“Oh, that’s fantastic. Please send it to me, and let’s make sure we’ll get it in real time.”
“Sure, I’m doing it right away...”
“And one more thing,” Maurizio recalled she had something more to tell. “You were mentioning another bit of news, but then we completely forgot about it. What was it?”
“Yes,” she recalled. “It was about Igor Leonov, Ms. Fazekas’ ex-husband and Irina’s father. Together with the sheets I gave you today there’s his address, mobile phone and so on. I could find and gather all the data about him, together with the criminal records.” She took a pause to give Maurizio the time to digest the information she was giving. “It seems like he isn’t an angel, and during his youth, he’d been in jail for drug and weapons dealing. However, after he married Ms. Fazekas, he wasn’t charged nor suspected of any illegal activity. The only time police had been called to intervene was prior to their divorce. Ms. Fazekas accused him of repeated stalking, oppressive behavior, and psychological violence. Therefore, she asked for divorce and obtained a restraining order, after which things regained some sort of calm for a certain period. He never took any action besides calling her once or twice asking about him. Everything is filed in the papers I’ve printed for you.”
Open-mouthed, words failed him, except, “Do you realize we have just found a person who was close to the crime scene, had a good motive to kill Claudio Calvani, had the chance and connections to get the murder weapon?” Scratching his head, he stood from his chair and reached the table where the sheets of paper given by Senior officer Milani lay. “I will ask for an arrest warrant; this man is as guilty as sin.”
Without waiting for her to reply, he ended the conversation and gathered all the papers. Taking a fast look at them to understand what he had in his hands, he rushed to the chief commissioner’s office. At that moment, he’d felt so close to the solution of the case and the fact of bringing another criminal to justice, which in that particular situation would have opened a case with the Russian embassy too as Igor, had double citizenship.
Without hesitating for a moment, he arrived in front of the door of chief Commissioner Angelini. He gave it two hard knocks.
“Yeah!” He growled from the room.
“Sir, we need to ask for an arrest and search warrant. We might have found the person who has murdered Mr. Calvani!” Maurizio blurted, coming inside and closing the door behind him.
“Well, that’s good news, and may I also be informed about the identity of the man or woman we need to ask it for? I would also appreciate having a good idea about the grounds for such a request,” Angelini replied with a grin on his face, placing his hands on the desk, fingers entwined.
Shaking the sheets of papers mid-air, he placed them on the desk in front of the chief commissioner. “This man, Mr. Igor Leonov, Ms. Fazekas ex-husband,” Maurizio began to explain, taking a seat on the chair in front of the desk.
Crossing his legs, he continued, “As you can also read, Mr. Leonov arrived in Italy with his family as a teenager. He’d been quite restless since then, coming in and out of jail for small crimes, in the beginning, and onto drugs and weapons dealing after. The encounter with Ms. Fazekas, seemed to be the event that led him on the right path of honesty. Yet, his restless soul couldn’t be contained, and he’d been depicted as a possessive, oppressive husband that caused them to divorce after the birth of their daughter, Irina. That time Mr. Leonov was, once again brought to the attention of the police for stalking, which presented him with a restraining order. Because of Ms. Fazekas’ job as a stripper in a night club, they decided to send the daughter to live with her aunt back in Hungary.”
Maurizio stood from the chair and, as he generally would do, started to pace around the room. “We have a man whose jealousy could have led him to extreme acts of violence, who could have access to the murder weapon, and who was living in the same city as the victim. Do you need another reason for asking for a warrant, or do you consider yourself satisfied with these?”
Creasing his forehead, chief commissioner Angelini, lazily grabbed the sheets of paper in his hands, and started to read what Maurizio had just explained in words.
A few moments of silence lasted for almost an eternity, torturing Maurizio’s thoughts as if there was the chance that his superior would have found a detail to invalidate his reasoning.
Slowly placing the papers back on the table, Angelini looked to Maurizio. “Detective Scala, you’re making progress. I will provide you the warrants you’re asking, and in the meantime, I wish you will try and locate him. If there’s a telephone number, call it. Find where his family lives and his circle of friends. Try to search for something more about him from those people close to him. Also, the most dangerous terrorist has someone to love and friends who care. Find them and let them talk about him. By the time you’ve found the man, you will also have the warrants in your hands, not only to arrest him for interrogation as the main suspect in the murder of Mr. Calvani, but also the means to search his house.”
Like a stone falling from his heart, Maurizio felt intoxicated by his words, and didn’t have any other desire than to follow the orders and find that man as if that was the last thing he’d done in his life. “Will be done,
