Page 57 of The Grave Artist (Sanchez & Heron #2)

“So, HK’s got a hacker buddy,” Carmen said. “Any ID information?”

“None,” Heron told her. “Anonymous.”

“Comms still compromised?”

“No. They’re open.”

“Then let’s get started. The police in Florence and Verona. We need to talk to them. I know HSI has an interpreter division. It’s in DC. We can—”

“I speak Italian,” Mouse offered.

Carmen was surprised. “You do? I never knew that.”

“Nobody ever asked.” She rocked on her red Chuck Taylor high-tops. “And, if it’s helpful, Spanish and German, Russian. Mandarin. I’m a little rusty on my Hindi but I can get by. Oh, and Romanian—the closest to true Latin, not church Latin, still being spoken.”

Lord, their assistant was a jewel.

Heron asked, “Which city first: Verona or Florence?”

“Florence,” she said, recalling what they’d learned from forensics. “Su Ling found the art restoration chemicals he might’ve picked up. And Florence seems more ... arty than Verona. At least from what I’ve seen on the Discovery Channel.”

Mouse began giving orders to Declan regarding law enforcement agencies in the Tuscan capital.

On the screen, Tandy laughed. “You know he’s kind of like HAL, don’t you?”

The renegade computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 .

Mouse frowned. “We’re not sure he likes those references. It might just be he’s not a Kubrick fan in general—you know, Eyes Wide Shut —but to be safe we avoid mentioning A Space Odyssey .”

Tandy blinked. “Noted.”

Declan returned a wealth of information, including several police agencies likely to have been involved in the investigation—if there had, in fact, been one.

“It’s late there,” Heron pointed out.

“If they’re like us, some of them’ll be up. There’s this line some famous cop said, a long time ago. Like a slogan. ‘We never sleep.’”

Declan was in fact-checking mode. “It was not a policeman, Carmen. That was the motto of the National Detective Agency, founded by Allan Pinkerton around 1850. Pinkerton went on to become the head of Lincoln’s Secret Service and—”

“Declan,” Heron muttered. “Stop generating.”

After a dozen calls, assisted by Mouse as interpreter, Carmen was put in touch with Inspector Valeria Fresca with the Polizia di Stato, the Italian police agency tasked with criminal investigation.

Mouse reported that Fresca, who was with the Interregional Directorate of Tuscany, wasn’t surprised by their call. She had been expecting to hear from someone in LA for several days.

“They heard a news report of the killing here and contacted LAPD and DHS.”

Heron broke the news to her that the communications between the Italian State Police, Europol, Homeland Security and LAPD had been compromised.

The call was on speaker and the inspector was, to put it mildly, pissed off. A sharp few words were muttered in Italian.

“Won’t bother to translate,” Mouse said.

“Tell her we did, in fact, contact them right away. But never heard back either.”

Mouse did.

More stern words, which Carmen thought sounded elegant nonetheless.

Mouse translated. A moment later, she said, “Inspector Fresca is not happy. She will talk to her subordinates, who should have followed up on the absence of a reply to her queries.”

Carmen said, “Do they have any leads to their murder?”

The answer was no. They considered it a tragic accident. And when she heard there were related cases, the Verona police weren’t interested in starting an investigation and, even though Fresca was, she never heard back from HSI. So they never opened a full-scale investigation.

Heron asked, “Did they look for any video surveillance where the death happened?”

“Yes, but there was none,” Mouse said after posing the question.

“It was on a deserted walkway between ponds at the inn. One of those was where the victim drowned. But once they learned of the other murders, they began to compile a list of motels and hotels in the area where the killer might have stayed. They’ve been too short staffed to investigate them all yet. ”

Carmen asked whether Fresca could send the list to them, and she said she would.

A minute later the file appeared in Carmen’s secure transfer inbox.

Carmen and Inspector Fresca agreed to share any other information they had gathered.

Heron said, “Tell her about the art restoration chemicals. Is that helpful in narrowing down the search?”

Laughter erupted from the other end of the call when Mouse translated the question.

Mouse said, “It’s Florence, Italy. The presence of Renaissance art evidence is as useless as if we’d found traces of Sangiovese wine.”

The inspector then asked a question. Mouse listened and translated, “Do we have any thoughts on what his motive is?”

Carmen and Heron looked at each other briefly.

She said, “No. Never seen any serial killer like him before.”

No one had anything else to add and Mouse ended the call with, “ Grazie mille, e ciao. ”

Tandy said, “We could try Verona, but let’s stick with ‘arty’ Florence for now. Follow up on the leads we’ve got from the inspector.”

