The corpse lay facedown, legs folded and one arm tucked under the body. The other arm lay stretched out flat, palm turned upward. The neck ended with a cut that sparkled wine red in the glare of the floodlights, with the white of the bones gleaming damp. The head was about a yard away, resting on a cheek, with the face turned toward the body.

Colomba looked up from the cadaver and found that the others were all staring at her.

Santini was evidently pissed off. He was an athletic man of about fifty with a narrow mustache. "Who invited you?" he asked.

"I did," Rovere replied.

"And why, if I might ask?"

"Professional enrichment."

Santini threw both arms into the air and walked off.

Colomba shook hands with the magistrate. "Very good, very good," he said distractedly. He moved away almost immediately on some pretext, dragging Rovere with him. From a distance, Colomba saw that they were arguing in an undertone.

The rest of the small knot of people-some of whom knew her by sight while others had only heard of her-stood around watching her until Mario Tirelli emerged from the shadows and came to her aid. He was a medical examiner, a tall, skinny man wearing a fisherman's cap. He was chewing on a stick of licorice root; he always carried a supply with him in a silver cigarette case as old as he was.

"How are you?" he asked, gripping her hand with both of his, which were chilly. "I've missed you so much."

"And I missed you," Colomba replied, and she meant it. "I'm still on leave, so don't get too excited."

"Then what are you doing out here in the cold and the damp?"

"Apparently it's something Rovere really wanted. But why don't you tell me what they're doing here."

"Are you referring to the CIS or the VCU?"

"Both. They're supposed to work on organized crime or serial killers. And there's only one corpse here."

"Technically they can work on lost cats if a magistrate asks them to get involved."

"And De Angelis is a friend of Santini."

"And they're happy to scratch each other's backs. Of course, Santini couldn't count on the Forensic Squad, so he decided to pull the clowns in white jumpsuits in on it. If he brings home a prize of some sort, he won't have to share with anyone."

"And if he doesn't pull it off?"

"Then he'll blame you guys."

"Nice piece of shit he is."

"The usual. You ought to be at home resting up, instead of out here stepping in it."

"Same goes for you. Weren't you retired?"

Tirelli smiled. "Yes, in fact, I work as a consultant. I don't like sitting at home reading detective novels, and I don't know how to do crossword puzzles." Tirelli was a widower and childless; the day he died, it would be with a scalpel in his hand. "Do you want me to tell you about the woman, or do you want to go on pretending you don't give a damn?"

"Go ahead."

"Decapitation with a semicurved bladed weapon. The murderer took at least four or five chops to separate the head from the torso, between the C2 and the C3. The first blow was in all likelihood fatal, delivered right below the occipital bone, while she was still on her feet."

"From behind."

"Yes, judging from the direction of the cut. She died in no more than a minute, instantaneous loss of consciousness. It happened this afternoon, judging from the rigor mortis, but with the rain and everything the exact time is hard to establish. Sometime between one and six in the afternoon, I'd say. Wait and see, the guys from the VCU will give it to you down to the second," he added sarcastically.

"There are no signs of a struggle," said Colomba. "She trusted the murderer, otherwise she would have turned around at least three-quarters of the way before being killed."

"He caught her off guard and finished decapitating her on the ground."

Taking advantage of the fact that Santini and the others had moved away from the corpse, Colomba went back to take a look at it. She did it instinctively, practically without realizing it. Tirelli followed her.

"The clothing wasn't removed and replaced," Colomba said. "No postmortem rape."

"I thought the same thing."

She examined the head from up close. The eyes were intact. "No signs of penetration to mouth or eyes."

"Thank God . . ."

"Do you think the boy watched?"

"No way of saying. They haven't found him yet."

"The murderer took him?"

"That's the most likely scenario."

Colomba shook her head. She didn't like it when kids were involved. She went back to look at the scene of the crime. "Sex has nothing to do with this. And he didn't ravage the body."

"You don't call cutting the head off ravaging?"

"There are no other marks on her. Not even a bruise."

"Maybe he was satisfied with what he did," said Tirelli.

Before Colomba had a chance to reply, the technician in the bushes stood up. "Hey! Over here!" he shouted.

Everyone headed toward him, including Colomba, once again a victim of her mechanical instincts. The technician pulled a pruning hook out from under the bush, holding it by the blade with gloved fingers. Santini bent over to examine it closely. "There are little notches that could have been caused by the bone."

"You might have a future as a knife sharpener," said Colomba.

Santini clenched his jaw. "You still here?"

"No, you're hallucinating again."

"As long as you don't touch anything. The last thing we need here is another one of your messes."

Colomba felt the blood surge into her face. She took a step forward, balling her fists. "Just try saying that again, dickhead."

The technician with the pruning hook held up a hand. "Hey, what is this? Are we in high school?"

"She's the one who's out of her mind," said Santini. "Don't you see that?"

Tirelli put a hand on Colomba's arm. "It's not worth it," he whispered to her.

She let the air out of her lungs with a long sigh. "Fuck off, Santini. Just do your job and pretend I'm not here."

Santini fished around for a snappy retort, but nothing came to mind. He pointed to the pruning hook and looked at Tirelli. "Doctor, could that be it?"

"It could be," he replied.

