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Fausto always became loquacious as soon as a plate of food was set before him. He enjoyed expounding about women, music, movies, Parliament—and meals he wasn’t eating. Never murder. Tonight was somehow different.
“We found a fountain pen on the Via della Scala today,” he told Scarpone. “Smashed to bits, of course. Still intact enough to remind me of that ugly business six years back.”
They were sitting at the fried fish place just off the Campo de’ Fiori, the one that only opened at night when the tourists were prowling the streets mad with hunger. Fausto had snagged a table outside, in front of the church of Santa Barbara, under the tin lights that burned like fireflies. Fausto had already sucked down his first piece of fried cod and was washing it down with beer. Scarpone, whose short dark hair was shot with gray, hadn’t yet touched his.
“Ugly business?” the younger cop said.
“Two murders, three years apart,” Fausto told him. “Both victims were men working in the neighborhood. Multiple stab wounds to the necks and throats. Grisly, I tell you. The pens were left behind both times. The one we found today was the same model. The Garibaldi Principessa. No victim. Just a lost, shattered pen, lying there on the cobblestones. One of the shopkeepers who shares my interest in those cases found it and brought the pieces by.”
“So you looked for a woman? A foreigner?” Scarpone said, reaching for his filetto di bacala. The batter broke with a crunch like candied glass. “And came up empty-handed?”
Fausto froze. Set down his beer. And sat up straight. “A woman, you say? Why would you look for a foreign woman?”