“Forty-fours.”
The woman vanished behind a pillar lined with mirrors plastered with decals.
“Come on back,” said the proprietor of the shop from behind a screen, and Rocco walked over.
She had bent over to get a couple of styles of boots that were on the lowest shelf. As she did so, her tight black trousers slid down, revealing the elastic band of her panties. Floral-patterned.
A thong, Rocco decided.
“Here, I can show you the various styles of shoe. Do you prefer leather or technical materials?”
“Please, no plastic.”
The woman smiled. She showed him two pairs of snow boots. One pair was big and solid and black with red laces. “These are very popular.”
Rocco gazed at the boots skeptically. “More like they were very popular. They remind me of the shoes the Alpine troops wore on the Tofane Mountains in the First World War!”
The woman laughed heartily and showed him another pair of boots. They were a little more understated. Brown leather. A pair of ugly city shoes.
“Okay, I prefer these.”
“Come try them on,” said the proprietor, and Rocco followed her.
He sat down and unlaced his Clarks. For a moment he was afraid there might be a hole in his sock. He couldn’t afford to look like a bum in front of the barista’s pretty friend. Not because she was a friend of Mario’s, but because he didn’t even know her name yet, and he’d already started to make plans that involved that lovely specimen of womanhood.
He took off his shoe. The sock was intact. He heaved a deep sigh of relief.
“Have you heard about what happened up at Crest?” asked the proprietor of the shop as she extracted the crumpled paper from the interior of the boot.
“Yes. I’m in charge of the investigation.”
“Ah,” said the woman drily, as if she’d just clucked her tongue with her mouth open. “You’re a policeman.”
“Deputy Police Chief Schiavone,” he said, standing up and extending his hand.
“Annarita Pec.”
“Pec? Like Luisa, poor Leone’s widow?”
“Yes. We’re third cousins, though. You know, here in Champoluc—”
“I know. You’re all related.”
“But Luisa and I don’t see each other. Oh, Lord, of course we say buon giorno and buona sera. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love her, don’t misunderstand. She’s still a cousin of mine. But what actually happened?” asked Annarita, her eyes glittering with curiosity. “Was it an accident, or else . . .”
“Or else,” the deputy police chief replied abruptly.
The proprietor of the shop nodded and handed Rocco the boot. “Here, try it on.”
Rocco sat back down and put on the boot. The minute he slipped it on, he had the sensation that there was an incinerator roaring away inside it. “They’re hot,” he said with a smile. He stood up. He took a few steps. Comfortable.
“Fine, I’ll take them.” He reached out and took the other boot out of Annarita’s hands, sat down, and started putting it on.
Annarita stood there, looking the deputy police chief in the eye. “Where are you from?” she asked.
“Rome,” he said, leaning on the R as hard as he could, in the distinctive Roman pronunciation. “Ever been?”
Annarita shook her head no.
“Ouch ouch ouch, that’s not good. It’s a wonderful city. If someday you decide to go, I’ll show you around. I know Rome pretty well,” he said and turned on the best smile in his repertoire. The half smile, the one that stretched his facial skin and made crow’s-feet form around his eyes. He’d first seen it when he was a boy, on Clint Eastwood’s face, and he swore that when he grew up he’d use it. It usually worked wonders.
“The city must be wonderful. Will you take offense, though, if I tell you something?”
“Not at all.”
“It’s the Romans I can’t stand. And in Rome there are at least a couple million of them.” She concluded the lunge with a smile. A beautiful smile, tight and bright, that seemed to make her hazel eyes glow even more. Annarita Pec was a woman who knew the art of self-defense. If he was going to have a chance with her, it would take weeks of hard work. But what with Leone’s corpse and Sebastiano in Aosta, the deputy police chief wasn’t going to have time.
Too bad, Rocco said to himself and got to his feet. “Well, message received, Annarita, loud and clear.”
“I know you didn’t take that the wrong way.”
