Chapter One

Woman on the Arch of Constantine

Seeping from a post-mortem wound at the lowest position of the body, aided by gravity, a drop of uncongealed blood fell from the Arch of Constantine. No one saw or heard a drop fall twenty-one meters and hit the ground. Even the most observant, sleepy tourists did not notice in dim morning light, a slight discoloration in hard-packed earth below the Arch as they walked the fence’s perimeter. An evening storm kept most excited tourists in their hotels, but hard rains had finally stopped, with scattered showers descending.

Less than five hours after her murder, the once beautiful woman was cruelly carried, then hoisted up with a rope and pulley by a burly man who painstakingly ascended an inner staircase to the Arch’s attic. He had meticulously planned, read schematics, knew particulars of the monument before his grisly acts and treachery. Far more knowledgeable about his city than a tourist, he was aware the Arch’s roundels were sculpted for Emperor Hadrian over two hundred years before Constantine declared Rome to be a Christian kingdom. He knew the statues at the top of the Arch were stolen from the Forum of Trajan, one hero supplanting another. This information was acquired incidentally after he decided he must know everything about the structure. Aware of difficulties inherent in his plan, he was also certain the elaborate scenes he created would throw off authorities, a red herring in the making.

Setting out signs reading, Riparazioni and Bulgari, in front of lighted areas facing the Arch, he then sectioned off the monument with orange plastic fencing. He knew enough about construction and restoration to explain his presence if a guard or Polizia questioned him. After years of practicing deception, he was skilled at projecting confidence in any situation. The murderer’s scheme was also aided by the Ministry of Culture’s decision to outsource restoration projects to corporations in exchange for advertising, linking historical sites with various companies. Romans had grown used to construction around their crumbling, ancient monuments.

A few hundred feet from the site, a guard saw obvious construction equipment, Bulgari’s corporate name, and continued his rounds. Shaking his head, the guard moved off, thinking about the expenses of preserving these decaying treasures of Roma, but feeling his city and country should have taken care of her monuments rather than outsource their maintenance. He was aware private contractors were taking public jobs, anticipating his own would be next.

Webcams set up around the Coliseum would show images blurred by rain and streaks of unnatural light, but the murderer had disguised his face. In the event an image of him could be clearly viewed, he could not be positively identified. Bulgari’s logo on his truck would be evident, but by then the stolen truck would have been dismantled.

Depositing the young woman’s body at the top of the Arch filled him with a kind of power his life of crimes and anonymity had deprived him. The risky nature of his plan appealed to him. Discovery of her body would confound any and all authorities tasked with solving her murder. He imagined their perplexity, a scene which kept a smirk on his face as he cut through the fence gate and placed a stepladder between the columns of the great triumphal Arch in the Colosseo district.

A Herculean and brazen feat. With her body in a black bag draped over his shoulder, he first ascended to the doorway enclosing a staircase on the west side of the Arch, facing Palatine Hill. The stairway was confining. A light attached around his forehead gave off enough of a glow to lead as he stopped several times to catch his breath. The entire enterprise was more difficult than he had anticipated, so he set up a pulley mechanism to haul rather than carry the body to the top. Finally, ascending after the body, he pushed it to its position near Constantine’s Frieze. He went about his appalling business in rain and relative darkness, without paying homage to Constantine’s great exploits which were gouged into grey and white Proconnesian marble under panels. Placement of the woman’s body was not the work of heroes, epic battles, or great vision.

Wearing a black, hooded coat with the Bulgari logo stitched on the back, he panted heavily but moved with an athletic grace belying his large frame. Neither statues of Trajan nor Augustus at the top spoke a word about what they witnessed in the middle of the night. Even evening stars hid in shame as the man descended, gathered his plastic fencing and drove to his next destination.

