Into the Killer Sphere (7 page)

Angelo touched his head, imagining the pain. Chase wrinkled his lips, feeling satisfied that his previous suspicions were well founded. The glass ball had all the credentials to be an excellent casual murder weapon: quite large, with a massive base and sharp corners to pierce the flesh.

Matteo finished his reasoning.

“Now, a man would have hit Galli from a higher or equal height. The blood spatter pattern would have been different from the one we found at the crime scene. In fact, I simulated the gesture I’ve just shown you at the lab and the blood traces don’t match with the crime scene ones.”

Angelo looked at Cangi with a dazed expression: it was now clear that the murderer hadn’t hit Galli with the sphere, otherwise they wouldn’t have found it intact.

Ballistic stuff bored Chase, so he started leafing through Matteo’s coroner’s report, which he had finally got his hands on when Angelo volunteered to act as Signor Galli.

According to the file, the victim had been hit in the occipital area of the skull and in the neck. The impacts were so vicious as to deeply injure Galli and break his axis and atlas vertebrae.

“So what?
Bello
, I will never understand your blood art, explain yourself,” Angelo said to Cangi.

“The fact that the glass ball has left its mark on the base of Galli’s neck, and not higher, could indicate that the murderer is smaller in stature than the victim,” Cangi finally clarified.

“Like someone who couldn’t reach Galli’s head and therefore make the sphere shatter,” Angelo mumbled, getting the point.

“Like, for instance, a woman with enough strength to inflict one or more lethal injuries on Piero Galli. The blood spatters fit with this hypothesis,” Matteo concluded.

While Cangi was explaining himself, Angelo began creating rings with the smoke he breathed out, just like he did while talking with Ramona. It was such a horrible habit. The wind blew the smoke rings towards Chase, who was evidently annoyed.

“Give over, Angelo,” Chase grumbled, closing the file.

“What?” Angelo asked.

“This smoke thing. Pack it in, it’s annoying me.”

“
Scusa
.”

Chase hoped that his complaint was enough to make him stop, but Matteo didn’t take any notice of anything and kept whispering as if he was talking to himself.

“So who killed Piero Galli? Every potential female suspect has a confirmed alibi apart from Signora Agata. Gloria was at home with her three kids and her husband, the Romanian maid was at the grocery store, Rachele was at the printers with Doctor Conforti, but old Agata was at home, alone with her dead son. It sounds too easy. But does she have enough strength to hit such a big boy like Galli?” Angelo muttered.

“One detail is eluding me: why cut down the chandelier? And with what?” Chase wondered. He couldn’t think about it while Angelo kept blowing his damned smoke rings over him.

“Stop it, mate! Bloody hell!” Chase exclaimed, visibly irritated. “You’re really bothering me with this damn smoke.”

“
Scusa,
I haven’t done it on purpose.” Angelo immediately moved the cigarette away.

Chase froze for a moment. He
stared into nothingness,
eyes wide open. It was enough to make his friend react.

“Hello, Chase? Now this is on purpose,” Angelo said, blowing smoke into Chase’s face. Matteo laughed, amused.

“Someday I’ll lock you in a hovel with no cigarettes. You are definitely going to thank me, mate.” Chase expressed disapproval by shaking his head. Chase knew that Angelo needed his help to quit smoking as much as he needed him to solve this mystery.

Chapter
8

The sun was finally shining on the Galli’s villa, even if some dark clouds were slowly coming from the south, threatening rain.

The whole family was gathered at the villa to go together to the Church of San Domenico, where Piero’s funeral was to be held. The coroner had allowed the family to bury him with incredible speed, especially considering the amount of typical Tursenian red tape involved.

According to what Cangi had heard at the laboratory, Signora Galli had put pressure on her superiors to get Piero into the family grave as soon as possible, in line with Christian dictates. To be honest, Agata Galli didn’t seem the God-fearing type at all, neither to Chase nor to Angelo, while Matteo frankly said that it was just an excuse to conceal her act of murder, in his opinion.

There was a strange excitement around the house, quiet and composed. Everything had to be got ready to welcome the guests after the function, and Gloria and Marco had come to the villa early in the morning to help.

Chase parked his blue
Opel along the main road, not far from the villa. Marco Galli’s car, a grey Audi sedan, was parked inside the property, not far from Ramona’s yellow Fiat Panda and Conforti’s unpretentious white city car.

Chase had woken up early that morning and queued at the insurance company for half an hour to get a replacement insurance disc for his car. He didn’t understand much of what the women at the counter told him. The only thing he clearly understood was that his credit card, at least for that day, was now maxed out.

Chase had a final look at this very expensive new insurance disc on the windscreen of his car and entered the villa, closing the main gate behind him. Usually those kind of gates squeaked if they were not electronically controlled, but the Gallis looked after everything and every detail.

Since the front door was open and nobody was there to welcome him, Chase started looking around the villa again by himself.

Everything was ready for the guests, including the furniture and curtains moved from the living room to the hallway in order to make the police tape and seals marking the library as inconspicuous as possible. Everything should look perfect and shining as befitted a wealthy family.

It was strange that the police were allowing people to come to the villa and have a drink with Piero’s relatives. The villa was still a crime scene in fact and it could easily be contaminated, even though the important findings and evidence had been classified and taken to the police station.

“
If this had happened in London, the head of the department would have been fired,
” Chase thought, walking past the stairs seeking someone, anyone, as the house seemed unpopulated.

He had to talk with his main suspects if he wanted to solve the case before the
Pubblico Ministero
archived Angelo’s case as an accident, which it obviously was not. Chase needed the time he didn’t have.
Angelo had landed him with a huge responsibility, just the very magic touch his brief vacation needed to be unforgettable.

