Juliet (28 page)

“Peppo?” I patted his hand. “You were talking about the Marescottis. Romeo, remember?”

“Oh, yes! They said the boy had evil hands. Everything he touched … it broke. The horses lost. People died. That’s what they say. Because he was named after Romeo, you see. He came from that line. It’s in the blood …
trouble
. Everything had to be fast and noisy—he couldn’t sit still. Always scooters, always motorcycles—”

“You knew him?”

“No, I just know what people say. They never came back. Him and his mother. Nobody ever saw them again. They say he grew up wild, in Rome, and that he became a criminal and killed people. They say—they say he died. In Nassiriyah. With a different name.”

I turned to glance at Alessandro, and he met my stare, his eyes unusually dark. “Where is Nassiriyah?” I whispered. “Do you know?” For some reason, the question made him glower, but he did not have time to reply before Peppo sighed deeply and went on, “In my opinion, it’s just a legend. People like legends. And tragedies. And conspiracies. It’s very quiet here in the winter.”

“So, you don’t believe it?”

Peppo sighed again, his eyelids getting heavy. “How do I know what I believe anymore? Oh, why do they not send a doctor?”

Just then, the door burst open, and the entire Tolomei family came pouring into the room to surround their fallen hero with wails and lamentations. They had obviously been given an overview of the situation by the doctor, for Peppo’s wife, Pia, gave me the hairy eyeball as she pushed me aside and took my place next to her husband, and no one expressed anything that could possibly be construed as gratitude. To complete my humiliation, old Nonna Tolomei doddered through the door just as I was eyeing my escape, and there was no doubt in her mind that the perpetrator in this whole business was not the thief, but me.

“Tu!” she growled, aiming an accusatory finger at my heart, “Bastarda!”

She said plenty more, but I did not understand it. Transfixed by her fury like a deer before an oncoming train, I just stood there, unable to
move, until Alessandro—fed up with the family fun—grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me through the door to safety.

“Phew!” I gasped. “That’s one angry lady. Can you believe she’s my aunt? What did she say?”

“Never mind,” said Alessandro, walking down the hospital hallway with the expression of someone who wished he had a spare hand grenade.

“She called you a Salimbeni!” I said, proud to have understood that much.

“She did. And it was not a compliment.”

“What did she call me? I didn’t catch that one.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” I stopped in the middle of the hallway. “What did she call me?”

Alessandro looked at me, his eyes suddenly tender. “She said, ‘Bastard child. You’re not one of us.’”

“Oh.” I paused to swallow the words. “I guess nobody believes I am really Giulietta Tolomei. Maybe I deserve this. Maybe this is some special kind of hell reserved for people like me.”

“I believe you.”

I looked at him, surprised. “Really? That’s new. When did that happen?”

He shrugged and started walking. “When I saw you standing in my door.”

I did not know how to respond to his sudden kindness, and so we walked the rest of the way in silence, down the stairs and out the front door of the hospital, to emerge in that smooth, golden light that marks the end of day and the beginning of something far less predictable.

“So, Giulietta,” said Alessandro, turning towards me, hands on his hips, “anything else I should know?”

“Well,” I said, squinting against the light, “there’s also a guy on a motorcycle—”

“Santa Maria!”

“But he’s different. He just … follows me around. I don’t know what he wants—”

Alessandro rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what he wants! Do you want me to tell you what he wants?”

“No, it’s okay.” I adjusted my dress. “It’s not really an issue. But this other guy—tracksuit guy—he broke into my hotel room. And so … I think maybe I should change hotels.”

“You
think
so?” Alessandro was not impressed. “I’ll tell you what, the first thing we’re going to do is go to the police—”

“No, not the police!”

“They’re the only ones who can tell you who did that to Peppo. I don’t have access to the crime register from Monte dei Paschi. Don’t worry, I’ll come with you. I know these guys.”

