The Last Enemy Read Online Free

Angeli, who normally liked to congregate in the Piazza Santa Chiara on Friday night, boisterous and happy, playing their boomboxes way too loud for Assisi’s more sedate residents, were at home with their families. The Irish pub in Piazza Matteotti at the top of the town, generally good for a few disturbances on a Friday night, was closed, its owner back in Dublin for the holidays.
    The noise of the outer door opening stopped Genine’s musings. Franco had finally arrived, no doubt direct from a night of salsa dancing in Perugia. She was surprised when instead of Franco, she saw two women, both laden with baskets of flowers, standing in the doorway. She recognized the older woman at once: Sophie Orlic, a Croatian and something of a troublemaker. She knew the other woman too: a girl actually, of about nineteen, though not by name. She had passed her many times on Corso Mazzini wheeling her newborn—a sweet doeeyed infant daughter—Genine recalled. She knew from their faces that this was serious. The younger woman had been crying and her legs were buckling as she approached the desk. The Croatian was also visibly upset, her face flushed, her breathing heavy, as though she had been running. Genine motioned them both to a bench along the wall and hurried from behind the desk.
    The older woman spoke in concise, stilted Italian. “We were arranging flowers in the cemetery for Easter. We found a dead woman in one of the vaults.”
    “Was it someone you recognized?” Genine asked.
    “It’s the American.” Sophie paused a moment before speaking again. “Rita Minelli.”
    The younger woman started to cry, and her tears spilled down unrestrained onto her coat and into the basket of flowers at her feet. Orlic, who in their previous encounters had struck Genine as a woman of little feeling, surprised her by taking the younger woman into her arms. She cradled her gently, speaking her name in tender whispers. Genine thought she’d called her Christina but couldn’t be sure.
    2
    COMMISSARIO ALESSANDRO CENNI, Alex to his friends, had just won the football match for Perugia with a free kick directly into the upper right corner of the goal when Inspector Piero Tonni, the game referee approached. “Beautiful goal, Alex. We’ve got the championship locked up this year, for sure.”
    Cenni laughed, “ Grazie , Piero. For sure, your neutrality is appreciated by the Foligno team. What’s up?”
    “The questore called. Trouble in Assisi. An American, niece of a friend of the PM’s, was murdered last night. Looks like she was raped. He wants us there as soon as possible.”
    “Give me ten minutes to shower. And call Elena. We’ll need a woman with us if it’s rape. Tell her to meet us at Assisi headquarters in thirty minutes.”
    Acknowledged by his colleagues to be the best midfielder in the Poliza di Stato football league, Cenni was currently assigned to a special task force established by the prime minister to deal with international terrorism and politically sensitive domestic crimes. The murder of the niece of a friend of the PM is hardly a sensitive domestic issue, Cenni thought as he soaped himself. But if she’s an American, then of course the questore will insist that we take over.
    All Italy was on terrorist alert that week. Since 9/11 all of Europe had been on terrorist alert all of the time. But Easter was a particularly difficult period with a few million tourists in Italy, a good many of them American, to celebrate Holy Week. The American authorities had issued an advisory a few days earlier warning its citizens to stay away from Rome, Florence, and Venice. The mayors of Florence and Venice were livid. Tourism was their main source of income and Americans were their biggest spenders. The mayor of Rome was too busy looking after his political career to care one way or the other. Cenni was sure the PM had agreed to the warnings, probably even encouraged them. He was anxious to play with the big guys and he finally had