Chapter Eleven #3
“You’re a better cop than most of the guys I work with,” he said, realizing it was true. “What did you think about Lake? Could he have murdered Claire?”
“I wasn’t exactly there to challenge his story,” Nikki said. “I’m not part of the investigation anymore. It was awkward enough to get invited in for drinks after I yelled at his wife. I presume Sonia and Emilio checked his alibi, though. What makes you think Jayston is a suspect?”
“He knew her,” he said. “Maybe he was having an affair with her, like his wife suspected. Maybe she told him she was pregnant. Maybe she threatened to tell the wife. Most murders are committed by someone close to the victim—look at the boyfriend or husband first, I say.”
“True,” Nikki agreed. “But if he wanted Claire dead, why do it publicly…and so brutally? Wouldn’t it make sense to wait until they’re out to sea…and oops—she vanishes overboard? No witnesses. Just an accident. Good way to hide a pregnancy, if she was pregnant.”
“You’ve got a point there,” Valerio acknowledged. “What about the wife? Could she have done it? Although, I suppose she’d have the same opportunity as the husband. If she’d wanted to kill the nanny, she’d do it at sea, too.”
“It was such a high-risk attack,” Nikki noted.
“That’s what surprises me. Why do it there?
Public place and plenty of witnesses. And a stabbing death is messy.
Too many opportunities to leave evidence.
It just doesn’t make sense to me that anyone from the yacht would take that risk when they had better options. ”
“You don’t take that kind of risk unless you’re desperate or insane,” said Valerio.
Nikki was about to answer when a voice behind Valerio said, “Nina? Nina Serafino, is that you?”
Only when he swiveled around to look did Valerio notice how much he’d had to drink. The world seemed to track unsteadily. He was suddenly wobbly and a little sick. He swallowed to keep everything in place.
The speaker was a handsome, well-built man—a little older than Valerio and much fitter. His features were even and attractive and, much to Valerio’s envy, he’d managed to keep all his hair. A thick mane of salt-and-pepper locks were combed in waves away from his face. He wore a long wool coat.
Nikki gave him a puzzled look. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“It’s been…years,” he answered. “More than a decade, now I think about it. You wouldn’t remember me. I was friends with your brother…Adriano. We worked together.”
Nikki, usually so quick, seemed to struggle for words. She looked momentarily stricken. In the pause that followed, Valerio stuck out his hand.
“Valerio Alfieri,” he said. The man took it.
“Sandro Balestrieri.”
If he’d been thinking clearly, Valerio felt sure he could sort through two conflicting opinions about the situation.
His first feeling was annoyance with the intrusion.
He’d been enjoying Nikki’s conversation and didn’t feel particularly inclined to share her with someone else.
But this feeling contended with a powerful curiosity.
Nikki was a deeply private person. What he knew about her personal and family history he’d patched together from the scraps she’d somehow forgotten to tuck away.
He’d heard the name Adriano only once—as the beloved brother she’d lost years ago.
Police records said that Adriano Serafino had died of a gunshot wound in November 2006 during a spate of Camorra-related violence.
Twenty-year-old Nikki’s statement was in the record, the only witness to the shooting.
“Pull up a seat, Sandro,” said Valerio, indicating the spare stool. “Join us.”
“Oh, I really shouldn’t,” he protested. “I’m just passing through. It’s so strange to see you, Nina. It must be fate. As chance would have it, I think I saw your father earlier today.”
“A Peroni for Sandro, here,” Valerio called out to Graziella, who nodded.
“I think…I do remember you,” Nikki said haltingly. She seemed to be regaining her composure. “Of course. Sandro! I remember you used to come by for dinner. You and Adriano went to school together, didn’t you? Carabinieri Officers’ College?”
“Yes!” Sandro exclaimed. “That’s right. Then we worked together in the same unit until…he passed. The last time I saw you was at Adriano’s funeral. How have you been?”
“I’m doing really well!” She said the words in an eerily chipper voice, without apparent irony. “Are you still in the service?”
