Blood Curse Read online

  Maione turned to Ricciardi, to see whether he had anything to ask her.

  “You said, ‘My daughter stays close to her and watches her work.’ What kind of work did she do, Donna Carmela?”

  To their surprise, the woman blushed and looked down, suddenly abandoning the haughty demeanor she’d maintained up until that moment. There was a long silence. Maione broke in.

  “Well, did you hear what the commissario asked you? Answer the question!”

  The woman slowly looked up and answered the brigadier. Maione realized that throughout the conversation Nunzia had never once looked Ricciardi in the eye. Here we go again, he thought. The usual fear and revulsion.

  “Donna Carmela . . . she was a saint. She helped her fellow man to work things out.”

  Ricciardi spoke in a low voice.

  “How? How did Donna Carmela help her fellow man?”

  Silence: Nunzia didn’t answer. Sensing tension in the room, Antonietta had stopped her plaintive song, though she continued to rock back and forth, staring at the corner.

  From the little piazza below came a joyful burst of noise from the boys; someone had scored a point, whatever game it was they were playing. In the air, a delicate scent of flowers was winning out over the smell of caked blood, but still not over the garlic and the urine.

  Nunzia turned slowly to face Ricciardi, looking him straight in his glassy green eyes.

  “Donna Carmela read the future. She read cards.”

  XVI

  Rosa was seventy years old. Her memories stretched back into the distant past, times with other values. In the period in which she grew up—the period in which she still lived, at least in her mind—a woman consecrated herself to a family, even if that family wasn’t her own. She had consecrated herself to the Ricciardi di Malomonte family, after they rescued her from a one-bedroom house in the countryside, where she lived with eleven siblings and parents who couldn’t even remember her name. She had never felt the need for a husband or children of her own. Looking after little Luigi Alfredo satisfied her completely; the Baroness was unwell, and lacked the strength that a mother must possess. That’s what she was there for, the energetic Tata Rosa, who had taken on this trust from her frail friend with the sorrowful green eyes, and she had upheld that responsibility for the rest of her life.

  By now the young master was over thirty, and showed no sign of being ready to cast off the burden of solitude that he’d been bearing since he was a child. Her greatest worry was that she had so few years left; who would take her place alongside Luigi, who would watch over his fevers, who would feed him? She never missed the opportunity to ask him those questions, over and over again, but she never got an answer.

  She loved him deeply, but she didn’t understand him. She couldn’t figure out his indifference to money, to people, to human emotions. No ties to his distant family, no attention to the administration of his property; if she hadn’t been there to look after things with her scrupulous simplicity, those viper cousins of his would have devoured it all. He didn’t care; all he cared about was his damned job. His evenings were spent shut up in his bedroom, listening to radio broadcasts of American tunes played by those black jazz musicians, or else reading.

  A poor old woman wants to hear children’s voices in the house again, she thought sadly. And she wants to be able to wait for the end with a faint sense of serenity.

  She thought of the Baroness: the same green eyes, the same sad smile as her son, the same nervous hands. The same silence.

  She wondered yet again whether she was really up to the task that that frail woman had entrusted to her.

  Doctor Modo reached the scene of the crime around two in the afternoon, wiping his brow dry with his handkerchief, his instrument bag in the other hand and his hat under his arm.

  “I can’t understand why people always seem to get themselves murdered in ways and at times of the day designed to make me skip lunch. And really, am I the only medical examiner in this city?”

  Maione went to meet the doctor as soon as he heard his unmistakable muttering in the stairway.

  “Hello, Doc. Have you got any news for me?”

  “What news do you want me to have, Brigadie’! A poor wretch works all night only to spend it with four imbeciles who decided to crack each others’ heads open just to prove there’s nothing inside, except maybe a signed photograph of that bald guy in jackboots up north in Rome. Then the minute he leaves to get some shut-eye, your police officer shows up, and here I am. Do you do these things to me on purpose, or what?”

