Free Bella Italia by Suzanne Vermeer

sick and crazy people walking around freely in the world than there were locked up in prisons or insane asylums. The vast majority of those present at the briefing had nodded with approval. They would keep their eyes and ears open to avoid another tragedy like this, because once was more than enough to last a lifetime.
    But the people from his own department hadn’t moved an inch during the chief’s speech and had just taken it in. They all thought that the whole speech was a bunch of nonsense.
    Forty-eight-year-old Ottavio Galli may have very well died as a result of his head wound, but that didn’t mean that the “Monster of Garda,” as the tabloids had labeled him, was a closed case. There were several points that clearly indicated that Ottavio Galli was not the killer, but they couldn’t prove it beyond a doubt. They found his fingerprints and the Dutch man’s prints on Mats, but the prints had no direct connection with the cause of death and were easily explained according to what Hans Kolwijn had told them. The police commissioner had not lied when he spoke about Galli’s fingerprints being found on Mats’s body, but he had left out the fact that they didn’t coincide with a typical strangulation pattern. They had to close this case as fast as possible to settle everyone’s nerves. A large part of the population around Lake Garda survived financially on tourism. If they announced that the killer was still roaming around free, it would cause great political and economic distress.
    Martuccia left the police station and looked at his watch. It was a quarter to five. Time to go home. While he walked to his car, the unanswered questions kept spinning around in his mind.
    What was a homeless person doing there at that time? He was probably attempting to find leftover food and drinks at the campground. He did have a criminal record, but it consisted of a few harmless violations like public drunkenness and disturbing the peace. There was nothing in his file about any sexual abnormalities or pedophilia, but that didn’t say anything definitive either. The fence had been carefully and precisely cut open with a very sharp object, a very precise action, which was probably premeditated and executed earlier. The homeless man had no tools with him and had very few personal belongings to begin with. He must have found the opening by chance and had hoped to enter the grounds with the possibility of finding food. Then there were the results from the forensic department. The lack of fingerprints in the strangulation area suggested the killer wore gloves when he strangled the child. Another clue that the murder had been premeditated and had been carefully planned ahead. Galli had no gloves on. He could have thrown them away, but there wasn’t a single witness who had seen him wearing gloves, and they had searched every inch of the campground looking for evidence without finding anything. Thankfully, they didn’t find any traces of sexual abuse. But this had made it even more difficult to determine why the boy had been murdered. Unless there was some sort of mental sexual gratification the offender had gotten from it, but that was impossible to prove. Certainly not in this case now. The trace evidence done on the clothing also hadn’t come up with anything.
    Martuccia felt someone place a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head to the side and looked straight into Filippo Tardelli’s face.
    “Hey, Carlo, are walking around contemplating again?” Tardelli didn’t give him a chance to confirm or deny it. “I don’t need to guess what you are thinking. I know each one of you thoughts by heart, from A to Z .”
    Martuccia grinned sheepishly. “Well, it isn’t very difficult to figure out.”
    Tardelli pulled on his arm. “You don’t happen to have any important or urgent appointments right now, do you?”
    “No, I’m headed home.”
    “Ah, the family. That is very important, but not urgent. Come on, we need to take a