“If the magistrate does let you out, she may put you on house arrest. Then you’ll have to stay with your mamma. Or she may make you check in daily at the local police station. Can you do that?”
“Okay. Yeah.”
Valerio sat for a moment, considering. He was about to stand when he thought of something. He pulled out his phone and flipped through the pictures until he came to the photos he’d taken in Ines’s apartment.
He held the phone out to Gaetano. “The man in this picture,” he said. “The man with your mother—can you tell me who he is?”
The boy looked surprised.
“You don’t know?” he asked.
“Should I know?”
“Uhm…that’s Paride.”
“Last name?”
“Silvestri. Paride Silvestri.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Valerio and Maurizio stood.
“Can you tell my mamma…” said Gaetano. “Tell her I’m sorry.”
“Let’s see what we can do to get you out, and you can tell her yourself,” said Valerio.
—
Back at the office, Valerio spent nearly an hour trying to reach the public defender assigned to Gaetano before he finally got through; then more calls over the next few hours to encourage him to get the right paperwork filed with the magistrate. Midafternoon, he and thepublic defender went to the magistrate’s chambers, where he summarized his visit to Ines Mancusi, talked about her obvious illness, and proposed that the magistrate release the young Gaetano on humanitarian grounds.
“I need a statement from Signora Mancusi’s doctor, confirming her illness,” she instructed the public defender.
Assured that the arrangements would proceed without him, Valerio returned to the office to close out his paperwork.
“Will it happen?” Maurizio asked. “Will they let him go home?”
Valerio nodded.
“Is it finished? What they wanted from you?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Now keep yourself out of trouble, you idiot.”
—
Valerio expected to feel the burden lifted as he left the station and began the walk home. It was nearly finished, he told himself. In a few hours, Gaetano would be released from Poggioreale and the whole business with Luca would be behind him. He hadn’t crossed any lines—nothing illegal, nothing unethical. Gaetano was just a kid, and the jail was the wrong place for him. If, instead of Luca, Ines Mancusi had asked for his help, he would have given it.
These thoughts comforted less than they should. He felt heavy and dull, a sensation worsened by the commercial cheer of the holiday shoppers. Unease jostled through his feet and hands, clamped onto his throat. Eager to escape the feeling, he made his way to Cosimo’s pizzeria, where he filled up on a dinner of meaty pizza.
Fingers still a little greasy, he checked his phone, smearing the screen. He hadn’t paid attention to it for a few days. Not since the night of the murder.
There were far too many texts.
He skimmed the group chat messages between Orlanda and Penelope as they diagnosed the psychological maladies of their mother, discussed whether they should insist she stay with one of them, coordinated bringing her dinner, and complained about Valerio’s nonparticipation.
His ex-wife, Giorgia, had texted several times with news reports about the murder at the church, fishing for details.
