David Hewson: A Season for the Dead

Rossi shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Falcone was staring at him and both men knew what his look was saying: So the kid speaks for you now, does he? “You have anything on this Farnese woman?” Falcone asked.

Costa shook his head. “Like what? You mean a record or something?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“She’s clean,” Rossi said. “I ran a check last night. There’s not so much as a speeding ticket.”

Falcone leaned forward and made sure Costa was looking at him. “You have to check these things.”

“I know,” Costa agreed. “I’m sorry.”

“So that’s the story?” Falcone asked. “The old boyfriend killed the new boyfriend and took his own wife along for the ride?”

“Looks like that,” Costa agreed. Falcone shrugged. “It does look like that. I talked to forensics this morning. They couldn’t find a single trace of anyone else in that tower, ground floor or second. Clean as a whistle except for Rinaldi’s prints and the two dead people in there.”

“So what’s the problem?” Costa wondered.

“The problem?” Falcone nodded at Rossi. “Ask him.”

Costa looked at his partner. They still hadn’t made up since the near-quarrel the day before. He respected the big man. He didn’t want this coldness between them. “Luca?” he asked.

Rossi frowned. “The problem is: why? Rinaldi stopped seeing the Farnese woman, what, three, four months ago? Why now?”

“Maybe he only just found out about the Englishman,” Costa suggested. “He heard her talking about how much she liked him and just went crazy.”

Falcone stabbed a finger at him. “Do we know that? It’s not in your report.”

Costa thought back to his conversations with her. “No.”

“We’re going to have to go back to that woman,” Falcone ordered. “Get some detail in all this. Dates. Names. Reasons.”

“Fine.” Costa nodded.

Rossi was looking out of the window now, reaching for a cigarette. He and Falcone had talked beforehand, Costa thought. There could be no other explanation.

“Why did he go to these lengths?” Falcone demanded. “Why skin a man? Why go through this routine of putting his own wife on a chair as if he wanted the Farnese woman to find her alive? And this stuff he wrote on the wall…”

“He was insane,” Costa said firmly. “You’d have to be insane to kill someone like that.”

Falcone snorted. “Too easy. Besides, even if it’s true, do you think there’s no logic behind craziness? It all just spews out for no reason? This man was a university professor. He was intelligent, organized. He was convincing enough for the Englishman to come to him from the airport thinking he was meeting the woman. He managed to get his wife into that tower and string her up. Then he killed the boyfriend, skinned him, went off to the library… Or maybe he did her first, in which case how come the Englishman let himself be strung up after seeing her? Can one person handle all those things? I guess so. But how? In what order? You tell me that. And this Fairchild. He was a big man. He didn’t just hold up his hands and let Rinaldi tie him. What went on there?”

“I know that,” Rossi said. “I talked to Crazy Teresa in the path lab just now. They think there’re traces of some drug, some sedative maybe.”

“What sedative?” Falcone asked. “How’d a university professor come to be walking around with medication to hand just when he feels like skinning someone? If it comes to that, how the hell does a man like that know how to skin someone? And—this is the biggest one for me, the one I keep coming back to— why? Why like this?”

“Miss Farnese is a professor in that area,” Costa suggested. “The quotation on the walls is from some early Christian theologian. Maybe it sounded appropriate.”

“Appropriate?” Falcone repeated, as if it were the most stupid thing he’d ever heard in his life. “You mean he’s saying to her, ”We’re all martyrs to you, bitch. And here’s the proof‘? I don’t get it. What was he hoping to achieve? If he were going to kill her, it would make more sense. But you claim that’s not the case. He just wanted to get her to go, as quickly as possible, to the place he’d left his own wife, still alive. What’s the point?"

Costa looked at Rossi for help. His partner was still staring out of the window, working on the cigarette. It was another hot, cloudless day out there. Nic Costa wondered exactly what it was that Falcone expected of him.

“And you’re wrong,” Falcone continued. “I checked. Rinaldi worked in the same department as Farnese but he didn’t share the same specialty. His field was Roman law, the Curia, all that ancient stuff the Vatican still thinks we should be listening to today.”

“Is that relevant?” Rossi wondered.

“You tell me. I ran through the records. Four months ago Rinaldi was called as an expert witness for some government tribunal looking at the issue of diplomatic immunity for Vatican officials. They want more immunity. We want less. Rinaldi came up with an expert opinion that said they were right, in law, very old law anyway. Where the hell do martyrs come into that?”

“Are you saying, sir, that you think my conclusion’s wrong? That Rinaldi isn’t responsible somehow?”

“Hell no,” Falcone answered immediately. “It’s difficult to see how it could have happened any other way.”

“Well, then what? Isn’t it enough to know Rinaldi did these things? Sometimes we never know why. We just have to accept that.”

Falcone glowered at him. “Not yet we don’t. I’m an inquisitive bastard. It’s what makes me tick. It’s what makes every good cop tick. If you’re not, you never get to know a thing. I want you to answer some of these questions that keep bugging me. I don’t want detectives who think they’re elves in Santa’s workshop going out there, wrapping things up all nicely with all the right ribbons, all the right answers, dropping them on my desk, getting a pat on the head, then looking for some more toys to play with. This job isn’t like that.”

“I know,” Costa replied. “At least I never felt the pat on the head.” Rossi groaned, stabbed out the cigarette and immediately lit another.

Falcone was smiling again. He’d won a response and Costa cursed himself for being so stupid. “You kids,” the inspector laughed. “You’re so sensitive. Listen, Costa, I think you’ve got the right answers. I just don’t like the way you got there. Cutting too many corners. And one more thing,” Falcone added. “I’d like you to listen more. I know we’re into this youth culture thing that says everyone over the age of thirty is a moron…”

“I’m twenty-seven, sir.”

“Yeah, yeah. I wish you looked it sometimes. The point I want to make to you, Costa, is the only way any of us really learns is by watching our elders and betters. Forget all that crap in the police college. All we do for a living is deal with human beings. Human beings who, for the most part, are trying to lie to us, trying to screw us around. This is a people business. You should talk less and listen more, son.”

Costa grimaced. “Sir, I—”

“Shut up,” Falcone ordered. “And here’s another thing. That other stuff he wrote on the wall? St. Ives?”

“Crazy,” Rossi said, starting to become interested.

“Maybe,” Falcone agreed. “But I can tell you what it is. I got someone to look it up.” He stared at a laser printout on the desk and read the words. “As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, Every sack had seven cats, Every cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks and wives, How many were going to St. Ives?”

The two detectives stared at each other, dumbfounded. Costa grabbed the calculator on the desk and started punching. Falcone grinned. “It’s a riddle. What’s the answer?” Costa scribbled some figures on his notepad. “Seven wives. Fortynine sacks. Three hundred and forty-three cats. Two thousand four hundred and one kittens. That adds up to two thousand eight hundred.”