A Cold Death

Rocco left the living room and went to look at the kitchen. Right at the threshold of the kitchen door was a shattered cell phone. He picked it up. The screen was chipped, the battery was missing, and who could even say where the SIM chip had wound up. Then he looked around the rest of the room. Italo was right. The place really was a mess. It looked like a herd of buffalo had trampled through. The ground was a crazy hodgepodge of boxes, tin cans, packages of pasta, silverware, and a bread knife. He placed the shattered cell phone on the marble countertop, next to a plastic scale.

He turned to look toward the room at the end of the hall: the den. And slowly, inexorably pulled toward it, as if by a magnet, he walked back to it. The woman still hung there. Rocco was tempted to lower her to the ground. To see her dangling there like a butchered animal was more than he could take. He bit his lip and stepped closer. The first thing that caught his eye was the swollen face. It was puffy, with a split lip from which the blood had flowed. One eye was open, staring; the other was shut and swollen to the size of a plum. The cable around her neck was a metal clothesline. The woman had run it over the hook that held up the ceiling lamp and then anchored it to the floor, tying it to the foot of an armoire. Like a ten-foot guywire, to make sure it would support the weight. Actually, though, it hadn’t—her weight had torn loose the electric wiring and caused a short circuit. There was a stool lying on the floor. A three-legged stool, like a piano stool. When it overturned, the cushion had torn loose. Maybe Esther kicked it in the last instant of her life, when she made up her mind that her time on this planet Earth had come to its logical conclusion. The skin on her neck was pale, but not around her throat. There a purple band ran, a little less than an inch across. Purple like the stain on the hardwood floor.

“It’s the third damned suicide this month,” said the medical examiner from behind him, snorting in annoyance. Rocco didn’t even bother turning around, and both men, faithful to the routine they’d developed over the months, exchanged no greeting.

“Who found her? You?”

Schiavone nodded. Alberto stepped closer and stood, surveying the body. They looked like a pair of tourists visiting MoMA, admiring an art installation.

“A woman, about thirty-five, probable cause of death strangulation,” said the doctor. Rocco nodded: “And they gave you a medical degree for that?”

“I’m just kidding.”

“How can you kid about this?”

“With the work I do, if you can’t kid around, you’re done for,” and Alberto tilted his head toward the corpse.

Rocco asked, “Are you going to take the corpse down?”

“I’d say so … I’ll wait for a couple of your people and then we’ll take her down.”

“Who was coming upstairs?”

“The young woman and a fat guy.”

Which meant Officer Deruta and Inspector Caterina Rispoli.

Rocco left the room and went to meet the two of them.

Deruta was already in the front hall, sweaty and panting. Caterina Rispoli, on the other hand, was still out on the landing. She was talking to Italo Pierron and twisting her police-issued gloves.

“Did you come up the stairs, Deruta?”

“No, I took the elevator.”

“Then why are you out of breath?”

Deruta ignored the question. “Dottore, I was just thinking—”

“And that right there is a wonderful piece of news, Deruta.”

“I was thinking … don’t you feel the sight of all this is a little too harsh?”

“For who?”

“For Inspector Rispoli?”

“The sight of what, Deruta? The sight of you at work?”

Deruta grimaced in annoyance. “Of course not! The sight of the dead body in there!”

Rocco looked at him. “Deruta, Inspector Rispoli is a police officer.”

“But Rispoli’s a woman!”

“Well, she can’t help that,” said the deputy police chief as he walked out onto the landing.

The minute he walked out the door, Caterina took a look at him. “Deputy Police Chief …”

“Go on in, Rispoli. Don’t leave me alone with Deruta; next thing you know, he’ll hang himself too.” Caterina smiled and walked into the apartment. “Ah, Dottore?”

“What is it, Rispoli?”

“I did come up with an idea for that gift.”

“Perfect. Let’s talk in ten minutes.” As Caterina disappeared into the living room, Rocco turned to look at Italo. “Let’s go get ourselves a cup of coffee.”

“If you don’t mind, Dottore,” said Italo, moving from a first-name basis to a more official term of respect, “I’d just as soon stay right here. My stomach’s kind of doing belly flops.”

Shaking his head, Rocco Schiavone went down the stairs.

