Daughter of Ashes, page 3
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Marini.”
Their confrontation had quietly shifted terrain—to one where Giacomo was in charge.
He studied them both for a moment, then burst into laughter.
“So you hadn’t told him? Poor little inspector, you must be really important.” He pointed at the empty chair. “You can sit.”
Giacomo’s placid expression had returned, his excitement extinguished. His jealousy erased. Marini was no longer prey, and neither was he a rival.
Teresa gestured at Marini to take the proffered seat, and focused on Giacomo again.
“Why did you turn yourself in?”
A hammer blow broke one of the tiles in half.
“You should be glad I did. I won’t be killing anyone in here.”
“Your cellmate died last night.”
“Drowned in a toiled bowl.”
“So I’m told.”
“You think I killed him?”
Teresa shook her head.
“No, Giacomo. You’d never do that.”
The killer smiled, a real smile, which erased his snarl, if only for a moment.
“You’ve always understood me. That’s why you were able to stop me.”
Teresa felt sorry for him. There was a whole life enclosed in those two sentences. Her own, and Giacomo’s. Two lives that had crossed paths and crashed into each other, some parts disintegrating on contact—while others had been strengthened.
“So what happened, Giacomo?”
He put his hammer down. The ties around his wrists made it tricky for him to wipe the dust off his fingers.
“Whoever killed him was after me. I was supposed to be cleaning the guards’ toilets yesterday, not him.”
Teresa and Marini watched him impassively.
“If I turned myself in, it’s not because I changed my mind.”
Teresa leaned across the table, ignoring the safety protocols.
“You mean someone’s trying to hunt you down?”
“Yes.”
“Who is it, and why are they doing it?”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to figure that out, Superintendent Battaglia.”
Teresa glanced at Marini; he looked as perplexed as she was. She took her diary out of her bag, opened it to a fresh page, and put her reading glasses on.
“At least give me a motive,” she told him.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Don’t be shy now, Giacomo. Tell me what happened when you were on the run.”
He was examining his own fingers, rubbing them slowly against each other. Perhaps he was thinking about what it had felt like to brush them against a human heart.
“I was asked to commit a murder.”
Teresa stopped taking notes and peered at him over the frame of her glasses.
“And you agreed?”
He raised an eyebrow, while the other stayed put. The movement lifted one of his shoulders, too.
“Obviously, Teresa.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
“It was all . . . perfect.”
“When you say perfect, you mean that the victim . . .”
“Fulfilled my fantasies, yes.”
“So an older man. Sixty, seventy years old.”
A blink.
“More or less.”
“Can you give me a name?”
“No.”
Teresa took her glasses off and started chewing at one of the temple tips.
“Where did you meet him?”
“Near the stadium. I don’t know what he was doing there. Maybe he was looking for prostitutes.”
“Did the person who gave you the job tell you you’d find him there?”
“Yes. Bang on time. And I hit him bang on the head.”
“Then what?”
“Then I took him to where I had decided to dispose of the body. Using a stolen car.”
“And did you also . . . ?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you put what you took from him?”
He didn’t reply. There was no point in pushing.
“And the car?”
“I got rid of it. Don’t ask me where.” He turned to Marini. “God knows this city has changed in the past twenty-seven years.”
Teresa spoke more firmly.
“How were you contacted? How did they find you?”
Giacomo lowered his voice. Teresa took note: he must feel threatened.
“They had my number, Teresa. Even I didn’t know what it was yet; I’d only got myself a phone a few hours before.”
Now the stabbing pain was back, and though Teresa tried to ignore it, her concentration was suffering, kept afloat only by her dogged determination to leave no stone unturned.
“I need every piece of information you can give me. Can you estimate the age from the voice? Did you hear any background noises you recognized?”
Giacomo seemed lost in his gloomy thoughts. He had turned away, his eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the wall, beyond the chains of the prison.
“They knew everything about me. Everything. They knew how to convince me.”
It was all too easy for Teresa to follow the path he was on.
“You were offered what you most desired.”
Giacomo’s lips parted. It was as if he could taste the victim’s blood on his tongue.
“Oh yes. That’s right,” he whispered. “The perfect prey.”
“How did you communicate?”
“Just a couple of phone calls; that was enough. The caller’s number was hidden. They told me where to go. Nothing else needed. They said do what you want with him. Do whatever you want.”
“And now you think they’re trying to kill you.”
“They came so close to doing it, Teresa. They were within reach. Whoever it is, they have influence in here, too.”
Teresa tilted her head to one side as she considered him. A new thought was making its way through her failing mind.
“You turned yourself in for safety.”
“Big mistake.”
“Which means that . . . someone had already tried to kill you while you were still outside?”
“Twice. The first time, I almost got run over. The car accelerated toward me just as I was crossing the street. And the night I turned myself in, the shed I had been sleeping in caught fire.”
“And the mobile phone you mentioned?”
