Personal Terror Political Terror. Guido Pagliarino
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to the world.
For Deputy Commissioner Pumpo, on the contrary, the Monster's silence validated the idea of the demonic group that killed for ritualistic reasons and that had every interest in remaining in the shadows, like all the satanic communities.
For Commissioner Sordi, the hypothesis of a common killer was worth considering, because the fact that there had been more than one would have favored the perpetration of the murders, but it did not necessarily mean a lot of people and not necessarily a demonic environment. In his opinion it could have been, instead, one of the amateur cases that criminologists called magister-alumnus, meaning a pair of serial killers comprised of one person who conceived the murders and the way to implement them, and an apprentice pupil, the perpetrator or co-perpetrator.
At the time Vittorio considered all the conjectures important and, not being in favor of any of them, he waited for more relevant data.
Two days after the murder of Mosca Stalina Scrofagnocca, my friend and I were having dinner together around 8:00 pm, like we did almost every week during our long friendship. We always ate at the same place, a restaurant in Corso Palestro not far from our apartments.
After skipping the "appetite killer" starters as he defined them in agreement with me, and after the first course of spaghetti with shellfish which was practcially an obsession for him, being Neapolitan, Vittorio had turned the conversation to the Ear Monster: "Evaristo told me that, apparently, none of the victims had ever complained to relatives or friends, and certainly had never reported receiving threats in general or, political threats in particular, thinking about the two victims who had been involved with the extreme left in the past. Think too that the four prople who were killed in their own home, or so it would seem at least, had let the murderer in: that could make you think that they had been in prior contact with the murderer or murderers."
"Look, Vittorio, it seems the Monster entered from the garden through a window for the first victim."
"I know there is this hypothesis, but that certainly can’t make us rule out that instead the victim had let the murderer into the house. All we can be sure of is that no front door was forced in any case."
"Could the Monster have had the keys to the aparrments?" I had suggested.
"From the victims themselves?"
"Well, no, I'd think of fake copies made in advance, I don't know, somehow getting a cast."
"It's not that easy, you know? It’s only in th movies tat they secretly take key prints on wax and make perfect copies of it. Locksmiths don’t work like that, they start from an original or, if there is no key, they work directly on the lock, and sometimes just replace the whole lock. If anything, I would think of a bump key that can easily open a door if there is just the half turn, apart from the fact that nowadays, as a rule, people lock up as much as possible, even if they’re inside at the time: to the right, to the left, above and below" – he had made the gesture of turning an imaginary key in an equally non-existent keyhole several times – "and I think the half-turn that the relatives found later and, in the case of Scrofagnocca the police, was the obvious consequence of the fact that the murderer had pulled the door closed behind him each time as he escaped, not that there was already just the simple turn when he arrived, except in the first case, because the maid had told Evaristo that she had left a half-turn as usual when she went out. I imagine that poor Mrs. Tron felt safe thanks to the wall surrounding the house and, on the other hand, either she or the maid had opened the windows on the ground floor to let some air inside because it was a warm day, and it would not have made sense to lock the front door with three turns.
"The determing factor, after all, is that all the victims were at home and if the killer had tinkered at the door trying to get in, they would have heard it. So, if in the Capuò Tron case he may have sneaked into the house by climbing the fence and getting through window, for the other crimes someone must have opened up to him from the inside: the victims themselves, I imagine."
"Listen, Vittorio, even if my idea is a bit like soap opera perhaps, couldn’t the murderer have been their lover, for all four women, hence each of them let him into the house without having any suspicions?"
"Their lover? All four of them? That’s an idea which is really over the top, I have to say, although it can’t be ruled out one hundred percent. But what about that old flea-ridden drunken bum? Was he the Monster’s lover, too? Let’s even say he’s bisexual, but I could believe in a relationship if the victim had been a handsome young man; but copulating with a dirty stinking..."
"Oh, if it comes to that, there are all kinds of disgusting sexual tastes, Vittorio! Think of the people who even do it with an aninal, which seems even worse than coupling with an old flea-ridden drunk."
"Yes, and incidentally, I don’t want to rule out the possibility that marriages with an animal or, I don’t know, other depravities such as paedophile sex will unfortunately be legalized in the future: there are many politicians these days with no natural morality, people immersed in weak thinking8 and all they care about is following any change in how his potential voters feel. But leaving aside moralistic concerns, let’s go back to the case of the Monster: if the murderer is always the same for all five victims, we can assume that both the vagrant and the four women had known him before: and didn’t need to have been his lovers! Nevertheless, Cipolla may have been killed not by the Monster as a serial killer, but by an admirer-imitator, or by a personal enemy who wanted to throw off the investigation by using the same method as the Monster."
"All right, Vittorio."
"It’s not unlikely, though, that the serial killer knew at least three of the victims and that they had opened the door to him, and there is another thing too: I suspect that the deceased all knew each other in the past, and indeed in two cases, according to something Evaristo told me confidentially, it’s almost certain. So tomorrow morning I’lll go and check on something in this regard myself and if I get lucky I’ll let you know for your newspaper as well, whereas if it’s a fiasco, nothing doing."
At this point he had started eating the second course, which a kind woman had already brought him a couple of minutes earlier: autumn mushrooms and breaded and fried zucchini flowers, not exactly the maximum for good digestion, especially for a stomach over 80 years old like his.
The next morning, in excellent health, Vittorio had gone to the Registry Office, asking for an executive he knew because, like himself, he was parishioner of Santa Barbara.
Knowing he was Emeritus Commissioner, and ignoring the privacy law, his acquaintance had made an archivist available to him and with his help my friend had discovered the professions of the five victims, according to their old identity cards. Little by little, he had discovered that Capuò Tron, Picozza Ferini and Cipolla had also worked in a warehouse for a long time. It remained to be seen where: had they been at the same shower door factory too?
In the afternoon Vittorio had telephoned Commissioner Sordi to let him know of the coincidence, suggesting that he investigate the archives of the Turin Employment Office to find out in which companies those three had been warehouse workers: "I’m wondering, Evaristo, whether they had been employed in the same company where Peritti and Scrofagnocca had worked."
He had also told me, as we had agreed in case of any developments, to let Carla know so she could get an article out of it.
It had been published the following morning, on the front page. At Vittorio's request, the author had taken credit for the discovery at the Registry Office, because my friend had not wanted to appear in the media; he had told me on the phone: "It isn’t so much out of modesty that I don’t want to be named, but just to be prudent because I don’t want to find the monster in my house putting a hole in my skull with an ice pick, at my venerable age. " From his tone of voice I had guessed he was smiling.