The Fatal Touch

by Conor Fitzgerald

  Blume found three unanswered calls, all from Grattapaglia, and nothing else. “Well, they didn’t,” he said.

  “That was remiss. I’ll have some harsh words to say to the staff when I get back. But no matter. We’re here now. But you can relax, Commissioner. This is definitely a case for the Carabinieri rather than the police.”

  “Why the Carabinieri?” said Blume, finally lowering his gaze to look the magistrate in the face.

  “Listen to him!” said Buoncompagno to Caterina. “He loves working! I’m glad I give him orders rather than take them. He hates to lose control. He must be a real slave-driver, eh?”

  Caterina did not even allow herself a flicker of a smile. She watched as Blume’s eyes seemed to scope the magistrate’s upper body and face as if selecting a target.

  “OK. So we’re not so friendly here,” said Buoncompagno at last. “No problem, since we’re not going to be working together.”

  “What I want to know is what the Carabinieri are doing here right now, with these paintings,” said Blume.

  “We are sequestering all the works of art in this gallery. And anything else of use, of course. As part of the investigation into the death of Henry Treacy, the forger. I have just dropped the order on that sex-bomb at the reception desk.” He winked at Blume, then said to Caterina, “Not that you are any the less fair.”

  Caterina moved away from him.

  “That’s what I get for trying to be chivalrous. As if there was even any comparison between her and . . .”

  Blume lunged forward suddenly and Buoncompagno skipped back out of range, and collided with a Carabiniere, who pushed the magistrate away from him before seeming to recognize him. The Carabiniere excused himself, and walked away. Buoncompagno hooked his thumbs onto his jean pockets and looked across a stretch of Persian carpet at Blume. “I see. I want you out of here now. Take your woman inspector with you. I’ve assigned a proper expert to the case: Colonel Orazio Farinelli.”

  It took Blume a second or two to understand. “A colonel?”

  “Of the Carabinieri. Do you have a problem with that, Commissioner?” Buoncompagno clumped away in his soft leather ankle boots toward the reception desk and the two women. As he arrived, they both moved across the room back toward Blume. Caterina touched his elbow, and said, “I think we should go. All three of us, if possible.”

  Blume nodded.

  Buoncompagno laughed good-naturedly. “Hold on there, you two! Just where do you think you are taking that beautiful young woman? Sweetheart, you don’t have to go with them. I’m in charge now.”

  He leaned over and lightly clasped her arm.

  Manuela gently removed her arm from his grasp, and with a sweet smile stepped forwards as if changing sides and going over to the magistrate. She put her hand flat against his chest, in what seemed like a protective gesture, then suddenly pushed the heel into his solar plexus. Buoncompagno staggered back with a gasp.

  “Don’t you dare touch me again,” said Manuela.

  “I didn’t!” Buoncompagno looked around for witnesses, but the Carabinieri seemed not to have been paying attention.

  “I do not feel comfortable leaving a young woman alone in the company of male officers and a male magistrate only,” said Caterina. “So she’s coming with us.”

  “You take orders from me,” said Buoncompagno. “I am in charge here. And I say she stays.”

  Blume looked around him, caught the eye of a Carabinieri Maresciallo whom he half knew. The Maresciallo, whose age and experience gave him authority well beyond his modest rank, gave the tiniest of nods in the direction of the door, then called the magistrate over, and led him to the far end of the room.

  Blume, Caterina, and Manuela walked out.

  When they reached the street outside, Manuela turned to him to say, “Can I go now?” but Blume signaled her to be quiet as he made a phone call. She turned to Caterina and asked the same question.

  “Sure,” said Caterina, watching Blume’s face for a reaction. “Stay available. Call me if you need help.” She looked over at Blume for confirmation, but he was too agitated by something he was hearing on his phone to notice.

  “I am a fool,” he said, apparently forgetting completely about Manuela, and setting off at a fast pace, driving himself between a tourist couple who started after him in outrage. Caterina, weighed down by her bag and the three heavy notebooks inside, had to break into a short trot before she caught him up.

