The Bastards of Pizzofalcone by Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar Read Free Book Online Page B

forgotten to alert her, this time?
    She headed toward the study with the snow globes. Maybe, she thought, the signora had fallen asleep in an armchair, with a book in her hand, in her favorite room. The wind was moaning in despair as it ran up against obstacles that hindered its blind gallop. The sea was hurling itself ferociously onto the street, doing its best to invade the space from which it had been barred.
    The armchair was empty. A cloud hurried away from the face of the sun, and a beam of light illuminated the floor of the room, coming to rest on a shard of glass glittering under the chair.
    Mayya realized that it was one of the glass globes with snow inside, and she wondered what it was doing on the floor.
    Then she realized that there was something else on the floor: the signora’s dead body, the back of her head shattered and a puddle of clotted blood around it.
    The tray clattered to the floor with a crash of broken porcelain, scattering cookies and
caffe latte
everywhere.
    Mayya brought both hands to her face and let out a scream.

X
    D eputy Sergeant Ottavia Calabrese left the precinct house, shooting Guida, the officer standing guard at the entrance, a distracted nod. She almost failed to recognize him: his tie was knotted impeccably, his hair was brushed, his jacket was perfectly buttoned, and he was sitting up straight, his eyes trained firmly before him. She’d always seen him as a kind of funny ornament, a papier-mâché statue depicting a drunk in uniform reading the sports section; now he actually looked like a real policeman.
    She had to admit that something in that place was changing. All credit to the commissario. A man out of the ordinary: she’d thought that from the very first time he appeared at her office door, asking permission to enter, smiling at her hesitantly like a little boy joining his class for the very first time at a new school.
    Ottavia had liked Palma from the start. His rumpled appearance, his unkempt hair, his rolled-up sleeves. And the cheerful, youthful atmosphere that he ushered inside those cracked old walls. Moreover, there was no wedding ring on his finger: who knew why, who knew whether he was a bachelor or divorced, or maybe a widower. But widowers often continued to wear their wedding rings.
    She wore a wedding ring. And she wasn’t a widow.
    Before boarding the funicular, she stopped in a
rosticceria
, a local takeout place. She wasn’t up to cooking that night, and it was late already. She always seemed to leave the office late. Not that she minded: she did it on purpose. For so long now, work had been the best part of her day. A woman’s work is never done; for policewomen, it’s even worse.
    In the crowded funicular car, with her purse on one side and the packet from the
rosticceria
on the other, she could find nowhere to sit. A kid, sprawled out on a seat, looked up at her defiantly and then turned up the volume in his headphones; then he turned to look out the window, chewing gum, his mouth wide open.
    Ottavia felt someone move behind her, and an irritating pressure against her derriere. She sighed: every night it was the same thing. The crowd, stuffed into the car like sardines in a can, and some idiot ogling her and rubbing up against her. She was well aware that she had a generous figure and a healthy, taut body that she tried to conceal under sensible, unfashionable clothing, but there was nothing she could do: someone always noticed.
    She didn’t turn around, that would only make it worse. Instead, she looked down, identified the tip of a black loafer, took aim, and jammed her foot down. A single blow with her heel, smashing down on the man’s big toe. A surprised gasp, a muttered curse; now Ottavia turned around, stared at the dirty old man behind her, and said: “I beg your pardon. Would you care to let me have your other foot, so I can finish the job and make it nice and symmetrical?” The man pushed away into the