SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 3:10 P.M.
BLUME WENT STRAIGHT across town to the investigating magistrate’s office in Prati.
“Alec,” said Principe, leaning back and stretching his arms behind his head to reveal underarm sweat stains. “We missed you this morning.”
“I’m here now.”
“You arrive when it’s too hot for sane people to think straight.”
Blume glanced over at a rusting air conditioner hanging from the lower half of the window. “Does that thing not work?”
Principe shrugged. “I’ve never tried. Air conditioners give you throat infections, colds, and muscle spasms. I hear you want to take this investigation in a different direction. On a collision course with the second most important crime family in Rome.”
“How do you know that?”
Principe waved his hands like a conjurer. “Magistrate magic,” he said.
“Who phoned ahead?” said Blume. “Was it the Holy Ghost?”
“Yes, he filled me in on your meeting with Manuela Innocenzi. Now he wants me to block you. Should I?”
“I don’t see the point. I doubt that the Innocenzi syndicate had anything to do with the murder. This was a half-botched attempt done by an amateur.”
“Or by a professional imitating an amateur,” said Principe. “The messier the killing, the dumber the assassin seems, the less likely we are to tie it with a professional like Benedetto Innocenzi.”
“We’ll talk after I’ve interviewed the widow.”
“Ah. Now that was the other thing he wanted me to prohibit.”
“Well, you don’t want to block the only two avenues of investigation.”
“No. You should go ahead, talk to the widow. It seems you’re not convinced by the third avenue—the one leading to Alleva’s door?”
“I am not ruling anything out,” said Blume. “As for that television documentary Clemente was involved in, we could do with a copy of it from RAI. Maybe also a list of all the people involved in its making. You could maybe send Ferrucci there. Phone ahead, ease his way. It’s not as if it’s confidential material. They broadcast it to the nation a month ago, or to that part of the nation still up at eleven in the evening and watching RAI 2.”
Principe took out a fountain pen. “Fine. Anything else?”
“Not for now,” said Blume. “You coming for a coffee?”
Principe shook his head sadly. “I can’t. Coffee is full of cafestol. My doctor says there’s no point in taking Zocor at night then undoing all the good work during the day.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Blume.
“You should pay attention to these things,” said Principe. “Stress raises cholesterol. You look stressed.”
“I’d be more stressed if I couldn’t drink coffee because of . . . whatever that thing was,” said Blume.
“Cafestol. I’m allowed to drink filtered coffee, you know, that grayish brew you Americans like. Apparently there’s no cafestol in that. But I can’t bring myself to. I’d rather die.”
Blume retrieved his car from outside the court building and drove back to the station. He parked it in the piazza outside, nodding to the illegal parking attendant, who had hundreds of car keys attached to chains around his waist and jingled as he walked.
Blume walked into the station courtyard. Until recently, it had been filled with police vehicles and a very old Fiat Jeep, but then a decision was made to take over the piazza outside and turn the courtyard back into its original function as an internal garden, with a fountain in the middle. The removal of the cars had not caused flowers to burst through the concrete. And no one had thought to repair the fountain, a slime-covered object, said to be by Borromini, around which squadrons of tiger mosquitoes swarmed.
As he reached the center of the courtyard, he lifted his head up from the ground directly in front of him and saw someone sitting on the dilapidated wooden bench. Even before looking at her directly, Blume had already registered her as the woman who had walked in on their meeting by mistake. The object of her study was the crumbling fountain.
She had a graceful white neck, and her hair was the same copper color as the leaves of the Mirabolan plum tree behind her. She had hooked one leg over the other and rested a board and sketchpad on her knee. At twenty paces, he thought he could detect the smell of white soap and pastel colors, which suddenly reminded him of a moment in playschool in Seattle, long ago.
She was wearing blue jeans and Birkenstock sandals and a white blouse.
Something about the whiteness of the cotton blouse, the brightness of her skin, told him she was American. A few loose sheaves from her sketchbook were fluttering in the wind. Now he noticed that she was only a few years younger than he was. At ten paces, he had resolved to say something to her. She sensed his arrival and glanced up and gave him a smile.
