Sheila Connolly - Reunion with Death (15 page)

“Cynthia, am I paranoid, or did you get the feeling that there were people who weren’t too fond of Professor Gilbert? Who weren’t happy to see him there at all?”

Cynthia looked away, toward the sea. “I wondered about that,” she said quietly. “As I said when it happened, I never knew him, but I told you there were a lot of rumors.”

I nodded. “Exactly. I know I’ve talked to several people who did know him, who took classes from him, or knew someone who did. And most people said what you’d expect. After all, it was a long time ago. But there was still something a little off … There were people who looked, I don’t know—angry?” We were silent for perhaps half a minute. Then I added, “The police will be sending someone from Tuscany to talk to us.”

“That’s what the phone call was about? What the hell are we supposed to do?” Cynthia asked.

“That was a heads-up. And before you ask, I can’t call the same number and say, sorry, never mind. I started something and now it’s out of my hands.”

“Who else knows?”

“Nobody, yet. I’m not sure if the police—is it the police, or the
carabinieri
?—even know where to find us at the moment. If they ever track us down, I’m sure they won’t be happy. The crime scene is long gone, as is any evidence in the professor’s room, and all the suspects have had plenty of time to think up nice alibis.”

“This is Italy. You sure they won’t just throw up their hands and declare it’s too complicated?”

I shook my head.

Cynthia went on, “You’re saying it’s likely that one of us gave him the drug. Who?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know any of these women well. I’ve been trying to steer conversations to the professor’s death without being too obvious, but that way I get only snippets. I think I’ve heard at least four possible motives. I think there’s something wrong. But, Cyn, how do I fix this? I don’t want these women to hate me for wrecking the trip, but I don’t want to ignore a murder, even if the guy was scum. You think I was wrong to do it?” I asked.

Cynthia shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “No,” she said in a quiet voice, “I guess not. Not if he was helped to death. He may have been a jerk, but he didn’t have to die. How you’re going to explain that to anybody else, I don’t know. They will not be happy if their vacation is trashed.”

“I know that.” I stopped talking and thought for a moment. “I can see one way out of this,” I began tentatively.

“What?” Cynthia challenged me. “Wait, are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“If that means solving this murder and salvaging the holiday, all before the police or whoever show up, then yes.”

“The two of us,” Cynthia said dubiously.

“Why not? We’re smart women, aren’t we? We can figure this out.”

“I hope so,” Cynthia grumbled. “How—”

We were interrupted by the sound of voices, ten feet below us. “Ahoy, up there! We’re ready to go explore the town. You coming?”

I mouthed “later” at Cynthia, and then called out, “Sure. We’ll be right there.”

We headed down the hill, watching where we put our feet, and arrived for the last part of the procession. The town, packed with people of all ages, sizes and nationalities, had gathered in front of the church to watch for the arrival of the priest and an entourage of other robed priests. The priest in front carried what I recognized from my medieval classes as a monstrance, a sun-rayed disk that displayed the consecrated Host to the spectators. The small procession trod over paths of fresh flowers laid out in intricate designs, which gave color to the cobbled streets. It was strangely moving, and I felt as though I had stepped back into some earlier time. We found our companions, and our little vineyard group watched together in silence. When the priests had marched past the church toward the sea, we followed slowly, looking for our restaurant.

It was not hard to find. No one would ever call our class shy and retiring, and those who had arrived early had taken over the two long tables under the awning in front of the restaurant. Once again, bottles of wine were already circulating. By unspoken agreement, Cynthia and I settled at different tables, and I took a moment to admire the harbor spread out in front of us, with rocky cliffs on either side.

Dinner, once we finally got around to it, was a rollicking delight. The menu was set so we had no decisions to make, and the bottles of wine didn’t stop coming. I decided that I had misjudged Italian wine as weak and watery, but here in its home it was light and pleasant. Maybe it was the air, or the soil—or the company. I pitied any hapless tourist who happened to wander into our space: the members of our group were in rare form, and not exactly quiet.

