“What’s a groom? Some kind of Val d’Aosta specialty?” Scipioni asked in perfect earnest.

“No. Italo, you tell him.”

“A groom? It’s one of those things, a whatchamacallit . . . the thing that has those something-or-others . . . no?” And he raised his hands into the air, describing a sort of circular shape.

Rocco rolled his eyes. “Disgusting ignoramuses. Groom, ostler, hired hand, or in our case . . . stable boy. So, let me ask again: Why should two businessmen and a courtesan take a stable boy to dinner?”

“A courtesan?”

“That’s right, Italo. Because that’s what Amelia is. So?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they want to talk about horses?”

“Or else because this little fellow right here is something more than a groom, no?”

IF IT HAD BEEN IN DECENT SHAPE, RECENTLY WASHED AND maybe given a solid, polished coat of wax, if the side-view mirror had been intact, if the windshield hadn’t had a crack running from one corner to the other, if the wheels hadn’t been naked, unprotected by hubcaps, if the lightbulbs of the back-up lights and running lights hadn’t been stripped of their plastic covers, if the tires themselves hadn’t been underinflated, the rubber cracked and scuffed, no officer of the highway police in Pescara would have ever given a second glance to the green Fiat Multipla parked for the past two days over by the bus station. Instead, that ramshackle jalopy had attracted the attention of law enforcement. And soon a report that Corrado Pizzuti’s car had been found reached the barracks of the municipal police of Francavilla al Mare, in the province of Chieti. Things had thereupon immediately gone terribly downhill. All the comforting words that Ciro and Luca had lavished on Tatiana had done absolutely no good, and neither had the hugs and smiles of the bookseller. It was clear to everyone that this abandoned vehicle marked the beginning of something tragic, dark, and frightful.

“Why would he have left it there?” the Russian woman kept asking as she leaned against the railing of the pier overlooking the sea. The wind was tossing her hair and drying her tears. She’d locked up the bar and was standing there with Barbara, trying to figure out what she thought now.

“At the bus station. Does that mean he took a bus? Or what?”

“It just might be . . .” Barbara guessed, but more in an attempt to comfort her than out of any real conviction, “. . . that someone stole the car and then dumped it there so they could get back home.”

“Then why would they have stolen the car in the first place?” Tatiana asked with a glimmer of hope.

“Maybe it was just some drug addict who wanted to get to Pescara, saw that piece of junk, and stole it. Corrado was the kind of guy who left . . . I mean, who leaves his keys in his car.”