“Do you think the girl’s still alive?”
He hesitated for a moment, before answering. Then he shook his head.
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t have the slightest idea what could have happened to her, but I doubt she’s still alive.”
That was exactly what I thought. That was what I had thought from the very beginning, but it was still hard to hear him say it. His expression showed that he knew that and was sorry about it, but there was nothing he could do.
“If you need anything else, call me. And of course, if you find anything, call me.”
Of course. I’ll solve the mystery, generously hand over the guilty party, and then fade back into the shadows. It’s what we always do, we solitary heroes.
“One day I’d like to watch you launch your paper airplanes.”
He smiled.
“I’ll invite you, one day.”
11.
That afternoon I called Tancredi. It took three or four tries for the call to go through, and when it rang it sounded as if I were calling overseas.
“Guido. So, you’re still alive.”
“Alive, yeah, pretty much. How are you doing? You’re not out of the country, are you?”
“You don’t miss a thing, do you? Sharp as a tack. I’m fine, and I’m in Virginia.”
“Virginia? You mean Virginia in the United States?”
“Yes, that Virginia.”
“This call is costing you a fortune then. We’ll talk another time. By the way, what time is it there?”
“It’s eleven. We’re on our coffee break. And don’t worry, I can still afford a few long distance calls. Anyway, nobody else has called me from Italy, so, for lack of anyone better, you’ll have to do.”
“What are you doing in Virginia?”
“I’m at the FBI Academy. I’m taking a special international police course. Questioning techniques and criminal profiling.”
“A course in what?”
“Techniques for identifying criminals and techniques for questioning witnesses and suspects.”
“Are they teaching you, or are you teaching them?”
“They’re teaching me, believe me. It’s a whole other world. You’d find it interesting from a lawyer’s perspective, too. What are you calling about?”
“I wanted to ask you something, but it’s nothing urgent.”
“Go ahead.”
“No, really, it’s not something I can talk about on an international call. Anyway, it isn’t urgent,” I lied. “When do you get back?”
“In three weeks.”
“When you’re back, give me a call. I’ll tell you all about it in person.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me now?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Thanks, Carmelo. Enjoy your trip. Give me a call when you get back.”
“I’ll do that. I’m having a great time. I wish you could see my classmates. The one I like best is a Christian Turk who found out I’m from Bari. Ever since I told him, he keeps saying that we Baresi-and as you know, I’m not from Bari originally-stole the bones of Saint Nicholas of Myra from the Turks and should give them back. And let me tell you, you’re not allowed to smoke a damn cigar anywhere, except maybe in a garbage dump. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Ciao, Guido, I’ll call you when I get back.”
We hung up, and when I thought about Tancredi, thousands of miles away, I felt lonely. To ward off that sensation, I decided to do something useful, or at least practical. I called Fornelli.
The way a person answers the phone-at least when he doesn’t know who’s calling, and Fornelli obviously didn’t recognize my number-tells you some deep truths about him. Fornelli’s voice, with its strong Bari accent, was quiet and bland.
“Hi, Sabino, it’s Guido.”
His voice got a little more lively. It took on a shape, and even a little bit of color.
“Hey, Guido.”
“Hi, Sabino.”
“Have you had a chance to read the file?”
I told him that I’d read the file. I didn’t tell him about my conversation with Navarra, since I’d promised I’d keep it to myself.
“What do you think? Do you think there’s anything left to try?”
“In all honesty, I doubt there’s much of a chance of finding anything new beyond what the Carabinieri found in their investigation. Still, there are a few things to check out, just to go beyond any shadow of a doubt.”
“That’s great. What exactly did you have in mind?”
Now he sounded very different from the slightly depressed gentleman who had answered the phone moments before. He sounded almost excited. Stay calm, I told him in my mind. Nothing’s going to come of this. Don’t get your hopes up, and above all, watch what you say to those poor parents.
“I thought I’d talk with Manuela’s ex-boyfriend, her two friends in Rome, and maybe the girl who drove her to the station the day she disappeared.”
I told him I’d need some help getting in touch with these people. He said, sure, he’d take care of it. He would call Manuela’s mother right away-the father, as I’d seen, was in no shape to help us-and ask her to get in touch with those young people. He’d let me know right away what the story was. He knew he’d done the right thing when he contacted me, he said at the end, with an incongruous note of cheerfulness in his voice. Then he plunged back into the murky space he’d occupied before answering the phone.
I thought maybe now I could get to work.
Lawyer work, that is. I was through playing at being an investigator for now. The next day I would be in court for one of the most surreal trials of my so-called career. I called Consuelo, who’d been studying the file for me, and told her to come into my office to bring me up to speed.
12.
My client was twenty-five, and he was charged with mass murder.
Put in those terms, the act sounds pretty impressive. It summons up tragic images, the bitter odor of gunpowder, ravaged corpses, screams, blood, shattered limbs, and ambulances with wailing sirens rushing to the scene.
But if you read the official charges and the file from the initial investigation, things looked different. The charges stated that Nicola Costantino was accused of the crime described in and punished under Article 422, Paragraph Two of the penal code because, with the intent of killing himself, he also committed acts liable to endanger the public safety, specifically opening the gas line in his home with the intent of filling the air with gas and causing an explosion with the potential to destroy the entire apartment building. Only the intervention of the Carabinieri stopped this wholesale destruction from taking place.
Nicola Costantino, long under medical care for psychiatric issues, tried to commit suicide by gas. He was alone in the apartment. He locked himself in the kitchen, drank half a bottle of rum, and downed a powerful dose of tranquilizers, and then he turned on the gas without lighting the burners. A neighbor with a sensitive nose almost immediately smelled that something wasn’t right and called the Carabinieri. The paramilitary police-“promptly arriving at the site,” as the report noted-knocked down the front door and threw open the windows. They found the young man unconscious on the floor but, miraculously, still in and of this world. In other words, they saved his life. But, after checking with the magistrate on duty at the time, they also arrested him. On charges of mass murder.
If you consult a handbook of Italian criminal law, you will find that no one need die in order for charges of the crime of mass murder to be brought. There just needs to have been a clear and present danger, provided that the act or acts in question were carried out specifically to kill.
The classic case studied in the classroom is one in which a terrorist places a highly explosive device in a public place. The bomb fails to go off, let’s say because the police bomb squad intervenes, or because it malfunctions, but the terrorist can still be tried for mass murder because it was his intention to kill an indeterminate number of people, and his actions were designed to bring about that result.