Five minutes later he entered what might be called a situation room for the kidnapping operation. It was a cramped space, the sun sliced into strips by dusty Venetian blinds. The floor was scuffed, the walls too, and a bulletin board was decorated with curling notices of new police procedures replacing old police procedures, and forthcoming assemblies…or, when he read closely, assemblies that had occurred months, or years, ago. Not so very different, Ercole thought, from the Forestry Corps facilities, the large conference room where the officers would meet before a joint raid on an olive oil adulterer, before a mountain rescue, before an assault on a forest fire.
An easel held a large white tablet with photos and notes in black marker. Another—a joke certainly—held a “Wanted” picture of a square-headed Minecraft character, which Ercole was aware of because he played the game with his older brother’s ten-year-old son. The boy had promptly and delightedly slaughtered Ercole in a recent game; young Andrea had switched to Survival—combat—mode, without telling Uncle Ercole.
Two people were in the room. Massimo Rossi was talking to a round young woman with thick wavy black hair, shiny, and loud green-framed eyeglasses. She wore a white jacket that said Scientific Police on the ample breast.
Rossi looked up. “Ah, Ercole. Come in, come in. You found us all right.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is Beatrice Renza. She is the forensic officer assigned to the Composer case. Ercole Benelli of the Forestry Corps. He was helpful last night. He will be joining us on a temporary basis.”
The woman, in her early thirties, nodded in a distracted way.
“Sir, I have my report.” Ercole handed him two yellow sheets of notes.
Beatrice looked at them, frowning. “You have no computer?”
“I do, yes. Why do you ask?”
“You have a printer?”
“Not at my home.” He felt on the defensive.
“This is hard to read. You might have emailed the information to us.”
He was flustered. “I could have, I suppose. But I didn’t have an email address.”
“The Questura website would have worked, of course.” She turned back to Rossi and handed him a sheet of paper—nicely printed out—and a half-dozen photographs then said goodbye to Rossi. The woman left the situation room, without acknowledging Ercole. Fine with him; he had no time for the self-important, the smug.
Though he wished he had thought of typing out the report and sending it as an email attachment. Or getting a new cartridge for his printer at home.
Rossi said, “Beatrice has analyzed the evidence recovered last night at the bus stop. Could you write this onto one of those easels there? Along with your notes and mine. And tape up the crime scene photographs as well. This is how we keep track of the progress of investigations, and make connections between clues and people. Graphical analysis. Very important.”
“Yes, Inspector.”
He took the sheets of paper from Rossi and began to transcribe the information. Blushing, he noted that Rossi, whom one would have taken to be an old-time investigator, had printed out his notes via computer.
“I have heard nothing from the Americans,” Rossi said. “You?”
“No. But when I contacted them, they promised to get back to us as soon as possible with full details and evidence reports. The woman I spoke with, a detective who ran the case for the New York Police Department, was quite relieved we had found the man. They were very upset he escaped their jurisdiction.”
“Did she have any thoughts as to why he came here?”
“No, sir.”
Rossi said, in a musing tone, “I read the other day that the Americans are worried about their exports. The economy, jobs, you understand. But exporting serial killers? They should stick with pop musicians, soft drinks and computer-generated Hollywood movies.”
Ercole didn’t know whether to laugh or not. He smiled. Rossi did, as well, and read texts. The young officer moved slowly in front of the easel as he transcribed the notes and pinned up photos. A gangly man, he was far more comfortable in the woods and on rock faces than in restaurants, shops and living rooms (hence, his favorite “perch” in the city: the table and chair outside his pigeon coop on the apartment building’s roof). His parts—arms, legs, elbows, knees, all of which hummed like a tuned machine out of doors—grew awkward and rebellious in places like this.
He now backed up to examine the chart and bumped into Silvio De Carlo, Rossi’s assistant, who had stepped unseen into the room to hand a file to Rossi. The handsome, perfectly assembled young officer didn’t glare but—this was worse—offered a patient smile as if Ercole were a child who had accidentally left a blackberry gelato stain on someone’s laundered sleeve.
De Carlo, he was sure, would resent this awkward interloper, taking some shine away from his role as Rossi’s favored protégé.
“The Postal Police are monitoring YouVid?” Ercole asked Rossi after De Carlo had walked, smoothly and with supreme self-confidence, from the room.
“Yes, yes. But it’s a chore. Thousands of videos uploaded every hour. People would rather watch such time-wasting things than read or converse.”
Someone else entered the room. Ercole was pleased to see it was the woman Flying Squad officer from last night: Daniela Canton, the stunning blonde. Such a beautiful face, he thought again, elfin. Her eye shadow was that appealing cerulean tint he remembered from last night, a color you didn’t see much in fashion nowadays. It told him that she would be the sort to go her own way, make her own style. He noted too that this was the extent of her makeup. No lipstick or mascara. Her blue blouse fit tightly over her voluptuous figure. The slacks were taut too.
“Inspector.” She looked up, with a friendly expression, at Ercole. Apparently the brash offering of his hands last night had not put her off.
“Officer Canton. What have you learned?” Rossi asked.
“Though the case had the earmark of a Camorra snatch, it seems unlikely they were involved. Not according to my contacts.”
Her contacts? Ercole wondered. Daniela was a member of the Flying Squad. One would think Camorra cases were handled by those higher up.
Rossi said, “I appreciate your looking. But it didn’t seem likely our gamers were involved.”
Gamers…
The word was a slang reference to the gang, whose name was a blend of Capo, as in “head,” and morra, a street game played in old Naples.
She added, “But I cannot say for certain. You know how they operate. So quiet, so secretive.”
“Of course.”
The Camorra was composed of a number of individual cells, with one group not necessarily knowing what the others were up to.
Then she said, “But for what it’s worth, sir, there are rumors of some particularly troublesome ’Ndràngheta gang member who’s come to the Naples area recently. Nothing specific but I thought you should know.”
This caught Rossi’s attention.
Italy was known for several organized crime operations: the Mafia in Sicily, the Camorra in and around Naples, the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia, the southeast of Italy. But perhaps the most dangerous, and the one with the broadest reach—including such places as Scotland and New York—was the ’Ndràngheta, based in Calabria, a region south of Naples.
“Curious for one of them to come here.” The group was a rival to the Camorra.
“It is, yes, sir.”
“Can you follow up on that too?”