  “No, Dotto’, for the love of all that’s holy. I was asking, what about that . . . that lady that I brought for you to look at, this morning. The one with the . . . the cut, you know who I mean. How is she?”

  “Ah, Signora Russo. How do you think she is, Brigadie’ . . . they’ve ruined her for life. I sutured her the best I could, but that side of her face will always be disfigured. Her eyelid even droops now. It was a miserable job, a real ordeal. And she never made so much as a peep; just sat there, hands folded in her lap, looking straight ahead, not uttering a word. Except that at one point, a tear ran down her cheek.”

  “Did anyone come to see her, in the time you were there?”

  “No, no, no one at all. She told me she had a son, a boy, but he has a job; he may not have heard yet. What a pity. It’s such a crime: a truly beautiful woman. And her voice, Brigadie’ . . . what a warm, gracious voice. Do you have any idea who could have done such a thing?”

  “No, not yet; but I want to look into the matter. Did you detain her, like I asked?”

  “Of course I did. Besides, with that wound of hers, she could contract a nasty case of septicemia in no time. If you’d seen the things I saw at the battle of the Carso . . . No, you’ll find her right where you left her, at least until tonight. Hurry though; you know there’s no overabundance of beds.”

  As they were speaking, Ricciardi had joined them.

  “Here’s our good doctor. Please, take your time. After all, your patient is in no hurry.”

  “Look who’s here, Ricciardi, the prince of darkness himself. I should have known. When someone calls me outside of regular working hours, you’re always to blame: the man without a life of his own. Just the kind of thing that happens to someone like me: someone like you. And here I was, so close to retirement.”

  “Sure, that’ll be the day. I guarantee you’ll be one of those old pains in the neck who are always buzzing around crime scenes after they retire, giving advice no one asked for.”

  “You’ve got my personality type pegged, at least. When I retire, I’m going to get everything off my chest, once and for all. That way they’ll send me into internal exile on some beautiful sunny southern island teeming with women and I’ll never have to look at your ugly mugs again as long as I live—no offense, Brigadie’.”

  Ricciardi and Modo had an odd, rough-edged friendship. The doctor was the only one who dared to address the commissario with the Italian informal “tu,” and he was also the only one capable of grasping his wry sense of humor.

  “Come along, doctor. Come meet the elderly signora who’s been waiting for you all morning. But there’s no hurry; believe me, she’s not going anywhere.”

  XVII

  Off to one side, Ricciardi watched the minuet that always took place in the wake of a murder. The stage setting varied, but the cast of characters was more or less the same: the medical examiner, a photographer, a couple of police officers, Maione, himself: each with a score and choreography all his own, treading carefully to avoid incursions into the others’ territory, just trying to see his own work through to completion. Talking, commenting, sometimes even laughing: a job like any other.

  Outside the door, behind the police officer responsible for isolating the crime scene, morbidly curious eyes scanned the front hall for details that could be exaggerated in the neighborhood tall tales that would enliven conversations between next-door neighbors, friends, and relatives in the days
to come. The same old story. Every time.

  Ricciardi distinguished between murders with evident motives and murders whose motives were concealed. The former type had all the evidence right in the first scene, visible at first glance: the man with a gun in his hand sprawled out on top of the woman’s body, their faces disfigured by point-blank bullet wounds. The man splattered across the sidewalk, and up on the fourth floor the other man telling him to get up and take the rest of what he’s got coming. The guappo lying on the ground, with the knife protruding from his jacket like the handle of an umbrella clamped under his arm, and the other man, being restrained by four bystanders, still spitting out all the hatred he feels for him. Unmistakable motive. No doubt at all; all that’s left to take care of is a bit of cleaning and a small mountain of reports.

  Concealed motive: the tenor found in his dressing room with his throat slit and a whole slew of people with excellent reasons for wanting him dead. The whore with her belly ripped open by a knife that’s vanished into thin air, in a bedroom that dozens of people pass through over the course of a single day. The rich gentleman killed in a crowd during a neighborhood street celebration, and no one saw a thing.

