Liar Moon by Ben Pastor Read Free Book Online

Guidi looked out of his ground-floor window at the trees across the street, shaking in a low, angry wind. On the pavement and at the street corners, dry leaves coiled up into funnels and spun like tops. The snub-nosed soldier, green like a lizard in his winter uniform, looked at the leaves too. How dense Turco was, Guidi thought, not to realize that he was more vexed than anyone at having to ask Bora for help.
    As soon as the coat arrived, Guidi drove his arms into the sleeves Turco held out to him and, after carefully bundling up, he walked outside. Soon men and dogs were piled up in a small truck loaned by the town garage, a clattery piece of junk which brought them all toward the windy banks of the river.
    It wanted to snow. Canals and ditches steamed like foundry sluices, while shallow water holes were already sealed by ice. On the hard terrain, Guidi, Turco and two policemen armed with rifles followed the soldier and his dogs past rows of gloomy trees and briars shiny with frost.
     
    In Verona, despite the interruption, De Rosa had succeeded in bringing Lisi’s funeral to a close. As soon as
the hearse started down the battlement-thick, fortified bridge with its cortege of cars, he turned back to the castle’s courtyard, where Bora remained. So had the sentinels and, in their midst, the woman in black.
    Bora paid no attention to De Rosa, as he was busy taking leave of Habermehl. Habermehl always gave advice. He now shook his hand and buffeted him hardily on the shoulder, in the friendly and informal Air Force way.
    “Don’t let the Fascists get your balls, but do us proud.”
    Bora was embarrassed by the familiarity, especially as there were Italians present. Soberly he said, “At your orders, Herr Oberst .” Then, because De Rosa had ordered a chair to be brought out, and had forced the woman to sit on it, he joined in to hear the latest.
    “Who are you?” Pacing in front of her, De Rosa was shouting at the woman. “How do you dare cause an incident in the middle of a state funeral?”
    Undaunted, the woman lifted the black veil of her hat to wipe her eyes. “Who am I? I’ll tell you who I am. I dare, and how. I have more of a right to dare than the lot of you.”
    Bora stepped in. “De Rosa, you entrusted the investigation to me. Be so good as to let me handle this.”
    “But, Major!”
    “If you prefer, I’ll drop the case.”
    De Rosa seemed to be chewing on something particularly bitter. “No, no,” he grumbled. “Go ahead, see if you can find out what this madwoman wants.”
    Without asking directly for it, Bora stretched his right hand to receive the framed photograph.
    The woman handed it over. Careworn and plain, she seemed sixty or so, but might be a few years younger.
She wore a narrow-shouldered black dress buttoned to her chin, and an outmoded black velvet toque, which in the confusion had been knocked sideways on her head. Under her left eye, a fresh bruise bore witness to the roughness of her treatment.
    Bora looked at the photograph. “When was this taken?”
    “1914,” she said. “One year before the last war. You can see Vittorio was already in his bersaglieri uniform.”
    Craning his neck to look, De Rosa cried out. “What? What? Was Lisi already married?”
    The woman slumped in the chair. “I had my daughter three months after the picture was taken. Can’t you tell? I didn’t make her all by myself.”
    “ What daughter?”
    Bora silenced De Rosa. “We can’t continue this conversation here. Centurion, do me the courtesy of having her accompanied to a private room inside. Also, send me a stenographer.”
     
    After smelling the convict’s shoes, the German shepherds grew restless. Blitz was a young male, long and lean, while Lola-Lola, a stouter, older female, seemed more intelligent and domineering. Both pulled at the leash, and the soldier kept them in check with short, throaty sentences.
    Guidi watched the animals, thinking that either of them could snap in one bite