TE23 Double Feature

A Conspiracy of Talkers

Gaetano Savatteri

down the judge at his mother-in-law’s place. When the carabinieri knocked, a peppercorn from the cheese a shepherd delivered to the house once a week went down the wrong way. Town judge for three years, he’d been getting a steady paycheck after finally shuttering his attorney’s practice. He couldn’t take it anymore, having to defend perpetrators of livestock rustling and crop theft. He had restored his own personal sense of justice, a torch he claimed to hold high and bright. But he hadn’t gotten used to that pounding on the door, which still made him jump every time. And there was another reason for his sudden agitation, for the questioning look he exchanged with his equally startled wife: he needed a moment — a rather long moment — to convince himself that the carabinieri at the door didn’t represent a threat, even for a judge. Especially for a judge. Pale, shocked, he examined the corpse. He flinched, seeing the rivulet of blood seeping out from under its head. The mayor was a bully. There wasn’t a soul in town with whom he hadn’t had some dispute. And he had enough lawsuits going in all the courts in the province to keep at least seven lawyers in his pay. 314

The judge studied the victim again. He’d appeared before his court more than once, always as the plaintiff, with his arrogant, disdainful expression. He had faith in the written law because he had at his disposal a force that did not appear in any government acts, in any official documents or binders. The judge had noticed the weight of that force even in his own courtroom, of which he was the master and final authority. He sensed that the uniformed officers standing behind him meant nothing. The presence that accompanied the mayor as he entered the courtroom changed the way even they walked and talked. He breathed a sigh of relief, that judge. Then he looked around, afraid that someone might have noticed. But all eyes were fixed on the corpse. The mayor was dead, murdered. And the judge believed that all the others too, all those standing around the body with blank expressions, were privately rejoicing. Sulfur miners, salt miners, peasants, day laborers, reapers, vine tenders, carpenters, cart drivers: every one of them had a good reason for feeling no grief over the mayor’s death, for actually feeling relief and elation. The man had always been a bully, but even 315