“Yeah, right!” I all but poked him in the chest. “This is just a cunning way of having me end up in jail.”

He held out his hands. “If I wanted you in jail, I wouldn’t really have to be cunning about it, would I?”

“Hey, listen!” I stood as tall as I could. “I still don’t appreciate your power games!”

My posture made him smile. “Then why do you keep playing?”

THE SIENA POLICE
headquarters was a very quiet place. At ten to seven at some point in the past, the clock on the wall had run down its battery, and as I sat there that evening, dutifully scrolling through page after page of digitized bad guys, I began to feel the same way myself. The more I looked at the faces on the computer screen, the more I realized that, to be honest, I had no idea what my stalker looked like up close. The first time I had seen the creep, he had been wearing sunglasses. The second time it had been too bloody dark to see much, and the third time—this very afternoon—I had been too focused on the gun in his hand to dwell on the finer details of his mug.

“I’m sorry”—I turned to Alessandro, who had sat very patiently next to me, elbows on his knees, waiting for my eureka moment—“but I don’t recognize anyone.” I smiled apologetically at the female officer in charge of the computer, knowing full well that I was wasting everyone’s time. “Mi dispiace.”

“It’s okay,” she said, smiling at me because I was a Tolomei, “it won’t take long before we have matched the prints.”

The first thing Alessandro had done when we arrived at the police station was to report the break-in at the Owl Museum. Two patrol cars had
been dispatched immediately, and the four officers had been only too thrilled that a case of actual crime had come their way. If the thug had been dumb enough to leave any traces of himself at the museum—fingerprints especially—it was only a matter of time before we would know who he was, provided, of course, that he had been arrested before.

“While we wait,” I said, “do you think we should look up Romeo Marescotti?”

Alessandro frowned. “You really believe what Peppo said?”

“Why not? Maybe it’s him. Maybe it was him all along.”

“In a tracksuit? I don’t think so.”

“Why not? Do you know him?”

Alessandro took in air. “Yes, and he’s not in that computer. I already looked.”

I stared at him, too amazed to speak. Before I could question him further, two police officers entered the room, one of them carrying a laptop, which he placed in front of me. Neither of them spoke English, so Alessandro had to translate what they were saying to me. “They found a fingerprint at the museum,” he explained, “and they want you to take a look at some pictures to see if anyone looks familiar.”

I turned to look at the screen. It had a lineup of five male faces, each of which looked out at me with a mix of apathy and disgust. After a moment, I said, “I can’t be a hundred percent, but if you want to know which one looks most like the guy who followed me, I’d have to say number four.”

After a brief conversation with the officers, Alessandro nodded. “That’s the man who broke into the museum. Now they want to know
why
he broke into the museum, and why he has been following you around.”

“How about telling me who he is?” I looked around at the grave faces. “Is he some kind of … murderer?”

“His name is Bruno Carrera. He’s been involved in organized crime in the past, and he’s been linked to some very bad people. He disappeared for a while, but now—” Alessandro nodded at the screen. “He is back.”

I looked at the photo again. Bruno Carrera was definitely past his prime. Strange that he would come out of retirement in order to steal a piece of old silk with no commercial value whatsoever. “Just out of curiosity,” I said without thinking, “was he ever connected to a man called Luciano Salimbeni?”

The officers exchanged glances.

“Very smooth,” whispered Alessandro, meaning the exact opposite. “I thought you didn’t want to answer any questions.”

I looked up and saw the officers studying me with renewed interest. They were clearly wondering what exactly I was doing in Siena, and how much crucial information I had yet to disclose about the museum break-in.

“La signorina conosce Luciano Salimbeni?” one of them asked Alessandro.

“Tell them that my cousin Peppo told me about Luciano Salimbeni,” I said. “Apparently he was after some of our family heirlooms twenty years ago. It has the benefit of being true.”

