"This is Signor Torre," said Colomba.

"My condolences," he muttered without looking Giulia in the face.

Giulia saw that Dante's left hand was covered with a heavy black glove. "What do you want to ask me? I've already said everything I know."

"There are details, private ones, we'd like to ask you about."

"About my sister? Like what?"

"Like whether she had a lover," Dante muttered again.

Giulia felt the anger rise. "How dare you?"

"Dante, what the fuck!" Colomba snapped.

"You were the one who insisted on me coming."

Colomba rolled her eyes. "Signora, forgive my partner's lack of tact, but . . . I need you to answer the question."

Giulia crossed her arms. "My sister had nothing to do with anyone who wasn't her husband, though God only knows why. You know he beat her, right?"

"Yes," said Colomba. "That's why we wondered whether she might have-"

"You wondered wrong."

"Why didn't she leave him?"

"Because she was in love with him. With that maniac. She always told me that the day he touched their boy, she'd take off running, but she never did . . . She never got the chance," she corrected herself.

"Were you aware that the boy wasn't well?" asked Dante.

This time Giulia didn't lose her temper. "How do you know that?"

"I looked at the pictures."

"You're right, he'd turned gloomy and he never spoke. When I kept him, he always seemed like he was on another planet."

"Especially in the past year, isn't that right?" asked Dante.

Giulia scrutinized him again, thinking to herself that he was the world's strangest policeman. "Yes."

"And had your sister noticed?" asked Colomba.

"She had." Giulia shook her head in disgust. "But as far as her husband was concerned, the boy was perfectly normal. And he didn't want to hear a word about it."

"Did she ever talk to a specialist?"

"No. Stefano didn't want her to."

But there was a certain lack of conviction, and Dante noticed it. "Did she do it in secret?"

"No, I don't think so. But there was a doctor who wanted to examine him."

"His pediatrician?" asked Dante, whose eyes had turned hard and bright as glass. It seemed to Colomba that the air was crackling around his head, so great was his concentration.

"No. This was a new doctor, who called my sister to make an appointment."

"When did this happen?"

"It must have been two weeks ago."

"And where had they met?"

"During a visit to the local health clinic. Something to do with school."

Dante looked over at Colomba, who spoke up again. "Do you know if they ever met?"

"No. I don't know," she whispered. "I forgot to ask." A tear rolled down her right cheek. She wiped it away with her sleeve. "You think you're going to have all the time in the world . . ." Her lips quivered, and more tears rolled. "Forgive me." She turned and walked a few steps away.

"She's crying," Dante said in a low voice to Colomba.

"Well, her sister was murdered . . . It's a common reaction."

"That's why I usually let my lawyer handle this kind of thing."

Giulia vigorously blew her nose and came back, her eyes red. "You were saying?"

"Do you remember this doctor's name? Or whether your sister might have written down his number?" asked Colomba.

"I only know that he called her on her cell phone. She was just coming by to have an espresso before opening her store back up for the afternoon. Why do you think it's important?"

"We don't know whether or not it is," Colomba said hurriedly.

"Do you think my brother-in-law had an accomplice? Or that it wasn't him?"

"We have to explore all the possibilities. Aside from this doctor, did your sister meet anyone else recently? New acquaintances? Did your nephew have any new friends?" she asked.

"Not as far as I know. And, like I told your colleagues, she hadn't received any threats and she'd never noticed anyone hanging around her apartment. Neither had I." She turned to stare at Colomba again. "The only real dangerous one was already living with her."

"Thanks for your help, signora."

Giulia took a step forward to face off with Colomba with burning eyes. "He won't get away with it, that son of a bitch. Do you understand me?"

"Think about your nephew. He comes before anything else," said Colomba, meeting her glare.

"My nephew is dead," said Giulia. Then she turned and ran back inside.

Colomba sighed and leaned against the wall next to Dante.

"Is it always this tough?" he asked.

"Even worse. What do you think?"

"I think that next time I'm not coming, even if you tie me up."

"Aside from that?"

"She feels guilty about having failed to protect her sister from her brother-in-law when it was still possible. She'd like it if another murderer emerged, because that would relieve her conscience. But she doesn't believe it."

