The Prince (21 page)

Mayor Lorenzo Costa knew that in order to implement his plan, he'd have to gain the support of Jano Vassallo, the operational arm of the fascist action squad. Nothing could be easier. Jano didn't have to be convinced of the goodwill and legitimacy of a mission, as long as it involved fighting and hell-raising. The mayor explained the strategy he had outlined to Michele Fardella and Jano agreed to the plan with predictable enthusiasm. He even found a way to improve upon it, by suggesting that Dr. Peppino Ragusa might also have been mixed up in the grand conspiracy devised by Prince Licata. Hadn't the doctor been the one to confirm the identification of the second corpse as that of Salvatore Turrisi?

“What do you have against Peppino Ragusa?” The mayor, who was no fool and was all too familiar with Jano's vengeful instincts, wanted to know the real reason behind that proposition, well aware that Jano never acted for the sake of justice.

“He's a Jew, and despite that he continues practicing his profession as a doctor.”

“Jano, don't talk bullshit. Why do you want to involve Ragusa too?”

“All right, all right. A person can never lie to you, can he?” he said with a knowing grin. “It's because of Saro, his son. He's come between me and Mena. Do you know who I mean?”

“Rosario Losurdo's daughter. A beautiful girl. But she won't want anything to do with you once you go and arrest her father.”

“Leave it to me, she'll fall for me, you'll see.”

The mayor shook his head. Jano could be even more diabolical than him. “Okay. We'll arrest the doctor too, as an accomplice of Licata and Losurdo.”

Jano's eyes glittered. “Good. What's our first move?”

“We'll wait until Dr. Bizzarri completes the autopsy on the corpse and identifies Nicola Geraci. After that, we'll go talk to the prosecutor.”

Dr. Bizzarri had never found himself in a bind. He'd asked the mayor for at least three weeks before signing a statement identifying the body. Marshal Montalto had offered his full cooperation, bringing him the files and photographs of people reported missing during that period in Salemi and the Madonie, among them Nicola Geraci. But the doctor was not a forensic specialist and had requested the assistance of a pathologist from the public prosecutor's office in Palermo. Mayor Costa had denied his request, however. He could very well do it on his own, he told him at a meeting in the town hall. And he had insisted that the doctor look for any resemblance to Nicola Geraci, in short, making it clear without beating around the bush too much that the corpse had to be identified as the representative of the socialist leagues of Petralia Sottana.

But Dr. Bizzarri was a conscientious physician and did not want to endorse a statement that he was less than certain of, based on his critical findings. That was why he asked his colleague Peppino Ragusa for help.

Ragusa arrived at the cemetery chapel with his habitual leather bag.

“Thank you for coming, Doctor.” Bizzarri went to meet him, wiping his hands on a small linen towel. “You may think it odd, to say the least, that here I am having to ask for your assistance.”

“Well, I'll admit I had a hard time believing it.”

“Unfortunately, politics is an ugly thing. They ordered me to come here, and I never thought it was to replace a . . . Jew.”

“But now you need that Jew.”

“Dr. Ragusa, for me it's never been a problem. But these are times we've brought upon ourselves. I joined the party only because I needed to work. Is it a sin to work?” He held out his hand, even though the Council of Ministers had prohibited shaking hands as of June of that year, ordering the fascist salute instead. “No hard feelings, okay?” Bizzarri said with a smile.

Ragusa instinctively shook his hand, beginning to like the man.

“So then, what is this about?” Ragusa asked, approaching the altar on which the body of the mummified corpse had been laid; Bizzarri had seen to removing the clothing.

“I've never seen a natural mummification like this,” Bizzarri said, touching the parchment-like skin still attached to the cadaver's bones.

“The ground here has bacteria that devour the fleshy parts of the body, mummifying it,” Ragusa explained. “The process is also aided by the porosity of the soil, composed of dry, permeable sand, rich in salts, which protects the bodies against the process of decomposition. We've found others in the same condition.”

“We have to try to identify who this body belonged to.”

Ragusa bent down to look closely at the skull and skin blackened by the fire. Then, with Bizzarri's help, he turned over the corpse. He picked up his tools and began dissecting.

