Into the Killer Sphere (2 page)

Angelo passed him a fourth.

“If you break this too, I’ll smear your blood all over it, and make you appear as the murderer, I’m telling you!” Angelo grinned. Chase laughed and finally managed to put the glove on.

“If you look at these traces of blood at the bottom of the chimney, you can see that someone moved the body from the place it actually fell,” Angelo added, while Chase was sinking his white finger in the blood, checking its consistency.

“Have you already sent it to forensics?” Chase asked Angelo.

“Yes, and I'm sure it's Piero Galli’s,” he replied. “Plus, if you’re still not convinced, apparently the chandelier was cut down with some blade. I’m waiting for the forensic tests but we’re ninety-nine percent sure. So, what do you say?”

Chapter 2

Chase had always hated it when a guest smoked inside the host’s house. It was not polite at all, in his opinion, even if Angelo had requested permission to do so. It didn't seem such an urgency to Chase. Nevertheless, Angelo couldn't resist any longer and lit his damned cigarette.

Ramona Sadoveanu’s hand was trembling as she handed the porcelain ashtray to Angelo. Her eyes were full of tears and, when she spoke, her voice was interrupted by soft sobs. She knew she was their prime suspect: a Romanian working in a house where someone died in obscure circumstances was always guilty in Tursenians’ minds. There were too many robberies in villas ending in a death, too many Albanians and Romanians involved in violence and crimes. Ramona immediately gave the police her alibi.

“I was at the supermarket, the big one in Ferciano, as I told your colleague,” she began. “It’s not too far from here, closer than the ones in Tursenia. I came back as soon as Signor Galli’s daughter called to tell me what had happened. Here.”

The woman took a piece of paper from her pocket and gave it to Angelo.

“This is the receipt from the supermarket. Look, there’s the time, it was 7:45 p.m. when I left the shop.”

“Signorina
Sadoveniu
, no one here is implying that you are a suspect,” Chase said coolly.

The woman started crying desperately and had to lean on the table.

“I can’t believe Signor Galli is dead! I’ve lived with him, his daughter and his mother since I’ve been in Italy. His wife was already dead when I came here. God, I can’t believe he’s dead!”

Angelo looked at her, entranced by her long blonde tresses waving every time she sobbed. Chase thought that maybe Angelo was not as used to seeing such blonde hair as he was.

“Signorina
Sadoveianau
, do you know if Mr Galli had any enemies?” Chase asked, cursing to himself about those wretched surnames being so difficult to pronounce.

The maid noisily blew her nose on a napkin, then offered the men a plate of sweets with the same hand that she’d used to blow her nose. Angelo made a face and declined.

“Basically, nobody could stand him. It’s unpleasant to say, but it’s true,” she shrugged. “He was always grumpy and rude to everybody. He was sweet and nice only to his dogs. His daughter really didn’t like that. Not being nice, I mean. Anyway, even if he used to make people uncomfortable, no one had a reason to kill him, in my opinion. He stayed with those creatures all the time, people didn’t bother about him anymore. And neither did his daughter: she knew her dad was out of his mind, so she left him alone.”

“According to what you’ve just said, no one could have killed Piero Galli. The receipt you’ve shown us is proof of your innocence, but apparently you’re feeling agitated about it.”

Chase turned again to Angelo, who was playing with the smoke from his cigarette, blowing rings into the air. It was really annoying and smelly. Angelo didn’t get Chase’s intention, so he kept speaking.

“I mean, I can understand that you’re upset about Signor Galli’s death, but you look like you’re concealing something. Don’t you think that there is something inconsistent here?” questioned Chase.

Angelo turned to Chase and frowned, wanting an explanation.

Ramona squeezed her handkerchief tighter again and started crying harder.

“I know, Signor… sorry, I don’t remember your name. It’s obvious I can’t be a suspect, but I feel like I’m the murderer at the moment! Signora Galli will never forgive me. It’s my fault if that chandelier fell. She’s always telling me I don’t do my job properly. If I dusted it more often, I would have noticed that it was faulty and no one would have died!”

“Thank you, Signorina Sadoveanu. I have to ask you please not to go anywhere and to stay in the villa as much as possible. We may need to talk with you again,” Angelo said, taking his leave.

Afterwards Angelo led Chase outside the villa. They closed the main gate behind them and started walking along the pavement.

“Where are we going?” asked Chase.

“Checking the surroundings. We should find out if anyone heard or saw anything suspicious yesterday night. There must be some neighbours somewhere,” Angelo replied.

Even though the villa was quite isolated, there was a property not so far from it, less than half a mile. That was the place Angelo was going to.

“Do you know who lives there?” Chase questioned.

“Roughly. A man, don’t remember his name.”

Chase opened his eyes wide. “I can’t believe you don’t know whose door you are going to knock on. Haven’t you written down his name?”

“No. I don’t need to. We can have a look at the name displayed on the intercom at the gate,” Angelo calmly replied.

“Don’t you know that your attitude is irresponsible?” complained Chase. He could not get used to Angelo’s and the Tursenian police force’s inattention to details.

“Why are you limping, by the way?” Angelo changed the topic, focusing on his friend’s awkward gait.

Chase lowered his head.

“It’s nothing. I twisted my ankle this morning when you called me,” he justified himself. He knew that it was a lie, but why did he have to tell him the truth and look like a real idiot?

“Why were you running in the morning? What about your job? Don’t tell me they fired you! You can’t keep a job, huh?” said Angelo.

Chase was annoyed. His discharge from Scotland Yard was not a dismissal, at least, not technically speaking. However, he ignored Angelo’s provocation since he didn’t want to take issue with him.

“Yep. I was running because I’m supposed to be on vacation. But you dragged me down here, so I guess my vacation has officially ended.”

