"I'd only be surprised if he wasn't. Sir, we're wasting time. Everything points to Maugeri. You're going to have to find some other way of getting rid of . . ." Colomba stopped before uttering the name Santini. You never know who might be listening to you, legally or otherwise. ". . . you know who."

"What does Torre have to say?"

"He already thinks there's a plot."

"You see?"

Dante had gone all the way to the overlook. He peered down for a moment and then rocked on his heels; if he hadn't grabbed the railing, he would have pitched over headfirst.

Colomba hung up in a hurry and galloped over to him. "Are you feeling dizzy?"

Dante smiled and stayed hunched over, beneath the railing. "Is it that obvious?"

"I just had a hunch."

"I'll be fine in a minute." He breathed deeply for a few seconds before getting back up on his feet. "I didn't think it was so high, it caught me by surprise. What does your boss say?"

"That the husband bought the weapon."

"Were his fingerprints on it?"

"No."

Dante grasped the railing and stood up. "Well, then, our murderer could have taken it from the family's home."

"A little daring, don't you think?"

Dante shrugged. "I told you." He looked shyly over the edge of the bluff. "He doesn't scare easy. Where were the shoes?"

Colomba pointed to the location. Now there was a numbered card on the bush.

Dante looked without letting go of the railing. "Very theatrical." Then he turned sharply around and continued along the trail. "Let's get going while there's still light."

Colomba followed him, doing her best to keep up. Dante leapt lightly from rock to rock. "Why would a cold-blooded, clear-minded murderer decide to take it out on the Maugeris?" she shouted after him.

"Ah, that's something I don't know yet."

Dante came to a halt when he reached the police barriers surrounding the site where the body was found. Two squad cars controlled the points of access, and an officer flicked away a cigarette as he headed over toward them. Colomba pulled out her police ID while Dante, impatient, headed out into the clearing.

The officer saluted her, and Colomba remembered running into him a few years ago. "Who's he, Voldemort?" he asked her, pointing at Dante: he was walking in circles among the boulders, careful not to step on the marks left by the technicians, flapping the tails of his black leather raincoat.

"A consultant," she replied vaguely.

"Well, that's good. I was afraid he was a cop."

Colomba caught up with Dante, who was climbing a tree. "Reliving your childhood?" she asked. She immediately bit her tongue. "I'm sorry."

"Don't think twice. I had my happy moments when I was a boy. When he thought I deserved it, the Father would give me hot food, for instance."

"The Father?"

"That's what he wanted me to call him. And since you all never figured out who he was . . ." He hauled himself up with both arms, then hunkered down on a branch about six feet off the ground. He looked like a large black crow in wait of prey.

"Do you see anything interesting from up there?" asked Colomba.

"A miniature Stonehenge. I couldn't think of a better location for a ritual murder."

"Or to stage a fake one," said Colomba.

"You took the words right out of my mouth. What do you think, did the murderer hang up the shoes before or after killing the mother?"

"Before seems unlikely," Colomba replied. "The mother would have realized that something wasn't right."

"So you kill someone, and then you start doing a little exterior decorating? I mean, cold-hearted and everything, but that's a little much."

"If it was your firm-handed killer, maybe it's part of the fabrication. Or else the boy lost them on the trail and someone hung them up so their rightful owner could find them."

"What do the footprints tell you?"

"Too much rain, too much mud, and too many people walking around. Even if the footprints of the murderer or the little boy walking away were ever there, it's impossible to make them out now."

"So we don't know which way he went when he left."

"If it was Maugeri, he went back to the place they had their picnic and started pretending to be looking for his wife and son."

"I thought we'd already eliminated him as a suspect, hadn't we?"

"You eliminated him. I didn't. For now, all I have are question marks."

Dante thought it over for a few seconds. "I don't think the murderer left by the route we took to get here. There are too many people on that trail, and he certainly didn't want to run the risk of being seen."

"So he hung up the shoes and went back?"

Dante shook his head. "Maybe. Which makes the act even more significant, but I don't know why." He looked around, then pointed to the trail, which continued on. He leapt lightly to the ground. "Let's go," and he headed off without waiting for an answer.

Colomba went after him, still amazed at his energy. In his home, he hadn't seemed capable of taking two steps without someone's arm to lean on.

They continued down the trail and ran into a pair of mushroom hunters with wicker baskets. Dante nodded to them as they passed. "Finding anything good?"

"Nothing much," one answered.

"People looking for mushrooms always go out after it rains," said Dante once the pair were far away. "Maybe someone crossed paths with the murderer."

"No one came in to report anything."

"Because he didn't particularly stand out. And I doubt your colleagues took much trouble to collect eyewitness accounts."

"Not after Maugeri's arrest," Colomba admitted. "But by now everyone knows about the missing boy, his picture is everywhere. If a mushroom hunter had seen him walking with someone, we would have heard about it."

"I don't think he was walking." Dante pointed to a hiker a short distance below them. He was carrying a sleepy child who had his arms wrapped around his neck. "Can you see that kid's face?"

"No," said Colomba.

"A six-year-old is a little big to be carried in someone's arms, but no one would really notice."

