crime, and therefore as the most authoritative person in this room…”
The Colonel, still struggling to control his breath, spoke so quietly the magistrate was forced to come closer to hear. He said, “Magistrate Buoncompagno? Please, just be quiet.” He looked sadly over at Blume, seeking fellowship of understanding between intelligent men.
He inclined his head slightly toward the nearest two Carabinieri. “You, accompany the magistrate back downstairs to his car. I am sure he has other urgent crimes to solve.”
“They could still be here, Colonel,” said Buoncompagno. “Let them look in the bedroom at least.”
The Colonel plucked a crumb of something from his lip and flicked it in Buoncompagno’s direction. “You never miss an opportunity to ruin the silence by speaking, do you?”
“Agenti,” said Blume, looking at the very confused patrolmen, “I want this place dusted for prints.”
“Now you’re overdoing it, Blume,” said the Colonel.
“Someone trashed my house. I intend to find out who.”
“Carabinieri,” barked the Colonel. “We are going.”
When they had left, the first Agente came over. “You OK, sir? Did they do this?”
“Of course not. It was thieves. Really. Write up a report, take a few latents from the walls, give it the usual treatment. No special privileges for me.”
“We need to do more than that, sir. We can’t let them get away with robbing a Commissioner’s house. If word gets around, it’ll look bad.”
“It can’t be helped. I prefer this to blow over. I prefer it not to get within earshot of the Questore, though it’s probably too late. Look, tell you what you can do for me, get someone to come around and fix that door. If they need to put in a new one, fine. Accept any price up to… I don’t know. How much is a new door?”
“Reinforced and all that, around two thousand euros,” said the Agente.
“May as well hang a bead curtain for all the good it does. Call me if you need me. I can’t stay here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 36
“Do we always have to meet at McDonald’s?”
“Do you prefer Burger King? I think their buns are too sweet. We could go for a kebab if you prefer.”
“This food will kill you,” said Blume. “Have you ever read…?”
“No,” said Paoloni.
“Right. Dumb question.”
Paoloni received his tray and turned from the counter. “You didn’t order anything after all that time in line?” he said. “Let’s get those two seats over there. Grab me some of those paper… thanks. Anyway, it’s air that kills you in the end. I saw a program on the Discovery Channel the other day. Oxygen, they say, gives you wrinkles and breaks down your… something inside that you need not to die, basically. Turns out, oxygen is what makes us grow old.”
“Not the passing of time?”
“Apparently not. So, how did it go?”
“They might have trashed the place a bit less,” said Blume.
“You said you wanted it to look authentic.”
“It was authentic. They took money I left beside the bed, and the paintings of course. At least I’m presuming they found them there.”
“Yeah. They were hidden in your closet. All together. They used a suitcase to take them out.”
“I noticed,” said Blume.
“You want the suitcase back? I can arrange it.”
“No. This needs to run its natural course. I don’t want any contact with these guys. I want to know absolutely nothing about them. The only thing I want is a heads-up if they make a move to sell those paintings.”
“You want, I can stop that, too.”
“No. Let them do what they want. They’ll keep Farinelli occupied for a while.”
“Did they respect your parents’ room?”
“Yes. They left it alone. Were they wearing gloves?”
“It’s not like I was there,” said Paoloni. “But these guys are professionals. You’d need a lot of forensic work and lab time to catch their fibers, hairs, and so on. It’s just not worth it for a burglary. Oh yeah, almost forgot. The car watching your place did not register back to the Carabinieri, nor was it stolen, nor did it seem to belong to anyone. The motorizzazione de-lists vehicles for special uses so that’s Farinelli using his spooky contacts. Anyhow, they walked up unnoticed and unremarked to your apartment, did what they did, walked out with a suitcase. Then you arrived and Captain Sudoku spotted you and alerted the Colonel.”
Blume left Paoloni to his lunch, and drove back to the station, conscious that the Colonel and the Treacy case were distracting him from his proper duties. He was letting things slip badly, and it would be noticed, once the rewards and benefits of catching the muggers and seeing the two extortionists jailed had been distributed and absorbed.
As he stepped into the operations room, Rospo bobbed up. “Inspector Mattiola took it upon herself to take the initiative while I was…”
From behind him, Sovrintendente Grattapaglia, nodding pleasantly at Blume, came up, put his hand on Rospo’s shoulder in what seemed like a friendly gesture, but he held his hand there.
“The meeting with the investigator went like a fucking dream, Commissioner. Eight minutes. I timed it. He told me we needed one more meeting for the sake of appearances, and then I would be back to work.” Grattapaglia smiled. “I must say, I haven’t felt this good for a while.” His knuckles whitened as he tightened the grip and dug his fingers into the space below Rospo’s clavicle, drawing a gasp of pain from the Assistente Capo. “You and me, Rospo, we’re going to have a nice little talk about Inspector Mattiola and the recognition of merit. Come over here.”
Rospo winced as Grattapaglia steered him away from Blume, who looked across the room to where Caterina was sitting, apparently unaware of his arrival. Her head was bent slightly forward as if she were reading a breviary, but her hands held nothing. Blume went over to her.
“I expected to see you flushed with victory. What’s the matter?”
“He died,” she said. “Old man Corsi died. I just heard from the hospital. The stab wound was superficial, but they say he died from hypovolemic shock.”
Blume abandoned his self-serving plan to reprimand her for disobeying procedures and entering a suspect’s house alone and for not trying hard enough to keep him in the picture.
“Why are you so upset about Corsi?” asked Blume. “I mean, sure, it’s a bad thing, but he was an old man and old men die easily. Besides, it’s not as if you knew him.”
“Come to that,” said Caterina, “the few minutes I spent in his company were enough to tell me I didn’t like him much either. It’s not him; it’s the son I feel for. I passed by Mariagrazia Gazzani, the magistrate who was in charge of the investigation into the Corsis’ denunciation of Leporelli and Scariglia. It turns out the failed hotel was the son’s venture, but the affidavit on the attempted extortion was made by the father. It’s a stretch to say this, but I have a feeling the son would have paid off Leporelli and Scariglia just to stay in business. He was trapped and the hotel was his bid for freedom. When it all fell through, he took it out on the Noantri Hotel. I think he was trying to escape, and instead he’s lost everything and killed his only family…”
“That’ll do, Inspector,” said Blume. “Don’t waste your sympathy. He’s a mugger, now he’s a parricide. He made his choices.”
“Do you believe that’s all there is to it?”
“No,” said Blume. “I don’t. But if you feel like this for him, how are you going to deal with the devastation of the truly innocent?”
“I have seen dead children. I have seen murdered young women. They were Chinese, Nigerian, Kurdish. When I worked in immigration I saw things you wouldn’t imagine. Well, the public wouldn’t imagine, or couldn’t be
