Adam's Rib (25 page)

“I didn't . . .”

Rocco let fly with the speed of an express train at full velocity; a straight punch knocked Patrizio Baudo's head around on its gimbals. “I told you not to interrupt me.”

“Dottor Schiavone!” shouted the priest as the widower put a hand up to the cheek that the deputy police chief's hand had just stamped, leaving a mark like a decal on window glass. “No interruptions, I believe I just told him. Let's go on.”

“Dottor Schiavone, I'm not going to let you—”

“Padre, stay out of this. This isn't one of your little lost sheep. This is a vicious coward who's always gotten away with it. Am I right, Patrizio? Then let me continue, and don't try to interrupt again. On Friday morning you beat your wife silly, she still had the marks on her face. You went overboard and you killed her.”

“I told you that—”

This time it was Rocco's elbow that smashed into Patrizio Baudo's cheekbone. The impact snapped the man's head around 180 degrees and a spurt of blood shot out of
his mouth and stained the gravel at the priest's feet. “Oh sweet Jesus!” he said. “Dottor Schiavone, I'm going to let the authorities know . . .”

“Silence!” Rocco shouted, with foam on his lips. “Shut the hell up.”

Italo had come over. What looked like a peaceful conversation, at least from where he'd been standing, was suddenly deteriorating into something terrifying. He knew that he needed to be ready to intervene as needed.

Deputy Police Chief Schiavone went on talking, calmly, while the widower spat out a mouthful of red saliva. “And all that happened in the kitchen. You strangled her with the tie. The necktie that your wife gave you for your name day. So you decided to stage a suicide. But first you drew the curtains and then—still worried someone might see something, some chance observer, someone from across the street—you actually lowered the wooden roller blinds, and that was your mistake. In part because there's no one who can see into your windows from across the way. No one lives across from you, hadn't you ever noticed that? But you were in a hurry, you knew that Irina would be there at ten, you didn't have much time to think, so you lowered them. Then you went out for a bike ride. If I were to ask you, would you be able to come up with anyone to confirm your alibi? Did anyone see you out riding? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Patrizio said nothing.

“Now is the time to talk. I asked you a question. Did anyone see you on your bike?”

The widower shook his head no.

“Excellent. Then you got rid of the necktie, which was the murder weapon. You went home and you put on the whole charade. You kept your gloves on all morning, you never once took them off. And even when I came to the church to show you the brooch, do you remember? You were still wearing your gloves. Just like you are now. You were afraid to let anyone see your hands. You were afraid to show those hands, hands that had beaten someone. Specifically, your wife, Esther.”

Patrizio had pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his lip. “I didn't kill her. I didn't kill her.”

Rocco looked at him. He needed to clench his teeth and ball his fists as hard as he could to keep his impulses under control. He stood there, glaring at the man's jugular. He'd have happily ripped it open with his teeth.

“Esther and I . . . we fought, it's true. She . . . she just knows how to make me see red. I swear it, when she acts a certain way I just go blind with rage. She wanted to go away, she wanted to go to live with that bitch, Adalgisa!”

“Patrizio . . .” said the priest. “Patrizio, I'm begging you. Come back to your senses.”

“What senses do you want me to come back to?” The koala's eyes widened, spreading like an inkblot on a sheet of paper. Now those eyes were completely dark and the white seemed to have vanished entirely. “She didn't understand, Padre. I loved her but she was constantly testing me. Every blessed day. Every day was an ordeal. She'd send texts and then erase them. Who was she texting? I had to know. I was her husband. Jesus Christ on a crutch, did I or did I not have the right to know?”

The priest raised both hands to his face. Patrizio went on: “Last year, I went and stayed with my mother for two weeks. And do you know what Esther said to me, Padre? Do you want to know? The happiest two weeks of my life! Her exact words. And the same thing with her cell phone. Text after text to that bitch Adalgisa, all of them saying: the happiest two weeks of my life! But still, she wanted money, fine lady that she was. Boy, did she want money! What about me? It was my job to work like a slave to make sure she had a credit card and plenty of cash to pay for her ridiculous whims.”