A few hours after the young woman was shoved through an opening to its locus slightly above spandrel reliefs; an eagle-eyed, German tourist, out for a dawn excursion, studied the monument. His camera was still in his pocket because of the rain. Something drew him to stop at the Arch, and he had been studying the sculpted panels for several minutes before noticing stains on marble, an anomaly he considered a natural process of age, weather, and pollutants. In the moment, another drop oozed from the body and fell. A sudden gust transported a red pearl beyond fencing below where it struck the man on his hat before the blood bubble slowly sank down his face. He brought his left hand to his cheek, thinking a nasty bird had defecated, or perhaps rain water heavy with dirt or pollutants was loosened from a crevice.

Then the tourist examined the color of the substance, a thick, half-congealed liquid on his fingers, rubbing them together to test consistency. Blood. He did not panic or startle but looked up curiously, more carefully examining the area above the left lateral arch. Tilting his head to the side to alter perspective, he thought he could make out a hand or body part, not decorative or made of stone, but human.

~ * ~

Once a method of recovery was decided upon, it would take much less effort to lower the young woman’s body than the labors taken to hoist her body atop the Arch. By the time Polizia responded to the horrific scene, there was a small crowd gathered in spite of renewed rains. Their heads moved, their hands rose then fell before coming to rest over their mouths because a young woman’s slender arm could now clearly be seen dangling from the edge. Dueling sirens from ambulances and Polizia Municipale, Polizia di Stato, and Carabinieri vehicles rang out in early morning. All responded until authority over the case was sorted and assigned.

Casting a reddish hue, a rising sun suggested something more ominous than daybreak as dark clouds continued to roll in over Roma.

Young officers concerned themselves with keeping people back and craning their necks to stare in astonishment before finely dressed, military Carabinieri assumed operations. There was a brief discussion as to whether the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, or DIA should be called, but after initial confusion, Dante Canestrini determined making an assumption about Camorra or ‘Ndarangheta mob connections to the murder was far too early.

A coordinated, if slightly overlapping, strategy was devised and would be carried out for removal of the body from the Arch before examination of the remains. Investigation began the moment her body was discovered, and Polizia proceeded slowly, not disturbing evidence, finding a bit of cloth from a body bag still caught on the fence. They hoped to find something or someone identifiable from webcams, in addition to fingerprints; but they would be disappointed with muddied results from cameras filming through rain, and the careful, hooded murderer had been wearing gloves.

When rains ceased temporarily the area began to fill in with tourists. “How did she get up there?” asked an American woman to officials who repeatedly demanded in crisp Italian to step further back.

Dressed in bright green stretch pants, the overweight woman pretended not to understand, repeating questions in English, “Who is she? Shouldn’t someone have noticed her being dragged to the top of this thing?” she asked loudly. “Are terrorists involved? Should there be a curfew?”

“This thing, as you call Arco di Costantino, is a national treasure,” stated an Italian man in perfect English mixed with Italian. He swept his hand upward, and the woman noticed his cufflinks and the fact he was wearing a fitted blue suit, accentuating his musculature and tapered waist. She could not have known the suit was Dolce & Gabbana and worth more than her plane fare.

“You speak English? Oh, good. Finally. Could you tell me how to get to the Spanish Steps?”

“Ah, of course. American.” The handsome, immaculately dressed Italian shook his curls, as he turned from the tourist and walked briskly away.

“Yes, I’m American. How rude. I guess he either didn’t understand me, or he’s extremely nasty,” she said, turning to a policeman. “Which way to the Spanish Steps? I’m trying to get to the Spanish Steps, but what’s going on here? She’s dead, right? Who is it?” An officer near her motioned with his hand for her to move back.

“How awful. Dead people everywhere. No one will help me get to the Spanish Steps. I was told Rome was safe to travel to, and yet here I am with murdered women. Is this how every day starts here? Doesn’t seem very safe to me. Anyway, I want to get to the Spanish Steps. I need a taxi.” Another officer refused to engage with her and simply pulled the line of tape back further, stretching the tape in front of her protruding belly. Following several more attempts to get an answer, she left in disgust with her newly purchased plastic bag, serving as a raincoat, pulled closely around her body. Stumbling on uneven ground, she waved her arm frantically, hailing an unfortunate cab driver.

