“Heaven forbid, the day’s already looking bad enough, let’s not make things even worse. Why don’t you come in and sit down, instead: let’s try to figure out where we are with things.”
Maione let himself drop into one of the chairs in front of the desk. The office was shrouded in shadow; to protect against the morning sun, Ricciardi had, as usual, left his shutters half shut. The noises of the city as it awakened rose from the street below. The sound of a ship’s horn as it set sail split the air.
“Lucky them, that they’re going somewhere, eh, Commissa’? There are times when I feel like leaving myself. New places and new faces. I wonder if it would be better or worse.”
“What would you expect? I doubt it would really be any different. People are the same wherever you go. The same passions, the same crimes. Today we’re going to the duchess’s funeral.”
Maione was surprised.
“Why on earth would you want to go, Commissa’? We never attend the funerals: all that curiosity, all that mistrust; after all, we’re policemen.”
Ricciardi was resting his elbows on the desk, knitting his fingers together in front of his mouth.
“I know; but usually we avoid going to keep from causing the family problems. Here I doubt the family cares very much. I’m interested in seeing who’s there and who isn’t, and I want to see the faces of those who are attending.”
Maione tried to figure out who the commissario’s suspicions were focusing on.
“Who are you thinking of? If you ask me, given what we know right now, the suspects are Capece and the young master, Ettore Musso. And that’s a problem because they’re exactly the people that that idiot Garzo says we’re supposed to leave alone.”
Ricciardi nodded in agreement.
“That’s right. Ettore makes no mystery of how much he hated the duchess, and everyone who’s been willing to talk to us confirmed that. Even Don Pierino, whom I went to see early this morning, admitted that relations weren’t good, and you know that if he says it, that something wasn’t right, it must have been unmistakable.”
“Still, Commissa’, I’m not ready to discount the duke entirely as a suspect, perhaps with a little assistance from the housekeeper. If you ask me, she has all the strength needed, and it also strikes me that anything the duke tells her to do, she does. And the duke didn’t seem to cherish her all that much, his wife.”
Ricciardi responded, pensively:
“That’s also true. Then there’s the whole question of Capece, who, unless you’re able to track down some elements of evidence, has no alibi, just like the young master. Listen, let’s split up the tasks; that’ll save us some time: Ettore to me, Capece to you. Aside from making the rounds of the taverns, gather some information on the family, the life he leads, where he lives, and so on. We don’t have a lot of time, and we’ll need to be discreet, otherwise Garzo will weigh in and stop us from doing anything.”
Maione smiled.
“Commissa’, forgive me if I venture to say, but you don’t have to tell me to be discreet. After all, sometimes you ask people questions that are like a slap in the face. And with a tone, moreover. . Just promise me that if you do decide to talk to the journalist, the duke, and the young master, at least wait for me, so we can go together: that way at least I can act as witness.”
“A witness? Who’d ever listen to you: you’re false as a three-lira coin. Come on now, let’s get moving. Let’s not keep the duchess waiting.”
You know, I remember, Mamma. I remember it, when we were together: when we laughed, when we talked. When I could even choose who to talk to. When my father would sit beside me and help me to study. I remember when he’d hold my hand with a pen in it, dipping it into the ink; I even remember the pages and pages of upright strokes, the smell of the paper.
I remember, Mamma. I remember walking holding hands with you both, you on one side and him on the other, in the Villa Nazionale; you greeted the people you met with a smile, sometimes he’d even doff his hat. You were beautiful, Mamma. I wonder if you remember it, too, how pretty you were when you smiled.
Then you were gone, you from one side, him from the other. I looked away, perhaps, because I didn’t even notice; but then at a certain point you were both gone. When is it, Mamma, that a child is no longer a child? When he’s tall and strong, and can make his own decisions? Or when he knows how to help, or has a job and children of his own?
You know, if you ask me, Mamma, you’re a grown-up when you can finally see the way things are. And if you see the way things are, then you have to intervene, you have to solve the problem.
Or at least try to.
When Ricciardi and Maione turned the corner of Piazza Santa Maria La Nova, they found themselves in the presence of the customary trappings of a high-society funeral. The hearse had already arrived, a horse-drawn carriage, and it was a spectacle in itself. Eight horses in all, harnessed two-by-two, black, tall, and formidable. They were foaming at the mouth from the weight they were pulling and the great heat; on each horse’s head, a high plume, black like the harnesses. Specially trained, the magnificent beasts made absolutely no noise: they neither scraped their hooves, neighed, nor blew. Behind them, the hearse itself, a complex Baroque construction of inlaid wood and stucco and gleaming glass. One last journey in grand style, before the admiring eyes of one and all. Only the passenger would fail to appreciate the show.
The piazza was immersed in an unnatural silence. A motley crowd was massed around the palazzi and the church; only around the hearse was there an empty space, as if the people were fearful of being contaminated by death in its purest and most popular image. The coachman, with his long black tailcoat and his likewise-black top hat, was standing waiting with the whip in one hand, next to the rear wheel which towered over his head. Further along, vainly seeking a patch of shadow, the eight musicians who would walk before the funeral procession playing solemn marches stood smoking and complaining about the heat; the sun flashed golden off the instruments that lay on the ground.
The arrival of the two policemen caused an immediate wave of murmuring, like the sound of the wind springing up in a forest. Behind the friends, the authorities, and all those who wanted at all costs to be standing at the side of that influential family in this grim moment, there were hundreds of simple onlookers: the murder had made an enormous impression, even though the press, in accordance with instructions received, had devoted little space to it, with none-too-veiled references to the possibility of a banal robbery gone horribly wrong. The duchess’s life, which she’d lived without any false modesty, did not allow for privacy even in death.
They were waiting for the coffin to be carried out of the palazzo. At the duke’s request the religious service had been performed by Don Pierino in the family chapel, where the corpse had been transported from the morgue at dawn of that day. Everyone, therefore, would have a chance to give one last farewell in the short distance from the front door to the hearse, and then during the procession to Poggioreale Cemetery.
The large church in the piazza however still demanded attention, with the mournful sound of its death knells ringing out regularly.
Ricciardi looked around. In the front row, he recognized the prefect and the chief of police with their wives, surrounded by the other municipal authorities. Sitting near them, a step behind but strategically visible, was Garzo. The eyes of the two men locked for a brief instant, and in that time Ricciardi managed to detect a mute disapproval for his inopportune presence. The commissario held the man’s gaze without even hinting at a greeting.
Around the hearse, leaning against the walls of the palazzo, and even up against the gate of the nearby church, stood a vast number of flowered funeral wreaths; the black ribbons adorning them bore the names of families who wished to pay homage.