Tahoe Blue Fire (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 13) (22 page)

THIRTY-THREE

Instead of trying Bruno Valenti’s front door, we walked around to the side where I guessed the young man had emerged with the scooter.

There was an ancient stone overhang, large enough to be a carport if the streets allowed something as wide as a car to pass. Instead of a car, there was a stylish three-wheeled scooter. The front seat was like that on a motorcycle, with similar handlebars and controls. Behind it and above the two rear wheels was a larger seat with a back rest. The trike was no more than four feet wide, narrow enough for Valenti’s assistant to give him rides up and down the steep streets of the medieval town. To the side of the trike was enough space to park a motor scooter. There was a door at the back of the stone carport. I didn’t see a video camera or a motion light, but that didn’t mean we weren’t watched.

Moving quietly, I tried the doorknob. It was locked.

I didn’t want to risk making noise by trying different keys in the lock. So I studied the key opening and then found the key that matched. I held the doorknob to help muffle the sound as I slid the key in, click by click. The key turned, and the door opened.

I motioned Street to follow. We walked softly into a kitchen, went through it to a dining room with large windows that showed the grand valley views. To the side was a hallway that looked like the one we’d been in earlier when we’d come in the front door. The next room would be the one with Valenti.

I put my hand palm out and pointed at the floor, letting Street know that I wanted her to stay here out of the danger range in case Valenti had a gun. Moving silently, I peeked around the corner. Valenti was still on his reclining couch, his hands folded across his chest, his head back, snoozing. I took silent steps until I was standing next to him, close enough to grab him if he reached for a hidden weapon.

I spoke loudly enough to wake him up. “You need a more reliable assassin, Bruno.”

Valenti awoke with a jerk. His eyes were wide. “You…” His hands seemed to clench in fear.

“Yeah, your boy is a screwup. And you’re an idiot for sending untrained help on a mission over his head. Maybe now we’ll have a more productive talk, huh?”

“I don’t know to what you are talking.” Bruno stopped looking at me. His gaze went up toward the ceiling, his look was intense, the fear now mixed with confusion. His body tensed as if he were doing crunches. He started to vibrate. His right hand went to his left arm, squeezing it as if he had a sudden pain. His left hand reached down to the couch, feeling where the fabric of his bedclothes met the cushion. I tensed, ready to grab his arm if he brought out a weapon.

He pulled out a small vial. With practiced precision, he flipped open the top with his thumb, raised the vial, and popped a pill into his mouth. He shut his eyes and mouth. His lips and jaw moved as if he was getting the pill under his tongue.

“You want me to get help?” I said.

“No.” Valenti managed to say, his voice soft.

Valenti breathed hard and fast. Street came into the room and looked at me.

“We’ll wait a bit,” I said to her.

Gradually, Valenti’s breathing slowed. He stopped shaking. Valenti opened his eyes and spoke.

“I will not go back to prison. This is the end. Fifth heart attack. The doctor said if I had another, that would be it. I want to die here. Not in a hospital. In my home.” He clenched again, his eyes shut tight, his upper body rising slightly. Slowly, he relaxed.

“Tell me about the Blue Fire of Florence,” I said. “Otherwise, we call the police.”

“No policia!” He said in a raspy whisper.

“Then talk.”

He breathed hard several more times. His face was a peculiar gray. He closed his eyes as if calming himself, then spoke. His voice was airy and softer still.

“This is my end. I can tell. So now I will tell a story. What difference will it make?” Valenti’s knuckles bulged as his fists tightened. He breathed shallow, fast breaths.

We waited.

“Back in early nineteen sixties,” he began, “when I was in my thirties, I was in prime of life and making a name for myself in the business. I got unusual PO. I think it was nineteen sixty-one.”

“What’s a PO?” I asked.

“Purchase Order. A buy request. We had other names for them. If the PO was big, we called it - let me think of the English - a yacht builder. The way it worked, if someone would pay highest dollar for something, we were willing to get it for them. The buyer did not know that we were inventive to how we acquire these items. The buyer thought we were dealers.”

“What kind of dealers?” I asked.

“It depend on what buyer wanted. If buyer wanted valuable painting, we were art dealers. If buyer wanted a piece of military, we were weapon merchants. The more hard the item was to get, the more the buyer needed specialty dealer like us. And the more expensive the item, the more resource we invest to find it.” He stopped to breathe, over and over. He’d been speaking slowly. Maybe I could help him speed up.

“So if someone wanted the Blue Fire of Florence and was willing to pay big bucks for it,” I said, “you were willing to pose as gem merchants to the buyer. So you made inquiries regarding its whereabouts, and then you went and stole the diamond.”

Bruno Valenti’s face was turning from pale gray to a duller gray. He took several more labored breaths. “Sì.”

“How did you find and steal it?”

“My capo knew a guy who knew a guy who worked with Florentine mosaics. This is art of creating pictures with the colored Venetian glass and the gemstones. This man sold individual gems as well. He told that the Fuoco blu di Firenze was to be in the safe of a Florentine family who had the connections back to the Medicis of the Renaissance.”