After initial confusion regarding enclosing the Arch with crime strips, the monument was finally surrounded not by tourists, but by yellow tape with black letters; a message clear even if you could not read Italian. Repeatedly, Carabinieri were forced to expand the area blocked off from prying tourists and even a few Italians who were drawn to the noisy, confusing scene.

“Thank God it’s raining again,” said Dante Canestrini, the Carabiniere who appeared to be in charge until the local chief of police, Questore Enzo Rossi, arrived on scene. They would decide together who had authority. In the meantime, Canestrini was speaking to several officers who looked to him for guidance and orders. Unfortunately, Dante Canestrini had planned to attend an official ceremony later in the day and was dressed in his long cloak and Napoleonic hat. Unsettled by the strangeness of the murder and initial confusion of various security reporting to the scene, he removed his hat, ran his hand over the top of his balding head several times, and experienced momentary regret at the loss of his once beautiful, thick black hair. He thought of his youngest brother and the idea of Elio, not him, who inherited their father’s genes for charm, good luck, and a full head of hair. Their uncle on their mother’s side of the family was as bald as a cue ball. Dante reddened with chagrin for ruminating on the absence of his hair at such a macabre scene.

“How do we get the body down?” recent recruit Flavio Grillo asked him directly.

Canestrini returned to the crisis at hand and brought his full attention to engineering problems, directing a crew of Agente di Pubblica Sicurezza, police, and crime scene investigators. After a confusing discussion with too many voices, they devised a fairly simple method of bringing the body to the ground; testing the mechanism before lowering her. Their efforts, however, caused them to comment on the ingenious murderer who had created such a horrific scene. A few careless Polizia openly admired the methodology of the murderer who had brought his victim to such heights.

“Bastard must have had a reason for putting her all the way up there,” said Grillo. “What do you think the positioning means?”

“Let’s not make determinations or speculations yet,” said Canestrini, aware any type of conjecture could lead in the wrong direction. Experience had taught him even very violent crimes against women were often the result of an angry boyfriend or cuckolded husband. A good starting point would be to find this young woman’s husband, fiancé, or boyfriends. Often, initial questions led the guilty man to stammer then break down and confess before he was formerly asked.

Despite the early hour, rain, and tragedy, Canestrini was pleased to be temporarily stationed in Roma; a rarity, and the murder might lengthen his stay. Flavio had no idea how fortunate he was, thought Canestrini. Carabinieri were moved all over and seldom were stationed in Roma for long.

“Follow the evidence,” said an officer behind him, as if he had heard this speech from Canestrini before.

“Something in her hand and a paper pinned to her chest,” said another.

Initial examination, based upon physical findings before an autopsy, was the young woman had been bludgeoned to death. Paying attention to seemingly insignificant details when dramatic damage to the woman’s body sucked air from his lungs, Canestrini knew sometimes the least became a point of discovery in a murder investigation. But stapled to her torn clothing was a slip reading, “finanziamento dei migrant.”

“Funding migrants? A political statement? Internal terrorism?” asked the young officer, leaning toward Canestrini.

“Maybe. Let’s not jump to conclusions yet, and let’s keep this particular factor quiet for now.”

There was another detail bringing forth information. In the dead woman’s clenched fist was a bit of torn paper with the slightest mark in elegant hand, inked across the scrap. Of course, the paper, which appeared to be aged, naturally or unnaturally, might mean nothing, but Canestrini saw this snippet clutched in her fingers and immediately thought of his brother’s girlfriend Vena Goodwin. Such amateur help, as Vena could provide in an official investigation of so grave a crime, would have to be off the record, but he decided to give his little brother’s woman a call.