  “I ignored Grattapaglia’s calls. I stood there like an idiot listening to that whore of a magistrate. Can you guess where he is, the Colonel he appointed, I mean?”

  As Blume framed the question, Caterina knew the answer.

  “At Treacy’s place,” she said. “That’s why Grattapaglia was calling you.”

  “Yes, and Grattapaglia’s just told me he had to let the Colonel past, the dumb bastard. He’s going to pay for this in ways he can’t imagine.”

  Caterina wondered what she would have done in Grattapaglia’s place.

  “He could have called in others to help,” said Blume in reply to her thoughts. “I’m not the only superior officer he knows. I might as well have put a fucking traffic cone in charge.”

  “Was Magistrate Buoncompagno there, too? At Treacy’s house?”

  “Apparently so,” said Blume, slowing down his pace a little. “Buoncompagno. Can it get worse? By the way, I see you know about him, too. What act of corrupt incompetence did he visit on you?”

  “Not on me personally,” said Caterina. “He archived an investigation that should have been kept open. We were on the point of breaking a ring smuggling in Romanian girls—this is from before Romania was part of the EU—and he just went and closed down the whole operation. Someone paid him off.”

  “That’s pretty typical,” said Blume. “Six years ago, Paoloni—he’s not on the force any more, but he was a great cop . . .”

  “I arrived a few weeks before Paoloni left,” said Caterina. “I remember him.”

  “Right,” said Blume, slowly, not quite believing her.

  “You’ve forgotten that, too. I arrived just after the killing of the young policeman . . . Ferrucci.”

  “Right,” said Blume. “Of course.”

  “I don’t expect you to remember. Obviously you had other things to worry about at the time.”

  “No, no. I remember,” said Blume.

  “Now you’re trying to be gallant.”

  “Nope. I remember you. So, you remember Paoloni?”

  “Yes.”

  “I disagreed with some of the things Paoloni did, but he was a friend. Still is. People never really noticed how close we were, because we had different styles, and now, they tend to forget that when they talk to me about him. So try not to make the mistake of criticizing him or his methods when talking to me.”

  “I didn’t say a word against him!”

  “Yeah, but you were thinking it, and I’d hate to have an argument with you. You want to compare Paoloni with someone like Buoncompagno. A moral chasm between them.”

  “I didn’t . . .” began Caterina, but Blume plowed on, quickening his pace on the downward slope of the Sisto Bridge as he did so.

  “I’ll tell you a story about Buoncompagno. Six years ago, Paoloni and I were investigating the killing of an inspector from the Health Institute, a guy called Lazzarini, also worked as a natural scientist for La Sapienza University. He had been looking into dioxin levels in San Marzano tomatoes . . .”

  Caterina stopped dead as Blume walked straight into the moving traffic, slapping his palm hard on the hood of a car that honked at him and giving it a kick in the side as it sped off. He still seemed to be telling the story of the San Marzano tomatoes as he reached Piazza Trilussa on the other side. Caterina watched him go, and waited for the pedestrian light to turn green. By the time it had, her Commissioner was already out of sight.

  Chapter 8

  As he reached the other side of the road, Blume pulled out his phone and calle
d Kristin Holmquist at the American Embassy.

  “Alec!”

  She sounded warm. He closed his eyes and imagined her standing there with her bright copper hair, her blue jeans, her white blouse, her smell of talc.

  “I’m working an interesting case,” he said.

  “Really? You want to tell me about it first, or shall we just skip to the part where you ask me to do some research for you?”

  “Well, you know it’s not safe or practical to do this sort of thing by phone, so why don’t I just give you a name, and then maybe we can meet for dinner and compare notes,” said Blume.

  “Get information and a date out of me, you mean?”

  “I know, it is a terrible role-reversal for you, Kristin . . . .” The scent of ginger and garlic from the Surya Maha Indian restaurant above him gave him an idea. “I’ll make dinner. This evening, my place.”

  “What’s the name you’re interested in?”