Colomba made a face. "She wouldn't dream up a false story."

"No. The first snag, CC."

"It doesn't even come close."

"So are we just going to ignore it?"

"You have no idea how much I'd like to. Come on, get in."

Colomba had rented a minivan with a sunroof, hoping Dante might feel more comfortable and not force her to drive two miles an hour. She'd been wrong, but the car did have a modern hands-free calling system, so she could talk while driving.

She used it to call the principal of the Maugeri boy's school. He wasn't surprised to hear from her, seeing that he'd been interviewed repeatedly in the past few days, and Colomba didn't even have to think up an excuse: all she had to do was state her rank.

The principal remembered the child's doctor's appointment. It had formed part of a preventive medicine program being run out of the local health clinic. "Weight, height, chest measurement . . . nothing invasive," he said.

"Did the doctors remain in touch with the families?" asked Colomba.

"I have no idea."

"Was there also a psychological evaluation of the children?" Dante inquired, leaning toward the microphone in the central rearview mirror.

"Absolutely not. To many families, psychologists are still strictly doctors for lunatics."

"Could you give me the phone number of the local health clinic?" asked Colomba.

"Just a minute, let me go look for it."

He found it, but it didn't do any good. The head physician refused to answer any questions at all, invoking his patients' right to privacy.

Colomba could have forced his hand by identifying herself, but there was a risk that the doctor might demand some official document or complain to the district attorney's office, and that would open a can of worms. So she decided to reach out for a favor from Tirelli, who knew enough cops in Rome to obtain the objective with just a few phone calls.

Tirelli met them at 6 p.m. at the hotel bar.

"You're treating yourself well," he said, sitting down at the table where a silver teapot sat for Colomba and, next to it, a Moscow Mule for Dante.

Colomba pointed at Dante. "He's paying. Dante Torre."

"You're earning more than I do in that case," commented Tirelli as he shook hands.

"I'm a guest. I'm old friends with one of the owners," said Dante.

Colomba bit into a cookie from the three-section tray. "He brought back the man's crazy daughter."

"She wasn't crazy," said Dante in an irritated voice. "And it's not a very accurate term, in any case."

"Bipo-o-o-o-o-olar," she said, drawling out the o mockingly.

"My compliments." Perhaps because of the strangeness of the situation, Tirelli was putting on even more pretentious airs than usual and sat as stiff as a stick. "Can I ask where she was?"

"At the apartment of a junkie friend of hers, with an incipient case of scabies and a strong desire to come home."

"Otherwise you would have left her there?"

Dante shrugged his shoulders: he hated talking about his work with strangers. "I have a deep and abiding respect for the liberty of other people. Whether or not they're bipolar. You can imagine why. Why the interest?"

Tirelli smiled, displaying teeth tinged yellow from licorice. "Because I've heard a lot about you, Signor Torre. And I'm wondering why you got Caselli involved in this idiotic quest."

"It was me who got him involved," Colomba admitted.

"Truer words were never spoken," said Dante.

"But why, by all that's holy? Half the district attorney's office is investigating the Maugeri case, and you're on medical leave. Do you think they're getting it all wrong? That the boy is still alive?"

"Right now, I don't think anything. That's why I'm investigating."

"Does Rovere know?"

"Are you worried about regulations?"

"I'm worried about you. And your career. With everything that's happened to you . . ." His voice trailed off.

"What's happened to me and will happen to me is my business and mine alone. Sorry to have to say it."

"But you're dragging me into it. If I help you, then I'm responsible, too."

"You can tell me no. Just stop preaching the sermon."

A waitress asked Tirelli if he wanted anything, and he ordered a glass of still white wine that came with an enormous bowl of multicolored crackers. He took a sip without a word.

"Well?" asked Colomba, impatiently. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"I'll help you . . . but this will be the last time unless you give me some valid justification."

"If I had one, I'd give it to you. Well? Did you find out who examined the boy?"

Tirelli scrutinized her for a few seconds, then he handed her a scrap of paper folded in four. "Girl, don't make me worry about you, okay?" he said as he got up. He looked at Dante. "And you, try to keep the idiotic pranks to a minimum."

All Dante had to offer in reply was the noisy slurping of his cocktail through a straw.