THE DOGS of ROME Read online

  “Maybe our killer didn’t know that,” said Blume. “Which would make him a first-timer.”

  Blume went over and looked at the towels. They were pure white and fluffy. He thought of his own towels, multicolored strips of sandpaper. Two of the towels were still folded and pristine; one stained as if something had been wiped on it, as Paoloni had said. A third had been unfolded then rolled into a snake shape and left near the door.

  “Nice towels,” offered D’Amico, who was standing near to the door. “By the way, I forgot to mention, the wife spoke to the victim at ten thirty this morning. On the phone. From Padua.”

  “You forgot to tell me?”

  “The Holy Ghost knows this already. He was the one who told me. He got it from the wife.”

  “Did you tell Dorfmann?”

  “No, I just heard, like I said.”

  “Phone Dorfmann now. Tell him you’re the dandy one, and you’ve got a marker for him.”

  “The dandy one?”

  “Yes.”

  Blume went back to Paoloni at the body. “Can we roll him over?”

  They rolled Clemente’s body over. There were no wounds behind, but Dorfmann would have said if there were. As Blume had expected, Clemente’s bathrobe had soaked up most of the blood.

  “Not much blood,” said Paoloni. “Considering. His heartbeat must have slowed down pretty quick.”

  Blume turned around as he felt a presence behind him.

  Inspector Cristian Zambotto had arrived, heaving and gasping and cursing after his trip up the stairs. Zambotto was dangerously overweight and had flat black hair that stopped suddenly somewhere high up on the middle of his head, leaving room for a wide rim of pocked skin that eventually merged with his thick neck.

  After D’Amico left to pursue a political career, Blume’s team was split up and Zambotto was assigned to him. Blume did not know much about Zambotto except that he almost never contributed anything to anyone’s conversation, as if at some point in his life, Zambotto had decided it was too difficult to turn calories into words.

  “Cristian, spend about half an hour here, OK? Get the scene into your head. Then I want you to find out who delivered those groceries, and bring him, or them, in for questioning. I want to be able to leave here, go interview the suspect. Take backup if you need it.”

  “Right,” said Zambotto.

  “Paoloni, take a few minutes here, then catch up with me in whatever room I’m in, OK?”

  Paoloni nodded.

  “Then you can go back and requestion the people in the apartment block. I want you to draw up a timeline using the reports from the police officers that Gallone appears to have assigned. We have a ten thirty call from the wife, an estimated time of death not long after, and now we need to find out about when these groceries were delivered. Also, you’ll be doing the paperwork on this.”

  Paoloni gave him a dirty look.

  “You can get Ferrucci to help you.”

  “Oh, great,” said Paoloni.

  “Why, you’d prefer to do the paperwork with Zambotto?” Blume looked at Paoloni, who shook his head quickly, more as a warning to Blume not to forget that Zambotto was still standing there. “Yeah, I thought so.”

  Paoloni was making life hell for an officer-class graduate called Marco Ferrucci, but Blume saw a lot of raw talent in the young man. He figured Paoloni did, too, which might explain why he was so intent on humiliating him. Ferrucci had the potential to outshine them all.

  Blume was about to say more in Ferrucci’s defense when he caught sight of Gallone, who had appeared at the doorway. Blume positioned himself next to the body, like a guard.

  Gallone had an agente scelto remove the rest of the crime scene tape from the doorway, then walked in, head bowed. He raised sorrowful eyes and looked at Blume, then held his hands aloft. “Everything in order? Commissioner D’Amico?”

  “Yes, sir. All under control,” said D’Amico.

  “We shall manage this well,” he told D’Amico. “This is not being announced. No appeals for information, not yet. The rewards for clearing this one up will be high. I have that on good authority.” He turned his attention to Blume. “Commissioner, although you are not suitably dressed—”

  “I had some leave, and it’s the weekend.”

  “Although, I repeat, it seems almost irreverent for you to be standing in running shorts, you are assigned to the case under my aegis. The investigating magistrate is Filippo Principe. I believe you and he are old friends.”

