The Dead Don't Get Out Much (27 page)

Don't go thinking that I keep writing to you because I have no life. I have wonderful friends, fine step-children, well the second and third batch anyway, and a lot of fun every single day, although I've given up on hats and there's nothing on at the movies. Even so, I am not about to take up golf like Betty!

Still waiting,

Your friend,

Hazel

Y
ou don't have to get so huffy, Ray. I'm a functioning adult. You were sound asleep. I let you rest. It wasn't even dinner time. I'm sorry I gave you a scare. It seemed safe to go out.”

“Functioning adult, eh? Look at yourself. Where were you? You're covered with mud.”

“Somewhere in the tunnel at the reconstruction site.”

“Christ on a crutch.”

“We have to send the paramedics down there. He could be dead. I might have killed him.” I felt my stomach heave.

“Killed who?”

“Dario.”

“You're shaking, Camilla, and no wonder, you're like ice. And your jeans have holes in the knees. We'll get you to the hotel. Then we'll deal with Mario, whoever the hell he is.”

“Dario. I told you about him. He gave me information back in the mountains. He's the person who chased me.”

“Oh, right, I really want to give him a helping hand,” Ray said.

“Yeah, well, it's okay for you to talk tough. You didn't whack anybody in the head with a rock, even if it was for a good reason. I don't want to end up killing him. I don't even know what he wanted. What if he wasn't even chasing me? What if he just wanted to tell me something?”

“You know what? You can talk to the police when you're warm and dry.”

“I should talk to the police now. What if…”

“No what ifs. We're almost at the hotel. See?”

As Ray helped me limp through the foyer, he signalled to the unfamiliar desk clerk.
“Polizia.”

“Very good,” I said through chattering teeth.

“It's the only word I know besides
vino
and
amore
. I looked up that last one.”

The
polizia
took their sweet time. At first I thought it was good, since I needed a hot shower. I was still shivering after I'd dried myself. My jeans, sweater and jean jacket were fit for the garbage. Even the scarf was slathered in mud. I put on all my remaining clothes. Ray wrapped me in the blanket. He disappeared downstairs and returned with a glass of brandy. He pressed it into my hand.

“I'll have to go down there again and show them where he is,” I chattered.

“Not a friggin' chance,” Ray said.

* * *

I'm told I was snoring with my mouth open when the police arrived. One of them spoke English. Ray stepped out of the room and took it from there. I got the news update when I finally woke up.

Ray said, “Good morning. You can start your day right. This Dario's unconscious, but alive.”

“I have to talk to him.”

“That won't be happening, Camilla. First of all, the police will not let you in to see the guy who attacked you. I wouldn't let you either. Call me crazy, I'm a cop.”

“We need to know why he did it. What's Dario's connection to Mrs. Parnell? Or is it just me?”

“Give it up. This is the kind of incident that can blow up in your face in a foreign country. You don't want them to interrogate you at the police station. We don't know how their system works. Anyway, you're in no shape for that.”

“I should be talking to them directly.”

“Bad idea. Anyway, I've told them everything you told me. And I put a call in to the Canadian consulate in case Dario wakes up and spins a credible counter story, and the locals haul you in.”

“Dario's not from around here. They'll need to locate his family.”

“The police know who he is.”

“You mean he's a criminal?”

“I mean he lives in Alcielo, Camilla. Right up the opposite hill over there.”

“But why would he have been in the little mountain village outside Berli two days ago? It's hours from here in the middle of nowhere.”

“I have no idea.”

“Can't have been a coincidence meeting him. Maybe he was tracking Mrs. Parnell. I played right into his hands. I asked questions. He fed me wrong answers. He seemed to be related to people there. They all knew him. That is weird.”

“Not really. You live in Ottawa, I'm in Sydney, a three-day drive apart. You still have relatives in Sydney. I'm hoping to have relatives in Ottawa someday.”

“Holy crap, I sent him the e-mail with the guy's picture, and I told him I was in Alcielo. Wait, let me guess. Dario lives with his grandmother, signora Annalisa Franchini.”

Ray nodded. “You got it. And Mrs. Parnell was going to talk to her. We didn't make that connection earlier.”

