Poisonville (7 page)

“I don’t understand.”

“That idiot Filippo has gulped down three Negronis in a row and now he’s making a speech. He says that you killed Giovanna and he’s going to make you pay for it.”

“I’ll be right there,” I snarled, and snapped the phone shut.

What I should have done was call my father and Inspector Mele. They would have made sure that Filippo shut up and stayed out of sight. But I couldn’t take it anymore, and I wanted to pick a fight with someone, anyone. And that psychotic was perfect for it.

I was at the café in three minutes flat. When I walked in the door everyone turned to stare. Half the town was there enjoying the show. Filippo was the only one who failed to notice my presence. He had his back to me. He was arguing with Bepi, the bartender, who was refusing to serve him a fourth Negroni and urging him to go home.

Filippo lost control. “This is a public place of refreshment, and you have a legal obligation to serve me, do you understand?”

“You’re drunk, get the hell out of my bar,” the barman shot back, shooting a worried glance in my direction.

Filippo pulled a handful of banknotes out of the pocket of his heavy jacket and threw them in Bepi’s direction. “I’ll buy this stinking bar from you. How much do you want?”

“Bepi’s right, you need to go home,” I said loudly.

Filippo whipped around and gave me a vicious smile. “Have you come to enjoy your last wine spritzer before going to prison?”

It took three, maybe four steps to cross the bar. I was close enough that if I had reached out my hand, I could have touched him. And that was what I was tempted to do. “Shut your mouth,” I ordered him.

Speaking to the other customers, he pointed at me. “He killed Giovanna because she had decided to come back to me.”

“Giovanna felt nothing but pity for you. Look at yourself, can’t you see what a sad mess you’ve become?”

Filippo emitted a bloodcurdling scream. It issued from his throat as if I had run him through, and he lunged at me. It was what I wanted, and I was ready for him. I hit him with a left to the jaw and then with a right to the belly. Filippo took the punches better than I expected and hit me in the forehead with an empty glass.

The fight came to a quick end. Strong arms pulled the two of us apart. I couldn’t break free, and I quickly found myself outside the café.

“Calm down,” said Davide Trevisan as he handed me a handkerchief. The base of the glass had cut my forehead. “I have to say, you’re a real half-ass,” he mocked me good-naturedly. “You can’t even beat up a cripple.”

“Fuck you, Davide.”

“Come on, you don’t need to take it out on me.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing. This is a bad time for you,” he said, then he lowered his voice. “And anyway, even if it was you, you’re still a friend to me.”

I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What are you saying?”

“You can count on me. When they questioned me, I said nothing about the slut who was rubbing your crotch. You know, it takes practically nothing for those guys to get the wrong idea.”

I was speechless. I turned and left. Davide was a small-town bar animal. Nothing but dirty jokes and filthy gossip. Now I knew what they thought about me. I almost ran into Beggiolin, who had come running, followed by his cameraman. When he saw me, he had an immediate reaction of fury.

I flashed him a satisfied smile. “You’re too late. The party’s already over.”

* * *

To the women of the town, Antonio Visentin “was still a good-looking man,” and according to the men “they don’t make them like Antonio Visentin anymore.”

This universal opinion was evident every time he crossed the main piazza, which he did four times a day to reach his law office in the center of town.

The men would bow their heads ever so slightly in a sign of intimate respect, or else they would greet him with stage gestures, hoping to ingratiate themselves with those who counted in town.

The women would cast him coquettish glances, or wait anxiously to be recognized and greeted. Which he unfailingly did. Counselor Visentin never missed a trick.

Things went differently that day. As he walked around the piazza under the porticoes, he failed to notice Judge Bellaviti and he avoided the curious glance of the widow Biondi.

Visentin looked at the ground as he walked, lost in dark thoughts. He didn’t even notice the uproar outside the Bar Centrale. If he had only looked up, he would have seen his son burst out of the café, arms pinned to his side by Trevisan and other customers.

He had an appointment with the head of the Medical Examiner’s Office.

“It’s a confidential matter,” he had told him over the phone.