  “I respect him,” said Blume. “So, if Principe has charge of the investigation, and you and I are reporting to him, where do D’Amico and the Ministry fit in?”

  D’Amico spoke up. “Stop referring to me in the third person, Alec. You’re hurting my feelings.”

  “Sorry, Nando. I’d expect you to do the same in my position.”

  Gallone said, “D’Amico has coordinating responsibilities. The investigative work is our responsibility. The investigating magistrate is on his way. We have arranged a meeting of the investigative team tomorrow morning at nine. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Gallone was gone.

  “Nando, I need your cell number, if it’s changed,” said Blume.

  “No, same as it always was.”

  “So is mine. Then you’ll need to get Paoloni’s and Zambotto’s, give them yours.”

  “Will do.”

  “And then you should leave so we don’t compromise the scene with too many people.”

  Gallone was amongst them again. “I forgot to mention an important detail, Commissioner. It’s about a cell phone. Sveva Romagnolo, the poor widow, left her cell phone behind, and wants it back. It has important government and Political contacts and names on it. I was wondering had you seen it.”

  Only Gallone could not know a cell phone at a murder scene was one of the first things to be taken by the technicians.

  “The UACV will have removed it.”

  Gallone clicked his tongue in irritation. “I know that they would have if they found one, but they say they never found one. It’s not on the list of items removed from the scene.”

  “Well if they didn’t find one, why should I?”

  Gallone nodded slowly as if accepting a doubtful proposition. “It’s hardly that important. What is important is that I personally shall be interviewing the widow. In this case, I shall report to you. You are not to importune the widow. Understood?”

  Gallone was gone. D’Amico stood for a whole minute, sulking but splendid in his golden suit. Then he too left.

  4

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 5:45 P.M.

  AFTER GALLONE AND D’Amico had left, Blume and Paoloni went over to examine the grocery box. The masking tape that had held the flaps closed was slit neatly down the middle. Blume looked through the contents. Weetabix, organic apples, fair trade cocoa, bananas (one of them becoming spotted), jam, basmati rice, toothpaste. At the bottom, he found the receipt. It showed a total of a113.23, and thirty-seven items, each listed by name. The time and date stamp showed Thursday, August 26: 17.23.

  Blume started removing the contents and setting them out on the floor. He counted thirty-four items in all.

  “How many did you get?” he asked Paoloni.

  “Thirty-five.”

  Blume went into Clemente’s study and found a Staedtler felt tip, and came back with it. As he returned the groceries back to the box, he marked them off against the receipt. Paoloni had been right: thirty-five items. When everything was back in, he discovered that two listed items seemed to be missing: one jar of Nutella (400 g) and one of “Crema arach” (250 g). Peanut butter! So they sold peanut butter in the shops up here. Maybe he’d buy some. His father had been a great believer in the goodness of peanut butter. Sometimes the three of them would make a special shopping trip to Castroni on Via Cola di Rienzo and stock up on peanut butter, Hershey bars, melting marshmallows, Jell-O, rice pudding, maple syrup, Paul Newman salad dressings, Mexican tortilla chips and taco shells, shorte
ning, root beer, sweet mince. His mother used to be outraged at the prices, but in those days it was the only store in Rome that sold what his father always called “luxury western items,” making the same joke each time they went.

  Zambotto appeared and announced he was leaving to question the residents. Blume told him to get five uniformed officers to help him and work in three teams of two. As Zambotto was leaving, the investigating magistrate, Filippo Principe, entered. Principe paused to salute the departing policeman, who gave a half grunt of acknowledgement.

  The magistrate, fifteen years Blume’s senior, had a tanned, healthy look.

  He was dressed in a lightweight beige suit and a sky blue shirt open at the collar. Behind round glasses, his eyes were wrinkled as if he was looking into the sun.

  He came over, and he and Blume shook hands, something they only ever did at the opening or the closing of a new case. Principe nodded courteously to Paoloni who appeared behind Blume. Blume told Principe what he had found out so far, which did not amount to much.

