The Crocodile (9 page)

Once, he walked down to the waterfront; he’d felt an urge to smell salt air, to feel a sea breeze. He hadn’t found either at the city waterfront, with thousands of indifferent cars whizzing past the barnacle-encrusted rocks, under spitting rain and a grey sky. The rancid stench, the white rocks piled up like a barricade, the casual litter, plastic bags bobbing in the stagnant water like so many jellyfish corpses.

He’d turned and fled, doing his best to reconstruct in his heart his beloved Scala dei Turchi, with the white limestone glittering in the sun, looking out over the friendly and unfailingly blue sea. And it became clear to him that this was no seaside city; here the city and the sea vied in their mutual indifference, ostentatiously ignoring one another like a couple of cousins in the aftermath of a terrible feud.

Now, as the cab climbed uphill and he looked out at the city that surrounded him, it struck him that this metaphor he’d glimpsed could be extended to the population at large. A scooter zipped recklessly between the two lines of traffic, and a woman at the wheel of a compact runabout jerked in alarm, startled by the engine’s roar, glaring in hatred at the incautious rider. They loathe each other, Lojacono thought. They view each other as enemies; there is no shared identity.

He could sense the hostility like it was a scent in the air. Maybe that was why he hadn’t yet felt any desire to take a stroll and sightsee, to gaze up close at the countless wonders he’d heard so much about. Better the daily indifference of his co-workers, or passersby in the street, or cashiers in cafés. They had no need of him; he had no need of them.

He understood that he was now in the fancier part of town from the architecture, the flower planters, and the quality of the shops; and he knew by the number of badly parked cars and the crowds of people walking towards a modern-looking church that he was approaching the place where the girl’s funeral service would be held.

He decided to get out and walk the last few hundred feet, if it meant he would avoid sitting in traffic. He looked around him at the crowd: disconcerted faces, gazes lost in the middle distance. The death of a young person always hits people: it’s unnatural, and it awakens a deep-seated, ancestral fear. He saw fathers and mothers weeping as they embraced their children, doing their best to shelter them from a fate that might prove to be contagious. He thought about Marinella, and he hoped that, wherever she might be right now, there was a smile on her lips.

It was a big church. The immense circular interior was drenched in the light that poured in through the high windows and the two stained-glass rose windows. It was also packed with people. In front of the altar, set on steel trestles, was a white coffin covered with flowers, photographs, and teddy bears. A line of girls and boys streamed past, laying down objects or brushing the wooden casket with their fingers.

Lojacono pushed forward, taking up a position not far from the altar but off to one side: an ideal vantage point from which to observe the proceedings.

Set on top of the coffin was an enlarged photograph of Giada De Matteis, aged fourteen, cruelly torn from this life, as the mourning announcement at the church entrance stated.

For a few minutes, the cop and the young woman looked into each other’s eyes, ignoring the line of her tearful classmates. What Lojacono saw in those eyes was embarrassment at being photographed, annoyance at the glare of the camera flash in her eyes, a burst of laughter poised on her lips. Normal emotions for a normal young girl, on a sunny day that would never return. The almond-shaped eyes never changed expression, the hands never left the overcoat pockets, but the inspector felt a genuine surge of hatred for the now notorious Crocodile.

Absurdly–though it was not that absurd after all–he was reminded of the day when he and Sonia had chosen their daughter’s name, if the baby turned out to be a girl. It was raining hard, and the one-bedroom flat they lived in was the absolute center of the universe. They’d agreed almost instantly on that song by Fabrizio De André, and that sad but beautiful story by the Genoese poet, and that sweet name, redolent of the stars and the sea.

He tried to focus on what was happening in front of him. You could cut the grief with a knife; it was like some intolerable stench. What made an especially strong impression were the kids, sitting pressed close together on the floor in front of the first pew, crushed by a weight of emotion and sadness. Lojacono spotted a pretty fine-featured brunette and identified her as the epicenter of suffering: she must have been Giada’s best friend. Everyone turned to look at her and took turns supporting her. She was clearly overwhelmed; she kept looking around her in despair, as if someone might wake her up from this terrible nightmare she’d wandered into. Her life, Lojacono knew far too well, would never be the same.

