Zamagni and Finocchi stared at each other, and then looked at the mother of the hemiplegic boy.
“Please.”
“Ok”, nodded the inspector, “but please be advised that we’ll need your help to conclude this case, and, for sure, we’ll have to get back to you again.”
The woman nodded in sign of approval and saying nothing else, opened the door and kindly asked the two policemen to leave the apartment.
“Unfortunately, the Forensic Science probably won’t be able to find anything helpful. The fingerprints are already confusing”, said Zamagni, going down the stairs.
“Proceeding in such a way would lead us nowhere”, captain Luzzi pointed out as soon as he learned about the unsuccessful visit to the apartment of the hemiplegic boy’s mother.
Zamagni and Finocchi nodded, and then the inspector added: “As long as the lady seems unwilling to cooperate, it would be extremely hard for us to come to a final solution of this case.”
“Frankly speaking, it hasn’t occurred to my mind before”, said Marco Finocchi, “what about her husband? The hemiplegic boy has had a father, right?
“It seems that one day he has left away, as if he disappeared into thin air”, explained Zamagni.
“This means that he’s not findable so far?”, asked the agent.
“It seems so, even though I’d want to get in touch with him”, said the inspector.
“At least, he would be able to save his wife suffering from this shock”, asserted Finocchi.
“Would be possible to start searching for him?”, proposed Zamagni, “If we succeed, then we can make him meet his wife again. Even though there’s bad blood between them, I believe the two spouses could become closer to each other for the sake of their son.”
“Yeah, we can have a try”, admitted the captain, “Let’s spread the word then.”
“All right. What else can we do in the meantime?”, the agent Finocchi wanted to know.
“Good question”, Giorgio Luzzi replied to him, “We don’t have yet in our hands any fact or clue that may lead us to a pertinent connection or conclusion. Although it might seem unlikely, this is the only lead to be followed at the moment.”
“Hence, how are we gonna proceed further on?”, asked Zamagni. “I don’t know”, was the instinctive answer of the captain, “We need to squeeze our brains and come up with some idea.”
Since the day in which the tragedy happened, the mother of Marco Mezzogori, had switched from the initial state of shock to a sort of nervous breakdown, and as far as appeared, she had no desire to meet or talk to anyone.
Even Carla, the aunt of hemiplegic boy, so far hadn’t been in the apartment of her sister-in-law after the death of her nephew.
The nephew was indeed the true inspirational motive of her visits to that apartment, and this was also because of the cold relationships with her sister-in-law.
Giuseppe Ruspoli, Carla’s husband, and Luciano Mezzogori, Marco’s father, used to work together in the same mechanic shop, and it occurred once in a while that Carla went to see her brother in the job place.
In this way she had met by chance her future husband.
To be more precise, Luciano was the employer of his brother-in-law given that he was the owner of this mechanic shop and the other one located in Bologna as well.
At that time, Luciano Mezzogori was already engaged to Marisa, her future wife, and it occurred to both couples to get together and arrange a hangout around.
On those occasions, Carla has had also the chance to know Marisa much better, and at once she had the feeling that Marisa seemed a woman unrealised in the full sense. Her husband used to say that she should be dealing with housework, instead of working. She had no kids and her hobbies were just limited to very minimal things. She also used to listen music, and occasionally used to go to cinema with Luciano for watching movies, and that’s all.
Her self-realisation has been materialized in her son, Marco, who very soon had presented some problems with hemiplegia.
It was obvious that Marisa was never felt happy and, as if this wasn’t enough, her husband also disappeared one day. Carla still hasn’t been able to understand the reasons that led to such disappearance; the only thing occurred to her mind was that her husband could no longer bear to see the son in that condition, but in her view, he wasn’t that kind of person who could abandon his own family due to such reason.
Moreover, their son now wasn’t with her anymore, he’s dead already.
Carla didn’t know how to cope with such situation, as she was completely aware of the problems and hardships arisen and, on the way to the apartment of her sister-in-law, she wouldn’t allow any mistake to herself. In particular, the very first approach would be decisive.
When decided to go and visit her sister-in-law, she saw no significant change happened since the day when she witnessed her sister-in-law with the son laid down dead on the floor.
On the way back home, she passed by her as usual, and went upstairs to her apartment, but once showed up at the door, she noticed that her sister-in-law was not so welcoming.
Once entered the apartment, Marisa immediately said: “I’d want to be alone.”
“You should do something to overcome this situation”, Carla advised her, “We both know that it has been a big shock, but now the Police is inquiring to find the murderer of your son and do justice for him. Meanwhile, you should think to do your best so that you can go back to normality.”
“And why would it really matter!”
“I can imagine it’s extremely hard for you, but you should do something. Have you ever tried to go out for a walk around?”
“No”, was the sharp reply of Marisa Lavezzoli.
“You need to try”, said Carla, “You should give courage to yourself in order to shrug off these thoughts. Unfortunately, only the idea that Marco won’t be back amongst us, is very hard even to me, but we cannot help but admit it, and it’s worthwhile to realise that your behavior is not helpful at all.”
“There are only words, what you’re saying, but now I remained alone, and all this due to an incident.”
“I’m fully aware that a petty thief may have come up here through the open window, but, what if he might have an unexpected sickness, and consequently the autopsy results could have proved to be wrong? Have you ever thought about it? It may occur sometimes that even doctors make mistakes, isn’t it so?”
Carla has pronounced these last words mostly in attempt to make her distract from the current situation, because she herself didn’t believe such words said to her sister-in-law.
Carla was convinced that something terrible had happened to her nephew, who perhaps was prompted to fight with a kind of murderer or thief without having the slightest chance to run away unharmed.
