The Bottom of Your Heart (27 page)

Both Maione and Ricciardi immediately thought of what the jeweler Coviello had told them, namely that on the night of the murder he'd glimpsed a person with a huge frame waiting outside the professor's office.

Ricciardi said: “We need to speak with your father, Dr. Francesco. But actually we need to speak with you, too.”

“I'm at your service, Commissario. My father, though . . . my father is sick. Very sick. He's here, in a room upstairs, but I doubt that he's well enough to talk to you.”

Maione snorted: “Here's someone else who thinks it's up to him who we can talk to. Take us to your father, and if he can't talk to us, we'll decide what to do next.”

Though he towered over Maione by a good four inches, confronted with the brigadier's aggression, the young man blinked and, after a moment's hesitation, nodded: “As you like. Please, come with me.”

He led the way up a flight of stairs and down a hallway that he nearly filled with his bulk, until they arrived at a closed door which he opened without knocking.

Inside was a bed shrouded in dim light and shadows, with a male nurse sitting in a small armchair against the wall. The young man nodded a greeting: “Lui', you can go, just wait in the hall outside. I'll call you when we're done. And close the door behind you.”

There was a sharp tang of disinfectants and medicines in the air, mixed with an acidic aftertaste that could have been either urine or sweat. The smell of death, thought Maione.

Guido went over to the bed and delicately laid a hand on the sheets.

“
Papà
?
Papà
, are you awake? Do you think you have the strength to talk to these gentlemen?”

A faint moan rose from the bed, followed by a cough. At last, a rough voice said: “Yes, I'm awake now. Before long, I'll be sleeping all too much, as you know. Who are these gentlemen? Let in a little light, Guido. Maybe even a little fresh air.”

The young man went over to the window, opening the shutters so as to let a shaft of sunlight filter in without flooding the bed itself. Then Maione and Ricciardi were able to see the room's occupant.

The man was at death's door, no doubt about that. The skin on his face was dark, as if it had been treated in a tannery, and it was stretched across his bones; practically no flesh was left, suggesting the appearance of a mummified corpse. A few hairs clung stubbornly to the cranium, dangling from his temples in grayish shocks. The lips were chapped and, here and there, cracked. The sheets covered a body so rail-thin it could hardly be seen. Only the eyes, black and bright, still betrayed curiosity and intelligence.

“So it's daytime, then. In that case,
buongiorno
, gentlemen. If I had to guess, I'd say you're from the police.”

Maione and Ricciardi exchanged a look of surprise. Then the commissario spoke: “
Buongiorno
, Dottore. Yes, I'm Commissario Ricciardi and this is Brigadier Maione. May I ask why you were expecting our visit?”

The doctor let out a sharp laugh that ended in a burst of coughing. The son moved toward the bed with a gesture of concern, but his father waved him away.

“Because I may look dead but I'm not quite dead yet, that's why. And since I'm not dead yet, I have my nurse, Luigi, whom you met earlier and who isn't as ignorant as he seems, read me the evening paper. I'd have read it myself, because believe it or not my eyesight is still good, but I don't have the strength to hold anything in my hands. Interesting, no?”

Ricciardi stared at him, expressionless: “The fact that you read the newspaper by proxy, Doctor, still doesn't explain why you were expecting us.”

The man cracked a smile which, on that devastated face, made for a horrifying effect.

“It's obvious. Our good friend Tullio Iovine, in defiance of the odds, has shuffled off this mortal coil before me. And you must have gone to his residence, where you no doubt found my letter. The letter I sent him a couple of months ago, the best I can remember.”

Guido looked startled: “A letter? What letter,
papà
? You promised you wouldn't interfere! You promised . . .”

The man pulled a bony hand out from under the sheets. Like his face, the hand was dark, almost black, and like the arm it bore multiple puncture marks.

“Please. Hush. It was the only way.”

Maione shot a glance at Ricciardi: he doubted that Guido had been kept in the dark about the letter, and he was inclined to think that it was all just put on for show.

