“Yes. Well, no, actually it doesn’t.”
“He probably has something to hide. That’s the something that I have to find out, even if it’s just to rule out that it has anything to do with Manuela’s disappearance. Which is why I need all the information I can get.”
“And what I’m about to tell you will stay between us?”
“Of course. Everything you tell me is covered by professional privilege.” In reality, I was talking through my hat. Professional privilege is limited to information exchanged between a lawyer and a client. Caterina wasn’t my client. Still, a reference to professional privilege is always impressive, and I thought it would reinforce my promise to keep what we said secret.
“Manuela did cocaine occasionally.”
Before asking her anything else, I let her words hover in the air, then sink in and register between us.
“With Michele?”
“Yes. He let her try it the first time.”
“Did she do it often, occasionally? A little, a lot? And did she keep on using it even after she stopped seeing him?”
“I don’t know how often she used cocaine. And I don’t know if she kept using it even after the two of them broke up.”
I looked up at her, skeptically. My face must have communicated that I was having difficulty believing that answer. Skepticism that she wouldn’t know something like that about a close friend.
“Okay, maybe she used occasionally, even after they broke up. But I didn’t like it, so we didn’t talk about it.”
She thought for a few more seconds and then continued. “I was-I am-opposed to that stuff. I told her a couple of times, and she got mad, as if I were meddling in her business. Maybe she was right-everyone’s free to do as they like. I don’t like it either when someone tells me what I can or can’t do. So I stopped telling her what I thought and she stopped talking about it, since she knew I didn’t like it.”
“Do you know if she’d been using it recently?”
“I don’t know. I swear!”
She’d spoken with an exasperated tone, but she regained control almost immediately, and went on talking.
“Look, I’m helping you. And I’m not even sure how you got me onto this subject, which I had no intention of discussing. But the fact that I’ve been straight with you should convince you that I have no intention of hiding anything from you. You have to believe me.”
“I believe you. But you might happen to overlook something, and that’s why I’m pushing you.”
“I don’t know whether Manuela was taking drugs in the months before she went missing. I don’t know. If I did know I’d tell you. I’ve already told you a lot of things.”
“Who could we ask?”
“I don’t know. In the last few months I was in Bari and she was in Rome, and we didn’t see as much of each other.”
I wanted to ask her if she’d ever used cocaine with Manuela, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“What do you know about the place near Ostuni where Manuela spent the night between Saturday and Sunday?”
“Nothing in particular. I’d been there once, the year before, for a dinner party. It’s a beautiful place, and there are always a bunch of nice people there, lots of activity. Manuela really liked it.”
“Do you know the young woman Manuela stayed with?”
“Only to talk to.”
I paused to process the information I had acquired. I wasn’t taking notes. I figured the conversation would flow more naturally, and therefore be more useful, if I didn’t have to stop to write. So I did my best to organize mentally the things that Caterina had told me. After she left, I’d quickly jot down some notes.
“Do you remember when you last saw Manuela?”
“Wednesday or Thursday. I can’t remember exactly. I called her up, we met downtown, and we had a drink together before dinner.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I don’t remember. Nothing important.”
“Was there any mention of Michele?”
“No.”
“Did you notice anything unusual about her? I mean, I don’t know, did she seem high-strung, upset, euphoric?”
“No. Manuela was perfectly normal. She might have said something about having to go to Rome the following week. But I’m not even sure about that. It was a normal, ordinary conversation, like any other.”
“Was Manuela seeing someone?”
“Do you mean, was she dating someone?”
“Yes.”
“No. Earlier in the year, she’d gone out with a guy in Rome. But nothing serious. She definitely wasn’t dating anyone in September.”
“Do you know who the last guy she went out with in Rome was?”
“No. I remember a few months earlier she told me about this one guy who was calling her, and he’d taken her out to dinner, but she didn’t especially like him. She agreed to go out with him just because she was bored.”
“And you don’t know this guy?”
“No, I’ve never met him. I don’t even know his name.”
“Maybe Nicoletta Abbrescia knows who he is.”
“Yes, she might, if only because they lived in the same apartment.”
“Nicoletta Abbrescia is in Rome, now, isn’t she?”
“I think so. We haven’t talked for a while.”
“Why is that?”
“Since I left Rome, we’ve fallen out of touch. And she comes to Bari much less frequently than Manuela did. I’d say that since I moved back here, we might have seen each other three or four times.”
“Since Manuela’s disappearance, how often have you seen each other?”
“Never. We’ve talked on the phone, but we haven’t seen each other.”
“Why not?”
“I told you, we’ve fallen out of touch. And probably it was Manuela who kept us connected, in a way. Without Manuela, there was no reason to get together.”
“But you talked on the phone.”
“Sure, once or twice. She called me immediately when she heard Manuela had disappeared.”
“When was that, exactly?”
“A couple of days afterward, I think. Manuela’s parents had called her to ask if she’d seen Manuela, when they couldn’t find her.”
“And she didn’t know anything.”
“She didn’t know anything.”
“Did the two of you have any theories?”
She paused again, but only briefly. The subject had already been broached.
“Both of us thought of Michele, but then, of course, it turned out he wasn’t in Italy at the time.”
“What exactly did you say about it?”
“Nothing exactly. I don’t know. ‘Do you think Michele was involved?’ And what he might have done. ‘You don’t think he could have kidnapped her, do you?’ ”
“So you talked about the possibility that he kidnapped her?”
“Not the possibility, really. We didn’t know what to think, so we just said, ‘You don’t think he could have kidnapped her?’ or something like that. But we were just talking.”
“Who mentioned it first? You or Nicoletta?”
I realized that my voice was becoming insistent.
“It wasn’t anything, really. It was just something we threw out there, just something to say, ‘you don’t think he could have kidnapped her?’ We were just talking, since we didn’t have any idea of what might have happened. I never really thought that he could actually have kidnapped her.”
“But just a little while ago you said that when you first heard about Manuela’s disappearance, the first thing you thought was that Michele might be involved.”
She lit another cigarette, this time without asking permission.
“That’s true. And it’s true that we talked about kidnapping. But we just said it, I don’t know. I can’t actually imagine in practical terms how it would have happened. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s impossible, because he wasn’t even in Italy.”
Now there was a note of exasperation in her voice, and I decided it was time to bring the session to a close. To keep from coming to a sudden end, and giving her the impression that I’d stopped because she’d lost her temper, I sat in silence for a few minutes, giving her time to finish her cigarette.
“All right, thanks very much. It’s been very helpful to talk with you.”