Black Run Read Online Free PDF Page A

stay out of trouble.” Then Rocco spread his arms wide in exasperation. “You want to know something, Alberto?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œOh, you’re going to hear from the Aosta forensics team before long, once they find fingerprints from our men, and urine, and pubic hair, and head hair. Once you guys are through with the place, even if the killer took a dump on the ground, they wouldn’t be able to find an uncompromised piece of evidence. Thanks to imbeciles like Casella . . . and you, too, Caciuoppolo! You say that you secured the crime scene, and then what?”
    Caciuoppolo dropped his head.
    â€œLook what you’ve done! Here are your footprints all around the corpse, on the road, everywhere! Holy Mary, mother of God! A guy could just give up and go home after this!”

    His shoes were sopping wet. The cold was increasing exponentially as the minutes crept by. Fumagalli’s zero degrees Celsius was just a fond memory by now, and the wind continued to torment him, even under his warm woolen undershirt. Rocco wished he were at least four hundred miles away from here, ideally in the Gusto Osteria, on Via della Frezza, “Da Antonio,” just a stone’s throw from the Lungotevere, eating fritto misto and beef tartare, washed down with a bottle of Verdicchio di Matelica.
    â€œDo you think he could have been a skier?” asked Officer Pierron, to break the tension; up till then, Pierron had been keeping a safe distance from the corpse.
    Rocco looked at him with all the contempt he’d been accumulating in four months of exile from Rome. “Italo, he’s wearing boots! Have you ever seen anyone go skiing in a pair of rubber-soled calfskin boots?”
    â€œNo, I couldn’t see them from here. Sorry!” Italo replied, hunching his head down between his shoulders.
    â€œWell, then, instead of spouting bullshit, take two steps forward and look for yourself! Do your job!”
    â€œI’d have to decline that offer, Commissario!”
    A wave of depression swept over Rocco. He looked the medical examiner in the eyes. “These are what they give me, and these are all I have to take with me when I work a case. Okay, Alberto, thanks. Give me a call the minute you have something. Let’s just hope he died of a heart attack, fell down, and got covered up with snow.”
    â€œSure, let’s hope,” said Alberto.
    Rocco shot one last glance at the corpse. “Give my regards to the forensics squad.” And he turned to go.
    But something struck him, like an insect when you’re riding fast on a moped with no windshield. He spun around again.
    â€œAlberto, you’re a man of the world. Would you say this guy was wearing technical gear?”

    Alberto made a face. “Well, his pants were padded. His windbreaker was the right stuff, no question: North Face Polar. Couldn’t have been cheap. I bought one just like it for my daughter. Only in red.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œIt cost more than four hundred euros.”
    Rocco bent over the half-frozen corpse again. “No gloves. I wonder why.”
    Alberto Fumagalli spread his arms in bafflement. The deputy police chief stood back up. “Let’s think this one over. Let’s think on it.”
    â€œWell, Commissario,” chimed in Caciuoppolo, who had been leaning on his ski poles and listening, “maybe he’s someone who lives in one of the huts up in Crest. You see? Just two hundred yards from here.”
    Rocco looked at the little cluster of houses hidden in the snow.
    â€œAh. There are people who live up there?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIn the middle of nowhere? Huh . . .”
    â€œIf you love the mountains, that’s the place for you, right?”
    Rocco Schiavone grimaced in disapproval. “Maybe so, Caciuoppolo, maybe so. Nice work.”
    â€œGrazie.”
    â€œBut he also could have died somewhere else and been carried up here.