Raoul looked surprised.
“So, you’re part of the investigation!” he exclaimed. “And that means it involves the Americans.”
“I can’t talk about it.”
She closed her lips to keep from swearing.
His face changed. His attention, which had roved around all morning, was suddenly focused, expression hard.
“I don’t like you being in another murder investigation.”
“It’s my job,” Nikki said.
“Can’t they get someone else? Aren’t there men on your team? Let them do it.”
These had been Nikki’s very thoughts when she’d gone to the station in the middle of the night, but hearing her father speak them aloud brought a current of irritation.
“So, it’s acceptable for you to conduct your own unauthorized investigation, but it isn’t alright for me to do my job?”
“It isn’t the same thing. I just don’t like the thought of my daughter being in a dangerous situation again. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted it either.”
“Adriano did dangerous work,” Nikki said. “Would you have said this to him?”
“That was different,” Raoul said loudly. “He was older.”
Some door inside Nikki swung shut. “I’m older than he was when he died.”
The words seemed to silence him.
“This is what I do,” she said tersely. “And I’m good at it.”
She didn’t look back as she strode across the piazza and out of sight.
—
Nikki walked brusquely through the chilly city streets, rapidly covering the few blocks to the cathedral.
Two policemen stood at the entrance to the piazza on ViaBenedetto Croce, directing foot traffic from the church square. A middle-aged woman in an oversize coat and orange scarf was shouting.
“You’re stopping my business! How do you expect me to live, to feed myself?”
She patted the metal cart beside her—filled with boxes and bags and, strapped to the side, a folded card table and stool. Everything bristled with snips of bright ribbon and thread, and hundreds of rattling, shining charms.
One young officer with an artless expression was clearly uncomfortable.
“There’s an investigation of a serious matter,” he told her. “Can’t you go someplace else?”
“Oh, say what it is,” she shot back. “Everyone knows that there was a murder in the church! This piazza is where I work. People need to know where to find me.”
She looked to the other policeman as if for reinforcement. But he busied himself directing people away. He gestured to a grey-haired priest, motioning him into the square.
“You let him through!” the woman shrieked. “Why him, and not me?”
“He’s a priest,” said the policeman.
“Why should that matter?” she said. “I’m as important as that priest. Ask your mother…your grandmother! They may go to him for confession, but for the things that matter—the things they truly care about—they come to Signora Dorotea!”
“Please, just go,” he pleaded. “Nobody can come to you for advice in the piazza today. Nobody will be there.”
