U.S. only? he thought, unreasonably offended. He said nothing but offered a cool smile.
She said, “Here’s our problem. An American student attending Federico the Second, the University of Naples, has been arrested for sexual assault. His name’s Garry Soames. He and the victim—she’s known in the police documents as Frieda S.—were at a party here in town. She’s a first-term student from Amsterdam. At some point she passed out and was assaulted.” McKenzie looked up, to the doorway. “Ah, here. Elena will be able to tell us more.”
Two others entered the office. The first was a woman in her forties, of athletic build, her hair pinned into a bun, taut, though errant strands escaped. She wore glasses with complex metal-and-tortoiseshell frames, the sort you’d see in upscale fashion mags. (He thought of Beatrice Renza’s eyewear.) Her outfit was a charcoal-gray pin-striped suit with a dark-blue blouse, open at the neck. Beside her was a short, slim man, in a conservative suit, also gray, though lighter. He had thinning blondish hair. He might have been thirty or fifty. His skin was so pale Rhyme thought at first he was a person with albinism, though, no, it seemed that he just didn’t get outside very much.
“This is Elena Cinelli,” McKenzie said.
In slightly accented English the woman said, “I’m an Italian attorney. I specialize in defending foreigners who’ve been accused of crimes here. Charlotte contacted me about Garry’s situation. His family has retained me.”
The pale man said, “Captain Rhyme, Detective Sachs. I’m Daryl Mulbry. I’m with the community and public relations office here at the consulate.” The inflected tones situated his roots somewhere in the Carolinas, or possibly Tennessee. Seeing that Rhyme’s right arm functioned, Mulbry extended his hand and they shook. (Rhyme now tempered his criticism of Charlotte McKenzie, who was dabbing her nose and then fighting down a sneeze; apparently she did have a reason for not shaking anyone’s hand—gimps included.)
Mulbry greeted Thom too. And he lifted an eyebrow to McKenzie—apparently at her win on getting Rhyme into the office, undoubtedly to pitch a request his way.
We’ll see about that.
“Please,” McKenzie said, gesturing to a coffee table. Rhyme wheeled close and everyone else sat around it. “I was just filling in our visitors about the arrest. You can explain, Signorina Cinelli, better than I could.”
Cinelli reiterated some of what McKenzie had said, then: “Garry and the victim were drinking quite a bit and becoming romantic and—to seek privacy—went upstairs to the roof. The victim says she remembers going up there but soon passed out. The next thing she recalls, it is waking hours later on the roof of an adjoining building, having been sexually assaulted. Garry admits they were up there but when Frieda grew tired he left her and returned downstairs. There were, from time to time, others on the roof—at a place where people were smoking—but the adjoining roof, where the attack occurred, is not visible from there. No one saw or heard the actual attack.”
Sachs asked, “Why was Garry implicated?”
“The police received an anonymous call that he seemed to have mixed something into the victim’s wineglass. We haven’t been able to find out who this person is. On the basis of that call, the police searched his flat and found traces of a date-rape drug. Like roofie?”
“I’m familiar,” Rhyme said.
“And a blood test after the attack revealed that Frieda S. had the same drug in her bloodstream.”
“The same drug? Molecularly identical? Or similar?”
“Yes, an important question, Signor Rhyme. But we don’t know yet. The samples from his bedroom and in the victim’s blood went to the main crime scene facility in Rome for full analysis.”
“When will the results be back?”
“It might be weeks. Maybe longer.”
Rhyme asked, “In Garry’s bedroom? You said the police found trace. Was it pills?”
“No. The apartment was searched carefully. Just residue.” The lawyer added, “And on the jacket from the party were traces of the victim’s hair and DNA.”
“They were making out,” Charlotte McKenzie said. “Of course those were there. The date-rape drug, though, well, that’s problematic.”
Cinelli continued, “Then there was DNA found vaginally. Not Garry’s DNA, though. Frieda had been with other men recently, she admitted. That might be the source. Her other partners will be tested too.”
“DNA tests of the others at the party?”
“In progress.” A pause, then she added, “I will say I have talked to a number of people—friends and fellow students of his. They report that Garry fancies himself quite the lover. He has apparently been with dozens of women—and he has been in Italy only a few months. He has no history of being, you might say, coercive. Or using date-rape drugs. But he has rather a large appetite sexually. And has bragged about his conquests. And there have been incidents where he was, let us say kindly, irritated when a woman rejected him.”
“Irrelevant,” Sachs said.
“No, I’m afraid it is not. Our trials, in Italy, are not as limited as in the U.S. Questions about character and prior behavior—whether or not criminal—are admissible and can, sometimes, be the pivotal factor in deciding innocence or guilt.”
“Did they know each other before this?” Sachs asked. “Frieda and Garry.”
“No. And she knew few others at the party. Only the host and hostess, Dev and Natalia.”
“Would anyone have a motive to implicate him?”
“He said there was a woman who grew furious when he reneged on an offer to take her to America. A Valentina Morelli. She is from near Florence. She has not returned my calls. The police seem uninterested in her as a suspect.”
“Where is the investigation now?” Rhyme asked.
“Just beginning. And it will take a long time. Trials in Italy can last for years.”
It was the community liaison officer, Daryl Mulbry, who said, “The press are all over this. I’m getting requests for interviews every hour. And newspapers have already convicted him.” A glance toward McKenzie. He said, “We want to push back with positive publicity, if you can find anything that even hints someone else was the attacker.”
Rhyme had wondered what a PR officer was doing here. He supposed the court of public opinion was as universal as DNA and fingerprints. The first person to be hired by a rich criminal in the United States, after his lawyer, was a good spin doctor.
Sachs asked, “What’s your opinion, Ms. Cinelli? You’ve talked to him. Is he innocent?”
“It is my opinion that he has exercised bad judgment in the past, living a life too lascivious and bragging about it. And he can have the arrogance of someone with charm and good looks. But I do believe he is innocent of this crime. Garry does not seem like a cruel boy. And someone who would knock out a woman and have relations with her is indisputably cruel.”