So. That accounted for the person-to-person call. Now we were getting down to it. It wasn’t the shooting, it wasn’t the two dead men, it wasn’t even the kidnapping, per se. Boldini just didn’t want to be the one to tell Vincenzo de Grazia that his son had been taken. Well, his attitude, weak-kneed as it was, was understandable. The comandante served at the pleasure of the Stresa city council, after all, and Vincenzo, as everyone knew, was one of the powers behind that august group.

As a colonel in the federal police, however, Caravale didn’t have to worry about local “powers.” True, Vincenzo had a long reach; no doubt he could put in a good-or bad-word for him in Rome and significantly affect his chances for advancement in the force. But that didn’t make any difference either. Caravale was that rare thing-a man not interested in advancing. No ambition burned in his belly, no resentment at the progression of friends and enemies through the ranks stuck in his craw. He was exactly where he wanted to be. When he’d been a boy of ten, he had sometimes accompanied his sainted grandfather on his ice wagon runs in Stresa, sitting with him up in the driver’s box and working the reins if the traffic wasn’t too bad. And one rainy day Nonno Fortunato, his words whistling through the gap where other people’s front teeth were, had said, out of nowhere: “Tell me, Tullio, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Out of nowhere, Caravale had answered, “A policeman, Grandfather.”

“A policeman!” the old man had said, beaming. He’d raised his arm, stood up in the driver’s box, and pretended to make an announcement to the world at large. “Honored ladies and gentlemen, you see this little fellow sitting next to me? This is my grandson, Tullio Caravale. Remember his name, because someday he is going to be the comandante ”-he’d pointed to a building they were passing-“right there.”