These Dark Things Read Online Free PDF

wallet.
    “No.” Lou held up a hand.
    “Lou, we have to pay. Otherwise—”
    “Otherwise what? Your bosses give you a hard time? Anyone bothers you, you let me know. No disrespect, Miss,” he addressed Natalia.
    “So,” he said, hands on ample hips, “the hermit finally got himself a girlfriend. When’s the happy day?”
    “You’ll be the first to know,” Pino said. He took Natalia’s arm and pulled her away.
    “Nice meeting you!” Scarpetto managed before they were swept into the stream of shoppers.
    “What was that about?” Natalia asked. Pino was still holding her arm.
    “The less Scarpetto knows, the better.”
    “Have you used him as an informant?”
    “A couple of times.”
    “Okay. I get it. Now can I have my arm back?”
    “No,” he said.
    “Have you lost your mind?” Natalia pulled away, acting as if he were teasing.
    The two partners lingered on Via Toledo, looking in the windows of an antiques emporium, and next door the bridal shop, unchanged since Natalia and her best friend had haunted it as young girls. The same mannequins displayed two gowns—one of lace covered in pearls, the other a heavy cream-colored silk.
    A juggler performed in the street out front. A marginale— one on the margins. A few robbed for a living too, but most contributed their varied talents to society. Some were circus performers, or barkers. A few were hatmakers. The knife grinder pushed his sharpening wheel through neighborhoods, announcing his services with a singsong cry. When she was a child, her mother had hired one-eyed Pietro to repair her copper pots. Amazingly, Pietro could read and write, while many of his clients couldn’t.
    Pino rifled through a bin of tarnished knives, banded with twine, and boxes of beaded flowers outside the antique shop. In the doorway, the proprietor held up a ripe pear and a fresh pastry, displaying them to a woman leaning out her window across the street.
    Although she was only two years older than Pino, she felt as if she’d lived decades longer. They walked out of their district and passed a group of palm trees near the harbor. Gulls circled the docks, scouting for a meal.

    The commander of the 10th Carabinieri Battalion, Colonel Donati, leaned back in his chair. Natalia was afraid that one day he would lean too far and tip over. A miracle it’s never happened, she thought. He reached into a green glass bowl to grab a lemon drop.
    “I’m trying to stop smoking. These are Elisabetta’s idea. Try one?” He pushed the bowl across the desk. Donati’s wife must have chosen the bowl. Its modern design was unlike anything else in the room.
    “No, thanks,” Natalia and Pino said at the same time.
    “Any progress in the case?”
    “Some,” Natalia said. “The victim was a German citizen, born in Ulm. Her maternal grandparents were from Palermo. She’s going to be buried there whenever Dr. Francesca releases the body.”
    “Beautiful girl, judging from the photo in the paper.” He handed his copy to Natalia. “What do you know so far? What are your concerns about the case?”
    Luca had outdone himself: the dead girl looked mythic, a character in a fairy tale in deep slumber.
    “The murderer killed her in the street near a shrine,” Natalia said. “Carried her through a locked door into the church and down a narrow passage into the crypt beneath. Yet forensics hasn’t found so much as a drop of blood along the route, none in the tunnel descending to the crypts. Not a drop, not a smudge, although at least the killer’s hands must have been bloody, his clothes stained. And no one saw the assailant come or go.”
    “Perhaps he came prepared,” Donati said, “and wore gloves and one of those suits Dr. Francesca’s people wear. Though that wouldn’t explain the absence of a blood trail.” His eyebrows arched. “Perhaps she bled out before he carted her off.”
    “Perhaps,” Natalia said, without much conviction.
    “Tell me what you need.”
    “Help. Support