  A poor, harmless old woman, mused the commissario, a “saint,” beloved by one and all, and then brutally clubbed and kicked to death: he had an unpleasant feeling that it wasn’t going to be easy to get to the bottom of this murder, to find the motive.

  Maione summoned Riccardi’s attention; he was squatting down close to the carpet, being careful not to move or touch anything. Given his size, in that position he looked like an alabaster Buddha, which for some reason was dressed as a Neapolitan policeman.

  “Look right here, Commissa’: somebody stepped in the blood. You can see the footprints.”

  Ricciardi came over and looked carefully. Maione was right: he made out at least two footprints. One was broad and heavy, the other was fainter. A third footprint, farther back, broad and smeared. Maione went on, pointing to this last one.

  “That’s the foot that the bastard who kicked her rested his weight on. And he slipped on the blood, twice, see?” pointing to another spot in the blackish puddle.

  “Here, on the other hand, and again right here, it’s as if someone walked up on tiptoe. And neither the porter nor her daughter had any blood on their shoes; I checked myself. What did this guy do, dance a ballet?”

  Ricciardi thought it over.

  “They could have been made at different times. Someone who came in later, when the victim was already dead.”

  “Huh, what a lot of hustle and bustle . . . what is this, the central train station? And when would all this have happened, anyway, given that they saw her retire for bed last night and they found her dead at nine thirty this morning?”

  From the bedroom came the voice of Cesarano, the other police officer.

  “Commissario, Brigadier, come here!”

  The policeman was standing next to the chest of drawers, holding a notebook in his hand. It was a school composition book, with a black cover and red deckle edges on the sheets. Ricciardi took it in his hand.

  “It was here, under the sheets.”

  On every sheet in the notebook there was a number, possibly a date. A list of names, with numbers next to them, almost like a schedule. Also next to the names, in wobbly handwriting and large, slanting letters, were a number of ungrammatical words. Ricciardi read at random:

  “9 Polverino, male, yung lover, not much money

  10 Ascione

  11 Imparato, femail, dead fatther, lots of money

  12 Del Giudice, femail, husband beets her

  14 La Cava, man, detts to be payd, no money, sausidge-maker

  15 Pollio

  17 S. di A., meet man of her dreems

  18 Cozzolino, femail, poor boy frend, rich old man wants her. Ask for a lott.”

  Ricciardi looked over at Maione with a half-smile on his face.

  “Good old Cesarano here found the book in which the saint wrote her customers’ futures. Rates included. Let’s go in the other room and see what the doctor has to tell us.”

  As they walked toward him, Modo looked at them and shook his head.

  “She was definitely already dead after the first blow. Look right here: skull shattered, brain reduced to a pudding. I’ll be able to tell you more once we get her to the hospital, but if you ask me, it shouldn’t even have taken this much force. Osteoporosis had made her bones thin and brittle; even a good hard slap could have killed her. Why on earth are people such monsters?”

  Ricciardi said nothing. He went on looking at the bundle of rags, which Modo had straightened as if it were a marionette, a small, roughly dressed mannequin, an old tattered doll.

  Maione looked on, frowning slightly, as if he had been personally insulted.

  “And after that? What happened after the first blow?”

  “More of them followed: at least three, on the head, with the same blunt object, possibly a walking stick, an umbrella, I don’t know. Then, as you’ve seen for yourself, they started kicking her around the room. She has several fractured ribs, possibly a broken spinal column—I don’t know yet, I’ll have to look into it. They really let her have it. I don’t know how many of them there were. I’ll have to determine whether the marks on her body are uniform. I need to take her to the hospital with me. I’ll tell you tomorrow night.”

  “You’ll tell me tomorrow morning. I know you. You’re a bloodhound.”

