Mozzarella Most Murderous (3 page)

 

As a teenager
I had been a lifeguard at a lake where my family had a summer cottage. Among the techniques we learned was artificial respiration, so I tried it on Paolina, although I could find no pulse and her face was a bit blue, her skin cold and spongy. My attempts to resuscitate the poor girl had no effect whatever; she had drowned.

I then utilized the phone behind the bar to call the front desk, getting instead room service and then housekeeping. Some poor maid, having heard a hysterical voice saying, “
Morte. Dama morte
,” which I hoped meant
dead woman
, connected me with the front desk and an English speaker. While I sat down, weak-kneed, to contemplate poor Paolina’s limp, dripping body, the forces of hotel management and then those of law enforcement gathered and stampeded in our direction—Paolina’s and mine.

Paolina was an interesting name, I mused sadly. Yesterday I had simply accepted it. Today it occurred to me that it was the name of a Perugian palace, taken over by a pope and turned into a fortress to keep the quarrelsome Perugians in line—Rocca Paolina. Had my late friend been named for the fortress? My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Signor Pietro Villani, the hotel manager, accompanied by a phalanx of hysterical employees, all chattering in Italian. He introduced himself with great formality and a disapproving eye for my sodden clothing.

Signor Villani then bent over Paolina and took her pulse. “
Morte
,” he announced in sepulchral tones, and made a demand of a well-dressed lady in a chic, black suit. She removed a mirror from her handbag and gave it to him. He held the mirror to Paolina’s lips. “Morte.” His voice deepened with disapproval, and he turned to me. “
Signora
,” he asked, “are you a guest of this hotel?”

“Carolyn Blue. Room eight-oh-eight,” I replied, wondering whether he thought that I had sneaked in.

He turned to the table at which I had been sitting. “Is that your coffee, Signora?”

I nodded. Why was he asking about coffee? Another of his guests was dead on the cement. Surely he was not about to offer me a refill.

“Food and drink that have not been purchased from the bar are not allowed in the pool area.” He stared at me. I stared back, until he gave up waiting for my apology and asked, “Do you know this woman?”

“She is a guest of your hotel,” I replied. “Paolina Marchetti. I met her yesterday.”

His minion in the black suit whipped out a handheld electronic device over which her fingers flew. “Paolina Marchetti, room nine-oh-five,” she announced.

“You were swimming with her, Signora?” Signor Villani asked. “These are not hours during which the pools are open to guests.”

“I came out to enjoy the lovely air of this beautiful Sorrento morning,” I began. The hotel staffers nodded appreciatively, murmuring “
Bene
,” and the like, and breathing deeply to savor the air themselves. “Then I saw the body at the bottom of the pool, so I waded in, dragged her out, and administered artificial respiration, which was of no use, as you can see. I assume she died sometime last night. As for me, I do not swim in my clothing, only in swimwear.”

“Night swimming is not allowed,” said the manager grimly. “See what happens when guests endanger themselves by breaking the rules.” His employees all nodded. Some frowned. One wiped a tear from her eye at the fate of the rule-breaking Paolina.

Can this man be Italian?
I wondered.
All these rules, not that the Italians don’t have rules—and laws—and layers of governmental bureaucracy. But my impression has always been that Italians pay no attention. The low birthrate is a case in point. Although the Pope resides in Italy, and the Church forbids birth control, the Italians obviously practice it. And the traffic. Italian drivers pay no attention to red lights or stop signs or no-parking signs. They even park on the sidewalks. And race their cars through narrow, medieval streets.

“Lieutenant Buglione at your service,” said a policeman in a delightful uniform. “
Polizia di Stato negli Sorrento
.” He shook the manager’s hand. Then he took mine and kissed it. “You must be American lady who drowned. I am so happy to see you have recovered. Sergeant Gambardella,” he continued, pointing out the accompanying officer, who shook the hand of Signor Villani and then bowed over mine.

“I am—am not the victim,” I stammered. “She’s over there.” Because the crowd of hotel employees had encircled us, Paolina’s body was hidden from view on the apron of the pool. “Behind the lady in the black suit.”

