Adam's Rib Read Online Free PDF Page B

picture, pictures on a beach, pictures under a palm tree, and even a picture in front of the Colosseum. In a single glance Rocco saw it had been taken from the corner of Via Capo d’Africa, where there was a seafood restaurant that he and Marina inevitably chose whenthey had something to celebrate. The last time—and it had been more than five years ago—was when they’d completed the purchase of the penthouse in Monteverde Vecchio. Esther Baudo was smiling in every picture. But only with her mouth. Never with her eyes. Her eyes were always lackluster, dead, dark, and deep, never sparkling with laughter. Not even on the day of her wedding.
    Her husband was just the opposite. He always smiled into the lens. Happily. The hair had vanished from the top of his cranium and now adorned only the sides of his head. White, straight teeth gleamed in his small, rosebud mouth. He had small jug ears.
    Rocco left the living room and went to look at the kitchen. Right at the threshold of the kitchen door was a shattered cell phone. He picked it up. The screen was chipped, the battery was missing, and who could even say where the SIM chip had wound up. Then he looked around the rest of the room. Italo was right. The place really was a mess. It looked like a herd of buffalo had trampled through. The ground was a crazy hodgepodge of boxes, tin cans, packages of pasta, silverware, and a bread knife. He placed the shattered cell phone on the marble countertop, next to a plastic scale.
    He turned to look toward the room at the end of the hall: the den. And slowly, inexorably pulled toward it, as if by a magnet, he walked back to it. The woman still hung there. Rocco was tempted to lower her to the ground. To see her dangling there like a butchered animal was more than he could take. He bit his lip and stepped closer. The first thing that caught his eye was the swollen face. It was puffy, witha split lip from which the blood had flowed. One eye was open, staring; the other was shut and swollen to the size of a plum. The cable around her neck was a metal clothesline. The woman had run it over the hook that held up the ceiling lamp and then anchored it to the floor, tying it to the foot of an armoire. Like a ten-foot guywire, to make sure it would support the weight. Actually, though, it hadn’t—her weight had torn loose the electric wiring and caused a short circuit. There was a stool lying on the floor. A three-legged stool, like a piano stool. When it overturned, the cushion had torn loose. Maybe Esther kicked it in the last instant of her life, when she made up her mind that her time on this planet Earth had come to its logical conclusion. The skin on her neck was pale, but not around her throat. There a purple band ran, a little less than an inch across. Purple like the stain on the hardwood floor.
    â€œIt’s the third damned suicide this month,” said the medical examiner from behind him, snorting in annoyance. Rocco didn’t even bother turning around, and both men, faithful to the routine they’d developed over the months, exchanged no greeting.
    â€œWho found her? You?”
    Schiavone nodded. Alberto stepped closer and stood, surveying the body. They looked like a pair of tourists visiting MoMA, admiring an art installation.
    â€œA woman, about thirty-five, probable cause of death strangulation,” said the doctor. Rocco nodded: “And they gave you a medical degree for that?”
    â€œI’m just kidding.”
    â€œHow can you kid about this?”
    â€œWith the work I do, if you can’t kid around, you’re done for,” and Alberto tilted his head toward the corpse.
    Rocco asked, “Are you going to take the corpse down?”
    â€œI’d say so . . . I’ll wait for a couple of your people and then we’ll take her down.”
    â€œWho was coming upstairs?”
    â€œThe young woman and a fat guy.”
    Which meant Officer Deruta and Inspector