In a split second, Matteo realised what he was looking at. He remembered what people in the village told each other, and what he himself had heard from Lorenzo. That Gaetano had helped out at the scrapyard from time to time, so he could live in the construction trailer during his stays in Santa Caterina.
That meant there was a good chance Lorenzo Bonucci knew about the contents of the casket.
Matteo sat in his official car and drove far too fast down the riverside road to ask the scrap dealer a few awkward questions. The tyres had hardly any grip on the gravel, and he had to counter-steer hard several times to avoid going off the road. He could have gone slower, but something drove him to hurry.
As he pulled into the yard of the scrapyard, he slammed on the brakes sharply to avoid running over a passing chicken. It cackled loudly and hopped away with a flap.
Although he had closed the windows and turned the air conditioning up full, he could hear a dog barking darkly from outside. He knew that bark. Was that Caesar?
Matteo turned in the direction of the sound and saw the gate to the chicken enclosure had been ripped off its hinges. Now he also realised the whole yard was full of flapping, clucking, feathered fowl. What’s going on here?
Looking around, he got out and searched the tumbledown junkyard for Lorenzo. But there seemed to be nobody there but those chickens.
“Lorenzo?” called Matteo, moving towards the chicken coop to take a closer look at the gate.
“Here!” sounded a voice from the enclosure. But it wasn’t the gruff voice of the scrap dealer. It was a woman’s voice. And one he knew.
Mindful of his polished service shoes, he entered the mesh-fenced outdoor enclosure of the barn, dodging the largest dollops of faeces on the floor.
“Sister Isabella! Is that you? What on earth are you doing here?”
When he entered the boarded-up shed, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Sister Isabella stood in front of him with a rifle in her hand, which she had trained on Lorenzo, who was crouched in the corner. His green overalls looked badly damaged. Torn holes gaped in the cloth, and Matteo thought he saw a small trail of blood on the scrap dealer’s leg in the dim light of the henhouse. And directly in front of Sister Isabella, there towered the bulky Saint Bernard.
Matteo’s gaze moved back and forth between the scrap dealer and the heavily armed sister. Gently, he took the rifle from her hand, and Lorenzo began to move. But he immediately went limp again when Caesar growled menacingly and raised his snout.
“Will someone explain this to me?” asked Matteo. Sweat ran down his back. The chicken smell was almost unbearable.
“The egg,” Isabella said simply. “Caesar found it. Ingeniously hidden under the real chicken eggs.” He felt her gaze rest on him. “And what are you doing here?” Her brows lifted.
“Well, I’m solving a case. I followed his trail to an art shop in Lucca.” Matteo nodded in Lorenzo’s direction. “He wanted to get an expert opinion on the Fabergé egg.”
He was careful to conceal the fact he had simply got lucky. All he had really wanted was to have a reason to see Nina again. No one was more surprised than he was about having cracked the case.
The mayor’s comment had set him on the right track. And then it had dawned on him what the strange lattice in the background of the photo was. It was the heart-shaped radiator grille of an old Alfa Romeo Giulia.
Matteo turned to the scrap dealer. “You killed Gaetano to get the Fabergé egg. That’s why he had to die. You struck him from behind.”
Lorenzo shook his head vigorously. “You have no evidence of that.”
“We have the egg,” Isabella replied.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Well,” Matteo conceded, “in any case, it’s solid evidence that puts you in the focus of the investigation. But I’m pretty sure here in the scrapyard we’ll also find the murder weapon with which you beat Gaetano to death.”
The scrap dealer laughed confidently. “And how are you going to do that, among all this junk?”
Now it was Matteo who put on a superior grin.
“We’ve got a friend with the sharpest nose this side of Santa Caterina.”
Lorenzo’s features hardened.
“He’s already found his master’s treasure.”
He lowered the rifle and called Caesar over, who sniffed its butt eagerly. Then he did something that tore Matteo’s heart in two. The dog sat up on its hind legs and began to howl piteously.
At Isabella’s uncomprehending look, Matteo nodded and held up the rifle. “This is the murder weapon,” he explained to her, not taking his eyes off Lorenzo.
The man’s thundering expression told him he had hit the mark. No confession required. He had spotted the dried traces of blood on the stock right away. Lorenzo must have had this weapon with him when he ransacked the construction trailer.
“When you searched the construction trailer, you were surprised by Gaetano and Caesar. Presumably the dog made to pounce on you, and you shot at it. But you’re not a good shot, are you? You missed and grazed his head.” He looked at Isabella. “That will have been the reason for Caesar’s head injury.”
She pressed a hand over her mouth. Matteo could only guess at her feelings.
“According to forensics, there was no fight. Do you know what I suspect? I suspect Gaetano immediately went to his dog to see if he was alright. And that’s when you hit him in the back of the head with the butt of your rifle.”
“That… I didn’t mean to,” the scrap dealer stammered. In fact, he was close to tears. “I shot the dog, yes. It was self-defence. He was trying to attack me. And Gaetano… I just wanted to knock him unconscious, like in the movies.”
Matteo looked at him hard. “But this isn’t a film. This is reality, and it’s brutal.”
Now tears were really running down Lorenzo’s cheeks. “I… I didn’t know my own strength.” He flapped his hands around helplessly. “All of a sudden… there was blood everywhere, and Gaetano just toppled off to the side. I tried to give first aid, but… I only wanted the egg…”
He said nothing more. There was no point. There was nothing that could improve his situation.
“Lorenzo Bonucci, I’m arresting you for the murder of Louis Giuliani.”
He unsnapped the handcuffs from his belt, but paused briefly. Without taking his eyes off Lorenzo, Matteo crouched down and stroked the whimpering dog’s soft fur.
“Everything will be fine, Caesar. You now have a new owner who’ll take very good care of you.”
He winked affectionately at Isabella, who now couldn’t hold it in any longer and let her tears run free.