Chương 13
Vivian arrived early. She wore navy trousers and a cream sweater. The simplicity looked expensive, but at least it was not pretending otherwise.
Elena placed Daniel’s letter on the table between them.
“You met him once,” she said.
“Yes.”
“What did he wear?”
Vivian seemed surprised.
“A brown jacket. It was too large in the shoulders.”
“It was his father’s.”
“He had coffee on his cuff.”
“He always spilled.”
“He was angry with me.”
“Good.”
Vivian accepted that.
“He said people like my father believed ordinary workers were numbers because numbers did not have children. I told him that was sentimental.”
“Did he insult you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Vivian looked almost embarrassed.
“He said I had the moral courage of a decorative pillow.”
Elena laughed before she could stop.
Daniel had once described their landlord’s son the same way.
Vivian’s mouth trembled.
“I kept the envelope because I knew he was right about me.”
“You still didn’t deliver it.”
“No.”
“You could have saved him.”
“I don’t know.”
“You could have tried.”
“Yes.”
Elena waited for excuses.
None came.
“Why did you hit me?” she asked.
Vivian looked at her hands.
“I was angry before you entered the corridor. Alessandro had told me he wanted to delay the engagement announcement. My father had spent the evening telling me not to embarrass him. Then Emma spilled juice. You looked at me as though I were ridiculous.”
“You were ridiculous.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew who Daniel was.”
“Not when I struck you. I did not recognize your name until Alessandro said it.”
“That is supposed to help?”
“No.”
Vivian took a breath.
“I hit you because I believed nothing serious could happen to me for doing it.”
The plainness of the answer settled between them.
“That is probably the truest thing you’ve said,” Elena replied.
Vivian nodded.
“Will you testify?” Elena asked.
“Yes.”
“Against your father?”
“Yes.”
“Against yourself?”
Vivian’s eyes lifted. “If they charge me.”
“Why?”
“Because an apology that leaves me protected is only another performance.”
Elena thought of her words in the villa.
You can apologize when it costs you something.
She had not expected Vivian to remember.
“This does not make us friends,” Elena said.
“I know.”
“It does not make us equal.”
“I know.”
“It does not make what you did useful.”
“I know.”
Elena closed Daniel’s letter.
“Then testify.”
Vivian did.
Her testimony led investigators to the sealed envelope in her apartment. Inside were account diagrams, a copy of Daniel’s request for the widow’s door, and a handwritten note from Federico to Cesare.
The mechanic is persistent. V. can be managed. A.M. must remain insulated until the marriage.
The note did not order Daniel’s death.
The decisive evidence came from one of the old phones found in the storage locker. Daniel had photographed a car following him three nights before the crash. The license plate belonged to the surveillance company paid by Arco Nero.
Vittorio identified the company’s operations manager, who then admitted assigning two men to watch Daniel. He denied instructions to harm him. One of the men had died of illness. The other, Paolo Greco, lived near Bergamo and worked as a private driver.
Greco initially denied everything.
Phone records placed him near the service road when Daniel crashed. Vehicle repair records showed that his company car had received front-panel work the next morning, paid in cash through a Sarti subsidiary.
Confronted with the records, Greco changed his account.
He said he had followed Daniel to recover stolen documents. On the wet service road, he pulled alongside the motorcycle and tried to force Daniel to stop. Their vehicles touched. Daniel lost control.
Greco insisted he had not intended to kill him.
He had called Piero Sarti from the roadside instead of emergency services.
Piero had called Cesare.
Cesare had called Federico’s former attorney.
By the time an anonymous report reached police, Daniel had been lying in the rain for twenty-seven minutes.
The medical experts could not say with certainty whether an earlier ambulance would have saved him.
Elena learned this in a small office with beige walls.
Marta sat beside her. Magistrate Ferraro delivered the facts in a careful voice. No one used the word closure.
“Who told Greco to follow Daniel?” Elena asked.
“Piero authorized the surveillance,” Ferraro said. “Cesare was informed.”
“Who told him to force Daniel off the road?”
“We have no evidence anyone used those words.”
“So they will say it was an accident.”
“They will say the death was unintended.”
“Was it?”
Ferraro did not insult her with certainty.
“We can prove dangerous conduct, failure to assist, obstruction, and conspiracy. We may prove more after the communications analysis is complete.”
Elena looked at Marta.
“What happens if I want murder?”
Marta folded her hands.
“The law does not become more accurate because another charge matches the size of your grief.”
Elena hated her for several seconds.
Then she hated herself for wanting a word that would make Daniel more dead and the men more guilty.
“What would Daniel want?” Ferraro asked.
Elena stood.
“Do not ask me that. He made enough decisions without me.”
She walked to the window.
Traffic moved below. A delivery cyclist argued with a taxi driver. Two women carried paper cups across the street, leaning toward each other as they talked. The world had no obligation to pause because a dead man’s final twenty-seven minutes had been measured.
“I want every call entered into evidence,” Elena said. “Every delay. Every person who chose not to help. I want the record to show that no one had to say kill him. They only had to decide he was less important than the papers.”
Ferraro nodded.
“That we can do.”
Alessandro requested a meeting three months after the night at the villa.
Elena refused twice.
May you like
The third request came not through him but through Marco, who said Alessandro intended to make a decision affecting Daniel’s evidence and would proceed whether she attended or not.
She disliked the pressure and respected its honesty.
