Into the Killer Sphere

Into the Killer Sphere

By Stefania Mattana

Copyright - 2013 Stefania Mattana

All rights reserved

www.eraniapinnera.com

www.chasetwilliams.com

Cover by Alessandro Burelli -
maestroambrosiano.tumblr.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. For information, email
[email protected]

Chapter 1

One step after the other, quick, as quickly as he could. It’s not easy when you have been running for a while and another hill stands before you. Tursenia, “
The city of the Etruscans
”, was full of climbs, situated as it was in the Apennine Mountains.

Chase Williams knew how to manage his stamina in spite of the hills, even when he was out of breath. Even if running was tiring, Chase loved doing it along the roads, sweating and facing all the various weather conditions, which in London had been mostly cold, windy, cloudy and rainy. A drop of rain splashed on his nose, and Chase instinctively lifted his head up: wasn’t Italy famous for its proverbial sunny weather? His movement meant he didn’t see a pot-hole in the road that made him stumble. Thanks to an unnatural turn of the foot, Chase, his balance gone, let himself fall to the ground. A girl with a heap of curls on her head passed him, laughing.

“Very well,” he muttered, shaking himself and standing back up. “It's raining, I twisted my ankle and a woman just laughed at me: what next?"

The mobile phone attached to his arm vibrated
.
Every time he went out running he tried not to take his mobile with him, but always did. And it often rang. Chase looked at the display and sighed.

“I can’t take my car, mate, my insurance has expired,” Chase replied to the voice on the phone after a few moments of listening. “Come and pick me up. See you in fifteen minutes.”

Before speeding back home, Chase stopped to have a quick look at some pictures freshly arrived on his phone. He smirked and shook his head.

A couple of days off: Chase had waited for these days for ages, and now they were going to be ruined. He put his keys in the bowl on the TV, and his eyes settled on Ernesto Ceccarelli’s folders lying on the sofa. He was always too busy at Ceccarelli’s cashmere company where he worked, dealing with tons of papers and documents, and having meetings with contagiously stressed managers. And often the work followed him home. He regretted leaving his old job in London for a moment, then frowned as he thought of his days off getting spoiled.

“Surely a master of import/export deals like me deserves a holiday? Apparently I’m destined to work during my vacation too. What the heck,” he said loudly, jumping into the shower. He always spoke to himself when he was alone.

Chase had planned a solitary vacation, but in a matter of thirty minutes he was in the countryside not so far from Tursenia, under a livid sky and surrounded by the rain- scented air. He was staring at the front door of a big villa with a stunning garden in full bloom, an uncommon sight in winter. As soon as he entered the garden, some dogs started barking, disclosing the presence of intruders. Chase looked around him, trying to figure out where the dogs were, but he couldn’t see them.

There was a neat, lush lawn surrounding the villa. The path was lined by hedges of butcher’s broom, while the rose bushes led the eye to the east side of the garden, where a fruit tree overarched the path. A row of purple geraniums towered in the little balcony above the patio, while the west side of the garden was completely enclosed. Since the barking came from that direction, probably that area of the garden belonged to the dogs.

It seemed a nice property. This kind of villa, isolated from any other building, was a favourite target for criminals, especially in Tursenia. Sometimes they were drug addicts, desperate for something that might be exchanged for dope money, but most of the time they were fledgling crooks who had no scruples when it came to pulling a trigger.

But this time no one had shot anyone.

Angelo Alunni had brought Chase to the villa using the police force’s Alfa car. Angelo was an Inspector in the Tursenian police; he didn’t belong to a particular department since in cities like Tursenia there weren’t any separate homicide, anti-fraud or other bureaux. He was simply an Inspector: if there was a problem which needed further investigation, Angelo would be called. And that was a problem.

He knocked at the door with an assured attitude, while Chase was waiting behind him, a few steps away from the entrance.

“What are you looking at?” Angelo asked Chase.

“Nice jacket,” Chase replied.

Angelo raised his eyebrows and kept staring at the closed door. He was of medium height and sturdy build, but not fat. Regular features framed his tired, sunken brown eyes. He was a little older than Chase, and was the very first friend Chase had made in Tursenia eight months before. In truth, he and Angelo had already met each other more than few times when they were younger, as their fathers were fellows during a special Interpol Academy in the late 60s, afterwards remaining friends.

Angelo always had a couple of days’ beard growth, an odd thing for a member of the fuzz, even more so for one of the most promising inspectors of the Tursenian police. He had recently shaved his head in the manner of Inspector Montalbano. He said that this way he would be able to pick up more girls, but Chase thought he’d done it because his hair didn’t suit him anyway.

A forensic officer dressed all in white finally opened the front door, beckoning them in. Chase had sworn to his father he would never be involved in any kind of police-related stuff, not even in Italy. But here he was again, this time in plain clothes. He couldn’t believe he had agreed to be there, searching for clues. Again.

“You sure I’m allowed to be here?” Chase asked Angelo.

