Italy to Die For (15 page)

“
Anything else?” the commissioner said.

I
couldn’t help but look at Lorenzo before adding, “Only that Lorenzo said I must’ve been mistaken even when I knew I hadn’t been.”

“This is true, Dante,” Lorenzo said. He patted my hand
as if I were his Zia Octavia instead of the woman he’d been teaching how to make love. “Please accept my apologies, Elena, for having dismissed your concerns so readily.”

The commissioner glanced at his wristwatch. He gestured a ‘get-on-with-it’ to his assistant.

Nicco slipped on a pair of thin surgical gloves. He pulled out a brown wallet from the manila envelope. “Does this look familiar, Signorina Ellen?”

“Without a
doubt, that’s mine … except for … wait a minute, can I have a closer look, please.”

Nicco held out his
gloved hand, the wallet resting in his open palm.

“W
hat’s that dark stain?” I asked.

“It is
rare to find stolen items in their former condition,” Nicco said.

“I don’t suppose the
money ….”

“My apolo
gies, for now, we must retain your money for evidence.”

“No problem,” I said, somewhat relieved.
“I expected the wallet to be empty. Where did you find it?”

“Unfortunately,
not in a good place,” Nicco said. “It was located on the female victim we discovered in the tunnel.”

I
heard Margo gasp but couldn’t bring myself to look at her. Instead I asked the question she had to be thinking, same as the one I’d been thinking. “Those dark stains on my wallet, could they be blood?”

Commissioner Novaro
ignored my question. At least he didn’t give me the Italian shrug. “Once more, I must apologize for having to upset you but alas it is another necessity.” He gestured to his assistant.

Nicco
reached into the envelope again, pulled out a color photograph, and passed it to me. “Do you recognize this woman?”

This woman
… this woman didn’t even look like a woman, more like the ghost of what once was. Her face, chalk-white and puffy; her head leaning back, neck exposed to show a line of dried blood from one ear to the other; eyes closed. Had she closed them so her last view would not be of the person killing her? Or to prepare herself for the next world, I tried to imagine myself in her … in that position.

“Did she die
with her eyes closed? Or did someone close them after the fact.”

The commissioner ignored what I considered a show of compassion and instead came back with, “Are you not able to identify her? If that is the case—”

“No, I just wondered about the last seconds of her life.
”

“Quick and painles
s,” Nicco said, “but had she known what was about to happen, she would’ve been filled with fear so crippling one cannot begin to describe it. Does that answer your question?”

“Y
es, thank you. And yes, I recognize her from the motorboat. She is the woman who fell on me when the boat shifted. I just don’t understand the rationale of one tourist robbing another.”

“Not a tourist, Signorina Ellen. Like the first victim
we discovered on the beach, this woman also had ties to the Roma community, one that has little relevance here in Cinque Terre.”

I swallowed the lump
taking form in my throat. “Did she die on the beach too?”

“Her body was discovered
in the train tunnel,” Nicco said. “That is all we are at liberty to say.”

“
The train tunnel that I’d already walked through several times, as had hundreds, no thousands of tourists each day?” As for the nights, I had no way of knowing. Nor did the commissioner have any interest in discussing. His next words to me came off as condescending.

“
My men have already investigated the crime scene within the tunnel and have re-opened the area to accommodate trains as well as the pedestrian traffic. It is not our intent to create a tourist attraction for the morbidly curious.”

He
stood, gestured for the rest of us to do the same. “My apologies for taking up more of your time than I first expected. Now if you will excuse me, I must return to my duties, just as you and your sister must make good use of your time in Cinque Terre.”

“Well, excuse me, Commissioner
,” Margo said. “What about the assault on me last night? Could there be a possible connection between my assault and the murders of these two unfortunate women?”

“That I cannot answer until further investigation,” he said. “Please enjoy the rest of your day.”

As if nothing had happened, please. I raised my hand, a reminder of simpler times, of my students back in St. Louis … if they could see me now. Better they should not. “One more thing, Commissioner.”

“Yes,
signorina, what is it?”

“
I understand why you’re holding the money but could you please return my amulet? It’s not that I’m superstitious; I just like having all my bases covered.”

“Covering your bases, I don’t understand.”

“It’s a baseball term,” Margo said. “You know, just to be on the safe side.”

With that, the commissioner nodded to Nicco
. He gave me the amulet, along with a chilling comment. “Perhaps this will safeguard you better than the woman who died with it in her possession.”

Chapter 23

Salvaging the Day

Enjoy
the rest of your day, Commissioner Novaro told El and me. Yeah, right. As if either of us needed reminding. No way would I have let this inconvenient blip on the screen ruin the
best
of our holiday, one I’d already extended to keep an eye on El who was such a babe in the woods when it came to men. And life in general, not that I was that much better, given the Giorgio fiasco, oh, well, live and learn.