“Yes.” He made a slight gesture as Graziella brought out the Peroni. “I’m really sorry. I need to get home. Please give my greetings to your father. I’m sorry I didn’t say hello to him in person.”
“Of course,” said Nikki. Rising to her feet, she didn’t flinch or pull back as Sandro reached down to embrace her.
“Good to see you,” he said. “Just wonderful to see you again.”
—
The conversation didn’t recover after that. Nikki seemed distracted and, after a few minutes, took out some bills and laid them on the barrel.
“I’ll call it a night,” she said.
It was only after she’d disappeared around a corner that Valerio remembered they hadn’t signed the insurance paperwork.
—
Valerio’s phone rang just as he reached the front door to his building, before he’d had a chance to pull out his keys. He needed to piss and was eager to get inside.
It was Luca’s number. Fuck. He was too tired and too drunk to deal with this right now.
No sooner had he pressed the button to answer, a stream of abuse screamed from the speakers.
“You must be the dumbest fucking shithead on earth. What the hell is wrong with you, Alfieri? You tell me that! You answer me that!”
Valerio hung up.
The phone rang again. He answered and the abuse started again. He hung up again.
Answering a third time, there was a different voice.
“Alfieri?”
“Sì.”
“Gaetano Mancusi is going to be released from jail.”
“That’s right.”
“Boss is angry…off the chain.”
“What the fuck is he angry about? I did what he wanted. We’re done. Finished. There’s nothing more to say.”
“It’s done when he says it’s done. You should have told him.”
“I’m telling him now.”
There was a pause and Valerio heard muffled conversation before the man’s voice was back on the line. “He wants you to go to the jail.”
“No. I’m going to bed.”
“Mancusi will be released at midnight. Errichiello wants you there.”
“If it’s such a big deal, he can go there. And who the hell does a prisoner release at midnight?”
“He wants you there. This isn’t finished, Alfieri. Be there.”
They were gone.
Fuck. Fuck.
Valerio rested his head against the door and pressed his fist into the surface until his knuckles throbbed. He wished he wasn’t so drunk. He just wanted to piss and go to sleep.
—
Maybe two or three beers and he could have managed to get his motorcycle to the jail, but he’d passed that limit long ago—even stupidly switched to liquor at some point during the evening. His mouth was numb, face hot, joints loose. The world seemed to smear out, sounds echoing and amplified.
The taxi ride was a nightmare. He kept drifting to sleep for seconds at a time, only to be jolted awake as the car braked or turned, tipping him in his seat.
At last, they reached the relentless black silhouette of the jail, the high wall starkly lit by streetlights, the razor wire along the top like a rim of silver lace.
“We’re here,” said the driver, pulling up to the curb across the street.
“Good,” said Valerio. “We wait, then you take me back home.”
The driver turned on the radio. They listened together to the lament of some young singer, crooning about his lost love, and the plaintive accompaniment.
“Dimmi di riprovare, ma non di rinunciare,” he sang. “…solo nel perdono cambia un uomo.” Tell me to try again, to never surrender…only in forgiveness does a man change.
They heard the clanging jingle of a commercial next and Valerio was about to ask the driver if he would change the station, when he saw a shadow at the base of the tall metal door, and the slight figure of Gaetano Mancusi stepped out.
He looked even more like a scarecrow now than he had in the cell, so small against the high walls. He wasn’t wearing a coat, just that ugly brown sweater, and he clutched a black plastic bag in his left hand.
Valerio patted the driver’s seat-back twice, said, “I’ll be right back,” and stepped out.
He waved at Gaetano. The boy looked at him.
Valerio began to make his way across the street.
He’d only taken a few steps when a dark blue sedan screeched into the road before him, engine revving.
He saw the shapes of three men in the car, the angular outlines of the weapons, the hot red sparks as the machine guns sprayed bullets.
Gaetano’s body danced and juddered as the bullets crashed into him, and he fell down down down, towards the hard concrete.
Gaetano Mancusi, son of Ines Mancusi, eighteen years old, was dead before he hit the pavement.