Germano had just stopped speaking, when he was interrupted by the telephone ringing.
“Hello.”
“Good afternoon, Commissioner, I’m Silvestri, from the forensic department.”
“Good afternoon, doctor. Did you finish in Rocca di Papa?”
“Yes, for the moment, even if I can’t say I found so much...”
“However...”
“I called you for another reason, Germano.”
“Please, tell me.”
“It’s about the twins’ murderer, maybe the killer made a little mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“On the scene of the crime I found a very interesting piece of plastic, at the beginning it was difficult to make it out, but finally we could discover where it probably came from.”
“Please go on.”
“It’s made of latex, it suppose it’s the final part of a forefinger of the glove used by the killer, he probably didn’t notice he lost that patch.”
“Was it easy to find it?”
“Not at all, Commissioner. It was near the jamb of a door placed between the entrance door and the place where the double murder occurred, at a first glance it could seem a simple dust heap.”
“What do you think about it?”
“I think that the piece of glove we found, being the right forefinger, weakened or wore by pulling the trigger and then, while the killer ran away, he probably leaned to something sharp that let it come off. Otherwise it could have come off while the killer got the glove out.”
“I suppose the material isn’t enough to get an imprint, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately you are right, Commissioner, but we could isolate the DNA. To tell the truth, it wasn’t very difficult and this means that the killer sweated a lot during the action.”
“Excellent.”
“This is why I called you, Germano, to update you about the matter and let you know that we have something to compare with, in case it’s necessary.”
“Excellent, Silvestri, see you later.”
“Goodbye.”
After having hanged up, the Commissioner immediately informed Parisi about the news.
Convinced they had a point at their favour, the two policemen concentrated again on the investigation.
“We could make a test, Angelo...”
“Which test?”
“Let’s suppose that the killer isn’t someone who can access our databases, because in that case we would find a trace of it, and he perfectly knows. So, let’s imagine he’s a person like everyone else, how could he access the information on the victims?”
“He could work in the court...”
“No, Angelo, if you look well, three of the four proceedings about the victims belonged to a court, while the jeweller’s one to another.”
“A lawyer?”
“No, they were all different.”
“So, how the devil did he do?”
After some seconds of silence, Germano spoke again.
“I was wondering... maybe he used the most common and less complicated existing way... from the newspapers.”
“If it’s like this, Vincent, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack...”
“You are probably right, but I’d like to check... is the PC still on?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, so let’s surf the Net and check which newspapers gave the news about the proceedings the victims had in progress.”
“Let’s try.”
So they started entering the news on the search engine and noting down all the newspapers they were interested in.
The case of tax evasion of the jeweller was reported by three local newspapers, while Parisi looked through the articles, Germano, at his side, nervously took notes.
The case of the boy killed in his garage, who was still entangled in the possession of stolen goods, was the most complex one, because the conviction wasn’t recent and there were only a few articles about him.
Parisi managed to find one of some years ago, still available on the Net.
The Commissioner continued taking notes about the title of the articles, the name of the reporter and the newspaper.
About the twins, they found four quite recent articles, all about the fact that they were considered the pushers who sold that lethal drug; only in the last case, the one about doctor Braghesi, the oncologist’s judicial event took a wide space on almost every newspaper.
Once the Commissioner’s notes were finished, he suggested a track.
“Some time ago, Di Girolamo told me there is a way to understand from which PC particular operations are made, such as the sending of an e-mail or the consultation of a page... by the way, how far has he got with the draughtsman?”
“I don’t know, Vincent. Wait a moment, I go and check.”
Germano was putting his notes in order, while waiting for Parisi, when suddenly the phone rang again.
“Hello.
“Silvestri’s on the phone again, Commissioner”.
“Please, tell me.”
“A few minutes ago my colleagues finished analysing the anonymous letter you sent us, the one where you were asked to look in the hospitals...”
“Yes, sure. What did they discover?”
“It’s full of fingerprints.”
“Someone could be mine, because...”
“We already isolated yours, Germano, only a couple. The other ones probably belong to the person who wrote the letter, they are homogeneous on both sides of the sheet, so it’s almost unthinkable it’s a casualness.”
“Very well, I ask you the last favour, Silvestri: can you please send the letter directly to the offices in charge of the handwriting investigations, without sending it back to me, otherwise we would lose time and I don’t think we have so much.”
“Don’t worry, Commissioner, I will send the letter tomorrow, early in the morning.”
They greeted each other friendly, then they both returned to their job.
Germano took his notepad again but was interrupted by Parisi and Di Girolamo, who came in holding a copy of the killer’s identikit, elaborated by the draughtsman, and immediately showed it to the Commissioner.
