“Thank you, Ricky, but I’ll pass on the Etruscans. I have some work to do anyway, a thesis I have to review before next week, and I’d rather get it over with. And by the time I’m finished reading it you’ll be back, and I can take you to the Civic Museum to see Rosso’s Deposition. The best painting in the city, bar none. It will win you over to Mannerism.”
He gently took her hand. “You have already won me over, Erica. I cannot conceive of any student who would not be completely captivated by the field, with you teaching it to them.”
She pulled her hand back and used it to lift her coffee cup to her lips. “Sure, caro. Have some more Nutella.”
***
Inspector Conti sat in the front passenger seat of the unmarked police car as it curved through in the wooded area north of the city. His men had arrived before dawn and hidden themselves and their vehicles, but so far nobody had shown up for work at the cave. Perhaps this was a day off for everyone, or the grave looters union had negotiated a very favorable work schedule. It would be good, Conti supposed, to get this business cleared up so he could devote all his resources to the Canopo murder investigation. He might even assign LoGuercio to the case, despite his losing track of the American last night.
“Take off your hat, sergeant, in case we come across someone going to the same place we are. We don’t want to scare them off.”
The driver removed his blue service cap and tossed it in the seat behind him.
“It should be just around this bend, Commissario, according to the directions they gave me this morning. There will be a small road leading off—there it is.”
The car slowed and left the pavement, turning into a break among the trees, a path barely wide enough for the vehicle. After a hundred meters of ruts and bumps they entered the clearing.
“Are you sure this is the right place, Sergeant?” As he spoke Conti saw various policemen emerging from the trees, weapons in hand, and answered his own question. “Never mind, it is.”
Conti stepped onto the dirt of the clearing, noticing that in addition to the men coming out of the woods, two had appeared behind him on the path into the clearing. One of the men strode quickly over to the car.
“Commissario, good morning. We have our vehicles down the highway a few hundred meters, but there is room over there to hide yours. If anyone appears, once they are into this clearing we can block their exit. But I’m beginning to think that we have come on their rest day.”
As his car was driven behind the bushes, Conti looked around and saw that the area was just as the American had described. He walked over to the ravine and peered down, his eyes searching for the cave entrance.
“It’s over there, sir,” said the policeman, pointing his hand. “You can see that the bushes have a slightly different color, the leaves are a bit lighter.” Conti nodded. “I can lead you down there when you are ready, sir. We’ve already taken pictures of the footprints inside, so you can step anywhere without a problem.”
Conti had to admit to himself that he was curious to see this cave. The only part of the case that irked him was that it was Montoya who had broken it open, just as the culture cops in Rome had planned. He didn’t mind being wrong, except when it was another public safety arm that turned out to be right. Well, these rivalries would soon be a thing of the past for him, replaced by more wholesome ones on the card tables and bocce courts at San Giorgio. He was about to ask the sergeant to lead him to the cave when he realized that he had forgotten to call off the tail on Montoya. Cursing softly to himself, he opened his cell phone and dialed.
“LoGuercio?…Where?…That’s fine, but you can pull back, the case has been resolved. I’ll explain later, go back to the station.”
So Montoya was at the museum. That was certainly as good a place as any for the man to spend the morning. Conti didn’t think there would be any immediate repercussions from the raid of the cave, but it was just as well that Montoya was in a public building where nothing could happen to him. He pocketed his phone and signaled to the sergeant that he was ready to descend into the ravine.
As they traversed down the narrow path, Conti wondered if it had been used by wild boar hunters, or even by the boars themselves. Fortunately poaching was not something under his purview, there was another corps of law enforcement which dealt with hunting and fishing. Which was just as well since he enjoyed a bit of fresh cinghiale out of season as much as the next person. Indeed, the Tuscan specialty would be a dish he would miss when he moved back home to San Giorgio. Close to the cave opening the sergeant cleared away the loose brush and moved the boards aside. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and turned to Conti.
“I’ll go in first, sir, and turn on the lamps. They have them on batteries.”
Conti waited until he saw the glow of light through the opening, then bent over with some difficulty to enter the cave. He was definitely getting too old for this kind of activity. When he straightened up, not without more difficulty, he was inside the room that
