Brandt.”
“I’m happy to meet you, too, Officer Donatelli,” she replied, but Frank could see the same question in her eyes.
“I sent for Donatelli because if it turns out the girl really was murdered, Mrs. Ruocco would never trust an Irish cop.” He turned back to Donatelli. “You know who Patrizia Ruocco’s brother-in-law is?”
“Ugo Ruocco,” he replied grimly. “Everybody knows that.”
“I’m guessing he’s already on his way.”
“Oh, yes,” Sarah confirmed pleasantly. “Mrs. Ruocco sent for him as soon as I sent for you.”
“Then we better get this settled before he gets here,”
Frank said. “Mrs. Brandt, show us what makes you think the girl was killed.”
She led them to a closed door in the hallway and opened it. They followed her inside. The figure on the bed had been covered by the blankets.
“Is this how you found her?”
“No, she was lying there with the covers up to her waist, like she’d been sleeping, except her eyes were open and her arms were outstretched like this.” She demonstrated.
Without waiting to be asked, Sarah drew the blanket away from the body. The girl had been a healthy little piece, all breasts and hips, and her hair was a pretty shade of red.
Frank could see why Antonio had been attracted. She wore a simple nightdress, and her naked feet and ankles were ghostly white.
Donatelli hung back in the doorway, his young face expressing embarrassment at this breach of decorum.
“Come closer, Donatelli,” Frank said, “so you can see.”
Reluctantly, he did, shifting his hat from under one arm to the other, and hesitantly looking down at the girl on the bed.
Sarah tried to lift the girl’s hand, but the body was too stiff.
“This hand,” she said. “See how the nail is broken? Something violent happened to break it like that, and it must’ve happened as she was dying. You’d never leave a broken nail hanging like that.”
She was right, and Frank felt an odd mixture of pride in her for having figured that out and resentment that she was in a position where she needed to. “Anything else?”
“Those red dots on her face,” she said. “There are some in her eyes, too. I never saw anything like that before.”
Frank leaned over the corpse to take a closer look at her face. Then he reached down and pulled one of the eyelids up. Donatelli sucked in his breath, but Frank and Sarah pretended not to notice. “See these red dots, Donatelli?” he asked. “That happens when somebody suffocates.”
This time Sarah caught her breath.
“Which pillow has the blood on it?” he asked, looking at the collection piled beside the body.
She bent down and pulled one out from under the bed. “I put it there so no one else would see the stain and figure out what it was,” she explained. Once again Frank felt a twinge of pride, but he ignored it.
He took it from her and examined the smear. It looked like blood, all right. Then he positioned the pillow above the girl’s face, as if he were going to push it down and smother her. The stain lined up with where her mouth could have been if the pillow had covered her face.
“Where did the blood come from?” Donatelli asked.
Frank peered into the girl’s mouth. “There’s dried blood on her front teeth. Her upper lip is cut on the inside, like somebody pushed something against it really hard.”
“So somebody did kill her then,” Sarah said sadly.
“Why would they do something like that to her?” Donatelli asked in disgust. “She’s just a girl.”
“Maybe because the Catholic Church doesn’t allow divorce,” Frank observed. “Or maybe they just didn’t appreciate a Mick dropping her little bastard in their house.”
Donatelli flushed and cleared his throat, reminding Frank that a lady was present.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Brandt,” Frank said perfunctorily.
“I most certainly will not,” she said, making Donatelli’s jaw drop and forcing Frank to bite back a grin. “What are you going to do now?”
“We’ll need an autopsy to prove she was smothered,”
Frank said.
“If Ugo Ruocco thinks you’re going to blame somebody in this house for killing her, he’ll never let you take the body,” Donatelli warned him.
“Then we better remove the body before he shows up,”
Franks said, even though he knew he should wait for the coroner.
“Mrs. Ruocco said she wanted Nainsi out of here as soon as possible,” Sarah offered helpfully.
“Then we’ll try to oblige her. Donatelli, find out if they’ve got a phone here, and if they don’t, go to a call box and get an ambulance right away to take the body to the morgue.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said, and hurried out.
Frank turned back to Sarah. She looked tired and discouraged. Even her eyes had lost their sparkle. “You should go home,” he said.
“I hoped I was wrong, you know,” she said, ignoring his suggestion as usual. “It doesn’t give me any pleasure to find out she was murdered.”
He ran a hand over his face. “I know,” he admitted.
“How do you get yourself into these situations?”
She seemed to consider for a moment. Finally, she said,
“I’ve been wondering that myself, and I want to remind you that I’d never known anyone who was murdered until I met you, Malloy.”
“Are you blaming me?” he asked in surprise.
“The evidence speaks for itself,” she answered wryly. “Now help me wrap up the body. We’ll have to put the pillow in with it. I doubt Mrs. Ruocco will let us walk off with any of her belongings, especially if she realizes it will help prove Nainsi was murdered.”
Frank concentrated on the corpse so he wouldn’t think about how intimate it was working alone in a bedroom with Sarah Brandt. In a mercifully short time, they had the body tied up in a sheet with the bloody pillow tucked inside, ready for transport.
When they got back down to the dining room, they found everyone still pretty much where they had been before. Donatelli was speaking quietly and very respectfully with Mrs. Ruocco in Italian.
“What’s he saying to her?” Mrs. O’Hara demanded of Frank. “They’re cooking up some lie, ain’t they? Trying to say my girl wasn’t murdered.”
“I was saying I sent for an ambulance to take her away,”
Donatelli said loudly, so everyone in the room could hear.
“Where’re you taking her?” Mrs. O’Hara cried, jumping to her feet. “Not to some dago undertaker who’ll make her disappear!”
“She’s not going to disappear,” Frank assured her, hoping this was true. If Ugo Ruocco arrived before the ambulance, he couldn’t be sure. “She’s going to the morgue.”
“What will happen at this morgue?” Mrs. Ruocco asked.
“They’ll find out how she died,” Donatelli explained.
“Mother of God,” Mrs. O’Hara murmured, crossing herself. “They’ll cut her up, won’t they?”
“And if they find out she died of natural causes,” Frank hurriedly added, “nobody has to worry.”
“How do we know they tell the truth at this morgue?”
Mrs. Ruocco challenged. “They could lie to ruin us!”
Donatelli glanced at Frank, asking a silent question. Frank had no right to grant permission, but he nodded anyway.
“I’ll go with her and watch everything they do,” Donatelli offered. “I’ll make sure they do it right.”
Patrizia Ruocco looked him up and down, taking in his uniform. He might be Italian, but he was also from the police. “Giuseppe,” she said to her eldest son. “You go with him.