“Absolutely not. And I even have to agree with you. A good eighty percent of the Roman population are absolutely intolerable people.”
“I’m sure you’re part of the good twenty percent.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong. I’m part of the very worst two percent.” He said it without smiling, but still staring Annarita right in the eye. “Let’s get back to serious business. I need a pair of gloves.”
Annarita shook her head, as if trying to shake off sleep. “All right. What kind of gloves, Gore-Tex or leather?”
“No, listen, I’m looking for a very special kind of gloves. You may have them. They’re ski gloves. Colmar. Black leather.”
“That’s a model that was popular a couple of years ago. Still, in the bargain bin, maybe . . . Let me take a look.” She moved quickly over to a light fir bin that was full of ski gloves. She started pulling out pair after pair. “Are these for you?”
“You’re Luisa’s cousin. So you must have known Leone.”
Annarita turned to look at the deputy police chief. “Certainly, why?”
“Let’s just say that the gloves are for him.”
The woman smiled and shook her head slightly. “I don’t get it.”
“He must have worn about the same size as me, no?”
The proprietor of the shop looked at his hand. Then she nodded sadly. “More or less.” And she started rummaging through the wooden bin again. “Here you are. Are these all right?”
Rocco looked at them. “Excellent. I’ll take these, too. How much?”
“Huh? Oh, well, then. The Tevas are one hundred ninety euros. The gloves are eighty.”
Rocco didn’t blink an eye. He pulled out his wallet, walked past Annarita, and went straight to the cash register. Annarita moved quickly and got behind the counter.
“Do you take credit cards?”
“Of course, of course.”
The woman punched the total into the cash register and the credit card terminal, then swiped the card.
“Where is that video camera?” asked Rocco, pointing to the computer screen.
“Oh, that? It’s on a terrace overlooking the pistes. It’s so we can see what the weather is like on the slopes. It’s over the Internet.”
“And is it always on, twenty-four hours a day?”
“Always. But it takes stills, not actual video.”
“Who installed it?”
“The people up at Monterosa Ski. They control it from their offices.”
Rocco took back the credit card. He signed the receipt, turned around, and picked up his old Clarks desert boots, and put them in a bag. “May I?” he asked Annarita, pointing to the trash can.
“You want to throw them away?”
“Yep,” and he tossed the old Clarks into the shop’s trash can. “Thanks very much. You’ve been more than kind.”
“Don’t mention it. It’s been a pleasure, Deputy Police Chief. Can I ask why you bought a pair of gloves for poor Leone?”
“They’re not for poor Leone. They’re for me. Have a good day.”
On his way up to the offices of Monterosa Ski, Rocco looked at his new boots. Ankle high, with insulated soles, they were warm enough to poach his feet. They were big, but at least they were an acceptable color, and they were tight around the ankles, so his pants could fit around them and hang normally. He wasn’t forced to tuck his pants into his shoes and look like some sucker with a flooded basement. The gloves were warm, too. They wrapped his hands in a wa
rm, cozy interior that was made of some nasty synthetic material but did its job. The only problem was the fingers. Enormous, like yeti fingers. And they made it impossible to do any coordinated action except to clap like an orangutan.
Pierron had parked right in front of the cableway offices. When he saw the deputy police chief arrive, he immediately took note of the change in apparel.
“At last!” he said. “Now those are some real shoes!”
“They cost one hundred ninety euros. Did I pay too much?”
“That depends. What brand are they?”
“You’ve got me. They’re made of leather, and they have a cleated sole. Ah, here it is, it says Teva.”
“Teva brand? One hundred ninety euros? Nice price.”
“While we’re going to the offices, you call whatever the hell his name is—Luigi, the chief snowcat operator—and tell him to come down here. I need him to take us up.”
“We can ride the cableway.”
“Italo, you’re a good guy, but when I tell you something, there’s a reason for it.”
“Got it. Sorry,” said Italo, grabbing his cell phone and trailing after Rocco, who was heading for the glass-and-wood offices of Monterosa Ski.
