Slowly raising his glance to Maurizio, he smirked. “You look like a mad dog. Cool down man, and breathe, or you’ll pass out.” Standing from his chair Leonardo chuckled, amused. He loved to tease Maurizio every time the occasion was presented to him, and in their job, with Maurizio hot-tempered, these occasions happened regularly.
With a low-pitched growl, Maurizio remained silent, waiting for Leonardo to hand him the material, and as Leonardo approached him with the memory stick, where he copied the email log data, he snatched it from his hands and without any other word spoken, he left the room, not caring whether Senior officer Milani would have followed him. To be honest, hearing her giggles, made his blood boil further, and he hoped she would have remained there until he was ready to return, once a civilized human being again.
Remembering the call received from Berenice about a thief, Maurizio tried to calm his hot temper and returned to Leonardo’s room.
“Just one question, though. What about the intruder in Calvani’s apartment, do we have any results?” he asked.
“Oh right, I almost forgot about it. Yes, we have the results, but nothing conclusive came out of it,” Leonardo replied. “Apparently, whoever came inside the apartment that day had been extremely careful of not leaving any trace.”
“So, nothing to report,” Maurizio pointed out, with a grunt.
“Unfortunately not, but we can say that at least someone intruded in the apartment as nobody from my team left the window open.” Leonardo shrugged.
Knowing the discussion wouldn’t have led anywhere, besides him getting sourer than he was before, Maurizio, turned and hurried to the door, mumbling curses meant to be heard only by himself. Pacing through the corridors, his mind got clearer with the increasing distance between him and Leonardo, and as he reached his room, instead of slamming the door behind him, the way he planned, he closed it gently.
He completely forgot about Senior officer Milani, and at that moment, it didn’t even matter whether she would have reached him in his office to continue what they started. Nevertheless, as he sat down at his desk, he recalled she’d mentioned having two good pieces of news to give. He was almost tempted to go and ask her about it, but focusing on the little black memory stick, he reconsidered it.
It’s better if I’m now going through this log and solve it whether they exchanged emails during that period of telephone silence. If I don’t find any emails, we’ll need to go through all the most recent call logs and see whether we can find another prepaid number he’d been calling or from which he has received calls.
He turned to the window, observing the soft rain falling with its gentle trickling against the glass. Looking at the sky, he could predict that shortly the sun would have shone again, as small patches of blue started to appear here and there, promising fairer weather for the evening. With a sigh, he released the last bits of bitterness left from the encounter with Leonardo, and with a relaxed expression he opened the file, and started going through all the recipients.
It didn’t take much time to spot the email address of Irina and isolating them from all the others; he started to go through the entire content. Something that didn’t sound right was the change in the tone of their emails from October onward. They sounded more like the ones he was sending to his mother-in-law for Christmas or birthday greetings. They were forced, stiff, unnatural.
“Then, without even saying goodbye, or having a reason that could indicate a rupture in their relationship, the email communications quit. The last phone call was recorded in December, before Christmas. The last email was dated the second of January. If they ended their relationship, this would have happened by phone or in person, and after that, there wouldn’t have been any other connection, not by email or telephone or any other means,” Maurizio mumbled as he went through the emails between the supposedly lovebirds.
With his eyes fixed on the screen, it was vital for him to go deeper into their relationship. “It’s clear enough they are hiding something. I don’t dare to say you were involved in the murder, but your position is fairly suspicious.”
Grabbing the phone on his desk, he dialed Senior officer Milani’s number.
“Hello, I thought you wanted to remain alone,” Senior officer Milani justified herself as she answered the phone call. She knew that in other cases, she was required to follow Maurizio to continue from where they interrupted. Yet she knew that when he had an argument with Leonardo, it wasn’t safe to come closer to him without wearing protective armor.
A smile showed up on Maurizio’s face; he was aware of the way he looked, and it was true when he said that he looked like a mad dog. He also felt like one.
“There’s no need to apologize, I was going through the emails between Luciano and Irina, and I would like you to collect all the call logs from yesterday to and from Luciano’s mobile phone. Do you think you can manage this task for tomorrow morning?” His contrite tone was something Senior officer Milani wasn’t used to. During demanding cases like the one they were working at, he was constantly in a bad mood, and there wasn’t any chance for him to admit he was wrong.
She hesitated for a moment, trying to understand whether she was still talking with Commissario Maurizio Scala, or to someone who’d taken his place. “Umm, I think I can do better,” she stated. “I can