The employees stumbled in their haste to clear a path to the corpse, all but the lady in the black suit, who turned and pointed dramatically with her electronic device. “Signorina Paolina Marchetti. Room nine-oh-five.”

“And she has drowned, poor lady?” asked the lieutenant. “So young. So beautiful. Such a tragedy,” he sighed.

“Actually, since her room was one floor up, perhaps she died in a diving accident,” I suggested. When the crowd moved aside, I had noticed that her head was injured.

“Diving is not allowed,” said Signor Villani. “Is not allowed even to climb on the railings at the waterfalls. This is most unfortunate. The owners will be horrified.”

“Yet, I think this pretty American lady is saying what is true. See the head.” The lieutenant bent down and gently lifted aside wet strands of hair, revealing an even larger wound than I had first noticed. “This head has crashed against something, or something has crashed against this head. Is perhaps murder here? Someone throw her over from up there?” He pointed up toward the wrought iron barrier at the edge of the waterfall on the ninth floor. “What do you think, Gambardella?”

“
No Ingles, mi luogotenente
,” said the sergeant sadly.

More uniformed men appeared. A doctor in a white coat and little, round eyeglasses arrived and knelt beside Paolina. The lieutenant, speaking in Italian, evidently demanded that everyone go to the lobby and await questioning. Another policeman rushed to the elevator to roust out all guests on the ninth floor. Soon there was greater pandemonium in the lobby than there had been at the pool. Signor Villani was wringing his hands in dismay because so many of his employees were being kept from their jobs and so many grumpy guests were circling his lobby complaining at the inconvenience and demanding that they be allowed to eat breakfast. I was very hungry myself, having eaten so little of my detestable dinner. I hate mushy peas. It always amazes me that the English actually have a dish called “mushy peas.” And why would an Italian hotel want to reproduce it?

Before the lieutenant could begin his interviews, I suggested to him that the guest interviewees be seated at their own tables in the breakfast room, under guard by some of his men. After that the manager looked upon me more favorably. In no time at all I was seated among a covey of guests, attended by two policemen, all of us happily eating things we had chosen from the lavish breakfast buffet of the Grand Palazzo Sorrento. They even provided cake. And champagne. Although the champagne bottles weren’t open. Just for show, I suppose. You haven’t lived until you’ve had poached eggs on fennel toast, fresh fruit, and cake with deep, lush frosting. It’s hard to believe that one establishment could produce such a wonderful breakfast and such horrible dinners.

 

We all lingered
over breakfast while Lieutenant Buglione interviewed the hotel staff so that they could return to their posts. Guests who spoke English were avidly interested in my discovery of the body, which was not, in my opinion, the most felicitous subject to discuss over breakfast. And at the back of my mind hovered the thought that Jason, if he actually arrived today, would be unhappy that another dead body had intruded on a trip of ours. Since I hadn’t read a newspaper this morning, I didn’t know whether the air-traffic controllers’ strike had been settled, as he expected.

With any luck, Paolina’s death would prove to be accidental. Jason might not even hear about it, or that I had discovered the body, or that I had gone sightseeing yesterday with the dead woman. For all her charm, Paolina had evidently been a reckless young woman. Not only had she complained about the defection of her lover, but also she had confided that she liked variety in her lovers. How many lovers did she have? I had wondered. Had she practiced safe sex, if such a thing were possible when entertaining a “variety” of men? And how many was a variety? If she was reckless in her love life, she might well be reckless in swimming pools, not that I counted using the hotel pools during forbidden hours as particularly reckless. Everything here seemed to be forbidden.

“Excuse me.” A tall, broad-shouldered man with thick, black hair, somewhat curly, and an American accent, towered over me. “May I sit down?” Some of the guests had finished breakfast and filtered back into the social areas with police escorts. The seat beside me was vacant, although the dishes had not been removed, but I was happy to meet another American. The closest I had come to someone from home since arriving in Italy was a pair of middle-aged Canadian honeymooners on the
Circumvesuviana
. Their main topic of conversation, on learning that I was from the United States, was a complaint about Asian immigrants jumping off boats and wading ashore, after which the Canadian authorities had to research their backgrounds at great expense in time and money. By then, many of the Asians had picked up some English and some money and left Canada to sneak into the United States.