“
Sì
, don’t worry about it. My colleagues barely notice you, as I’ve told you previously. Tursenians are pretty unobservant, you should know that by now. And the police are no different. You are with me, stay cool,
bello
.” Angelo smiled with confidence.

Chase decided to stay cool and relaxed into his surroundings. He began to look around inside the villa, which was very quiet. He still hadn’t got used to not seeing wallpaper on the walls and no carpets on the floor, so the rooms seemed to him brighter and bigger than they really were, with tiled floors, finely furnished and well-accessorised. The dining table was full of bridal magazines and samples of fabrics strewn here and there, as if someone had left everything there waiting for a selection to be made.

Angelo sped up towards the library, where his forensics colleagues were still searching for evidence. The room was big and cold, furnished with precious Italian and French antique-style furniture, inspired by the Sun King’s era. A half-timbered chimney - decorated with images of hunting scenes - was next to one of the two French doors. Everything seemed in perfect order, from the books on the shelves and the throw on the armchair, to every trinket in the cupboard and on the desk. Everything, except for the rosy marble floor, where a heavy crystal chandelier lay shattered into a thousand pieces. Angelo had a quick look at the cigarettes in the pocket of his shirt: he wanted to take one, but he was in the middle of a crime scene, so would have to wait.

“Piero Galli, sixty-nine years old, died here at about seven or eight o’clock in the evening. Be careful, Chase, there's still a lot of glass on the floor. Apparently the chandelier fell and crushed him, but this version of the story doesn't make any sense.”

A man lay on the floor, facing up, his body sprayed with little pieces of glass. The floor around him was dotted with blood. Chase could see only a quarter of Piero Galli’s face, all shredded by shards of glass, because the head was turned almost 180 degrees, in an unnatural position. His nose looked broken, judging from the evident swelling and the bruising underneath both of his eyes.

This was why Angelo had called Chase. Even if he wanted to erase it from his memory, Chase had been a promising young detective in the London Metropolitan Police. His father was a renowned sergeant at Scotland Yard, and Chase took after him in his unerring instinct and sharp wit. But Chase was also a daredevil, and after having been responsible for a big mess, they sent him to Italy to behave like an angel.

“You couldn't call someone else, could you, Angelo? What about your fellow cops – Sasso, Bibi, Mecci, anyone?”

“Come on
bello
, are you serious? Mecci is such a jerk; those fruit machines are frying his brain! He said it’s a matter of accidental death and wanted to file the case, but I tell you, there is something going on here. All possible suspects have a watertight alibi, except for one, Piero’s mother. Anyhow, Mecci said she’s too old to kill a big man like her son. Basically he could not wait to go home. You got to help me out.”

Chase sighed, bothered, but Angelo hammered on.

“Look,
bello
, it’s homicide, you know I’m never wrong. It’s just that I need your help to figure it out. I know that you’re not into police stuff anymore and blah blah blah, but you can’t let your friend down. You miss the police, don’t you? Come on, no one is going to know. Promise.”

Chase sighed again. He hated admitting it, but Angelo was damned right about his feelings. He missed his police life a lot.

“There’s no evidence of a struggle, so if Galli was murdered by someone, he didn’t fight to save his life,” Angelo said, peeking into his little notebook.

Chase gave the room a once-over, making note of the exits: a French door leading to a fruit garden to the east, and another leading to the west side and the dogs’ pen. From this viewpoint Chase could see the movement of the dogs in their enclosure. The locks on the doors had no signs of forced entry, so Galli had let in his presumed murderer without resistance.

Chase was leaning out of one of the doors when Angelo scolded him.

“Don’t go out of the room, Chase. Yesterday it rained a lot so the fruit garden is muddy. You could contaminate the crime scene with your footprints.”

His friend was right again, how could Chase have forgotten that? Angelo didn’t shut up for a minute, pointing out the shape drawn on the floor.

“You see the way the body has fallen? It’s not normal, falling like that if a chandelier crushes you accidentally.”

“Yep, I see,” commented Chase.

Angelo started miming how the things might have happened.

“If you’re hit by something falling down on you, you don’t fall that way. If something hits your head, you would probably collapse and later fall to the ground, face down.”

"Instead he’s on his back," added Chase.

"Exactly. I think he was moved, or he died later, after the impact from the chandelier."

“Look at his neck. It seems broken,” Chase pointed out.

Angelo nodded. “You said it. Another point for me and my homicide theory.”

“Any fingerprints?” Chase asked.

“Not one, of course. We would have found some if it had been an accident. But we didn’t find any. Tell Mecci.”

“These modern-day murderers watch too much television,” Chase remarked carelessly.

“You said it. Too many CSI agents running around on TV has made them clever.”

Then Angelo led Chase over to the fireplace.

“Look. Does it seem normal to you?”

Chase stooped to inspect it. Angelo handed him a latex glove, which took Chase three attempts to pull on before tearing it. He had never had a good relationship with latex. He tried two more, tearing each one of those too.