“New shoes?” Rick picked up the paper bag and held it out.
“They didn’t have the pair I wanted so I had to settle for these. Why do they put shoes in the window if they don’t have them in all sizes?”
“It’s a hard life here in Rome.” As soon as the words came out he knew he’d made a mistake. Her glare confirmed it.
“Are you going to start on that again?” Erica shook her head slowly. She pulled the shopping bag from his hand and slipped her leather case over her shoulder. “I get it, Ricky. We Romans just don’t appreciate what we have. Didn’t your girlfriends in America ever complain about anything?”
She had a point. A girl he was dating before leaving for Italy came to mind, eerily enough also a professor of art history, Latin American art, not Italian Mannerism. She had railed against all manner of injustice, mostly what she considered the major issues facing society like hunger and climate change. How could two women have the same interests and yet be so different? And how could Erica one minute wax passionately about the Italian cultural heritage and in the next complain that a shoe store didn’t have her size? One thing, though, she wasn’t boring.
Fortunately the storm passed quickly, as it usually did. She took his hand as they walked to the door and out into the street.
“Erica, one thing Beppo said to me is that this whole business in Volterra is, well, very confidential.”
“But you told me anyway.”
He shrugged. “It would have been hard to disappear for a few days without telling you where I’d gone. And if I can’t trust you…”
Erica remained silent and appeared to be deep in thought. A light wind was blowing through the piazza, and she let go of his hand to pull her white silk scarf closer around her neck. He waited for her reaction.
“It will be colder in Volterra,” she said. “Ancient hill towns always feel colder. It must be all the stone.”
“I’ll bring an extra sweater,” said Rick.
She studied his eyes and kissed him lightly on the cheek. The softer Erica had reappeared. “Be careful, Ricky. And call me.”
“Yes ma’am,” he answered in English, with a smile that was not returned. She turned and walked across the piazza in the direction of her apartment. Even with the wool coat he could trace her slim figure, accentuated by heels which American women would deem highly impractical on the cobble stones of Rome’s historic center. But they served their purpose, thought Rick, as she disappeared around the corner.
Chapter Three
Commissario Carlo Conti walked across the central piazza of Volterra toward his office, the cool fall air keeping him alert after the quarter-liter of red wine enjoyed with lunch. In his younger days it would have been like drinking a glass of mineral water, but in recent years he had noticed that even a small amount of alcohol would have its effect. He still consumed his regular quarto of wine with each meal, but only occasionally did he finish it with a digestivo. And grappa was out of the question.
Once again he found himself thinking of retirement. There was no getting around it, the idea of returning to the village where he was born and raised was more appealing as each day passed. He chuckled as he remembered the schoolboy whose only dream was getting out and moving to the largest city he could find. But now the hilltop town of San Giorgio had everything he needed in life. How ironic. The boredom that drove him away those many years ago now would welcome and comfort. Though she would never say it, Gemma too was ready for the move. He smiled as he thought of the only woman in his life; he could not have asked for a finer wife. His colleagues often told him how fortunate he was, and he always agreed. She had put up with so much over the years because of his police work: long hours alone, fears for his safety, his bad moods when the job was not going well. He often made a point of showing his appreciation, but he knew it was never enough. His friends were predicting, half in jest, that having him around all day might ruin the marriage for Gemma. But he would be sure to spend a good deal of time in the square at San Giorgio playing bocce. Was not his cousin Mario already retired and into such a daily routine? It would be easy to fall into it himself. Some gardening, an occasional visit to the beach, the grandchildren driving down from Rome to be spoiled. Yes, that could be a very pleasant retirement indeed.
“Commissario.” The policeman at the desk acknowledged his arrival as the door behind Conti swung shut and he walked down the hall to his office. The building was centuries old, but it smelled the same as every police station he had ever worked in throughout Italy. It must be in the disinfectant the cleaning staff uses, he thought. It probably all comes from the same manufacturing plant in the south. The odor pulled him back from San Giorgio to Volterra.
The office, though one of the best in the building, was not at all large and certainly not luxurious. They didn’t build many large rooms in the Middle Ages, but they did build them too solidly to allow knocking down walls, not that Conti had wished for a bigger office. There were two windows. One, near his desk, had a panoramic view of the piazza, while the other at the far side of a table overlooked a narrow alley. The table had six chairs on each side and one at either end, large enough for Conti to hold meetings with his staff. They were infrequent. He hated meetings. His desk, in front of which stood two uncomfortable chairs, was squeezed into one end of the room. On poles behind