"That is, if this mysterious kidnapper really exists."

"Maybe the boy flew away on My Little Pony." Dante speeded up, passing the trees and forcing Colomba to run to catch up with him, thinking as she did about Dante's allusion to the popular Hasbro toy. Had his stunted childhood made him particularly tuned in to what fascinated children these days? She felt a stab of pain in her rebuilt tendon, which she'd already strained when she'd chased the man in the jacket a few hours earlier.

They emerged onto a plaza at the center of which stood a small light blue chapel dedicated to the Madonna and surrounded by enormous boulders.

"If your theory is correct, the kidnapper ought to have parked not very far from here," said Colomba. "And if he left before dark, he might not have met anyone. Day hikers usually go home at sunset."

She realized that Dante wasn't listening to her. He was staring at a metallic object hanging about halfway down the pole of a traffic sign. Colomba went over to take a closer look. It was a cylindrical metal whistle with a dull finish, tied to a frayed piece of hemp twine. She reached out to grab it, but Dante seized her by the wrist. His grip was icy and powerful, and it almost hurt.

"Don't touch it," he told her.

Colomba shook free with a brusque movement. "Well, don't you touch me either, if you don't mind." She realized that Dante was gray in the face. "What's the matter?" she asked, suddenly worried.

Dante finally answered after a number of failed attempts, his voice reduced to little more than a murmur. "When he took me . . . when the Father took me, I had something with me that I'd found in the field where I went to play. It was a Boy Scout whistle." He shifted his gaze to her. But he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at an ancient, boundless terror. "That's it," he said, pointing.

6.

Dante was sitting by the side of the road, his arms wrapped around his legs. He hadn't said another word, he hadn't moved.

Colomba wasn't comfortable leaving him alone in that condition, but she had to call Rovere and she didn't want him to overhear. "How do you feel, Signor Torre?" she asked.

Dante sat mute and motionless, gaze lost in the distance.

"Signor Torre, I'm going to have to step away for just a few minutes. But I can't do that unless you tell me you're all right." Still no reaction. "Dante . . ."

Hearing the sound of his name, he came to. "I'm not going to die," he replied tonelessly. "Do what you have to."

Colomba walked a short distance away and called Rovere again. "Dante isn't doing well," she told him. "Not that he was doing all that well before."

"What happened?"

"He saw a whistle hanging from a signpost and started saying that it had been left by the man who kidnapped the Maugeris' son, who is supposedly the same man who kidnapped him. Because Torre is convinced that his real kidnapper is still on the loose."

"And why would he have left the whistle?"

From his tone, it seemed that Rovere was actually mulling the question over, and Colomba was amazed. "I have no idea, and if you ask me, neither does Torre. Listen, I'm going to take him back home."

"And do you intend to ignore what he told you?"

"Help me understand. What are you telling me I ought to do instead?"

"Inform the man in charge of this investigation about this discovery."

Colomba thought she must have misheard. "Captain Rovere . . . Torre is delirious! We've put him face-to-face with a situation that resembles what happened to him, and it's driven him around the bend."

"That whistle might be evidence in a case of kidnapping and murder," said Rovere stubbornly.

"Now I'm starting to think you're delirious, too." Could it be that Rovere's desire to screw Santini was so powerful that it was driving him crazy? "If I try to tell De Angelis anything of the sort, he'll laugh in my face."

"The responsibility for that will be his, not ours."

"I'm pulling out of this, Captain," said Colomba coldly.

"You're free to do that, starting this evening. But for now, wait until someone can get there. I'll alert De Angelis myself," said Rovere and ended the conversation without saying good-bye.

Well, go fuck yourself, thought Colomba. But his reaction still left a bitter taste in her mouth.

An hour later, Santini was the first to arrive. In the meantime, Dante might have said at the most three or four words, and he'd refused any offers to take him home. The CIS deputy chief's car was followed by a station wagon with the insignia of the VCU on the doors. Colomba had already seen the two technicians riding in that car the previous day.

"And we're back," said the older member of the pair as they got out of the car. "I'm starting to hate this place."

Santini walked straight over to them. "Whose idea was this bullshit?" he asked.

Colomba concealed her embarrassment by keeping her face impassive. "Figure it out for yourself, genius."

"I'm going to make you pay for this."

She pointed behind her. "The pole in question is right there. Why don't you shove it up your ass?"

Santini nodded to the forensic technicians. "Come on, let's get moving."

The two technicians, who weren't wearing the white jumpsuits they trotted out on special occasions, photographed the whistle, then placed it in a sterile evidence bag. Santini stayed glued to Colomba.

"Are you afraid I might hang up another one?" she asked him.

"You know you're going to be lucky if they send you to stamp passports when you get back from leave, right?"

"I should take lessons from you about how to kiss the asses that count. How's every little thing with De Angelis? Do you take him coffee in bed?"

Santini stared at her with loathing. "You'd better be careful what you say."

"I am. Just think if I wasn't."

Colomba sat back down next to Dante while the technicians dusted the pole with fingerprint powder and found a tangled mess of prints.