The inspector shifted his gaze, searching for someone in particular, and after a brief moment he spotted her. In the front row, standing rigidly, hair neatly groomed, impeccable dark outfit, a smile pasted on her face. Only her eyes gave her away: open a little too wide, staring fixedly. Lojacono hoped he wouldn’t be there when Giada’s mother’s anaesthetized demeanor shattered under the impact of sudden realization. Soon enough, that hope would be dashed.

The service began. The priest was fairly young, and might have been asked to officiate as an acquaintance of the girl, or perhaps as a teacher. His voice cracked more than once, heightening the general emotional pitch. Lojacono continued to watch the large congregation, mentally separating the curious onlookers wearing conventionally solemn expressions from those who were merely uneasy, and those who displayed genuine signs of suffering.

The time came when classmates and friends took turns to speak at the microphone. The heartbreak of that young life snapped off in its bloom hung over one and all like a dark night that would never see its dawn.

The young girl with dark hair was the last to climb up to the pulpit, unsteady on her feet, guided by a couple of friends. She tried to speak but couldn’t. In the end, she managed to murmur softly, “Now what am I supposed to do, Gia’? Go to hell, how am I supposed to live without you?”

The curse hung suspended in midair, in horror and in grief. Then it evaporated. The priest leaned forward to speak into the microphone and resume the service when a clear, penetrating voice echoed from the front row.

“She didn’t want to go. To her violin lesson. She told me she really didn’t want to go. But I said, ‘No, Giada, you have to go. Because if you’re not afraid to come home on Saturdays at midnight, then you shouldn’t be afraid to come home on Wednesdays at nine. I have to raise you right, you know. That’s my job in life.’ That’s what I told her. I was right, wasn’t I? You tell her I’m right, please, I beg you all. Mamma has to raise you, otherwise what kind of mamma would she be? You tell her, please. Tell her for me. Otherwise she won’t understand; she’ll go away forever without understanding. Please. Please.”

Lojacono saw the people surrounding Giada’s mother recoil in distaste, moving away from her as if she were a stranger, or some dangerous wild beast. The woman swiveled her artificial smile in all directions, eyes wide in panic. The policeman had never seen anything so horrible in his life. He thought back to the hiss escaping the lips of young Lorusso’s mother, and his own nightmare: Marinella hurtling at insane speed towards her death.

And with shocking clarity, it immediately became clear to him what the Crocodile was doing.

Sweetheart, my darling,

Scratch another one off the list. Let me tell you, I’m bone tired tonight. I’m really ready for a good night’s sleep.

But not until I’ve told you all about my busy day. First things first: I’ve become famous! Not me, of course, but what I’ve done. As you know, I’m not bothering to hide what I’m doing. All I want is to complete my work as quickly as possible so I can finally see you again. And since they found the tissues I use because of this damned weepy eye of mine, a newspaper wrote that both things are the work of a single person, and they’ve dubbed me the Crocodile, on account of crocodile tears. Brilliant, aren’t they? The crocodile cries as it eats its young. But, as you know very well, those aren’t my children. It’s pretty ironic, I’d have to say.

Crocodile or no crocodile, I had to go to church. The last time, there was a small knot of onlookers and I was able to mingle with them to get a good look at her face. But this time it was too dangerous. In the gated park there were only local residents, and I would have been too conspicuous. Once I had finished, I had to get out of there fast.

Oh, I didn’t tell you that I came very close to having to put it off entirely. That wouldn’t have been a big problem; one day more or less was of no real importance. But it would certainly have been inconvenient. In any case, the usual snafu that’s always waiting around the corner: the boy with the earbuds, walking his beagle, took the dog out earlier than usual. You remember that that was one of the things I was afraid of? Well, for whatever reason, he went out a full hour earlier than his regular time, and just ten minutes before the girl was scheduled to return home from her violin lesson. And didn’t the dog stop right next to the dwarf cypress I was hiding behind and raise his little hind leg? Funny, don’t you think? Laugh, laugh, my darling, you’re so pretty when you laugh.

