In the victims’ apartment, Alex observed in fascination as the men from the forensic squad moved around the corpses as if they were onstage. It looked like a ballet, a ballet being danced around death itself. A choreography in which the dancers followed a preestablished trajectory without ever brushing against each other.
Aside from the director of the squad herself, there were six people there: three who reported directly to Martone, and three others from the violent crime analysis unit, responsible for inspecting the corpses and taking traces to be analyzed in the laboratory. They were all dressed in white, silent and focused, skilled at moving from place to place without ever touching a thing.
Lojacono materialized next to Alex. He too was keeping his eyes on the technicians from the forensic squad, following their mute dance.
“I told the three young men in the other apartment not to leave. The one in the tunic objected, and said that he had a class at the university. He’s one determined guy.”
“Very determined, and also rather jealous, I don’t know if you picked up on that.”
“Yes. Jealous of the young woman, not the young man. That’s an odd twist.”
“What do you mean? If you’re jealous, you’re jealous. Male, female, what difference does it make?”
“Of course, of course. I wasn’t saying any different. I just meant that the couple isn’t in perfect harmony, nothing more than that. They looked like a couple of cats with their hackles raised. Not that that necessarily means anything, don’t get me wrong.”
Alex went on.
“I was thinking about the doors. The main door, the one that leads into the shared front hall, was shut; Forgione said that he’d had to ring the bell to get in. While the door to the victims’ apartment was left ajar. Which means that, in theory at least, the only possible access to the scene of the murder would have been through Vinnie and Paco’s apartment.”
“Maybe someone left the apartment and only pulled the main door to the landing shut behind them. The only thing we know for sure is that there are no signs of breaking and entering: either the murderer had the keys or else someone let them in.”
Rosaria Martone’s voice, from behind, made them both start: “Good work, Lieutenant Lojacono. Now you’re trying to put us out of a job.”
The man turned around: “Dottoressa, what an unexpected honor: none other than the director in chief, in person, for the little precinct of Pizzofalcone.”
The woman smiled at him: “Not for you, of course, no disrespect intended. These two young people invited us out. A double homicide isn’t something that happens every day, even in a city like this one. Let’s just say I’m mixing business with pleasure.”
As she uttered the last part of the sentence, she had turned her eyes toward Alex, who was well aware that she’d blushed and therefore turned to look into the room where the young murdered woman lay sprawled on the bed.
“She was raped, wasn’t she? Maybe she put up a fight, tried to defend herself.”
Martone followed Alex’s gaze and the ironic expression of her bronzed face turned sad.
“Maybe so, maybe not, we can’t say yet. In summer, when the flesh is bared, it’s easier to tell if there are marks of violence on the skin, but when it’s cold like this, people are bundled up to the neck, and that makes it difficult. Certainly, the torn blouse and the position of her legs both suggest rape, but still . . . As you know, there are murder scenes that would seem not to leave the shadow of a doubt, whereas the reality is entirely different. There are perverts who like to have fun with the victim, postmortem.”
“So we won’t know till after the autopsy is done?”
“No, Lieutenant, not necessarily. Do you see that instrument, that sort of lamp? It’s called a CrimeScope. It emanates light at various wavelengths, and it allows us to identify fingerprints, fibers, hairs, and biological substances, such as semen, for instance.”
“What about the clothing? Will a specific analysis be done in the laboratory, too?”
“Yes, but first we’ll finish our investigation here, with photographs shot both with side and direct lighting; we’re actually almost done, and my colleague has already informed me that there don’t seem to be any traces of seminal fluid. So then we’ll take the clothing and transport it to the laboratory for the specific analysis you were just mentioning.”
Alex insisted on the theory that the young woman might have tried to defend herself.
“But she might have scratched him, right? I don’t know, there might be material under her fingernails, or . . . ”
Rosaria smiled, and her voice dropped even lower.
“There might be, it’s true. Unless it turns out that this was consensual: there are some women, you know, who enjoy a fake rape, and there are some men who let things spin out of control. In the meantime, we need to reconstruct the sequence of events of the two murders.”
Lojacono agreed with Martone.
“Yes, that’s fundamental. But she’s still wearing her jacket, so she might have just returned home, or been about to go out—”
Alex completed her reasoning for her: “The fact that he was at the table in one room and she was lying on the bed in another suggests that the first murder took place without the second victim realizing it or being present. In any case, one thing is certain: they didn’t kill each other.”
Rosaria ran the back of her hand over her cheek.
“She was unquestionably a beautiful girl, look at her perfect figure. And look at the picture on the wall: a gorgeous smile. A body and a face like that would be enough to drive someone crazy; people kill for much less. If I were you, I’d look into her lovers, and there must have been quite a few.”
“We’ll certainly be sure to do so, Dottoressa. All suggestions are more than welcome, coming from an expert like you.”
Lojacono turned to gaze at Alex in astonishment. In general she was extremely reserved, and spoke only when spoken to: that ironic wisecrack wasn’t her style.
Martone took it in stride; in fact, her face took on a look of wry complicity.
“Wait, weren’t we on a first-name basis, Di Nardo? No need for formality among women and cops.”
Alex blushed again, and then, as if it had suddenly occurred to her, she said: “By the way: earlier, Lojacono and I spotted something under the console table by the front door. An object with earbuds, maybe it’s a cell phone or a digital music player. Did you find it?”
“Let me go ask.”
A short while later, Martone was back with a transparent plastic bag.
“Is this what you were talking about? Cute, isn’t it?”
It was a cell phone with a shattered screen. From the pink plastic case, which ended in a pair of long bunny ears, extended a wire connected to a pair of earbuds.