  “You’re looking well,” said Blume. “For an old man.”

  “I managed to get away,” said Principe. “Two weeks in Terracina. Three days on the beach in the company of my daughter’s son. What do you say, is it wrong not to like your grandson?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “I never thought excessive coddling could produce such monsters. He pretended to drown, you know. Just to get attention. Screamed from the sea. I stayed under the umbrella, and now his mother thinks I’m . . . Well, never mind.”

  “For some reason, Vicequestore Franco Gallone and my old partner Nando D’Amico, now Commissioner D’Amico, if you please, were here before you,” said Blume.

  “It’s a political case,” said Principe. “Gallone is taking direct orders from the questura, which is responding to the Ministry of the Interior, which has already sent your former partner D’Amico. I may have control of the investigation, but the Holy Ghost responds only to the prayers of the hierarchy, you know that. Relax.”

  “This Political thing . . .” said Blume. “This mess here is the work of an amateur.”

  “The victim’s wife is an elected MP. It’s automatically political because of the wife.”

  The investigating magistrate walked down the corridor and paused above the sprawled body. He stood there in silence for a few moments, then, with a rapid hand movement that almost looked as if he was brushing away a fly or parrying a smell, made the sign of the cross. “You and Paoloni carry on,” he said. “I’ll get more details from the technicians.”

  The bathroom was a mess of damp towels, talc on the floor, footprints, a bar of soap with a hair on it that the technicians had decided to leave. An embarrassment of forensic riches. A small teak cabinet was attached to the wall. Blume opened it and examined the toothpaste, mouthwashes, bandages with pictures of crocodiles, junior vitamin pills, a jar of aspirin tablets from the USA, Vic’s menthol rub, handing some of the items to Paoloni, who squinted carefully at their labels then handed them back, like an old woman checking prices in a supermarket.

  A wickerwork laundry basket stood in the corner. Blume pulled up the lid. A set of sheets lay on top. He pulled them out and wrinkled his nose slightly against the light gust of urine and sock sweat. He rifled through the clothes, picking out a tiny pair of light blue mud-caked children’s socks. It seemed impossible that feet could be so small. He went into the bedroom.

  The umbrella pine outside the bedroom window filtered the sun. The white walls were cool to the touch and left a chalky dust on his gloves as if slightly damp. He looked at the split mattress, the clothes scattered on the floor.

  “Women’s underwear,” said Paoloni, still following him.

  “Call the investigating magistrate in here,” ordered Blume.

  “What do you think of that?” asked Blume when Principe and Paoloni appeared at the bedroom door. He pointed to the bed sheets on the floor.

  “The doer was looking for something, messing with women’s underwear. We’ll probably get samples off them,” said Principe.

  “I was referring to the sheets.”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re still folded, or almost. Look.” Blume went over, picked up a sheet, smelled it. “Fresh.” He unfolded it. The fabric was ironed flat, the creases sharp. “Someone was changing the bed.”

  Blume continued to search. All four folding eaves of the ceiling-high pine cabinet were opened, clothes scattered here and there.

  Blume pulled out the Staedtler pen and used it to lift a pair of silk underpants. He lifted them up to his face. They smelled very faintly of woman, but they also smelled of conditioner, dry-cleaning fluids, and soaps.

  None of the items had been discarded there by a woman undressing. Everything else about her side of the wardrobe suggested order, cleanliness. She would not be the person responsible for strewing her clothes on the floor.

  Blume put the underpants down again and ducked his head under the bed. Nothing. Not even a dust bunny.

  “Why would you change the bed?” he asked Paoloni and Principe.

  “Dirty sheets?” suggested Principe.

  “This place is perfect,” said Blume. “They definitely have a house keeper.

  Looks to me like she’s here almost every day.”

  “Everyone in this neighborhood has a cleaner,” remarked Paoloni, a hint of bitterness in his voice.

  “The house keeper would change the sheets, wouldn’t she? Once, twice a week, whatever.”

