“Don’t hurry,” she answered, then slipped into the room and closed the door.
“Mattia Zola?”
“Sono io.” I stood from the small chair as the door to the office of Silvana Ruggeri opened.
Ruggeri, a chief prosecutor in Florence, was an attractive, if slightly intimidating woman that reminded me a lot of the female Marines I had known in the service. Unflinching.
“You’re very persistent,” she said as she locked her office door. “The secretary said you were waiting for the last hour and a half.” She turned and looked me over. “You look like your cousin when I knew him. Yes, I can see the resemblance.”
I tipped my hat. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
But Ruggeri wasn’t flirting. The opposite in fact: this woman was hard as nails.
As soon as I’d left the hotel, I’d called my cousin Marcello, a detective with the polizia di stato in Naples, about Giuseppe Bianchi’s death. If the girls were right and some kind of investigation happened, there should be a record of it. It had been a pure stroke of luck that the investigator assigned to the case still worked in Florence—and happened to be a friend of the family.
“Zola told me you wanted to know about the Bianchi case?” she asked, referring to my cousin much the same as people did me back home—by our shared last name.
I followed her into the main stairwell of the old building. Our footsteps echoed down the steps.
“I know it’s a long shot, but I’m only here a few more days. I spoke with his daughters today, and they had some interesting things to say. I wondered if you could corroborate.”
She eyed me curiously. “Zola said you’re a prosecutor in America?”
I nodded. “I was, yeah. On leave right now. Law enforcement runs in the family, I guess.”
“Why do you care, though? That case has been closed for years. There is no hope of solving it.”
We exited onto the street, where a rush of people filled the sidewalk of the busy street in the San Lorenzo district, forcing us to stand a little closer than necessary.
I paused, wondering just how much I should give away. Fuck it. Marcello had vouched for Ruggeri, and Nina’s secret was out in the open. I had nothing to lose by asking.
“I’m here with a friend,” I said. “An American woman who had an affair with Giuseppe Bianchi a year before he died. When she went back to New York, she was pregnant, and she had the baby. She was on her way to tell Bianchi when he died.”
Ruggeri’s face remained stoic, but her eyes flashed with interest. Yeah, she saw the potential connection there as much as I did.
“And you think she might have something to do with Bianchi’s death?” she asked finally.
I shrugged. I wasn’t planning on giving anything away myself. “Seems a little strange, don’t you think?” I held up my hands. “I just have a couple of questions. I don’t want to stir up trouble.”
Her sharp black gaze raked over me, as intense and critical as any inspection I’d ever endured in boot camp. I half expected her to fine me for the scuff on one of my shoes.
But instead, she checked her watch.
“I have an hour for a drink. There’s a cafe around the corner. I’ll tell you what I can.”
I tipped my hat again. “I’ll take whatever you have to offer. And drinks are on me.”
The story Ruggeri told me over a couple of aperitivi was at first similar to other unsolved homicides I’d encountered back home. Rosina’s story was true: after the autopsy, foul play was suspected due to traces of toxins found in Bianchi’s system.
“We spoke to his wife, his friends, many others. Searched his office too. There was no sign of any drug use. And his behavior was not consistent with an addict,” Ruggeri said before taking a sip of a Negroni. “Not that it mattered, since what was found turned out not to be any kind of narcotic. So I don’t know why the girl thought that. Maybe her mother gave her another story.”
“Then what was it?”
Ruggeri studied me for a moment. “Did you say that your friend, she tried to contact Bianchi just before his death?”
Okay, evasion. She was trying to see if I was the real deal. Well, I had nothing to hide.
I nodded. “She wrote him a letter, but her family intercepted the reply. As far as I know, Bianchi never knew about the baby.”
Ruggeri twisted her mouth around. “I see. Hmm.”
“So, any suspects, then?” I prodded gently.
Ruggeri examined me again, then relaxed, seeming to decide I was either harmless or maybe helpful. “One, in fact. There was a man who was checked into Bianchi’s office building by security approximately four hours before he died. Not an Italian. But too old to be a student.”
That didn’t necessarily mean anything. There were loads of expats and tourists in Florence at any given moment.
“His name wasn’t Calvin Gardner, was it?” I asked, just on a hunch.
“No, it wasn’t American.”
I slumped as Ruggeri took another drink.
“It was Hungarian,” she finished.
I sat up straight. “Any chance you remember what it was?”
Ruggeri gave me a dry look that said “Are you kidding?” more clearly than if she had spoken the words. “It was ten years ago, Mr. Zola.” But even so, she screwed up her brows in thought. “Although maybe…” She snapped her fingers again and again, as if it would conjure the name by magic.
A bolt of steel scampered up my spine. I edged forward slightly in my seat.
“I only remember because the name, it was catchy. Something like Carol…”
“Károly Kertész?” I supplied.
She snapped loudly and pointed at me. “Yes! That’s it.” Then she frowned. “How did you know?”
I held up my glass, almost as in salute. “I’ll tell you when you’re finished. Please go on.”
“Well,” she said as she clinked her wedding ring against her glass. Ruggeri was
