Excerpt from A Few Drops of Blood, by Jan Merete Weiss

1 The moon was a ghost when the call came in. The caller said she wished to notify Captain Natalia Monte about two bodies. Routed from another Carabinieri station to hers on Via Casanova, the voice announced herself a countess and said that she didn’t trust ordinary police. Moments later Natalia Monte raced through the pre- dawn gray, siren blaring, flashing lights throwing blue and white bolts across buildings and intersections. She drove along Via Carducci, turned onto the Riviera di Chiaia, past its expensive shops and the aquarium, still run down since the Second World War when the hungry raided its tanks. The Alfa Romeo zipped along the boulevard, palm trees arched overhead, the plazas dark, the Bay of Naples a blur to her left. On Via Petrarca she shot past a fountain she’d loved as a girl, with marble cherubs blowing trumpets. Finally she slowed and searched for the turn. Natalia spotted the driveway of Palazzo Carraciulo and passed through its open gates, up a long curved drive lush with royal palms. So different from the cramped alleys of old Naples where she lived and worked. A hundred yards in, she pulled alongside a new police Ferrari parked in front of a grey stone mansion, its pristine façade incorporating sleek pediments discreetly illuminated. An ancient butler directed her to the garden. Natalia followed a stone path around the side of the building and flashed her identification at the Carabiniere guarding the scene. The lush garden was beautifully wild with grasses and flowers. Several cats dozed on the edge of a patio. Honey- suckle and jasmine perfumed the air. A yellow butterfly on an orange lily slowly opened and folded its wings. Natalia stepped onto the grass and walked toward the rose bushes that surrounded a life-sized horse cast in metal, the centerpiece of a dry fountain half filled with potted blooms—white roses. The sculpture was enormous. Two male figures sat astride the unbridled steed—one man pitched forward, his arms draped along the animal’s neck. The second man leaned into him from behind. Neither was clothed. Natalia stepped closer. Dark splotches marred the creamy petals of flowers encircling the fountain. Already there were flies. She circled the statue slowly, shining a light up at the two, just barely making out dark punctures that riddled their chests. Young men—shotgunned from the look of them. Blood dripped down their torsos and loins, along their legs and the flanks of the horse into the fountain’s basin. Its iron scent mixed with the lush bouquet of the roses. Suddenly she noticed the woman by the rhododendrons, motionless as the men. Silver hair framed her face and flowed past her slim shoulders. She wore a white silk kimono printed with orange and purple cranes. Cranes symbolized long life, Pino, Natalia’s ex, had told her once in an intimate moment. The woman’s eyes were a startling shade of lavender. Natalia held up her Carabinieri identification. “Captain Monte. As you requested.”