"He killed with a bladed weapon, just like he did with the boy in the other silo."

"Most family murders are committed with bladed weapons or blunt objects. Not everyone in Italy has a firearm in their home."

"There are no traces of the boy. Not one," said Dante.

"Aside from the blood in Maugeri's trunk."

"The Father put that there."

"In other words, the Father is a ninja. He deflects attention from himself, lands his blows on whoever he aims at, and can never be caught."

"Exactly."

"Then what are the odds we can succeed against someone who doesn't make mistakes?"

"He made at least one. I managed to escape, anyway." Dante yawned and stretched. "I'm hungry, and I'm sick and tired of this. What do you say we have a proper meal for once?"

"Should I put on my evening gown?"

"Do you have one?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

They ate dinner at the hotel bar-the restaurant was too confining for Dante-where a table had been set up for them behind a privacy screen. Colomba was embarrassed by the white-gloved waiters. Not that she'd only ever eaten in diners and grills her whole life, but she'd never risen to the level of a waiter standing right behind her the whole time.

"Enjoy life a little for once, CC," Dante told her. For the occasion, he'd put on a charcoal gray tie and a black Giorgio Armani suit.

"I don't feel comfortable here."

"Pretend you're on vacation."

She smiled. "Then I wouldn't be here with you."

"Thanks. Anyway, it's better than the police cafeteria."

"With the work I did, I was always out and about, and I just grabbed something to eat where I found it. If I ate at all." Dante had nothing on his dish but vegetables. "Are you a vegetarian?"

Dante smiled. "I've spent far too many years in a cage myself not to feel horror at the way livestock is bred."

"Human beings have always eaten meat, and I don't have problems with the fact," said Colomba, spearing another chunk of her tournedos Rossini.

"As far as that goes, human beings have always abused their fellow man. Luckily, our intellect allows us to make choices. And I'm protecting myself from colon cancer."

"But not from lung cancer, the way you smoke."

"You have to die of something."

"Why are you so comfortable with luxury?"

"For a while I was reasonably well off," Dante replied. "My father sued everyone and their brother when he was finally able to prove that he hadn't murdered me. He won every case, and he was also reimbursed for wrongful imprisonment by the state, as well as for what happened to him in prison."

"He got sick?"

"He was raped and stabbed."

Colomba suddenly lost interest in her food. "Oh, fuck."

"That's what happens to child molesters. He was in the high security wing of the prison, but there was a foul-up while he was on his way to a meeting . . . My father is convinced that the whole thing was organized by one of the officers who hated him, but he was never able to prove it. Still, he survived."

"How old is he now?"

"He'll turn seventy this year. We don't talk much. We were never really able to reestablish a relationship after I got back. We were a couple of strangers, and strangers we've remained, though we try to be kind to each other. I think he blames me for having ruined his life. In his way, he has a point." Dante pushed the plate away, and a waiter hurried over to take it away. He hadn't eaten much at all. "When I became an adult, he gave me some money, mostly, I think, to get me out from underfoot. For a while I didn't need to work. I traveled. When I wasn't checked into some clinic, I wanted to enjoy myself."

"Five stars, like this one?"

"Even better, and lots of airy staterooms aboard ocean liners, since the idea of boarding a plane makes me feel like dying." Dante smiled. "I've never been able to hold on to money. And when I was broke, I had to come up with a line of work."

"You didn't pick an easy one."

"I didn't go to college, and I can't work indoors. It was this or become a lifeguard."

The waiter asked if they'd like some coffee. Dante said no for both of them; then they went out into the garden, where smoking was allowed. The trees were illuminated by hidden lights, and the loudspeakers played music at a low volume. The tables were occupied by a clientele that Colomba decided was for the most part non-Italian. They found two armchairs half-hidden behind the bushes and sat down. Dante ordered two Moscow Mules, his favorite cocktail: vodka, ginger ale, lime, and a slice of cucumber. They came in copper mugs full of crushed ice, and with two straws. Colomba took just one sip and found it vaguely acid but refreshing.

"Well, CC?" asked Dante. "Are you throwing in the towel?"

"No. But enough of the past for now. Let's focus on the Maugeri kidnapping. That's a fresh trail, unlike yours, which is ancient history."

"We'll be looking for other points of contact."

"All I need is a snag, Dante. Something that tells me Maugeri didn't murder his wife. At that point . . . whether it's your old kidnapper or some copycat, I'll at least know that we aren't just making it all up. Of course, if they find the child in the meantime, we can all go home."