Back at the police station I really thought El
was going to lose it. Never have I seen her so rattled, not even when she left the convent. If anyone had the right to be rattled, it was me, Margo Savino; having survived almost getting my throat ripped from ear to ear, just like that gypsy in the tunnel and the one before her, on the beach of all places.
Bled out
was the term Trevor Whatshisface had used. Hmm, maybe he and the other guy weren’t so bad after all. Good lord, I must’ve been more desperate than I first realized. One thing was for sure: neither Americano could hold a candle to Nicco Rizzi, my new acquaintance who made Giorgio look like a schoolboy … better yet a mama’s boy. Forget that twerp. At this point I considered myself the proverbial third wheel, what with El wrapped up in Lorenzo’s every word and Lorenzo wrapped up in hers. A dismal first for me: taking a back seat to my little … eh, younger sister. Oh well, better it should’ve been El with Lorenzo than me with him. Lorenzo, definitely not my type—make that another for sure.

There we were: El and me on either side of Lorenzo, heading
for the tourist scene, a perfect time to express what I’d been thinking all morning.

“
I absolutely, positively cannot take much more of this. Give me some fun and give it to me fast.” My comment prompted Lorenzo to check his watch and then his phone for a text message I tried to make out but couldn’t without being too obvious.

“Regretfully, I must take care of business this afternoon,” he said to El mo
re than to me. “But we still have time to enjoy a mid-day meal, that is, if you feel up to eating.”

Eat, drink
, and romance, in no particular order, wasn’t that the objective of our trip to Italy. Although after last night I did promise myself to go easy on the grappa. The romance too, after what I will forever think of as the Giorgio fiasco. The memory of which I so wanted to erase from my brain like misspelled words from a dusty chalkboard. But this mistake was still too fresh. I needed to carry it around for a while, if for no other reason than a reminder of my stupidity. Mom would’ve said: some wounds need to fester before healing without the telltale scars. Truer words were never spoken.

I glanced over to El, off
on a planet other than Earth and incapable of making a decision about anything, let alone lunch, so I chimed in with, “Just lead us to your top choice, Lorenzo. I’m positively starving.”

For some godforsaken reason
I did not understand Lorenzo took us to an out-of-the-way trattoria that didn’t seem especially touristy. Okay, so maybe he had done right by us. The hostess, who obviously knew him as did everyone else in the place, directed us to a private room—near the kitchen, of all places. What? No sunshine, no lemons, no hustle or bustle of tourists, only the waiter staff carrying trays of food balanced on their shoulders. Oh, well, after last night and the grueling morning, all I could think about was a relaxing meal and a few glasses of wine. Again confirming Lorenzo did not disappoint. The food was delish, the wine superb, and after a while, El loosened up a bit, which relieved me from having to keep the conversation going.

When
Lorenzo glanced at his watch for the third time I told him to go, that El and I were quite capable of taking care of ourselves. He certainly took care of El during the night, never have I seen her cheeks so flushed as they were this morning. His less-than-stellar looks were started to grow on me; perhaps it was the polished manners that seldom made their way across The Pond. Or maybe his air of mystery I didn’t quite trust but couldn’t explain why. Before leaving, he planted the Italian kiss on both of us, lingering over El until she blushed and I felt a twinge of envy.

T
hen there were two, El and me, along with a half bottle of wine and two marvelous cups of espresso sans the grappa. Oh, yeah, I had learned my lesson well, considering my near brush with death the night before. Lorenzo had been gone about five minutes when an elderly gent showed up, dressed to the nines and a likely candidate for the geriatric version of sexiest man alive.

“
Permesso
?” he asked.

I caught El’s eye
, and raised my brow as if to say,
“You know him?”

She did, and introduced the man
as Lorenzo’s uncle. Bernardo Cozzani sat between El and me, the same chair his nephew had occupied, and ordered another bottle of wine.

“Are you here to guard us?
” El asked.

He smiled with a shrug
, which I took as a
non capice
. I repeated her question in my broken Italian though decent enough for Signore Cozzani to understand.

“Si,” he said with a smile that told me he must’ve been quite
the guy fifty years ago.

“Careful,” El whispered. “He might bite.”

“One can only hope,” I said. “At least he has his own teeth.”

My comment prompted a h
ardy laugh from the signore. Evidently, he understood more English than he first let on, and insisted I call him Bernardo. No problem for me, in fact a rather intriguing possibility since I’d never found myself on the younger end of a May-December fling. And couldn’t help but think Twilight vampire with warm blood running through Bernardo’s aging veins. Our waitress brought the wine Bernardo had ordered, along with four glasses. She filled three of them half way and when the signore gestured to the fourth, she filled it as well.

“
Hmm,” I said to El. “Does this mean we’re getting more company?” Those words had barely escaped my mouth when a second man showed up at our table. A tourist perhaps, judging from his casual wear but judging from his dark hair and swarthy complexion, he didn’t appear typical American, nor Brit or German. Most definitely not my type; or El’s, mid-forties and more than a tad too ragged to take anywhere special would’ve been my best assessment.

Again
, speaking in Italian, Bernardo Cozzani introduced the man as Fonso and asked permission for him to join us.

“Si, si,” I said, speaking for El as well as myself.
Come on
, I wanted to tell her, get with the program. She hadn’t take her eyes off of this Fonso until I jabbed my big toe into the arch of her foot, breaking whatever spell he’d cast on her.

