her mind that her time on this planet Earth had come to its logical conclusion. The skin on her neck was pale, but not around her throat. There a purple band ran, a little less than an inch across. Purple like the stain on the hardwood floor.
“It’s the third damned suicide this month,” said the medical examiner from behind him, snorting in annoyance. Rocco didn’t even bother turning around, and both men, faithful to the routine they’d developed over the months, exchanged no greeting.
“Who found her? You?”
Schiavone nodded. Alberto stepped closer and stood, surveying the body. They looked like a pair of tourists visiting MoMA, admiring an art installation.
“A woman, about thirty-five, probable cause of death strangulation,” said the doctor. Rocco nodded: “And they gave you a medical degree for that?”
“I’m just kidding.”
“How can you kid about this?”
“With the work I do, if you can’t kid around, you’re done for,” and Alberto tilted his head toward the corpse.
Rocco asked, “Are you going to take the corpse down?”
“I’d say so … I’ll wait for a couple of your people and then we’ll take her down.”
“Who was coming upstairs?”
“The young woman and a fat guy.”
Which meant Officer Deruta and Inspector Caterina Rispoli.
Rocco left the room and went to meet the two of them.
Deruta was already in the front hall, sweaty and panting. Caterina Rispoli, on the other hand, was still out on the landing. She was talking to Italo Pierron and twisting her police-issued gloves.
“Did you come up the stairs, Deruta?”
“No, I took the elevator.”
“Then why are you out of breath?”
Deruta ignored the question. “Dottore, I was just thinking—”
“And that right there is a wonderful piece of news, Deruta.”
“I was thinking … don’t you feel the sight of all this is a little too harsh?”
“For who?”
“For Inspector Rispoli?”
“The sight of what, Deruta? The sight of you at work?”
Deruta grimaced in annoyance. “Of course not! The sight of the dead body in there!”
Rocco looked at him. “Deruta, Inspector Rispoli is a police officer.”
“But Rispoli’s a woman!”
“Well, she can’t help that,” said the deputy police chief as he walked out onto the landing.
The minute he walked out the door, Caterina took a look at him. “Deputy Police Chief …”
“Go on in, Rispoli. Don’t leave me alone with Deruta; next thing you know, he’ll hang himself too.” Caterina smiled and walked into the apartment. “Ah, Dottore?”
“What is it, Rispoli?”
“I did come up with an idea for that gift.”
“Perfect. Let’s talk in ten minutes.” As Caterina disappeared into the living room, Rocco turned to look at Italo. “Let’s go get ourselves a cup of coffee.”
“If you don’t mind, Dottore,” said Italo, moving from a first-name basis to a more official term of respect, “I’d just as soon stay right here. My stomach’s kind of doing belly flops.”
Shaking his head, Rocco Schiavone went down the stairs.
Via Brocherel was crowded with people. People looking out their windows, people rubbernecking outside the front door. There was a muttering of conversation that sounded like a kettle on the boil. “A corpse? … There weren’t any burglars? Who is it? The Baudos …”
There was a brief moment of silence when the front door swung open and Rocco Schiavone, wrapped in his green overcoat, emerged. Officer Casella alone was keeping the rubberneckers at bay. “Commissario,” he said, saluting.
“It’s deputy police chief, Casella, deputy police chief, Jesus fucking Christ! You at least, seeing that you’re on the police force, ought to try to remember these things, no?”
He looked around but there was no sign of a café or a shop anywhere in sight. He went over to the retired warrant officer. “Excuse me! Could you tell me if there’s a café anywhere around here?”
“Say what?” asked the old man, adjusting his hearing aid.
“Café. Near here. Where.”
“Around the corner. Take Via Monte Emilus and go about a hundred yards, and you’ll see the Bar Alpi. Do you have any news, Dottore? Is it true that they found the lady hanging by a rope?”
Irina too stood gazing at him apprehensively.
“Can you keep a secret?” Rocco asked in an undertone.
“Certainly!” Paolo Rastelli replied, puffing his chest out proudly.
“I can too!” Irina chimed in.
“So what do you think, I can’t?” Rocco retorted and walked away, leaving them both openmouthed.
As was to be expected, the retired warrant officer’s dog, Flipper, promptly began barking again, this time at the NO PARKING sign. The former noncommissioned officer glared down at the yappy little mutt and brusquely switched off his hearing aid. At last, the world turned silent, muffled and cottony once again. A giant aquarium he could gaze at with detachment. With a smile and a slight forward tilt of the head, he bade farewell to Irina and resumed his daily stroll, heading for home and the crossword puzzle.
As the wind blew, pushing chilly gusts of air under his loden overcoat, Rocco decided that all things considered, it could have gone worse. A suicide just meant a series of bureaucratic procedures to get out of the way, the kind of thing you could take care of in an afternoon’s work. His plan was simple: leave the bureaucratic details to Casella, talk to Rispoli and find out what idea she’d come up with for Nora’s present, go home, get a half-hour nap, take a shower, go back out and buy the present, go out to dinner with Nora at eight, after an hour and a half pretend he had a crushing migraine, take Nora home, and then hurry back to his place to watch the second half of the Roma-Inter game. Acceptable.
Just as the wind died down and a fine chilly drizzle began to pepper the asphalt, cold as the fingers of a dead man’s hand, Rocco stepped into the Bar Alpi. A strong smell of alcohol and confectioner’s sugar washed over him, like a warm, welcome hug from a friend.
“Buongiorno.”
The man behind the counter gave him a smile. “Hello. What’ll it