I smiled at the large American and invited him to sit down, which he did, having brought his own coffee with him.

“Hank Girol,” he said, setting down his cup and shaking my hand vigorously. His hand was so large that I doubted gloves were made in his size. “I couldn’t help overhearing when you said that you were meeting your husband here for a chemistry meeting. Are you a chemist as well?”

“No, an accompanying person,” I replied. “Although I do write a cuisine column, so this is a working trip for me, too.”

Mr. Girol’s face broke into a wide smile. “I believe that I’m an accompanying person at the same meeting. My wife is Dr. Sibyl Evers from Rutgers. She’s attending a conference sponsored by a chemical company in Catania.”

I nodded. “That’s the one Jason will be attending if he ever gets out of Paris.”

“The coincidences multiply,” exclaimed my new acquaintance. “My wife is stuck in Paris, too, but she called this morning to say she hoped to get a flight by afternoon or early evening. So are they offering any activities for us significant others?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” I replied.

“Then I suggest that we round up some of the other wives or husbands, if any, to take in Pompeii and drive up the Amalfi Coast. It’s spectacular, and I’ve rented a car. It’s a little weird looking, but it’s a convertible, which is just the thing for this area.”

Of course I agreed. Mr. Girol seemed like a pleasant person, if somewhat oversized, and those were places I wanted to see. I had visited Pompeii years ago with my father, but more archaeological sites had opened there in the interim. “What I’d really like to see,” I added, “is Capri. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard how beautiful it is.”

“Then we’ll go there, too,” said the generous Mr. Girol. “There are plenty of boats crossing to the island.” He glanced around the room and added, “I think we’d better move into the lobby. The waiters are giving us the evil eye, which is serious business in Southern Italy and Sicily.”

Surely he didn’t believe in the evil eye. He was an American. Now in Naples, according to what I’d read, people were very superstitious and were afraid of the evil eye. We strolled out together and found seats on a comfy, Italian leather sofa. “How long do you think we’ll have to wait to be interviewed?” I asked.

“Actually, the police won’t want to talk to me. I just drove in from Rome and checked into the hotel, so I evidently missed all the excitement. It must have been tough for you, finding a dead body in a swimming pool.”

“It wasn’t very pleasant,” I agreed, remembering how strange Paolina had looked. “Especially since I spent yesterday afternoon exploring Sorrento with her and had dinner with her last night. She was a very lively young woman.”

“Really? She didn’t seem depressed or suicidal?” he asked.

“Not at all. I thought it might be a diving accident, but the police lieutenant suggested that someone may have thrown her over—murder, in other words.”

“Unlikely way to murder someone,” Mr. Girol remarked. “The Italian police tend to overdramatize things—the grand-opera mentality, as my dad used to say. Did she tell you anything to indicate that someone might be after her?”

“Actually, she’d been stood up by her lover.”

“Poor girl. Perhaps it
was
a suicide.”

“Surely not. She seemed more angry than sad.”

He shrugged. “Well, the police will work it out. And I hope you won’t be too upset by her death to enjoy the week. This is a terrific place to vacation, and I know a number of good restaurants.”

I was delighted to hear that since the hotel dinners had been so terrible. We talked about food, especially Italian food, which Mr. Girol, who insisted that I call him Hank, claimed to know all about, being from New Jersey. He called himself, chuckling, “the executive garbage man,” because he was the vice president of a company that disposed of waste, much of it highly toxic, that no landfill would accept. Naturally that led to a discussion of our spouses, who were both chemists interested in toxicity. Hank had met his wife in a Rutgers lab while looking for information on some unusual toxin that had come his way.

“We fell in love beside one of those hoods that carries off poisonous chemical fumes,” he said. “I always thought of myself as a more romantic guy than that, but we were obviously made for each other, and I did manage to propose over a great aged Barola in a restaurant where violins were playing and Neapolitan love songs were being sung. The engagement ring arrived stuck into a perfect New Jersey strawberry on top of a dish of great tiramisu.”