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  “So take D’Intino and go, thanks.”

  “Well, actually, I . . .” said D’Intino, pointing to his ribs.

  “What?”

  “Dottore, my ribs still hurt pretty bad.”

  A month and a half before, D’Intino had been the target of an assault that had resulted in a broken nose and a deviated septum. Then, as if that hadn’t been enough, he’d fallen into an open road-construction pit, fracturing a couple of ribs, which were still painfully tender. The video feed from a security camera that happened to record the attack on D’Intino and Deruta—Deruta being the 230-pound-plus officer who was running neck and neck with D’Intino for the prize of biggest idiot at police headquarters—had made the rounds of the building, as well as the district attorney’s office. It had become a cult favorite among the cops and magistrates of the high mountain valley. That few minutes of film with the two bumbling cops trying and failing to arrest a couple of drug dealers was trotted out any time anyone in the office felt their morale droop. Judge Baldi watched it obsessively, Judge Messina, three times a week with his whole family. At police headquarters, Italo Pierron and Deputy Inspector Rispoli enjoyed screening it in the passport office, which had also become the secret venue for their lovemaking. Lately, even Police Chief Andrea Costa had become one of the video’s audience of fans; at the sight of the ordeals facing two of his officers, he doubled over, laughing until the tears came. The only one who seemed immune to the comic exploits of that silent three-minute black-and-white clip was the medical examiner, Alberto Fumagalli. Every time he watched that short feature, he grew sad and came close to weeping. But there was no need to worry too much. Fumagalli’s emotional health had been seriously damaged anyway by all the time he spent with corpses, and especially by a latent and insidious manic-depressive pathology lurking deep within.

  “But what about the highway patrol?” Rocco asked with exasperation. “Aren’t car crashes their business?”

  “Actually, it was the highway patrol who called us. In part because it was a single-vehicle accident. Just the cargo van. No other cars involved. But there’s something that doesn’t add up. So, they want us.”

  “What a pain in the ass!” Rocco shouted, and took his green loden coat down from the coat rack. He put it on and shut the door.

  “D’Intino, if you’re not fit for duty, would you tell me why you continue to come into police headquarters?”

  “I take care of matters involving papers.”

  “He takes care of matters involving papers,” Rocco repeated in a low voice to Italo. “Did you get that? He takes care of matters involving papers. Come on, Italo. Or are you unfit for duty due to some random dysfunction?”

  “No, I’m not. But I would remind you that Deputy Inspector Rispoli is home with a fever of 102. We can’t count on her.”

  Rocco looked him up and down with a cold gaze. “And neither can you. Am I right?”

  Italo blushed and looked down.

  Without another word, Rocco started toward the exit.

  The love affair between Italo and Caterina was something he still had difficulty swallowing. Deputy Inspector Rispoli was one female he’d been keeping his eye on for months now. And to see her snagged away like that, from right beneath his nose, had undermined his self-esteem.

  While he strode rapidly toward the main entrance, Rocco Schiavone turned to look at Italo: “Do you get a kick out of always sending D’Intino to my office?”

  “Some people smoke a joint, other people send D’Intino to their boss to get the day off on the right foot.” And he laughed.

  Rocco decided that the time had come to exert pressure where it mattered and get D’Intino sent off to some godforsaken police station on the slopes of the Maiella Massif. It was his own health that was at stake.

  In May, the world is lovely. The first daisies push up, dotting the meadows with white and yellow, and flowers spew colors from the balconies like so many tubes of tempera paint crushed underfoot.

  The same was true of Aosta. Rocco looked up at the sky. It seemed that the clouds had finally gone away to summer somewhere else, while the sun caressed the mountains and high meadows, making that wonderful palette of colors glitter and sparkle. And it did Rocco Schiavone’s mood a world of good. He’d been waiting for that spectacle for a long time, since the end of September of the year before, when he’d been set down, bag and baggage, at the police headquarters of Aosta. He’d been transferred there as punishment from the Cristoforo Colombo police station in the outlying EUR neighborhood, a prosperous residential and business district, of his hometown, Rome. There had been months of intense cold, of snow, rain, and ice, and they had cost him no fewer than ten pairs of Clarks desert boots, the only kind of shoes he ever wore.

