Conor Fitzgerald: Fatal Touch

Di Ricci came out, wiping milk foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. Rospo followed, holding a cornetto pastry. Caterina pointed at him. “You. Go plant yourself twenty meters down Via del Cipresso. Over there.” She pointed. “That way you can stop people before they even get to the piazza. Di Ricci, take up position there at the corner of Vicolo de’ Renzi.”

Rospo softly tore his pastry in two, and inserted half into one side of his mouth, and stood there, cheek bulging and jaw moving, looking at her.

“It’s a direct order from Blume,” she added.

He shrugged, pushed the other half of the pastry into the other side of his mouth, and moved off.

Caterina had made two rounds, glancing back into the middle of the piazza where Blume and Panebianco were moving up and down in a narrow grid pattern around the area where Rospo said the body had been found. The coroner’s unit was zipping up the black body bag, the last technician was taking down a video camera, when she walked into a short man in a gray suit who had gone out of his way to block her path.

“I have diplomatic immunity,” said the man in the suit.

He moved sideways to stay in front of her. His accent was funny and he smelled slightly of balsam and moss. He was holding out a plastic-covered card. A miniature elongated silver cross enclosed in a circle was pinned just below the buttonhole of his lapel. “The Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain to the Holy See,” he explained. “I need to go to my office now.”

Caterina glanced at her watch. It showed 7:12. The coroners had their shiny zinc stretcher propped up beside the black bag, all ready to go.

“I think we have just about finished, Ambasciatore,” she said. “Maybe if you waited five more minutes?”

“I have already waited long enough. I have been very patient. And I am not ambassador rank. Yet.” So saying, he stepped past her and traversed three meters of crime scene territory. Keeping her hands at her sides, Caterina moved forward to intercept the Spaniard. Finding her in front of him again, he continued to move forward, pushing her breasts with his chest, touching her inner thigh twice with his knee.

Caterina looked behind her and saw other residents from the building, waiting to get out, watching the drama playing out in front of them. Then one or two broke cover, looking left, right, left, as if about to cross a busy street, and walking quickly, leaning into the graffiti-stained walls as if this would stop them from being noticed. Caterina spun around looking for help. Blume was standing in the sun, Panebianco in the shade. She spotted Sovrintendente Grattapaglia, who must have just arrived.

“Wait, please. I’ll see what I can do,” she told the diplomat. “I’ll get the most senior policeman here to talk to you. But in the meantime, will you please return to your place by the front door? I’m sure the Commissioner will escort you personally out of the area.”

The Church diplomat snorted, but turned back. The other fugitives had been halted by the policeman at the far end of Via della Pelliccia, and were receiving unsympathetic treatment. Good.

She had no intention of doing anything for the diplomat. All she had to do was make sure he stayed where he was for five minutes, maybe ten. She moved over to Grattapaglia quickly.

“Get over there. Don’t let that guy through. He’s a troublemaker. Ten minutes. Tell him I’ve gone to get someone important for him.”

Grattapaglia opened his mouth to say something.

“No,” said Caterina. “Don’t make me repeat myself. The Commissioner put me in charge of this situation, and now I am giving you an order. Mess this up, and you’ll be answering to him, not me.”

Grattapaglia seemed to be about to say something, then dismissed his thought, or her, as unworthy. He hacked up mucus and swallowed it, then ambled over in the direction of the protesting diplomat.

Voices from the increasingly large group of people gathered at the middle door of the pink building called out their impatience, “ Aho, guardie? How much longer do we have to wait?”

“Ehi, annamo.”

“Anvedi ‘sta ficona che ce fa aspetta.’ ”

“Macche ficona.”

She went over to them. “Can you people wait five minutes? I promise that’s all it will take. Anyone who needs an official note for being late to work can contact me, this is my card.” She handed out her business card and three or four hands took one. She added, “Also, if anyone heard or saw anything at around two last night, please call that number.”

“Who is it?” asked a woman who was restraining her son from running about by holding onto the schoolbag on his back.

“It’s that English drunk,” said another.

Caterina singled out the speaker. She was a thin woman made up entirely of wrinkles, and she was standing there in a blue dressing gown, brown stockings, and white hospital clogs.

“How do you know that?” asked Caterina.

“Hah!” said the woman, looking around for approbation and, indeed, getting some. “I was right, see? I live on the fourth floor,” said the old woman. “I can see clearly from there. I recognized his white beard. He won’t be singing any more loud songs late at night now, will he?”

“Do you know his name?”

“What would I know his name for?”

Caterina took down the triumphant little woman’s name, and asked if there was anyone else about who might know the man’s name.

“None of my friends,” she declared, wagging her finger.

Caterina stepped out of the doorway and looked over at Blume and Panebianco. They were still there, but the coroners were closing the doors on the wagon. It was almost over.

She could call Elia any time now. She reached into her bag for her phone, but before she got to it she heard a commotion to her left.

Grattapaglia had just pulled his nightstick and truncheoned the Spanish diplomat to the ground.

“Snatching his diplomat’s card and throwing it to the ground might have been mistaken for pique, but you ground it under your heel,” said Blume. “Classy.”

Sovrintendente Grattapaglia smiled broadly. It took him a long time to realize his cheerfulness was not being reciprocated, and Caterina squirmed in her seat, mortified on his behalf, wondering how he had failed to see the anger in Blume’s face. Eventually and with defiant slowness, the Sovrintendente allowed his smile to fade, then shrugged, and said, “I didn’t know he was a diplomat.”

Blume’s face showed a mixture of contempt and puzzlement, as if he was coming to accept but still struggling to fathom the depths of Grattapaglia’s idiocy. For one who had so casually turned to violence a short while ago, Grattapaglia seemed oddly defenseless now, like a huge child in big trouble. She felt bad for him, and resolved to speak up. “Before the Sovrintendente assaulted… I mean, before the incident, that diplomat-”

Grattapaglia jerked his index finger at her, as if in warning. She stopped speaking, trying to understand why he didn’t want her backing. Keeping his finger pointed at her, Grattapaglia turned to Blume and said, “You know as well as I do, it’s her fucking fault. She shouldn’t even have been there if she can’t do her job.”

Caterina felt her eyes widen and her mouth drop open. She was aware of it, but couldn’t help herself.

“I’d like you to explain that to me,” said Blume.

“Explain what? It’s obvious. She didn’t warn me. She just said troublemaker, like that covered it. If I had known he was an ambassador, you think I’d have done that? I told you she wasn’t ready for fieldwork.”

Blume mock-reprimanded Caterina. “You didn’t think to warn him not to batter a member of the public in front of three dozen hostile witnesses in the middle of a crime scene?”