Guido Marizza, the head of the Medical Examiner’s Office, was an old friend. They had gone to elementary school together, then to middle school and high school.

They’d drifted out of contact during their years at university, because each had followed in his father’s footsteps, as had been the case in each family for at least three generations. The sole exception was Marizza’s grandfather on his mother’s side. He, to the dismay of family and community, had chosen to become a professional soccer player, and wound up playing in the minor minors, the Italian
serie C
. This one unfortunate case aside, no other family member had ever left the beaten track.

Visentin had served as legal counsel to his old friend in a disagreeable case involving an inheritance. He had been successful in the case against Marizza’s sisters, relying on the usual nitpicking detail, a formal shortcoming that everyone else had overlooked. Since then, neither of the sisters acknowledged him in public, or spoke to him in private. But his friendship with Guido was as sound as ever. And so he chose to adopt a direct approach. If it hadn’t been Guido, he would never have taken such a gross risk. His usual approach could be summed up by the phrase: “Ask for a pear if an apple is what you want.” But things were different with Guido.

“I am very worried about Francesco. His alibi lends itself to ambiguous, dangerous interpretations.”

Marizza nodded wisely, wrinkling his nose as if he’d noticed a bad smell.

“This matter of the DNA. You know how these things can be, mistakes can be made . . . In other words, Guido, I’d like it if you were personally responsible for doing the testing, and not just one of your assistants. I . . . only trust you.”

Marizza gazed at him without expression. “Nowadays, I leave those tests to my assistants, I don’t spend much time in the laboratory anymore.”

“I would be infinitely grateful,” Visentin insisted.

Marizza slumped back into his imposing leather office chair, a gift from his staff for his twenty-year anniversary. He grimaced, as if the stockfish and polenta from the
baccalà alla vicentina
that he’d eaten for lunch had risen to the back of his throat. Then he leaned forward, speaking in an archly confidential tone of voice.

“There’s a machine that we use in the forensic lab. About a month ago, it caused a real problem, it skewed the DNA results on a piece of evidence. Luckily, it was just a paternity case, so we were able to rerun the test. But in a case like this . . . If the machine damaged the evidence, it would be impossible to reconstruct. And even if there were still traces of sperm in Giovanna’s body, they would no longer be usable. Too much time has gone by.”

“I know.”

“This involves a murder . . .”

“This involves my Francesco.”

“Certainly, certainly.”

Visentin realized he’d ventured too far. He shifted tone, as if they had just met at the country club, enjoying a glass of prosecco.

“How is Elisabetta?” he asked.

“She’s doing well. She’s well liked on the job. They say she’s a talented art restorer. I think she’s ready to take the next step, but you know what public institutions are like. Talent isn’t enough.”

“Is Volpi still the director?”

“That stubborn old cuss won’t retire . . .”

“Perhaps the time has come to make way for young blood. When this is all over, I could invite the old gentleman to the trout-fishing lake. And let him catch all the trout . . .”

“As long as Elisabetta never finds out. That girl has her mother’s sense of pride.”

“It’ll be our little secret.”

The two friends smiled in complicity.

Visentin stood up. “Fine. I’m very pleased.”

When he was at the door, Marizza’s voice reached him: “Francesco is a good boy, certainly not the kind of boy who would . . .”

“Certainly not,” said Visentin, as he turned to look back.

“Fine,” Marizza echoed.

There was nothing more to be said.