"That's not going to happen, CC." Dante slurped the last of his glass, then poked his straws into Colomba's. "Since you're not going to finish it . . ."

"Anything that surfaces about the Maugeris will be sent to me in real time by Rovere. We'll line it up with what we already know."

"And what's in it for him that's worth risking his career over? Aside from making De Angelis come off like an ass?"

"I have no idea."

Dante lit yet another cigarette. "I read the transcripts of the first interviews. There's nothing that can be helpful to us. Friends and relatives were asked only whether Maugeri confided in them and whether they know where the child might be."

"Let's just imagine it's neither the Father nor some copycat. That it's a normal kidnapping . . ."

Dante raised an eyebrow. "Normal?"

"One of the kind you've worked on in the past. What would you do at this point?"

"I'd try to find the answer that's been buzzing in my mind ever since I took that walk up at the mountain meadows."

"What question is that?"

"Why did Maugeri's wife go up onto Monte Cavo with the boy? She did it of her own free will; no one forced her to go up there. The kidnapper made an appointment, and she went, leaving her cell phone behind and waiting for her husband to fall asleep. Why? What convinced her?"

"Extortion? Some physical threat?"

"Or else a lover who offered to help her run away from a violent and abusive husband. Or a friend whose shoulder she was crying on. In any case, she must have confided in someone. Even if she did it in a hushed voice."

"You've read the witness list. Who's the most likely candidate?"

Dante stubbed out his cigarette butt and waved to the waiter to bring him another cocktail. "Sisters always know everything."

3.

Colomba called Giulia Balestri at breakfast the next day, after getting Rovere's okay. She tried to seem official without making any specific claims, to avoid giving De Angelis any pretexts. "I've been working on your sister's case, and there are a couple of things I'd like to clear up with you," she said.

"Are there any new developments?"

"I'm afraid not. When can we meet?"

"Come before lunch, if you don't mind."

"Thank you."

Colomba hung up, feeling sorry for the woman, who over the phone had sounded like someone who expects only bad news.

Outside the door she found a stack of newspapers, and she read half of them while listening to the radio, until Dante emerged from his bedroom in a coal black dressing gown, with a cadaverous face. "Are you done making a ruckus? It's practically dawn," he said.

"It's ten in the morning. Get moving."

Dante looked with austere disapproval at her cup of caffe latte. "Did you know that milk in coffee produces an indigestible formation of casein?"

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear . . . I called Giulia Balestri."

"Who?"

"The dead woman's sister."

"Ah."

"She's expecting us."

Dante slithered over to the espresso machine before answering. "She's expecting you. I don't know how to do cop work. No offense."

"I'll do the cop work. You'll stand by and watch and give me intelligent suggestions."

Dante started two espressos at the same time. "CC . . . that's not my line of work. I'm not good with people."

"You're good at observing them."

"From a distance. Emotional displays make me uncomfortable."

"Poor boy."

"You can't force me."

Colomba smiled and said nothing. Dante went to get dressed.

An hour later, Giulia Balestri opened the door in response to Colomba's ring. "I'm Deputy Captain Caselli. I called you earlier."

Balestri nodded. She was thirty-six, she wore Rasta hair extensions, and she had a rotund body. She was wearing a lounging suit and slippers. "Take a chair."

"If you can come downstairs, a colleague of mine, Signor Torre, would like to meet you."

"Why don't you ask him up?"

"It's a long story. Please."

"All right." Balestri went to put on a pair of shoes.

Colomba peered around at the cheaply furnished apartment, with a small boy's toys scattered everywhere. Outside the bathroom were a pair of men's flip-flops with a tropical pattern. A happy little family, she thought.

"We'll have to hurry, because in an hour I need to go pick up the boy at school," said Balestri, as if she'd just read her mind. She'd put on a lemon yellow cardigan.

"How old is your son?" Colomba asked and regretted it instantly; that was none of her business.

"Seven and a half, a year older than Luca." Her face twisted anxiously. "There really is no news?"

"No, I'm sorry."

The other woman tried to read Colomba's expression: unsuccessfully. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"Signora . . . we really don't know. It's better just to hope for the best."

"But how can he still be alive? With no one to feed him . . ."

"Maybe someone's taking care of him, signora."

"A friend of that son of a bitch of a brother-in-law of mine?"

Colomba said nothing. Downstairs, at the front door, they found Dante, who was waiting for them with a grim expression, leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette.