“Listen, there are at least six phone calls from Judge Baldi. He’s been looking for you like a crazy person.”

“What time is it now?”

“Five o’clock.”

Rocco rolled his eyes. “I need to go to the prosecutor’s office.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“God, no.”

“Do you want me to look after the dog?”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Do you want me to do anything else?”

He was about to retort: “Yes, get the fuck out from underfoot.” Instead, an idea came to him, unlooked for, but it lit up his brain as only genuine strokes of genius are capable of doing. “D’Intino! I have something important for you and Deruta to do. It’s a fundamental mission!”

The officer snapped to attention. “You do? You do! I’ll call Deruta?”

“Here he is now!” said Rocco. And in fact, Deruta had just emerged from a side door. “Deruta! Come here, please.”

“Right away, Dottore.” And wobbling on his undersized feet, he walked toward them.

“All right, then, Deruta and D’Intino, there’s something very important and delicate that I need you both to do for me.”

“At your service, like always,” Deruta blurted.

“Now, first of all, and this is a very important point: you must always report directly and exclusively to me. No one else at police headquarters. Is that clear?”

Both heads bobbed affirmatively in unison.

“It’s a tough, challenging, difficult task, but I know that you can pull it off. You always have in the past, as far as that goes.”

A small grimace of skepticism twisted Deruta’s mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, actually, Dotto’ . . . one time you sent us out in search of a lock that you gave us the key to and they practically beat us both to death.”

“That’s true,” added D’Intino, “and another time you sent us to spy on some narcotics dealers and I broke two ribs . . .”

“Plus, also just last week up in the mountains in the middle of all that snow so that they almost had to cut off D’Intino’s frostbitten big toe.”

“I’m still limping a little from that!”

Rocco listened and then replied: “But this time it’s much harder than that. Still, if you don’t feel up to it, that’s okay. I’ll just ask Scipioni, this kind of thing doesn’t scare him!”

“Don’t say that even in jest!” Deruta’s pride rebelled at the thought. “Give us our orders!”

“Wednesday, May 9, and Thursday, May 10 . . .”

“Last week . . .”

“Very good, Deruta. I need you to make the rounds of all—and, I repeat, all—the hotels and bed-and-breakfasts in Aosta and surrounding provinces and get a list of all the guests who stayed there. Avoid luxury accommodations and three-star hotels. Search two-star hotels and down. In other words, cheap and cheerful.”

D’Intino lowered his voice. “Who are we looking for?”