Kill the King Read online

  Bruno laughed. “When my son was a teenager, I would have done it without a second thought.”

  “Tommy isn’t stupid,” Martina ventured cautiously. She was the latest arrival at that police station and she didn’t want to openly contradict her superior officers. “He has different kinds of problems.”

  “His parents found out about the problems he has,” said Nerone. Bruno laughed again, and Martina forced a smile.

  “But there’s no question that it’s their fault if he turned out like that,” Nerone went on, luxuriating in the attention of the others, without the slightest suspicion that most of that attention was due to his rank alone. “They must have done something wrong.”

  “You’re born autistic …” Martina said, in an even more subdued tone of voice.

  “One in ten is on account of the vaccines,” Nerone pontificated. “Maybe more than that, because the multinational pharmaceutical companies do all they can to conceal the damage.”

  Bruno seemed to understand Martina’s embarrassment and weighed in, changing the topic. “So what did they do to Vigevani? Have you seen how tall he is?” The Pesaro assistant district attorney was a giant. Tousled hair, horse-faced, he stood six foot eight and weighed 270 pounds. His tie was so wide it could be used as a beach wrap, and his shoes looked like Goofy’s, from the Disney cartoons.

  “He looks like a caveman,” laughed Nerone, swallowing the bait.

  Martina decided not to point out that cavemen were shorter than modern human beings, and drank down her supplement-filled smoothie, thinking about Tommy, about the way that he sobbed in terror every time she had to move him from one place to another. His eyes reminded her of the dog she’d had as a girl, who had died in her arms, teaching her at a single blow the harshest and most frightening lesson life has to offer: that it ends.

  Someone came galloping down the stairs. Martina pictured Tommy running out the door and rushed into the lobby to block his way. She’d seen how her partners treated him when no one was looking—like an ox to be shoved roughly through the slaughterhouse door, a beast to be made fun of—and she didn’t want to see that happen.

  But it was just Lupo, red in the face with irritation, who looked right through her as if she were invisible and went out the door without a word.

  “I’d have to guess that the meeting didn’t go particularly well,” said Nerone. He tossed the crumpled-up plastic cup, missing the trash can and spattering Martina’s boots with coffee.

  “I’m afraid that’s not it, Vice,” said Bruno. Master Sergeant Nerone was second in command, and he loved that nickname, though in a barracks with total staff of six it was rather ridiculous. “That’s the look the chief gets on his face whenever he has to go ask someone for a favor …”

  4

  When Colomba returned to the farmhouse, she found it steaming hot and full of gnats. In her absence and as a result of the tons of salt scattered on the roads, the fuel truck had been able to wend its way up to Mezzanotte and refill the boiler’s tank. Colomba walked in, pistol drawn, and checked the rooms, double-checking to make sure that all the shutters were fastened tight, putting the padlocks back on the ones she’d unlocked in order to let in fresh air. It was only after she’d secured them all that she sprayed insecticide on the leftover food and took a shower to rid herself of the persistent phantom stench of bleach. The stench of Leo. The king of diamonds stared out at her from the mirror.

  With a bit of imagination the card’s glance could be said to resemble Leo’s, at least as well as she could remember it. Was that what Tommy had been trying to tell her? Had he picked the card that most closely resembled Leo?

  She looked away from the mirror, cursing herself for an idiot. If things continued like that, before long she’d be glimpsing his face in the stains on the wall.

  In the motel, she’d bandaged her finger with toilet paper, and now she disinfected it and applied a Band-Aid. The fingertip was twice its normal size, and the empty fingernail bed hurt just to look at it. As she chewed on an aspirin, she heard the sound of a car horn. “Deputy Captain, congratulations on the new car!” Lupo’s voice shouted from the road.

  She wrapped herself in her bathrobe and leaned out the window. The sergeant major was propped against the front gate like a prisoner peering through prison bars. “The mechanic let me borrow it,” she shouted back. “Loris. Do you know him?”

