19.

When the sun rose, the list of cases that Infanti had put together had been winnowed down to thirty or so, and by ten that morning to just six. The others had been discarded because of confident identification of corpses or because of the age or sex of the minors. The first to be eliminated were the murder victims. Most of them were newborns or infants. The six they'd kept were a sampling of the cruelty of fate. A child swept away by the current during a flood and never found, another burned to death in his parents' home, a third buried in an avalanche, the fourth and fifth killed in car crashes caused by high speeds and the idiocy of the motorists, their bodies so enormously damaged that even their surviving relatives were unable to identify them. The sixth was the cruelest and most grotesque of them all. A minivan carrying six people on a pilgrimage to a religious sanctuary in the province of Macerata had plummeted into a ravine, exploding upon impact. All the occupants of the vehicle had been killed, rendered unrecognizable because they'd been crushed in the impact, as well as by the explosion of the gas tank, an event as common in movies as it is rare in real life. That parish-owned minivan was old and had none of the modern safety devices, and perhaps it shouldn't even have been on the road.

With the six names written down on a pad of paper in front of her, after downing a pitcher of single-origin arabica coffee from Santo Domingo, Colomba prepared to complete the most painful task, contacting the families. Dante had stepped aside. As much as he enjoyed lying and fabricating on the phone, he was completely incapable of dealing with other people's sorrow, especially the scalding pain of losing a son or daughter or a grandson or granddaughter. In personal contacts, his capacity for observing facial expressions and body language made him more detached, but when the interaction with his interlocutors was strictly verbal, he was unable to avoid recognizing in their voices the thousand nuances of suffering and at the same time feeling those emotions inside himself. And although most people have an array of conventional phrases and gestures to offer in situations of mourning, Dante was a complete social idiot and always did more harm than anything else.

She had expected the task to be painful, and so it proved, even more than expected. Colomba's phone call awakened nightmares and caused weeping, cursing, and, in at least one case, screams of pain and sorrow. Nonetheless, she had no choice but to insist. "Could you send us a picture, please? By email would be best, but we can work with a fax as well." She talked about police statistical research projects, the assembly of databases that would help save lives, and she was only partly lying. To add discomfort to the moment, there was the additional inconvenient detail that only two of those contacted had an Internet connection or a computer, and so Colomba had to persuade the others to go to a local tobacconist or an Internet cafe and arrange to do it at their earliest convenience. Miraculously, no one refused to do it, and in just a few hours she managed to obtain them all.

Meanwhile, Dante was sleeping fitfully, with a black sleep mask covering his eyes, nodding off and jerking awake in continuation because his brain wouldn't stop churning. It was as if in his restless state he was trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that refused to fit together. And among the pieces was certainly the Father, but also the mysterious boy and Rovere's still more mysterious motives. Just how they linked up with the rest, he couldn't say, but he sensed that his sorrow and his motives were an important thread in the weft he was trying to untangle. His thoughts were feverish, typical of serious sleep deprivation. But still he reiterated the well-known points, the way you do in those Griddler crossword puzzles that require you to black in squares in order to reveal the hidden features of everyday objects.

Suddenly a flood of light brought him back to consciousness. Colomba had yanked the mask off his eyelids, and now she was staring at him with a weary expression. "I've got them. And I've come up with an idea."

"The pictures of the kids?" he muttered with a parched throat, reaching around in search of his cigarette pack.

"Yes. They're on the computer. Are you ready, or do you want to stall a little longer?" she asked sarcastically.

"Just a minute, let me wash my face."

He'd thrown himself onto the bed fully clothed. He took off his shirt and splashed cold water on his face at the bathroom sink, then took a complex assortment of drops and pills designed to take away a little of the anxiety that had been tormenting him. Then he returned to the living room with his towel over his shoulders.