Via Brocherel was crowded with people. People looking out their windows, people rubbernecking outside the front door. There was a muttering of conversation that sounded like a kettle on the boil. “A corpse? … There weren’t any burglars? Who is it? The Baudos …”

There was a brief moment of silence when the front door swung open and Rocco Schiavone, wrapped in his green overcoat, emerged. Officer Casella alone was keeping the rubberneckers at bay. “Commissario,” he said, saluting.

“It’s deputy police chief, Casella, deputy police chief, Jesus fucking Christ! You at least, seeing that you’re on the police force, ought to try to remember these things, no?”

He looked around but there was no sign of a café or a shop anywhere in sight. He went over to the retired warrant officer. “Excuse me! Could you tell me if there’s a café anywhere around here?”

“Say what?” asked the old man, adjusting his hearing aid.

“Café. Near here. Where.”

“Around the corner. Take Via Monte Emilus and go about a hundred yards, and you’ll see the Bar Alpi. Do you have any news, Dottore? Is it true that they found the lady hanging by a rope?”

Irina too stood gazing at him apprehensively.

“Can you keep a secret?” Rocco asked in an undertone.

“Certainly!” Paolo Rastelli replied, puffing his chest out proudly.

“I can too!” Irina chimed in.

“So what do you think, I can’t?” Rocco retorted and walked away, leaving them both openmouthed.

As was to be expected, the retired warrant officer’s dog, Flipper, promptly began barking again, this time at the NO PARKING sign. The former noncommissioned officer glared down at the yappy little mutt and brusquely switched off his hearing aid. At last, the world turned silent, muffled and cottony once again. A giant aquarium he could gaze at with detachment. With a smile and a slight forward tilt of the head, he bade farewell to Irina and resumed his daily stroll, heading for home and the crossword puzzle.

As the wind blew, pushing chilly gusts of air under his loden overcoat, Rocco decided that all things considered, it could have gone worse. A suicide just meant a series of bureaucratic procedures to get out of the way, the kind of thing you could take care of in an afternoon’s work. His plan was simple: leave the bureaucratic details to Casella, talk to Rispoli and find out what idea she’d come up with for Nora’s present, go home, get a half-hour nap, take a shower, go back out and buy the present, go out to dinner with Nora at eight, after an hour and a half pretend he had a crushing migraine, take Nora home, and then hurry back to his place to watch the second half of the Roma-Inter game. Acceptable.

Just as the wind died down and a fine chilly drizzle began to pepper the asphalt, cold as the fingers of a dead man’s hand, Rocco stepped into the Bar Alpi. A strong smell of alcohol and confectioner’s sugar washed over him, like a warm, welcome hug from a friend.

“Buongiorno.”

The man behind the counter gave him a smile. “Hello. What’ll it be?”

“A nice hot espresso with a foamy cloud of milk … and I’d like a pastry. Do you have any left?”

“Sure … go ahead and take what you like, right there …” He pointed to a Plexiglas case with an electric heater where breakfast pastries were on display. Rocco grabbed a strudel while the barista ratcheted the porta-filter into place and punched the button that applied pressure to the boiling water. He heard the clack of billiard balls from the other room in the bar. Only now did he notice that the walls were covered with pictures of Juventus players and black-and-white team scarves. Rocco went over to the counter and poured half a pack of sugar into his coffee. It took awhile for the sugar to sink into the hot dense liquid. A clear sign that this was a good espresso. He took a sip. It really was good. “You make a first-rate espresso,” he told the barman, who was busy drying glasses.

“My wife taught me how.”

“Neapolitan?”

“No. Milanese. I’m the Neapolitan in the family.”

“So, you’re saying that you’re a Neapolitan who roots for Juventus and that a woman from Milan taught you how to make espresso?”

“Plus I’m tone deaf,” the man added. They both laughed.

Another sharp clack from the next room. Rocco turned around.

“You want to play some pool?”

“Why not?”

“Look out, those two are a pair of professional sharks.”

Rocco slurped down the last of his espresso and strode into the next room, finishing off his strudel in a shower of crumbs down the front of his overcoat.