  Lupo nodded and Colomba understood that he had no love lost for Loris. “But I’m not here about him. Can I come in?”

  “Why?”

  “Do I have to tell you from here?”

  Colomba took the keys to the gate out of her parka pocket and threw them to him, then went downstairs to open the front door.

  “Everything all right? You look a little tired,” Lupo asked as he came in and took off his heavy jacket.

  “I didn’t sleep well. That must be because of the heating, not something I’m used to anymore.”

  Lupo took a sheet of paper out of his jeans pocket. “I’ve brought something to use for lighting your fire. You can hold on to it until the next time.”

  Colomba unfolded the piece of paper: it was a photograph of her, printed from the computer. “Was this Tommy’s, too?”

  “You overlooked one under the bed, a classic oversight. This way we’re done with them.”

  “Thanks.” Colomba used it to light the burner under her teapot. She was sick and tired of those pictures. “So what brings you here, aside from this little gift?”

  “You want it straight? The prosecutor doesn’t want to charge Tommy,” Lupo said as he sat down at the table. “Vigevani is afraid of looking like a fool.”

  “Because Tommy’s autistic?”

  “That’s right, and also because he’s afraid that a few years from now, some homeless bum will show up and confess to the murder. Or that Melas’s sister will sue him.”

  “To get the money she needs for plastic surgery?”

  “Probably. She doesn’t give a damn about her nephew or her brother, but she’d squeeze blood from a stone. If only she’d get out of here, but she’s determined to stay until the magistrate unfreezes her brother’s assets. And that’s not going to happen until the investigation is concluded. A cat that bites its own tail, or actually, I should say, my tail.”

  “Then you’d better start looking for that homeless bum,” Colomba said.

  “Too bad that we don’t have any homeless people around here. I don’t know which way to turn at this point. We went house to house and no one had anything useful to tell us.” He threw both arms wide. “The Melases’ social life? Zero. Relatives? Zero. Enemies? Zero. Friends? Zero.”

  “Have you talked to Tommy’s therapist?” Colomba asked in a casual tone.

  “Pala? Yes. And he had nothing to offer, either. I tried to convince him that the boy’s going to be better off when the investigation is finished, but he doesn’t care. All psychiatrists care about is money.”

  Colomba didn’t tell him that Pala had made a very different impression on her, but she was glad to see that the therapist hadn’t mentioned her. “And you continue not to want to ask the regional Carabinieri headquarters for a little extra support?”

  “No, ma’am. When I was in Florence, I had to check with a thousand different offices before I could take even the simplest steps. Here I have my own little patch of heaven, and I’d prefer to hold on to it.”

  “So is that why you’re looking to send Tommy off to the slaughterhouse?”

  “The boy is going to be given medical treatment, nobody wants to give him the electric chair.”

  “There’s no cure for autism, and Tommy isn’t guilty.”

  Lupo rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I swear to God, I just don’t understand why you and Vigevani keep on being so stubborn about this.”

  Colomba poured the boiling water into the cups and carried them to the table, along with the box of tea bags. “If you’re looking for a shoulder to cry on, you’re going to have to go somewhere e
lse.”

  Lupo chose a tea bag that didn’t look moldy. “I came because I think that finding the murder weapon might get Vigevani to budge.”

  “Haven’t you found it yet?”

  “We’ve used metal detectors and I made sure the guys from Protezione Civile checked every pothole on the road from Montenigro to here. Nothing.”

  “So?”

  “Well, your property is all that’s left, and I was planning to come search it this afternoon. With the whole squad, we’d take an hour at most. Then we’ll clean the place up till it shines. We’ll even wax the floors.”

  “Why would you want to search my house?”

  “He stayed here, didn’t he?”

  “Tommy didn’t have anything on his person.”

  “Maybe you didn’t see him hiding it. You know that I wouldn’t even need your permission, I’m just asking out of courtesy.”

  “You don’t need my permission, but you do need the magistrate’s authorization. And if you came here to ask me, it means that he wouldn’t give it to you.”

