man has this red handkerchief in his trachea.”
“In his what?” asked Rocco.
“In his trachea.”
“Is there any way that the snowcat shoved it in when it ran over his face?” Rocco hypothesized.
“No. It was crumpled up. And when I unfolded it, look at the treat I found inside.” Alberto Fumagalli pulled out a sort of metal cup in which a slimy purple thing lay, with what appeared to be two little mints beside it.
“What’s that? A piece of rotten eggplant?”
“The tongue.”
“Oh, Jesus fucking—”
“And there were a couple of teeth to go with it. You see? They look like two Tic Tacs.” The doctor continued, “The snowcat crushed the poor man’s head, and the pressure pushed in this piece of handkerchief. It was in his mouth.”
“It made him swallow it?”
“Or else he swallowed it himself.”
“Sure, but if he swallowed it, then he was still alive!”
“Maybe so, Rocco. Maybe so.” Alberto took a deep breath. “So then I expressed the hypostases.”
“Translation, please.”
Fumagalli rolled his eyes in annoyance.
“Why are you getting pissed off? I studied law, not medicine! As if I were to ask you to define usucaption.”
“Usucaption is a Latin term for ‘acquisitive prescription,’ in which ownership of property can be gained through continuous possession thereof, beyond a specified period of time—”
“Enough!” Rocco interrupted him. “Let’s get back to these hypotheses.”
“Hypostases,” Alberto corrected him. “Now then, hypostases form when the heart stops beating. Blood pressure drops, and the blood flows by gravity to the lowest areas of the corpse. And since the body was lying in a supine position … there, you see?” Fumagalli gently lifted the poor wretch’s torso. There was a squeaking sound, as if he’d dragged a jellyfish across the floor. “You see these reddish-purple spots?”
They were barely visible. They looked like very faint bruises.
“Yes,” said Rocco.
“When the heart stops pumping, then what happens? The blood follows its most natural path, that is, wherever the force of gravity tends to pull it. Are you with me?”
“I’m with you.”
“Good. The body was lying supine, and therefore the blood flowed to the back. Yesterday when I got there, they were just starting to form.”
“Which means what?”
“These things form three or four hours after death. That means this poor sucker died more or less three hours before I got there. So I got there at about ten, and he died between six and seven. More likely seven than six, I’d say.”
“He didn’t die. He was killed between six and seven.”
“If you want to be exact. That’s right.”
Rocco Schiavone went on staring at those mangled remains. “Also in an attempt to be exact, could you tell me how someone killed him?”
“I’ll have to take a look at the internal organs. To rule out poisoning or suffocation. That’ll take me a little while. Come with me.” The doctor moved away from the autopsy table. But Rocco stood there a little longer, staring at the mass of flesh and blood that had once been a man’s face. “The more I look at it, the more I’m reminded of a painting by an artist—doesn’t it remind you of that painter? The one who used to make black burn marks on a red background and who—”
“Burri,” Alberto replied as he pulled open a drawer in a cabinet next to the door. “I was reminded of him myself.”
“Burri, that’s right. Exactly.” Rocco caught up with the doctor. “No, it’s just that if a person tries to remember a thing and he can’t quite get it, he might wind up killing a bunch of neurons. Burri. What’s that?” he asked the medical examiner, who was holding out another plastic bag.
“In here is the rest of the handkerchief. It was hanging out of his mouth.”
“Did the snowcat cut it? Weird. That seems pretty odd to me.”
“My job is to analyze corpses. Yours is to understand how they got that way.”
Rocco pulled away from the wall and grabbed the door handle.
“Wait! There’s one last thing that will interest you.” The doctor picked up two plastic bags. One contained a glove. The other held a pack of cigarettes. “Now, then. These were found in the inside pocket of the down jacket. An empty pack of Marlboro Lights, and this glove. Black. A ski glove. Colmar brand.”
“Ah. Okay, good. We’ve found one glove. What about the other?”
“No idea.”
“You know something, Alberto? This is a pain in the ass, number ten on the scale, summa cum laude.”
“Which means?”
“The mother of all pains in the ass!”
Cursing under his breath, Rocco walked through the door and left the doctor with his patients.
Italo was outside the hospital smoking a cigarette. Rocco walked past him. “You’re so damned helpful, Italo.”
The officer flicked away his cigarette butt and followed the deputy police chief. “It was because of the taste in my mouth.”
“Fine, but now that you’re sure to have the breath of a cesspool, do me a favor and don’t talk in the car.”
“I’ve got chewing gum.”
“Well, chew it,” Rocco ordered him as he got into the car.
They hadn’t gone fifty yards before Rocco’s cell phone started ringing.
“Who is it?”
“Dottore, it’s me, Officer D’Intino.”
“To what do I owe the honor?” asked Rocco, lighting yet another of Italo’s Chesterfields.
“Did you call me ‘your honor’?” D’Intino replied, in confusion.
Rocco sighed and, with endless patience, replied, “No, D’Intino, I didn’t. It’s just a figure of speech. What can I do for you?”
“Ah, yes, I didn’t think so. Well, I called you to say …” And with that the line went dead.
“Hello? D’Intino,
