Manuela did not seem to have heard him. “I remember how my father stood in the frame of the doorway, looking down the corridor at me, his eyes full of pity. I ran to him and he took me in his arms. I remember he was so tender. Then you know what he did?”
“What?”
“He lifted my face gently away from him, and pushed my hair away from my forehead.” Manuela imitated the gesture now, as she gazed across the narrow space at Blume. “He looked me in the eye, and he said to me, ‘Poor Eleonora.’ ”
“Ah, so he found out about you using the name.”
“He always finds out, always knows. You should remember that, if ever you meet him.”
Manuela clasped her knees and closed her eyes. “I felt close to him then, and I’ve felt close to him like that on other occasions.”
“I can see why you feel that way. Sounds like he is a good father,” said Blume.
He didn’t mean what he said. Roman criminals had too many hang-ups about the sanctity of their own families. It was one of their weaknesses. In Naples, they were less deluded.
Manuela opened her pale blue eyes. She pointed the square white edge of a manicured fingernail at him, and said, “No, Commissioner, you’re missing the point again. You asked me if I was my father’s daughter. The answer is yes. After he had comforted me, I gave him the car’s registration number. It took four hours to hunt down that bastard who killed my dog.”
11
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 2:40 P.M.
On reaching the Collegio Romano station, Blume transferred the hair he had taken from Manuela’s house to a small paper sachet, labeled it with his name, number, date, place, and time of retrieval, and left it to be delivered to the labs on Via Tuscolana. Without witnesses, Manuela had been happy to tell him she had been with Clemente, but she might change her mind about it later.
On his way up to his office he ran into Paoloni in the corridor.
“What was said at the meeting?” asked Blume.
“You mean besides the Holy Ghost lamenting your irresponsible absence? Not much. Zambotto, me, Ferrucci, that’s about it for the real people. Gallone’s directing the doorstepping, for which we have fourteen uniforms for three days. He’s deputized Micheli and Labroca to deal with the crime lab report and autopsy. He’s handling media relations himself. D’Amico looking over our shoulder on behalf of the Ministry. That’s about it. Gallone is keen for us to look into Alleva, and you seem to have a lead with Manuela Innocenzi.”
“I don’t think it’ll go anywhere,” said Blume. “Neither do you. If Innocenzi was involved, you’d have picked up at least a vibe on the street, wouldn’t you?”
“Definitely. Same thing for Alleva,” said Paoloni. “It doesn’t feel right. I’d have heard something. I know who Alleva is. He’s got a good thing going.”
“Gambling, numbers that sort of thing?” asked Blume.
Paoloni gave him a look. “If he tried he’d have two bullets rattling in his skull in a matter of hours. That’s a monopolized area.”
Blume held up his hands. “OK, I was just thinking aloud. Alleva organizes dog fights, but doesn’t run a book. Where’s the money in that?”
“So maybe he’s allowed to run a small book, but he would never be the enforcer. He’s tolerated. He’s a niche player, providing services that the bosses can’t be bothered with or haven’t thought of doing themselves. He has just one heavy, guy called Massoni. They’ve been working together for years. Massoni does all the PR.”
“PR?”
“Yeah all the intimidation and stuff, plays the bouncer, opens doors, makes Alleva look important. But that’s it. I don’t think the mammasantis-sima Innocenzi allows Alleva or any other freelancers to have more than one monkey.”
“Alleva operates in Innocenzi’s territory?”
“Alleva usually stages his dog fights in the Pontina zone, Selcetta, Trigoria, Ponte Galleria, that sort of place. So yeah, he operates well within their territory.”
“What’s this Massoni like?”
“Standard-issue thug. Big. Spends a lot of time with his arms crossed, feet apart. Crew cut, tattoos. Alleva’s the one our Carabinieri cousins raided, the one RAI made that documentary about. Alleva’s small-time, but he’d have no problem dealing with a tree-hugger like Clemente.”
Blume said, “You have to admit, he looks like a good suspect.”
“Sure he does. Also, Clemente was really breaking Alleva’s balls over the dog thing,” said Paoloni. “You could almost sympathize with Alleva taking him out like that. But not a whisper on the street about Alleva making a move… Here comes my pre deces sor.”
Blume turned around to see D’Amico walking down the corridor toward them.
“Catch you later,” said Paoloni.
“Sure.”
“Hey, Alec. The vicequestore wants a word with us. He’s in his office.”
Blume followed D’Amico down to the far end of the corridor where Gallone had an office that overlooked the piazza below.
“Where were you this morning, Commissioner?” demanded Gallone.
Blume sat down without answering. D’Amico sat down slightly closer to Gallone’s desk, extended a white cuff from his gray jacket, and adjusted a titanium cufflink, then leaned over and tapped Blume on the knee. “What point have you reached in your investigations, Alec?”
It wasn’t that Gallone wanted to speak to the two of them. It was D’Amico and Gallone both wanting to speak to him, doing a poor imitation of the good cop-bad cop routine.
Blume went over all the actions taken the night before up to where he had visited Clemente’s office and found some papers with Alleva’s name all over them. He stopped and looked at D’Amico’s perfectly shaved cheek to see if there were any signs of blushing. Nothing.
“As you both know,” said Gallone, “the person found murdered in his home yesterday was a certain Arturo Clemente. He is, or was, a new member of the Green Party, and had just been chosen as a candidate for the Lazio regional elections next year. This is already enough to make it a media event. But we could at least have hoped that the murder of a minor Green Party hopeful would not cause an enormous uproar.”
Gallone played back his last sentence in his own head, and decided it needed a politic amendment.
“I deplore the murder regardless. But, and here’s the thing, his wife is… Sveva Romagnolo, an elected member of the Senate of the Republic. It was she who discovered the body of her husband.”
“I thought the child did,” said Blume. “Isn’t that what you told me, Nando?” he said looking over to D’Amico. “The child found the body?”
D’Amico nodded. “That’s right. It was the child.”
“An underage person does not count,” said Gallone. “It was hardly the child that made the call. It is tiresome for me to have to go through all this again. If you had attended this morning’s meeting, you would know all this. I hope your so-called confidential infor mant provided some useful information.”
“None at all,” said Blume. “But I meant to ask, and sorry if this has all been made perfectly clear in my absence, who did Romagnolo call first?”
Gallone retreated behind his desk and leaned on the back of his chair.
“Who did she call first?” Blume repeated. “Us, the Carabinieri, her mother, the ambulance, someone else?”
“It so happens, I was among the first people to speak to Sveva Romagnolo,” said Gallone. “Or perhaps I was the second person. Understandably, she phoned a top-ranking official in the Ministry who is also her friend. The important thing is she informed the authorities immediately.