“Agreed,” Carmen said. “How would we find HK’s name if we were Italian police?”

Tandy grimaced. “Canvass the hotels. But we’re here, not there.”

Carmen tipped her head toward Mouse. “We have a remote canvasser.”

The woman beamed.

Carmen told her, “Call all the hotels on the list the inspector gave us and ask about a White male American.” A nod at the murder board. “Fitting his description. Around the dates in question.”

Heron asked, “How many hotels are there?”

Carmen opened the file from Fresca. “Oh lovely.” She looked at the others and then at Tandy. “Ninety-two.”

“Shit,” Tandy muttered. “Not the Italians’ fault there’re so many. Blame American tourism.”

Heron said, “Signora Mouse, per favore ... ”

A smile. “Jake, you speak Italian too. Sounds so romantic coming from you, don’t you think, Carmen?”

“Mouse. Call.”

Mouse consulted the list Fresca had sent and picked up the phone.

Carmen stopped her to add some quick pointers. “Listen for their tone. If they’re awkward or hesitant or the pitch of their voice changes, that might indicate deception.”

“ Accordo, ” Mouse said, well into the game. Then she frowned. “I guess I can’t say I’m an HSI agent.”

“No,” Carmen said.

“But I have an idea. One that won’t get any of us arrested.”

Again, the hour was late, but at least hotels and motels could be counted on to have one or two clerks on duty.

The first clerk spoke English and so there was no need to translate. Carmen could only be amused by her approach.

“ Signore , I am calling from America on an urgent criminal investigation regarding an American who may have stayed at your hotel. Have you heard of the IICI? ... No? It’s the Institute for International Criminal Investigations.

I must inform you that there will be serious consequences if you do not answer my questions or if you answer falsely. Do you understand?”

Carmen noted that Mouse had not actually said she was with the IICI, which Carmen knew was not a police outfit at all but a nonprofit devoted to information gathering about war crimes.

And it was completely true that if a clerk lied there might be serious consequences—the Honeymoon Killer might strike again.

She and Heron shared a smile.

The man knew nothing about such a guest, however.

Call after call, the same.

Until number twenty-three: the clerk at the Bella Flora Motel off SR222, the Chiantigiana highway, running from Florence to Siena.

They spoke in Italian, and after a few minutes Mouse translated.

“This could be it. American came in and paid cash in advance. He said his wife had his ID and would bring it before they checked out. But he just left. So they have no record of his name.”

“Damn,” Tandy said from his flat-screen perch. “But he must remember the name.”

Mouse asked the question and received an answer. She turned to the others. “The name he gave was Joe Buck.”

Carmen scoffed bitterly. It was a variation on John Doe.

“His car, or tag number?”

“He claimed he arrived by taxi, but the clerk thinks he was lying. He’s sure he had a car, but he parked it somewhere else. Not in their lot.”

Too suspicious not to be their suspect.

She asked, “Maybe there’s something about HK that we can use to track him down. Did he have any particular food he liked? Alcohol?”

The clerk didn’t know, though he added that he dressed very well. “His suit was Italian,” Mouse told them.

Heron tried another question. “Did he have any friends come to visit?”

A good inquiry, Carmen thought.

But this answer was negative too.

Carmen asked, “Did he ask for directions anywhere? Restaurant, airport, anything?”

After posing this question, Mouse tilted her head. And lifted an eyebrow. “Yes. He asked how long it would take to get to the Uffizi.”

The clerk had nothing more to add. Mouse ended with some stern words and disconnected. She smiled at the others. “I told him not to leave town. I always like it when the detective tells the suspect that in a movie, and they look way nervous.”

Carmen asked, “Declan, tell us about the Uffizi.”

“The Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy, is one of the premier art museums in Europe. The Uffizi, which means ‘offices’ in Italian, was originally the home of the administrative and judiciary services of Florence. Upon the death of the last of the Medicis their collection of art was moved into the structure to make a museum, which has been expanded over the years.”

Tandy said, “Let’s find out how many people were at the place then.”

Carmen asked, “Declan, how many visited the Uffizi on the dates around the time of the Florence murder?”

“I don’t have access to that information, but the Uffizi Gallery is the most visited art museum in Italy, with two million visitors a year. That statistic suggests that eleven thousand eight hundred seventy-nine and seven-tenths visitors were present during the time in question.”

Silence.

Then Mouse offered the official assessment. “I’d say we’re screwed.”