Murder Most Unfortunate
Read Murder Most Unfortunate Online
Authors: David P Wagner
Murder Most Unfortunate
A Rick Montoya Italian Mystery
David P. Wagner
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright © 2015 by David P. Wagner
First E-book Edition 2015
ISBN: 9781464204371 ebook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.
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Contents
This book is dedicated, with fond appreciation, to my Italian colleagues at the American Consulate in Milan and the Embassy in Rome, as well as to many other Italian friends from the nine years I lived and worked in Italy. It was kind of you to teach me so much about your wonderful country.
Grazie Mille
.
Professor Lorenzo Fortuna had been amused by the request, but not surprised. He was, after all, the most prominent scholar at the seminar. He knew the period better than all of the so-called experts who had sat at the speakers' table with him, people whose puffery and inflated rhetoric exposed rather than hid their appalling lack of scholarship. Why had he even come? Certainly not to mix with those buffoons. No, it was for the young people who formed the majority of the audience, that next generation of art historians who were attracted to him like prospective apprentices to an old master. He smiled as he thought of them. They had hung on his every word, as his students did in his own classes, enjoying when he pointed out some absurdity uttered by the other panelists.
But there were other aspects of the previous few days that had made it worthwhile. He had been put up in a comfortable hotel, the meals had been good, and the wine excellent. As was the cognac which sloshed in the bowl of his snifter now as he walked. He may have had a bit too much to drink, but it was the last night, after all, and the fellow had insisted. One should not be ungrateful for such generosity, even if it was his due. He slowed his unsteady steps in order to take another sip of the amber liquid. It burned as it went down, in a smoother and more pleasing burn than the famous local grappa that had capped every meal during the seminar.
“Here we are,” said the man Fortuna was following. Unlocking the door, he reached in to switch on a large overhead fixture. Light bounced off the objects in the room. Fortuna closed his eyes tightly and then opened them wide to focus on two paintings that leaned against the wall on the top shelf of a low bookcase. There might have been other works of art in the room, but he knew immediately that these were the two he was meant to see.
He frowned. It was not the frown of disgusted annoyance, like those aimed at his fellow scholars during the seminar, but instead an indication of serious concentration. The learned Professor Fortuna getting down to business. He brushed past the other man, reluctantly put his drink on the shelf, and leaned toward the first of the two works.
“Beautiful, is it not?”
Fortuna did not reply for several minutes. “The subjectâ¦it would be his early period.” He reached forward, took the painting by its frame, and adjusted the angle to take better advantage of the light.
“I can get a lamp.”
“No need, I can see it well enough.” He looked for a few moments longer before moving his attention to the second work. After some minutes he remembered his drink, took a taste before again setting it down, and stepped back to observe the two from a distance of about five feet. He slowly shook his head and smiled while the second manâwho could hardly contain his pleasureâwatched him. Fontana then pulled out a thimble-sized instrument from the vest pocket of his three-piece tailored suit. He held it to one eye and moved it around the second painting, not more than two inches from the crusted brush marks. He did the same with the first work before slipping the magnifier back into his pocket and stepping back.
“Magnificent, are they not?” Pride showed in the host's face and voice.
Fortuna took his eyes from the paintings, retrieved his snifter, and turned to the other man. “They are fakes. Well done, perhaps the best I've seen, but fakes nonetheless.”
“That's impossible.” The man choked on his words. “You must be joking.”
Fortuna grunted. “I would never joke about such things.” He tilted his head as he surveyed the two compositions. “The treatment of the faces is good, but not close to the level of other works by the artist. I might say the supposed artist. You see the arrangement of the figures? Very much out of character. He would never seat the Madonna in that position. The signature is close but not close enough. The final indication is in the brushstrokes. He never used that heavy impasto. Never.” He took another sip and smirked. “Extremely well done. The painter hadâor should I say has?âreal skill. It certainly would fool most of the participants in the seminar, but I have a better trained eye than any one of them. I must say, these two works could not have been more fake if they had been painted on black velvet.” He chuckled at his own humor.
The other man stared at the two paintings, his breaths coming rapidly. “Butâ¦you can't justâ¦there must be some mistake.”
