By My Hand by Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar Page A

romantic, a ship that sank, a train that ran off the tracks in some far-off exotic country. And in the meantime, I’ll try to give her the best life possible.”
    She stopped for a moment, then turned her gaze on Ricciardi again.
    â€œMy sister was very sweet, you know, Commissario. She was a delicate, peaceable, educated woman. She deserved a long life, grandchildren, a comfortable old age. I prayed for her, and for my brother-in-law, all night long. It seems impossible that I’ll never see her again.”
    Silent tears began to run down her face. She pulled an enormous handkerchief out of her habit and blew her nose, with the grotesque sound of a toy horn at Carnival; but neither Maione nor Ricciardi felt like smiling.
    After a pause, she asked:
    â€œDo you have to . . . do you want to talk to the little girl? I beg you, I’d like her to find out the way that I told you before. She’s so small, only eight years old. Her world consists of fairytales and heroes. I don’t want her first experience of the real world to be confronting the blood of her parents.”
    Maione looked at Ricciardi, who nodded.
    â€œDon’t worry, Sister,” Maione said. “We have no need to speak with the little girl, and even if we did need to ask her a few questions, we wouldn’t have to tell her what’s happened. Keep her here, in any case. We might need to talk to her in the coming days.”
    â€œ
Grazie
, Brigadier. It won’t be easy. Christmas is coming, and she’ll want to know why she can’t return home. I’ll send someone to gather her things: her clothing, a few dolls. It won’t be easy.”
    Ricciardi began to take his leave.
    â€œLet us know, Sister, if there’s anything you need. You or the little girl.”
    â€œThere
is
something we need, in fact,” Sister Veronica replied, quietly. “We need for whoever did this to pay, and to pay dearly. So, Commissario, what I’d ask of you, on behalf of my niece and myself, is to find the men who killed my sister and my brother-in-law.”
    When they got outside the wind had stiffened and the sea roared, invisible, from beyond the Villa Nazionale, but they both felt they were in a pleasant and hospitable place.
    â€œ
Mamma mia
, Commissa’,” Maione said, “that voice cracks your eardrums. And that hand . . . you have no idea! Phew . . . disgusting, damp, squishy. Poor little kid, the daughter; she’s been left to stay with a strange creature.”
    Ricciardi sighed.
    â€œBut at least one who loves her. A better fate than that of so many of the
scugnizzi
that we see on the street. Let’s not waste any time, Raffaele. We have to decide what line of action we’re going to take, and we don’t have much to go on. You heard what Sister Veronica said, no? We have to find the murderers.”

IX
    H
e knew he’d find him there, and sure enough, there he was. Sitting at the far end of the big room, his eyes lost in the empty air, a glass in hand, while the others sang around a cracked, out-of-tune guitar.
    He crossed the tavern to reach him, waited for an invitation to sit down that never came, and then took a seat on a stool. The clamor of the merrymaking was deafening. A tavern down a narrow lane near the harbor on a Saturday night.
    He looked at him for a long time, then he said:
    â€œYou could at least say hello to me. Do you know the risk I’m running, coming here? They could see me.”
    The other man replied, slurring his words, without lifting his gaze from the empty air.
    â€œWell, who asked you to run that risk? Go on, get out of here. That’s what you do best, the lot of you.”
    The newly arrived man slammed his fist on the table, making the bottle clink.
    â€œAnd what you do best is whine and complain. I’m here to ask you just one question: Was it you? I have to hear it from your lips.”
    â€œI don’t know