Death in the Dolomites by David Wagner (people reading books TXT) 📗

If this was a bar fight, it was a nasty one.

The man lay on his back in the snow, eyes half closed, his head bent to one side. A dark stain of blood spread steadily from a wound on the neck and his arms twitched slightly. The snow was starting to cover the hat which had landed top-down on the sidewalk next to him. Rick looked around for help and saw that a car had come to a stop, its driver out and running up to him. Rick knelt down and pressed a gloved hand against the victim’s neck in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

“Call an ambulance,” Rick said, but then looked up to see the man staring, his face frozen. “Subito!” The driver pulled out his cell phone and began frantically punching in numbers. Rick took out his own phone with his free hand and scrolled down to the number he wanted. Pressing the neck seemed to slow the bleeding, but there was more blood than he’d ever seen.

“Luca? I’m on the street outside the apartment. Some guy’s been stabbed. What? No, I’m okay. You’d better get over here.” He got a curt reply and snapped his phone closed.

The police car carrying Luca arrived almost simultaneously with the ambulance. The flashing lights and sirens of the two vehicles assured that the small group of people already gathered around the body would grow to a large crowd. Other eyes came from the buildings on the street—shutters began banging open one by one, allowing faces behind the windows to take in the drama below. The two uniformed policemen with Luca had sprung from the car to push back the gawkers, making room for the emergency crew who now knelt by the victim. Rick rose to his feet and stood back, removing the bloody glove. He glanced at Luca who was looking down at the body while talking with one of the other cops. Luca caught Rick’s eyes and walked over to him.

“Tell me what happened, Riccardo.”

“I had just come out of the apartment, and heard a cry. When I looked up I could see this guy on the ground. A man was standing above him. He gave him a kick and ran off.” He pointed. “In that direction. But I lost sight of him almost immediately in the snow.” They both looked at the sky. Rick realized that Luca was wearing his new hat, and had to admit to himself that it was perfect for the present conditions, even with the flaps still tied at the top. “I didn’t even think of chasing the guy.”

“And a good thing.” He turned back to the man on the ground, almost hidden by the team working on him. “You may have kept him from bleeding to death. Could you see the weapon? I doubt if he did this kind of damage with his bare hands.”

“No, didn’t see any weapon. And I didn’t even see the violence, except for the kick, and that seemed like more of an afterthought.”

Luca called over two policeman who had just arrived on the scene and pointed in the direction the assailant had fled. He ordered them to look for any footprints, find anyone who might have seen something or someone, and look for a discarded weapon. “I don’t hold out much hope of finding a weapon, but you never know,” he said to Rick as the men hurried off. “And the late hour, as well as this snow, won’t work in favor of finding any witnesses.”

They both watched as the man was placed on a stretcher. His leather coat had been removed, replaced by a blanket covering him up to the now-bandaged neck. Standing above the stretcher, one of the team held a plastic sack attached to a tube that ran under the blanket to some part of the body. On a signal the stretcher was heaved up and carried to the open ambulance. Someone picked up the hat, brushed off the snow, and took it with the coat to the ambulance. Within seconds of the doors slamming, it drove off under the looping wail of its siren.

“I wonder who the guy is,” said Rick after the ambulance disappeared in the distance.

“The sergeant just told me. Name’s Guido Pittini. He works for the corporation that runs the ski lifts and trails. Has a reputation as a womanizer.”

“So the attack was from a jealous husband?”

“That’s a possibility, I suppose. He was also active in the mayor’s re-election campaign, the main organizer for Grandi inside the ski-lift workers union.” Luca noticed Rick’s face and nodded. “Your mind is working quickly, Riccardo, despite just witnessing a violent crime. Yes, I suppose it could be political. But I’d rather start with his day job. The sergeant tells me that Pittini is one of the gondola operators.”

Rick had been staring at the dark blotch in the snow, now almost covered with white. His face snapped up. “He was running the gondola when Taylor’s body was dropped?”

“We’ll find that out soon, but there couldn’t be that many shifts.” He looked at Rick’s hand, which still clung to the bloody glove. “That’s ruined. You’ll have to get yourself another pair.”

Rick nodded and noticed a trash can a few feet away. He walked over and threw the glove away, turned to walk back, then pulled off the other and tossed it in too. He stuffed his bare hands in the pockets of his shearling coat and came back to Luca. “Let’s assume that this man was in on the dumping of the body. He could have been part of the murder itself, but let’s only assume he was merely abetting the crime.”

“Go ahead, Riccardo.”

“You show up, Luca. Then the body is found, something the murderer didn’t expect. And now there’s someone who knows about the drop who could go to the police. This poor guy might not have even known that it was a