“Melted away.”
Teresa rubbed her eyes.
“Giacomo . . .”
“It’s the truth.”
“When did this happen? When did you kill him?”
A pause. Not one of hesitation, nor of doubt.
“The evening of May 20.”
Teresa could feel Giacomo’s blood-soaked hands pressing against her chest, even though he hadn’t moved them, even though they were clean. They were pressing to take her back—back to life or to the past again.
She looked into the killer’s eyes for the answer to the question she didn’t have the courage to ask.
He had picked the date himself. It wasn’t an accident. It was her birthday.
Teresa glanced at Marini, then back at Giacomo.
“We’ll have to look into this. The man you say you killed, where is he now? We can’t open a case if we don’t have a body.”
Giacomo flung himself across the table and grabbed her hand. Marini shouted at him to stay back, and was about to lunge when Teresa stopped him.
“It’s nothing, Marini. It’s nothing.” Perhaps she was trying to convince herself, too.
Giacomo’s grip was tight, but all it did was convey his need. The need to be believed, and to be saved. Yet the warmth of his skin on hers chilled Teresa to the bone.
“I left the body in that spot where you and I had our second meeting—remember? In the usual way. But it’s not there anymore.” His voice sounded like a squeak now, evoking shadows and underground realms that were best avoided. “Someone moved it, and now they want to bury me, too. You have to stop them, Teresa. Stop them just like you stopped me.”
Marini opened the door and called for the guards.
The killer’s eyes were wide open as they led him away, and when Teresa looked at them, she saw a living paradox.
What could possibly frighten fear itself?
Teresa opened her hand. The answer might just be written in the note she found scrunched up inside her palm.
5
Today
“WHEN WERE YOU GOING to tell me?”
Marini’s face was tilted toward the sun, eyes shielded by Ray-Bans, shirtsleeves rolled up, jacket hanging off the back of the bench behind him. They were sitting in the prison courtyard, waiting for the district attorney and the deputy prosecutor to arrive.
“You’re the one who caught him,” Marini said.
It sounded almost like an accusation, though only a mild one. Marini actually looked quite relaxed, perhaps even a little drowsy.
Teresa gazed up at the mountains surrounding the verdant valley in which the prison was situated. Emerald-green slopes and meadows covered every inch of the districts of Fondovalle and Prealpi. Every breath filled the lungs with the sweet scent of linden trees in bloom, their leaves rustled by darting sparrows. Someone was operating a chainsaw nearby. The air smelled of resin and freshly cut grass.
“I thought you’d read the file,” said Teresa. She felt inside her pockets. “Do you have any sweets?”
“I didn’t have time to read it. I was still recovering when they called me, just like you were.”
“Don’t make excuses. They never sound good, and they hardly ever work as one would hope.”
The inspector stretched his arms and put his hands in the pockets of his trousers, from which he retrieved a piece of sugar-free candy and offered it to Teresa.
“I came across like an incompetent fool.”
“You did well, actually. You made the right choice. You entertained him, which is why Giacomo allowed you to sit down, and why he started talking to us. He wouldn’t have said a word, otherwise. I didn’t tell you before we went in because I wanted you both to be caught by surprise.”
Marini slid his sunglasses down with a finger.
“A surprise. For your colleague. During an interrogation.”
“You’re always quibbling. What happened back there is that Giacomo gave you permission to join the game. He’s not afraid of you, nor is he interested in you as a potential victim, but he does feel gratified by the dynamic between us. You came across as fiery, which he appreciates. That means he’ll let you sit in on our future meetings. I’d count that as a victory.”
“It doesn’t feel very honorable to me.”
“Maybe so, but you’re not some kind of samurai. Try to look at the bigger picture.”
“I could have gotten there some other way.”
“Some more sophisticated way, you mean? Let me clear that up for you: absolutely not. Giacomo wouldn’t have let you. If you think you can dupe him, you’ve already made your first mistake. We were honest with him. If we keep going down this path, he’ll do the same for us.”
“It feels like there’s something between the two of you. I mean, beyond the fact that you’ve already met before. Will you ever tell me what happened? And I don’t mean the details of the case.”
“Maybe I will someday.”
“How’s it going with the insulin pump?”
Teresa felt for it under her top. She’d forgotten she was even wearing the device.
“Not too bad.”
“You’ll never let me win, will you?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That my suggestion has improved your life, for instance, and that you should have followed my advice sooner.”
Teresa burst out laughing. Marini still thought her biggest problem was diabetes, when really, it was Teresa’s mind that no longer worked as it used to. Her memories were breaking apart, fragments already lost forever.
She had to say something, she had to tell him that she could not go back to leading the team. But she kept postponing the moment.
“Marini, after this period of sick leave . . .”
He planted his elbows on his knees. His wristwatch caught the light, and for a moment, Teresa was blinded.