“So you and your men burglarized the family’s house, then broke into the safe and found the Blue Fire of Florence.”

“It is very hard to break secure lock box. So we had the truck and the hydraulic hoist and took the safe. We cut it open at our warehouse. There were lots of jewels.” Valenti sounded proud. “They were very amazing.”

“And the gems included the Blue Fire.”

He nodded.

“How did you know? How could you verify that it was the actual diamond? Did you have a jewel expert with you?”

“There was huge blue diamond in lock box. We knew the Blue Fire of Florence is red glowing diamond.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s very rare. It happens only with certain blue diamonds. Just to be sure, we got special light from jeweler. He called it the ultraviolet color. We took the diamond to the darkest corner of the warehouse and shined the light. When we turned the light off, the Blue Fire of Florence glow like red fire. Very dramatic. That proved it was the real gem. The diamond’s huge size was more proof. Of course, in the Medici time, there was nothing like these special lights. But the sun also has the violet color. If someone holds the diamond in sunlight and then brings it into dark room where you are waiting with your eyes already in the darkness, you will see it glow bright red. But the special light makes it easier to see.”

“What happened to the diamond?”

“The buyer was in the States. He used a middle seller. A woman named Natalina Garaventa. Natalina got a message to us that she would pay two million dollars cash for the Blue Fire of Florence. That was a lot of money. But the diamond was most amazing. So two million was very good price.

“We made some questions about Natalina Garaventa. We learned she represent a rich buyer in the States. She lived in Hoboken, New Jersey. But she was originally from Italy. She spoke native Italian, and she had a sister in Genoa, Italy. ”

Valenti shut his eyes and breathed many shallow lungfuls. I heard phlegm rattling in his bronchial tubes.

“So you sold Natalina the diamond.”

“Sì. We brought it to Natalina’s sister’s house. Full service. She had jeweler to confirm the authenticity. He brought one of the special lights and shined it on the diamond to see it glow red. He told Natalina - who went by the name Dolly - that it was real, and she paid us cash. Hundred dollar bills. Twenty thousand of them.”

“Any idea where the diamond might be now?”

“No.”

“Any idea who Dolly was buying it for?”

“Sì,” Valenti said. He breathed some more, his lungs sounding worse. “Dolly had married a man who was also from Italy. A man named Antonino Martino Sinatra. Their son was born in Hoboken. He was the singer Frank Sinatra. He was the real purchaser.” Valenti appeared distracted by pain.

Street leaned toward me and whispered, “There’s your connection between Tahoe and the Italian Renaissance. Do you want to ask him about the Cal Neva Hotel?”

I nodded. I said to Valenti, “Back in the time you speak of, the early sixties, Sinatra owned the Cal Neva, a hotel at Lake Tahoe where we’re from,” I said. “He was reputed to have been involved with the Mafia, and the state of Nevada took away his gaming license as a result.”

Valenti’s head moved just a bit. Maybe it was another nod.

“Were you connected to that in some way?” I asked. “Beyond just selling his mother the diamond that you stole? Or, after you knew who the purchaser was, did you or your relatives get involved with Sinatra then?”

Valenti looked at me. Then his hands  and abdomen clenched in another crunch-type move. He sucked in air as if fighting pain. Then his muscles loosened. He relaxed. The air came out of his lungs in a long, slow, rattling breath as if he were sighing.

It was his last sigh. He went still.

THIRTY-FOUR

I wanted to walk away. We’d gotten the information we came for. Bruno Valenti had died, and the injured young man was unlikely to talk considering he was the one trying to kill us.

But the ex-cop in me needed to play by the rules. Most of the rules, anyway. So I called the polizia.

We heard their arrival fifteen minutes later, the sound of sirens pulling into the village below and stopping down the slope where the cars could go no farther. After several minutes, five officers came into the door that I’d opened for them. They were all panting hard from their trot up through the steep village. The man in charge spoke excellent English.

“I am Ispettore Speranza. And you are?”

“I’m Owen McKenna and this is my companion Street Casey.”

“From America,” he said, recognizing Americans, as all Italians do, whether it be by speech or clothing or manner. He walked over and looked down at Valenti’s body, touching the face, then touching the cornea on one of Valenti’s eyeballs. With no reaction, it was an effective way of telling that there was no normal brain function. He drew his fingertips down over Valenti’s eyes to shut his eyelids. They reopened half way. He did it again. They stayed mostly shut.

“Ispettore Speranza means...?” I said.

“Like a police inspector in America.” He was proud.

I nodded. “I was with the San Francisco Police Department before I quit.”

He looked at me, reassessing. “What was your rank?”

“I was a homicide inspector.”

Speranza frowned.

“Like a sergeant who focuses on murder,” I said. “Just as you’re doing now.”

“You said ‘was.’ Now you are retired? Or private?” Speranza said.

“Private.”

“You are in Italy on business or pleasure?”

“Business.”

He gestured at Bruno Valenti’s body. “This is your business?”

