Page 96 of Be Still My Unbeating Heart

Bastian shook himself. He was overtired and grasping at straws; seeing killers where he should be seeing an innocent retirement-aged shopkeeper who had been nothing but welcoming of him.

“Do you know why anybody would want Salvador dead?” Whitby asked. “Aside from the fact that he was a nuisance?”

“I would need three hands to count the reasons somebody would murder Salvador Silvestri.”

“Do you have any theories about who did it?” Whitby asked.

Aunt Agata’s head tilted and she dug the tip of a needle into her hair, scratching an itch. “I preferknowingthings. Guessing never helped anybody.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

Her unsympathetic stance stunned Bastian. He supposed Salvador was an acquired taste.

“Apartment four,” Aunt Agata said, pointing a needle, “Via Sacra. It’s just up that way.”

Bastian made prayer hands. “Grazie.”

“I’d be careful in there, though, caro. Heaven knows what sort of state the place is in.”

“Thanks for your help,” Bastian said. He started to walk up the hill, Whitby trotting along beside him.

“If I were forced to,” Aunt Agata called after them, “I’d put money on the commissario.”

“The commissario?” Bastian turned to frown at her. He’d had his own suspicions about Zappa, but he was surprised to hear that the shopkeeper did, too.

Aunt Agata shrugged as she clicked the knitting needles. “He thinks he owns this town, and he’s spectacularly intolerant. He’s even meaner since he got sick.”

“Sick?” Bastian asked.

“Distal muscular dystrophy. It’s been getting worse for years. Pretty soon, he’ll have to give up his title, and then what does that leave him?”

Bastian paused as he considered her words. Muscular dystrophy was often debilitating. The commissario was a man who prided himself on physical strength; that was obvious to anybody who met him. The condition would be an awful diagnosis for anybody, but for somebody like Zappa, it would be devastating.

“How horrible for him,” Bastian said.

“And everybody else,” Aunt Agata said. “It’s made him even less forgiving. I wouldn’t put it past him to take matters into his own hands if he thought somebody was guilty of some unpardonable crime. Especially as, well, he hasn’t got much to lose now, has he?”

32

Apartment four was on the second floor.

Bastian stared at the door, with its chipped black paint and rusted number plate, and struggled to contain a shudder.

“Would you consider me a coward for not looking forward to going in there?”

Whitby harrumphed. “There can’t be anything worse in there than what we’ve seen in the past few days.”

Bastian wasn’t so sure. He imagined a stinking nest. Unwashed sheets and molding food. After the day they’d had, he would prefer a few hours in a spa. Cucumber for his eyes. Clay for his skin.

He wished Salvador were alive, but only because if he were, Bastian would need an invitation to enter his apartment.

A dead man’s home, however, was fair game.

“Apertus,” Whitby said, and Bastian heard aclickfrom the door, which creaked open.

“Did you just…?” he asked.

“How fortunate that the place is unlocked,” Whitby said, nosing through the gap and vanishing into the apartment.