  “Colonel Orazio Farinelli, he’s a member of the Carabinieri. I know the name from somewhere. He’s just strolled in and taken my case away from me.”

  “How did he manage that?”

  “Investigating Magistrate Franco Buoncompagno, also known as the finger puppet. I don’t need you to look Buoncompagno up. I know more than enough about him.”

  “You can never know too much,” said Kristin.

  “I hate to disagree, but often I find myself knowing far more about people than I want to. Do we have a deal?”

  “I’m not sure, Alec. You have not always been as helpful as we had hoped. And when I say ‘not always,’ I mean ‘never.’ ”

  “That’s because I don’t like sharing info on my cases with an operative in a foreign embassy.”

  “I’m not an operative, Alec baby. And you can’t go round calling your fellow Americans foreigners.”

  “Well, let’s try this thing again. You never made it clear what you wanted me to do for you anyhow, apart from when we were, you know . . .”

  “When we were what?”

  “Sorry, that was in bad taste.”

  “It sure was. I distinctly remember explaining it to you in the clearest possible terms. I was looking for someone to keep an ear to the ground here in Rome, help me flesh out my monthly reports to the country team. You are clearly not that person. So, personal feelings and friendship aside, you’re calling me now because . . .?”

  “A case was taken away from me, I was hoping you might speed up the process of my finding out about this Colonel. If not, I can do it myself.”

  “I still don’t get why you think I’ll do this. Or why you think I have access.”

  “I know you have access. Even I have access if I try hard enough. It’s just quicker this way.”

  “Suppose I helped you, would you consider that as a favor to be returned?”

  “Of course. I never said no to what you were proposing. You know me, I love sharing. Love my country, too.”

  “I don’t know, Alec. Maybe.”

  “Great. That’s Farinelli with two ‘l’s. And 8 o’clock, my place. I’m making pure American tacos and . . .” he tried to think of something appetizing. “Guacamole.”

  When Blume arrived a few minutes later, Sovrintendente Grattapaglia was standing at the green door, arms folded as if barring entrance to it, and staring at a dark-blue Carabinieri car with a red flash emblem parked a few meters from him.

  The driver, a Maresciallo, had positioned the vehicle below a plane tree, and was leaning on the half-open door. As Blume came up beside the car, a small swirl of smoke floated out from the passenger seat behind.

  Blume bent down to see inside, shading his eyes like he was saluting the occupants. The windows were slightly tinted, and he could just make out two or maybe three men filling up all the space in the backseat. Someone grabbed his shoulder, but Blume stayed relaxed.

  “Take your hand off me,” he said. “I am a police commissioner.”

  The grip eased, but the Carabiniere did not let go completely. Blume straightened up, turned around, and pushed down the Carabiniere’s extended arm.

  “If you’ve been on duty in Rome for any length of time, you probably know my face,” said Blume. “So there should be no need for me to have to tell you to step back, now.”

  The Carabiniere took a step backwards, and nodded.

  From behind him came the whirring sound of a car window being lowered, and a blue cloud of cigar smoke swirled over Blume’s shoulder.

  Blume turned around and looked into the car. The backseat was filled to capacity by a single man.

  The voice was slightly throaty, soft, and calm, the face creased and brown like a hickory nut. “I imagine you are Commissioner Blume.”

  Blume had seen people this large when traveling as a boy with his parents through towns in Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio, but everything they wore was elasticized; and he had seen obese Neapolitan criminals with Velcro straps on running shoes they couldn’t see, but he had never seen a man with so much bulk dressed in such a nicely cut silk suit.

  “And you must be Colonel Farinelli,” said Blume.

  Chapter 9

  “You put the place off limits,” said the Colonel. “Good. I like a sealed environment.”

  “I hope my Sovrintendente extended you every courtesy during your search,” said Blume.

  “Oh, he did his best to stop us,” said Farinelli. He let out a cloud of smoke and nodded from inside it. “But what could he do? The magistrate tried to send him away, but he wouldn’t budge. He even insisted on watching us as we gathered evidence.”