I chose a seat next to yet more people I hadn’t talked to, and Cynthia did the same, at the second table. Leaving Tuscany had somehow relieved us of focusing on art history and culture, and I kept finding myself involved in conversations about unlikely topics and was impressed by the unexpected breadth of knowledge of my companions. Then I chided myself: they had all been officially “smart” women forty-something years ago; why should I assume their lives were narrow and dull now? These women were anything but dull. What’s more, most of them seemed relaxed and comfortable in their own skin. There was no jockeying for leadership, no deliberate effort to impress anyone else. Nobody tried to dominate the conversation, and there was no “me, me, me!” Some people were quieter than others, but nobody looked unhappy. Jean and Jane had created something really special when they put this trip together.

The light faded slowly and the prodigious quantities of food gradually disappeared. Finally a few women started to stand, preparing to leave. Jane quickly stood up.

“Attenzione, per favore!
Tomorrow is what Jean and I are calling a day of leisure. That means you’re free to explore all or any of the Cinque Terre at your own speed. You have two options for getting around: ferry or train. Or, well, maybe three, if you count the hiking trails, but I’ve heard they’re in bad shape this year—some parts are washed out. Anyway, I’ll explain how the public transportation works and help you get tickets if you want. I should warn you, though: the boats are small, and if you’re at all prone to seasickness, you might do better to take the train. The villages are only about ten minutes apart by train, and the trains run every half hour or so, so it’s easy to get back and forth. Or if you prefer, you can stay here and sleep or read or wander around Monterosso, your choice.”

Jean interrupted her to say something in her ear, then Jane resumed. “When you all return, we’ll be eating at another restaurant in town here, closer to the church. The day after, we’ll be dining in a castle! And on our last night there will be a dinner for all of us up the hill at the vineyard, and I’m sure the lucky few who are staying up there will tell you how beautiful it is. By the way, you’ll be drinking the vineyard’s award-winning wines, so we hope this will be really special. I’ll go into details about the rest of the week later, but tomorrow, just relax and enjoy yourselves!”

People started drifting off in twos or threes. Cynthia and I found each other again and followed the majority of the group toward the hotel. If I recalled correctly—having seen it exactly once, by daylight—the path to our vineyard aerie took off, uphill, from there. We bid good night to several people and then started the trek upward. Once we’d passed the last building—the office for the
carabinieri
, I noted—I stopped to look up the hill. And up, and up. It looked endless.

“Are you going to tell Jane?” Cynthia asked in a low voice.

I glanced quickly around but didn’t see anyone nearby. “About the professor? Maybe I’m chicken, but I’d rather not. Let her remain in blissful ignorance a little longer. If the police come calling, we can tell her what we know and then let her negotiate from there. After all, she’s the only one among us who can even talk to the authorities. And she can decide what to tell the rest of our group.”

“You
are
a chicken, Laura, but I think I agree with you. I’d hate to spoil things for the rest of the group unless it’s really necessary.” She looked up the hill. “I guess we’d better start climbing.”

“Can we take it slowly?” I asked, stopping just short of whining.

“What, you aren’t in shape?”

“I live in a flat city. I couldn’t tell you the last time I climbed a real hill, or one this long. Besides, we need to talk.”

“Why does that always sound ominous?” Cynthia said, leading off at a reasonable pace. At least it was still light enough to see where we were putting our feet and we didn’t yet need flashlights.

“God, I hate to think what it would be like if the police decided to keep us beyond our original departure date. That could be a real mess.” I was beginning to wonder if I had thought through all the possible outcomes of my impetuous phone call. Sure, maybe somebody had killed the professor, but why did I have the right to shake up the plans for forty people, who had no doubt been looking forward to this vacation for a while?

“Aren’t you borrowing trouble? Anyway, all the more reason we should wrap this up quickly, don’t you think? I’m sure we can figure it out more quickly than the Italian police, right?” Cynthia said. “So where do we start?”

I checked her face—as much as I could see of it in the dusk—to see if she was being sarcastic. “As soon as we get up the hill,” I said, panting.

