“Thank you, no need to trouble you, we’ll just wait,” said Luca, answering for both of them. She returned to her cubicle and the policeman twirled his new hat on his knee before joining Rick in studying the man in the glass room. The only real estate agents Rick had known were in Albuquerque, and they had mostly been smiling middle-aged women with ample hair, usually blond. Melograno was a large man with a jowl bordering on a double chin, his head topped with thick, dark hair that fell slightly over the back of his collar. Rick was struck by the man’s resemblance to a former governor of New Mexico. Had Melograno’s shirt not been a clean, starched tattersall, he could almost have been described as unkempt. The nearly sloppy image was reinforced when he stood up—his belt was only partially visible and the shirt buttons strained under pressure. The other three people were standing as the meeting broke up. Two of them left the room after pulling on coats and went directly out the door to the stairway. The other listened to Melograno without speaking, then left the room herself and walked past Rick and Luca to one of the two unoccupied cubicles. Melograno walked to the chairs and the two visitors rose. His handshake was strong, almost intimidating. Luca introduced Rick without any explanation of his presence. If Melograno was curious, he didn’t show it.
“Inspector, I am at your disposal. A strange business, that of Mister Taylor.”
“It is indeed. I hope you can be of some assistance.”
“I shall do my best. Perhaps it would be better if we went to my office. Let me lead the way.”
Melograno walked to one of the doors at the back of the room, and they followed with hats and coats in hand. He opened it and stood aside to let them enter. “Please make yourselves comfortable.” He gestured at a set of thick leather chairs at one side of the room. The other side held a large desk, behind which stretched a low shelf with a few magazines stacked on it, and a standard filing cabinet. Except for a telephone and a small laptop computer, the desk was bare. The most striking feature of the room was its picture window. Its view extended vertically from the base where skiers finished their runs, all the way to the peak of the mountain. The only competition with the window was a roughly carved wooden bear, almost the size of Melograno himself. The beast stood on its back legs, its bared claws and fangs guarding a side door that Rick guessed led to the executive washroom. A few meters to one side of it was another door, probably leading to a back stairway, which would be required in a building of this size. Between the two doors, on the wall, three colorful pheasants perched proudly. Each stood on its own small shelf, looking as lifelike as the day it had been dropped from the air. The two visitors settled into the chairs, coats and hats over their laps, and their host took a seat opposite them.
“The real estate business is going well?” Luca’s question was a normal way to start a conversation with a real estate agent and nothing more. Even though the man knew his visitors didn’t work for the tax police, it wouldn’t be the kind of information a businessman would volunteer.
Melograno shrugged. “Not my best year, not my worst.”
“But the snow must help business,” said Rick.
Melograno looked at Rick, as if debating with himself whether to ask why he was there. “Snow is always welcome in a ski resort town. The last few days have been especially helpful. Weekends are usually a busy time for real estate, when tourists arrive from Lombardy and the Veneto, and that has been the case yesterday and today.” He turned to the policeman. “But you are here about the disappearance of Signor Taylor.”
Luca flipped open his notebook. “Signor Taylor’s sister told us that you met with him on Thursday. Tell us about that.”
Melograno put the tips of his fingers together in a praying gesture and tapped them against his chin. After a few moments of thought he answered. “The meeting was business-related, of course, and though I can’t go into detail because of proprietary information, it is not a secret that I have applied for a loan from his bank. It isn’t a large loan from their point of view, but for me it will be extremely helpful.”
“May I ask what the loan will finance?”
“That too is not a secret, since almost nothing in this town is. I want to purchase and develop a plot of land. Vacation apartments.”
“I wish you luck on that.” Melograno nodded, and Luca continued. “You had met with Signor Taylor before, I assume?”
“In addition to business? Our paths had crossed. He comes up to Campiglio frequently to ski.”
“And how was his manner this time, in comparison with the other times you had met? Did he seem different? Preoccupied?”
Melograno rubbed his chin and thick neck with his right hand to help him remember. “I wouldn’t say so. He is always very serious, very correct, when talking business. Not that I have seen him in any social occasions. That was the way he was on Thursday. Very correct.”
And that matches the way his sister had described his business dealings, thought Rick. “Did you notice anything which could be a clue to his disappearance? Did he mention anything he was planning to do while in Campiglio?”
He looked at Rick for a few seconds before answering. “We only talked about the loan.”
“Your meeting was here?” Luca asked.
“Yes, Inspector, he sat where you are sitting.”
“So the meeting was cordial and businesslike?” Melograno did not answer, but nodded slowly, as if running out of patience with the