“Why didn't you ever come talk to me about it? Why didn't you ever say anything?” asked Don Sandro.

“What could you understand about it, Padre? What do you know about having a wife? Have you ever had any experience in that area?”

“You're right, I don't know anything about having a wife. But I know a little something about the human soul,” Don Sandro replied.

“All you've ever been able to tell me is: confide in Christ. Confide in Christ. But where was Christ for the past seven years? Where was He? Let me tell you where He was, Padre. Somewhere else. And you know when Christ came back? When I punished her. That's right, that's when peace returned, let me tell you. And believe me, I'm not ashamed to say it, bending her to my will was the only solution. Even if sometimes that was painful to me.”

“You were breaking her bones!”

Patrizio's bloody smile seemed like a mask of horror. “Sure, that happened once or twice. Maybe even a few times . . . but you see? I might not have meant to, but sometimes all it took was a little bit of force and
crack
!” He snapped his fingers. “She broke like a twig. Not that I wanted it, but it would just happen . . . she had brittle bones, evidently. I bet if I'd never broken anything, we wouldn't be here arguing right now, would we?”

Rocco got to his feet. Patrizio was still talking to the priest, and by now it seemed that there was no way of stopping him. Usually a priest hears confession in secret, Rocco thought to himself. And also, maybe he wasn't remembering the details exactly, but wasn't there supposed to be the sign of the cross and some other kind of religious formula before you can start pouring your shit into the priest's ears?

“I knew it the whole time, but there always has to be someone at home who gives the orders and someone else who obeys them. And if that means that sometimes I had to resort to physical discipline, well then, Padre, what can I tell you? I resorted to it. Don Sandro, you can't imagine what it's like to live with a woman who might decide, from one minute to the next, that she wanted to go out and do who-knows-what with who-knows-who. I caught her red-handed, you know that? I caught her red-handed with a coworker of mine. In a café. Drinking a
granita di caffè
. With whipped cream. In February!”

“You . . . you did this to your wife . . .” said Don Sandro with his eyes fixed on the ground. Patrizio Baudo went on
shouting, his teeth stained with blood as hysterical tears rolled down his cheeks. “She'd snicker behind my back every time we went out. Even in church, Don Sandro, even there. One time, you know what she said to me? That it was a pity that you'd become a priest, because it was such a waste of a handsome man. So what's the explanation? You must have had impure thoughts about my wife, that's it, isn't it? Tell the truth!”

“Patrizio, you need to calm down!”

“Why, are you saying you wouldn't have taken a piece of her?”

Don Sandro's right hand shot out with an astonishing agility and left a bright red mark on Patrizio's cheek.

“Padre,” Rocco said. “Please. Control yourself.”

Don Sandro was having difficulty breathing and he kept his eyes glued on Patrizio Baudo's face. The hand that had slapped him was bright red. “What have I done . . .” said the man of God, “what have I done . . .”

Rocco glanced at Italo, who was standing a few yards away from the bench. The officer read an unequivocal message in his boss's glance. So he stepped toward Patrizio Baudo while pulling a pair of handcuffs out of their case.

“But afterward, Esther understood!” Baudo was whispering to Don Sandro as Italo fastened up the cuffs around his wrists. “She'd understand and ask me to forgive her. And if I did what I did to her, it was out of an overabundance of love. That's right, it might seem hard to believe, but it's true.”

With a mighty yank Italo tried to drag Patrizio away
from the bench and guide him, handcuffed, toward the car. But he went on talking. “And then she'd understand, Padre, you hear me? And she'd come to bed with me. And she'd be sweeter and more womanly than ever before. Why didn't she ever report me to the police? Eh? Answer me that, why not? You tell me why, Dottor Schiavone. Did you ever see her at police headquarters?”

By now Patrizio and Italo were about fifty feet away. The policeman was having a hard time dragging the man away. “Because deep down she was fine with it. She liked it that way! It was my way of showing her my love. And she was fine with it!”

“Get moving, god damn you to hell!” Italo shouted. But Patrizio paid him no mind.

“It was just a matter of calibrating my strength. I didn't know how to control myself. That's all. But she was perfectly happy with it!”

