Poisonville (18 page)

Once again, I found myself sitting in front of my computer, analyzing every detail of the video. It had become an obsession. I couldn’t keep myself from going back to stare at Giovanna. I was behaving irrationally, and I was masking it behind the need to gather all potential evidence that could help me identify where the video had been shot. I found myself staring into Giovanna’s eyes. And she wasn’t looking at me. That woman was supposed to be mine, all mine, but instead I was forced to share her with another man. In the end, those were the thoughts crowding into my mind. That night I was stuck on her negligée. I had blown up the hem until it was just a shapeless blob. Then someone rang my doorbell. It was a little past two in the morning. I remembered that I had heard the church bell strike two just ten minutes before. I wondered if it was Mele. Maybe Lucio Zuglio had confessed or had died. Instead, I opened the door to Alvise.

“I have to talk to you,” he announced in a brusque tone of voice.

He had wine on his breath, but he wasn’t drunk. He must have gulped down a glass before leaving Carla’s apartment and stepping out in the chilly night air. I ushered him into the living room.

“I’m worried about Lucio,” he said. “I have a hunch that they’re trying to frame him, just like they framed me.”

“Why are you so concerned about what happens to that young man?”

“Because he’s my son.”

“His mother, Paola, was my secretary. And my lover. The night the factory burned down I was with her,” Alvise explained to me, once I had recovered from my astonishment.

“Why didn’t you say that when they arrested you?” I asked in genuine surprise.

He smiled at me bitterly. “To keep her from looking like a slut to the whole town, I provided a false alibi. When they uncovered it, it was too late to retract. They would never have believed me.”

“Did she already know she was pregnant?”

“No. She found out later. Don Piero brought me the news. He also told me that Giacomo Zuglio was willing to marry her immediately if I promised to keep matters secret.”

“Did they know each other?”

“Paola had to go to the bank frequently for business, and he was courting her. She had always turned him down, but in the end Zuglio got what he wanted anyway.”

I thought back to the photograph of Giovanna and Lucio in the restaurant.

“How did Giovanna find out that she had a brother?”

“I don’t know that. She only told me that she’d found out and that she’d told Lucio about it, too.”

“So they couldn’t have been lovers,” I thought aloud.

“And Lucio is innocent. What can we do to help him?” he said.

“Tell them everything. Are you willing?”

The next day, even though it was a Sunday, I went to talk with Mele. The officer on duty told me he was off duty, and I had to insist repeatedly before he would call him. He came down a few minutes later. Like the other non-commissioned officers he lived in an apartment building constructed twenty years earlier inside the perimeter of the barracks compound. He was in civilian clothing and his hands were covered with flour.

“I was making pasta dough,” he explained.

“I have a witness who can clear Lucio Zuglio as a suspect in Giovanna’s murder.”

“Tell him to come to the office tomorrow morning.”

“I would prefer to organize a meeting with Zan, the defense lawyer, and the civil plaintiff.”

“A slight deviation from protocol” he commented sarcastically. “And your father is in agreement?”

“I haven’t told him yet.”

He gave me a questioning look. “He represents the civil plaintiff,” he reminded me.

“Oh, I’m well aware of that. This is a delicate matter, I’d like to take care of it quickly and quietly.”

“And who is this witness?” he asked acidly. “One of the usual bigwigs that have to be treated with kid gloves, otherwise they might get their feelings hurt?”

“No. He’s nobody, just a loser.”

He reached out for the telephone. “Let’s see what Zan has to say.” The conversation lasted a couple of minutes. “This evening, at seven,” he said. With a smile, he added, “You ruined the prosecutor’s Sunday.”

I returned home and reported the latest developments to Alvise, who had just stepped out of the shower wrapped in my bathrobe. It had been a gift from Giovanna. I was certainly not going to bother washing it after he left. It would go straight into the garbage. Barovier had slept in the guest bedroom. I insisted that he stay at my house; if he went back to Carla’s, it would only deepen her involvement in this mess. I watched him as he read the paper. He wore a pair of unfashionable old eyeglasses. I wasn’t sure that he was fully aware of what awaited him. And as I later had occasion to learn, neither was I. A law degree and a few small cases aren’t enough to make someone a good lawyer. It takes experience.

