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"No, I'm sure there was not. Because I, as a matter of fact, looked for that very thing myself. I was thinking that someone reeling in laundry might have seen the attack."
"Hm," Rhyme offered, and refrained from yet another lecture about the unreliability of witnesses. "The couple whose apartment this was, do you have their number?"
"The woman of the pair, yes. Natalia. She's a fellow student. And most beautiful."
"Do I care?"
"You would if you saw her."
"Call her. Now. Find out if she did laundry before the party. And if the food served at the party was Indian. Curry."
Ercole searched his phone then placed a call and, Rhyme was pleased to hear, got through immediately. A conversation in Italian ensued; like most, it sounded passionate, more expressive than a similar English exchange.
When Ercole disconnected, he said, "Yes, to the laundry question, I am sorry to report. She had just washed the clothing for the beds that afternoon, thinking some guests might wish to stay over, rather than drive back home late. The clue did not come from the rapist.
"And, unfortunately, as to food, the same. There was, at the party, nothing other than chips--you know, potato chips and the like--and nuts and dolce, sweets. But at dinner before the party she and her boyfriend ate curry. I remember a picture of him. He's Indian. So, that too is bad news for us."
"Yes, it is."
The spices and detergent at the smoking station would have come from Natalia when she was either mixing with guests or cleaning up afterward. And she would have left those bits of trace at the site of the attack when she went to the woman's aid.
Ercole asked, "You had mentioned, I believe, that Garry thought perhaps a former lover of his was blaming him to get revenge."
Rhyme said, "His lawyer told us that. Someone, Valentina Morelli. She is apparently in Florence or nearby there. She's still not returning calls."
At that moment Ercole's phone chimed and he glanced at the screen. He seemed to be blushing. And smiling. He typed a response.
Rhyme and Thom looked at each other. Rhyme suspected they were thinking the same: a woman.
Probably that attractive blonde, Daniela, whom he'd been fawning over.
Well, the young man could do worse than date a beautiful, intense policewoman.
Lincoln Rhyme knew this for a fact.
Ercole put his phone away. "I have saved the best for the last."
"Which means what?" Rhyme groused. Sachs was not present to temper his delivery.
"Now, at Garry's flat, Signor Reston was very helpful in instructing me. He counseled that I should become the perp. And I did that and we found something quite interesting."
Impatient eyebrows.
"The building was typical construction, symmetrical. For every window on the right, there was one on the left. For every gable in the front, there was one in the back. For eve
ry--"
"Ercole?"
"Ah, yes. But in the back, there was only one low window--about twenty centimeters high--for allowing light into the cellar apartment. To the right as you faced the rear of the building. Only the one. Why was there no window to the left? Symmetry everywhere but there. The yard itself was not higher on the left than to the right, except in the very place where the window would have been. There was a small hill. Now, beneath the porch were empty flower pots. They matched flower pots on the deck above--but those were full of earth."
Rhyme was intrigued. "So the perp broke into the window on the left. It was Garry's bedroom?"
"Yes. And he, or she, scattered the drugs inside and used the dirt in a couple of the pots to cover up the window."
"But the crime scene people didn't find glass or dirt on the floor?"
"Ah," Ercole said. "He--or she--was clever. They used a glass cutter. Here, look." He extracted from a folder some eight-by-ten glossy shots and displayed them. "Beatrice has printed these out."