“So you, Guido, are telling us you knew nothing about it. And you want us to believe that your father wrote the letter on his own.”

The young man stared at him with hostility: “My father's condition, Brigadier, has deteriorated sharply in the past few weeks. Two months ago, he was perfectly capable of writing. Unfortunately.”

Ruspo coughed and said: “That's right. I was even capable of getting out of bed. Then things took the turn you see now. It's called cancer, Brigadier. It attacks the organs one by one, and eats you up from within until you die.”

Maione nodded.

“I know what cancer is, Dotto'. It took my mother. And I can assure you that at least it's natural; Professor Iovine del Castello, on the other hand, didn't die of natural causes, and that's why, as you said yourself, he shuffled off before you.”

Ruspo burst out laughing, as if regaining strength.

“Del Castello. Incredible, with that cheap trick he fooled everyone right up to the end. That wasn't his real name at all, Brigadier. His name is Iovine, just plain Iovine.”

Maione was baffled: “Then why did he tack on the second name?”

“Because he was a buffoon and an impostor, that's why. That's what he was as a student, that's what he was as an assistant, and that's what he was as a professor. Since he was convinced that the halls of medicine were too aristocratic to accept some commoner, he decided that a double-barreled surname would open a few doors. And maybe he was right.”

Ricciardi made an effort to steer the conversation back to more relevant matters. Seeing that man in a terminal condition took his heart back to Rosa; he was in a hurry to return to her side.

“What reason did you have for writing that letter, Doctor?”

The man in the bed gave him a malevolent stare: “And why do you think I did it, Commissario? You read the letter, didn't you? That bastard flunked my son here, three separate times, keeping him from taking his degree in medicine, and therefore, my place here at the helm of the nursing home. I decided to warn him that I wouldn't tolerate the situation any longer.”

Maione said: “Actually, if we want to be accurate, you blackmailed him, Dotto'. You threatened to produce documents concerning medical errors that . . .”

Guido looked at his father, clearly upset: “But
papà
, what have you done? Why . . .”

Ruspo waved his hand in the air: “I tried to do what I had to. In any case, it was only a threat, those corrupt officials at the physicians' guild would never have undertaken proceedings, it was my word against the university. Still, as you can see, I've run out of time, and it was my one chance. I had to give it a try. That bastard would never have let my son pass that exam.”

Ricciardi leaned forward: “What reason would Iovine have had for trying to keep your son from graduating?”

Guido mopped his father's brow with a cloth. He said: “Commissario, I don't think it's wise to continue. My father . . .”

Ruspo interrupted him: “No. I don't want to take this thing into the grave with me. Let me speak.”

“
Papà
, I'm begging you . . .”

“That's all you know how to say: Papà,
I'm begging you
. Shut up and get me some water . . .” Once he'd swallowed a gulp from the glass his son had brought him, the man resumed: “We were in the same year at medical school, Iovine and I. We were even friends; he chose whoever he thought could help him in his climb to the top: he was smart that way. I belonged to the upper crust, and I had a distinguished name. And I liked him. He was intelligent, cheerful, and brilliant. We had fun. After we got our degrees, we both began our university careers, he out of ambition, me because I wasn't the type to start my own business, too much work. We were volunteer assistants. We were the youngest ones there, but by far the best.”

Ricciardi asked: “And how long did it last?”

“The director was too smart to keep the two of us in a subordinate position. After a year, when a couple of chairs opened up elsewhere and someone went into retirement, he took us on as paid assistants. And before long he'd stopped talking to anyone but us; he'd call us whenever there was something interesting to see. We grew to love the field thanks to him. We worked day and night, there was nothing else in our lives.”

“What about relations between the two of you?”

“As far as I was concerned, they had never changed. But that was only true for me, I realized later.”

Ricciardi was very interested.

“And then what happened?”

