The Nosferatu Scroll by James Becker

around as the senior officerapproached. He recognized him immediately, and shook his head. “It’s the chief inspector, sir,” he said. “It’s Lombardi.”
    When he heard that name, Bianchi stopped in dismay. Around him, uniformedpolice officers, paramedics, technicians in civilian clothes and others wearing white coveralls milled about the scene. The obvious focus of their attention was the area right beside the edge of the canal. Temporary screens had already been erected in a rough square to protect the crime scene, and to hide the body from the curious glances of the Venetians and tourists who were passing down the opposite side of the canal, and looking over at the scene from boats and gondolas.
    Inspector Bianchi was a solidly built man in his fifties, his fine aquiline features now darkly suffused with anger and disgust. As he walked closer to the body, several of the men nodded greetings, but none spoke to him. Their mood was clearly both subdued and very angry.
    Carabinieri officers, like policemen everywhere, accept the inherent dangers of their job. They are on the front line, the thin blue line that separates the criminal elements from the law-abiding citizens in their country. And in Italy there has always been the added menace and complication of the Cosa Nostra, the Mafia—the criminal organization that many maintain still holds the real power in the country. As many prominent officials have found to their cost over the years, Mafia godfathers are always prepared to remove—permanently—anyone who they believe is getting in their way. Judges, politicians, and, of course, police officers, have all paid the ultimate price for their desire to uphold the rule of law.
    But Carlo Lombardi had not been involved, as far as Bianchi knew, in any anti-Mafia operations, at least not in the five years he had known him. Lombardi was Venetian born and bred, had spent all his working life in the city, rising to become one of the most senior officers employed there. And most of this time, all he and his men had had to deal with was the usual spate of bag-snatching and pickpocketing, as criminal elements at the very bottom of the ladder preyed upon Venice’s annual influx of tourists. “Bottom-feeders” was the way Lombardi had usually referred to these criminals. They were an irritation, not a threat, and rarely targeted any of the local people.
    And never, in Bianchi’s experience, had any one of these “bottom-feeders” carried a firearm. But now, Chief Inspector Carlo Lombardi lay dead in the center of the screened-off area, three bullet holes in his body, and his dark blood staining the old stones on which he lay.
    A plainclothes officer looked up as Bianchi came to a stop beside the feet of the dead man.
    “A bad business, Filippo,” the officer said.
    Bianchi nodded. “What happened, Piero? Any witnesses?”
    “He was executed. That’s what happened,” Inspector Piero Spadaccino replied angrily. “He was shot down in cold blood, right here in the middle of Venice. It looks like the first bullet hit his stomach, because of the positionof his hands. And either of the second two in his chest would have been enough to kill him. The doctor thinks both those bullets probably went through his heart. I tell you, Filippo, this looks to me like a gangland killing.”
    “Any witnesses?” Bianchi asked again.
    Spadaccino nodded. “Several,” he replied shortly. “None of them saw the first shot, though they all heard it. A medium-caliber pistol, probably nine millimeter. That took Lombardi down, and they all turned to look. Then the killer walked over to him, lying here on the ground, said something to him, and then fired the other two shots. An execution; nothing more, nothing less.
    “All the witnesses describe a man in a dark suit with black hair, dark eyes and a tanned complexion, no distinguishing features. About the only point of interest in the descriptions is that a couple of people said the man was