Based on the condition of the spinal column he established that it couldn't possibly belong to a young man of twenty-five, the age that Salvatore Turrisi had been at the time of the fire. The spinal column was that of a man of at least forty. Then there was the head: he found no traces of soot in the throat. This discovery left him taken aback.

“What did you find?” Bizzarri asked eagerly.

“It's what I did
not
find,” Ragusa replied. “As you of course know, people who are burned in a fire inhale soot that should then be found in the pharynx, the trachea, and the lungs. There are no traces of soot where you would expect to find them.”

“You mean he was killed before being thrown into the fire?”

“It's likely. That's what we're going to verify with a spectrochemical analysis of some bloodstains. Have you ever heard of fatty embolism?” he asked as he began scraping the remains of a bloodstain with a scalpel.

Dr. Bizzarri shook his head.

“About ten years ago,” Ragusa continued as he inserted the blood traces between two glass slides that he then slipped under the microscope, “surgeons and pathologists realized that, following a trauma, bone fracture, or various injuries, some fat from the adipose tissue penetrates the blood vessels. Carried along by the blood, the fat reaches the right ventricle and from there the lung. As a result, it causes an obstruction of the small pulmonary vessels, which in many cases leads to vascular occlusion and therefore death. Sometimes the fatty embolism develops within a few seconds, always stemming from some form of external violence.”

In the end, the analysis proved Ragusa's intuition correct: the man was first killed and then thrown into the flames.

But who was that corpse? Ragusa studied the photographs of Nicola Geraci at length, comparing them with the charred body. In fact, the size of the skull, the skeletal structure, the shape of the jaw and the height could correspond to those of the man found in the coffin. But Ragusa couldn't bring himself to endorse the identification.

“There is a high probability that this is in fact Nicola Geraci,” he told his colleague at the end of the autopsy. “The decisive proof would be dental evidence. But there is no photo in which his teeth are showing.”

“We also tried to track down his relatives. But the carabinieri haven't found anyone, not even his wife, who seems to have immigrated to Germany,” Bizzarri explained.

“Under the circumstances, I don't feel I can sign a statement identifying him as Nicola Geraci. I'm sorry,” Ragusa said.

“Still, you've managed to assuage my conscience,” Bizzarri said, shaking his hand with gratitude. “And thanks for the lesson.” His ruddy cheeks stretched into a broad smile.

The following morning, Michele Fardella entered Mayor Costa's town hall office and handed him Dr. Bizzarri's report.

Costa carefully read the statement and when he had finished, raised his head, satisfied. “Good, now we have scientific proof that the corpse is Nicola Geraci, and that he was killed before being thrown into the fire. The witness?”

“Jano is coming with our man.”

“Do I know him?” the mayor asked.

“It's Prospero, the son of Corrado Abbate, Baron Adragna's steward. He's a smart one.”

“But isn't he a member of the fascist combat league?”

“He's in the elite unit.”

“I would have preferred someone outside the military.”

“We can look for someone else if you want.”

“It's too late now. If you've already filled him in, we'll manage to make do with this Prospero. The fewer people who know about this matter, the better it is for everyone,” the mayor concluded. He stood up and went over to the window.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. It was Jano, who came in followed by Prospero.

The young man froze to attention before the desk, while Jano sat down in a chair.

Costa went over to him and sized him up. “What's your name,
camerata
?” he asked, using the fascist form of address.

“Prospero Abbate. Son of Corrado and Maria—”

The mayor cut him off, clapping him on the shoulder. “Fine, fine. Sit down, make yourself comfortable.”

The young man looked at the mayor and sat down in the chair next to Jano's.

Costa stood before him. “We are an invincible team,” he began warmly. “We must therefore help each other without any ifs, ands, or buts. There is something you must do for us.”

Prospero felt grateful for that request. For him, being of help to the mayor was a dream. He would have leapt into the flames if he'd been asked.