“Lona will make things difficult, I know that, but if we stick together—and we will—we can keep him in check. He’ll get tired of stepping on your toes eventually, Superintendent. He can’t keep it up forever.”
“I’m afraid you’re deluding yourself there. Anyway, the problem isn’t Lona.”
“You’re tired. I get it.”
“I am tired. My body is tired, and my mind, Marini . . .”
The inspector turned to her with a wry, knowing smile.
“You’ve still got so much to teach us, Superintendent, and we can’t wait to get going again.” He stood up, filled with renewed vigor. “You’re not the kind of cop who thrives on the field, anyway.”
“Oh, really. And you are?”
“Your hunting ground is the human mind. Your own as well as the killers’. You’re able to reconstruct their stories; you can see what they intend to do before it even happens. You can keep doing that, and you will keep doing that.” He gestured toward the prison. “What happened in there? I can’t even explain it. You could put your hand inside a tiger’s mouth and it would start licking your fingers and purring for you.”
Teresa didn’t know what to say. It was comforting to think that she could retire soon. Perhaps she would never have to explain anything to anyone, except the doctor who issued her next sick note.
“You have no investigative instincts when it comes to me, Marini. Did you know that?”
He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“My point exactly.”
Marini carefully rolled his sleeves down, smoothing the creases, and put his jacket back on.
“So Giacomo Mainardi denies murdering his cellmate, but confesses to a different murder. How long was he out of jail for?”
“The time it takes you to pick an outfit.”
“Just over ten days. Enough for the bloodlust to return.”
There was a note of contempt in his statement of the facts.
Teresa bent down to poke at a dandelion that had sprung up through a gap in the pavement. When she was little, she used to pick their tufted heads and wave them around like magic wands.
“Giacomo was a lively, active boy, full of physical energy. He wanted to become an athlete; any sport would do. He dreamed of races, medals, applause. That’s what all his teachers said.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Her head was still bowed. She could see the tips of his shoes.
“As we discovered after he was caught, he has a higher than average IQ, yet he never did well in school. To say that he didn’t excel at any subject would be an understatement. His classmates ostracized him—at best. At worst, they bullied him. Giacomo suffered from a congenital deformity that made him visibly different. Pectus excavatum. His sternum was caved in. They would call him ‘the heartless one.’” Teresa let out a bitter laugh. “Eventually he convinced himself he really didn’t have a heart.”
“He had a sunken chest?”
“Yes, a veritable chasm. It’s a kind of malformation that can be fixed with surgery, but in his case, the operation was delayed. By the time he finally got one, it was already too late. The deformity had taken root in his soul. I already mentioned, didn’t I, that as a little boy—and in spite of everything—Giacomo had always been full of energy and life?”
“Yes.”
Teresa looked up.
“Well, they managed to snuff that life right out of him. One day he confessed to me that he started harboring his first cannibalistic fantasies at the age of twelve. So, who is this monster you find so repugnant, Marini? You know nothing about Giacomo. Nothing at all.”
Marini had gone quiet.
“Giacomo quickly learned the meaning of loneliness and rage. And it wasn’t long before he learned to hate. Perhaps the depression in his body ended up seeping into his soul.”
“What about his family?”
“Ah, yes, his family. A sensitive topic. All you had to do, Inspector, was ask yourself: What was this man’s past like? The answer might have surprised you, for his story is not so different from yours.” Teresa felt sad now. “His story is no different from yours, except that you managed to save yourself. He did not.”
He winced, and she felt so sorry for him, for the little boy he had once been—betrayed by the world of adults. But although she hated herself for it, she knew she had no choice: she’d had to deliver that blow, because sometimes the only way to understand someone else’s pain was to relive your own—like summoning a phantom whose presence still has the power to make your skin crawl.
Marini gathered himself.
“I found someone who could save me, Superintendent.”
“Giacomo, on the other hand, had no one at all.”
“I suspect someone did eventually come along, just like someone did for me. The same person, in fact. You.”
They looked at each other without another word until Albert and Deputy Prosecutor Gardini arrived.
Teresa stood up, trying to mask the pain that hunched her shoulders.
Gardini was just closing the briefcase that held the case file.
“I’ve obtained a recording of the interview, so that will be all for now. The prisoner will be placed in solitary confinement, of course.”
Teresa flinched.
“Solitary confinement would be ill-advised. It might even prove counterproductive; we’ve seen that with him before. His paranoid inclinations . . .”
“I understand your point of view, Teresa, but this is a serial murderer who has already escaped once before, and has just confessed to another homicide. Not to mention, his cellmate has been killed, and he is the primary suspect.”
“It’s not a point of view, and there is no evidence against Giacomo. He didn’t kill his cellmate.”
Albert took the opportunity to mount his attack.
“I find your confidence in his innocence to be unwarranted, if not downright dangerous. The investigation is ongoing.”
Teresa did not balk.
“Then we will see what the outcome is, though I am sure it will prove me right.”