The face on the paper belonged to a white man, about forty years old, rather hollow and with neither moustache nor beard.
Germano looked carefully at the picture, before admitting with disappointment that they couldn’t let it publish by information means, due to the lack of details. That face, in fact, could be very common and they would have run the risk of being flooded with phone calls.
Germano concluded that such indication could be important, even if not indispensable, for their investigation, because it could represent a further term of comparison to be used in case they should find a possible suspect.
The Commissioner concluded by updating Di Girolamo about the last developments, asking also for his advice.
“Do you see, Giulio... some time ago you spoke to me of a system, that allows us to understand from which PC a particular thing has been made, also with consumptions...”
“Yes, thanks to the IP address, a sort of a plate which allows to identify the phone line and so also the PC.”
“Well, because one of the tracks we would like to follow is associated with these IP addresses ... on my notepad I noted down the names of all newspapers where some news have been published and tomorrow, in case it should be impossible this evening, their directors will be contacted and asked to provide us with the lists of the IP addresses, which accessed those pages and articles.”
“I’m at your disposal, please tell me what you want me to do.”
“Nothing for the moment. You should only work together with Parisi until we’ll have those lists. I’ll be clearer, it’s possible that Angelo, while making his telephone calls, will be connected with the technicians of the companies managing those data. To avoid errors and misunderstandings we should ask precise things and be able to answer possible technical
questions, so I think it’s better you to stay next to Angelo.”
“Ok, Commissioner, no problem.”
“Well.”
“As to the other aspects, what should we do, Vincent?”, Parisi said, once the previous conversation between Germano and Di Girolamo had finished.
“By the way, while you were out Silvestri called me. He said they found a lot of fingerprints on the second letter. He thinks that this cannot be an accident, and I agree, so we can be almost sure that the person who wrote the letter isn’t the killer.”
“His mother, maybe?”
“This is what I thought too, Angelo, it could be the mother, or a friend of him or his aunt, I don’t know. The important aspect is that who wrote the letters wanted to help us, so it wasn’t a show.”
“If only we could...”
“Find him, Angelo? In this case too, we are facing a classical needle in a haystack, but with some luck we’ll be able to compare the letters with something more complete. We cannot do more than this for now... so, I suggest to go home and take a rest, I’m hungry and for this type of investigations we must be as lucid as possible.”
“Ok, Vincent, maybe I could try to call some directors of the newspaper in order to anticipate them something, then I swear I will go home, too.”
“Ok, Angelo. Goodbye and see you tomorrow.”
27th December
The Commissioner’s awakening, such as the whole night, was troubled. Although it was only six o’clock, he already strolled about the house; some details he didn’t reveal to anybody began to seriously undermine his serenity and judgement ability.
The story of this serial killer had reached national levels, and this fact increased the pressure exerted in order him to find the killer; he received every day more and more anguished calls from his superiors, complaining that the situation was degenerating.
People were terrified and Germano couldn’t put an end to this escalation in violence.
He sipped his coffee standing in the kitchen, admiring the white landscape outside, a whiteness that only snow can give, but which clashed with everything surrounded him in that period.
Having heard him out of bed, his wife Arianna reached him. She sat on a chair in the kitchen and poured out some coffee; she wanted to ask her husband what was the problem, but after all she already knew. She tried to cheer him up with some jokes, but she failed, so she decided to heat up a croissant and having breakfast with him.
They spoke for about half an hour, Germano unburdened himself to her about the situation, trying not to shoulder more blames than he had, but he was aware he had to do something, because he had the abilities to solve the problem.
His wife tried to reassure him, that sort of killers weren’t very frequent in the area where they lived, so it was quite impossible to act better than they did, having no precedents that could teach them how to do and no procedures to act upon.
Germano, smiling, pretended to believe it and, after having poured out another coffee, he kissed Arianna on the forehead and headed for the shower.
For the second time in a few days he had to ask Parisi to go for him, because the snowfall in the night had buried his car again.
During the drive, they indulged in small talk, about family and politics; the story on which they were investigating worried them a lot, so it wasn’t strange they tried to avoid the subject when it was possible.
Once reached the police station, after having shaken off the snow, as usual, they headed for the coffee machine and then immediately for the last floor, in Parisi’s office.
The Inspector finished the phone calls to the directors of the newspapers who couldn’t be reached the previous evening, while the Commissioner called the two service cars that were watching the possible objectives, the ones bound to the word “Leo/Lion” they had identified the day before.
As there were no important news, he opened the newspaper and noticed that the story of the serial killer covered wide spaces, so he decided to close it immediately.
The first call he received concerned the fingerprints found by Silvestri on the second letter. He communicated him that, unfortunately, they didn’t belong to anyone known to the police, so for the moment they were useless.