  If he looked carefully, there were still a few clouds riding high above. But they were bright white and were scudding along; at the very most they’d stop to linger awhile among the mountain tops. Nothing to worry about.

  “So you see, Rocco?” Italo asked him. When they were speaking privately, he addressed him on a first-name basis.

  “What?”

  “You see that spring comes to Aosta, too? I always told you so. You should have believed me!”

  “It’s true. I’d given up hoping. All these damn colors. Where were they until yesterday?”

  Italo pressed the gas pedal to the floor. As they raced off down the street, Rocco patted all his pockets. “Fuck!” he blurted, and plunged his hand into the officer’s jacket pocket. He grabbed his cigarette pack. Chesterfield. “I know that one of these days you’re going to surprise me and instead of this crap you’re going to have a pack of Camels.”

  “Dream on!” Italo replied.

  Rocco lit one and put the pack back in Pierron’s pocket.

  “What do you say, Italo? Shall we go get some lunch in the mountains?” suggested the deputy police chief.

  “Where?”

  “I’d like to go back to Champoluc, to the Petit Charmant Hotel. The food is unbelievable there.”

  “Well, why not? Let’s see how quick we can get done, right?”

  “A car crash is nothing serious. What can there be about it that’s so mysterious? They’re all such dummies up around here.” And he took a drag on his cigarette.

  It was quite a cheerful scene outside the window of their squad car. Even the trees seemed to be smiling. Without all those pounds of snow weighing down their branches, making them look like weary nonagenarians, crushed to the ground with the burden of age. Now they were reaching for the sky, young and new, fresh, taut, straight, and limber.

  Rocco remembered the night he’d just spent with Anna. He felt something tingle between his legs. “It’s really spring!” he said, stubbing out the cigarette in the car’s ashtray.

  The blame for the crash was put on two worn old tires that had blown out on a curve, so that the Fiat cargo van had smashed head-on into a pair of larches. Carlo Figus and Viorelo Midea, driver and passenger, had been killed instantly. All that remained of the two bodies was a pair of bloodstained sheets that had been used to cover them. Rocco Schiavone and Pierron were chatting with the officer from the highway patrol.

  “So are you going to tell me what doesn’t add up? What’s so strange about this wreck?” asked Rocco.

  “More than strange, it’s something very serious,” said Officer Berruti, mirrored sunglasses and white teeth, looking like he’d just stepped out of an episode of CHiPS, the old TV series from the seventies.

  “What is it?”

  “The cargo van has stolen plates. Not its own plates.”

  Schiavone nodded. He gestured for Berruti to go on. “So, to make a long story short, according to the registration, the cargo van belongs to Carlo Figus, the guy who was driving, but the plates on the van are completely different.”

  Another highway patrol officer came over to talk to them; this one was slightly overweight and had a sharp, wide-awake look on his face.

  “Ciao, Italo!” He knew
Pierron.

  “Ciao, Umberto.”

  “Well, Dottore, the plates that are on this cargo van were reported as stolen in Turin on February 27th. They belong to a certain Signor Silvestrelli, and are supposed to be on a Mercedes A-Class, not a Fiat Scudo cargo van. This cargo van ought to have license plate AM 166 TT on it.”

  “And I’m guessing that AM 166 TT isn’t out on the roads somewhere else.”

  “Nope, not at all!”

  “Oh, what a pain in the ass,” Rocco murmured under his breath, rolling his eyes skyward.

  “What did you say, sir?” Berruti asked, solicitously.

  “Oh, what a pain in the ass!” Rocco said again, looking the officer right in the eyes. “What a pain in the ass! It was all going too well, far too smoothly. An accident, some paperwork, and we’re done! And instead these two assholes have stolen plates. What pieces of shit!” After kicking a small rock, Rocco left the three cops exchanging glances.

