Murder at the Cooking School: Book 7 of the Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Series (8 page)

Kelly looked out the window of the
van as it drove up the lane towards the castle, and she could make out Caesar’s
form on the bottom step, waiting for her. As soon as she got out of the van he
walked over to her side and stood next to her.

“Hi, boy,” she said. “Have
a good afternoon? It’s almost time for dinner. I’ll feed you in just a few
minutes.” She stooped down and petted him. When she stood up, she realized the
rest of the students and Alberto had all gone inside the castle. Something had
been bothering her ever since she and Mike had arrived at the castle. She had
no idea where the Nardos lived. The rooms on the second floor all seemed to be
for the guests, and the only rooms she’d seen on the ground floor were the
dining room, the kitchen, the library, and the large entryway which served as
the hotel reservations area for the converted castle.

She looked around and
still not seeing anyone said, “Caesar, take me to
Signora
Nardo’s room.
Can you do that?
Signora
Nardo’s room. Go, boy, go.”

The big dog pushed against
her legs and started walking towards the side of the castle. He looked back at
her as if to say, “Hurry up, Kelly. How are you going to explain this if anyone
sees you?”

Caesar stopped at the side
of the building in front of a large wooden door. She tried the doorknob, but
the door was locked. Caesar pawed at the doormat and looked up at her. She bent
down, put her hand under the mat and felt the cold steel of a key. She took a
Kleenex from her purse and picked up the key, being careful to keep her fingerprints
off of it. Kelly quickly looked around one more time, making sure no one was
watching her. She put the key in the lock and opened the door, hoping no one
was waiting for her on the other side. She gingerly walked in and saw several
doors leading off of the hall. She said a silent prayer to whoever had the
foresight to put the words
Signor
Nardo on one door and
Signora
Nardo on another. She listened for a moment in front of
Signora
Nardo’s
door and heard nothing. Kelly opened the door and quickly walked in, Caesar
following her.

The large bedroom made her
feel like she’d stepped into another century. While the parts of the castle
she’d been in had been refurbished in bright colors with welcoming prints and
plaids along with the antiques, nothing had been done to this room for what
seemed like centuries. Everything in the room was red or gold. Kelly vaguely
remembered reading something about red being the color of nobility during the Renaissance.
With the exception of a modern king size bed, it didn’t look like anything had
been put in the room for hundreds of years.

This is unbelievable. I’m
getting a serious case of claustrophobia, and I don’t even know why I’m here
and what, if anything, I’m looking for.

On the far side of the
room she saw a door and opened it, remembering that the
Signor’s
suite
had been on the other side of the hall. This was clearly the
Signora’s
office. It, too, was done in shades of red, but someone had decorated it with a
much lighter touch. Instead of the heavy velvet drapes that were in the
bedroom, pale red linen drapes were backed with sheer white ones to keep the
sun from damaging them. Against one wall was a large Mediterranean pine desk.
Kelly walked over to it. She wondered if the police had searched the room,
because it didn’t look like anything had been touched.
Signora’s
calendar was on the desk as well as several invitations to local events.

I wonder where she kept
the business files for the castle. There’s no file cabinet. Maybe she used one
of these drawers.

Kelly tried to pull a
large side drawer open, but it was locked, as were the rest of the drawers.

Well, so much for that. I
have no idea where to look for a key. She probably had it on a chain or
something, and I don’t have time to search for it.

“Caesar, we need to go,”
she whispered. “I can’t find the key, and I don’t want to get caught. Mike
would be furious with me if he knew I was doing this.”

She was petting him as she
turned to go when her finger touched something on the underside of his collar.
“Caesar, what’s this?”

The big dog wagged his
tail, and she would have sworn he smiled at her. She pulled his collar around
and over, discovering that that what she’d felt was a key that slipped into a
key slide. She reached in her purse for another Kleenex and easily pulled it
out. She inserted it in the desk drawer and it opened easily. Kelly looked at
Caesar and gave him a kiss on his massive head. “Thanks. Let’s see what I can
find.”

As quickly as she could
she looked at the files that were labeled in the drawer, glad once again that
she’d retained the Italian she’d studied so long ago. Two of them caught her
attention. One was a file marked “Wills” and the other was a file marked
“Giovanni Rizzo.” Although Kelly really wanted to spend some time seeing what
was in them, she knew she was pressing her luck by staying in the room any
longer. Without thinking of the possible consequences of her action, she shoved
both the “Wills” file and “Giovanni” file into her large purse.

Kelly locked the drawer,
put the key back in Caesar’s key slide, and walked through the office door to
the bedroom. She listened for a moment but couldn’t hear anything. She quietly
opened the bedroom door and walked down the hall towards the door that led
outside. She looked around and still seeing no one, reached in her purse for
the key to the outside door, locked it, and put the key back under the mat,
making sure that the Kleenex she’d used to keep her fingerprints off of it when
she’d gotten it out from under the mat was still wrapped around it.

