Murder Most Unfortunate (11 page)

“You'll be the first to know of our conversation.”

The tourists had noticed the clouds and were hurrying out of the gate ahead of the two men. When Rick and DiMaio parted ways at the edge of the piazza, the first fat drops hit the pavement.

***

Rain had fallen hard on the tile roofs of the city, spilling out of drain pipes into the stone streets where it gushed downward, eventually finding its way to a river already swollen from the storms upstream. The afternoon shoppers took their time indoors or waited under the protection of the covered walkways for the deluge to stop, as they knew it would. After an hour the sky brightened and the last light of the afternoon led people to their homes. Rick had missed most of the meteorological excitement, safely tucked in his hotel room, bent over his laptop.

Now he and Betta faced each other at a table in a room crowded with diners. The storm brought a cold front behind it, but inside the restaurant the atmosphere was anything but chilly. Betta looked fetching, wearing a slightly brighter shade of lipstick that accented her green eyes and dark hair. Her white silk blouse was opened just enough to show a pearl pendant dangling from a gold chain. There were no rings on her fingers, and her nail polish was clear. The same perfume Rick had gotten to know so well on the back of the motorcycle drifted toward him across the table. Again he tried to identify it, and again he failed.

“Gisa called me, as I knew she would. I couldn't tell her much but promised I would learn more this evening.” Betta picked up her wineglass and eyed Rick over the rim as she drank. It was a cue, if Rick had ever seen one, and he took it.

“Not a whole lot to tell. My father was an exchange student in Bologna where he met my mother. He went into the diplomatic service and managed to be assigned to Rome, which is where I spent my early years. We did some tours in South America and came back to Rome where I went to high school. Then on to the University of New Mexico, following in my father's academic footsteps. Studied languages, most of which I already knew thanks to where I'd lived, and then started working life as a professional translator. Decided to move the business to Rome. It is doing well, bringing me to remarkable places like Bassano del Grappa where I meet beautiful and exotic women.” He picked up his glass, tilted it at Betta, and drank.

“No, uh, women in your life, at the moment?” She showed a perfect row of white teeth. “It's not important to me, but Gisa will ask.”

“Not before yesterday. Will that satisfy Gisa?”

“I'll let you know tomorrow.”

Rick tilted his head and gazed deeply into green eyes. “And you, Betta, any men in your life at the moment? Present company excluded.”

The light in her face dimmed for an instant and then returned. “Not at the moment, Riccardo. I did, but it didn't work out.”

He reached across the table, placing his hand over hers. “I'm sorry to hear that. I hope it was for the best.”

Betta took a breath and forced a smile. “It was. Sometimes you think you know someone and then suddenly you find that they're very, very different.”

Rick didn't want to know the details. “Well I, for one, am very happy that you've moved on.” He picked up the menu on his plate. “So what do you recommend for a first course? All I had for lunch today with your father was a
tramezzino
, so it has to be substantial.”

“
Polenta e salsiccia
, it's very good here. But you may not have room for anything else.”

He closed his menu. “It's the chance I'll have to take.”

Betta decided on the
zuppa pavese
, and after taking their order the waiter refilled their glasses from the carafe of house white, a smooth Soave. Rick purposely steered the conversation to more trivial things—TV personalities, the latest movies, and the inevitable subject anywhere in Italy, the differences between living in Rome and elsewhere. No politics, and certainly nothing about the murder or the lost paintings.

Her first course arrived in a wide bowl, a crusty piece of rustic bread topped by an egg floating in a the hearty broth that had cooked it. The waiter enhanced the dish with spoonfuls of grated cheese. Rick's golden-yellow polenta spread over most of his plate, topped with two links of thick sausage.

“You may be right, Betta, this is clearly not the child's portion.”