“There was no reason to suspect it. It's starting to make sense now. Annalisa Franchini's supposed to be visiting relatives in the mountains. I bet she'll turn out to be from that same village originally. Which is the nearest place to Berli.”

Ray said, “And that's the spot where the plane went down.”

“On the way.”

“That's just too much of a coincidence. It has to be connected.”

“Okay, so, Dario must have been watching for Mrs. Parnell and anyone else with her. In those villages, everyone knows when a stranger hits town. He missed her when she went through. Then I played right into his hands. He might have even paid a few people to keep their eyes open. I told him lots of stuff, where I was going, and the names of the towns. Everything. What a jerk I am. No wonder he was on to us.”

Ray scratched his five o'clock shadow. “That means he already knew she was on the way. How could that be? He couldn't have been working alone. He must have had a source in Canada.”

“Oh boy, and we e-mailed a photo of the source right to him.”

Ray leaned forward. “You are not leaving my sight until we get a handle on this.”

“Sure, sure. Can you go back to the cops and find out if this Annalisa Franchini was a partisan during the war? She might have been one of the people who found the airman who survived. That makes sense.”

“They don't want me meddling. You know that. And they're tied up with some crime that happened outside of town. I'll have to wait.”

It's not like Ray to look shifty-eyed.

“What is it?”

“Nothing to worry about.”

“Then why won't you look at me when you're talking?” I said.

He sighed. “Okay, I guess you can take it.”

“Take what? Oh, God, Mrs. Parnell. She's dead, isn't she? What happened?”

Ray put his hands on my shoulders. “Not Mrs. Parnell. Relax. Breathe deeply.”

“Don't treat me like a helpless idiot,” I said, helplessly and idiotically.

“I'm not. Sorry. It's just that you don't know what you've been like. You had nightmares, you tossed, you screamed a few times. I just thought you didn't need this right now.”

“I don't need you to beat around the bush. What the hell happened?”

“When I was explaining what happened to my English-speaking contact at the station, I asked if they knew anything about Guy Prendergast. He's a decent guy. He made a call to Pieve San Simone. It turns out that Villa Rosa burned down last night. They were fighting the fire until morning. There's already a rumour that the State Police think it was arson.”

I gripped his hand. “What about Guy Prendergast?”

He wrapped his arms around me. “They haven't found his body, the site is too hot.”

It's not like me to blubber, especially twice in twenty-four hours, and I hate it when it happens. Ray's used to that kind of thing. He's had practice with the teenage daughters.

***

Eventually Ray agreed to go back to talk to his contact at the cop shop and find out more about Guy Prendergast. He said he'd nose around about Dario and his grandmother too. There were strings attached.

“I'm happy to grovel in front of them if you promise me that you won't go break into Annalisa Franchini's house, or interrogate the neighbours, or try to get into the hospital to grill Dario.”

“Please,” I protested, “give me some credit.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You have nothing to worry about. I'm going to spend a bit of time making calls. I've got to get in touch with Alvin as soon as it's late enough, and I'd like to give my family a buzz. How harmless is that?”

* * *

A stranger answered my phone. My heart thumped.

“Alvin, please,” I said. Had something happened to him too?

A scuffling noise ensued, and a slightly breathless Alvin finally said hello. It was a bit hard to hear because of the background noise.

“What is going on there? Is that a drill I hear? Why is Gussie howling?”

“Don't know what you're talking about, Camilla.”

“Grant me strength. What's the word on Hazel?”

“Good news. Hazel regained consciousness.”

“That's a relief. Is she going to be all right?”

“She's not out of the woods yet. But she was very worried about her hair. I think that's a good sign.”

“And was she able to identify the man in the photo as the person who attacked her?”

“Not really. She's confused.”

“What do you mean?”

“She thought it was the guy in the other picture, the one of Mrs. Parnell's group of friends.”

“You mean Harrison Jones? There's some kind of connection with him for sure. You know what? I think it could be one of his sons.”

“No. Not him.”

I felt a shiver. Had we been led astray? Sent to Alcielo on a fool's errand? “Was it Guy Prendergast?”

