“And, of course, Michele had nothing to do with any of this.”
“He had nothing to do with Manuela’s death, but he had plenty to do with the cocaine. He got her started on it, and he was in business with Duilio. That’s why his lawyer wouldn’t let him meet with you, because he has a lot to hide.”
“Does he know what happened to Manuela?”
“No. When he got back from his trip, he asked Duilio if he knew what had happened. Duilio told him that he didn’t know a thing, and Michele let it go. It’s possible he didn’t believe him, but Michele is such an asshole that he only cares about his own comfort and convenience. He doesn’t give a shit about anybody else. Everything I told you about him is true.”
“Why did you persuade Nicoletta to talk to me?”
“One way or another, you would have gotten in touch with her. So Duilio and I thought it would be a good idea for me to convince you I could help. If I pretended to help you in your investigation, it would be easier for me to control what you were doing and maybe I could even feed you false leads. There was the Michele thing, and then my suggesting that Manuela might have disappeared in Rome and not in Puglia.”
She suddenly shut her mouth and stopped talking. In fact, I thought, there’s nothing left to say.
It was getting dark.
Not just outside.
37.
“What happens now?” she asked after several long minutes of silence, reviving me from the troubled torpor into which I had drifted.
“Excuse me for a moment,” I replied, opening my door and getting out of the car.
A wind had sprung up and was gusting the sky clean of clouds. The air was clear, briny, tragic.
I walked back to the restaurant and stepped inside to make sure that she couldn’t see or hear me. I called Navarra and he answered almost immediately, on the second or third ring.
“ Buona sera, Counselor.”
“ Buona sera, Officer.”
“You’re not calling to tell me you found out what happened to the girl, are you?” he asked jokingly, just to start the conversation. I said nothing. The silence dragged on.
“Counselor?” The playful tone was gone from his voice.
“I’m here. I assume you’re at home.”
“No, I’m still at the office, but I was about to leave. It’s been a brutal day.”
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, you’ll have to stay in the office a little longer.”
“What happened?”
“In a short while, I’m going to bring someone in to see you. You should get in touch with the public defender currently on duty while you wait for me. We’re going to need him.”
There was a long, heavy pause.
“So, the girl is dead?”
“Yes.”
“The day she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
I told him the bare bones of the story and we agreed that in forty-five minutes he would be waiting outside the Carabinieri barracks. Then I hung up and went back out to the car.
Caterina was still there. She hadn’t moved an inch. I got back in the car, started the engine, and pulled out. She didn’t ask me again what was going to happen next. She didn’t say a thing. Neither of us spoke until we were back in the city and I stopped the car a few blocks away from the Carabinieri barracks.
“You’re going to have to tell the Carabinieri the things you told me.”
Before she said anything, she gave me a long look that I was unable to decipher.
“Will they arrest me?”
“No. First of all, you weren’t caught in the act, and the basic elements for arrest are lacking. Second, you’re turning yourself in voluntarily, and most importantly, the cocaine wasn’t yours. You didn’t give it to Manuela. You’ll just face charges of being an accomplice to concealing a dead body. You’ll get off with a plea bargain and probation.”
“What about Duilio?”
“That’s up to him. In many ways, Manuela’s death was accidental. If he cooperates with the law-and it’s entirely in his interest to do so-he can stay out of prison while he awaits trial, and with a good lawyer he might be able to strike a plea bargain, too. Of course, he’ll get a stiffer penalty.”
I was about to add a few other technical details about the process, describing the steps a good lawyer could take to reduce damage and possibly even keep Duilio What’s-His-Name out of prison entirely. But I realized that I had no interest in offering him any help at all. In fact, I was surprised to find myself hoping that his lawyer would turn out to be an incompetent-maybe Schirani-and that the prosecutor would be ill-disposed toward him, and that Duilio would be tossed into prison with the maximum sentence. It was probably a place where he’d thrive, anyway.
“Will he be looking at drug charges?”
“Yes. He’ll face charges of concealing a dead body, possession of narcotics with intent to distribute, and Article 586.”
“What’s Article 586?”
“Article 586 of the penal code: You should have studied that.”
She said nothing, so I went on.
“Death during commission of another crime. It’s a variation on a manslaughter charge, but less serious. The idea is that if you provide someone with drugs and the person dies from taking the drugs, you’re liable.”
“Will we have to take them to the place where we… will we have to go to the dump?”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I lied.
She wrung her hands. She scratched the left side of her neck with her right hand. She sniffed loudly, as if she’d been crying, not seeming to notice that she was making any noise. Then she ran her hand over face and looked up at me. Now her face was filled with sorrow and sincerity and remorse. She was a damned good actress, and she was preparing her last-ditch attempt in the form of a dramatic monologue.
“Guido, do I really have to? Manuela is dead and I’ll live with my remorse over what happened for the rest of my life. But it won’t bring her back to her family if I go and confess. The only thing I’ll succeed in doing is ruining my own life, without benefiting anyone else. What good would that do?”
An excellent question. The first and only answer that came to mind was that maybe that poor miserable soul would stop going to the station to meet trains. Maybe.
I could feel my determination wavering. I wondered if I’d been in too much of a hurry to call Navarra. Maybe she was right. Forcing her to confess would only ravage other lives, without doing anything to repair the lives that were already lying in ruins, irreparably.
What good would that do, indeed?
Then, like a flickering light in great darkness, I remembered something that Hannah Arendt wrote.
“The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises.”
I’d be keeping a promise. Maybe that’s what good it would do. Anyway, it was all I had.
“You have to do it. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to insist.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll go by myself, and it will be a lot worse. For everyone.”
“You can’t. You’re bound by attorney-client privilege to keep everything I told you secret.”
It was phrased as a statement, but it was actually a desperate question. And legally speaking, utter nonsense.
“You’re not my client.”
“What if I tell them you had sex with me? Will they kick you out of the bar association?”
“That would be unpleasant,” I admitted. “Unpleasant but nothing more. There would be no consequences for me. Like I said, you’re not my client, and you’re not even a minor.”
Caterina sat there for a minute without speaking, casting around for some final, desperate argument, but she came up empty-handed. She finally realized that this was the end.
“You’re a piece of shit. You’re giving me up because you want your clients to pay you. You don’t give a shit about them, about me, about anybody. The only thing you care about is getting your goddamned money.”
I put the car in gear and drove the few remaining blocks to the main gate of the Carabinieri barracks. Navarra was already there, and as I drove past him, we exchanged nods. I stopped about twenty yards up the street and parked the car next to a couple of small dumpsters.