Rocco was sorry not to find Margherita, the young woman from the night before, waiting for him. Instead, there was a guy who was as bald as an egg, slowly chewing a wad of gum. He had a long face, and, as if that weren’t enough, he’d grown a whitish pointed goatee that made it look even longer. His eyes were round and distant, dull and lifeless. The only sign of any presence of cerebral activity was the continual and incessant chomping of teeth and jaws on the chewing gum. Rocco immediately cataloged him as a Connochaetes gnou, or white-tailed gnu, an African bovine ruminant, the ones that in documentaries are always being massacred by cheetahs and lionesses.
When the young man reached out his hand to introduce himself as Guido, the office manager, Rocco was almost amazed to find human fingers instead of an ungulate’s hoof.
“We put the images up on the Internet and they remain in the computer for a few days. Then every once in a while we delete them, because if we don’t, the hard drive fills up. We haven’t deleted any files lately. You’re in luck,” the gnu said, and stood there placidly ruminating and gazing at the deputy police chief.
“Do you have the image files here?”
“No. They’re in the technical office.”
And the bovid stood there, motionless, gazing at the two policemen.
Rocco smiled. “Which is where?”
“Down the hill.”
“Down the hill where?”
“Down the hill next to the equipment sheds.”
The deputy police chief looked at Italo. “What do you think, is he putting us on or is it real?”
“No, if you ask me, this is real,” Italo replied.
Rocco was impressed with himself for having managed to keep his nerves under control. “If you, Guido, don’t show me the way, how will I know where the sheds and the technical office are located?”
“I don’t know if I can take you there.”
The deputy police chief took a nice deep breath. “Guido, let’s put it this way. Either you take me to that technical office or I’m going to kick your sorry ass all the way down to police headquarters in Aosta.” Then he pointed to Pierron: “And he’ll help.”
No light flickered on in the eyes of the ruminant. Neither alarm nor fear, anger, or defiance. Nothing. An expressionless black hole. Guido extracted the chewing gum from his mouth, a pink bolus the size of a Ping-Pong ball, stuck it to the bottom of his desk, and finally walked out of the room. Throwing his arms wide, Rocco followed him.
The technical office looked like an empty garage, with a couple of computers and an armchair with threadbare upholstery. The reek of mold and other unknown fungi assailed his nostrils.
“There, that’s the computer,” said Guido, pointing to something that looked like a vintage radiator. “That’s the hookup to the video camera, and that’s where it sends the images out over the Internet.”
“Do you know how to use it, Guido?” asked Rocco, looking at the putrescent walls while Italo stared intently at the PC.
“No.”
“In that case, can you get someone who does?”
“I can do it,” said Italo. “It’s an old PC. How hard could it be?”
“Then go ahead, Italo. I want to take a look.”
The police officer went over to the desk, pulled out the chair, and lightly touched the mouse, causing the screen to light up. Guido remained standing at a good, safe distance from the computer, as if he were afraid it might be about to blow sky-high at any minute.
There were twenty or so folders, all of them identified by dates.
“You see what a mess it is? We could be sitting here until nighttime,” said Guido.
“What’s in those files?”
Instead of answering, Italo opened one at random. There were dozens of photographs. All framed identically. Pictures from the webcam overlooking the slopes. Hour by hour. The month chosen was May, and instead of snow and lowering clouds, there were flowering meadows and the sun high overhead. To the left was the large garage with the ski instructors’ school, in the middle the cableway entrance to the pistes, and on the right the hill that concealed Cuneaz, the little village in the gorge where Miccichè had his hut.
“Good, Italo. Look for the pictures from the day before yesterday. Thursday.”
“But at night you can’t see a thing.”
“Well, then, show me the ones for four in the afternoon and so on.”
Italo found the file. “Here it is. Thursday, February fifth. Let’s see, now . . .”
There were dozens of photographs. All the same. The only thing that changed was the color of the sky.