“First I should tell you something about the professor. A genius, a wonderful man, never again in my life did I find myself speaking the same language with anyone the way I did with him. He became director at a very young age; he wasn't much older than us, but he was gifted like no one else, a true luminary. People came from all four corners of the earth to get him to treat their wives, mothers, daughters. And he never thought of money or of advancing his career: he fought. He was a man who fought against suffering, in whatever form it might take. He could only imagine that other people thought as he did.”

“What about the two of you?”

“We had different motivations. Iovine wanted to establish himself, become respected and rich. He came from a small town, and he suffered from an inferiority complex. He was angry and envious, that was the source of the energy that drove him. I, on the other hand, wanted to become like the professor.”

Ricciardi was fascinated in spite of himself.

“And then?”

Ruspo had a coughing attack. His son, worried, supported his head and gave him another sip of water. Maione noticed a slight reddening on the handkerchief Guido used to dry his mouth.

When the coughing fit subsided, the man went on in a softer voice: “And then. And then we came to the point that was inevitable. The obstetric and gynecological clinic has one director and two aides, five assistants, plus a variable number of volunteers. One of the aides went abroad and a position opened up. Just one.”

Maione nodded: “And there were two of you.”

Ruspo gazed into the empty air.

“That's right. There were two of us. Equals in every way: in terms of dedication, surgical skill, diagnostic intuition. It was all up to the professor's judgment, which was not subject to appeal.”

“And who did he choose?”

Lost in his memories, the man paid no attention to Maione and went on with his story: “His name was Rosario Albese. He was about forty. He was tireless, courteous, hardworking. I told you: a genius. For Iovine, Albese had become an obsession: he watched him from afar, he studied his every gesture. He wanted to be him. To take his life: his university chair, his shoes and his pen, his desk, his tie. He wanted his job.”

Ricciardi asked: “Where is Albese now?”

“He died a few years later. He had heart problems. He suffered a heart attack on the job, as could be expected.”

Maione drove in: “But who did he prefer, between the two of you?”

Ruspo placed a trembling hand on his forehead: “He preferred me. All three of us knew it. He preferred me because I had none of Iovine's rage and viciousness. He never said so, but he would have chosen me, without a doubt.”

Ricciardi wanted to know more: “He never said so? Why not?”

“Because Iovine ruined me. He ruined his friend, the friend who had helped him so many times by introducing him to wealthy and important men, the men who allowed him to create the network that supported him until the day that, thank God, he was killed.”

“How did he ruin you?”

“It was simple. I was having an affair with the wife of a count, a very prominent man. He wrote an anonymous letter, stating where and when the woman and I were planning to meet. It was a scandal, and the university takes these things very seriously.”

Maione asked: “Are you sure that it was Iovine who wrote the anonymous letter?”

“A scandal three days before the appointment of the new aide? Of course I'm sure. For that matter, he admitted it himself, by choosing never to see me again.”

There was a long silence. Then Ricciardi said: “And you really never spoke again after that?”

“I set up shop on my own, and before long I had a huge clientele in my own social sphere, the sphere of the very wealthy. Then, when my wife died, leaving Guido to me at a very young age, I wanted to have more free time for myself, time to spend with him, and I formed a partnership with two investors to start this nursing home. I was in charge of running the place, and I was able to do it until six months ago, when the disease forced me to stop working.”

Maione was unwilling to leave any area unexplored: “This problem of your son's degree . . . why? After all, he was the one who had done harm to you.”

Ruspo didn't answer right away. He seemed to be sleeping. Then he answered, in a faint voice: “I've wondered the same thing, and I've never managed to come up with a satisfactory answer. Perhaps he wanted to prove to himself that he was right to ruin me, that I wasn't even capable of teaching my own son. Or else the mere fact of seeing the boy reminded him of what he'd done, and he didn't like the feeling. Or maybe he thought that Guido, sooner or later, if he remained in the profession, would find a way of exacting vengeance on my behalf. I don't know. Better to eliminate your enemies' progeny, no? He used to say it, when he was a boy, and I thought he was kidding . . .”