The three following phone calls were all addressed to Parisi, some of the publishers contacted by him the previous evening, in fact, were calling to ask how they could send the data to the police.
Di Girolamo arrived soon after, asking if they had needed him before, but the Commissioner answered him with a nod, letting him understand that they had coped up to that moment.
The morning passed, while Germano continued to examine the files about the people under observation. Even if the impression was that the killer chose his victims by chance, the Commissioner was more and more convinced that the connection had to be the supposed one, that is he was an isolated avenger who punished those who were guilty of crimes for which the only redemption was death.
Shortly before midday all data concerning the display of the web pages containing the articles on the victims were available, so Di Girolamo settled down in a desk in the bottom of the office, hoping he could find out something.
Germano and Parisi decided to go out for a breath of air and a coffee.
Despite they tried to affect confidence, in reality they didn’t know how they should act. Foreseeing the moves of a madman wasn’t a precise science and they knew it very well.
The Commissioner decided to visit Captain Colombo again, so, after a phone call to inform him, he got on the service car and left.
This time the drive was much easier, thanks to the saltcellars and snow ploughs, whose incessant work started to bear fruits.
The Captain immediately received him.
“Good afternoon, Germano, I was just going to call you...”
“Really? Why?”
“I read of the last murder and I’m definitively convinced of your theory: the killer is completely mad.”
“To tell the true I had some doubts too, but the feeling I have now is that if we won’t stop him, he will kill everyone before Epiphany... with everyone I mean the eight people bound to the remaining signs of the zodiac.”
“It’s absurd...”
“Yes, completely mad. By the way, we have an identikit of the suspect.”
“Really? How did you do?”
“A colleague of mine, Di Girolamo, the one who answered to the call made by the killer to the emergency number after the last murder, met him in the block of flats. Evidently the killer didn’t think we would have answered so quickly, considering the bad conditions of the streets due to the snow.”
“I heard... Did he call from the house of the victim, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“But you... why did you want to see me?”
“We are analysing some tracks, Captain, and ... in a short time, maybe already this afternoon, we will have a list of people to verify. This time we cannot miss him, I already asked for some more agents but, due to the holidays, I fear I will have to wait a day or two and I think it could be too late.”
“Do you think he will act again in a short time?”
“I’m afraid he could, Captain. He amuses getting away with it and so he doesn’t want to stop. I expect the worse.”
“I see, Germano, of course we will help you, just let me have the names and we will relieve your work.”
“Thanks. Obviously the list will include names of potential killers, so I also brought you a copy of the identikit, I think it could be useful.”
“Well, is there something more I should know about this man?”
“We think he has a very old mother or an aunt, we suspect that the person who wrote the anonymous letters is someone very close to him, who has probably discovered something and tries to help us.”
“I see.”
“Anyway I will let you have a detailed file as soon as possible. We will keep in touch and continue exchanging information.”
&
nbsp; “Of course, I’ll wait for your list.”
“You will have it.”
They greeted each other with a friendly handshake, reciprocally promising they will capture the killer as soon as possible.
28th December
Supposing that Inspector Di Girolamo had passed the night on the data he was analysing, Germano went to the office at about six o’clock of that icy morning.
Seeing someone popping out from the door, still wearing a long blue overcoat, the Inspector jumped on the chair.
“Who is it?”
“A thief, Di Girolamo...”
“But it’s you, Commissioner...”
“I feared you was going to shot me... How are you going?”
“I’ve almost finished. I only need some minutes for the last details.”
“Do you prefer I leave you alone?”
“No, no, if you want you can seat down in the meantime. Then, I’ll explain to you everything.”
Germano followed his colleague’s instructions, after having hanged his blue overcoat, he took a chair and set down next to Di Girolamo.
“Tell me everything, please.”
“In this list there are the most important data, ten PCs from which the four articles on the crimes committed by the victims have been displayed. Next to them I wrote the name of the person or company in whose name the telephone line is registered.”
“Excellent.”
“I also prepared a second list with thirty-two names in which I mentioned only those who displayed three articles out of the four we are analysing, supposing that they knew the news but had read it from another PC, for example from the house instead than from the office.”
While reading the list, the Commissioner continued to slap on the back of the Inspector.
“You did an excellent work, Giulio.”
“Commissioner...”
“By the way, you are the only one that continues addressing me using the polite form. What about stopping?”
“As you like, Germano.”
“Excellent, now go home and have a rest. I don’t want to see you again today. See you tomorrow.”
“Yes, thanks, but in case you should need something, please call me.”
“Ok, I will remember it.”
Once alone, the Commissioner started analysing more in detail the first list.
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