  Principe picked up Blume’s line of reasoning. “So why was he changing the sheets himself? If it was him.”

  Blume nodded, “As you said, dirty sheets.”

  “So you think our man was up to something in this bed.”

  “If so, it wasn’t with his wife, who was at the other end of the country,” said Blume. “The used sheets are in the laundry basket.”

  “OK. I’ll make sure forensics is planning to bag one, though I think they would have anyway.”

  Paoloni and Blume left Principe in the bedroom and moved into the kitchen. Blume liked the room. Each brushed steel unit would cost him two months’ wages. He pulled a drawer, which slid out with millimetric precision from between the drawers above and below it. He looked inside and saw wooden spoons, an egg whisk, a shining bottle opener, and place mats. The counter was black granite, shining and clean, with thick ledges.

  A juicer and coffee grinder looked as if they had been made by the same German engineers responsible for the perfect drawers. A blue LED display on the oven told him it was 18:15. The fat refrigerator clicked and started humming. He opened it. The lettuce and fruit were still bright and fresh on the lower shelves. They had yogurts of every conceivable flavor. A bowl of green beans with plastic wrap over them sat on the top shelf, looking like it was meant to be lunch. A jar of peanut butter was wedged between two jars of capers in the door. Blume opened the jar. It was almost finished. How did they expect it to spread properly if they kept it in the refrigerator?

  They moved into the study. Again, the room was dustless, apart from a thin grayish patina on the floor where the computer had been before the technicians took it away. A pile of glossy animal rights leaflets lay on the floor. He picked one up. It showed a baby fox with large eyes, and the caption read, “Does your mother have a fur coat? Mine used to.”

  Blume felt the accusation did not apply to him. He noticed a few things dumped on a Japanese-style sofa with black cushions. He walked past the sofa, not pausing to consider the objects. He did not want to influence Paoloni.

  “Anything look out of place to you here?” he asked.

  Paoloni looked around the room. “It’s pretty neat. Not much out of place. Maybe that stuff on the sofa?”

  “Good,” said Blume. “Let’s wait till Principe catches up.”

  The investigating magistrate arrived a few moments later.

  “Anything?”

  “We haven’t started,” said Blume. “We
were about to look at this pile of things on the sofa.”

  Blume went over to examine it. A book on flowers, an apple, crumpled cartons of juice, and a sweatshirt were heaped together.

  “What does this seem like to you two?”

  Paoloni was writing down a list of the objects in his notebook. When he had finished he looked up and said, “I don’t know. Even neat people dump things in a pile sometimes.”

  Principe’s brow furrowed, but he had no suggestions to offer.

  “A book on flowers,” said Blume.

  “Yeah, well he was one of those Green types,” said Paoloni.

  “But it’s the sort of thing you might bring outside with you. Same goes for the sweatshirt. I’m not sure about the apple, but those empty cartons of juice. You wouldn’t drink them in here, then put them there on the sofa. They were removed from a bag,” said Blume.

  “Why would he have empty cartons in his bag?” asked Paoloni.

  “He’s one of those Green types, like you said. Probably didn’t want to throw them on the street like most . . . Italians.”

  “Like most Romans,” corrected Principe, who was from Latina.

  “Apple’s a bit wrinkly,” observed Paoloni.

  “Clemente was a man,” said Blume. “What sort of bag would he carry?”

  “I don’t carry a bag,” said Paoloni.

  “I carry a briefcase,” said Principe. “A backpack? That would fit what he seems to have been like.”

  “Yes,” said Blume. “Let’s see if we can find it.”

  They searched the study, but found nothing. Then they went through the other rooms of the house. Eventually they found a black Invicta backpack folded away in the back of the wardrobe.

  “It wasn’t this,” said Blume. “If he had taken the trouble to fold it up and put it away, he would have cleared the mess from the sofa in the study.”

  “Maybe the wife took it?” said Paoloni.

  “Good point. Go find out. The first reporting officer is at the door. Ask him.”

  Paoloni left.