It was the first time that Colomba was seeing him bare-chested, and once again she was reminded of David Bowie in that old sci-fi movie, skinny as a twig. Still, in spite of his undoubtedly bad habits, he wasn't skinny in an unhealthy way. In fact, it seemed somewhat like the thinness of a teenager who'd just been through a growth spurt. If it hadn't been for the hint of white whiskers that had sprouted in the past two days, when he'd stopped shaving, you would have thought he was younger than his years.

"All done?" she asked.

"Not quite. Sorry, I just need some caffeine."

"Take your time, eh . . ."

"It'll just be a minute, don't be nasty. Do you want an espresso?"

Colomba would have liked one, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction, so she refused the offer. Dante made himself one of his coffee blends with the touch of a fine herbalist, then downed two demitasses in a row without giving them time to cool down. "Ready," he said. "Where are they?"

"Here." Colomba turned the computer screen toward him. While she was waiting for him, she had put the six pictures together into a single screen shot; down at the reception desk, she'd scanned the ones that had come in to the hotel fax. They'd stood out because they were black and white. Six pictures of children between the ages of five and six, all of them with identical smiles on their faces. As she looked at them again, Colomba realized for the first time that the one they were looking for, if he was among them, was the lucky one. Kidnapped and held prisoner by a madman but still alive, unlike the others.

Dante looked at the composition for ten seconds, arms crossed, then pointed decisively at a photo. "Him," he said.

Colomba let out her breath in a hiss. "He seems the most likely one to me, too, but I can't be a hundred percent certain. And neither can you. Children grow up fast, and they change."

"A hundred percent, for sure," he insisted. "Who is it?"

"The one from the minivan in Macerata. Ruggero Palladino."

"Fuck." And the echo of the dream-not-dream came back into Dante's mind for a moment, muddling one massacre with another. But he said nothing to Colomba, in part because there was nothing reasonable he could tell her. "Six dead just to get him."

"Tell me why you're so certain?"

"Don't you notice anything? Something that differentiates him from the other children."

Colomba thought back to the pictures of the Maugeris' son and the precise analysis that Dante had done of his condition. But here there was just one photograph, and it was posed, to boot. Then she noticed his eyes. "He looks kind of Asian."

"Narrow eyes, close together, right. And what about the chin, what do you see?"

Colomba sighed. When Dante started talking like a professor on a podium, he truly was insufferable. But she played along. "Receding, not prominent. Like the chin of the boy in the video, but he was in another position and I couldn't swear to it."

"A receding chin, as it's known. But he doesn't look that way because he resembled his father or his mother. It's a facial dysmorphology, due to a developmental problem with the inferior maxillary bone. It's a typical warning sign of FAS."

"Of what, excuse me?"

"Fetal alcohol syndrome," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing. "That idiot mother of his got drunk while she was pregnant. A fetus isn't capable of disposing of the metabolic residue of the alcohol that comes to it through the placenta-"

"Yes, I know that. I'm a woman of childbearing age."

Dante treated the interruption like the buzz of a fly. "-and malformations ensue."

"How bad off is he?"

"There are various degrees of severity of FAS, depending on the quantity of alcohol consumed by the mother and the timing, whether it's in the first three months or even later. It's called ARND, or alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder, when there are disabilities in neurodevelopment, and ARBD, or alcohol-related birth defects, when there are serious physical problems. The boy in the video was moving easily, so I'd say ARND. God only knows how he's doing in captivity." He looked at Colomba. "That's why I'm sure that Ruggero is the right boy. He had learning and cognitive developmental delays, just like Luca, though of a different nature. Apparently the Father is drawing his cards from the deck of the least fortunate."

20.

Under normal driving conditions, it takes a little more than two hours to get from Rome to Fano. Traveling with Dante, however, was anything but normal, given his fixation with speed limits and his frequent impulsive demands for fresh air, so Colomba resigned herself to the idea that it would take twice the time and they'd get there late at night. She secretly vowed that next time she'd slip the entire contents of one of his illicit bottles of pharmaceuticals into his coffee. But whenever her frustration reached the boiling point, exacerbated by her lack of sleep, Colomba had only to mutter the three magic words-"the least fortunate"-that were guaranteed to immediately silence her troublesome passenger.