In the unreal silence of the house he fully opened the half-shut door of the living room, looking for Ramona
Sadoveanu
. Instead he encountered only a desperate Marco Galli. He was crying buckets, while arranging some bottles of white and red wine, spirits and mixers on the main table. Chase hesitated before approaching him. He was letting himself go, maybe confident of not being seen or heard by anyone, because the others were meant to be upstairs or somewhere else.

Chase discreetly touched his arm.

“Signor Galli, are you ok?”

“
Sì, grazie
,” he sobbed, then he changed his mind. “No, I’m not ok. I hate this. I can’t believe my brother is dead. I can’t believe that someone could have killed my brother and no one can find the murderer!” he shouted, pointing his finger at Chase. “If there really was a murder. This is something that you’ve put in my mother’s head, in some way. Not only is my brother dead, but we have also to cope with my mother accusing my niece of her father’s murder. Gloria and I don’t want to have anything to do with your preposterous theory. The police are
not worth a dime.”

Chase looked at Marco’s finger pointing at him, then at Marco himself, put both hands on his shoulders and made him sit down on the arm of a leather armchair. The man was still clearly in shock. He let himself be seated, breathing heavily through the sobs. His trembling hands were now lying on his lap while his face was very red and puffed up.

“We're here for you, Signor Galli, we’ll figure out what happened to your brother, whatever the cause of his death.”

Chase tried not to show how uncomfortable he felt.

“Can you tell me where Ramona is? I need to talk to her,” he gently added. Marco
pointed to the kitchen, sniffling with his purple nose. Chase thanked him and left Marco alone in the living room. He was about to open one of the bottles of spirits, and Chase could not blame the man.

Surrounded by an army of trays, Ramona was frantically moving through them, placing things on them according to Signora Agata’s strict orders listed on a piece of paper fixed to the fridge. She was dealing with coffee, sugar, cold drinks, biscuits, glasses and coffee cups and a lot of food. Chase thought that all this bounty was simply an exaggerated show to welcome the funeral attendees, and had the feeling that Ramona thought the same too. They were talking about a sad event, a death; it was not supposed to be a party, after all.

Ramona agreed to talk to Chase, who showed great interest in the customs of the house.

“Signora Agata is a creature of habit, nothing has ever changed since I started working here,” Ramona commenced. “She doesn’t like changes and never accepts them willingly. Even her new blood pressure pills have become a nightmare. Every time she has to take them she complains with me as if it’s my fault. I think it’s a way to express her affection for me. She’s a strong lady, she went hungry during the war, she’s always telling me about that,” Ramona vented.

“She seems like a very precise person, the kind of person who’s never late. Is she?” Chase asked, his green eyes fixed on her brown ones.

“Of course she is. She shares that with Signora Gloria. They are as accurate and punctual as Swiss watches, that’s why they get along.”

“And what about Signor Piero?” Chase went on. Ramona offered him a salmon canapé, but he refused with a wave of his hand.

“Signor Piero was a creature of habit as well, especially when it came to his dogs. Getting used to those routines was such a pain for me at the beginning, but luckily I’ve never had to deal with his animals. Anyway, the pay is good after all, so I can’t complain.”

Chase casually leant against the mantelpiece and decided to play the sympathy card. He was sure he could obtain more information about the Gallis’ time idiosyncrasies by making Ramona comfortable and chatting to her while she went about her duties. To be honest, Chase was usually a precise kind of guy himself, although he tolerated a low level of chaos, especially Angelo’s level of chaos. He couldn’t understand how a maid could do her job properly without attention to detail.

“I can totally understand you, Signorina Sadoveianu
.
” Again, he didn’t manage to pronounce her surname properly.
“
I suppose that Signora Agata’s life is regimented almost hour by hour, or perhaps I am overstating your situation?”

Ramona’s eyes lit up. “No, you’re not, not at all! Every day is the same, precise story. When something changes, Signora Galli gets mad and I am lumbered with her.”

“No way!” Chase plied her with sympathy.

“You’re not gonna believe this: every day I wake Signora Agata in the morning, at eight o’clock. Not a minute later, of course. Then she has her breakfast and gets ready for the day. Later, while she reads the paper, I tidy up the house; afterwards I accompany her on her daily walk, you know, just a couple of minutes
to keep the circulation in her legs going
. Before lunch sometimes she reads or watches TV, while after lunch she reads again or crochets or socialises with her acquaintances. That’s the part I like the most, when she enjoys her friends. Before having dinner, she personally chooses a book to read the following day. I don’t know how she can read an entire book every day. After dinner, which I usually serve at eight or nine o’clock depending on whether or not I’ve finished my tasks, she watches TV, then goes to sleep.”

Ramona was a river of words. She took a little breath, then kept talking.

“It’s been five years since I began working here. Occasionally we receive a visit from somebody new, but her usual visitors are her regular friends, and Gloria and Marco of course, and especially Gloria. You know, she likes gardening and I can’t do anything related to plants, so Signora Agata lets Gloria help her there. Signor Piero was generally much more flexible than Signora Agata, but he was inflexible over two things: meals and walking his beloved dogs.”

Ramona snorted and mechanically wiped the counter with a dishtowel.

“Do you remember what time Piero fed the dogs?” Chase asked.

“Do I remember? How I could forget it! The animals go out at 10.00 in the morning, then at 4.00 and 9.30 in the evening, while they eat at noon and at 9.00 in the evening.” She didn’t hesitate at all.