Dante was not even sure his hot-headed brother had made up with Vena after their break, which all of them knew was temporary. The older brother had been made aware the young couple continued arguing since Vena’s unexpected trip to America. Shaking off a chill caused more from the horror of the young woman’s death in front of him than the rains, Dante believed he would have been more solicitous of Vena than Elio had shown himself to be. What was wrong with his spoiled brother sometimes?

Yes, Vena might be interested in this case. She had previously shown an eye for minutia others missed or dismissed and had an ability to navigate even the most intricate crimes all the way to solution. He had seen her in action. Perhaps what impressed him most about his brother’s woman was her bravery. Dante was aware of the absurdity of asking for an amateur’s help in the midst of all of these experts who tended to get in one another’s way. Vena had the good fortune to work outside of any kind of bureaucracy. She didn’t have multiple personnel to report to or consult with before arriving at a theory.

Reluctant to admit it to himself, Dante was attracted to Vena. Of course, his desires would be nothing he would act upon; he was after all, a married man with two small daughters, and a good Catholic, unlike his philandering father and most of all, he was a Carabinieri. Dante loved his wife. They were married when they were eighteen and Francesca was a good woman. She had grown heavy after the girls were born, but her eyes were as pretty as the day he first spotted her. Francesca deserved his fidelity, yet his mind wandered, led by his eyes. When he looked at Vena, however, what he saw was her sharp intellect, what he heard was her quick laugh, and what he felt was a connection somehow painful.

One thing the eldest Canestrini brother knew for certain: this murder was no ordinary act of violence. Depravity, coupled with oddity, covered in a blanket political statement, immediately separated the case from those more easily categorized into domestic violence, robberies gone wrong, or obvious Mafia-type crimes. After he studied the young woman’s badly damaged face; her nose, cheekbone, and eye-socket crushed, he thought about the kind of ferocity behind such an intimate and barbarous act. A man who struck a woman in her face in such a way? It was personal. Most likely the murderer was a man, Canestrini thought, based upon the force of the imagined blows and the task of lifting the body up the ladder and interior stairs. Why had the murderer gone to such lengths to stuff the young woman’s body atop the famed Arch? As Dante was considering the bizarre case, Mosconi approached him.

“What do you think? There must be a connection to the placement of the body? Home-grown terrorism? Could be domestic. Outside group or individual?”

“Better not to theorize yet. Let’s collect all the evidence, get this scene photographed and secured,” Canestrini responded, but realized all of them were thinking the same thing.

“The act is symbolic, but a symbol of what exactly?” asked Mosconi.

“Funding migrants certainly hints at the political, but the phrase could have been used to throw off our investigation.” Canestrini had to consider a fringe group, perhaps sympathizing with Fratelli d’Italia or another right-wing political alliance, as having supporters capable of such acts. Still, the placard on the body insinuated something else. What connection did the young woman have to migrants?

When the rains let up the place would be crawling with tourists, and Rome’s young Mayor would want this solved as quickly as possible in order not to greatly impact tourism trade. At the moment, Canestrini saw no reason to call in DIGOS, the anti-terrorism police division, as there was no definitive indication or claims. Still, the strangeness was disturbing. Someone or a group certainly wanted to be heard.

Here, again, he wished to talk with Vena before conjecturing as to possible emblematic statements and motive. Vena would likely have some theories. A bit embarrassed, he thought of Vena’s ability to ferret out the truth before he had even given himself time to consider the crime. There had to be historical connections or significance behind this act of placement. Why not dump her body in the River Tevere? There were so many ways to get rid of evidence, or a murder victim’s body. Why would this killer leave, so obviously, a dramatic trail? Canestrini surveyed the scene and remembered cameras. Of course, video tapes would be examined. Perhaps this case would be more easily solved than he anticipated, but the more he thought about particulars, the more he wanted to talk to Vena. He was glad she was finally back from America, but this was not what he would tell her. No need to let her think she was essential.

As Dante was about to call, Vena was waking next to Elio, responding to his early morning caresses, still tired after a long night waiting for a student, her new friend, who never arrived.