“We may not be alone up there, you know.”

“There is that, although it’s better than it would be in the hotel. I think the first thing that has to happen is that you and I go over the list of our classmates and figure out who we feel safe sharing this with.”

“Or who has an alibi,” Cynthia added.

I hadn’t even thought that far, but she was right. But how on earth were we supposed to collect alibis from forty people? “Good point. We start with our friends sharing the vineyard rooms. If we suspect them, it’s going to be hard to find any private time to talk.”

Cynthia didn’t say anything for a bit, although her breath was coming evenly. “So you trust me?”

We both stopped next to a high stone wall with a niche holding a comically small statue of the Virgin Mary. “Yes, I do. Your ridiculous alibi aside, I’ve known you forever, and I can’t imagine you being cowed by the lecherous professor, back in college or since. You would have told him where to get off, in no uncertain terms.”

Cynthia smiled. “I would indeed. I never had the chance, since I never took a class from him. You know, I think I blew off any rumors I heard about him because I figured the girls—women—he was hitting on were weak and didn’t know how to handle the situation. I’ll admit that I was wrong to be so judgmental then—I was an arrogant bitch, wasn’t I? But I had no personal animus against Professor Gilbert. Besides, you need me—I’m your Watson, remember?”

“You can be whoever you want as long as it helps us figure this out.”

Chapter 14

We’d reached the level but the vines were shrouded in dusk. The sky was a deep blue, and a few stars had appeared. I caught my breath and said, “Let’s go up to our patio. That’s as private a place as we’re going to find and we can see, and hear, anybody coming.”

We made the final climb and dropped into chairs at the table. Cynthia rummaged in her bag and pulled out a half-filled bottle of wine. “It seemed a shame to let it go to waste. There are glasses inside.” She disappeared into our rooms to look for the glasses, and I took a moment to listen. I heard no human sounds. Maybe our colleagues were still down the hill exploring the town, or putting off the climb.

Cynthia came out with two glasses, filled them, and handed one to me.
“Salute!”
she said. We clinked glasses. “Okay, where do we start?”

“I’ve been trying to think of ways to narrow the list down. Look, you said you found out about me and what I do, right?”

“Yes. That’s what I do, or my company does. Discreetly, of course, and usually for a nice large fee.”

So we were on a level playing field, because I had known what she did for a living too: she was a cyber-snoop for hire, a sometime data miner, with a company of computer nerds to back her up. “I won’t ask how much of what you do is legal. You told me earlier that you have profiles of the rest of the group, right?”

“I do. Basic ones, anyway, and I could flesh them out if it would help. What do you want me to look for?”

“I think you may need to dig a little deeper. For a start, can you get college transcripts or class enrollments or whatever covers the ground for the people here and determine who did take one of Professor Gilbert’s classes? Then we can see who’s admitted it and who’s kept silent.”

“Sure, no problem. Listen, I’m going to have to involve some of my staff. I have complete faith in all of them, and they have no connection to what has gone on here. Is that okay with you?”

“It’ll have to be if we want to wrap this up quickly. Okay, so we’ll have an idea about who might have a direct reason to hate the guy—and you’ll get grades, right? See who he gave a C or worse to? That could be a blot on an otherwise impressive record and could have had ramifications.”

“Sure. And my crew can work around the clock. Of course, some of the women here may have had encounters with the professor outside of the classroom, and that won’t show up in any official record. We’ve been talking pretty much in terms of what we now call sexual harassment, but there were other ways Gilbert messed with people.”

“Such as?” I asked. I’d heard a few suggestions and I wanted to see if she’d heard anything new.

“Humiliating them in class, just because he could. Withholding letters of recommendation for grad schools or jobs. That kind of thing is more about power and his ego than about sex.”

“Point taken. I know the transcripts won’t tell the whole story, but we have to start somewhere. Let’s assume that the information can eliminate, say, half the group. That still leaves twenty, in round numbers. For the next step, we need to match up the list with who was physically close enough to Gilbert to slip him something that night.”