Good Blood

In the lobby, the nighttime clerk, on his final hour of duty, looked up from his copy of Playboy Italy to see Gideon step out of the police car and come in, bloodied and disheveled, and still a little unsteady.

He blinked slowly a couple of times. “Sorry, signore, no breakfas’ yet for one more ’alf-hour,” he said.

CARABINIERI headquarters were at the corner of Viale Duchessa di Genova and Via Fratelli Omarini, one block from the railroad station and two from the water, in what passed for Stresa’s low-rent district. Surrounded by a grim, spike-topped wall of rough-hewn stone, the featureless concrete building was painted white, but that had been done long ago. Now it was splotched and streaky with a black mold that seemed to spread as you looked at it. On one side the three-story building overlooked an eighteenth-century church; on the other a ruined villa with a jungly, once-ambitious estate garden that looked as if it hadn’t been pruned in a century.

But hidden within the forbidding walls that surrounded the unlovely building was a beautiful little ornamental garden of flowers and shrubs, devotedly tended, and it was onto this garden of fresh reds and pinks that Caravale’s ground-floor office looked. The office itself was as neat and orderly as a monk’s cell, but considerably more plush.

Thick, plum-colored carpet, a big old wooden desk near the window with a few framed family photographs on it, two matched, leather-upholstered desk chairs, and in a corner on the opposite side of the room a large chestnut butler’s table with four more soft leather armchairs. It was at the table that Gideon and Caravale sat, with two cups of killer espresso, as thick as Turkish coffee, that had been brought in from a vending machine in the hallway. Unlike just about every other cop’s office he’d ever seen, there were no taped-up maps or charts or reminders on the walls. The only object on the beige grass-cloth wallpaper was a corroded pair of giant pincers centered in pride of place above the butler’s table.

Caravale saw him looking at them. “Those? They’re for use on uncooperative prisoners. And,” he added darkly, “on consultants who get above themselves.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Caravale smiled at him. “They belonged to my grandfather,” he said, turning to look fondly at them. “Nonno Fortunato. They’re ice tongs. All his life my grandfather, my sainted grandfather, drove an ice wagon. A runt of a man, soaking wet he didn’t weigh fifty kilos, but with those tongs he’d lift a block of ice half his own weight, throw it over his shoulder, and walk up three flights with it. And then come down and get the next block. A truly good man, worth all those de Grazias put together, and yet all his life what did he have? Nothing. Just work, and poverty, and worry. But from those heavy, freezing blocks of ice that finally broke him, he sent my father to college. And my father sent me.”

Gideon was as surprised by these confidences as by the depth of feeling that came with them. “He sounds like a wonderful man.”

“He was, indeed,” Caravale said appreciatively. “It was because of him that I enrolled in the police academy. I had to fight my father every step of the way.”

“Your father didn’t want you to go into police work?”

“My father,” Caravale said wryly, “was of the opinion that we carabinieri are no more than an apparatus of the established order—willing tools of the oppressor class.”

“Ah,” Gideon said, not knowing what else to say.

“I beg your pardon. I’m talking too much. It was the tongs.” He hunched his shoulders. He was in civilian clothes again, and without the shoulder boards, there wasn’t much to hunch. “Ah, it’s all long ago. They don’t make men like that anymore. Now what about you, Gideon, are you all right? Not hurt or anything?”

“No, I’m fine. Thanks for the coffee. It’s just what I need.”

Caravale nodded. “I just listened to your statement.”

“It wasn’t much help, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” He permitted himself another small smile. “All forces in the region are now on the lookout for a large man with ham and cheese on his breath.”

“And who speaks Italian, don’t forget that part.”

“Yes, of course.” Caravale, pretending to write in the notebook on the table, murmured: “Large man. Ham. Cheese. Speaks Italian. Wonderful, he’s as good as caught. It’s only a question of time now.”

Gideon laughed. “Next time I’ll be more observant.”

“Good, I’ll appreciate it.” He vacuumed up his espresso, swished it once around his mouth, and swallowed. “So tell me, what do you suppose this was about?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Gideon said. “My first thought was that it had to be about those bones, that somebody didn’t want me to examine them. But the more I thought about it, the less sense I could make out of it.”

“Why?”

“Because I could understand it if the idea was to keep us from finding out that Domenico de Grazia didn’t drown in the lake after all, but that somebody killed him and then hid his body in a culvert on Mount Zeda. But we already knew it was Domenico, so what would the point be—unless this somebody who tried to strangle me didn’t know you’d gone ahead and made the identification?”

“Possible, but doubtful. It would mean he would have had to be aware that the remains had been found, but not that they’d been identified. Who could that be? The de Grazia people—they’re the only ones we told, and they all know it’s Domenico. Who else would know anything about it?”

“Well, then, I don’t know what the point was.” He thought for a few seconds. “I haven’t found anything that indicates the cause of death yet. Maybe somebody doesn’t want us to know how he died, and thinks I might come up with it?”

“But why wouldn’t they want us to know? Knife, club, axe... what difference does it make? Why would someone commit murder to prevent its being known?”

“I already said I don’t know,” said Gideon with some annoyance. Caravale was holding something back. “Twice. Let’s hear your theory.”