She walked around to the
front of the castle and she and Caesar walked through the front door and into
the reception area. “Matteo, I think I’ll feed Caesar this afternoon. I believe
you said his food was kept in the dog run. How much should I feed him, and is
someone else feeding Bruno?”

“I’m taking care of Bruno.
Caesar gets about three cups of dry dog food and a can of dog food. The
measuring cup is in the bag. Thanks for feeding him.”

“No problem. I’ll do it in
a few minutes. I want to go up to my room and see if my husband’s returned.”

“I haven’t seen him, but I
haven’t been at the front desk the whole afternoon, so he could have come
back.”

“Thanks,” Kelly said as
she and Caesar walked up the stairs. She felt like the purloined files were
burning a hole in her large purse. She hoped against hope that Mike hadn’t come
back yet. She knew he would definitely not approve of her methods for getting
information.

Kelly put her key in the lock for the
door of their room, hoping against hope that Mike would still be at the station
with Chief Varano. When she was inside the room, she looked around, but didn’t
see him.

Thank heavens he’s not
back yet from his meeting with the chief. Now I can take a look at these files.

She sat down on the bed,
reached into her purse, and pulled the files out. Caesar lay down on the bed
beside her and was snoring within moments. She went through the papers that
were in the Wills file and saw that
Signora
Nardo had clearly designated
Signor
Nardo as the sole beneficiary of her estate which made sense
considering they had no children and that her parents had considered their son,
her brother, to be incapable of managing the castle. She spent a few moments
looking at the contents of the Giovanni Rizzo file and then gasped in surprise.
Kelly was so absorbed in what she was reading she didn’t hear the key being
inserted in the door lock for their room. Caesar sat up suddenly and growled.
He stopped when Mike walked into the room.

“So how was the olive oil
excursion? Are you an expert in making olive oil now?”

“It was very interesting,”
she said, trying to shove the file folders back in her purse before Mike saw
them.

“Kelly, I’ve been around
you long enough to know that look you have on your face. What’s going on?” he
said, sitting down beside her on the bed and reaching across her to get the
files. He took them out of her hands and looked at her quizzically. “Wills and
Giovanni Rizzo,” he said reading the labels on the tabs. “Kelly, where did you
get these?”

“Mike, you know there’s a
complementary bottle of wine on the desk. Maybe you should open it and have a
glass before I tell you about it.”

“That’s not necessary,” he
said in his serious sheriff’s voice. “I want you to tell me how you got these
files.”

“Look, I know you’re not
going to be thrilled with how I got them, and that’s okay with me. I just
opened them, and I think you’re going to be very pleased at what’s in them and
probably happy I got them for you.”

“Ah, so now it’s you got
them for me. Kelly, let me repeat the question. How did you get these files?”

She told him how she and
Caesar had managed to get into
Signora
Nardo’s room and how she had
found the key to the desk on the underside of Caesar’s collar. “Mike, I think
the important thing is what’s in the Giovanni file.” She took it out of his
hands and removed some papers from it. “Look at this. It’s a document deeding
the legal title of
Castello di Nardo
to Giovanni Rizzo. It’s not dated,
and it’s not signed. What do you make of that?”

“I’d say it just might be
the smoking gun investigators always look for in a murder case. No, I am not in
the least bit happy you took a risk like that. If someone had seen you, you
could have been arrested for breaking and entering. I suppose the only thing
that was in your favor was that
Signor
Nardo is grieving and still not
seeing people, so he wasn’t up and about when you entered their residence illegally.
We tried all day to get him to see us, and he refused. That’s probably why you
were able to get those files. Her room hasn’t been searched yet. I just hope to
heck you were smart enough not to leave any fingerprints, because the chief is
planning on having it dusted tomorrow, with or without the
Signor’s
consent.”

“Of course I was. Believe
it or not, I’ve learned a lot from you, like not to leave my fingerprints on
anything. I used a Kleenex for the keys and on the doorknobs I touched. So what
do you think of this document?”

“Kelly, I’m going to have
to show it to the police chief. All afternoon we’ve been searching for reasons
why Giovanni Rizzo, a known skirt chaser of beautiful women, would be having an
affair with
Signora
Nardo. It seemed completely out of character and
didn’t make any sense. The chief has talked to enough people that the rumors
about the two of them having an affair seem to be true. It appears that they
were indeed having an affair, and had been having one for quite some time. The
chief has a number of contacts in Florence who were able to identify both of
them from photographs he faxed them, and they confirmed that the two of them
often spent the day at various hotels in Florence.”

“Mike, I’m not a lawyer,
but as I understand this document, if
Signora
Nardo signed it, she would
be deeding the castle over to Giovanni, and her husband would not inherit it.
Is my thinking correct?”

“Yes. That must be the
reason for the affair. She was probably flattered by his attention, and he was
using that as leverage to get her to sign the deed. What’s troubling me is that
it’s certainly a motive for murder, but only if it was signed by her, and it
doesn’t appear that she ever signed it unless he has an original signed deed
and this one was only for her records. That we don’t know.”