We arrived at the barracks a few minutes after the time appointed by Zan. The others were already there, sitting in the inspector’s office. When Alvise entered the room, my father was the only one who recognized him.

“Alvise,” he exclaimed in surprise.

Alvise wouldn’t deign to look at him, and sat down across from the prosecutor. My father gave me a stern glance of reproof. He must have been furious that he hadn’t been told the identity of the witness. After the initial formalities had been gotten out of the way, Barovier told his version of Lucio’s story. I had advised him to leave out all the other issues. Especially not to say anything about Giovanna’s campaign to clear his name. It was still too early.

Then it was my turn to wrap up. “Of course, Signore Barovier is ready and willing to have a DNA test to prove his paternity.”

Zan reacted in an agitated manner. His prosecution theory had crumbled before his eyes. The investigation into the murder of Giovanna Barovier was by no means over. “This means nothing,” he blurted out in a hysterical voice. “There’s no evidence that Giovanna Barovier actually told Zuglio that they were close relatives. Moreover, you are an ex-convict . . .”

“Let it go, Zan,” my father interrupted him. “The theory you’re setting forth wouldn’t convince a grand jury, much less a criminal court.”

“I request that my client be released and the case against him dropped,” the court-appointed defense counsel timidly ventured in a timid voice.

“Present an official request,” snarled the prosecutor. “And I won’t even give it my consideration until we receive the test results.”

My father cleared his throat to attract attention. “Zan, I’d like you to ask the witness about his movements the night of the murder.”

“Do you think I killed her?” Alvise demanded furiously.

“I don’t think anything,” my father replied with chilly formality. “All I know is that you came back to town after fifteen years, at the very moment when your daughter was being murdered. It strikes me that the circumstance deserves some exploration.”

“Well?” the prosecutor prompted Alvise.

Barovier gave me a worried look. He had had some ugly experiences that had begun in a similar setting, and he was afraid of saying the wrong thing.

I decided to intervene. “I would like to point out, and I shouldn’t have to remind those present, that Giovanna had sexual intercourse before being murdered . . .”

“Before,” Zan pointed out. “He could certainly have arrived at his daughter’s house after her lover left.”

“And do we think Giovanna would welcome the father she hadn’t seen in fifteen years, nude, in a bathtub?”

The prosecutor didn’t know how to respond to that point. He looked at my father, in hope of a suggestion.

“I wonder if you could ask the witness where and why he remained hidden until this evening,” said Papa. “I don’t remember seeing him anywhere around his daughter’s coffin during the funeral, nor as far as I am aware did he make himself available to the investigating authorities.”

“Why and where are my own business,” Alvise replied with exasperation. “If you want to accuse me of a crime, be my guests. Otherwise, I’ve said what I have to say, and you’ve taken careful note.”

“You are a witness,” Zan shot back. “You are required to answer.”

Barovier shook his head and lapsed into an obstinate silence.

I was obliged to intervene to help him out. “Signore Barovier came back to Italy to attend his daughter Giovanna’s wedding, and she was planning to offer him a place to stay,” I lied confidently. “The news of the murder threw him into a serious fit of depression, and he took shelter in a ruined country house near town. Then he turned to me, as Giovanna’s former fiancé, and I immediately contacted Inspector Mele.”

My father rose to his feet. “The civil plaintiff acknowledges the witness’s testimony.”

Zan did the same. Alvise signed his statement and left the room without another word. Lucio was now in no danger of being tried for Giovanna’s murder, but Alvise had been subjected to a humiliating interrogation.

“Bastards,” he hissed once we were back in the car. “And your father is the worst of the lot. He had the gall to accuse me of killing Giovanna.”

“He was pretty tough, but the lawyer for the civil plaintiff has no alternative. I’m the one who owes you an apology. I should have known that the questioning would be ugly. I could have spared you that hail of questions.”

A bitter smile creased his face like a wound. “You’re a rank beginner,” he declared. But he added immediately: “Still, I’d choose you as a defense lawyer over your father.”

I drove him to a motel out on the provincial highway. “I can’t afford it,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve already talked to the proprietor. Tomorrow I’ll go pick up your belongings from Carla’s apartment.”