"It's a decision he made recently," he said once he was heartily sick of the reference. They'd just left the highway and the tollbooth behind them, and were driving along the county road. It was already dark, and the traffic consisted almost entirely of heavy trucks.

"But you're the one who said he never changes his method. That it's always the same."

"His methods are always the same, okay? Not his choice of victims."

"They're always children, about six years old."

"That aside, he did not use to seek out the least fortunate."

She gave him a sidelong glance. "Are you sure?"

"I was a very good student in nursery school. And I already knew how to read, a little, when I was taken. And I could write all the letters in the alphabet. No cognitive deficits of any kind."

"If you say so."

Dante threw his head back. "Why don't you phone my father and ask him about it? And I was also very sociable with kids my age."

"Well, then, you've changed considerably."

"Oh go to hell," he said, tipping his seat back and pretending to go to sleep.

She tapped him on the shoulder. "Don't get too comfortable, because we're here."

Topped by a sign reading MILITARY ZONE and by strings of barbed wire, before them stood the barracks of the local carabinieri; Colomba had called them during the drive, in search of the warrant officer whose name appeared at the bottom of the accident report. If they'd arrived early, he was going to wait for them in a cafe in town, but seeing the time he must have gone back on duty by now. He was working the night shift. Colomba pulled in to the first available parking space, and Dante sprawled out, getting even more horizontal, if such a thing were possible.

"I'm not going in there."

"Don't worry. I've already had problems of my own justifying my interest. With you along, I'd just raise eyebrows. Speaking of which . . ." She unclipped the holster from her belt and slid it under Dante's seat. "Keep an eye on this for me."

He sat up straight. "Are you done leaving that thing around like it was a toy? One of these days you're going to shoot me by accident."

"It won't be an accident," she said with a credible imitation of Dante's sarcastic grin. Then she got out. Actually, though, her mood was by no means one of unconcern. If the warrant officer happened to sniff out some flaw in her story, he'd retreat into the characteristic vagueness that the cousins were so good at emanating when they chose to erect a wall against outsiders. That was just one more reason she chose to leave her sidearm in the car. It wasn't a regulation-issue weapon, and a carabiniere would notice that immediately.

Colomba rang the bell and identified herself to the officer standing sentinel at the front entrance; he saluted and buzzed her in through the high-security door. It was a small barracks, its walls in need of a coat of paint and four plastic chairs at the disposal of those waiting their turn to file complaints. At that time of the evening, no one was there, just a lance corporal with a plastic cup of coffee who eyed her for a moment curiously, until he saw the golden badge that Colomba had hung on her belt, with her police ID turned inward. Spataccare, that was the verb in Italian slang, and it meant showing off tinhorn trinkets. But it was something that came to her instinctively every time she had to visit police stations or carabinieri barracks where she wasn't a known quantity. It was faster than having to introduce herself each time, and it warded off wolves. Not always, but most of the time at least.

Warrant Officer Colantuono, about sixty years old, boasted whiskers worthy of being featured on a calendar and a Sicilian accent, from Palermo, to be exact. He turned out to be anything but suspicious and was happy to tell her everything he knew about the minivan crash. Colomba always underestimated the effect she had on men, whether or not they were in uniform, and she tended to forget the times that leaving the top button of her blouse undone had been far more effective than waving her police ID and badge.

So the warrant officer swallowed her story of a vague additional investigation triggered by an independent plaintiff filing a new criminal complaint. After treating her to an espresso that Dante would have heartily disapproved of, he told her what he knew. It was the Macerata highway patrol that had sent the first responders to the scene of the crash, but it had fallen to his barracks, and to him in person, to inform the families and arrange for the bodies to be identified. The minivan was registered in the name of the parish priest of Sant'Ilario, and it had gone off the road at a hairpin curve on county road 362.

