Still unidentified is the man who broke into the apartment of Deputy Chief Rocco Schiavone on Rue Piave on Thursday night, where he fired eight bullets from a handgun, putting an end to the life of Adele Talamonti, age 39, from Rome, a friend and confidante of the deputy police chief. According to recent revelations, she was in Aosta paying her friend the deputy chief a visit, and now the victim’s body has been transferred to the capital, where it has found interment in Montecompatri, the victim’s family’s hometown, not far from Rome. Many unanswered questions remain, however, concerning this murder. Was she really the murderer’s chosen target, or was it Dottor Schiavone, who wasn’t home the night of the murder? At police headquarters, everyone’s lips are sealed; at the prosecutor’s office, the silence is deafening. There is a sensation in the air that in the city’s offices, executive and otherwise, the wagons are being circled to protect the deputy chief, who has been stationed in Aosta since September last year. An effective policeman, he has already solved a number of important cases, not least his successful cracking of a loan-sharking ring run by organized crime. We wonder, however: Is this an investigation that warrants a wall of secrecy to keep from tipping off the culprits, or is it more of a delaying action being run by law enforcement now that one of their members is at the eye of the hurricane? If the latter were the case, we might rightly point to a corruption of the rule of law. Instead, we choose to rely on the guardians of the law, and we await further developments with our trust in the institutions of democracy unshaken.

—SANDRA BUCCELLATO

“Oh, go fuck yourself!” Rocco hurled the newspaper to the floor. “Wall of secrecy, my ass!” he shouted at the pages of newsprint scattered across the room. Who was this Sandra Buccellato? And what was she insinuating?

This was the second article that the reporter had written about the murder with that acid tone. “Adele Talamonti, age 39, from Rome” was the girlfriend of Sebastiano, his oldest and closest friend from Rome. The victim was a dear old friend who now lay buried in the cemetery of Montecompatri. What the fuck was the venom that this journalist was spreading with that article?

Here’s what Sandra Buccellato ought to have written in the newspaper instead: “Dottor Schiavone! They murdered a friend of yours in your home, and for days now, instead of investigating, you’ve been lying around shut up indoors like a hibernating bear? What are you waiting for? Get your ass in gear and try to figure out what happened. While you’re licking your wounds, that bastard is walking the streets, a free man, doing as he pleases. Get busy, Schiavone!”