“Listen,” said Guido, “I can see that you know what you’re doing. I’m going to leave you here; I can’t be away from the office for too long.”
Rocco was looking at the photographs on the desktop; he nodded without replying.
“When you’re done, will you come and let me know?”
Then Guido slowly left, heading out the door of the basement office.
“Get up a second,” said Rocco, and Italo vacated the chair so the deputy police chief could sit down.
He started looking at the photos for Thursday. Taken hour by hour. He lined them up. The movement of the sun from morning to evening created a nice effect. He looked most closely at the pictures from 5:30 and 6:00 P.M. He hoped against hope for a piece of luck. That he’d spot something or someone that could prove useful. But there was nothing. Nothing but snow. And in the 6:00 P.M. photo, a treaded snowcat going past, heading uphill. “That might be Amedeo’s snowcat, the guy who found the corpse,” said Italo.
The two policemen kept their eyes glued to the screen. Rocco clicked on the mouse and opened the folder that contained the photos from earlier in the week. These, too, were arranged according to time. He picked the same time for each day, 5:30 P.M., and pulled those files out of the folders. He dragged them onto the desktop and started comparing them with Thursday’s files.
“What are you doing?” asked Italo.
The deputy police chief worked away with the mouse. “I’m arranging the photos so we can compare them. Let’s see if we find something. Do you know that brain teaser they have in the weekly puzzle magazines: Sharpen Your Eye?”
“Of course! Discover the twenty details that are different in the two drawings.”
“Exactly, Italo. Concentrate.”
The blue light from the computer screen lit up Rocco’s and Italo’s faces, so focused on what they were doing that they were blinking only occasionally, and slowly. Reflected on their pupils were dozens of photographs. All identical.
They couldn’t find any differences. Always the same thing. The snow. The snowcat garage. The ski instructors’ school. The base of the cableway. The beginners’ slopes. The hill behind which Cuneaz lay hidden. Not a sh
adow. No one going by.
“Here!” Rocco suddenly shouted, making Italo jump.
“What?”
Rocco went back to the photos from the day of the murder: Thursday, February 5, 6:00 P.M. There was something that didn’t add up in that picture. He compared it with the photo from Wednesday. Again, from 6:00 P.M. He put them one next to the other. No difference. The garage, the cableway . . .
“They all look the same to me,” said Italo.
“The ski school. Look closer!” And Rocco pointed to it with the cursor of the mouse. “You see?”
Italo leaned in. On the photo from the day of the murder, the door of the ski school was open. “It’s open!”
“Right,” said Rocco, “and now look at the photo for Wednesday.”
The door of the ski school was closed.
“Now I’m going to open the photos from the previous days.”
All of them at 6:00 P.M. All of them framed identically. And the door of the ski school was always closed.
“You see it? At 6:00 P.M. the door is closed. Except for the day of the murder.” Then Rocco stretched out in the chair. He put both arms behind his head and smiled. “I’d like to take these photos with me to police headquarters.”
“That’s no big deal. I’ll go buy a flash stick and I’ll copy them to it,” said Italo, getting to his feet.
With the usual noise of jangling hardware, the snowcat pulled up at the base of the cableway, snorting smoke and snow.
“There it is!” said Italo.
“I’d noticed,” Rocco replied.
Luigi Bionaz got out, waved to the policemen, and gestured for them to come closer.
No comparison. Walking with those two kayaks on his feet instead of the Clarks desert boots was a decided improvement to his lifestyle. Now Rocco was practically having fun crushing the piles of snow underfoot, the same piles that until today he’d avoided as if they were his mortal enemies.
“Buon giorno, Commissario!”
Rocco didn’t bother to correct him. He was sick and tired of the whole thing. And for that matter, decades of literature and television series, from Maigret to Cattani, had driven that word into the minds of the Italians: commissario. What it made him think of was the show trials in the Soviet Union under Stalin. He climbed up into the snowcat, followed by Pierron. Luigi put the machine in gear and started uphill, along the main piste.
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