The sun was shining warmly and Alessandro wanted a damn sheet over that dead artist.
He almost felt its glassy eyes following him around, their empty glance tickling his neck whenever he turned his back on the corpse. They were scrutinizing his inability to see what they had seen.
Today's wake-up call had been the most unpleasant of his life — though he groaned that to himself every morning. The double winged bedroom door had banged open, a messenger burst through and screamed.
Only after the messenger had sucked in large gasps of air and steadied his trembling body on a drawer the tall blond had managed to make out what the stranger was stammering. Murder.
Technically, suddenly being called to a crime scene from his family's palace was nothing unusual. However, not when the sun just floated a hair's width above the horizon of a dark, still sea. After all, corpses could wait, it wasn't like they would go anywhere.
But this death was different. A genius artist, dead in the villa of Venice's celebrated war hero. Skull shattered like a thin vase, toppled over the edge of a table by an accidental brush of an elbow. That's what the guards waiting told Alessandro it was. An accident.
Alessandro huffed. It was no accident. He knew that much after the many hours he had spent pacing the hall. The artist's workplace was crammed with everything he needed and more. If he had indeed slipped and fallen off the platform, there would be at least one sketch crumpled or a tool box knocked over near the edge. But there wasn't.
This immaculate order was what had wiggled beneath Alessandro's skin and gnawed at it from below. Around the edges, the tools had been laid out more orderly than the perfect stacks of paperwork on Alessandro's desk. But in the middle, where the artist must have crouched, was a mess. Everything had just been thrown around and knocked over and shoved aside. As if he had been looking for something ...
He had sent his men out long ago, ordering them to report an accident. Yet he had stayed behind. Alvino had not slipped, Alessandro knew it. But why jump? His men had questioned everyone: maids, the artist's wife, the General Zeno himself. All said the same: Alvino had no reason to kill himself. He frowned, lips pressing into a sour line.
"You'll have terrible wrinkles when you're older."
Alessandro spun around. His hand flew to the sword at his side --
The other man held up his hands in mock surrender, possessing the audacity to laugh at the inspector. In all black the man leant against a column. White marble with intricate grey and silver swirls was a stark contrast to the simple black of a wide linen shirt.
He could have been a shadow, hadn't he decided to speak up. Who knew how long he might have stood there.
Alessandro slowly looked him up and down. He wore riding boots, speckled with mud at the edges, still wet — just returned from a ride, had features as if cut with a razor blade, tanned skin — southern descend, much time spent outside, he noted, messy black curls -- in a rush to get here, even if he acted so laid back now, he hadn't even brushed them. Quick green eyes. A fine silver cross necklace around his neck.
"Didn't know the police had this much time to waste. Carlo says you've been here all day." The stranger raised a finely arched eyebrow, mustering Alessandro. Did he plug them?
"General Zeno also says you haven't," Alessandro said.
The other man shrugged. "Has he?"
"He has." Alessandro stepped closer. "However, he couldn't tell me where you have been. Surely you can explain." Every click of his heavy boots on the marble was a tick of a clock, stilling when he stood before the other. He pushed his chin forward. Don't keep me waiting.
The black clad man kept him waiting. He just watched, like he had watched when Alessandro had approached, like he had watched when the other was pacing the hall, oblivious to the shadow behind him.
Alessandro's eyes narrowed for a split second and he could have sworn a smirk flickered over the other's face. He straightened his back, drawing himself up to his full height. "Chief Inspector Steno," he held out his hand, "I believe you know why I'm here."
The other man didn't accept his hand. After a moment he said: "Giacinto Marinos." I'm not impressed — Alessandro could hear it in his voice, slow, nonchalant. More of a drawl. "No, you don't, Inspector. You know I know why you're here."
Something twitched inside of Alessandro at that. Like dry hay the frustration of a case unsolved, with neither clues nor witnesses, was set ablaze by the spark of provocation jumping from the other's lips. "Where," he stepped closer, if he would reach out he could have grabbed Giacinto's collar, "were you last night?"
"In an inn. I'll spare you the details?"
"Details is why I'm here, Signore." Alessandro mustered his counterpart.
Giacinto was leaning against the column with a blank face but expectant eyes, crossed arms, relaxed shoulders and a casual tilt of his head. "Nah, you really don't want to know."
He seemed laid back, but Alessandro knew he was careful, very careful. His glance would flicker to the hilt of the officer's sword every now and then. His crossed arms buit a barrier between the two, shielding him from the lion stalking towards him. The expectancy in his eyes wasn't just curiosity, but monitoring everything Alessandro did, what looked like green eyed attentiveness was in truth vigilance.
If he wouldn't have both hands in front of his chest, Alessandro would bet one of them would be resting on the hilt of a dagger. "You have just arrived?" the blond officer asked.
"Obviously." Giacinto rolled his eyes. "Said it yourself, Carlo told you I wasn't here the entire day."
"What is your relationship with the general?"
"Carlo?" Giacinto shrugged. "Good friends."
"You are far younger than him."
Giacinto grinned, all sharp teeth and gleaming green eyes. "Carlo is not fucking me if that's the question you're too polite to ask."
Alessandro cleared his throat.
The stranger's grin widened at the awkward pause in the interrogation.