Alvise stepped out of the car and started walking toward the reception desk. He was staggering like a punchdrunk boxer who’s just lost yet another match.

I wanted to go back home, turn on the computer, and watch that video over and over again. I hadn’t shot up my daily dose of that beautiful woman in a negligée saying, “Come on, cut it out.” Instead, I had to face my father. Giovanna would have to wait for me a little longer.

He was wearing an English-style dressing gown and he had a scarf wrapped around his neck. The scarf matched his slippers. He didn’t say a word to me when I walked into the living room. He had a book in his hands, but I felt certain that he hadn’t been able to read a single line while he was waiting for me to arrive.

He rose from the armchair and pointed his index finger at me. “You made me look like a fool. You should have told me it was Alvise.”

“Is that why you savaged him the way you did?”

“He was capable of burning a whole family in their sleep to cash in on an insurance policy. Forgive me if I have a few suspicions about him.”

“Well, now everything’s all cleared up.”

“You can’t think that I believed his fairytale about being invited to the wedding. Prunella would never have allowed that to happen, as she just confirmed over the phone.”

“Get over it. There’s nothing more to it.”

“No. There’s still one thing: I want to know why he came back.”

“Then why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Whose side are
you
on, Papa?! If it’s true that the night the furniture factory burned down Alvise was with Paola, then it means he’s innocent. That possibility doesn’t seem to bother you in the slightest.”

“He’s guilty as sin. And Paola is a hopeless alcoholic. For a drop of whiskey, she’d say anything you tell her to say.”

“How do you know that? Do you know the Zuglio family?”

“I gathered a little information about them in connection with that matter of the toxic waste dump. By the way, have you spoken with Carla Pisani?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?” he insisted.

“I haven’t come up with a convincing lie to palm off on her yet,” I answered with exasperation.

As I was leaving, I ran into the cook. She was waiting for me at the door, and she handed me a tray covered with a napkin. “A little something for your sweet tooth,” she whispered in an affectionate tone. I muttered a hasty thank-you and left the house.

In the car, I unwrapped the napkin and discovered that it was a tray of fried cream squares. A true delicacy of Venetian cuisine. My mother had taught her how to make them. I popped a section into my mouth and put the car in gear. I ate the rest in front of the computer. Giovanna wasn’t crazy about sweets, as I reminded her image under my breath, as I painstakingly enlarged a mirror. In that mirror it was just possible to glimpse a blurry shadow. That was him. Her lover. Her murderer.

For Beggiolin, losing Lucio as Giovanna’s murderer wasn’t a serious setback. On the contrary. The news of Alvise Barovier’s mysterious arrival in town and the unexpected revelation that he was the boy’s real father only opened the door to a series of gripping reports. He managed to find Alvise’s motel and got an interview with him. The rapid-fire succession of innuendo-laden questions tripped Alvise up repeatedly. And the crowning blow was a piece on the old episode of arson. Man-in-the-street interviews done around town presented a harsh view of Barovier. The relatives of the victims of the fire suggested he ought to go back to Argentina. But Beggiolin’s real victim was Paola. Giacomo Zuglio, once the story became public knowledge, stayed out of sight, even though Beggiolin had portrayed him as a man who had been capable of a gesture of great humanity and generosity, by marrying a woman who was about to bear the child of a convicted felon. The television reporter managed to get inside her house and pepper the poor alcoholic woman with questions. She managed to stammer out insults against her husband, Giacomo, who spent his time flirting and sleeping with those wild women. Then she begged for lenient treatment for Lucio. It broke my heart. Astrid, the town fortuneteller, also made her appearance in the report. Beggiolin hadn’t even had to walk across the street to interview her: she did her broadcast from the same building. Of course, Astrid claimed to have foreseen everything that happened, and even managed to find recordings of a few of Paola’s calls to her show. No one showed the slightest pity for the poor woman. No one in town, certainly, where nobody talked about anything else, and where every television set was tuned to Antenna N/E. Giovanna’s murder had become the setting for a story abounding in savory plot twists, turns, and surprises. There was a steadily diminishing interest in the effort to identify the guilty party.