Conor Fitzgerald: The dogs of Rome

D’Amico looked offended. “I was just trying to be useful.”

“You entered the crime scene, spoke to the medical examiner, had keys duplicated, and spoke to the porter. Either you’re a judicial investigator or you’re not,” said Blume. “You were once, now you’re not. From now on, you stay here at the doorway.”

“Fine,” said D’Amico.

Blume walked toward the body in the middle of the corridor. The photographer had vanished into the adjoining rooms.

“I got the impression from the medical examiner that this has nothing to do with queers, despite the bathrobe,” said D’Amico from his post by the door.

“Despite the knife, too,” said Blume. “Knives are surrogates, remember?”

“You think it could be sexual?”

“Could be anything. Except I trust Dorfmann. His autopsy will tell for sure.”

A technician walked out of the victim’s study, carrying a plastic-wrapped computer. They would find out more about Arturo Clemente when they pried into his files, followed the trail he had left all over the Internet like an unwitting snail.

Paoloni was examining the shelves along the corridor. The technicians had moved away from the area immediately around the body. Blume waved at one of them and asked for permission to explore. The technician shrugged, nodded.

Paoloni shuffled over and stood beside Blume, looking more like a snitch with privileges than a law enforcer.

“OK, let’s start. Beppe, you finished your sketch?”

Paoloni showed it to Blume. It looked like it had been done by an ungifted five-year-old, but it included measurements, and would do until the technicians supplied their version.

“Slight grazing on the knuckles,” said Blume. “Dorfmann might be able to tell us more, but it looks like he didn’t manage to put up much of a struggle.”

Paoloni asked, “What do you think? The killer was handy with his weapon?”

“Not necessarily. The victim looks as if he wasn’t expecting this.”

“I think that, too. He didn’t know what hit him,” said Paoloni.

“I wonder did he know who hit him,” said Blume.

“No sign of forced entry,” said Paoloni. “Someone delivered the groceries and someone killed him before he had time to put them away. Makes sense to presume it was the same person.”

They stared in silence at the corpse for a while longer. Paoloni said, “I see the assailant being alone.”

“I agree.”

“If there had been a second person, he would have gripped the victim in some way, pinned him down, tied him up. Something that we would be able to see.”

“Yes,” said Blume. “Two people come at you with knives, you run, barricade yourself in a room. Maybe not get very far, but at least some of the wounds would be in your back. This guy looks like he thought he was in with a fighting chance. Stabbed in the front of the body each time. What do you make of those towels over by the front door?”

Paoloni pushed his thumb into his nostril to show he was thinking.

Eventually he said, “No idea. Like the killer wanted to clean up or something, but then didn’t bother. One was streaked, like he cleaned the blade on it. The others are clean.”

Blume said, “It’s as if he wanted to stem the flow of the blood, like he was scared it would run under the door.”

Paoloni made a dismissive click with his tongue, tilted his chin up, and said, “It would never have run that far once the heart had stopped beating.”

“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.”