Dying on the Vine

Happily (from Rocco’s point of view), Captain Conforti hadn’t felt that it was necessary to bring in the public prosecutor yet, so there was no officious Migliorini clone to deal with. It was also fortunate, he thought, that the medico legale who had been assigned was the one he found easiest to work with, the round, smiling, and Buddha-like Dr. Melio Bosco, the seventy-six-year-old physician who had been on the scene in the Casentinese when the Cubbiddus’ skeletons had been found.

Bosco had been at it for twenty minutes, and when he straightened up he did it with a groan. “My lumbar spine’s getting too old for this, Rocco,” he said, kneading his back with the fingers of both hands. “I need to find a new line of work, something easy. Look into applying to the Carabinieri, maybe. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Melio, it is awfully easy work. Wouldn’t be challenging enough for you. So, how long has he been dead?”

Bosco stripped off his gloves, tossed them into his bag, and steepled his fingers before his chest. “I would say that it was somewhere between six and twelve hours ago—thirteen to be on the safe side—that this gentleman embarked on his passage across the Styx with that ferryman of ghosts, grave Charon at his oar.”

“Dante?”

“Euripides.”

“See, that’s what I mean. You’re too smart for the Carabinieri. Six to thirteen hours. So that’d be, uh, eight o’clock or so last night at the earliest, four o’clock this morning at the latest?”

“Say, you’re pretty smart yourself.”

“Anything to say on the . . . wait a minute . . . yeah, on the cause of death?”

“Heart failure, I would guess.”

“Induced by a cocaine overdose?”

“Let’s wait for the toxicology report on that, but the circumstances would seem to point us in that direction, wouldn’t you agree?” He nodded toward the marble-topped nightstand beside the bed, with a number of items scattered across its surface: a nail clipper, a ring of keys, a bottle of cough medicine, a couple of ballpoints, some used, wadded tissues. And, more significantly, what was known in the trade as a snuff kit: a makeup-size mirror, a single-edge razor blade, a tiny spoon, a three-inch-long copper tube about the diameter of a drinking straw, and a little bottle with a bit of white sediment in it. Alongside them was the open case, made of expensive leather, that had held them neatly in their places with elastic loops and zippered pockets. It was called a snuff kit because, when advertised for sale, it was uniformly described as a set of accessories for those who took snuff. Advertisers with a sense of humor sometimes made a point of stating that it was never, ever, under any circumstances, to be used for inhaling illegal substances. Rocco had run across a lot of these in his time, but he had yet to run into one owned by an actual snuff-taker. In fact, he had yet to run into an actual snuff-taker.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Rocco said. “I don’t suppose you’d have anything to say about whether it was accidental, or whether he had somebody helping him across that river?”

“Homicide, you mean? Why would you suspect that?”

“Melio, this guy was Pietro Cubbiddu’s stepson; Nola’s kid. We’d been wondering if he was somehow involved in their deaths. And then, he also happened to be suing the hell out of the Cubbiddus.”

“Was he? Yes, I can see why you’d find this a bit suspicious.”

“The only reason we’re here right now is that Tonino came by to bring him in for questioning on the murders. And this is what he found.”

“Oh my. Well, all I can tell you is that I’ve thus far found no signs of violence on the body, and nothing to suggest forced ingestion. But that doesn’t mean we won’t find something when we get him on the table and have a more thorough look. And when the laboratory tests are analyzed.”

“When can you do the autopsy, Melio?”

“I’ll do it today. I’ll call you later with results and have the written report tomorrow; all part of the cheerful Bosco service, my boy. Oh, I can also tell you, for what it might be worth, that he appears to have died right there in his bed. Livor mortis is consistent with his not having been moved.”

“In other words, you haven’t found anything at all so far to indicate that we’re looking at a homicide. A murder.”

“Which doesn’t mean one didn’t occur, of course.”

“Of course. What, Tonino?”

Martignetti had appeared at his side bearing two glossy booklets. “These were in a drawer in the kitchen.”

Rocco looked at the cover of the top one: Manuale ufficiale all’uso dell’Acro PC 1420. He shrugged. “So? A computer manual.”

“Right.”

He glanced at the other one; an owner’s manual for a printer. “And these are significant for some reason?”

“You’ve looked around the place, Tenente. You remember seeing a computer anywhere? Or a printer?”

“No, but maybe they’re out in his car, or in another drawer somewhere, or—”

Martignetti flipped the computer manual open to the photo on the first page. “It’s a desktop, not a notebook; it’s not going to be in any drawer. The printer’s full-size too. It’s not there either. There’s also no keyboard, no mouse, no cables, no nothing.”

“Well, couldn’t it be that—?”

“But there is an empty space on the desk in the other room that would just fit them. Just about the only empty surface in the whole room.”

Rocco nodded slowly. “So you think somebody came in and took his computer, along with everything that goes with it, after he died, is that what you’re getting at?”

“Or before,” Martignetti said.

“Or during,” said Bosco, and the three men looked at one another.

TWENTY-ONE

“HOW do you know they haven’t been missing for weeks, or months?” Gideon asked.

Rocco shook his head. “Nah. Look, the whole place was covered in dust an inch thick. All except the desk, which was squeaky clean where the stuff had been. You could see the outlines—even the mouse—just like somebody drew them right on the wood.”

“So what’s your hypothesis? Why take them?”

“Obviously, to keep something on the computer from coming out.”

“Okay, but why take the printer, the mouse?”

“Because if they’d left the printer and the mouse, we’d know right away they took the computer, wouldn’t we?”

“We do know they took the computer.”

“Yeah, but only because they forgot about—or didn’t have time to look for—the manuals.” He paused, holding up the spoon he’d been using to scoop up his beef stew. “Hey, what did I tell you: is the food here good, or what?”

They were having lunch at Il Cernacchino, an out-of-the-way eating place on an out-of-the way street a block from the Piazza Signoria, that fully lived up to Rocco’s “mom and pop” description. (“Hole-in-the-wall” would have been equally apt.) No more than fifteen feet wide and twenty feet deep, Il Cernacchino had two levels, with a window-side eating bar and stools on the ground floor along with three small tables, and another five tables squeezed together in the minuscule loft above. Behind a cafeteria-type counter at the back of the ground floor were Mom and Pop in person, smilingly ladling out soups and stews, deftly whipping up panini, and looking as if there was nothing in the world they could possibly have been happier doing.

The panino that Gideon was in the process of demolishing was indeed mouth- wateringly good, although it had taken Rocco to overcome his initial reservations. A hot chicken-liver panino? But Rocco was right; the panino con i fegatini was wonderful, a five-napkin affair, dripping with olive oil, but well worth the risks to his shirt. They each had a glass of rough,