Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

Massimo Rossi strode to the landline telephone unit on a fiberboard table and placed a call, dialing three numbers. After a moment, he cocked his head and said, ‘ Sono Rossi. Il caso di omicidio seriale? Stefan Merck e Charlotte McKenzie . Qual è il problema? ’

He listened and his face grew troubled. After a moment, he looked toward Ercole. ‘ Hai la ricevuta? ’

Ercole fell into English. ‘The receipt? For the evidence, you mean?’

‘ Sì. When you logged it in.’

The young officer was blushing furiously. ‘I received one just now — for the recent evidence. But earlier? No. I left everything at the Evidence Room intake desk. There was a man in the back — I didn’t see who. I called to him that I was dropping off evidence, along with the proper paperwork, and I left.’

Rossi stared at him, whispering, ‘ Nessuna ricevuta ?’

‘I... no. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

Rossi closed his eyes.

As a forensic scientist, Rhyme could think of no greater sin among law enforcers than being careless with — much less losing — the evidence in a case.

Another string of words into the phone, Rossi’s face growing more grim yet. He listened. ‘ Grazie. Ciao, ciao. ’ He disconnected, eyes on the floor, his expression one of incredulity. ‘It’s gone,’ he said. ‘Vanished.’

Rhyme snapped, ‘How?’

‘I do not understand. It’s never happened before.’

Sachs said, ‘CCTV?’

‘Not in the evidence room itself. It is not a public area. There’s no need.’

Spiro looked suspicious. ‘Charlotte McKenzie?’

Rossi considered. ‘Officer, you took the evidence there when I told you to.’

‘Immediately, sir.’

‘Charlotte was in custody by then. Stefan too. They could not have done it. Her associates — whoever they might be — might have been behind this. A theft from the Questura... that is something not even the Camorra would dare attempt. But American intelligence?’ He shrugged.

Rhyme said, ‘We need the evidence. We have to find it.’ Without that, the cases against McKenzie and Stefan could proceed only with witness statements and confessions... and he knew that everything McKenzie had told them about the Alternative Intelligence Service and the operation here she would deny. And Stefan, of course, would not dare to contradict his muse.

In a stumbling voice, Ercole said, ‘Inspector, sir... I am sorry. I...’ The voice faded to thick silence.

Rossi was looking out the window. He turned back. ‘Ercole, I must tell you that this is a problem. A serious one. It is of my making. I should have known that you were inexperienced, yet I asked you onto our operation.’

His long face crimson, Ercole was chewing his lip. He probably would have preferred a tongue lashing to this quiet regret.

‘I think it is best you report back to Forestry Corps now. I’ll send this matter to Rome. There will be an inquiry. You will be interviewed and make a statement.’

Ercole seemed far younger than his 30-some-odd years at the moment. He nodded and then his gaze dipped to the floor. He wasn’t completely to blame, Rhyme supposed, though he recalled Rossi saying that the officer should ‘log in’ the evidence, which suggested there would be a paper trail for the transfer.

Rhyme knew Ercole had hoped this assignment might be a springboard to a career with the Police of State.

And with this one incident, that chance was probably over.

Spiro asked him, ‘Ercole? The evidence against Mike Hill and Gianni? That receipt.’

He handed it to the prosecutor, who took it.

Ercole’s eyes were sweeping everyone in the room. ‘I have been honored to work with you. I have learned a great deal.’

His expression seemed to add the qualifier: But, it seems, I didn’t learn enough.

Sachs hugged him. He and Rhyme shook hands, then with a last glance at the evidence board, he nodded and left.

Rossi’s gaze followed the man’s receding figure. ‘A shame. He was smart. He took initiative. And, yes, I should have been more attentive. But, well, not everyone is made out to be a criminal officer. He is better off in Forestry. More to his nature, I would think, anyway.’

Tree cop...

Rossi said, ‘ Mamma mia. La prova. The evidence...’ He asked Spiro, ‘Where do we go from here, Dante?’

Regarding the inspector for a moment, Spiro finally said, ‘I don’t see how we can proceed against Signorina McKenzie and Stefan. They will have to be released.’

Rossi said to Rhyme, ‘The case against Mike Hill and Procopio, however, will proceed. I know you wish to extradite Hill, at least, back to the United States for trial. But we cannot let you do that. Rome — and I — intend to try him and his associate here. I’m sorry, Lincoln. But there is no other way. Are you going to look for a lawyer from Wolf Tits now?’

The new friends were now opponents once again.

‘We have no choice, Dante.’

With a sad face, Spiro ran his cheroot beneath his nose. ‘Did you know that the emperor Tiberius, one of our more infamous forebears, had a luxurious villa not far from where we are just now? Perhaps more than most emperors, he loved gladiatorial contests.’

‘Is that right?’

‘I will paraphrase what he said at the beginning of each, when the warriors and spectators faced him: “Let the extradition games begin.”’

‘You don’t trust us?’

Charlotte McKenzie was speaking to Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs outside police headquarters. Stefan stood beside her.

Two agents from the FBI’s Rome office were standing beside a black SUV, a man and woman, both in dark suits that must have been nearly unbearable; a heat wave had settled over Naples, as if Vesuvius had woken and spewed searing air over all of Campania.

Rhyme himself was sweating fiercely but, as with most other sensations, good and bad, he was largely immune. His temples tickled occasionally but Thom was always there to mop.

And remind. ‘Out of the sun soon,’ the aide said sternly. Extreme temperatures were not good for his system.

‘Yes, yes, yes.’

Sachs repeated to Charlotte McKenzie, ‘Trust you?’

‘No,’ Rhyme answered bluntly. They’d found no proof but he thought it likely that the AIS unit had somehow staged an op to steal the evidence against her and Stefan from the Questura evidence room and ditch it. He added, ‘But it wasn’t really our call. Your travel arrangements were made by Washington. You’ll be on a government jet to Rome, then onward to Washington, and agents’ll meet the flight. They’ll make sure that Stefan gets to his hospital. And you get to... wherever your mysterious headquarters is.’

‘A parking garage at Dulles will be fine.’

‘After that it’ll be up to the US attorney and the DA in New York to see where your new address’ll be.’

Though he knew there would be no charges brought for the Robert Ellis kidnapping, which was not, of course, a kidnapping at all.

Stefan was looking over the city, which here was filled with a cacophony of sounds. His attention was entirely elsewhere and his head bobbed from time to time and his lips moved once or twice. Rhyme wondered what Stefan was hearing. Was this, for him, like an art lover gazing at a painting? And, if so, was the experience a Jackson Pollock spatter or a carefully composed Monet landscape?

One man’s lullaby is another man’s scream.

A Flying Squad car pulled up and an officer climbed out, collecting two suitcases and a backpack from the trunk: McKenzie’s and Stefan’s belongings — from her place and from the farmhouse near the fertilizer operation, Rhyme supposed.