She laughed and asked Rick about going to college in America. He told her a few stories, but confined them to some tame anecdotes about professors and classes. Perhaps when he knew her better he would get into the seedier side of Albuquerque. He'd prided himself in being at home in both biker bars and lecture halls. She recounted her years at the University of Padova, commuting from Bassano while working part time in the gallery. They concluded that despite the contrasting geography and languages of the respective colleges, there were as many similarities as differences. When their
primi
were finished, Betta brought the conversation back to business, such as it was.

“Riccardo, my father told me you're meeting with Sarchetti tonight. It sounds very mysterious. What do you hope to get from him?”

He shrugged. “Don't know, really. I'll ask him about the paintings. I'm sure he'll bring up Fortuna's murder. He sounded interested in talking, so perhaps he's got something to say. Or wants information from me.”

After the waiter removed their dishes, she spoke. “Tell me what you did this morning after I left you at the museum.”

Menus appeared again for them to order the second course, and Rick studied his. “I talked with Professor Gaddi there in the museum. The man is in some difficulty due to the illness of his wife, but he acted fatalistic about it. His behavior in the afternoon didn't seem in character with that, but we don't know what he was up to when he rushed out of the ceramics museum. It could end up being completely innocent. Then I talked with the detective about the murder case. They're not making much progress. He asked me to find out what I could from Sarchetti, so he too will be anxious to hear if anything comes from this meeting tonight.”

“Does he suspect Sarchetti in the murder?” Concern spread over her face.

Rick wondered if he'd said too much, and decided it would be better not to mention Inspector Occasio's annoyance with his meetings around the city. “They suspect no one and everyone. I think it's normal to go back and talk with everyone involved more than once. That would include me.” She didn't appear satisfied with the answer so he chose to avoid the subject of the murder. “Then I got a call from Porcari and he invited me to have a coffee at his office at the bank.”

“You went to the bank?”

“Quite a building, I was impressed.” He noticed her face and stopped. “Betta, what's the matter?”

She picked up the menu. “Nothing really, Riccardo. Only…well, the relationship I mentioned that didn't work out? He's an employee at the bank. You wouldn't have met him.”

Rick ordered spinach warmed in butter for his second course, claiming that, as she warned, the polenta had filled him up.

***

After walking Betta to her apartment, Rick stopped in the middle of the piazza and looked upward. A quarter moon lit the night sky despite a row of round clouds that marched one by one in front of it. The stone pavement glistened under his boots, wet from the shower, and puddles forced him to zigzag before reaching the protected sidewalk on the other side. He had time before meeting Sarchetti, which he needed to sort his thoughts. Was he the only one who saw a connection between the missing paintings and the murder? DiMaio certainly did not, and if it had crossed Betta's or her father's mind, they didn't let on. There was no firm evidence linking the two cases, only the victim's expertise and Rick's hunch.
Intuizione
was the word in Italian that came into his interpreter's head, but the translation didn't do “hunch” justice. What could emerge that would join the two cases? He tried to focus on the facts and block out the distractions, like Erica's surprise return, poor Gaddi's financial problems, and now this guy he'd seen in the bank who had to be Betta's former flame. No, worry about the right stuff, like whether Beppo's uncle was involved in shady dealings, or what the Savona woman had to do with anything. The ideas bounced around in his brain, but after walking a few blocks they finally came to rest with a conclusion. Better to put your efforts into the mystery of the missing paintings for the moment and hope for some break in the murder case.

He turned onto the Via Campo Marzio, reminding him that Bassano was, nominally at least, founded by the Romans. The Campo Marzio in Rome, the Field of Mars, was the area where the soldiers were quartered and trained. No doubt the legions needed somewhere to march in Bassano, so it must have been nearby. The street sloped downward toward the river, changing its name on the way, and passed the ceramics museum where Gaddi had vanished earlier in the day. The street was joined by two others at the eastern end of the bridge. Two buildings on the sides of the entrance were in fact one, joined at the upper floor to form an arch for pedestrians to pass under and onto the bridge. On the left was the entrance to the Grapperia Nardini that, according to a plaque outside, was founded in 1779.