“No mistake, my dear man. But on the plus side, I now have another anecdote to add to my lectures, so my students will be grateful to you. As I am grateful for this excellent cognac.” He held the snifter up to the light and watched the contents create a shimmering, nut brown prism.
Some time later, in silence, the host inspected his two precious works, running twitching fingers over the paint and gazing so intently he nearly lost his balance. How could that arrogant bastard be right? He exhaled a long, shuddering breath and shifted his eyes from the paintings to the floor beside him. Cognac was spreading over the tiles and through the pieces of broken crystal, to mix with the darker liquid that had gushed from Fortuna's chest.
Bassano del Grappa could not decide if it was going to slip into spring or keep the winter a while longer. Snow still crowned Monte Grappa as well as lower peaks which stood vigil above the northern side of the city. To the south, where the hills began to flatten into the Po Valley, green shoots were starting to break through the brown earth. The Brenta River flowed roughly past the town and under the bridge, its waters swollen as the snow receded up the sides of the lower hills. It would be ice cold, but it was always ice cold this close to the mountains. Only downstream, when it went around Padova, would it warm, and then only in the summer.
Rick Montoya stopped in the middle of the covered bridge and peered over the railing at the rushing water. He knew from previous mornings that he needed a breather before attacking the steep hill that led up through the center of the town to his hotel. And as on those other mornings, today he had passed only a few people as he jogged through the streets of Bassano. A street cleaner, the only other person on the bridge, brushed up papers and other traces of the previous evening's foot traffic. As the city's major attraction, the Ponte degli Alpini attracted more than its share of tourists. With them came the inevitable trash, even though the majority of the foreigners were fastidious Teutons.
Rick turned his attention to the mountains and thought about any similarity between the city's geography and that of Albuquerque, where he had spent so many years. OK, both were built in the shadow of mountains, but it stopped there. Northern Italy was not the high desert, the Brenta was not the Rio Grande, and the people of the Veneto were very different from New Mexicans.
He bent down to tie his running shoe. It didn't need tying, but it was an acceptable way to put off the climb facing him at the end of the bridge. After wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his sweatshirt and bouncing a few times on his toes, he was once again off. Leaving the protection of the roof of the bridge, he was once more under the open sky and starting up the hill toward the town center. He had found the name of this street, Via Gamba, amusing, given its sharp incline. He assumed that the Gamba in this case was some former resident of note and did not mean “leg,” despite the ache in his own legs at the moment.
After the initial climb the street leveled off and he turned right to jog through the first of three small connected squares. The absence of cars allowed him to stride diagonally through the middle of Piazza Monte Vecchio and into the next, Piazza Libertá. Metal grating guarded the shops lining this square; it would be a few hours before the owners arrived to roll them up. The San Francesco church covered most of one side of the final square, Piazza Garibaldi. Rick wondered if there was a law requiring every town in Italy, regardless of size, to have some street, square, or park named for the most famous soldier of the
Risorgimento
. Behind the church was a former convent that now housed the Museo Civico where Rick had worked as an interpreter the previous several days.
It had been a good gig. He'd learned a lot about artist Jacopo Bassano, the city's most famous native son; he'd had some stimulating conversations with the participants at meal times; and once again he had been fascinated by the pettiness of academia. Had it been that bad at UNM? He considered that question as he reached the tree-lined street that ran along the remaining portions of the city's east wall. It bore the name Via delle Fosse, a reminder of the moat that had once run along the outside of the wall as a further deterrent to prospective invaders. As if the tall ramparts were not enough. He stretched his pace for the last hundred meters before slowing to cross the street to his hotel.
Rick walked through the lobby to receive his room key from the desk clerk. Turning toward the elevator he noticed two men sitting in one corner of the room, deep in conversation. He recalled the backgrounds of the two men and decided that scholarship did not just generate fierce rivalries, it also made strange friendships. Karl Muller, from Bavaria, was one of Germany's most prominent scholars of Italian art. He was dressed formally for the early hour, in a tweed suit, his open collar filled with a paisley ascot. All he lacked, Rick thought, was a monocle and a swagger stick. Across from Muller sat George Oglesby, who taught at a British university which Rick first heard mentioned when he'd met the man. Oglesby looked more like an artist than the art professor he was. The collar of his turtleneck shirt hung loosely, despite the size of the man's neck, and his trousers looked like they hadn't been ironed since they'd been bought off the rack. Oglesby noticed Rick and called to him.
