White Shotgun

In the dream, I am in a car driving at night. The headlights reveal empty fields. In the distance, there is a palazzo on a mountain — like the one we always pass on the way into Siena — a resort, with lighted umbrellas and molten golden light dripping down the furrows of the hill. The headlights illuminate the fields of sunflower faces weirdly, like inmates on stalks. On the horizon there is a fire.

The phone is ringing — not the landline, but my cell — buzzing in my breast pocket like a device to jump- start the heart. Jerking awake, I realize that in my sleep, I have been smelling smoke. At the same time, someone is pounding on the front door.

“I have Giovanni, but we can’t get through,” Sterling says over the cell. “He was in Oca, like we thought.”

“Where are you now?”

“Bottom of the mountain.”

“What time is it?”

“Two in the morning.”

“What’s going on?”

“The road up to the abbey is blocked.”

Nicosa is snoring away. With the phone to my ear, I open the door and stand on the threshold. The neighbor, Aleandro, has run over from the olive farm, carrying a flashlight and shouting, “C’e un fuoco!”

“Aleandro is trying to say something,” I tell Sterling. “What is fuoco?”

“Fire. There’s been an accident,” Sterling says. “Can’t see it from here. There’s an ambulance and a couple of fire trucks. Looks like a car caught on fire.”

“I can see it from the house,” I say, looking where Aleandro is pointing.

The sky is lit by flames, banging orange light off the low cloud cover, under which you can see black smoke boiling up. I’m shivering in the chill as I recall images of California wildfires feeding on dry brush. Explosive fireballs that jump the road. Firefighters trapped with no way out.

“Are you in danger?” I ask Sterling.

“No; they’ve contained the fire around the car. Put Aleandro on. I’ll tell him it’s okay.”

I hand the cell to the older man. He speaks in Italian to Sterling while nodding grimly. A fire let loose in these hills would be catastrophic. He gives me back the phone. I repeat “Grazie!” until our worthy neighbor waves good-bye and retreats into the night.

“How is it down there?” I ask Sterling.

“We’ll just have to wait it out.”

“How’s Giovanni?”

“Just about like you’d expect. Aw, hell!” Sterling exclaims. “Here comes the coroner. Looks like there were fatalities. Go back to sleep, darlin’. This is going to take a while.”

Two hours later, Sterling and Giovanni are permitted to drive past the site. Under lights set up by crime scene specialists, the smoking, blackened skeleton of Sofri’s black Renault can be seen. As they pass, Sterling gently draws Giovanni close and turns the boy’s head so he is prevented from viewing the corpse. They arrive at the abbey at the same time as the Oca priest, who had followed them up the hill. I open the door and stare at their bleak, heartbroken faces.

Sterling takes me in his arms. “They killed Sofri.”

We all gather close, wondering what might be the kindest way to wake Nicosa from his sleep.

THIRTY-FOUR

When we push through the wooden doors of the questura, every detective and file clerk looks up, as if they had been waiting for us to appear. Even spookier is the universal expression of pity in their eyes, tracking as we follow Inspector Martini through the bullpen. Not sympathy. Pity. The odd looks cause my skin to prickle; once again, I’m a clueless outsider. Nicosa, wearing a coal-black suit, skin as transparent as skim milk, is stopped at every desk for a handshake or a glancing hug. Deferentially, I wait a pace or two behind, feet planted and hands clasped in the rest position, as if I were a Secret Service agent protecting the president.

Inspector Martini guides us up a marble staircase with a peculiar bad smell that leads to the executive offices on the second floor, steering us through a jumble of cubbyholes with scummy windows that obscure what could be a spectacular view of the main cathedral in the Piazza del Duomo. Instead, everybody’s face is turned toward a computer screen. At the far end of the room, a pair of mahogany doors with brass knobs opens to the private office of Commissario Dottore Enrico Salvi.

Once more I am impressed with how thin he is for a man with such a heavy-duty job: how narrow the shoulders, how feminine the waist becomes when you have to cinch a belt that tightly. The white collar of an impeccably pressed blue-striped shirt frames a bony face that is shaped like a violin, all cheekbones and hollow eyes. The man is underweight, possibly ill, but remarkably lithe as he slips out from behind the desk, extending a manicured hand.

“My deepest sympathies. This is a terrible situation.”

“We are grateful for your attention,” Nicosa replies.

Inspector Martini slides two packs of cigarettes across the varnished surface of the desk, and the Commissario accepts them off her fingertips without a glance. She excuses herself and backs out, closing the double doors like an obedient servant.

“Sofri was an exceptional man. He will be missed. How well did you get to know him, Agent Grey?”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t know him very long, but in the time that I did he became like an uncle to me. That’s why I’m here. It’s not just official business.”

The chief gives a little shrug. Official. Unofficial. Depends which side of the page is up.

“How can I help?”

Nicosa and I exchange a look. By prearrangement, he nods at me to go ahead.

“Commissario, with respect, when my sister, Cecilia Nicosa, went missing, we were told there weren’t enough police officers in Siena to investigate because of Palio. You promised to help, but we have seen nothing, except some unfounded threats by you against my brother-in-law. We presented you with evidence of human remains in a vat of lye. Have they been analyzed?”

“A team from Rome is working on it.”

“Cecilia is still missing, and you have another Palio coming up in August. Last night a man very close to the Nicosas was killed. The violence here is out of control.”

“I am sorry you have that impression, Agent Grey. This kind of atrocity does not happen in Siena. This is a calm city. We do not even allow cars in the heart of the downtown. In ten years of working here, I have had twelve bank robberies and six murders — three of them in the last twenty-four hours, coincidentally since you arrived. You have heard that two men were shot to death in Il Campo?”

“Yes,” answers Nicosa.

“How do you plan to investigate these murders?” I continue briskly. “As well as the kidnapping of my sister and the attack on her son?”

The Commissario’s slender shoulders seem to sink even farther under such heavy burdens.

“I am nothing but a high civil servant,” he apologizes. “I am in charge of immigration, passports, and weapons licenses — which is all that is generally called for. But as I said, the police in Rome are of the top- notch.”

“Then let me suggest that we bring in Rome right now, with the assistance of the FBI. We have the expertise and the manpower. Why not?”

“I am sorry, signorina. That is impossible.” He raises his eyebrows for emphasis. “It would not help to get your sister back.”

He reclines in the chair. The chair is blue. The carpet is blue, just like in the Bureau. I guess blue is the