He set the binder down on the desk. He opened the door. Waiting for him was a prison guard reading the newspaper. It only took a quick glance for Rocco to classify him in his own personal bestiary. That guard was a Myocastor coypus, also known as a nutria. The big nose and handlebar mustache gave him the smiling, cunning air of a retired Prussian colonel.

“What’s your name?” Rocco asked.

The guard leapt to his feet. “Mauro Marini . . .”

“You’re the one who found Cuntrera’s body, if I’m not mistaken?”

“You’re not mistaken, Dottore. I was with my colleague Daniele Abela . . .”

“Would you take me out to the courtyard?”

“Come right this way . . .”

And the two men started walking down the long hallways as the metal doors opened and closed as they went past. “This way, follow me . . .”

“Listen, Marini, what do you think?”

“About Cuntrera’s death?”

“No, about the going-out-of-business sales in January.”

Marini looked the deputy chief in the eyes. A smile played under his luxuriant mustache. “What do I think? Like I told the judge, I’ve been working in correctional institutions for many years now. Sometimes, all it takes is a glance, a word out of place, or an insult, and . . . bam! The feuds begin.”

The air was redolent of soup and disinfectant. The smell came off the floors, the walls, the guards’ uniforms, and even from his own jacket. The two men finally emerged into the open air.

“Here we are, this is the courtyard. Down there is a soccer field, do you see?”

“And that building on the right?”

“It’s a workshop. That’s where we found Cuntrera, near Wing 3.” And the guard pointed to a perpetually shadowy corner. Rocco walked over beside him. He looked around. Hurricane fencing and enclosure walls. The guard towers.

“And the guys who started the brawl, where were they?”

“Down there, by Wing 2.” And Marini pointed to a wall on the far side of the courtyard. More than three hundred feet away. Rocco paced out the distance. Then he stood on the ground where the brawl had broken out. He looked around again. Still the same hurricane fencing, the same enclosure walls, the same guard towers looking down. From here he couldn’t see the corner where Cuntrera had been killed. “Who was on duty in the guard towers?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll find out.”

“Thanks. And I want to talk with whoever was on those two guard towers down there. I don’t need anyone else. Tell me about the schedules . . .”

“Certainly. All right, then, from nine until eleven and then in the afternoon from one until three, the inmates can come down here for some fresh air.”

“And what do they do?”