“Will you let me finish?”

“Fine, finish.”

“She said it was Perce Connaught.”

“Perce is dead.”

“I know. He died in the war. That's what I mean. She's still confused. Head injuries, right?”

“Holy crap,” I said. I could almost hear the pieces clinking into place.

“What?”

“I think I'm starting to understand. We've been on the wrong path. Call Conn and tell him Hazel's in danger. She shouldn't be alone there, even in the hospital. Conn should light a fire under the cops in Kingston.”

“I can go myself. I can stay with her.”

“I need you to do some other things.”

“Like what?”

“Like confirm how Harry Jones was wounded, and in what part of Italy. Guy Prendergast mentioned that Harry Jones' regiment was moving north through Eastern Tuscany in 1944. I didn't think much about it at the time; I don't think the
RCAF
would have regiments.”

A long, loud whine echoed in the background, and Alvin raised his voice. “Squadrons, I think. Not regiments. I'll see what I can dig up online. Then I could pay a visit to the war museum. Don't hold your breath. I still haven't heard back about the other women that Violet served with.”

I don't know if he heard my goodbye with all the racket in the background. Whatever was going on, I was better off not knowing.

***

If you have promised to be good, you might as well be in Tuscany on a day that has turned out to be dry and sunny. I put on my wool pants and blazer, slipped into my loafers and picked up my sunglasses. I told our worried desk clerk that I'd be in the piazza buying a new lipstick.

The locals criss-crossed the square, bustling in and out of shops, collecting groceries
bottega
by
bottega
, and stopping to talk with everyone they met. The air was full of happy chatter. I made my way to the small patio of the
trattoria
where we'd had lunch the day before. I kept an eye out in case I saw anyone suspicious. The cheerful server remembered me and was glad to practice his English. With a flourish, he sat me in the corner with the best view, or so he claimed, and I ordered an espresso. As I took the first sip, Lucia came striding down the hill from her shop with her wild curls flying in the light breeze. She joined a friend a few tables over. They ordered brioche, which everyone in Italy seemed to eat for breakfast. I waved, and she smiled and nodded. I hadn't forgotten we would be seeing her father after lunch and that was our chance to nab Mrs. P.

My waiter approved. “Ah, Lucia,” he said, smiling fondly, “very nice girl.”

“Good to her father, I suppose,” I said, making vacuous conversation.

“And to her
nonno
. She takes very good care of him.”

“Her grandfather?” First I'd heard of him. “Is he still alive?”

“Si
, he must be ninety. He is very fine old man, and Lucia sometimes brings him in here for a glass of wine. He is in a wheelchair now. She is very strong for such a skinny girl.”

“I bet she is,” I smiled.

Several cars eased into the square as I killed time making the espresso last. The small clusters of tourists made good watching. A half-dozen tall Germans were unsmilingly consulting maps. A pair of middle-aged couples in matching jogging suits, sneakers and American accents spilled out of their rental Opels and stretched. The women headed to the
gelateria
, and the men hit the internet café. Two tall, elderly ladies in flowered dresses and cardigans, and a tweedy old gentleman emerged from an ancient Morris Minor and began an animated discussion about the problems of getting a decent cup of tea on the Continent. They wandered off up the hill, the man arguing for a trip to the top of the hill, one woman insisting on the antique stores as the other had a fear of heights, and how could he have forgotten that? I chuckled at that and at a thin and stylish man and woman, standing by a Renault, shooting contemptuous glances at the jogging suits and the retreating flowered dresses. An Italian teenager made laughing faces behind everyone's backs.

Back in Ottawa, I'd have been indoors to avoid the wind and cold, and worse, would have been bombarded with relentless Christmas music and advertising. Italy in November would have been wonderful if things had only been normal, if I'd only been able to relax. I figured Ray would be back in a short time with some useful information, and we'd snag Mrs. P. at Sergio's. It was such a pleasant morning, and I was glad to be alive after the previous evening. I had plenty to think about. One phrase kept echoing in my mind. Fear of heights. Something about that, but what?

 

Villa Rosa
Pieve San Simone, Italy
November 1, 2004