Free Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions by Mario Giordano Page B

victim’s body or its immediate vicinity?”
    Poldi stared at the cobalt-blue piece of mosaic that had been lying, clearly visible, on the dusty dashboard all this time, like a little jewel. She resisted the impulse to pick it up, but only with the greatest self-control.
    â€œNo.”
    Montana looked out across the beach, thinking hard.
    â€œPerhaps Valentino was killed near the water’s edge and deposited further up later on. The tide would have washed all the blood away.”
    â€œUnlikely,” said Poldi. “There’s hardly any tide here, and there are no salt-water marks on his clothing.”
    Montana drew a deep breath, “You come here this morning for a swim, find an appallingly mutilated body, recognize the young man by his tattoo, hold his hand, and then examine the corpse for clues.”
    Poldi said nothing.
    Montana took another look at his notes.
    â€œValentino had been missing for three days?”
    â€œFour, counting today. Since Monday.”
    Montana wrote “Monday” and ringed the word. “And you were worried?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause you worry when someone who is normally reliable suddenly disappears and doesn’t answer his phone.”
    â€œHad something happened between the two of you?”
    Beautiful eyes or no, Poldi was getting sick of being questioned.
    â€œCertainly not,” she snapped. “I’m just a caring person. It comes naturally to me.”
    â€œTo search a murder victim?”
    â€œMadonna, commissario, what the hell are you getting at?”
    The chief inspector gave Poldi a long, long look that pierced her to the marrow. Then he handed back her car key. “Thank you, Signora Oberreiter. That will be all for the moment. I have your address in Torre.”
    Their fingers briefly touched as the key changed hands. Poldi gave a start.
    â€œNumber 29 Via Baronessa,” she purred. “It’s easy enough to find.”
    â€œI hope you aren’t planning to leave the island in the immediate future?”
    He looked at her again, his bright eyes sad despite the laughter lines.
    Poldi smiled at him and started the car. “That would be extraordinarily stupid of me, commissario.”
    â€œYou chatted him up,” I exclaimed when she told me about it later. “You find a dead body and flirt with the chief investigator. You’re simply —”
    â€œShameless?”
    â€œNo, totally cool.”
    Poldi smiled, looking flattered. “I had to lay a little scent mark, and nothing is more appealing to a detective than a mixture of half-truths and subtle eroticism.”
    â€œWhat made you so sure Montana would soon be ringing your doorbell?”
    â€œWhy, I pegged him as a real pro right away. One day at most, I told myself, and he’ll discover that I went looking for Valentino. And what does that mean?”
    I didn’t have a clue.
    â€œHe’ll know that I was one of the last people to see Valentino alive,” she explained. “And that I may know more than he does.”
    That figured.
    Within a few hours Torre Archirafi was enveloped in a fog of rumours, a toxic aerosol of conjectures, remarks hastily cut short, half-truths, whispered names, meaningful glances and eloquent silences. My aunt’s name did not, however, crop up amid these nebulous rumours, a circumstance Poldi attributed to the handsome commissario, who had clearly enjoined the whole police force to silence. She did not delude herself that something wouldn’t leak out sooner or later, but until it did she might be able to glean some information while feigning dismayed ignorance.
    Although no clear picture emerged from the rumours, everyone in town seemed to associate Valentino’s death in some way with his activities for Russo.
    â€œSimply… blown… away,” Signor Bussacca whispered to Poldi next morning, when she went to replenish her supply of