“I'm going to kick your ass right over to the car if you don't get moving!”

“But you have to believe me, everything I ever did to her, Esther deserved it. She practically asked for it!”

“God damn it to hell, now you've gone too far!” Italo hit him hard with his shoulder. Patrizio fell to the ground, kicked frantically, and then got back to his feet. “I didn't kill Esther. I only punished her, and she deserved it. I was her husband, I had the right to do it, and it was my duty. It's written in the books, Padre. It's written in holy scripture!”

At last Italo managed to drag the man away and they
vanished behind a cypress tree. As if by magic, his screams were swallowed up by the silence of the cemetery.

Rocco and Don Sandro found themselves face-to-face. A pair of survivors in the wake of a cyclone that had left nothing standing but them.

“So, next time, shall I hold him and you can hit him, Padre?”

Don Sandro collapsed onto the bench. “I . . . I can't believe it. I'd known them for all these years. And all this was happening right before my eyes.”

“Right before your eyes, right before the eyes of their neighbors, the eyes of the whole city, of the hospitals and even the police. Don't blame yourself. You're not the only one at fault.”

“How can you say such a thing? This certainly is my fault. If not, what are priests for? If a priest can't even intervene to rescue a family?”

“Because the only way of rescuing that family was something that you, Padre, will never be able to accept. It's called divorce.”

“You see, Dottor Schiavone? What God has joined together let no man put asunder, and this I know. But sometimes God has joined together absolutely no one at all. And so there's nothing there to put asunder.”

JUDGE BALDI WASTED NO EXTRA TIME SIGNING THE WARRANTS
. He was clearly delighted that the case of Esther Baudo's
death had been disposed of in just a few days. “You're a lightning bolt,” he'd told Rocco. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm in the middle of nailing one of the largest cases of tax evasion in the history of Val d'Aosta.” Together with the two members of his police escort, he took off at top speed, leaving the DA's office and heading for Courmayeur. Suddenly Rocco Schiavone found himself with nothing at all to do. He went strolling down the halls of police headquarters with his hands clasped behind his back, like a pensioner roaming the streets, supervising road repairs and construction sites. He'd bought a couple of coffees from the vending machine, along with a chocolate bar, and even a snack. Of course, he'd spat everything—coffee, chocolate, and snack material—into the plastic rubbish bin that some wise soul had placed right next to the vending machines. For the first time since he'd moved to Aosta, he'd gone home after lunch. Stretched out on the sofa with a blanket over his legs, he decided to do a little reading. He chose a book of short stories. If he wanted to start reading again, he'd have to treat it the way you would a sport, or jogging. After a long period of neglect, you can't go out for an hour-long run. Your muscles aren't in shape for that. Likewise, he was in no condition to start a novel. He lacked the stamina to run, and he lacked the concentration to read. If he fell asleep while reading a short story, he'd be able to pick up the thread again without much trouble. He happened to choose a book of short stories by Chekhov. When he got to the fifth Russian name, Olga Mikhailovna, his eyelids slid shut like a pair of roller shutters.

It was the police chief who woke him up. He'd taken advantage of the resolution of the case to hold a press conference, confident for once that he could dominate the questions from the news vendors. Rocco had been summoned to attend. He was dreaming of the Russian steppes, rubles, and versts of land. Without an excuse ready to hand he'd capitulated. So he'd be unable to avoid that pain in the ass that he'd promoted that very day to the ninth degree of objectionability.

HE FOUND HIMSELF SITTING AT THE BIG CONFERENCE
table in the meeting room at police headquarters, looking out at a pack of reporters armed with notepads, cell phones set to record, and TV cameras on tripods at the far end of the room. Chief of Police Andrea Corsi had been speaking without a break for fifteen minutes now, and Rocco was lost in his thoughts, though he was careful to look out at the press with a good imitation of a focused, interested expression. It was an old trick of his, and he'd used it to make it through all those years of high school. It was enough to put both elbows on the table and place his hands in front of his mouth, narrow his eyes, and nod from time to time, in a slow, profound, thoughtful manner.