There were two men. One wore the jumpsuit of a manual laborer, the other a suit and tie. They’d just set the cue ball down on the table and were about to begin a game of straight pool. When they saw Rocco they both smiled. “Care to play?” asked the man in the jumpsuit.

“No, you guys go ahead. Mind if I watch?”

“Not at all,” said the one who looked every bit the estate agent. “Just watch me dismantle Nino, here. Nino, today I’m not taking prisoners!”

“Ten euros on the best out of three games?” asked the manual laborer.

“No, ten euros a game!”

Nino smiled. “Then I’ve already made my end-of-year bonus,” he said, and shot the deputy police chief a wink.

The estate agent took off his jacket while the laborer chalked his pool stick with a vicious grin.

Clack! And the three ceiling lamps that illuminated the green felt of the billiards table went dark simultaneously.

“Well of all the damned … Gennaro!” shouted the estate agent. From the bar the proprietor called back: “The power always goes out when it’s windy like this!”

“Try paying your electric bill, and maybe that’ll stop it from happening!” called the man in the jumpsuit, and he and his friend shared a hearty laugh.

But Rocco remained straight-faced, leaning against the wall, lost in thought. “Holy shit!” he said, between clenched teeth. “I’m an idiot! Why didn’t I think of it? What a shitty profession this is!” Cursing, he left the game room before the astonished eyes of the two pool players.

“Albe’, tell me that what I’m thinking doesn’t hold up!”

“Run it by me again, Rocco,” said the medical examiner, as he leaned over Signora Baudo’s corpse.

“When I walked in, I switched on the light. And it short-circuited. So that means it was turned off before, right?”

“Okay, Rocco, I’m with you.”

“Obviously, when she fell the poor woman yanked loose a couple of wires. When I flipped the switch I caused a short circuit. What does that mean? That she hanged herself in the dark. How did she do it? She lowered the blinds, fastened the noose, and let herself drop?”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Fumagalli, “and so?”

“So it must mean there was someone there with her. Whoever it was must have lowered the blinds after she hanged herself. Jesus fucking Christ!” Rocco cursed through clenched teeth.

“And listen,” Fumagalli said, “as long as you’re here, I have something else to point out. Look at this.” He pointed to the victim’s fair skin.

They walked over to the corpse, which Deruta and Rispoli had lowered to the parquet floor. “The cable is too thin to leave a bruise like that. You see it?” Alberto Fumagalli pointed to the purple stripe on Esther’s neck. It was a couple of finger widths wide. “When the cable dug into the flesh, it just left a narrow stripe; you see it? In other words, it wasn’t this cable that strangled her. That much is clear. And did you get a good look at her face?”

Rocco sank into the leather armchair in the den. “Of course. She was beaten up. Do you know what that means?”

Fumagalli said nothing.

The deputy police chief continued with a low rattle, from the chest, a distant sinister gurgle like a rumble of thunder, warning of an oncoming storm. “That means this isn’t a suicide. It means I’m going to have to deal with this thing, and it also means a series of pains in the ass unlike anything you can even imagine!”

Fumagalli nodded. “So now I’m going to take this poor creature to my autopsy room. And you’d probably better call the judge and the forensic squad.”

Rocco suddenly jumped out of his chair. His mood had shifted as quickly as a wind at high elevation suddenly bringing black rain-heavy storm clouds where minutes before the sun had been shining.

As he left the room Rocco glanced at Deruta and Caterina. “Rispoli, call the forensic squad in Turin. Deruta, go do what I told you and D’Intino to do this morning.”

“But we’re supposed to do the stakeouts at night,” the cop shot back.

“Then go get some rest, go make bread with your wife, just get the hell out of my hair!”

Like a kicked dog, Deruta shot out of the apartment. Caterina asked no questions. Unlike Officer Deruta, she had learned that when the deputy police chief’s mood turned sharply black, the best thing was to shut up and obey.

“Pierron!” Rocco shouted, and Italo’s face appeared immediately at the door to the living room.

“Yes, Dottore.”

