“So the waiters say.”
Macer quizzed me sharply about that. I told him what I learned from Nipius and Natalis about Rufia’s disappearance. I decided not to mention the two Dardanian prostitutes, let alone that third woman I had yet to find. Artemisia and Orchivia were not in Rome when the crime happened, and whatever Menendra’s role was, I wanted to investigate myself.
The troops were making acquaintance with the Dardanians anyway. Artemisia and Orchivia had joined a group of sightseers congregating outside in the street. The women were soon offering their services to the vigiles, who, according to their custom, did not rebuff them.
Purists may think investigating officers and their witnesses ought to remain segregated. The Third and Fourth Cohorts were neither of them pure.
XVIII
Morellus and Macer pretended they were above such behavior even if, in the spirit of good community relations, free tricks were offered. Macer instructed his lads to scarper, which the lads took to mean go and get their oats somewhere else, not here under a plebeian aedile’s nose. Macer must have decided telling them not to fraternize at all would be a waste of time.
Surprisingly to a cynic like me, it was made plain that the Dardanian dream girls would not be allowed to bring clients into the Hesperides, which was a crime scene. They grumbled loudly, then simply took the men down to the Romulus, “for a quick drink.” Perhaps they even did have a drink prior to whatever else happened. There were so many troops they must have formed a queue. Flagons would undoubtedly be ordered meanwhile. Any landlord would ensure that. One bar’s tragedy was another’s boost in trade.
Left behind, four of us stood in the newly peaceful courtyard, looking down at the burials. Morellus and Macer favored Tiberius with their professional views; I was allowed to listen. I balked privately, but tolerated their attitude. For one thing, we might need their cooperation later. For another, Macer could always claim this was his crime scene, sealing it and making life impossible for Faustus as the contractor. Faustus made no secret of his aims: to obtain any new evidence in one go, have the skeletons removed tonight, then retake possession of the site so he could finish the refit and be paid. I was marrying a true plebeian.
* * *
The bodies had been buried around the edge of the yard. A good two feet of spoil was packed on top of them; these graves were not shallow. The victims’ heads abutted boundary walls; their feet came forward into open ground. Three were positioned on one side, Rufia and one more were at the far end, the last was on his own opposite the three others. He might have been fitted in alongside Rufia, but there was a gate to the outside alley. It must always have existed so its rutted pathway posed a discovery risk.
“Can you tell what kind of fight happened here?” I asked.
“Not a clue.” Macer, a natural misery, enjoyed saying no.
Morellus was slightly more helpful. “Number five has a little dent in his skull, though not enough to have killed him. Number two had his neck broken.” He showed us.
There were no defensive cut marks and, except for the one possible neck injury, no bones had been broken perimortem. We found no tips of knives or spears among the bones or left behind, stuck in them. Rufia might have been strangled (clearly that was the method the two vigiles would use on a woman they wanted to silence forever), but without her head no one could tell. Poisoning, drowning, suffocation would none of them show up.
We still had not found a skull for Rufia, though we had looked carefully. All the rest, who we agreed looked like male skeletons, had their heads still attached to their spines. Only number five, with his dent, had any sign of a head wound. The only disarticulated bone was the lower leg with the cut marks.
“If it was his arm you would think,” Morellus pontificated, “he had a knife, so somebody hacked off his limb to stop him using it.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier just to grab him and take the knife away?” I asked. “Haven’t we agreed there must have been several people involved in the killing?”
Morellus spat, but that was just because I was a woman arguing. He liked to spit. It was his way of expressing a repulsive personality. “You’ve never seen a really vicious fight, girl.” I had, but forbore to argue.
“What happened to Rufia’s head-and why?” demanded Faustus. “My men were thorough when digging. If there was a skull, we’d have found it.”
“No, the men never missed it,” agreed Macer. “The barmaid’s bonce absolutely isn’t here.”
“So why is she different?” I asked. “If by your verdict all these people died at the same time?”
“Same incident. Has to be.” Morellus was definite, defending his theory. “Look how they are all put in the ground-Rufia and the man beside her spaced exactly like the trio over there. All the same depth. All placed exactly the same. All the bones have weathered equally, come to that.”
“Why then would someone have taken her head away?”
“In case the bodies were dug up too soon and she was recognized?” suggested Morellus.
“More likely nabbed as a trophy,” Macer argued.
Even Morellus assumed a pained expression, thinking his colleague an amateur. “Well, son. Some perpetrators do take trophies. Your normal killer wants a piece of jewelry or a lock of hair to remind him of his exciting experience. Those things can be hidden in his armpurse, but a whole head can cause him a problem. You don’t look too good, walking away down the street with someone’s head under your arm. Well,” he finished disparagingly, “that’s how our lot do it on the Aventine. Your villains may have a different system in the Viminal.”
People who lived on the other Seven Hills regarded the Aventine as foreign; for Morellus, born and bred there, ours was a sophisticated haven; other hills were alien places. Their occupants all had unspeakable characteristics, with no rule of law applying to their unregulated streets.
“Morellus, you ever-comical swine,” I chastised him, bantering as we generally did. “You speak as if mass killers are a professional group, with traditions, apprenticeships, annual guild dinners. And no doubt a funeral club. How handy for when they have fatal fights in dodgy bars!”
“Whatever went down here,” Macer of the Third carried on conversing with his colleague in what he perceived as a fair-minded way, which meant ignoring me, “after the fracas ended, with one lot all lying quietly dead, someone rapidly got organized. Someone hoofed off for spades. Maybe there was building work nearby so they could nick tools, but they probably put them back afterward or a big theft would have been reported later. Questions would be asked.” I noticed Faustus huff quietly, as if in his experience the vigiles never took much interest in thefts of building tools. “While the corpses cooled, a group of people methodically made graves. They dropped in the bodies. They cleaned up. They flattened down the earth. They rearranged the tables and seats to look like normal.”
“They wiped down the tables and patted the dog,” I added satirically.
“I bet they unsealed an amphora and had a bloody big drink!” scoffed Morellus.
“Of course the killings may have been planned,” Faustus brooded. “Some old quarrel. Weapons and burial tools may have been collected earlier.”
“Yet nobody talks about a feud like that existing,” I reminded him. “The only rumor says the landlord murdered Rufia. It sounds like a domestic. All too usual. Five men must also have disappeared the same night, but when this rumor comes up, who mentions them?”
“Out-of-towners,” Morellus answered at once. “Nobody cares.”
Macer agreed. “Grockles.” It was a term my father used for visitors to Rome who came for business or pleasure, gaping at sights and having their travel bags stolen.
“Easy pickings,” I conceded. “You shout ‘Look at that!’ then pick up their luggage while their heads are meekly turning. Alternatively, you lure them into a bent dice game or fleece them at Find the Nymph under the Cup. Fair enough-but Morellus, Macer, nobody needs to murder them.”