  Lupo’s fingers tightened around the mug until his knuckles whitened. “Deputy Captain, I’m trying to behave with a minimum of civility with you … Why don’t you return the courtesy? We’re both on the same side, aren’t we?”

  “The last person to say something like that to me perforated my intestine with a knife blade.”

  Lupo’s jaw clenched. “Thanks for the comparison.”

  “When I met him, Leo Bonaccorso seemed like more of a cop than you do. Especially today, when you come to me in search of an easy solution that’ll allow you to go back to scratching your belly.”

  Lupo leaped to his feet and put his cap on his head. “I have to go now. And your tea is awful, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Don’t worry, that’s the last cup of tea you’ll ever get from me!” Colomba yelled after him.

  Lupo vanished around the hill, turning on his siren just to annoy her. Colomba immediately put on her combat boots and hurried to check the tool shed, just to make sure. She even moved a few layers of boxes, finding nothing but spiderwebs and dust. To finish up, she searched along the fence line.

  No hammer.

  The theory that it had been Leo was once again her first choice. A theory based upon nothing but her personal impressions. She finished getting dressed and dipped into the files for a composite sketch of Leo. There were no pictures of him, but the 3-D identikit resembled him closely. Short hair; strong features; frank, open smile. The picture had been circulated extensively for months, but without any results, and Colomba herself had had no opportunity to show it to anyone since. Until right now. She got into the Peugeot 208 and drove down to Portico, where she bought a new cell phone at the usual shop and signed up for another rechargeable SIM card, hoping that it would be the last. She parked the car in the little plaza in front of town hall, turned on the heat, and placed her bare feet next to the heater vents, then Colomba called all the local hotels she could find on TripAdvisor, working her way through them, starting with the closest one and then expanding outward. She found Melas’s sister at the ninth place she called.

  5

  Demetra was eating lunch in the dining room of the farmstay called Baita in Collesecco, with no company other than the mounted heads of stags and mountain goats. She was shorter and younger than Colomba would have thought from the video, and she was wearing a black dress and purple makeup over her facelift.

  “Signora Melas? Buongiorno … I know that you speak Italian,” said Colomba. “My condolences.”

  Demetra ignored the extended hand. “I already told your colleagues that I don’t give interviews free of charge.” Her Italian was perfect, aside from the thick accent.

  “I’m not a journalist. My name is Caselli and I’m a police officer on extended leave. I have a few questions to ask you.”

  Demetra waved her hand dismissively; she had a French manicure. “Stop bothering me.”

  Colomba sat down across from her. “I’ll say it again: I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said in a low voice. “But if you don’t answer my questions, I’ll call counterterrorism and inform them that you’re a member of some Greek anarchist group or other. Sooner or later, they’ll figure out that it isn’t true, but you’d be spending a very unpleasant week, even if you voted for Golden Dawn.”

  Demetra finished the last spoonful of soup. “You’re not a policewoman anymore, you just told me.”

  “But I still have plenty of friends. Do you want to find out if I’ll really do it?”

  “What does my brother matter to you?”

  “Not a thing.” Colomba showed her the identikit of Leo. “Do you know this man?” she asked, unable to conceal the stress in her voice.

  Demetra shot a quick glance at the sketch. “No.”

  “Take a careful look. He might have a beard or glasses now. Or he might have dyed his hair.”

  “No. Who is it?”

  The man who might have killed your brother, you hag. “Have you ever seen him with your brother?”

  Demetra pushed away her bowl, decorated with hunting scenes. “For the third time, no. You still haven’t told me who he is.”

  Colomba put the picture away. “If you don’t know him, then it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Did your brother have any enemies?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t know him all that well.”

  “You didn’t know your own brother? Forgive me if I have my doubts.”

  “I thought I knew him, but I was wrong about that.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  Demetra took a deep breath, expanding her lungs so that her silicone breasts pushed against her blouse. “My grandfather was a sailor,” she said. “After the war, he stopped sailing and opened a workshop to repair boats in Markopoulo Mesogaias, on the east coast. When he died, my father inherited the business, growing it into a corporation with a hundred employees. When my father died, Aristides sold it to a Turkish company.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “What month?”

