huh?”
“Sure.”
Kristin and Paoloni helped him back to his feet, but he felt like his head was full of helium and his chest full of lead.
“We’re leaving here right now,” said Kristin. “You’re coming with me.”
27
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 6 P.M.
Kristin drove, and Blume slept. He thought she would need directions to get to his house, but once he gave her the address she nodded and set off. She knew her way around the city.
He awoke as they reached his street. Kristin found a parking place and said, “I’ll come up, make sure you don’t die before you get there.”
Blume was going to protest that he felt fine, but then thought better of it. For starters, he did not feel fine. They rode the elevator in silence, and Blume wondered what his conversational approach should be once they got inside. He hoped his apartment was tidy.
Blume sat on the sofa in his living room and decided they could talk about the funeral. Fifteen seconds later, he was asleep.
He felt like he had been asleep for only a few minutes when he was woken by the sound of his home telephone ringing. He heard Kristin answer. She walked in to him and handed him his cordless handset.
He was expecting Paoloni to call about developments with Pernazzo, but Paoloni had never called him at this number. Then he remembered his cell phone was dead.
“What time is it?” he asked as he took the phone.
“Twenty-five past ten.”
“Pronto?” he said into the phone expecting the familiar wary pause and throat clearing with which Paoloni began his conversations, but it was a woman’s voice.
“Commissioner Blume?”
“Yes, speaking.” It took him a few seconds to place the voice.
“This is Sveva Romagnolo…” She allowed a few beats to pass and too late he realized he was supposed to say something. “Arturo Clemente’s widow. We spoke last Saturday.”
“Yes, I know who you are.” That came out wrong.
“I’m glad you remember. Perhaps we could talk again about the progress made in the case?”
“Yes, we could, only-”
“Only you have not made much progress, have you?”
“I wouldn’t say that. These things take time and-”
“I was told I would be kept abreast of developments, but this was not true, was it?”
Since her tone was rhetorical, Blume said nothing, to allow her to get to the point. Kristin disappeared into the kitchen.
“The director general of RAI 2 is a personal friend of mine. This morning he invited me to his office, and together we watched a documentary made by a man I thought was my friend, or at least my husband’s friend.”
“Are you talking about Di Tivoli?”
“Of course I’m talking about that worm. Who else could do a thing like this?”
“A thing like what?”
“Make a documentary like this. But you know what else annoys me?”
“What?”
“If Di Tivoli knew all this, then so did the police, and I was not told.”
“All what?”
“What’s in the documentary,” she said giving a sing-song lilt to the last word to underscore his stupidity. “It airs in five minutes. I tried to call earlier, but you were not in, and the cell phone number you left with me does not work.”
“You don’t like what’s in the documentary?”
“Not at all.”
“So your friend in television wasn’t such a friend he could stop the documentary from going out?”
“I would not have dreamed of asking him. If it’s the truth, then it’s the truth and must be seen. I am not Berlusconi.”
“But the man who made the documentary is a worm for making it?”
Blume wasn’t trying to score debating points off her, he just did not want her to realize how little he was understanding of the conversation.
“Di Tivoli was always a worm.”
Blume saw no point in pursuing this further until he had seen the show she was talking about. “And you say it starts in five minutes?”
“Less now. I thought you might have seen it already.”
“No. No, I haven’t.”
“Well, will you watch it now?”
“Yes, of course I will,” said Blume.
Finally, Romagnolo’s tone softened slightly. “I realize you were injured in the line of duty and lost a colleague. That was in connection with my husband’s murder, wasn’t it?”
“I can’t really tell you that sort of thing. At least not like this on the phone.”
“Well, I know it was, because I have my sources, and your colleagues Gallone and D’Amico report to them, as I am sure you know. Have you turned on your television? The documentary starts after the ad break.”
Kristin reappeared and Blume pointed at the TV and mimed turning it on with a remote control. She came over, bent over him, and removed it from behind his back. Blume held up two
fingers, and she turned on RAI 2.
“I have it on now,” he told Romagnolo.
“Good. I’d like us to meet tomorrow. Do you think you can manage that?”
“Maybe not tomorrow.”
“Well, it had better be soon,” she said and hung up.
The ads ended, and Taddeo Di Tivoli’s face appeared on-screen.
“La TV Di Tivoli,” was the name of the show. tonight’s episode, Di Tivoli promised his viewers, was going to be a scathing report on cruelty to animals and the failings of Italian law enforcement. The title of this week’s episode was “Una vita da cani,” A Dog’s Life.
“Are we going to watch this?” asked Kristin, taking a seat in the armchair rather than, as he had been hoping, on the sofa beside him.
“Yes. It’s to do with a case I am, or was, involved in. Well, you know, don’t you?”
“More or less,” said Kristin. “What I’m interested in now is the widow and the possibility of political fallout.”
“Political fallout?”
“If there is any. Then I can put it into a report from the Country Team, flag the report for the DCM’s attention. It’ll make me look good. You, too.”
“Who’s the DCM? The lead singer in this country band of yours?”
“Yes. Deputy Chief of Mission. He’s OK.”
“Well, I may be meeting her tomorrow,” said Blume. “In the morning.”
It was hardly enough to get Kristin to stay the night, but it was worth a try.
Di Tivoli had added blond highlights to his mop of ginger and gray hair since Blume last saw him. He looked slimmer, too. He reused plenty of footage from the first show that Blume had watched days ago with Ferrucci.