“Well, you can’t ask for a better vacation than a case like this one,” Angelo laughed.

The closest house to the villa was the modest place of an old, crabby man, Signor Delitalia. He had a neat vegetable garden, a couple of hens and four or five dogs. He was dressed in old, light blue overalls and a dirty white woollen shirt. A couple of his teeth were missing and he didn’t look comfortable when he saw his visitors.

Delitalia received Angelo and Chase with distrust outside his house, keeping them in the courtyard. He kept a special eye on Chase, since he had realised he wasn’t Italian.

“I didn’t hear anything, of course. I was too far from the villa to be able to do that. The only noise I hear every day is from Galli’s dogs. When it’s time to eat, they start barking. They sense it, they sense it’s meal time, and then they bark. It’s so annoying! Look, my dogs are nice and quiet, but when Piero’s dogs bark, mine bark too. It’s like a bloody concert, I can’t stand them!”

The old man gesticulated like a mime actor. He made a gesture with his arm, hand or body to accompany each word he said. Chase watched him carefully, trying to work out if these actions could help him to better understand that garbled Italian. He guessed he only poorly understood because of the man’s strong dialect. And his lack of teeth made him hiss when speaking.

“Do you know anything about Signor Galli that we should know? Did you like him?” Angelo asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Do you really think I care about the Gallis? Since Marta, Piero’s wife, passed away the whole family’s gone downhill. Piero became bloody rude and no one in that house deserves anything from me. Neither him nor his fascist mother nor his freaky daughter. Not even a cabbage from my garden. So much the worse for them!” Delitalia complained.

He looked angry and upset at the same time, as if he was trying to hide his sorrow with tough words against the Gallis. While he was speaking, he walked towards the old iron gate of his house and he didn’t stop walking until Angelo and Chase were close enough to realise they were not welcome anymore.

“Well, it turns out that we failed. Not epically, but we failed, mate,” Chase said.

“You say that,
bello
, but we can work it out. I gotta take you home. I have some papers to handle at the police station. You know, I’d invite you to join us for lunch but you have such an allergy to our police station. I don’t get it,
amico
, really. Why did you leave Scotland Yard? It’s been like… a year or something? And you’ve never told me, what’s wrong with you?”

It was not the first time Angelo had broached that topic. And yet people always said it was Chase who was the nosier of the two of them. Anyway, Chase hated that subject, and the less he spoke about it, the better.

“Could you please shut up and drive? Your driving skills are as terrible as every Tursenian’s. I hate you guys, really,” he said, changing the topic.

Chase had just got out of Angelo’s car and was approaching his home, when a scream pierced the air. It came from
Mangia Buono
, a traditional shop built into the Etruscan Walls of ancient Tursenia, where Chase used to buy lots of pasta, wine and delicious Tursenian sauces. The voice clearly belonged to Marcella, the sweet woman who owned the shop.

“Chase, they've given you a fine! Go and see it!” Marcella yelled, peeping out from the shop and tying her apron.

If Chase had ever worn her apron, it would have looked like a tight mini skirt on him. Marcella was so tiny that from the back, you’d have guessed she was a twelve-year-old girl. She probably dyed her dark hair as she was in her forties, but Chase didn’t actually know when women started to dye their hair in the battle against going grey. Besides, some women always dyed their hair, no matter their age. Furthermore, Marcella had a lot of little tattoos, not so common for a twelve-year-old girl. Stars, geckos, tribal motifs and so on, her skin was full of inky sparkles.

“What the hell? Are you serious? For what?” Chase shouted back, moving closer to her. “What do they want?”

“I don’t know. I just saw them writing it out on pink paper on the front of your car. That’s it. Go and check it out!”

Chase knew it would have happened sooner or later. He couldn’t park his car near his house because he lived inside the Walls, and it was forbidden to park in the historical town centre as it was a preserved area, protected by Italian law. Of course, compared to how many cars were actually parked outside the Etruscan Walls, the number of authorised parking spaces available were relatively few – and so traffic wardens enjoyed themselves by handing out fines. Anyhow, Chase was sure that he’d parked his car in an authorised place, and he was right. He angrily grabbed the piece of pink paper with the fine written on it, then cursed.

“Twenty-five euros? No way!” he exclaimed, crumpling up the fine.

Furthermore, how could the Municipal Police be taken seriously by citizens if they wrote fines on pink sheets? Apparently, it was the Italian law: fines must be written on pastel coloured paper. As if the colour could make you swear less. Add insult to injury.

“You've got to be having a laugh!” he muttered as he made his way to Marcella’s place, close to the main entrance.

“So?” asked Marcella.

“It’s my car insurance. It expired three days ago. Just three lousy days, unbelievable! I knew I couldn’t use the car until I renewed the insurance, that’s why it’s parked and why I asked my friend to pick me up this morning.” Chase sighed, still angry.

In the meantime Signora Paoletta Testi joined them, arriving with her usual shuffled walk. It was impossible to not notice her coming. Paoletta was a pleasant, retired neighbour of theirs who was famous around and about for her love for animals and birds.

“
Mamma mia
, they definitely have radar on their hats!” Paoletta commented, as though it was totally normal for a person to come into a place and start jabbering about something she was not supposed to know.

“I saw them putting fines on some cars, I didn’t know one of them was yours,
caro
,” she ended, seeking something inside her big bag.

According to Chase’s knowledge of her, she was probably looking for a tin of cat food or a lighter. Signora Testi and Marcella enjoyed chatting and smoking cigarettes together. Moreover, they had a lot of things in common, even if Marcella was much younger than Paoletta, such as their shared love for cats, their hatred of TV and their way of knowing everything about the people of Tursenia. Actually, Signora Testi really did know everything about everybody in Tursenia. Chase never understood how she did it, nor what kind of spies she had all around the city.