“Scatter the people who are rubbernecking out in the street. I want the names of the Russian woman who was the first to enter the apartment and that half-dead warrant officer. Tell Casella to get busy and make sure nothing comes out in the newspapers. Question all the neighbors, and have someone call the district attorney’s office. This is another pain in the ass of the tenth degree, Rispoli, you understand?” And though he had used her name, he was no longer speaking to the unfortunate inspector who was busy talking on the phone to someone in Turin. Right now Rocco was talking to everyone and to no one, waving his hands as if he were perched on the edge of a cliff and trying desperately to regain his balance. “This is definitely a pain in the ass of the tenth degree, no doubt about it!”

Italo nodded, sharing his boss’s opinion wholeheartedly. In fact, he knew that the deputy police chief had cataloged the sources of annoyance or pains in the ass in life by degrees, or levels. From level six on up.

In Rocco’s own personal hierarchy of values, the sixth level of pains in the ass included children yelling in restaurants, children yelling at swimming pools, children yelling in stores, and just in general, children yelling. Then there were salespeople calling with special offers of convenient bundled contracts for water, gas, and cell phone, blankets that come untucked from under the mattress leaving your feet to freeze on winter nights, and the apericena—Italy’s latest trend in dining, a blend of aperitif and dinner. The seventh level of pain in the ass included restaurants with slow service, wine connoisseurs, and colleagues at the office with garlic on their breath from dinner the night before. The eighth level included shows that went longer than an hour and fifteen minutes, giving or receiving gifts, video poker machines, and the Roman Catholic radio station, Radio Maria. At the ninth level were wedding invitations, baptism invitations, First Communion invitations, or even just party invitations. Husbands complaining about wives, wives complaining about husbands. But the tenth level, the highest ranking of all possible pains in the ass, the very maximum degree of annoyance that life—that old bastard—could possibly stick him with to ruin his day and his week, towered high above the rest, unequaled: an unsolved case of murder. And Esther Baudo’s death had just turned into one, right before his eyes. Hence the sudden mood shift. For anyone who knew him, this was a mood swing to be expected; for anyone who didn’t, it was an overblown reaction. It was a case of homicide, and it sat there, useless and relentless, wordlessly demanding a solution that only he could provide, asking a mute question that he and no one else would have to answer. To get that answer he’d have to delve into a filthy well of horrors, plunge down into the abyss of human idiocy, scrabble around in the squalor of some diseased mind. At times like this, when a case had just blossomed like a flower of sickness among the underbrush of his life, in those very first few minutes, if Rocco had chanced to lay hands on the guilty party, he would have gladly and ruthlessly wiped him from the face of the earth.

He found himself sitting at the center of the living room. In the adjoining room, Alberto Fumagalli was working silently on the victim. The other officers had melted away like snow under bright sunlight, each to carry out specific instructions. He rubbed his face and got to his feet.

“All right, Rocco,” he said in an undertone, “let’s see what we have here.”

He pulled on the leather gloves he had in his pocket and ran his eye around the apartment. A chilly, impersonal eye.

The mess in the living room was, all things considered, the ordinary mess of everyday life. Magazines lay scattered, sofa cushions shoved aside, a low table across from the television set covered with clutter of all sorts—cigarette lighters, bills to pay, even two African carved wooden giraffes. What didn’t add up, on the other hand, was the unholy disarray in the kitchen. If there actually had been burglars in the apartment, what would they have been looking for in the kitchen? What valuables do people keep in the kitchen? The cabinet doors had all been thrown open. All except the doors under the sink. The deputy police chief pulled those doors open. There were three receptacles for sorted waste: garbage, metal, and paper. He peeked inside. The garbage was full; so was the bin for metal cans. But the container for paper and cardboard was almost empty. There was only an empty egg carton, a flyer for a trip to Medjugorje with a special offer on pots and pans, and a fancy black shopping bag with rope handles. At the center of the bag was a sort of heraldic crest. Laurel leaves surrounding a surname, “Tomei.” Rocco thought he remembered a shop by that name in the center of town. Inside the bag was a gift card. “Best wishes, Esther.”

On the well next to the fridge was a flyer from the city government. It was a map listing trash days. Rocco took a look at it. They picked up paper recycling on that street on Thursdays. The day before. That’s why the bin was half-empty.

The deputy police chief shifted his attention to the cell phone that he himself had placed on the marble countertop. That was another question mark. Who did it belong to? Was it the victim’s? And why had it been shattered? Where was the SIM card?