  The woman thought it over. “December. Is that important?”

  Colomba gestured vaguely, and she really didn’t know the answer.

  “What kind of boats and ships did you build?”

  “You name it, up to three hundred tons. But we didn’t build them, we just repaired them. Yachts, for the most part, they came to us from all over Europe.”

  “Do you remember a boat called Chourmo?”

  “I wasn’t dealing with the boats directly, only the financial operations. You could ask the new owner.”

  “Okay. Why didn’t you oppose the sale?”

  “No one cared what I thought. My father didn’t like that I had a life of my own, instead of staying home and washing his underwear. So he put it all in Aristides’s name before he died.”

  “Didn’t you even try to get your brother to change his mind?”

  “We quarreled and he stopped talking to me.”

  “What role did his wife play in all this?”

  Demetra grimaced in disgust. “How am I supposed to know? I saw her the first time here, in a photograph.”

  “Weren’t you invited to the wedding?”

  “I didn’t even know he was married. He liked women, but I’d never seen him involved in a serious relationship.”

  “Sometimes people grow up.”

  Demetra took her cell phone out of her purse and showed Colomba a picture of Melas with a statuesque young woman in her early twenties, looking quite Eastern European. “One of his many girlfriends. She was an underwear model. Do you think she looks anything like the woman he married?” She shook her head. “Men may change, but not that much.”

  6

  Alberti called Colomba as he was walking back to Rome police headquarters with a protein smoothie that he’d just picked up at the corner café. There was less noise than usual in the hallway, maybe because half of the NOA counterterrorism ag
ents had been sent to Milan and there were no illegal immigrants to process. “Deputy Captain, good evening.” He sat down at Santini’s desk, as he often did when his superior officer wasn’t there. He even put his feet up on the desk. “And don’t tell me to call you by your first name, because I’m no longer on a first-name basis with anyone who’s come this close to getting me sent to Guantánamo Bay.”

  “What are you talking about?” Colomba asked. She was driving just then, and she slowed down and put in her earpiece.

  “I’m talking about the operation under way at the address I gave you yesterday. An address that I imagine you visited before everyone else.”

  “Maybe I did. So what’s the word?”

  “The word is that a dead man linked to the terror attack in Venice went on using his ATM card and paying his rent. I’m guessing that the dead man in question was Romero.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll leave you out of it if they catch me. What did you find out about the double homicide?” she said dismissively.

  Alberti read the notes on his cell phone. “The Melases are clean. There was an investigation into the death of her first husband, but it was ruled an accident. He was going mushroom hunting near Turin, and he slipped and fell into a crevasse. That happened thirteen years ago.”

  Colomba did some quick arithmetic in her head: Tommy would have been six years old, during the Father’s most recent period of activity. “Was the woman present?”

  “They say she wasn’t. Are you thinking she killed her husband?”

  “I’m thinking anything I can.”

  “As for Sergeant Major Lupo … do you want the short story or the long one?”

  “The short one.”

  “Suspected of taking bribes when he was still in Florence, but couldn’t be tried because the statute of limitations had expired. Still, they transferred him to the provinces, where he couldn’t do any harm.”

  Colomba was so focused on what Alberti had been telling her that she blew past a red light. It was one of those battery-operated lights they use in construction zones, synchronized with another traffic light like it a mile and a half downhill to alternate columns of one-way traffic. Colomba found herself heading straight for a snowplow and just managed to avoid a head-on collision by running over a line of rubber traffic cones. She managed to brake to a halt a hundred yards later, her heart racing. She got out of the car to fill her lungs with fresh air, and only then did she remember that she’d left Alberti on the other end of the line. She picked the phone up from the floor of the car: the call had been ended, but instead of calling back, she reached into her pocket for the scrap of paper with Pala’s phone number on it.