Alessandro made my case as best he could, but the police officers were not satisfied and kept asking for more details. It was an odd power struggle, for they obviously respected him very much, and yet there was something about me and my story that just didn’t fit. At one point they both left the room, and I turned to Alessandro, mystified. “Is that it? Can we go now?”

“You really think,” he said, wearily, “they’ll let you go before you explain to them why your family is involved with one of Italy’s most wanted criminals?”

“Involved?
All I said was that Peppo had a suspicion—”

“Giulietta”—Alessandro leaned towards me, not wanting anyone else to overhear us—“why didn’t you tell me about all this?”

Before I could reply, the officers returned with a printout of Bruno Carrera’s file, asking Alessandro to question me about a specific passage.

“It seems you’re right,” he said, skimming through the text. “Bruno used to do odd jobs for Luciano Salimbeni. He was arrested once, and told them some story about a statue with golden eyes—” He looked at me, trying to gauge my honesty. “Do you know anything about that?”

A little shocked by the fact that the police knew about the golden statue—even if what they knew was not accurate—I nevertheless managed to shake my head vigorously. “No idea.”

For a few seconds, our eyes were locked in a silent battle, but I did not budge. Eventually, he returned to the printout. “It looks like Luciano might have been involved in your parents’ deaths as well, just before he went missing.”

“Missing? I thought he was dead.”

Alessandro did not even look at me. “Careful. I am not going to ask you who told you that. Am I correct in assuming that you do not intend to tell these officers any more than you already have?” He glanced at me for confimation, then continued, “In that case I suggest you start looking traumatized, so we can get out of here. They’ve already asked for your Social Security number twice.”

“Lest we forget,” I said under my breath, “you were the one who dragged me in here!”

“And now I am dragging you out again.” He put an arm around me and stroked my hair as if I needed comforting. “Don’t be upset about Peppo. He will be fine.”

Playing along, I leaned against his shoulder and drew a deep, tearful sigh that felt almost genuine. Seeing my emotional upset the officers finally backed off and left us alone, and five minutes later we walked out of the police station together.

“Nice work,” said Alessandro, as soon as we were out of hearing range.

“Likewise. Although … this has definitely not been my kind of day, so don’t expect pinwheels.”

He stopped and looked at me, a small frown on his forehead. “At least now you know the name of the man who followed you. Wasn’t that what you wanted when you came to see me this afternoon?”

The world had turned black while we were inside the police station, but the air was still warm, and the streetlamps cast a soft yellow light on everything. Had it not been for the Vespas shooting past us in all directions, the whole piazza would have looked like a stage setting in an opera.

“What does
ragazza
mean?” I asked. “Something nasty?”

Alessandro stuck his hands in his pockets and started walking. “I figured that if I told them you were my girlfriend, they would stop asking for your Social Security number.
And
your phone number.”

I laughed. “And they didn’t wonder what the heck Juliet is doing dating a Salimbeni?”

Alessandro smiled, but I could see that my question bothered him. “I’m afraid they don’t teach Shakespeare at the Police Academy here.”

We walked for a while in silence, heading for nowhere in particular. It would have been a natural time for us to part, but then, I did not feel like
parting. Never mind the fact that Bruno Carrera might very well be waiting for me when I returned to my hotel room; staying close to Alessandro felt like the most natural thing to do.

“Would now,” I said, “be a good time to thank you?”

“Now?” He checked his wristwatch. “Assolutamente sì. Now is the time.”

“How about dinner? On me?”

My proposal amused him. “Sure. Unless you’d rather hang around on your balcony, waiting for Romeo?”

“Someone broke in through my balcony, remember?”

“I see.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “You want me to protect you.”

I opened my mouth to fire back something cheeky, but realized I didn’t want to. The truth was, after everything that had happened, and everything that might happen still, I would like nothing more than to have Alessandro—gun attached—within arm’s length for the remainder of my stay in Siena. “Well,” I said, swallowing my pride, “I suppose I would not object if you did.”

   [   IV.IV   ]