“Rick, is that how you keep your svelte figure? I am envious.”
Rick walked over. “Don't bother getting up, gentlemen, I'm going up to shower before I catch a chill. You two are up early. Still arguing over those lost Jacopos?”
“That was quite a rousing discussion yesterday, wasn't it?” Muller's English, thanks to study and lectureships at Cambridge, was almost more British than Oglesby's. “I was expecting fisticuffs at one point.” He grinned, his mouth matching the shape of his gray mustache.
The Englishman huffed. “The man should be barred from academic discourse.”
“Now, now, George,” answered Muller. “Fortuna has a right to his opinions.”
“It's the way he expresses them, Karl, you know that.”
Rick looked down at the two men. “Sorry I brought up the subject, you appeared to be having a pleasant conversation before I arrived.”
“Not your fault, Rick,” said Oglesby. “We were discussing family history, of all things. It appears that Karl and I have something else in common that connects us with Italy. Both our grandfathers were in the Italian theater during the war.”
“Really? You mean they could haveâ?”
“Been shooting at each other?” the German interjected. “Let's hope not, but I suppose it's possible. If so, I'm pleased they both missed.”
Both men were still laughing when Rick excused himself and walked to the elevator.
***
He stayed in the shower longer than usual. With the conference over he did not have to be at the museum to check the equipment and work out the day's drill with his fellow translator. She had left after that final, lively session of the afternoon, anxious to return to a young daughter who was with her grandmother. Rick, however, had planned for a few days of vacation after the final session, anxious to explore an area of Italy unfamiliar to him. As a kid, when his family had lived in Rome, their vacations had been spent mostly visiting his mother's relatives around Italy, and none lived in the Veneto. They'd gone to Venice, of course, and some of the larger cities in the region, but not smaller towns like Bassano. Most of his translation work took place in the major cities of Italy, so the occasional job off the tourist track made a welcome change and a chance to explore. Why move from New Mexico to Italy otherwise?
After shaving, he slipped on some casual slacks and pulled on a pair of comfortably worn cowboy boots. The
lucida scarpe
towelette he'd found among the soap and shampoo in the basket next to the sink had barely made a difference on them, but it was better than nothing. Perhaps if he ran into the cleaning girl in the hallway he'd ask her to leave him a few extras. He slipped a sweater over his sports shirt, brushed his hair into place, and headed for the door. One thing about doing an early run, it made breakfast taste even better.
He stopped at the doorway of the hotel dining room and surveyed the tables. Most were filled with Austrian tourists, given their dress and the proximity of that country to Bassano. A group of the students from the seminar sat at a large table, looking like they had been up most of the night. They huddled silently over their coffee cups. Two men he recognized from the seminar were at a table on the far side of the room. Franco Sarchetti, who was staying at the hotel, sat before a large plate of food. Rick once again wondered about the man's reason for attending the program. He was an art dealer from Milan, rather than a scholar of Jacopo Bassano, but he had paid his fee and sat through all of the sessions, occasionally making informed comments during the question periods. His breakfast companion was Paolo Tibaldi, the curator of the museum that had hosted the program. Rick assumed Tibaldi had come by the hotel to say goodbye to any participants still there, but it was interesting that he was sitting with Sarchetti.
Rather than join them, Rick walked toward a table where a gray-haired man sat alone, bent over a coffee cup and a book. Taddeo Gaddi, the oldest of the seminar panelists, wore his usual rumpled suit and squinted through thick glasses at the pages.
“Do you mind if I join you, Dottore?”
The man looked up and focused on Rick's face. “Ah, Riccardo,
buon giorno
. Of course. I thought you had left already. You live in Rome, don't you?” He reached into the book and pulled out a thin piece of paper to mark his place while Rick took a seat.