  “So you’ll take care of notifying the families?” Umberto asked Italo.

  Rocco, who was just a few yards away, swung around: “Of course we’ll take care of it, Italo. This isn’t a car crash with a little bit of paperwork, this is a theft and it’s our job.”

  “Thanks!” Umberto replied, happily. “If there’s anything you need . . .”

  “You guys stay right here, fill out all the paperwork that’s required, and don’t let me see you again. I have to go see Fumagalli in the morgue, goddamn it to hell!” Then, cursing under his breath, he headed off toward the squad car. The two highway patrol officers looked over at Italo. “Is he always like this?”

  “No. He’s in a good mood today. If this were a murder, then we’d be laughing out of the other side of our mouths. Believe me. Ciao, Umberto! When are you going to give me another chance to beat you?”

  “Any time. Eight ball or billiards?”

  “Billiards.”

  I can’t see anything.

  Are my eyes still closed?

  They’re open. They’re wide open and I can’t see a thing.

  Am I still sleeping?

  I’m not sleeping. I know I’m not sleeping. My head is spinning, it’s spinning around like crazy. My temples really hurt. The blackness is turning gray. It’s not dark out anymore. But I still can’t see. What do I have over my face? What is it? A spider web? No, you can see through spider webs. No, this is a dark veil of some kind. Dark and made of threads. Black threads. Disgusting. It’s filthy and disgusting. If I close my eyes, my head spins around. I have to keep my eyes open and peer through this disgusting black veil that’s hanging in front of my face.

  She was laboriously dragging her thoughts along, heavy as they were, still drenched in slumber and headache. She tried to take off the blindfold hanging in front of her eyes. But her hands wouldn’t move. Frozen in place.

  They won’t move. My hands won’t move! I have a black cloth on my face and I can’t take it off because my hands won’t move.

  She strained, tugged once, twice, but her wrists were fastened tight.

  Am I trapped in my bed, with my head stuck in my pillowcase? Why would I be trapped in my bed? What the fuck am I thinking? Maybe I’m still sleeping, it’s still dark out and soon I’ll wake up and go get breakfast.

  Her temples were pounding regularly, like dead bells. A subterranean pain, continuous and dull.

  It must be night time. I can’t hear the road. And I can’t hear Dolores making breakfast or Papà walking in the hallway.

  Those were the familiar sounds of home. And here there was nothing but silence.

  I’m sitting down. On the bed?

  She tried to stand up but failed.

  Is my back tied to the wall? To a wooden plank?

  She tried to move her legs.

  They wouldn’t move. They were fastened tight, just like her hands. Her ankles were nailed in place. Is this some kind of paralysis? Am I paralyzed? No, my fingers will move. And I can move my feet. But my ankles are fastened tight. As are my wrists. Is this a nightmare? I’m going to wake up now, I’m going to wake up now, I’m going to wake up now.

  She tried to hop by jerking the chair along, but nothing happened.

  What the fuck do I have on my face? A blindfold? A blindfold, for sure. And on the other side of it I can see . . . what is that? It’s a wall. A gray wall. This isn’t my bedroom. My room is yellow, this room is gray. And where are my Coldplay and Alt-J posters? It’s all gray in here. Gray and filthy. But I can see. So it’s daytime now. But if it’s daytime, why isn’t anyone coming to wake me up?

  “Mamma?” she shouted. And the sound of her voice frightened her. She tried again, still louder: “Papà?”

  It was getting harder and harder to breathe and there wasn’t much air. That disgusting blindfold in front of her face was cutting off most of the air, and every time she tried to draw a breath, it touched her lips.

  “Mamma? Papà?”

  It was no good.

  She was wide awake, and she wasn’t at home. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t see anything, it reeked of mold, and she was all alone.

  Chiara started crying.

