bleeding father.
Half an hour later, Agnolo was led out like trussed lamb preceded by his chalk-white father on an orange stretcher. Caterina ignored the questions of the two patrolmen who had arrived on the scene, both of whom had immediately started asking where her male partner was. She ordered them to stay where they were and walked into the room from which Agnolo had emerged. It was brighter but smaller, and devoid of all furniture except for tissue-thin Persian carpets on the floor.
“That was his weapon?” asked the patrolman, pointing at the tapered stiletto that Caterina had placed on the desk. He reached out to touch it.
“No! Contamination of evidence,” said Caterina.
“You said you picked it up. You’ve already held it.”
“Even so,” said Caterina. “Leave it.” She looked at the thin knife. Its grip seemed to be made of dull silver. The blood on its tip had already coagulated and was beginning to brown. It was hard to resist the temptation to wipe it clean again.
“It’s a lovely knife,” said the patrolman, his hand still hovering nearby.
“You can bag it, if you want,” said Caterina. “Once it’s in plastic you can examine it.”
“Thanks. See the markings on the handle, the lion on the hilt? It’s an antique.”
“A stiletto,” said Caterina.
“It’s called a misericordia,” said the patrolman. “A weapon of mercy. It was used to kill off the mortally wounded after a battle. I have a replica at home, but this looks like the genuine article.”
“Bag it carefully,” said Caterina.
A low doorway on the right seemed to lead deeper into the house, and pulling on a pair of latex gloves, she turned the handle, and peered into darkness. She found a light switch, turned it on. A red and white porphyry font sat in the middle of the room, its bowl filled with a shining heap of watches, necklaces, chains, earrings, bangles. On the floor in a corner, like a pile of animal pelts, lay handbags, wallets, some of them flung open and showing off their gold, silver, and green credit cards. She began to pick her way through the pile, then pulled out and held aloft a silver crucifix on a chain. She dropped it into her pocket and called Grattapaglia.
“I think I’ve found a way for you to please a Spaniard,” she said when he answered.
Chapter 35
“As long as they don’t enter my parents’ study,” said Blume. “And even then, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“I think it is a good idea. I never thought my cousin had so much imagination. Maybe I’ll promote him,” said Paoloni.
Blume moved his phone into his left hand to change gear. “It’s not responsible behavior.”
“That’s why it’s fun,” said Paoloni. “More to the point, it’s unexpected and will throw the Colonel.”
“I don’t know. How long will it take them?”
“He says they can be in and out of there in fifteen minutes.”
“They won’t trash my parents’ study?”
“My cousin will impress the importance of that upon them.”
“And we’re sure about what happened?” said Blume. “I think I might need to see for myself.”
“That makes no sense. As soon as you go into your own place, he’ll spring the trap,” said Paoloni. “My cousin’s idea is by far the best. Amazing, really when you think who his father is. Did I ever tell you about my uncle Filippo and the five-way parlay at the Appian hippodrome?”
“Not now, Beppe. I need to think.”
According to Paoloni’s cousin, Agent Sudoku, as Paoloni had taken to calling the Carabiniere watching Blume’s apartment, was joined by a second man fifteen minutes after Paoloni’s cousin started watching the watcher. Together, followed discreetly by the cousin, Captain Sudoku and the new arrival collected four cardboard tubes from the back of a Peugeot 305, then slipped into Blume’s apartment building, taking advantage of a woman coming out to let themselves in. The cousin waited ten minutes before someone else coming out allowed him to get in, then took the stairs, and walked the hallways till he passed the apartment with Blume’s name on it. Then he went halfway up the next flight of steps and waited. Two minutes later the two came out. The cousin heard them locking the door behind them. When he was sure they had gone, he examined the door carefully.
“They had keys, or they were very professional,” Paoloni told Blume. “You just have an ordinary H-key deadlock, right? Not milled down the center or anything difficult?”
“No. But it’s still easier to break in by lifting the door with a foot lever and wedge, and hitting the strike plate,” said Blume. “So they did not want to leave a trace.”
“Right,” said Paoloni. “And my cousin says he saw the other man toss the tubes into a dumpster before getting into his car. Then he left, and Agent Sudoku resumed his post, watching your apartment. Whatever was in those tubes is now in your house waiting for you to find them. Or, since we know what we’re dealing with, waiting for you to be found with them. You tell me they are the paintings from Treacy’s flat, planted by the Colonel, I give you a fantastic idea, and you object.”
“Your cousin’s idea of breaking into my apartment is not flawless.”
“But it is simple,” said Paoloni. “In they go, they find whatever was planted there. Paintings, but who knows what else, and remove it.”
“If your cousin’s friends know how to break into an apartment, it means they’re housebreakers,” said Blume.
“Your powers of deduction never cease…”
“Shut up, Beppe. And your cousin’s connection with them is what, exactly?”
“I don’t know. I think they’re his cousins, or nephews or something. On the other side of the family. Nothing to do with me.”
“Let me think,” said Blume. “I’ll call back.”
He drove past the Ostiense station and into the empty parking lot next to the abandoned airport train terminal. Designed for the World Cup 1990, it opened years too late, then closed shortly afterwards, and was now a good place to park, drink, and pick up a transvestite.
Blume thought about gays and about Inspector Rosario Panebianco’s admirable precision, the way he never smelled too bad, looked good in his uniform, stayed calm. He had very clean clipped fingernails. Blume had noticed that one day. Maybe Caterina would know. Women sensed these things. She’d laugh and say, of course how could you not have seen it. Or else, of course not, how could you ever have thought it. Something obvious to her, not to him.
Blume called Lieutenant Colonel Nicu Faedda at the Art Forgery and Heritage Division. Faedda and Panebianco, good friends. Soccer matches together.
“Commissioner Blume? You’re going to speak to me after all.”
“You were right about the Colonel trying to do something with those paintings,” said Blume. “He’s trying to compromise me with them. Put me on the back foot.”
“How?”
“By putting me in possession of them.” He waited. Faedda’s tone would determine the next step.
“He put you in possession of them. Are you saying you received them against your will?”
It was a reasonable question, and Faedda has asked it without detectable undertones of skepticism. He still seemed disposed to accept Blume’s claims at face value.
“He planted them on me,” said Blume.
He paused again, listening for any sounds of disbelief, but all Faedda said was, “Where?”
“In my apartment.”
“He must be using his old network of professionals,” said Faedda. “Calling in some favors.”
“I appreciate the way you’re accepting my version,” said Blume.
“If I have to challenge you on some points, I will do that later, but I know what sort of a man the Colonel is. So do you have the paintings now?”
