“You cannot hear?” he said.
The fellow on the other end of the line sounded exasperated. “You’re cutting in and out.”
“I should be moving?”
“Where are you?”
“I can move.”
“I can hear you now. Where are you?”
“Only one bar but I can move.”
“Just talk to me. Where are you?”
“In rental car on a street. You can’t hear?”
“What town?”
“Town called Vibo Valentia.”
“Wait. Let me check a map.”
The Eastern European was a large, powerfully built man, with long blond hair and a wispy, yellow moustache. He lit a cigarette and rolled down the window a little.
“Okay, Vibo Valentia. I see it. Did you find him?”
“Not sure. I think maybe.”
“You either found him or you didn’t. Which is it?”
“Maybe found him. Not see him yet, but I think he inside flat I looking at.”
“Sorry, Gunar, I lost you for a second. Did you say you looked inside the flat?”
“No. Am in car.”
“Then why do you think he’s there?”
“Not sure. Maybe he there. Yesterday I go to where he from. Village called Cessaniti. His mama live there. I wait till she shopping and I break in. No sign him. Last night, guy in bar says he know him but he no see him for years. I give him hundred euros and he tell me he has old girlfriend in Vibo Valentia. I find where she live. From car I look up in window now. Guy is there who look like him but not sure. I need go inside, I think.”
“All right. Find out and let me know.”
“Sure, sure, no problem. I let you know. You want I take care of it, if it him?”
At that, the man on the phone completely lost his cool. “That’s why I sent you there! Was I not clear?”
“Sure, sure. I take care.”
*
“This is the last thing we needed,” Lumaga told his sub-lieutenant at the door to the apartment building. He had parked his car on the sidewalk and had ducked under the crime-scene tape stretched across the narrow street. Knots of neighbors milled around, watching him with suspicion. Not everyone in this area loved the Carabinieri.
“It’s a pain in you know where,” Odorico said.
“You know the last time we had something like this in Vibo Valentia?” he asked. He knew she didn’t know the answer as she was from Naples, so he answered it himself. “Three years and that was a domestic situation. A wife killed her drunk husband with a kitchen knife.”
“What happened to her?”
“The judge took pity. The husband was a violent bastard. He spared her jail. This one’s not domestic, I take it.”
“Not unless one of them was able to shoot themselves twice in the head then make the gun disappear.”
“So, we’ve got a murderer on the loose.”
On the landing outside the flat, they put on booties and gloves. Inside, they kept out of the way of the forensic people and squeezed into the bedroom.
Lumaga was a tough guy with a strong stomach, but this was bad. One victim, a man who looked to be in his thirties was on the floor. The second victim, a woman of a similar age lay on the bed, her eyes open wide. Blood and brain matter were everywhere—on the floor, the bed, the walls, even the ceiling.
“She’s like the Mona Lisa,” Lumaga said.
“How do you mean?” Odorico asked.
“Wherever I stand, she seems to be looking at me.”
The medico legale, a crusty old doctor who wore her gray hair piled into a messy bun was photographing the woman.
“Anything here beyond the obvious, Lidia?” Lumaga asked.
“Each with a double-tap to the brain,” she said with a smoker’s rasp. “Small caliber, I’d say, maybe a twenty-two or twenty-five. They didn’t find the casings so the killer used a revolver or picked them up. I’ll buy you dinner if he left fingerprints. Very professional, all around.”
“A classic hit,” Lumaga said.
“One or both of them were probably into some seriously bad business,” Odorico said.
“Not my department,” the doctor said. “There was a small bag of marijuana in the living room, but that doesn’t make them drug barons.”
“Who are they?” Lumaga asked.
Odorico referred to her moleskin notepad. “The woman is Cinzia Rondinelli. This is her apartment. She teaches chemistry at the local secondary school.”
“Maybe she’s the Walter White of the operation,” Lumaga said, sending the medico legale into a coughing fit.
“Who is he?” Odorico asked.
“Breaking Bad?” Lumaga said. “Chemistry teacher? Methamphetamines? You don’t watch television? Lidia knows who I’m talking about.”
“I don’t own a television,” Odorico said. “Shall I continue?”
“Please do.”
“The male victim is Ferruccio Gressani, age thirty-six, a resident of Madrid, Spain with a Spanish driving license. At this point, that’s all the information we have.”
“Was there a mobile phone?”
“Hers, not his.”
“Everyone has a mobile. I wonder if the killer took it.”
“It’s possible,” she said.
“Who found the bodies?”
“A friend of the woman. Cinzia wasn’t answering her phone this morning, so she stopped in. She had a key because she waters her plants when Cinzia’s on holiday. She’s traumatized by what she saw and had to be taken to hospital to be sedated. I haven’t been able to speak to her yet.”
“Lidia, what time were they killed?”
“I’d say about twelve hours ago. Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. I’ll know better after the autopsies. I’ll be going now, Roberto. You know how to find me.”
Lumaga said, “Indeed I do. Fabiana, what about the neighbors? Did they hear anything?”
“They’ve all been interviewed. There was nothing. No screams, no gunshots. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“He must have used a silencer. Any cameras on the street?”
“No, I’m sorry to say.”
“Okay, let’s find out who Cinzia and Ferruccio are and who might have been angry enough at one or both of them to do this. Talk to her friend in hospital. See if Ferruccio has any local connections. Get the police in Madrid involved. See if either of them has a police record here or abroad. Take the lead on this and try to wrap it up as soon
