He grabbed his head between his hands. The puzzle still had too many holes, and despite the vital clues coming up from that last visit, they failed to make any sense with each other.
Drawing a deep breath, he looked toward the door behind which the forensic team was already getting started with scraping every bit of evidence, collecting items to be analyzed, in the hopes to get at least a confirmation about the Beretta being the murder weapon.
CHAPTER 19
Once again, he remained working in his office. The days were getting longer and the weather fairer with the onset of Spring. This meant that he’d be working with the AC on, rather than the heaters blasting. That was the only difference for him as he remained later, sometimes for most of the night studying the case. The ticking of the clock brought him to the realization that it was time for Giovanna and Anna to go to sleep. A smile curled his lips, tasting the bitterness of missing precious moments in their life for not having the chances he wanted to spend time with them.
He grabbed his phone and sent a goodnight message to his wife, asking for the umpteenth time to be forgiven for leaving them alone.
The usual clicking of Gennaro’s footsteps on the tiled floor, raised a weak chuckle resounding in the silence of the room, recalling at the time when he almost shot at him. The entire department is still giggling at the incident, he thought, staring at the door, where a large A3 paper sheet bore the red inscription “DON’T SHOOT GENNARO!”
Another pair of footsteps echoed together with the ones of Gennaro, and from the window he could see Leonardo walking in his direction.
In the dimmed lighting, his face looked paler than usual, as if he was already dead. His pace, as he walked toward Maurizio’s office was labored, yet almost mechanical.
The door opened and Leonardo, unusually silent entered the room, his expression blank as if he saw a ghost. “What’s wrong?” Maurizio wondered, standing from the chair at his desk.
“It doesn’t make sense...” He collapsed on the chair in front of Maurizio’s desk. “We’re lucky to have the DNA of Igor, classified in our archives by all the times he got arrested. The DNA on the Beretta, matches his, so he was the one who pulled the trigger. Yet, in that case, I was hoping for more traces. A man who’s holding a gun to kill someone else, tends to sweat, so there should have been more than the faint traces we’d found. A killer doesn’t hide the murder weapon inside his house—he gets rid of it, carefully cleaning it to remove DNA traces— bleach, oxygen bleach, and other products available that even children would know how to use. Yet, we have a consumed criminal, who goes and kills a love rival and keeps the weapon uncleaned in his own house... Why?”
“Hah!” Maurizio jolted as if he heard a joke. “What about the fact that he doesn’t seem to have left the country, yet he’s nowhere to be found? What about his car? Where is it?” Maurizio raised his hands mid-air, exasperated by the abundance of clues, which proved to be completely irrelevant.
At that same moment, Senior officer Milani arrived. “Am I late for the party?” she asked with a giggle.
“There’s no party. Why are you still here? I thought you were home,” Maurizio replied, surprised to see her coming there at that time.
“I was going home, when a notification about an abandoned car grabbed my attention. I remained at the office a bit longer to go deeper in that piece of information,” she said, swinging a sheet of paper she had in her hand. “The car is parked at the Civitavecchia Harbor, and do you want to know who the owner is?”
He grabbed the paper, where the details of the car were listed, “Igor Leonov,” he muttered. “How about going for an early swim to Civitavecchia?”
“If my presence is not extremely necessary, I’d like to go home,” Senior officer Milani whined, tired.
“What about Leonardo?” Maurizio knew there wasn’t any need for her to be there, as he only wanted to reach the location and in case he’d found the car, order a towing to the Forensic Department. “I think his presence is required.”
“I don’t have my swimming suit...” Leonardo chuckled.
“We go commando.” Maurizio stood from the chair ready to drive to Civitavecchia and have the car in question towed to the Police Department for the joy of the forensic team to examine. “I know Chief Commissioner isn’t happy when you accompany me, but in this case, you might need to get some evidence. C’mon get your little chemist’s kit.”
Leonardo grimaced, “Very funny.”
***
It was about half past midnight, when Aldo woke up from a nightmare in his berth on the boat. So far, he kept his promise and never touched the mainland with his feet. Yet, that night, he needed to get some supplies for the fishing gig and having forgotten to tell anyone on his team to bring them, he would have been forced to go himself to the storage, where he could find whatever he necessitated. He hesitated for a while, glancing at the concrete slab on the harbor, where his boat was moored. Less than one month had passed since the day he murdered a stranger, and from that moment, nightmares continued haunting him in his sleep. The blood, the face of the man when he arrived and his eyes; those clear blue eyes still looking at him from the depth of his dreams, still wondering why he killed
