LITMIR.BIZ

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feet, a tiny pug of a dog, its eyes bulging out of its head, was barking furiously at a NO PARKING sign.

      “Police?” asked the man, eyeing Rocco and Italo.

      “What do you think?”

      “Normally the police have a flashing light and a siren on top of their squad cars.”

      “Normally people are a little bit better at minding their own fucking business,” Rocco replied, seriously. “Are you the one who called?”

      “Yes. I’m Warrant Officer Paolo Rastelli. The signora here is certain that a gang of burglars have barricaded themselves in the apartment.”

      “Do you live here?” asked the deputy police chief.

      “No,” replied the warrant officer.

      “Then this is your house?” Rocco asked, turning to Irina.

      “No, I just come here to clean, every Monday and Wednesday and Fridays too,” the woman replied.

      “Shut up!” the old man shouted at the dog, jerking at its leash until the little critter’s already blind eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets. “Forgive me, Commissario, but this dog just won’t stop barking and it really gets on my nerves.”

      “It’s typical of dogs, you know?” the deputy police chief said calmly.

      “What is?”

      “Barking. It’s in their nature.” He squatted down and with a single pat on the head silenced Flipper; now the dog was wagging its tail and licking his hand. “And anyway I’m not a commissario. The rank of commissario no longer exists. Deputy Police Chief Schiavone.” Then he looked over at the woman, who still had a frightened look on her face and her hair standing straight up, held in place by some electrostatic force, probably emanating from her light blue nylon sweater.

      “Give me the keys!” Rocco said to the woman.

      “To the apartment?” the Russian woman asked naively.

      “No, to the city. Certainly, to the apartment, for the love of Jesus!” the retired warrant officer barked. “Otherwise how are they supposed to get in?”

      Irina dropped her gaze. “I forget inside the keys when I run away.”

      “Oh hell,” muttered Rocco under his breath. “Okay, let’s do this: what floor is it?”

      “There … fourth!” and Irina pointed at the apartment building. “You see? Window up there with curtains is living room, then there is other room next to it, with shutters pulled down: that is den. Then there is last on left, the half bath, then—”

      “Signora, it’s not as if I want to buy the apartment. All I need to know is where it is,” the deputy police chief brusquely interrupted her. Then he jutted his chin and directed Pierron toward the fourth-floor apartment. “Italo, what do you say?”

      “How am I supposed to climb up there, Dottore? What we need is a locksmith.”

      Rocco sighed, then glanced at the woman, who seemed to have regained her composure. “What kind of lock is it?”

      “There are two keyholes,” Irina replied.

      Rocco rolled his eyes. “Sure, but what kind? Pick-proof, lever tumbler, drum lock?”

      “No … I don’t know. Apartment door.”

      Rocco pulled open the street door. “Do you know the apartment number, or not that either?”

      “Eleven,” Irina replied with a broad smile, proud that she could finally provide the police with some actionable intelligence. “Eleven R.”

      Italo followed the deputy police chief.

      “What should I do?” asked the retired warrant officer.

      “You stay here and wait for reinforcements!” Rocco shouted. And he almost had the impression that the old man promptly clicked his heels in response.

      As soon as the metal elevator doors swung open, Rocco went to the right, Italo to the left.

      “Apartment 11R is right here,” said Italo. The deputy police chief caught up with him. “It’s an old Cisa lock. Excellent.”

      Rocco put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the keys to his own apartment.

      “What are you doing?” asked Italo.

      “Hold on.” On his key ring, Rocco had a little Swiss Army knife, the kind that has about twelve thousand blades and clippers. He carefully pried open the little screwdriver. He bent over and started working on the lock. He removed the two screws that held the plate, then extracted the fingernail file. “You see? If you can just open a space between the wood and the lock mechanism …” He slid the file into the opening. He applied pressure, once, then a second time. “It’s a hollow-core door. In Rome, you don’t find front doors like this anymore. Nobody has them.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because they’re so damned easy to get open.” And with that the deputy police chief popped the lock open. Italo smiled. “You really picked the wrong line of work!”

      “You’re not the first person to tell me that.” And Rocco swung open the door. Italo stopped him with one arm. “Shall I go first?” he asked, as he unholstered his pistol. “I mean, what if there really is someone barricaded in there?”

      “Who do you think is barricaded, Italo? Come on, let’s not talk bullshit.” And he strode in.

      They walked through the sliding door and found themselves in the living room. Italo headed for the kitchen. The deputy police chief continued down the hallway and took a look in the bedroom. The bed was unmade. He kept walking. At the end of the hall was another room. The door was shut. Italo caught up with Rocco just as his hand closed around the door handle. “No one in the kitchen. The place is a mess, but no one’s there. It looks like a tornado hit it.”

      Rocco nodded, then threw open the door.

      Darkness.

      The wooden blinds were lowered, and it was impossible to make out anything in the shadows. But the deputy police chief caught a whiff of something ugly. Sickly sweet, with hints of puke and piss. He found the light switch and flipped it on. A bright glare lit up the room for a second. Then a short circuit knocked out the power as a handful of sparks showered down through the dark like so many party streamers. The room was plunged back into shadow. But that flare of electric light, like a photographer’s camera flash, had seared a hair-raising image into the deputy police chief’s retina. “Shit! Italo, call the main switchboard. And tell them to get Fumagalli right over here.”

      “Dr. Fumagalli? The medical examiner? Why? What is it? Rocco, what did you see?”

      “Just do what I told you!”

      Italo backed a few steps out into the hallway, pulled out his cell phone, and did his best to punch in the main number for the hospital, but with the Beretta in his hand, it was no simple matter.

      Rocco groped his way forward and ventured in warily, one hand on the wall.

      His fingers brushed the edge of a bookshelf, then the wall again, then the corner of the room. He ran his hand over the wallpaper, pushed the curtain aside, and finally grasped the strap to raise the wooden roller blind. He gripped hard and gave it a first hard tug. Slowly the gray light of day filtered into the room. From below. As he hoisted the blind, the light first covered the floor, revealing an overturned step stool. With the second tug, daylight illuminated a pair of dangling bare feet; with the third, two legs, a pair of arms dangling alongside the body; and finally, once the roller blind was fully raised, the scene appeared before his eyes in all its macabre squalor. The woman was hanging from the lamp hook on the ceiling by a slender cable. Her head slumped forward, her chin rested against her chest, while her curly chestnut hair covered her face. There was a stain on the hardwood floor.

      “Oh

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