Puppies. Maurizio De giovanni
the pediatrician who had relieved Dr. Penna was pessimistic as well, and said that the child’s health hadn’t improved in spite of the antibiotics. This last piece of news had been received by sorrowful, empathetic silence; Ottavia, Guida, and even Romano, who’d been the first to lay eyes on the little girl and administer immediate first aid, all three felt an added burden of responsibility for her survival.
Pisanelli, on the other hand, had reported on his visit to the parish church, trying, as much as he was able, to convey to the others his own belief that this wasn’t a matter to be taken lightly.
Palma spoke to him, tersely.
“I’m going to ask you again, Giorgio, in front of everyone: So you really believe that this young priest, this Don Vito, is a reliable source?”
Pisanelli replied, with great determination: “Chief, listen to me. I know everyone around here, and you know that, and I’m perfectly capable of distinguishing between the ones who spout nonsense, the ones who allow themselves to be swayed by their emotions, and the ones who don’t. This is a serious matter, and we need to get busy on it right away.”
“Truth be told, though,” Alex broke in, arms crossed tight over her breasts and a deeply concentrated expression on her face, “the one you know is the parish priest, Don Salvatore, or whatever his name is, not the young priest, who is the one who actually received the confession. Maybe that guy is a moron, the way most priests are, and—”
Pisanelli interrupted her: “Excuse me if I say so, Di Nardo, but I thought that young people weren’t as prejudiced as old people. Yes, you’re right, I know Don Salvatore, and I assure you that, before making up his mind to reach out to me, he must have thought it over and over again a million times, and I have no doubt that he checked it out six ways from Sunday. If he believes Don Vito, then I take his word for it.” He turned and spoke to Palma. “You’re the one who has to decide, chief. I can only point out to you that this strikes me as a kind of odd coincidence: a woman tells a priest that she’s going to have to get rid of her baby because someone is forcing her to do so, and a week later we find a newborn baby girl in the trash.”
Palma turned to look at Lojacono, who sat as usual, arms folded across his chest and no expression on his face.
“What do you think? Is there some connection?”
The Sicilian tightened his lips.
“I’m inclined to think there is,” he replied in an unruffled tone of voice, “especially given the proximity of the two places where the episodes unfolded. If you ask me, whoever abandoned the baby girl wanted to link her to this part of town, they put her there intentionally. And also going to confess to a sin before committing it, and in a parish church that isn’t located on some out-of-the-way backstreet, strikes me as a powerful, premeditated decision. Plus, frankly, we don’t have anything else to go on: there was no evidence on the baby girl’s person that could direct us to anyone else, no one called in, not even anonymously, to offer any tips. What I mean to say is, we don’t really have any alternatives. I’d try following the lead of the young woman with the Eastern European accent. What’s more, if I’m not mistaken, the doctor at the hospital said that it was quite likely that one of the parents might be blond.”
Romano was nervously drumming his fingers on the desktop. He looked even more rumpled and weary than usual.
“Yes, but the priest never saw this young woman; he might recognize her voice, but not even that’s a sure thing. How can we track her down, even if we admit she may have something to do with the baby girl? Which she may not, of course.”
“If you ask me, it’s correct to assume that there’s a connection,” Ottavia murmured. “We’ve checked it out thoroughly, me on the computer and Aragona making the rounds of all the houses and apartment buildings, and there are no reports of baby girls born in either hospitals or clinics in the last few days that remain unaccounted for. So it hardly seems like a fanciful hypothesis that the young woman from the confession booth is actually the baby’s mother.”
Palma nodded his head.
“And we can also guess that she gave birth in this part of town because, if she really was the mother, one week ago she was in the final stages of her pregnancy, and I doubt she would have ventured very far from her home to say confession. Let’s also take into account the fact that the parish church of Santa Maria degli Angeli is at the top of a fairly steep stretch of hill, and she herself said that she lived in the neighborhood around the church.”
Aragona was clearly perplexed.
“Sure, but if a woman says that she’s being forced to give up her baby because someone’s threatening her, then why should she abandon the kid? I’d understand if she ran away, or if . . . ”
“That’s assuming that she’s the one who abandoned the baby,” Lojacono replied in a low voice.
“What are you trying to say?” Palma asked him.
The lieutenant continued staring into the empty air in front of him.
“Maybe someone took the baby away from her,” he explained. “And then got rid of the baby for some reason we don’t understand.”
“Then why wouldn’t the mother have come to report it to us?” Aragona huffed impatiently. “Why didn’t she just come and file a complaint of child abduction?”
Pisanelli leaned forward.
“What if something happened to her?” he asked softly. “What if she was simply no longer capable of . . . ”
They all sat in a moment of silence. Then Palma said: “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now, but we’ll get started on it first thing tomorrow. What do you have on your desks? What are you all doing?”
“Romano and I were drawing up documents on the decommissioning of the old apartment buildings, from the files,” Alex replied.
“Lucky you,” Aragona sighed. “I’ve been drawing up an inventory of the evidence in the basement storeroom, and there’s not even a breath of air down there.”
“I took a couple of depositions concerning the two armed robberies in supermarkets,” Lojacono finished up, “but it’s not adding up to anything: they’re two separate cases, with nothing in common, neither modus operandi nor—”
Palma brusquely cut him off.
“Okay, fine. Drop everything you’re doing and let’s all start trying to track down this young woman. Have we decided to take Don Vito at his word? Then let’s believe him wholeheartedly. Tomorrow’s Thursday, so let’s go to the places where Eastern European housecleaners hang out on their day off and talk to them. Maybe one of them knows this person. And let’s go back and talk to the priest, maybe we can jog his memory for some other detail. We’re just stumbling around in the dark, I know that, but sometimes you can get lucky that way. If anyone has any other useful suggestions, let them speak now, otherwise let’s all go home and call it a day.”
XI
Since April is still just April, the sky had suddenly clouded over. But it was evening, so nobody realized it. As a result, the sudden burst of rain caught everyone unprepared, apart from those who spent their time browsing weather websites.
Romano, for instance, found himself confined to a lobby just a few yards short of his own car, looking out into a wall of pouring water. While he was standing there, he was trying to determine what it was that burdened his heart so grievously, and why. As usual, he felt no desire to return home, to buy anything for dinner, to put on that masquerade of equilibrium and tranquility that he staged for himself at the end of each workday. He didn’t want to watch TV. He didn’t want to read a book, or listen to music. He didn’t want to see a movie. He didn’t want to sit down at a table in a pizzeria, nor guzzle down one beer too many.
And what he wanted to do least of all was stand under the windows of his wife’s parents’ house in the hope of glimpsing a silhouette passing behind the