Black Run

Black Run Read Free Page B

Book: Black Run Read Free
Author: Antonio Manzini
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the shooting star that was Rocco Schiavone veered and fell, slamming to earth with a rapid and silent transfer to Val d’Aosta for disciplinary reasons. But just what the stain on Rocco Schiavone’s CV had been, that was something he never managed to find out. The police officers working at headquarters had talked it over among themselves. Caterina Rispoli argued that Schiavone had risen above his station. “I’ll bet you he stepped on somebody’s toes and that somebody had the power to have him shipped north; that kind of stuff happens all the time in Rome.” Deruta disagreed; he felt sure that someone as capable as Rocco Schiavone was an annoyance, especially if he lacked a political patron. D’Intino suspected sex was at the bottom of it. “I’ll bet he took somebody’s wife or girlfriend to bed and got caught.” Italo had a suspicion all his own, and he kept it to himself. His guess had been guided by Rocco Schiavone’s home address. Via Alessandro Poerio. High on the Janiculum Hill. Apartments up there ran more than eight thousand euros a square meter, or a thousand dollars a square foot, as his cousin, who sold real estate in Gressoney, had told him. No one on a deputy police chief’s salary could afford an apartment in that part of town.
    Rocco crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “What are you thinking about, Pierron?”
    â€œNothing, Dottore. About the road.”
    And Rocco looked out in silence at the highway, pelleted by falling flakes of snow.

    Looking up from the main street of Champoluc, he could see a patch of light in the middle of the woods. That was where the body had been found, and now it was lit by halogen floodlights. If he squinted, he could just make out the shadows of policemen and cat drivers working the scene. The news had spread with the speed of a high-mountain wind. Everyone stood around at the base of the cableway, their noses tipped up toward the forest, midway up the slope, each asking the same question, which was unlikely to be answered anytime soon. The English tourists, drunk; the Italians with worried faces. The locals were snickering in their patois at the thought of the hordes of Milanese, Genovese, and Piedmontese who would find out tomorrow morning that the slopes were closed.
    The BMW with Italo at the wheel pulled to a halt at the foot of the cableway. It had taken an hour and a half from Aosta.
    Driving up that road, navigating the hairpin curves, Rocco Schiavone had observed the landscape. The black forests, the bursts of gravel vomited downhill from the rocky slopes like rivers of milk. At least one good thing, during that endless climb: around Brusson, the snow had stopped falling and the moon, riding free in the dark sky, reflected off the blanket of snow. It looked as if someone had scattered handfuls of tiny diamonds over the countryside.
    Rocco got out of the car wrapped in his green loden overcoat and immediately felt the chill of the snow bite through the soles of his shoes.
    â€œCommissario, it’s up there. They’re coming to get us with the cat now,” said Pierron, pointing out the headlights partially concealed by the trees halfway up the slope.
    â€œThe cat?” asked Rocco, his chattering teeth chopping his breath into little puffs as it fogged up in the cold air.
    â€œThat’s right, the tracked vehicle that works the slopes.”

    Schiavone took a breath. What a fucked-up place to come die in.
    â€œItalo, explain something to me. How could it be that no one saw a dead body lying in the middle of the piste? I mean, weren’t there skiers on that run?”
    â€œNo, Commissario,” Pierron said, then corrected himself. “Excuse me, Deputy Police Chief. They found him in the woods, right in the middle of a road they use as a shortcut. No one takes that road. Except for the snowcats.”
    â€œAh. Understood. But who would go bury a body way up

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