The forensic technician ran a cotton swab over the blade. The cotton turned dark blue: blood. He bagged and labeled the farm tool. At the lab they'd compare the blood residue with the victim's DNA, but as far as Colomba could see, the odds that they'd made a mistake were practically nonexistent. Tirelli followed the technician, while Santini, summoned by a uniformed officer, disappeared in the direction of the access road. Colomba was left standing alone by the bush. As she was thinking about heading back to the car and saying to hell with all of it, there was a rustling sound from the trees nearby; then the glare of the floodlight reflected off Alberti's pale, sweaty face. He was wiping his mouth with a paper tissue.

Colomba realized that he'd stepped away to vomit and regretted having left him alone. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "Yes, Deputy Captain," he said, but in a tone of voice that clearly stated the opposite. "I just had to . . ."

"I can imagine. Don't sweat it. It happens. Is that the first dead body you've seen?"

Alberti shook his head. "No. But never like this . . . How long did it take you to get accustomed?"

Before Colomba had a chance to reply, Rovere called her. "Come on over, you're about to miss the last part of the show."

Colomba patted Alberti on the shoulder. "Just stay here for a few minutes." She caught up with her former boss next to one of the boulders farthest from the corpse, which couldn't be seen from where they stood. "What show?"

The group of investigators had gathered around the dead woman again, and they seemed to be waiting for someone. De Angelis especially, who was smiling nervously into the empty air.

"The husband's on his way," said Rovere.

A few seconds later the engine of an off-road vehicle fell silent, just beyond the line of trees. Santini reappeared, walking alongside two uniformed officers and a man wearing only a pair of shorts and a dirty T-shirt and looking around him in confusion.

Stefano Maugeri. From the shape he was in, Colomba understood that he hadn't left the search area since his wife had disappeared. "Are they idiots, bringing him here?" she said. "He could have identified the body at the morgue, after they'd put her back together."

"They're not interested in identifying anyone," Rovere replied.

Still being guided by Santini and the two officers, Maugeri was led over to the boulder. Colomba could see him hesitate and then balk for a moment. "What's behind there?" she heard him ask.

Oh, Christ, they haven't told him, thought Colomba.

Santini invited Maugeri to walk forward, but like an animal that can sense the ax, the man wouldn't budge. "No, I'm not going over there unless you tell me what it is. I won't go. I refuse."

"It's your wife, Signor Maugeri," said Santini, staring at him.

Maugeri shook his head as the realization dawned on him. "No . . ." He looked around, more and more bewildered. Then he covered the last few yards at a dead run, until he was stopped by the cordon of officers around the body. Colomba turned her face away when the man burst into sobs.

5.

"Let's head back," Rovere said a few minutes before eleven. Maugeri had been led away, held up and half-collapsing, and just then the woman was being put into a body bag by attendants from the morgue. Colomba, Rovere, and Alberti followed the trail back to their car.

Once they were in the moving jeep, Colomba was the first to break the silence. "That was a filthy trick," she murmured.

"But you know why they did it, don't you?" asked Rovere.

"It doesn't take a genius," said Colomba. She was starting to get a headache, and she felt tired in a way she hadn't experienced in months. "They were hoping for a spontaneous confession."

Rovere tapped on Alberti's shoulder. "Stop here."

They'd arrived at the trattoria they'd passed on the way up. Under the canopy the owner stood alone, pulling in tables and chairs.

"You want an espresso, don't you, Colomba?" asked Rovere. "Or maybe you'd rather have something to eat."

"Coffee's fine," she lied. What she really wanted was to go home and forget about the whole thing. Pick up the book she'd left lying open on the living room table-an old edition of Giovanni Verga's Mastro-don Gesualdo-and polish off the bottle of Primitivo wine that was in the fridge. Normal things, things that didn't reek of blood and mud.

The restaurateur let them in, even if he was closing up for the night. His was an old trattoria that smelled of bleach and rancid wine, with wooden benches and tables. It was colder inside than out. Colomba decided that, for the beginning of September, the summer seemed a long time ago. It didn't even seem like they were close to Rome.

They sat at a table by the plate-glass window. Rovere had ordered an Americano, and he turned the cup in his hands, never taking his eyes off her, but not really seeing her at all.

"Why do they think the husband did it?" Colomba asked.

"First of all," Rovere replied, "no one saw Maugeri with his wife and son at the Vivaro mountain meadows. Everyone who volunteered to give their account said that they had only seen him alone."

"It's easier to remember a desperate father searching for a wife and son than it is a family out for a picnic."

"Exactly. Still, for now, the testimony all seems to point in one direction." He tapped on his lips with the handle of the demitasse spoon. "Second, there was blood in the trunk of the car."

"Tirelli says that the woman was killed up there, on the spot," Colomba objected. "And he usually knows what he's talking about."

"It was the boy's blood. Just a few spots, ineptly washed. The father has no explanation."

"What else?" asked Colomba.

"Maugeri beat his wife. There were three calls to the local police station about the screams. She was admitted to the hospital a month ago with a broken nose. She said she slipped and fell in the kitchen."

Colomba felt her headache getting worse. The more she talked about the case, the stickier it made her feel. "It all adds up. So what am I doing here?"

"Think about it for a second. The woman showed no signs of having put up a fight."

Colomba's head cleared ever so slightly. "She knew that her husband was a violent man. But she turned her back to him, and didn't even try to run away . . ." She thought it over for a moment, then shook her head. "It's strange, I'll give you that, but not enough to let him off the hook. There could be a thousand explanations."

"How many murderers that we might classify as psychopathic or sociopathic have you dealt with, Colomba?" asked Rovere.