He's doing this on purpose, Alessandro grumbled in his mind.
This wasn't something he knew. By now, his reputation preceded him. The best investigator in the entire republic. If not all of Italy. All cases but one solved. Suspects talked if he looked at them, criminals surrendered if he simply stepped towards them, the people whispered his name when he walked past in the red and gold uniform.
And yet, this tiny, cocky, suspicious man was playing cat and mouse with him.
"Carlo surely told you I haven't been in Venice for two weeks. I don't think this man has been dead for two weeks, do you?" The first spark of supressed annoyance laced around the edges of Giacinto's words.
"Signore Zeno has told me the official story."
"You have your answer then," Giacinto spread his arms, all innocent and amiable. "You know you shouldn't lie to an inspector." He smiled, but it felt like a cool blade pressed against Alessandro's throat.
Giacinto's smile told Alessandro the man knew exactly what Alessandro was trying to do — the officer pretended he knew Giacinto was lying so he would panic and tell the truth.
"Then, why are you?" Alessandro asked.
Giacinto laughed, uncrossing his arms as he stepped towards the officer — and Alessandro knew he wouldn't win that round. Either the man was very smart or he had experience with being interrogated. Neither was comforting ...
"But I'm not. I think we both know that." There was a confident irony in Giacinto's voice now.
Alessandro didn't like it. He huffed. "You don't. You know we both know that," he quoted the other with a roll of his eyes.
"You're not very funny," Giacinto sighed. "I've been to Ferrara, stayed the night at an inn a day's ride from the city, maybe 30 miles."
"That leaves you with 40 to 50 miles for today. Are your trying to make me believe you grew wings and flew?" Alessandro quirked a quizzical eyebrow.
"Practically." The other man shrugged, disregarding the doubt with a gesture to his clothes. "I haven't even changed yet."
That was the truth. The linen was darkened in places where a doublet must have pressed it against burning skin, soaked with the same sweat that stuck black hair to glistening temples. The rest of his hair was a disarray of raven curls, messed up by the wind.
"You might've rushed here, but that doesn't mean it was from Ferrera," Alessandro said.
"I've been with friends. You could ask those?"
"They can lie," Alessandro said.
"Will you believe a priest? I've visited one there."
"Confessing your sins?"
"An accident in a palace you occasionally stay in is hardly a sin." Giacinto's tone was light, but there was an edge to it. Just because the artful daggers rich women carried as fashionable accessories were heavy with crystals and drowning in carved swirls didn't mean they couldn't cut ...
"The police isn't investigating accidents."
"How would I know? You're the officer."
"Signore Zeno is an important figure in Venice. A death in his palace has to be investigated," Alessandro paused, "I would be delighted to discover the artist just slipped."
At some point during the exchange they had gotten closer. The confident, loud statements from before had turned to calculated whispers fit for dark alleyways -- not large halls where the evening sun turned golden candle holders to flames of themselves. Alessandro stared the man down. Giacinto was surprisingly small — his lean build made him seem a lot taller than he actually was. He only reached a little over Alessandro's shoulders.
"He didn't slip." A frown ghosted over Giacinto's face, darkening his eyes.
Immediately Alessandro's hand found the hilt of his sword. "How would you know if you just arrived? You have never examined the corpse." And if even Alessandro's officers couldn't tell the artist hadn't slipped, how would this man?
"Alvino had no reason to kill himself. Yet here we are." There was a new smugness in the way Giacinto's lips pursed and his eyes sparkled with a glint too provoking for a murder suspect.
Alessandro's eyes hardened to solid gold, piercing into Giacinto's. "If he had no reason to jump -- maybe someone pushed him." No one did. The artist jumped. But why?
"Or a reason walked in through that door." Giacinto was far too comfortable with a corpse in the room and a police officer at his throat. It made Alessandro's instincts tingle warningly in his gut.
"Someone waltzed through the front door —" Alessandro turned to muster it. He narrowed his eyes. " — of the heavily guarded palace of a war hero to get a mosaic artist to kill himself?" The doubt wound around his words, a never voiced snort. The door was huge, double winged, heavy — more of a gate than a door. Plated with copper, it gleamed in the evening sun. Hard to imagine a murderer slipping through unnoticed.
Giacinto was smart. Too smart and too good of an actor. There should be questions swirling in the strange green eyes. There weren't. There should be defensiveness. There wasn't. Alessandro felt the urge to rip is hair out. Or flip a chair. It had been years since someone made his fists clench and the hairs on his neck stand like that. And now there were two of them: a mysterious corpse and an irritating murder suspect.
He raised his head abruptly. "Why did you rush here? 50 miles in a day? No one rides his horse half to death without a good reason."
Giacinto's face fell. For just the blink of an eye, Alessandro saw worry flash in his eyes, his jaw tensing. The man seemed to think about what to answer, sighing slowly before he turned to the corpse. He didn't look at the inspector when he spoke quietly, gaze trained on the bloody pulp.
"He asked me to come as quick as possible."
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Thank you for reading! First actual chapter, first glimpse at two of the main characters, first big mystery!
What do you think ... who do you like better, Alessandro or Giacinto? What about the murderer?
Have a wonderful day, wonderful people!
Avis.