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Turn the page for the first few chapters of Finn as a gift to you.
24
FINN CHAPTER 1
Finn
There are days where you just feel like everything is going to go wrong, and this was one of those days. How did I know? It was unexplainable, a feeling, intuition. That’s my thing, intuition.
It’s normal for a policeman, they say…
Maybe it was the coffee spilled on my files, or maybe it was my stomach groaning every couple of hours.Damn diet!But one thing was clear. It wasn’t about to get any better.
A dead body is never good news.
I parked my car out front of a small townhouse—there are hundreds of them in Nice—at the end of a dead-end street, which I guess would normally be relatively quiet.
It was perfect for arranging secret meetings.
The place was already swarming with police cars, and security tape had been set up to discourage people from coming too close. A few people gathered with grave expressions on their faces—clearly the neighbors—and who would never have predicted that this house would be a crime scene. I could see the next day’s newspaper articles, talking about an ordinary family, a polite and shy man who regularly visited his great-aunt.
Basically, an everyman.
But Bruno Santoni wasn’t the ideal neighbor, nor the perfect great-nephew, and that, I knew very well.
The reason I had been called in was because I had been trying to catch the bastard for a while now. Had he made a grave mistake this time? A part of me hoped he had. Nothing puts me in a bad mood like knowing there’s a killer walking my streets, especially one with Santoni’s past of murder, racketeering, and all kinds of trafficking. The man was far from a saint. You had to give him some credit—he never got caught.
I got out of my old Volkswagen and headed for the little ochre-colored house. I passed a young woman in front of the iron gate, with her blonde hair in a ponytail. She seemed to be a little bit out of breath.
“Hello, who’s in charge here?” I asked her.
“They’re all inside. Lieutenant Leonard is interrogating the owner in the living room. The body is in the kitchen. It’s not a pretty sight,” she said, lowering her gaze.
I was thinking that this could be her first homicide when she pointed to the street and said, “I’m part of the forensic department. I’m going to get my equipment.”
I stepped aside to let her past. I was sure she was a newbie. I’d never met her before, and given her age, she hadn’t been with the police for long. For once, at least they hadn’t taken hours to show up.
I entered the old, tiled corridor and headed toward what I thought was the living room. I found the police officer in charge of the investigation mid-interrogation. Sitting across from him, on a sofa from God knows what decade, was an old woman. This had to be the homeowner, Madeleine Barale, Bruno Santoni’s great-aunt. I knew my colleague well, as he was none other than my little sister Lara’s boyfriend, Adam Leonard.
“Leonard,” I said, to let him know I was there.
“Rossi Number 1,” he said, hardly looking up from his notebook.
I hated that nickname, just like every other one I was given. The issue was that there were two police officers called Rossi in Nice, and the other (nicknamed Number 2, as you could probably guess), was none other than my brother Luca. To my great disappointment, people had started calling us that. At least our two other brothers didn’t have numbers, as they had different professions. There was Remy Rossi the firefighter and Callum Rossi the lawyer. Callum, however, was often given worse nicknames depending on who he was representing.
It had once happened that Luca was on call, and Remy found himself taking an injured person to the ER. I was in charge of the investigation, and Callum was chosen as the defense attorney. It was a 100% Rossi vicious cycle. Only our little sister was excluded, as she was a wedding planner (unless there was an unhappy ending).
While Adam was finishing up his interrogation, I went to look at the victim. The man was lying in the center of the kitchen floor. Cereal, in the shape of little chocolate bears, was scattered at his feet. I couldn’t imagine a criminal being hungry after the fact, but it happened more often than you would think. My question was who ate children’s cereal in the middle of the afternoon? Why not a coffee or a slice of cake?
Before I could solve the mystery of the cereal, I had a much bigger problem, namely finding the guy who put a bullet between his eyes. This execution-style murder was pure Santoni. Clean, efficient… well, if you ignored the viscous substance now splattered all over the kitchen cabinets. The forensic scientist was going to have her work cut out for her. I hoped the young blonde had a strong stomach. I certainly wasn’t hungry anymore.
I looked at the dead man and wondered what he might have looked like just a few hours ago, before the light left his eyes. Did he have a bad feeling when he got up this morning? Did he fear for his life when he got here? Nobody can imagine themselves dying in a kitchen, even less so next to teddy bears that seemed to taunt you with their little smiles.
He looked like your everyday, average guy. No one was born with the face of a mobster, not even Santoni.
The victim was in his forties, with slightly unruly hair, a belly that suggested a love of good food, and an old but clean t-shirt with a sports brand logo.
I hadn’t heard Adam join me until he was standing right next to me.