“Right.” I told him about the murders back home in Tahoe and the victims who had been interested in the Italian Renaissance and Professor Drago in Florence who told us about the Blue Fire of Florence rumor and how he said that if anyone could give us more information about the diamond, it would be Bruno Valenti. I explained how we’d spoken to Valenti for a bit and then, after we left, we were pursued and shot at by Valenti’s assistant.

Inspector Speranza didn’t react to anything I said, but he took careful notes.

“Was Valenti’s man trying to scare you? Or was he aiming to kill?” Speranza asked.

“It seemed that he was shooting to kill. Several of the shots struck walls near my head. Stone chips flew. One stung me here.” I reached up and touched my cheek.

Speranza nodded. “You have some dried blood. How was it that you escaped him?”

“We ran through multiple passages while he chased us on his motor scooter. When he followed us up to the church, I was able to tip one of the sculptures in front of him, which made him fall over the wall and slide down the slope. I climbed down to him. He was alive but unconscious.”

The policeman turned to the other cops who’d come with him. He sent three of them out to find the man who rode the scooter. The fourth man stood near Valenti’s body, his back to the window wall, waiting as if to guard Speranza should anyone else come into the room.

After the three men left, Speranza turned back to me. “You’re pursuing the famous rumored diamond from the era of the Medicis. You came all the way from America to follow a rumor.” He didn’t sound scornful so much as disappointed that Americans could be so extravagant in chasing a fictional treasure.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Did Mr. Valenti give you useful information?”

“He wasn’t eager to be helpful. But I think he didn’t want to seem too resistant because then we might think that he was hiding something significant. At first, he told us that he knew nothing about the diamond. So we left. Then his man chased us and shot at us. I took that as an indication that Valenti did, in fact, have information about the diamond. But after his man crashed on the scooter and we came back to talk, Valenti seemed quite stressed, and then he died.” My statement was marginally correct. I worried that if I were more forthcoming, it would serve no purpose other than delaying us in Italy.

“Tell me again the series of events when Valenti’s man chased you. How was it that you came back and let yourself into this house?”

I recounted what happened, step by step. Speranza consulted his notes from the first time I’d told the story. He was no doubt looking for any inconsistencies in my reporting. He was especially interested in our movements when we got back into the house.

Again, I told the truth albeit with a different emphasis than I might use in a future retelling.

“Bruno Valenti appeared to be bedridden,” I said, “so when the young man who’d shot at us crashed and got knocked out, I took his keys so I could let us back into the house and inform Valenti. I assumed, of course, that Valenti had sent him on his mission to kill us.”

“You might have gotten killed. Valenti could have had a gun under his leg. He may still.” The ispettore turned and looked at Valenti’s body.

“Yes, I was aware of that. I came up close to him before I woke him just so I could grab his arm if he reached for a weapon. But he didn’t.”

“Was he dead?”

“No. He was asleep. I said his name, and he woke up. He was startled to see me.”

“Because he thought that you’d be dead.” The policeman made it a statement.

“Probably.”

“What happened then?”

“He clenched his hands and body, then took a pill and said that this was his fifth heart attack and that the doctor had told him that if he had another heart attack, it would kill him. Valenti said he wanted to die at his home. Which he then did. He made a long exhalation and went still.”

Speranza made some more notes. He paused. “You are certain that the man who shot at you worked for Valenti?”

“Yes. He was the one who originally let us in to speak with Mr. Valenti. His key unlocked the back door.”

“Did you have friction with the young man? Or do you think Valenti told him to kill you, and he was merely following orders?”

“I have no evidence either way. We had no friction. The man said nothing, and we overheard nothing.”

Speranza nodded.

As a general principle, and also because of my background in law enforcement, I believe in telling the whole truth. But I’m willing to modify that principle under the condition that withholding information does not jeopardize justice and that it increases the safety of innocent victims.

In this case, the perpetrator was dead. So I decided not to mention Frank Sinatra. I knew that if Valenti’s statement about stealing the diamond and delivering it to Sinatra’s mother was made public, it would get back to the States and to Tahoe and create a huge media storm. The attention would likely cause the murderer in Tahoe to speed his plan and kill more people before we could catch him.

Speranza made some more notes. “Let me be sure I understand,” he said slowly. “You came to Italy not knowing what BFF referred to. And even though Professor Drago told you the story about the Blue Fire, you’ve still found no actual evidence for this diamond.”

“Correct,” I said. I didn’t feel bad saying it because, despite Valenti’s story, I still had no evidence. Just a story from a convicted mobster who may have been enamored with the idea of a connection between him and Sinatra. And with the mobster aware of his impending death, what would keep him from spinning that story to grander levels?

Speranza looked up from his notebook. “Do you think you’ve come closer to understanding your killer’s motive?”

“I don’t know. Now that I know that BFF refers to a diamond, real or fictional, my best guess is that the killer believes the diamond exists and he thinks that other people he knows can find it. He may be killing those other people so that, if and when he finds the Blue Fire, he can keep it for himself.”

Speranza nodded, his skepticism obvious.

The front door opened. One cop came in, stepped aside, and held the door for the other two. They carried the young man, one cop holding his shoulders, and the other cop holding his feet. From the posture and the skin coloring, it appeared that the young man was dead.