  “What evidence?”

  “Why paintings, of course. That’s why I have been called in. Art fraud is my special area.”

  “Murder is mine.”

  “Yes. I’m sure you’ll have a murder to look into sometime soon. What’s the average in your district, two, three a month?”

  “Are you saying Treacy was not murdered?” said Blume. “Do you have evidence for that?”

  “Of course not. That’s up to you, Commissioner. It should be clear within a few hours, or tomorrow after the autopsy, no? Meanwhile, I’m looking after this.” The Colonel tossed his cigar butt out the door. His suit began to ripple as he began the process of heaving himself across the seat toward the door.

  Blume walked away in the direction of Grattapaglia, leaving the task of pulling his boss out of the car to the Maresciallo.

  “You did try to stop them, right?” said Blume as he reached Grattapaglia.

  “Stop a team of Carabinieri, a colonel, and a magistrate with a search warrant? I did my best.”

  “OK, OK. I should have answered when you called. Get back to the station now.”

  Grattapaglia nodded over Blume’s shoulder. “Here they are again. And I can see Inspector Mattiola looking a bit lost at the end of the street.”

  “Take her back with you.”

  “So it’s all working out? She’s a big help?”

  “Get lost. Write that report on this morning’s incident.”

  Grattapaglia moved away, leaving Blume face-to-face with Colonel Farinelli who was holding two solid white boxes with “Franchi” written on them in blue cursive letters. He caught Blume’s glance and raised the boxes slightly. “A break for lunch, Commissioner. That’s where I was just now. Do you like Franchi’s take-out fare?”

  Blume did—who didn’t? But he said nothing.

  Blume pushed open the green door, which now sagged on its hinges, and stepped into the narrow passageway, imagining the Colonel trapped there like a hog in a rabbit hole.

  “I did not enjoy squeezing in there last time,” said the Colonel. “If you’d be so kind . . . .” He handed the boxes to Blume.

  Blume handed them back, saying, “Get your Maresciallo to carry them.”

  “Ah, but he’s staying here.”

  “Then carry them yourself.”

  By the time he reached the door to the greenhouse, the Colonel was breathing heavily and had difficulty ascending the tw
o steps that led inside.

  When he had finally made it up, he put down the boxes and placed his hands on the small of his back and pushed his stomach out even further, like he was considering buying the property.

  After a while, with his breathing back to normal, the Colonel said, “Treacy has hardly changed this place.”

  “Treacy?” said Blume. “You knew him?”

  “Of course. I knew him well. Or used to. This house must have been the servants’ quarters for Villa Corsini.”

  Blume went through the kitchen and into the next room. The walls were now almost bare, though several paintings had been left. The unframed sketches and paintings he had noticed earlier piled on the desk were gone, and the papers on the desk had been thoroughly searched and many of them lay scattered on the floor. Perhaps the utility bills and bank statements were not vital evidence, but they could be useful, and Blume had intended to take them in. Yet Farinelli and his men had thrown them on the floor. The only reason Blume could see for that was that they had been looking for something else, something specific.

  Colonel Farinelli appeared from the kitchen. “What are you looking for? You’re not conducting an investigation, you know.”

  “I’m curious,” said Blume.

  “What we have here is a natural death. No need for your squadra mobile. The dead man was a forger, hence my involvement,” said the Colonel. “But I seem to remember, you don’t work well with the Carabinieri.”

  “Usually I work fine with the Carabinieri,” said Blume. “Last time I didn’t, Buoncompagno was directing that investigation, too. I just want to see a few things for myself before I sign off.”

  “Come into the kitchen, then,” said the Colonel.

  Blume returned to the kitchen, where the Colonel had thrown open the fridge.

  “You’re an Anglo-Saxon,” he declared. “So I suppose you’re more butter, beer, and milk than wine, oil, and water?”

  Blume did not reply, but the Colonel was not waiting either. “Your northern diet is very high in cholesterol. You need to be careful.” He pushed the refrigerator door shut. “What did you see in there that might be interesting?”