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

building. When he got to it, he found it displayed in a position of honor in the center of the room, enclosed in a softly-lit glass case. The boy, his straight arms stiffly at attention, was all legs and body, wire thin and tall. It looked as if the sculptor had created a normal body, and then begun to pull on the clay, slowly elongating the figure, and could not bring himself to stop. The result was a haunting, almost snake-like bronze sculpture which stared at Rick with a faint smirk. Try to figure this one out, it seemed to be saying in a voice that echoed back almost two and a half millennia.

There wasn’t anything that could top that. Rick walked briskly through the next rooms and perused the Greek items on the top floor before taking the elevator back down to the piano terra. The woman pulled his cell phone from one of the cubby holes behind her desk and exchanged it for the plastic number. When he left the building he brought the phone back to life, turned right, and headed down the street toward the hotel. The man with the bicycle followed in the same direction.

***

The car drove slowly down the narrow street, the strolling pedestrians moving even more slowly to the sides when they saw it was a police vehicle. It was a small show of defiance to the authorities that involved little risk, and Conti was used to it whenever he drove through a zona pedonale. Landi’s shop was a short walk from the police station, but he thought a demonstration of force, even if it was only the dark blue armored Fiat, might help get some answers. The sergeant parked in front of the shop and Conti got out and stepped into Galleria Landi, watched by the people on the street. He knew that customers would hesitate to come into the shop while a police car parked in front. The girl behind the counter was clearly uncomfortable with the appearance of the commissario, but he could not tell if her discomfort was due to his car’s effect on business or something else. His appearance, he knew from experience, often brought out the worst fears in people, especially when he was a reminder of someone’s death.

Conti had talked to her the night of the murder, and was convinced she had told him everything she knew. It was Landi he now wanted to talk with, and he could see from her face that she sensed it. But the face today was different. In their previous encounter it has shown shock, disbelief, even some anger; all the usual emotions that appear immediately after getting jolting news. Today the news had sunk in, and her eyes showed sorrow and fear. Canopo had apparently been a friend as well as a colleague, and she had passed the night with little sleep.

“Signor Landi is not here at the moment, Commissario. He is…”

Conti waited a few seconds and said, “Yes, Signorina? He is where?”

“At the workshop. He’s been spending more time there since…”

She couldn’t seem to finish her sentences today, so he helped. “Since Canopo’s death. I would certainly expect that without a workshop manager, Signor Landi would have to spend more time over there.” He spoke with as gentle a voice as he could; no use getting the girl more upset than she already was. “I’ll go there. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“No bother at all, Commissario.” She smiled for the first time.

As Conti walked toward the door he noticed a stone carving of a reclining figure, on one of the many shelves. He picked it up and looked back at the girl, who was stuffing a tissue into her skirt pocket.

“Those are very popular with the tourists,” she said before he could speak, apparently getting her tongue back. “The figure represents a deceased person at a banquet, and the pedestal on which the man reclines is the cover of his own funerary urn.” He studied it from various angles “It is of course smaller than the original,” she added, “but very realistic for a copy, don’t you think?”

He nodded, replaced it on the shelf and walked out to the car.

“To Landi’s workshop,” he said to the driver. “You remember where it is.”

Conti settled into the seat and tried to remember where he had seen a similar piece. In the window of one of the many other tourist shops around town, no doubt. They drove from the totally pedestrian center of the city to an outer band with a few cars, soon pulling up in front of the tall doors of the workshop.

The large room had not changed from his last visit: the same layer of dust on the floor and the same sullen stares on the faces of the workers. Also the same noise, though some of the machines were being turned off as he walked in. From the look on Landi’s face it was evident that the girl had called ahead. He wore a long white coat, to protect his suit from the dust of the room, and he rubbed his hands together in an attempt to get them clean.

“Commissario. So good to see you.”

Conti ignored the lie and shook Landi’s offered hand.

“I just wanted to ask you some more questions, Signor Landi, if it is not inconvenient.”

“My time is yours.” He looked around for a place for them to sit, but stone dust covered the few vacant chairs. “Would you like to go outside where there is less—”

“Here is fine, I only have a few questions.” Conti moved to a corner to get out of the earshot of the workers who now turned their eyes back to the tables. “Did Canopo act differently in the days or hours just before his death?”

“As I told you before, Commissario—”

“Signor Landi, you don’t have to preface your answers with ‘as I told you before,’ just be indulgent to an old policeman and answer the questions to the best of