  Carlo Figus’s last known address was on Via Chateland. Rocco had sent Officer Scipioni over to deliver the sad news and see if he could wrangle a relative of any description to take over to the mortuary. Rocco had decided to send Officer Antonio Scipioni solely and simply out of necessity, seeing that Inspector Caterina Rispoli was bedbound with a fever of 102, and Italo Pierron was out tracking down Viorelo Midea, the other man killed in the crash. That meant the deputy chief had no one else but Officer Scipioni on regular duty in Aosta since December. He didn’t know him well, but at least he knew he wasn’t a mental defective like Deruta or D’Intino or, say, Casella. He knew the man was half-Sicilian, the other half of his family tracing its descent back to the Marche region, and he’d always struck Rocco as well-organized and alert. Rocco had never heard arrant nonsense spilling from his lips and he hoped he could include Scipioni among the reliable officers at police headquarters. Having another man he could count on would be a plus.

  The deputy chief was waiting at the front door to the morgue, smoking a cigarette, when he saw the unmistakable figure of Alberto Fumagalli, the medical examiner from Livorno, loom into view through the pebbled glass. As was their custom for the past nine months now, neither man said hello. Alberto looked straight up, grimaced, muttered something, and then nodded his head in Rocco’s direction. “So are you going to come in after you’re done with that?”

  “No. I’m going to wait out here. A police officer should be here soon.”

  “Who? The one who always throws up?”

  “Italo? No. Another one. He’s bringing a next of kin to identify the body.”

  Alberto looked him in the eyes. “Do you want to know something right away or should we wait till you’re done with your cigarette?”

  Rocco took a deep drag. “Just tell me.”

  “He died happy.”

  Rocco stepped closer to the medical examiner. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The Italian? He died happy.”

  “So how do you know that? Did he tell you so?”

  “He certainly did.”

  “Get to the point. This isn’t the day for it, and anyway I can’t stand talking to you in the first place.”

  “Yessir. So you want to know how he was able to tell me? Come on, I’ll show you.”

  So there was no way around it, he’d have to take in the sight of the two corpses. He flicked away the cigarette and followed the medical examiner.

  In the autopsy room, there was the usual odor of rotten eggs mixed with food gone bad and the reek of a harbor. On the gurneys lay the two bodies. Alberto walked over to them. “No, I’ll spare you the cadavers today. What you’re especially interested in is right here . . . in the microscope, come on.” And he pointed to the eyepiece. He lowered his eye to it and adjusted the focus. Then with a smile he made way for Rocco.

>   “What do you see?”

  “What do I know? Round things, sort of white and sort of purple . . . I don’t know, it looks like one of those blots that psychologists use. . . .”

  “They’re called Rorschach blots and they don’t have anything to do with this. What you’re seeing on the slide is a swab that I took from the Italian’s penis.”

  “What a dick. . . .”

  “That’s right, also known as the dick. And do you know what you’re observing there?”

  “You just told me, didn’t you?”

  “No. What you’re observing is Gardnerella vaginalis.”

  “I don’t know that that is, but from the name we shouldn’t find samples of it on male genitalia, should we?”

  “Outstanding! Gardnerella is a microorganism, and many women have it and just live with it. But if it proliferates too abundantly, then we start to see those off-white secretions, which by the way, also produce something of a stink, you know? And. . . .”

  “Cut to the chase, Alberto. So what you’re saying is that this guy got busy right before being killed in the crash?”

  “That’s right. And if we calculate that these two were killed no later than four a.m., shall we say he must have done it not even an hour before that?”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “No, I was making a statement with a question mark. It’s a very chic thing to do these days, because it’s like saying: I want to hear your opinion, but in any case, I’m right. And anyway, I’d be glad to give this mysterious woman who gave this poor man the last joys of sex a shot, but the shot I’d have in mind would be a shot of metronidazole.”

  “Are you thinking of a prostitute?”

  “From the looks of these two, I’d say so.”

  “By which you mean?”

  “Have you taken a look at their faces, Rocco? If the two of them wanted to get laid, they either pulled out their wallets or else they headed home for a hand of solitaire. Do you want to take a look at them?”

  “For today, the Gardnerella will suffice.”