Andrea Lepri - The Last Christmas On Earth

After spending a couple of hours intensely studying documents and photographs, notes and scribbles, Helen went to the locker room and removed her uniform to wear shorts, a T-shirt and sneakers. She has been running on the treadmill for several minutes now and kept staring at the material she had scattered on the floor. She used to do so when she felt the need to isolate herself to reflect and trigger inspiration, and more than once this ploy worked. But this time the right intuition just seemed not to arrive and she kept wondering what she could do to solve the mystery that bordered on the absurd. At the moment she had no pretext to hold on or a single trace to follow. Benelli's first inspection of the crime scene, if it could be called a crime, had been completely unsuccessful. The agent did not find a single print of feet or tires that did not belong to the corpses and their car, but nor even a piece of fabric or hair, or any other element that could in any way indicate a track to follow, a modus operandi, a physiognomy. Research at the local Telephone Company had been in vain because the anonymous call was so brief that it gave no indication as to which equipment had been used to make the call, so they could not go to the site to attempt to take fingerprints. Furthermore, they did not have a decent registration because the author of the call had disguised his voice, it was not even clear if that hoarse whisper belonged to a man or a woman. All she had in his hand was, therefore, a tape in very bad condition that he should have sent to some technician to try to clean it up, and this would have taken days. Besides all this, some things prevented her from reasoning clearly: it was the anguishing sense of unreality that took over her because of her sleepless nights, the inexplicable temporary disappearance of Harry.

The chilling image of those lifeless fluorescent bodies that did not want to leave her mind. Moreover, the fact she had found the same unusual luminescent powder on the bike of James's son also indicated that between the two accidents there must necessarily have been some kind of connection, but she absolutely could not get an idea of what it could be. Thinking of the powder, associated with the sweat, woke the itch on her finger. She looked at it and realized that Stevenson was absolutely right, it was shabby; on her first phalanx a sort of plague had formed but did not secrete any liquid, it was quickly drying himself like a dead appendage. And yet, judging by the pain and itching it gave her, his little finger was far from dead. She made up her mind to go to check it as soon as possible, she scratched it again, holding back a groan of pain, and began to reflect. The first hypothesis that occurred to her was that Harry found the bodies, or even witnessed the double murder and ran away scared, hiding who knows where. Then, after many hours, he would finally find the courage to come out and return home. In reality, this hypothesis seemed too trivial, but the alternative saw Harry more directly and more deeply involved in the affair. Thinking about it she judged that such a thing was impossible, it should have gone in another way, but even though she tried hard, she could not get even a vague idea. During the morning, the temptation to call James repeatedly, she raised the receiver and started dialing several times, but every time she ended hanging up, she was convinced that after what he spent the day before he had something else to think about. Moreover, knowing him she knew very well that at the latest she would see him the next day, so she forced herself not to disturb him. She also considered the idea of personally making another inspection, but she knew that it would only be a waste of time because Benelli was a pain in the ass, but he was also damn good. If there had been something interesting, he would not have missed it during the second inspection he was carrying out at that moment. She hoped with all her heart that the coroner was wrong and that from the toxicological examination it turned out that the two had been killed by a new synthetic drug, as unknown as deadly, because the situation that was occurring was too tangled and she feared that she would never manage to deal with it. A dull grumble from her stomach informed her that it was lunch time, but after having participated in the double autopsy eating was the last thing she wanted, at ninety-nine percent, she would vomit the meal. Experience taught her that if she kept the gas generated by the gastric juices for a while, they eventually would fill her stomach, giving her a temporary and illusory sense of satiety, so she opted to resist. She stopped the treadmill and worked out to stretch his muscles. The police station was practically deserted and so she decided that after a shower and a couple of phone calls she would take a nap. Collecting all the sheets, however, her eyes stopped again on the photo of the two luminescent bodies and an idea came in her mind. She pushed the intercom button. "Cindy?"

"Yes, Sheriff ..."

"Do me a favor, find me the chemist Larry and suggest him to show up here at fifteen o'clock with all the equipment. If he makes stories, tell him that it is a matter of life and death."

"All right, Sheriff. Is there anything more?"

"Yup. I won't be available for anyone until fourteen and fifty-nine, understood?"

"All clear."

Episode II

The plastic model

James suddenly opened his eyes, as if waking up from anesthesia, and his thoughts immediately turned to his son. The pounding at the temples had become a real torture and he had the feeling that all that pressure would literally blow his skull at any moment. He looked at the clock and determined that, by the time he had passed out, a maximum of six or seven minutes could have passed; without thinking about anything he picked up the hoe and ran inside home. He entered cautiously, trying to catch any movement, but inside there was absolute silence. He relaxed thinking that perhaps he had imagined everything and looked into the room convinced that at once he would find his boy there, intent on finishing fitting his new model, and instead, he sank into terror. The model was broken up into a thousand pieces, many of which were completely broken as if someone had hit and trampled them several times, the seats were moved and many objects were scattered on the ground, and James hypothesized that there had been a struggle.

"Harry? Harry?" He called softly a couple of times without getting an answer, and immediately heard some confused noises coming upstairs. In a moment his mind elaborated a terrifying theory: two days before someone had kidnapped his son, he had managed to escape but he had not spoken about it because he was too shocked, and now that bastard, whoever he was, had even the guts to enter in his house to try to kidnap him away again. After all, Harry told him earlier that he feared it would happen again. James threw away the hoe and went back into the kitchen, took his semiautomatic Colt, he kept hidden in the pantry, and threw himself up the stairs. As he reached the top floor he realized that noises were coming from Harry's bedroom, but now they had dimmed and no longer gave the impression that a scuffle was going on.

"That's not ... it is not so ..." a whining voice was repeating it obsessively, that at first James could not recognize as belonging to his son. Then he forgot to be careful and ran into the room. The bedroom door was ajar, he peeked out, and the blood in his veins became thick and cold because it seemed that a hurricane had just passed in there, without stopping, he breathed deeply and broke in with his arm extended forward, he turned of three hundred and sixty degrees and discovered that Harry was alone. Still upside down, he put the gun down on a high shelf of the library and took a couple of deep breaths attempting to calm down himself, his son was standing in front of the giant picture of the Giza Plain and repeating always the same sentence.