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him.
    “Giovanni Luciano.”
    Gen eyes swung back to find the Italian cop’s palm extended. “Genevieve Delacourt.” She shook his hand, then turned to Carla and nodded.
    “You are French?” he asked.
    “My father is. I’m just an ugly American.”
    He gave her the once-over, but not in a misogynistic way. It was a cultural thing, she figured. When his gaze returned to her face he said, “Your eye looks dreadful. And the injury looks recent.”
    Her hand went to her cheek just as Vitelli pushed through the door from the dining room, trailed by the second officer.
    “Ah,” Vitelli said. Apparently he wasn’t at all surprised to see these new strangers in his house.
    Carla came forward. “Vincenzo Vitelli?”
    “Yes, I am Vitelli.”
    “Carabinieri. We have a warrant to search this residence.”
    Officer Lee chose that moment to walk back in. His shoulders were squared and he held a hand protectively over the closed leather holster of his weapon. “Headquarters cleared you to search,” he said.
    Too many cop shows, Lee.
    Vitelli nodded in apparent agreement, then stepped aside and swept out an arm. “Do as you wish.”
    No one told her to scram, so Gen went along, staying behind Vitelli as he followed the woman and Luciano through the downstairs rooms. She noted a few family photos that showed Vitelli with a little girl and a woman. His wife and daughter, she assumed.
    There was another of Vitelli and the woman alone, older, this one a studio shot. He loved his wife, she could tell. She wondered where the rest of his family was right now.
    The partners took their time, first scanning the contents of the kitchen cupboards. There was an apron hanging on a hook beside the stove. She could see there were women’s clothes in one of the bedroom closets, although the wardrobe seemed scanty enough that Gen imagined the wife was gone. No one asked about the wife, no one mentioned a family.
    They moved on through the pantry, then looked beneath the beds. They opened drawers and carefully rifled through clothing. Gen, the policemen, and Vitelli hung back and stayed out of their way.
    Vitelli faltered when they reached the upstairs landing.
    Luciano twisted the knob on the storage bedroom and pushed with the same difficulty Gen had when she’d tried to enter, but persisted until the door was open as wide as it would go. Carla was hot on his heels. The cops crowded around and eyeballed the chaos.
    Carla went straight to the crate like a homing pigeon and swept away the linens, then pulled out a swath of newsprint. Whatever was in the box was packed in paper. She tugged at a final crumpled sheet and exposed the gleaming face of a marble statue, then held up the exquisite, two-foot-tall figure. It was a woman draped in stony folds, delicate and carved with such detail that she almost looked real.
    Luciano crossed his arms and tapped a foot. He wasn’t facing them, but Gen got the impression he was pleased in some way, and his tone reinforced it. “Well. What do we have here?”
    Carla ran a hand lightly across the face of a woman that could have been an ancestor. “Vitelli,” she said. “You are scum. You support the tombaroli .”
    Vincenzo came forward into the room, then clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back on his heels. His expression conveyed an odd combination of dread and satisfaction, as if the game had begun and he was now fully engaged, whether he liked it or not.
    “You must be mistaken,” he said. “This piece came from a broker in Switzerland. It was legally excavated in Turkey.”
    Luciano spun around and nearly spat the word, “Turkey?”
    “ Tsk, tsk .” Salvatore smiled sadly and shook her head. “You’ll have to do better than that.” She gestured at the open crate. “This gives us cause to examine the rest of the house even more carefully.”
    Vitelli crossed his arms, mimicking Luciano. “You will find nothing.”
    Gen leaned against the door jamb. She wasn’t a chess player