But everything turned out fine; the boy walked away and I was able to finish the job. It was even easier than I expected: the girl rummaged around in her bag for a couple of minutes as she couldn’t find her keys. I had all the time I needed to wipe my damned eye so I could see clearly, exhale the way I used to do at the shooting range, and grip the pistol with both hands, even if the .22 practically has no recoil, which is why I picked it in the first place.

The one thing I was sorry about was not being able to stay and watch. But today I went to the church, as I was telling you, and without boasting, I had my modest enjoyment. An interesting little show.

Then I took a look around, and who do you think I saw standing there? The cop with the Chinese eyes—you remember, I told you about him before. He was there, off to one side, standing next to a column. And he was staring straight where he needed to. He’s smart, that one, like I told you before.

But not smart enough, in any case. Not smart enough to stop me.

When Lojacono got back to the office, he encountered a highly excited Giuffrè.
“At last, at last, you’re back. Mamma mia, what a morning! I have a lot of things to tell you. Come in, come in.”

The inspector shook his head wryly. His colleague’s excitement amused him, and he sensed that the stout little sergeant cared every bit as much about what was happening as he did, if not more.

“Calm down, Giuffrè, you’re working yourself up into cardiac arrest. Then I’d have to live the rest of my life with you on my conscience. So tell me: what happened?”

Lojacono used a distinctly Sicilian form of the past tense that seemed to catapult the question into a distant, ancient past. Giuffrè blinked.

“Listen, Loja’, let’s come to an understanding. There’s a normal past tense in Italian, and there’s your weird, remote past tense, but no one understands it outside of Sicily. If you want to know what happened this morning, ask me in plain Italian. Otherwise, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lojacono shot the sergeant a disgusted glare. “Listen, professor, if you want to tell me, go ahead; otherwise keep it to yourself. If I wanted to go back to school, that’s what I would have done, and I would have gone one better: I would have studied up on how to deal with people like you.”

Giuffrè waved his hand. “No skin off my back. I’m smart enough to figure out what you’re saying for myself. Anyway, while you were out, guess who came to the police station for a little visit? Piras, none other. As hot and furious as ever. She walked in and headed straight for Di Vincenzo’s office, without even knocking–Pontolillo told me all about it. And then she started yelling: you could hear her downstairs. He kept coming up with explanations and excuses but she didn’t even stop to listen.”

Lojacono received this information with interest. “And just why did she throw this tantrum?”

“So the news does interest you, huh? Because you haven’t seen today’s papers. Well, here’s the thing: this whole story of the Crocodile murders seems to tickle the fancy of the press. Every reporter in town is coming up with theories of his own—it’s a new Camorra torpedo, a psychopathic killer, a sex maniac, a child molester. And every one of them claiming that the police, as usual, have no idea what’s going on. Every article mentions Piras’s name, and if you ask me, her career is hanging by a thread on this thing.”

Lojacono shrugged his shoulders. “Well, what the hell do we care about Piras’s career? If anything, I’d like to know what they suggest we do to catch the murderer, who might very well decide to go on killing.”

Giuffrè scratched his face meditatively. “Well, it’s not so much about Piras; it’s the pressure this puts on Di Vincenzo, who turns around and squeezes all of us in here. I hear that ever since that little girl was murdered he’s been out of his mind; he’s afraid to go home for fear something’ll happen when he’s not here, and that poor Pontolillo is all over the place, running around like a headless chicken. Anyway, they’ve reached out to all their informants, they’re going through the whole neighborhood with a fine-toothed comb, trying to figure out what links there could have been between Lorusso and the girl from Posillipo. If you ask me, none at all. Those are two completely distinct and separate cities; at most someone like Lorusso might snatch a handbag from someone like De Matteis, and that’s the closest they’ll ever come.”

Lojacono was skimming the newspapers that lay spread out on Giuffrè’s desk. “Well, they’re certainly tearing us a new one here. But these are strange murders. I’ll say it again–if you ask me, this has nothing to do with the Camorra. In this city, you use the Camorra as an umbrella: anything that happens, you blame the Camorra, directly or indirectly. I know that habit–more or less the same thing happens where I come from. But I don’t think people should let themselves be pushed off course. This time, I think these kids were killed for some other motive.”