  “I can’t get it done by tomorrow morning!” the doctor objected. “I’m not some kind of superman! I need to get at least a little sleep; and if I want to get to sleep after a day like this, I’ll need to get drunk, too. These are things that require time.”

  “Go on and protest, protest all you like; you’ll pull it off all the same. You know all too well that the first twenty-four hours are the most crucial.”

  “If I’m ever reborn, I’m coming back as a policeman. That way I can bully doctors around, too . . . all right, all right, I’ll do what I can. Have her brought to the hospital; I’ll go in myself in a couple of hours, and then we’ll see.”

  Still grumbling, Doctor Modo left without saying good-bye to anyone. Maione touched his fingertips to the visor of his cap, and the police officers saluted. Ricciardi smiled wearily and said nothing. He turned toward the image with the broken neck, and she said to him: “’O Padreterno nun è mercante ca pava ’o sabbato.” God Almighty’s not a shopkeeper who pays His debts on Saturday. And as she said it she made a little gesture that he hadn’t noticed before, a movement of the arm, as if she were moving something.

  Ricciardi turned to look at the corpse and tried to reckon its location, before it was moved by Doctor Modo and even before the woman’s attackers began kicking it. And he found himself staring at one side of the carpet, the one a bit farther away from the table and near the dismal old sofa.

  He knelt down and scrutinized the floor: under the sofa there was a biscuit tin. He reached out his hand and carefully pulled it toward him; the lid was half-open. The words “Le Marie” were written on top. Maione walked over to him and looked him briefly in the eyes. Using his handkerchief, he opened the tin completely. It was full to the top.

  Cash and promissory notes, all covered with caked blood.

  XVIII

  Along the street that ran from the bowels of the Sanità back to headquarters, walking briskly behind the bowed figure of the commissario, Maione looked around distractedly. He was well aware of the hostility that the good people of the heart of Naples were capable of unleashing, how quickly the complacent benevolence made up of smiles, bows, curtseys, and cap-doffings could transmute into the violence of furtive hands hurling cobblestones retrieved from the pavement at the detested cops.

  He guarded Ricciardi, walking three feet behind him: not close enough to be intrusive, but not so far back that he couldn’t get to him in time to shield him with his solid physique.

  Usually, while they were walking, he would observe the bar
e nape of his neck, his tousled, unkempt hair; he mused on Ricciardi’s absurd habit of going hatless, showing a scornful disregard for others, an indifference to his fellow man. In this city, “man without a hat” meant a man without money, like the nameless, family-less beggars who filled the porticoes by night and emptied wallets and handbags by day.

  It was not lost on him, though it came as a surprise, that Ricciardi was neither an object of ridicule nor the recipient of sympathy, even from those who saw him but didn’t know him; rather, he tended to fill people with dread, an emotion midway between disgust and outright fear that the brigadier would have had a hard time defining. Maione was a simple man, unable to discern nuances, which he could only vaguely guess at. He loved the commissario; he would have liked to see him less troubled, though he couldn’t possibly imagine him being happy.

  As they walked through the fresh breeze that blew down from the Capodimonte forest, leaving a new corpse behind them, Brigadier Raffaele Maione was unable to get the thought of Filomena Russo out of his head: the woman who from that morning on would have two different profiles.

  He thought of the half-open door, of the strange silence shrouding the little piazzetta on Vico del Fico; of the pitiless eyes of the people who gathered in front of the basso; of the insult spat at the poor woman’s back. Once again he saw the drop of blood fall in the darkness; the bloodstained half-footprint on the floor; the woman leaning against him on the walk to the hospital, decorously, with dignity, without fear.

  And he saw the horrible cut gouged into her flesh, deep, clean, inflicted with neither hesitation nor shame, without conscience or remorse. And the faint scent of jasmine that had remained on his uniform jacket along with the bloodstain, a scent not unlike the one that was just beginning to waft through the air and which would soon burst out into the streets, triumphing once and for all over the winter.