“If he has it, and if he
records it with the local recorder’s office or whatever they call it here in
Italy, that would certainly be a motive for killing her.”

“I agree, Kelly, it’s a
motive, but there would have to be solid evidence that he was the one, in fact,
who murdered her.”

“Yes, I see what you’re
saying. By recording the deed, his reputation would be in shreds. Not only
would it appear to be a really sleazy thing to do, but his wife would be
certain he’d been having an affair with
Signora
Nardo. By the way, I
need to tell you what I overheard today. Mike, don’t raise your eyebrows like
that. I hate it when you do that. I just happened to overhear something I think
you’ll find interesting.”

“You just happened to
overhear something. Uh-huh. This better be good. Go ahead, I’m all ears.”

She told him about the
olive oil excursion and overhearing
Signora
Rizzo’s conversation with
someone. “Mike, what I’m wondering is this. If she hired someone to kill
Signora
Nardo, can she be charged with murder?”

“I imagine she could be
charged with conspiracy to commit murder, but I’d have to check into the
Italian law on it. The interesting thing is now we have two people who not only
have motives, but
Signora
Rizzo, from what you heard, was actively
trying to have
Signora
Nardo murdered.”

“Mike, don’t forget about
Signor
Nardo. If she signed the deed, and if he found out about it, he might have been
angry enough to kill her.”

“It means he doesn’t get
the castle, that’s true, but at the moment, Giovanni has the most to gain. What
I haven’t told you is there are rumors that some of his clients have filed
complaints with the Italian Bar Association. From what the chief found out
today from the one located in Milan, apparently there have been three
complaints filed against Giovanni for embezzling client’s funds. All three are
under investigation. The chief said he was told Giovanni had not been very
cooperative in the investigation.”

“If he’s embezzling his
clients’ money, that’s pretty serious. Isn’t that a crime?”

“I’m sure it is, but it
has to be proven and that can be very difficult to do. What usually happens is
a lawyer says it was a bookkeeping mistake and replaces the money in whatever
account he’s being accused of embezzling. It’s not all that uncommon. The chief
is hoping to get more information on Giovanni’s financial situation. He’d heard
rumors that the olive oil business was not as financially successful as
Giovanni has told people. There was also talk he was looking for investors who
might want to buy it. All this makes me wonder about the man.”

“I agree. So we have both
of the Rizzos and
Signor
Nardo as possible suspects. A couple more who
might also qualify are Berto Moretti, the owner of the other cooking school,
and the
Signora’s
brother. What I don’t understand is why her brother
would do something now. If he thought there was some way he could get the
property, you’d think he would have done something long ago. Plus, from reading
the
Signora’s
Will, it seems pretty clear that the
Signor
was the
sole and only beneficiary and there’s wasn’t any mention in her Will about her
brother. The same thing is also true about
Signor
Moretti. Why commit
the murder now and not at some earlier time?”

“I have no idea. I need to
find out if the title to the castle was vested solely in her name. I’ll make a
note to ask the chief about that tomorrow. He’s picking me up at ten again, so
I’m going to have to bail on you. Some honeymoon. Me trying to solve a murder,
you taking some cooking classes, and a one hundred fifty pound male dog instead
of me in my wife’s bed. This is not exactly what I’d planned.”

“Mike, I’m still loving
it. I’ve always wanted to go to Italy, and it’s everything I thought it would
be. Don’t forget when we leave here we’re going to Florence for a couple of
days. I can’t wait to see the Uffizi Museum and the Leonardo da Vinci Museum,
plus I’m going to insist you buy me something gold on the
Ponte Vecchio
,
you know, the bridge that spans the Arno River and has all the jewelry shops.
I’m really excited about that. Tomorrow’s the last day of classes, and even
though the cooking school was only for three days, I feel like I’ve learned a
lot, and I’m definitely going to put some of the recipes I’ve learned on the
menu at Kelly’s. We’re taking a field trip tomorrow to the
Mercato Centrale
in Florence and I’m really looking forward to that. I’ve heard it’s one of the
most interesting markets in the world.”

“I think I would have
enjoyed that, and I’m sorry I have to miss it. Kelly, seriously, what are you
going to do about Caesar? Shouldn’t he be in his dog run or something and not
in our bedroom?”

“I’ve been so busy talking
to you I almost forgot I told Matteo I’d feed him. I’ll be back in a few
minutes.”

“Okay. I want to see if there’s
anything in these files we’ve overlooked. I know the chief will be happy with
the information you got, but very unhappy that you took the risks you did.”

“Couldn’t you just tell
him the files showed up in our room and leave it at that?”

“No, Kelly, I won’t lie
for you.”

“Okay, but we both know
what a help I am.”

“Don’t push it, Kelly.
Smart money knows when to keep their mouth shut and at the moment, you’re not
acting like smart money.”

“Got it Sheriff. Back in a
few. Come on Caesar, time for dinner.”