* * *

Whenever she had an important meeting with Antonio Visentin, the Contessa Selvaggia Calchi Renier made an appointment with her hairdresser. She did it to ensure that her hair gleamed with that coppery highlight that, as Antonio always said, gave her a dangerous resemblance to Rita Hayworth. The irony in all this was that Antonio was the only prominent man in town who had never been her lover. What bound them together was much more important than sex. It was a tie that transcended emotions and had its foundations, one might say, in their shared sense of taste. No one else could claim to have a fraction of the aesthetic sense that Antonio put—not into winning a case, but winning resoundingly, over-winning. No one had a better instinct than he did for the perfect timing in driving home a thrust or withdrawing from an excessively risky business deal without looking weak. Antonio, and Antonio alone, knew how important it was to her to occupy center stage—no matter whether it was a business conference or opening night in a new concert season. If he had never been a lawyer, he could certainly have became a great director: he glimpsed things before others did, he knew how to guide his protagonists, and he knew how to describe—even recount—a new business opportunity to any audience. Antonio had never lorded it over her that he had been born a Visentin, while she had had to become a Contessa. If it hadn’t been for Antonio, this difference would have condemned her to a role as a co-star, a decorative gewgaw, a role to which her late husband would gladly have relegated her, if he had been strong enough. She owed the single most important thing to Antonio Visentin: her public recognition. When her husband was still alive, Antonio had encouraged her in her efforts to rejuvenate the ancient fortunes of the Calchi Renier family, he had suggested the best strategies, and he had woven around her that network of consensus that had culminated in the creation of her masterpiece, the Torrefranchi Foundation. It had all happened so quickly, in the few dizzying years in which the Northeast had transformed itself from a land of farmers and emigrants into the wealthiest and most productive industrial region in all of Europe. A free-market network, a promised land of productivity that not even the most reactionary and pompous apparatus of government intervention could hobble or restrict. This is what she and Antonio had in common: a love of the modern, a love of the new.

Now times were changing again, and even faster this go-round. That was why she was worried. She needed Antonio more than ever, his strength and his courage. Giovanna’s death and the suspicions hovering over Francesco threatened to ruin everything. Now it was up to her to build, to fabricate if necessary, a public acknowledgment toward the Visentin family. A public acknowledgment of innocence.

“Contessa, we are home,” announced the Romanian chauffeur as he parked the black Mercedes in front of the staircase of Villa Selvaggia.

“Thank you, Toader, I won’t be needing the car again today.”

As she climbed the steps with a gait that a thirty-year-old woman would have envied, Giorgio, the imperishable butler of the Calchi Renier family, stepped forward and announced: “Counselor Visentin is waiting for you, Madame Contessa.”

“Ask the cook to prepare a karkade tea.” She wasted no mawkish sentiment on Giorgio; he was a reminder of her husband, and just as much of a snob as he had been while he lived. If it weren’t for Filippo’s objections, she would have sent him to a nursing home long since.

“Immediately, Contessa,” said the butler with a ceremonious bow.

“Contessa,” Selvaggia thought to herself. This title of respect, with which she was addressed by housemaids, butlers, chauffeurs, superintendents, secretaries, lawyers, business partners, executives, union leaders, prelates, and accountants, still stirred her soul. Contessa is a title usually acquired at birth. She had become a Contessa, eradicating completely her station at birth, eliminating even her peasant surname.

As she swept into her office, Antonio rose promptly to greet her with that unfailing gallantry that he would display even if there were a cocked pistol held to his forehead. But his expression was glum, and Selvaggia immediately had her worst fears confirmed.

“I have just been informed that our sons have exchanged blows at the Bar Centrale. I’ll spare you the details,” said Visentin.

The Contessa rolled her eyes heavenward. “That’s not helpful.” She patted the empty space on the sofa by her side. “Sit here, next to me,” she said with a kindness she never used with anyone else, not even with Filippo.

Visentin heaved a sigh. He pulled a cigar out of his inside jacket packet. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

She smiled. “You know I like the smell of your cigars.”

Antonio lit his cigar a little more hastily than usual. He leaned back into the backrest of the late Venetian sofa.

“You must persuade Filippo to withdraw his statement,” he said and, after gazing into her eyes thoughtfully for a long moment, he added: “And if Filippo were by chance to remember that he left Francesco a little later in the morning, Francesco would be entirely free of suspicion.”

“Filippo will do precisely what I tell him, rest assured,” the Contessa shot back confidently. “However, considering the way matters now stand, the new version of his testimony will not be enough. Idle gossip can be more damaging than an appeal-proof verdict, as you long ago taught me. We must think of the Foundation. The business structure is in a very delicate phase of transition, as you know all too well.”