The bedroom looked like it had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. The burglars had concentrated here, working carefully. While the kitchen looked like the aftermath of an earthquake, in the bedroom you could see the careful hand of someone conducting a surgical investigation. Only the sheets had been tossed roughly aside and, to the attentive eye, it was clear that the mattress had been shoved a couple of inches over from the box spring beneath. The front doors of the armoire swung open, but the dresser and side tables were undisturbed. Under the window, half-hidden behind the floor-length curtains, was a dark blue velvet box. Rocco picked it up. It was empty. He left it on the dresser, next to another framed photograph of the couple. In this one, they were sitting at a table and embracing. Rocco stared at the woman’s face. And he silently promised her that he’d catch the son of a bitch. She thanked him, responding with a halfhearted smile.

The deputy police chief had decided to head home on foot, in defiance of the wind that had started to buffet the powdery snow off the roofs and tree branches, kicking it up in small whirlwinds off the blacktop of the streets. He strode briskly, his hands buried in the pockets of his light overcoat, which did little to keep him warm in that chilly weather. He looked up, but heavy dark clouds had covered both mountains and sky. Looking past the apartment buildings, all he could see were fields covered with snow or dark with mud. The last thing he wanted was to head straight back to police headquarters: he didn’t want to talk to the chief of police, much less explain to the judge exactly what they’d found, partly because he didn’t actually know. People on the sidewalk went past him without a glance, absorbed in their own affairs. He was the only one out without a hat. The wind’s icy fingers massaged his scalp. He was bound to pay for this walk with a sinus infection and a backache. The air was a blend of wood smoke from the chimneys and carbon monoxide from the tailpipes. He walked briskly into the street at crosswalks, defying death. In Rome, someone would have certainly run him over, crushing him to jelly on the asphalt. But this was Aosta, and the cars screeched to an unprotesting halt. He thought about what awaited him, what lay ahead of him. Aside from the Fiat 500 that stood patiently waiting for him to cross, nothing but work. And life in a city that was alien and distant. There was nothing here for him, and there never would be, even if he stayed for the next ten years. He’d never be able to bring himself to chat with old men in the bars about the high points of the local wines or the upcoming football transfers. And for that matter his hesitant, wavering efforts to construct an affair with Nora looked thinner than a piece of onionskin typing paper. He missed his friends. He knew that at a time like this they’d rally to his support, and help him get over that intolerable pain in the ass. He thought of Seba, who had at least come up to see him. Furio, Brizio. Where were they now? Were they still out on the street, or had his colleagues in the Rome police sent them for an extended stay at the Hotel Roma, as the Regina Coeli prison was called? He’d have given a frostbitten finger of his hand for an ordinary Trastevere pizza, a good old cigarette at night, high atop the Janiculum Hill, or a game of poker at Stampella. Suddenly he found himself at the Porta Pretoria. At least the wind couldn’t gust so freely through those ancient Roman gates. How had he wound up there? It was on the far side of town from police headquarters. Now he’d have to retrace his steps to Piazza Chanoux and continue straight from there. He decided that he’d stop in the bar on the piazza. He slowed his pace, now that he had a destination. Then he heard Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” issuing from his overcoat pocket. It was the ringtone he’d put on his cell phone for personal calls.

“Who is it?”

“Darling, it’s me, Nora. Bad time?”

“Yes.”

“So am I bothering you?”

“Why do you insist on asking questions that practically demand a rude answer?” he asked.

“What’s going on? Something wrong?”

“You want to know? Then I’ll tell you. I’ve got a murder on my fucking hands. Satisfied?”

Nora paused for a moment. “Why on earth would you take it out on me?”

“I take it out on everyone. First and foremost myself. I’m heading back to the office. Hold on half an hour, and I’ll call you back from there.”

“No, you’ll forget to call anyway. Listen, I just want to tell you that I’ve arranged a party at my place. A few friends are coming over.”

“Why?” Rocco asked. The recent events in Via Brocherel had run over the blackboard of his memory like an eraser.

“What do you mean, why?” asked Nora, her voice getting louder.

The deputy police chief simply couldn’t remember.

“It’s my birthday today, Rocco!”

Oh, shit, the gift, was the thought that flashed through his brain. “What time?” he asked.