I didn’t mean for this diary to turn into some sort of litany of sorrows, but it looks like I’ve become a grouchy old lady, as well as a pain in the ass.

Anyway: where was I?

Lucas Ebran: prime suspect.

Following two days of silvery skies and early twilights, the roofs and the streets of the villages in the valley glittered that morning under the light of a radiant sun. It was as if the blizzard had cleansed the world. Gone were all traces of dirty slush at the side of the roads, of the marks the rain left on the windows, and the putrefying flora in the ditches. All was pristine and covered in rounded heaps. The world smelled of ice and of logs burning in fireplaces.

By the time Teresa and Marini reached Lucas Ebran’s house, Chief Knauss’s car was already parked in the driveway. The chief had insisted on preceding them so as not to upset Ebran’s mother, who was elderly and unwell. He was sure he’d do a better job than they could at finding the right words to explain this intrusion. He had just called Teresa’s phone to let her know in advance that Ebran wasn’t home and his mother didn’t know where he was.

When she got out of the car, Teresa glimpsed the shadow of someone looking out of the window of the neighboring house. The figure retreated immediately.

“The neighbors seem nosy,” said Marini.

Teresa avoided looking at their house again.

“They want to go back to feeling safe,” she said. “They’d be prepared to go on a witch hunt if it meant getting rid of what they fear.”

Hugo Knauss himself opened the door to let them into the Ebran home. He could hardly look at Teresa after their argument. And she didn’t trust him anymore; his reticence could prove dangerous. It was the same attitude she’d seen in Valent’s widow. The people of Travenì were protective of each other, and diffident toward outsiders. Nobody wanted to answer the police’s questions. In fact they tried to keep all interactions to a minimum, even avoiding eye contact if possible. They would rather shield a murderer than feel they were being observed and judged by people they considered foreigners. Teresa had only now realized how the community viewed tourists: as a necessary evil that had to be endured. She would never find support and collaboration from within that historic, impregnable village core forged by centuries of isolation.