Gilda Moscatelli

Gilda Moscatelli is 46 and speaks of her own life as a play in which she always got the part of the victim. Born in Naples, the daughter of a cinema owner and a housewife who taught her that a woman is measured by her hairdo, she came to Milan at 22. She married Lorenzo Brancati at 26, had two daughters and spent thirteen years among parties, yachts and magazine photographs. She never forgave the day she was traded for a younger decorator.

She lives in a high-ceilinged apartment near Brera, with black lacquered furniture, gilt-framed mirrors, a vase of always-fresh lilies and a gold ashtray she displays and hardly uses. She wakes late, has breakfast in bed and spends the morning on the phone with her masseuse, her hairdresser and her daughters. She has lunch with them on Sundays and uses the lunch to demand from each what she heard, saw and left untold.

She is petite and heavily made up, with voluminous, teased dark brown hair, thin eyebrows and a red mouth that keeps its color even in mourning. She wears a minkmink The soft, glossy fur of a small mammal, used for expensive coats. coat over a black dress, many gold and diamond rings and a printed silk scarf at her neck. Her enormous black-framed sunglasses are pushed up on top of her head. She speaks theatrically, lifts her chin, and pauses her sentences like someone awaiting applause.

About the marriage, her account is learned by heart: thirteen years of parties, yachts and lies, until in 1985 he left home on a business trip and never returned. As for the death, she says she learned of it from the housekeeper, at 10, who woke her with the radio on, and that she had already cried what she owed in 1985. In her view, the one who gains from the death is the fiancée, who claims to have been at the gym, which Gilda's masseuse denies.

Gilda knows an ex-wife, with motives and rancor, is the other obvious suspect. When the detective asks whether she had her ex-husband killed, she lowers the sunglasses from the top of her head, lifts her chin and says she will only speak in front of the family lawyer. Someone who lowers dark lenses to stare at the detective may be as offended as she may be hiding her gaze.