Blume smiled and nodded at the sketch she was doing. She half held it up, almost as if asking him for an opinion. As she did so, a gust of dusty wind pulled some papers from the bench beside her and sent them gliding to the ground. One piece slid over the broken paving, losing its pristine whiteness. Blume picked it up, in spite of her protests of “Grazie—non importa.” Holding the sheet with a slightly reverential air, he approached her.
“There you are,” he said in English.
“Non era necessario,” she said, with a smile that gave him a constricted feeling in his chest. He hoped she would hurry up and notice he had spoken in English.
“No problem,” he said. This time the message got through.
“Ah, so you speak English? I was a bit slow in noticing.”
“No, not at all.” Blume was full of disagreement.
“The wind,” she explained.
“Yes, I saw it.”
I can see invisible streams of air. I’m gifted that way.
But she didn’t seem to notice his phrasing, and gathered the sheets together and, without separating the clean from dirty or even the blanks from those with sketches, bundled them all into a soft leather bag. Now she was packing away all her things, as if the gust of wind had been a sudden order to abandon the field. Her right hand was covered in charcoal dust, yet her blouse remained perfectly white.
“Come on, let’s see the last one you did. My parents were art teachers. I know a bit about these things.”
Laughing, she flapped her hand around in her bag, eventually settled on one, and held it out to him.
Blume found himself looking at a charcoal smudge. He didn’t want to take it in his own hands in case he held it upside down or sideways or something.
“I bet you’re wondering why I am in a police station sketching.”
In fact he was wondering how to ask her out for a drink. All other inquiries were suspended from his mind, so that when she asked him a direct question, he answered with distracted candidness.
“Is my sketch any good?”
“Not yet.”
It’s what his father would have said to him. Did say to him.
She said, “You know something? It’s good you said that. I could have got all creeped out if you’d done the whole gallant thing.”
“I’m not saying you couldn’t make it . . .”
“Don’t spoil it. Just tell me, could you do any better?”
“No. I was a great disappointment to my father. I get Paoloni to do the crime scene sketches, and you should see his work.”
“I am Kristin. It begins with a K. I’m just leaving.”
“Alec, though my name varies depending on who is talking to me. Most say Alex, Alessio, Alessandro, or Alè. But in all cases it begins with an A.”
Blume stopped talking, and wished he had thought of stopping before.
She packed away her things and started walking across the courtyard to the front gate. Blume walked beside her. She was almost as tall as he was.
“Where are you from, Alec?”
“I work here.”
“Before that.”
“Seattle.”
Six years ago, he had passed the halfway mark. He had now spent more of his life in Italy than out of it. But Seattle was where he was from.
“I’m from Vermont. Near Plymouth.” She paused briefly to see if he had anything to say about that. “You been in Italy long?”
“Yeah, a bit,” said Blume. A bit more than a bit. Twenty-two years. He wasn’t going to tell her that. He was only beginning to tell himself it.
“What was your business with the vicequestore aggiunto?”
“Gallone, isn’t it? I just needed to give him a conference invitation.”
Blume wanted to know more, but did not want to waste time talking about Gallone. They had already reached the piazza outside, and he was in imminent danger of losing her.
“Are you going to be around later this evening?” There, he’d said it.
Kristin stopped and gave him an appraising look.
“Sure,” she said finally. “I’m going for a drink in Trastevere with some friends. You know the fountain in Piazza Santa Maria? We’re meeting there around nine thirty this evening.”
“I don’t want to butt in on any plans or anything,” said Blume, wondering who and how many these friends were and, more to the point, what gender.
“I’m going to be there. You’re very welcome to come along.” Kristin held up her hand to mark the end of the conversation, turned it into a half salute, and walked off before Blume had thought of anything to say.
Even so, Blume was pleased with himself. His last relationship had ended two years ago after a massive row that began over, of all things, his refusal to vote. Elena left him, and three months later married a more participatory member of the electorate.
In his twenties, Blume had had the rare distinction, almost unheard of in Italy, of not living with or even depending on his parents. But he had failed to exploit the full potential of his autonomy. He found flirting and the other preliminaries so excruciating that rather than go through them again, he would stick with the same woman, regardless of how fast the relationship trundled downhill.
This meeting with Kristin had not been too bad. Maybe he was improving with age. He went to the canteen for a late lunch, ordered a coffee, and forgot to eat.