A few mornings later, Jano, Michele Fardella, Prospero Abbate, and Mayor Lorenzo Costa himself left for Marsala in the mayor's Fiat Balilla, purchased with the town taxpayers' money, to pay a visit to prosecutor Tommaso Amato, a man of confirmed fascist loyalty.

The prosecutor's private office was housed in one of the spacious rooms on the first floor of a small building on Via Egadi, north of Capo Lilibeo. The windows opened directly onto the sea, offering the prosecutor a breathtaking view. Attorney Amato, when he wasn't required at a court hearing, spent up to fifteen hours a day sitting in front of those windows, studying documents and codicils that helped him resolve claims and disputes that were almost always quite depressing. That magnificent sea, he said, was his torment: it was close at hand, but he could never enjoy it.

“Come in,” he said when he heard a knock at the office door. He'd been expecting Salemi's mayor, and Costa was punctual as usual.

The mayor sat down before the prosecutor's desk, while Michele, Jano, and Prospero remained standing behind him. “Mr. Amato, forgive me for coming straight to the point, but I'd like to get back to Salemi by this afternoon,” Costa began, opening his leather briefcase. “An autopsy on the alleged body of Salvatore Turrisi produced surprising results. It's all written here in Dr. Bizzarri's report,” he said, handing him a file, which attorney Amato proceeded to leaf through.

“The body was identified as Nicola Geraci?” he asked, after reading the document.

The mayor nodded. “But there's something new.”

“What else have you found, Mayor Costa?”

“This man,” the latter said, pointing to Prospero Abbate behind him, “has some disclosures to make about who killed Geraci. Come forward, Prospero.”

The young man stepped up to the prosecutor's desk as Amato settled back in his leather chair and studied him.

“What's your name, young man?”

“Prospero Abbate, son of Corrado Abbate and Maria Pellizzeri.”

“Fine, fine,” the prosecutor interrupted. “What did you see?”

“Well, it happened nineteen years ago.”

“And how come you're only telling us about it today, my boy?” Although Prospero was a fully mature man, the prosecutor, from the perspective of his half century of life, viewed them all as boys. His gruff tone intimidated Prospero.

“Well, actually, I was afraid.”

“Come, come, let's hear what you saw.”

“On the afternoon when Marquis Bellarato was killed, I was at his palazzo.”

The prosecutor leaned toward Prospero. “How old were you?”

“Nineteen years ago, I was eleven,” Prospero replied firmly. “Sometimes the marquis invited us kids to the palazzo to give us some barley sugar. I was with him when Rosario Losurdo arrived.”

“Rosario Losurdo has always been Prince Licata's gabellotto,” Mayor Costa explained.

“I know who he is!” the prosecutor replied impatiently. Then he turned to Prospero and said sternly, “Go on.”

“The marquis made me hide behind the drapes. I could hear what they were saying. I can't remember the exact words now, it was so long ago. All I recall is that Losurdo asked him to pull out of the competition to purchase the Baucina estate; that Prince Licata would remember the favor and would someday reciprocate. Losurdo raised his voice and threatened the marquis, who laughed at his threats. The marquis then got up from his chair and shouted at Losurdo that he would never pull out.

“After that,” he went on, “Losurdo went to the fireplace, took an iron poker used to stir the fire, and struck the marquis a number of times. Before leaving, he set fire to the drapes with a smoldering log, then fled. I ran away before the rescuers showed up. I never told anyone about this.” He fell silent and looked first at Mayor Costa and then at Jano, as if seeking confirmation that he had done his job well. The two ignored him, however.

The prosecutor sank back in his chair. He thought for a few seconds. Then he looked up at Prospero. “That day, was it raining or was it sunny?” he asked shrewdly.

Prospero was taken by surprise. He had hoped his task was completed. He looked around for backup. He didn't find it. “Well, actually . . .”

“How does that change anything, Mr. Prosecutor?” Costa intervened to help his man out of a tight spot. “Instead, he's made some very serious allegations.”

“All too serious. Do you realize, young man”—attorney Amato turned back to Prospero—“that your words could cause people to be sentenced to death? And do you know that if it turns out that you made false accusations, you could end up in jail for more than fifteen years?”