Cold Tuscan Stone, David Wagner [i read book txt] 📗

and found himself in a large, bleak waiting room. It was flanked on one side by a classic, long, scuffed reception desk which must be a requirement in police stations worldwide. This one, at least, was wood, perhaps in deference to the age of the building. Various men and women, some in uniform, walked through the room looking busy. Rick approached the desk and asked for Commissario Conti. The uniformed man took his name and added it to a list on a clip board in front of him.

“The Commissario has been detained.” He pointed to the equally long and scuffed bench at one side of the room. “He has asked you to please wait,” he added, before going back to his papers.

The bench was hard, and became even harder the longer Rick sat. Fortunately he was not bored; the people circulating through the room kept up his interest, including several sitting with him on the bench. He thought of Grandma Montoya who loved people watching: give her a place to sit where people streamed by and she could not be happier. Periodically a policeman would appear to call out a name, and when someone popped up from the bench he would lead them through the doors into the heart of the building. Feeding the cycle, others came through the main doors to check in at the desk and take their place on the bench until their turn came. Many carried papers, and Rick supposed that they were working their way through the Italian bureaucracy to get some permit or perhaps pay a fine. He tried to analyze the people who sat with him, concluding that they were not wealthy or well connected. Anyone with money would have found some way to avoid the bureaucracy, or at the very least to skip waiting in line. It was not unlike encounters with the state bureaucracy in New Mexico, but here the language was Italian, not Spanish.

He checked his phone, saw that he had been sitting for a half hour, and wondered if he should inquire at the desk about Conti. Just at that moment the desk sergeant answered the phone. When he heard the voice his body stiffened slightly and he glanced over at Rick while nodding at the unseeing person on the other end of the line. After hanging up he looked back at Rick and smiled, again nodding slightly.

Twenty minutes later Rick was the only occupant of the bench, like the worst player on the basketball team. He glanced up and saw a man in his sixties appear at the doorway and walk to the desk. The color of his baggy suit matched his thinning hair, and he walked as if his feet hurt. Must be another pensioner needing a permit of one sort or another. The sergeant, now on his feet, silently pointed to Rick with his chin and the new arrival strode to the bench. Rick stood up and shook the man’s hand.

“Signor Montoya? Conti. Piacere. I very much regret that you have been kept waiting. Unfortunately it could not be avoided. Please come to my office.” Already annoyed by the wait, Rick was now disturbed by the thin smile on the Commissario’s face as they shook hands. Was Conti late on purpose, to show who was in charge? If the man got his enjoyment from such games, this could become a tedious exercise. Rick murmured an answer about not minding the wait and followed the man through the door, then along a wide corridor with doors off it at regular intervals. At its end was Conti’s office. The policeman motioned Rick to sit in a chair in front of the desk. Rick was expecting to be offered a coffee, but no offer was forthcoming.

“An unfortunate accident delayed me, Signor Montoya.” Conti settled into his institutional metal chair, leaning back with a slight squeak. “A man jumped to his death from a high wall at the north side of the city.” He looked at Rick as if waiting for him to answer.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rick said, for lack of anything more profound.

Conti continued to gaze at Rick for several seconds before speaking again. “Signor Montoya, I spoke to the man’s employer.” Another pause. “It seems that you were the last person to see the dead man before his fall.”

“Canopo?” Rick immediately remembered the encounter outside the shoe shop and the man rushing off down the street.

“That is correct. Signor Landi said that you had left his store to visit their workshop. We checked, and apparently neither of you arrived there. Can you tell me what happened?” Conti eased his chair back and folded his hands over his stomach, but kept his eyes on Rick. The chair gave another squeak.

“We were together only briefly,” Rick began, trying to recall the details while gathering his thoughts. But they were difficult to gather. He had spent barely ten minutes with Canopo, but in that time they had somehow connected, like two strangers in a foreign land. “After we left the shop we went into a bar on the street and had coffee. As we were leaving he stopped to talk to someone, and—”

“Who was that person?”

“I have no idea. It was a man, I’m sure of that.”

“Did you hear any of the conversation?”

“No, Commissario, Canopo stepped away from me and spoke to him at the entrance to a shoe store. When he finished the conversation and came back, he asked to postpone the visit to the workshop until tomorrow, since something had come up. Then he rushed off.”

“What did the man look like?”

“I didn’t really see much of him. He mostly had his back to me, and was inside the entrance to the shop.”

“Did Canopo leave with this man?”

“No, after he gave me his excuses and hurried off, I didn’t see the other man.”

“Which way did Canopo go?”

“Down the street, away from the shop, I think that would be—”

“I know. It would be toward where his body was found.