him no comfort. Nothing would ever give him comfort again. Because Mario Capece had forever lost everything that mattered to him, the love of his life. And the worst thing about it was that he’d lost her through a fault of his own.
The unknown hand continued to pound on the door, close to the jamb, and the noise was making his head explode. He shouted:
“Come in, damn it!”
Whoever it was tried the handle, and then he remembered that he’d locked the door. He got up and went to unlock it, with a stabbing wave of pain to his forehead. Better to die, he thought. An artery bursts, and goodbye sorrow. Maybe what the priests always told us is true, and I’ll be able to see you again someday, my love.
Standing at the door was Arturo Dominici, his deputy editor; worry was stamped clearly on his face.
“Mario, are you all right? Everyone’s been looking for you. Did you sleep here again last night?”
Capece gestured in annoyance.
“Yes, yes. I haven’t been anywhere else. What do you want. What’s happening now?”
The man spoke in a low voice, shooting furtive glances over his shoulder.
“There are two. . the police are here, the mobile squad. One’s in uniform, the other one’s in civilian clothes. They’re looking for you.”
Mario smiled wearily.
“At last. They took their sweet time, almost two days. Show them in.”
“Do you want me to be present too? As a witness, you know.”
Capece looked at his friend intensely: he deeply appreciated the offer, knowing as he did that Dominici too assumed that he was guilty of Adriana’s murder.
“No, Arturo. That’s not necessary. If I need you I’ll call you. Grazie.”
Ricciardi and Maione walked into the office just as Capece was throwing open the window. The room was hot as an oven and it reeked of stale air and liquor; it was like being in a bar. They introduced themselves and when Capece pointed them to two chairs, they sat down. Maione asked the journalist his name and age and other basic details, and he supplied them with a voice that was only slightly slurred and with eyes half-closed from the pain of his migraine.
Capece wasn’t tall, but his frank and extroverted expression gave him an imposing air. His professional skills were highly esteemed, and the fact that he didn’t pander to the powerful, that he criticized or praised openly and as he saw fit, had won him the admiration of many, but also the hatred of the fanatical supporters of the regime. His weak point had been his affair with Adriana, a weapon that the fanatics had used to hinder the career that he would certainly have enjoyed otherwise.
The man that Ricciardi and Maione had before them, however, was a different person from the one that Mario Capece had been until just a short while ago. His three-day growth of whiskers, his loosened tie, his shirt half-untucked, his single buttoned suspender, and his waistcoat dangling open were so many signals of the state of prostration into which the journalist had slipped. Still, he looked at them mockingly and said:
“Well then, you must be Commissario Ricciardi. The solitary hawk at police headquarters, the man who doesn’t want career advancement. The implacable hunter of murderers. I’ve been following your work, did you know that? Your progress is interesting. Your superior officers are afraid of you, and so are those who report to you. They say you bring bad luck.”
Maione was about to repond but Ricciardi held up his hand.
“Interesting information. But as luck would have it, we’re not here to talk about me today, but about you, Capece. And in particular about the death of a woman whom, from what I’ve heard, you knew very well. Is that right?”
Capece shot to his feet like a spring suddenly released, his bleary eyes red with rage.
“The death of a woman, you say. A woman I knew well. Careful, Ricciardi: never use that tone of voice again. Never again. That woman has. . had a name, and her name was Adriana Musso, duchess of Camparino. And I didn’t know her: I loved her. Not that I’d expect you, a dreary little policeman who lives alone, to understand. But I loved her.”
Maione had no intention of tolerating that tone, no matter what Ricciardi said. He leapt to his feet and, towering over Capece, leaned toward him, placing both hands flat on the desktop.
“Listen up, Capece: you try talking to the commissario like that one more time, and dead woman or no dead woman, I’ll smack you so hard that you’ll get over your drunk in the blink of an eye. You respect us and we’ll respect you. Otherwise, we can go have this little chat at police headquarters, and your children will wake up to find that their father’s in prison. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
Capece and Maione stared at each other for a good thirty seconds, face to face. Ricciardi watched the journalist as the two men faced off, wondering whether this reaction was a product of his personality or simply a state of despair. He opted for the first factor, but with some reservations.
At last the man sat down, and the brigadier sat down after him. Unexpectedly, he smiled.
“So you do you have blood in your veins, after all! And you don’t find your courage only when you outnumber your opponent. Fine, then, let’s respect each other. And I’ll answer your question: yes, I knew her. And I didn’t kill her. Even though it’s my fault that she’s dead, and I’ll never be able to forgive myself for the fact.”
Ricciardi tried to delve deeper: “What do you mean, it’s your fault?”
Capece smiled a bitter smile, staring into the void.
“You must already know that on Saturday night we had a fight, at the Salone Margherita. I have no doubts that you were informed, because that incompetent Garzo, the deputy chief of police and your boss, was there, and I’ll never forget his face and his foolish stunned expression. It was a typical lovers’ skirmish. But, idiot that I am, I stormed out of the place and I let her go home alone, or else accompanied by who knows who. That’s just the way she was, you know: instinctive. And someone killed her.”
While he was speaking he’d started weeping, without even realizing it. Tears rolled down his cheeks, in a silent incessant stream, like some hemorrhage of unbroken grief. Maione, who’d been pleased to hear that open reference to Garzo’s incompetence, handed him a handkerchief.
Ricciardi resumed:
“And you, where did you go?”
“I went drinking. First at the Circolo dell’Unione, then in one cantina and then in another, and finally to the train station where there was the one last bar in the city that was still open. I was alone, I imagine you want to know that. No one can confirm it. Nor do I care whether or not you believe it.”
XXI
All alone in your kitchen, you wait. You know that he might never come back home. You’ve factored that into the equation.
You’ve known ever since you saw him slap her face, ever since you saw him storm out the door, alone. You know where he went, and what he did. And you know that, logically, he’ll be the first one they’ll think of.