Bernardo
lifted his glass, the rest of us followed, ending with the universal click. I took my first sip. The wine a full-bodied red, much more substantial than the delicate bianco Lorenzo had ordered for our lunch. Fonso downed his in three gulps and in the earthy manner reminiscent of my peasant ancestors, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Although there was still wine in the bottle, the signore called for another, in spite of protests from El and me.

“We really should be on our way,” I explained in a combination of English and Italian.
I started to get up, as did El until Fonso stopped us with a show of both palms.

“Please, here me out.” His
near-perfect English carried a heavy accent, though not Italian or the regional dialects I’d heard throughout our trip. Except in Rome, no way could I have forgotten the Spanish Steps incident. El’s incident since she’d been the bait and switch victim.

“You’re a gypsy
,” she blurted out. “I knew it, I knew it.”

He leaned forward, spoke in a low voice.
“Please, signorina, this is true although my people and I prefer the term Roma. Either way, it would not be in your best interest to call attention to my ethnicity. Nor should you or your sister be afraid. I present myself as a friend, one who is willing to offer protection in exchange for your cooperation.”

“What?
” she said in a voice matching his. “You want us to harass the tourists, pick a pocket or two, whatever it takes to keep our throats from getting slit?”

I got my face into his, our noses separated by a few inches. “Were you the
cowardly bastard who attacked me last night?”

At this point
Bernardo got up, and said, “
Scuzi
,
il gabinetto
.”

Good grief, of all times to answer nature’s call.
Bernardo, proud and taller than any ninety-year-old I’d ever known. Okay, maybe I’d never known any before that day. Certainly, not one who carried himself with such dignity and grace.

“Don’t leave us with this man,” El said
to Bernardo’s back as he walked away. “Lorenzo will never find us.”

“P
lease,” Fonso said. “Lorenzo Gentili is my friend and I am his. It is at his request that I am here with you.”

El squeezed her eyes shut. She
covered her ears with her hands. Poor thing, one more crack added to the fragile disposition she’d adopted that day. I scanned what little I could see of the trattoria, in particular the route to the restroom but Bernardo had disappeared. Toilette, my ass, the old goat had deserted us, just as Lorenzo had done earlier. And to think my sister had fallen for him. I turned to El, pulled one hand away from her ear and spoke into it loud and clear. “Snap out of it, El. What do you think? Should we scream or yell for the carabinieri?”

While she
was thinking too long, Fonso jumped in with another comment or two.

“Do as you must
, signorini. But my being here can in no way be construed as a crime or as harassment. As you may recall, I was invited to join your table.”

“By
Bernardo Cozzani who has now deserted us,” El said with the haughty expression I hadn’t seen since our time in Florence. Thank god, she’d come back to life, boring as it was, or had been, until the last few days.

“Sig
nore Cozzani did not desert you,” Fonso said. “At his age a man must nap every afternoon in order to stay up all night.”

“Which makes
no sense,” I said. “Unless … oh, yeah, now I get it.”

”
Work with me, please,” Fonso said. “It will be to the benefit of all of us.”

“What do you think?” I asked El.

She scrunched up her face, close enough to qualify as a
yes
.

“It’s go
od, then,” Fonso said. “The three of us, we are now connected to each other.”

“Just as long as we don’t have to swap blood,” I said.

Ignoring my comment, Fonso added wine to my glass, El’s too until she gestured for him to stop. The whole ritual of clicking glasses did not come up, which suited me just fine. Fonso was well into draining another glass before El and I had taken our second sip. He wiped his mouth again, called the waitress over, and ordered a platter of bread, fruit, and cheese.

“Forgive me,” he said
, patting his belly bump. “Better yet, my hunger that cannot be ignored at a time such as this. I have not eaten yet today and only do so with great sadness. Our people are in mourning for two of our own, those women who were taken from us before their time, who died in a place other than their own beds. We are … were from the same tribe, and share blood going back to the grandparents of our parents.”

“One of the dead women stole my wallet,” El said.

“An inconvenience at best,” Fonso said.

“More than an inconvenience,” El said, “but less than a capital offense.
I am not so callous as to think blatant thievery warranted her death.”

“Good, on that we agree.”

“What I don’t understand is: how she would have known I’d be on that boat.”

“
A mere coincidence,” he said, “an opportunity too good to pass up or so I have been told.”

“Thanks. I’ll explain that to my aches and pains when they get out of control, as they have every day since the so-called accident. Bu
t did it end there, no. Two other gypsies harassed me the other day, one for the second time.”

“A bit of playful revenge as a result of the Autogrille incident,
again so I’ve been told,” Fonso said, “although I have no firsthand knowledge of this.”

“And yet you knew about it.”

“The individuals involved I know although not well.”

“I don’t know them at all and yet they hate me.”

“Perhaps they object to a certain gesture.”

“You mean this?”
El started to configure the forefinger and pinky gesture but Fonso placed his hand over hers.

“No need to demonstrate,” he said.

“What about this one?” I made the same gesture but held it up, palm near my chest.

“No, no, no
… not the
corna
,” Fonso whispered. He leaned over with every intention of moving my hand but I lowered it on my own.