The interior looked like it still used the original furnishings. The wood of the bar and rustic tables shone under decades of varnish and wax, its dark hue covered in one spot by a crude painting of a man drinking grappa. There were enough bottles of grappa lined up on the shelves behind the bar to supply the French and Austrian armies, which the place claimed to have done in the nineteenth century. Above the bottles, almost touching the wood-beamed ceiling, a row of small copper vats stood at attention. Every surface—wood, glass, and copper—was polished to brilliance, as were the marble tiles on the floor.

Three men sat on benches at a table in the corner, hunched over their tiny glasses, their ages difficult to decipher. Their creased faces and rough hands could have been the result of a long life or a shorter one involving hard work. Their dress was no help, wool jackets and pants, tie-less shirts. Likely pensioners, Rick concluded. Pensioners were everywhere in Italy.

Sarchetti stood at the bar watching the barman pour a dram of grappa into a crystal glass. He turned when he heard cowboy boots on the marble. From his rheumy eyes, unbuttoned collar, and loosened tie, Rick surmised that this was not the first alcohol the man had consumed this evening.

“I would not have started without you, Riccardo.” They shook hands. “Guido here tells me that we should try this one; it has the flavor of almonds.” He picked up the glass and studied the clear liquid. “Like arsenic.”

Rick was not a fan of grappa—to him it all tasted like something better used to heat one's house—so he ordered a thick, dark
digestivo
. He was served and they tapped their glasses.

Sarchetti displayed mock disappointment at Rick's choice. “Grappa is one of the great inventions of man, Riccardo, prevalent in the northern climes, of course. It is a drink to be taken with reverence.” He took a taste. “And this place claims to be the oldest distillery in Italy. We are standing on sacred ground.”

Rick sipped his amaro, its herbs spreading over his tongue and down his throat. “You seem in a good mood, Franco. If I can call you Franco.”

“I am in a good mood even if you can't call me Franco, but please do.” He raised his glass again. “Yes, coming here this week proved to be a trip well worth making, though I had my doubts. Who would have thought that a town like Bassano would yield such results for an art dealer like me?”

“Buying or selling?”

Sarchetti smiled. “Nothing firm yet. Since many of my clients prefer anonymity, I would not reveal transactions, in any case. But I've also made what I hope will be some excellent contacts for future business.”

“Caterina Savona among them?”

There was a chuckle and he took another sip of his grappa. “So you have met Caterina. You do get around.” He drained his glass. “Are you sure you won't try some of this? It's smoother than I expected.” When Rick declined, Sarchetti gestured to the barman to fill his glass. “This business with Fortuna. What do you make of it?”

Rick expected the question. “I'm just as puzzled as you must be. The man was not universally loved, for certain, but who would detest him enough to do him in? It doesn't seem possible that it was someone from the seminar—these academics don't seem capable of such things.”

“Not all the suspects are academics. I'm not, for example, nor are you. Nor is Porcari, the banker. And Tibaldi from the museum is more of a bureaucrat than an academic, though he wouldn't agree with my definition.” He lowered his voice. “It's a mixed group, Riccardo. There could be a murderer among us. And university professors have been known to kill.” The barman had gone over to the table and said something to the old men, who emitted a collective groan. “Is is possible that the place is closing? Well, he can't throw us out yet.” He held tight to the tiny glass with sausage fingers. “And what are the police telling you? You must have developed a little rapport with them, doing the translations.”

“Inspector Occasio is not the type to share his thoughts. It was he who questioned you, Franco, wasn't it?”

“It was. At the end I was trying to decide who was more
antipatico
, the policeman or the murder victim. I had some dealings with Fortuna recently, and the two must have gone to the same charm school.”

“Dealings?”

Sarchetti waved his hands as if trying to erase his comment. “Nothing of any consequence. I have contact with art specialists frequently, even ones like Fortuna. You are sure you won't have another shot?”

Rick had another sip, but was careful not to drain his glass. “No, I'm fine. Franco, I was curious what you thought of those exchanges in the seminar about the two missing Jacopo paintings. Do you think they'll ever be recovered?”