The Last Enemy by Grace Brophy Page A

rest of us on the blood-sucking aristocracy, had been his first thought. Fat chance, his second.
    Cenni said nothing further in condemnation of anyone else in the room, but Elena knew that her time was coming.
    11
    RITA MINELLI’S BEDROOM and bathroom were on the second floor of the house, in the back, with a view overlooking the garden and the church of San Pietro. The rooms were en suite with access through a single door into the sleeping area. Elena saw immediately that both bedroom and bathroom were equipped for someone with a handicap. They had constructed something similar in their own small apartment in Perugia for her father who had fallen from scaffolding some five years before and was now confined to a wheelchair, widening the doors to his bedroom and to the bathroom that they all shared and installing steel bars so he could lift himself onto the toilet without help. But anything beyond these simple measures was too expensive and too difficult to get approved by their landlord. She looked around the rooms, noting the ample space for maneuvering a wheelchair, the large open shower with safety seat, the furniture designed to be easily opened and closed by someone sitting down, admiring them for their potential to make life easier for the handicapped, but also resenting the privileges of the rich.
    “These rooms belonged to the count’s mother when she was alive. She was in a wheelchair for three years before she died two years ago,” volunteered Lucia, the Casatis’ maid, who had escorted Elena and the two technicians up to the rooms.
    The maid seemed curiously unaffected by the murder although she obviously wanted to gossip about it and, after unlocking the bedroom door and handing Elena the key, she waited rather conspicuously in the hallway. Elena was aware that most women were more relaxed around women officers and so more likely to provide information that they’d normally withhold from the police. She also knew that the commissario recognized this and used it—and her—by placing her in situations where she was likely to gain their trust. The feminist in her rebelled at this tactic, but the police officer used it to advantage. Although Elena knew she was rationalizing, she soothed her conscience by telling herself that the same women who revealed more than what was good for them did so only because they really didn’t respect women as police officers.
    The forensic technicians had started dusting the room for prints when Lucia, peering into the room, interrupted. “What are they doing with that black powder?” she asked.
    “They’re dusting for fingerprints to see who else has been in the room,” Elena answered, smiling warmly to suggest that she was open to further talk.
    “Oh, they won’t find anything. She locked her door whenever she left the house. I never clean in there, not since Christmas anyway, when she asked the countess for the key.”
    “She cleaned the rooms herself!” Elena responded, feigning disapproval. “How strange! But Americans are strange. They’re always afraid people are trying to rob them. We found that out last year when we were investigating some hotel robberies in Perugia. Many Americans won’t leave their keys at the front desk.”
    “I don’t know what she thought I’d want that belonged to her. My clothes and jewelry are a lot better than anything she has,” Lucia responded indignantly. “When she first came here in June she dressed like an old lady. Bruta! She always wore sneakers when she left the house, even with her mink jacket! I’d be ashamed to go out looking that way.” She glanced furtively at the technicians and then lowered her voice. “In January, right after the New Year, she started dressing better, a lot like Signora Artemisia, even had her hair cut like hers and had her eyebrows tweezed. They were like bushes before. My friend Romina—she waits tables at Il Duomo—said that the Americana used to come in there with a man. Romina said