The breakthrough didn't come from DNA or forensics, but from Massimo’s memory of a specific jar of pickled mushrooms he’d seen in the back of the local parish priest's kitchen—mushrooms gifted by a disgruntled local fisherman whose land was being seized for the developer’s parking lot.
"A foreigner, Massimo! Face down in the sand near the old pier," Gino wheezed, adjusting his glasses. "And he’s wearing a tuxedo. At 8:00 AM!"
The victim was a high-stakes real estate developer from Milan who had been planning to turn the town’s beloved, crumbling lighthouse into a luxury "wellness hub." In Pineta, that was practically a motive for the entire population.