“Yes, but I'm going to take a few days off to see more of this part of the Veneto.” An apron-clad girl arrived at the table and Rick asked for
caffé latte
. As she turned to leave he stopped her and ordered scrambled eggs with bacon and toast. She noted his room number from the key he'd placed on the table, nodded, and walked toward the kitchen. Rick answered the look on Gaddi's face. “I usually just go to the buffet, but while I was doing my morning run today I couldn't get eggs and bacon out of my head.”
“I would expect nothing less from an American.”
“My mother is a Romana, so I am also Italian.”
Gaddi smiled. “I've never seen an Italian wearing boots like yours, Riccardo.”
He decided against his usual comment on how comfortable they were. “I hope you enjoyed the seminar. I found it fascinating, but of course I knew little about Jacopo Bassano before arriving.”
“Jacopo,” the old man said simply before taking a sip from his coffee cup. “He is not well known unless you are from this town, or study the period as the distinguished panelists at this seminar do.” Rick noticed Gaddi's emphasis on the word
distinguished
. “Like any specialty, it can be arcane for the average person, even an educated person. But that is what we academics do. Most people have the idea that professors are there to make a subject understandable to their students, but they could not be more mistaken. A successful academic must make his specialty as abstruse and incomprehensible as possible, so that his expertise generates awe and sells textbooks. And he gets invited to seminars. But perhaps I have become too cynical in my later years. You have spent some time at the university, Riccardo?”
“A
laurea
and masters in languages, in America.”
“Of course, that would make sense for your profession.”
Rick's eggs and bacon arrived, their aroma reminding him how hungry he was. The professor wished him a
buon appetito
and topped off his own coffee cup from the pitcher on the table.
“I was fascinated,” said Rick between bites, “by the exchange yesterday between Tibaldi and Professor Fortuna about those two missing Jacopo Bassano paintings. It got quite heated.”
Gaddi, a frown spreading over his face, watched Rick butter his toast. After a deep breath he spoke. “The subject appears to be a painful one for our host, since he wants his museum to be the principal repository of Jacopo's work. But of course Fortuna knew that and used it to make the poor man uncomfortable. Despite that, I found it surprising that Tibaldi lashed out, albeit briefly.”
“My guess is that Fortuna would not win a popularity contest among the participants.” Rick noticed that the topic was clearly making the older man uncomfortable. “You are returning home today, Professor?”
“Not yet, I have some personal matters to deal with in Bassano.” He glanced at the table where the Milanese art dealer and the museum curator were still talking. “And there is some research on Jacopo I wanted to do in the museum archives. For a monograph I'm working on. I should be able to do everything today and leave early tomorrow.”
“Several other participants have opted to stay on past the seminar. But Muller is driving home this afternoon, I believe, and Oglesby may be flying back to London. Professor Randolph told me at the dinner last night he'll be staying on for a few days.”
“Which is understandable,” said Gaddi, “coming all the way from America. Randolph mentioned something about his fiancée joining him for a bit of a holiday.”
“That must be why he was in such a good mood at the dinner. I thought it was the wine.” Rick glanced around the room. “And Fortuna?”
“Perhaps he skulked off under the cover of darkness.” He looked at Rick's empty plate. “
Ha mangiato volentieri?
”
“It was just what I needed to face the morning, Professor.”
The older man rose from his chair. “If you'll excuse me, Riccardo, I must also face the morning. If I don't see you before you depart, it was a pleasure.” He held out his hand.
Rick got to his feet and found that the handshake was firm despite the man's bony fingers. He watched Gaddi walk with short steps out of the dining room, thinking about the man's negative reaction to a mention of the missing paintings. All it had done for Rick was add to his curiosity about them. Possibly the only one of the seminar experts who would talk to him about the lost Jacopos would be Fortuna, and Rick had no desire to ask his opinion. A pompous speech would be all he'd get from the man, and he'd had to translate enough of them during the seminar. He poured himself a fresh mixture of coffee and hot milk and stirred in sugar before glancing at the buffet table. A yoghurt? An orange? Why not? He took his napkin from his lap, placed it next to his empty plate, got to his feet. He stopped.
Of courseâwhy didn't I think of it before
?
I'll call him after breakfast
.