Light, prolonged
春分 [15] / [33]
"Lucia di Bari."
"If he also doesn't have any connection to you and Lucas, that means the murderer picks victims at random, which could complicate the investigation. The information is broken in far too many pieces to gather it all up."
She took a gloomy view. Would this remain a cold case without resolution?
"Let's find something out about Lucia di Bari. We don't have any better choices. In the deductive spirit, lets assume that there's a woman Lucia who lives in Bari, Italy. And assume those numbers are a birthday. To search for somebody effectively in our databases, we need a name, location, and a birthday. So we don't have any other choice than to regard this as a birthday. We will ask cooperation from the Italian police to find this person. If they give us any clues of use, we can go to Italy to track them down.”
When they returned to the office, Alexander made a call to the Italian consulate in New York, searching for a point of contact in the local police department in Bari. He ended up getting ahold of a junior diplomat, who forwarded him to a staffer responsible for liaising with Italian law enforcement in Rome. Through this person, he was given assurances that Roman authorities would reach out to their counterparts in Bari, and pass on the name and date given by Alexander.
He was told to expect a response in 1-5 days, but they got back to him within 16 hours. There were at least two dozen ‘Lucias’ born on that date. All of them still resided in Bari, and none of them had relatives living in the US. Thery were at an impasse.
"I really thought we'd find something here,"
said Alexander to Cynthia, sighing.
"Yeah, I did too, it's weird. Unless . . . "
she paused, lost in thought for a few moments, when Alexander urged her on.
"Unless what? What are you thinking?"
"What if that date isn't what we think it is. What if it's something else? There could be various possibilities,"
she continued.
"But I think there's no correlation between all these victims. Except that they are all male, and might have had sex with her,"
Cynthia glanced at him.
"And she must have been very attractive to them, mustn't she? By sexual appeal or character."
They both fell into silence. It was about time to be off.
"Let's have some drinks at the bar,"
Alexander proposed.
She, who also needed a break, accepted that sudden proposal. They went ahead to the bar where they usually go to. They took a seat in the back corner. He looked around inside. It was early evening, but already there were many tables filled with various types, like couples, friends etc. They loved this place because of the cozy atmosphere. It was not very neat and tidy, but very natural and had a good vibe. He ordered gin and tonic, and she a vodka cranberry. Cynthia got up and moved her seat next to him and kissed him.