"At that point on the road, there's a steep embankment several dozen yards in extent, and the vehicle hurtled over it subsequent to the motorist losing control. I swear to you, Deputy Captain, that I've never seen a bigger puddle of mayhem in all my born days."

"Was the driver speeding?" asked Colomba.

"From what the mechanical examination was able to determine, there had been a problem with the brake assembly. And I should add that I knew the parish priest very well, and he was a slow driver even on his bicycle, let alone on those dangerous curves."

"What was the condition of the bodies?"

"Listen, Deputy Captain, I'm not trying to gross you out, but you know what it looks like when you leave a sausage too long on the grill? That's what they looked like. If you hadn't known that they were human beings, anyone could have made that mistake."

"Did their relatives identify them, though?"

"Yes, and it wasn't hard. I might have been exaggerating a little." The warrant officer opened the window and pulled out a cigarette. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"No, go right ahead."

"Nasty habit. I just can't seem to stop. When I try, I put on five pounds and then I start smoking again. And I keep the five pounds. What was it I was telling you?"

"You were explaining how they identified the bodies."

"Yes, as I was saying, they all had parts that were still intact. You could still clearly see the facial features of u parrinu-excuse me, the parish priest, my Sicilian still comes out now and then-and the same was true of the schoolteacher. They recognized the other priest from his clothing. One of the children-and when I think back on it, it still breaks my heart-was all hunched over with his arms wrapped around him, trying to protect himself." He pointed vaguely with his lit cigarette to an area between head and belly.

"You remember very clearly."

"Well, like I told you, I'd never seen anything like it. And believe me, I've witnessed a substantial number of bad crashes."

"There were two children in the van."

"Yes. The schoolteacher's son, the one who was curled up in a ball. The other one, the Palladinos' son, was a piece of charcoal, though. They identified him by a chain he wore. And by his wallet."

"He was the most badly burned."

"Now that you mention it, I'd have to agree. He was already born unlucky. With the problems with his mother . . . Just think, she'd committed herself to a clinic to stop drinking when she learned she was pregnant. Then her baby was born the way he was. Her husband, Signor Palladino, told me all about it. He works for the city, and he still looks like a ghost."

"So was a DNA test done on the bodies?"

"No. Why should we have? There was no mistaking them."

Colomba stood up and extended her hand. "Thanks. You've been very helpful."

"Are you already going?" The warrant officer smiled. "What a pity."

"Maybe I'll come back and see you some time if I think of any other questions to ask."

"I hope you do. If I may, we don't see women as lovely as you very often, and I'm pretty sure that's true where you come from, too."

"Thank you."

As he was walking her to the exit, Warrant Officer Colantuono added, "A nasty crash, and an ironic one, too. They'd just gone to pray at the sanctuary, and look at the gift the Good Lord gave them. Who can ever say what He's thinking?"

"Yeah, who can say," said Colomba, who'd stopped asking that question back in Sunday school.

"Still, it could have been worse. There could have been one more dead."

Colomba froze. "One more?"

Colomba went back to the car. Dante had stepped out to smoke a cigarette, and he'd bought himself a Toblerone nougat bar at the smoke shop nearby. He offered her a piece.

"No, thanks," Colomba said. "I know how they did it."

"How they staged the accident?" asked Dante, getting the point immediately.

"Yes." They got back in the car, so they could talk far from prying ears. "A motorist who went past the minivan before the crash said that he'd seen it pulled over on the side of the road and a man was talking to the driver through the window. He remembered it because he recognized the parish priest at the wheel."

"Did he see the man who was talking to him?" Dante asked.

"Not his face, and he didn't provide a description. He said that he just assumed it was a hitchhiker. It was dark out, and he just lit him up for a second with his headlights."

"The Father. He killed them there and took the boy."

"Or maybe he just drugged them and then pushed the van off the road. But it still doesn't add up, Dante. It's almost impossible for one person to have done it all."