The Da Vinci Cook (16 page)

As he spoke, he moved closer, and Angie was finally able to get a good look at the man. He might have been handsome, but he was too flashy for her taste. His hair and sideburns were too long, his clothes too fitted, Italian shoes too pointy, and pinky ring too big.

“Others?” Angie asked, baffled. “What others?”

Instead of answering her, he thrust a broad chin in Angie’s direction and addressed Cat. “Why did you bring your sister?”

Cat put her arms around Angie’s shoulders and pulled her close in what could pass for a hug from anyone but Cat. “Because I didn’t know what you were up to! Angie, say hello to Marcello.”

Angie said a quick “Hi.”

“Yeah, hi,” Marcello said, his steady gaze never leaving Cat’s face. “You didn’t answer my question.”

She dropped her arm from around Angie. “Why did you accuse me of stealing your chain of St. Peter?” she asked.

Chain of St. Peter?
Angie couldn’t believe the question.
What about the dead man in his kitchen? Hello?

“What are you talking about?” Marcello looked truly shocked. Angie didn’t think the man could be that good an actor. “I never said such a thing.”

“Where is the chain, then?” Cat demanded.

He hesitated. “Where should it be? It’s in the wall safe. I showed you!”

“It’s not there,” Cat snapped.

“How do you know?

“Marcello, when you use the last four digits of your phone number, and you open it when I’m standing right there watching, how could I not remember?” She looked at him as if he were a child.

Forget about the chain,
Angie wanted to shout.
What about the dead man?

“Why are you in Rome, Trina?” Marcello asked, ignoring Cat’s question. “What do you care if my chain was stolen?”

Angie’s head bounced from one to the other. The way he called her sister “Trina,” the nickname she’d use while she was growing up until she decided it was too ethnic and unsophisticated, and the words Cat almost said . . . the two sounded close, with a history. Could they have been having an affair? She found it hard to imagine her sophisticated sister with someone like Marcello, but what else could it be? Was that why Cat had no fear when she thought she was following him to the airport even though the man could be a murderer?

Cat explained to him about being fired, going to his house, finding the dead body, and then following Rocco. He was shocked to learn a man had been murdered in his home. He swore he had no idea who it might be.

“Whoever was in your house looked like you, Marcello. I thought it was you. But when we got to the airport, we were told he was your brother, Rocco.”

Marcello’s face went through a panoply of reactions.

“When did you come to Rome?” Cat pressed.

“Monday.” His answer was almost defiant. “Something came up real quick. Some people wanted to buy land from my uncle’s estate—the uncle who gave me the restaurant when he got too old to run it. I decided to handle it myself, make sure they weren’t trying to cheat me, you know?”

“You didn’t tell me!”

Surprisingly, he looked hurt. “Would you have cared?”

Cat glanced at Angie, but Angie had no reaction. His words sounded genuine, but she didn’t know how good a liar he might be. Cat would know, and she seemed confused.

Angie decided it was time to speak up. “The police are looking for us. They want to question Cat, and some people in the force consider her a suspect.”

Marcello’s glower was harsh. “If the chain is gone, and a man has died”—he glanced over his shoulder as if he’d heard something—“you could be in serious danger, Cat. Someone might think you know more than you do. Where are you staying?”

Even in the dark, Angie could see her sister turn pale. Could that be why they seemed to be watched everywhere they went?

Cat gave him the name of the hotel.

“No good. It’s a cracker box. Go back to the restaurant. There’s a room above it. I used it when I was young, broke, and first took over the place when my uncle got too old and sick.” He took a key off his key chain and handed it to Cat. “This will unlock the door in the alley. No one will find you there.”

“We should go back home,” Angie said to Cat.

“Back there?” Marcello regarded her as if she was very foolish. “Back to where this all started? That might be the worst place for you.”

Cat’s eyes rounded. “He might be right, Angie.”

“But . . . ” Angie stopped. She couldn’t ask right then why they should trust Marcello, not when he was standing there. Cat trusted him, but she didn’t.

“You’ll be safe,” Marcello gripped Cat’s shoulders. “I’ll tell Bruno and we’ll all keep an eye on you.” Again his gaze traveled over the dark street a moment before he let her go. “I knew something strange was going on, but nothing like this.”

Angie caught Cat’s eye and mouthed,
His mother.

Cat looked stricken as she realized what she was going to have to tell him. From Marcello’s demeanor, it was obvious he didn’t yet know.

“Marcello—whatever’s going on, you might not be safe either.”

“I know,” he said stepping back, away from them. “Go to the room. I’ll find you. I’ve got to go now.”

“Wait!” Cat said, “I have something to tell you.”

But he was already running down the street.

Chapter 20

“I’m praying for them, Paavo. Praying very hard,” Maria said as they rode to the Valencia district. Serefina knew a woman who was close friends with Flora Piccoletti, and had instructed Maria to bring Paavo to the woman’s house.

“So am I, Maria,” Paavo admitted.

“It’s funny,” Maria’s voice was soft, “how easy it is to take one’s sisters for granted. They aren’t like parents, who are older and you know you’re going to have to face losing someday, or your children, who are beyond precious and remain in your heart and thoughts every moment they’re out of sight. Sisters—and brothers, too, I suppose—are just there. They’re part of your foundation, your support. You don’t pay much attention or even notice them until something goes wrong, then like a table that’s lost a leg, you go all wobbly. It’s hard to describe.”

Paavo saw the sorrow and worry on her face. “I understand what you’re saying.”

“Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do if—”

“We’ll get them back.”

Maria drew in her breath then let it out in a rush. “Caterina was always the one I looked up to. She could have done anything. Bianca was always there to support whatever I wanted, but Trina would challenge me. Nothing was ever good enough the first time. I’d have to work hard before she’d say ‘job well done.’ She’s the sister I learned the most from.”

“Angie has always admired Cat as well.”

Blinking back tears, Maria found a tissue and loudly blew her nose. “I still tend to think of Angie as a kid. Sometimes she’d give the nuns a merry chase. Watching their patience with her and her little classmates is what caused me to wonder where they found so much inner strength and inner peace. It brought me closer to God.”

“I guess Angie could be a challenge at times,” Paavo said with a smile as he thought about her as a rambunctious young girl. The image struck with a pang, reminding him how much he missed her. He wanted her home, safe in his arms.

“I’ll never forget the time she was playing with a squirt gun,” Maria said with a wan smile. “It went dry near our parochial school, and she ran into church to refill it from a font of holy water. Sister Mary Faustina caught her and marched her straight to the priest. Angie was crying buckets, as you can imagine. The priest told her she might not have known it, but squirting things around her with holy water meant she’d blessed and purified them. Then he had her say three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys, and promise she’d never do it again. Mamma sent me to find Angie and bring her home, and I found her in Sister Mary Faustina’s office, having a long talk. Angie went home that day feeling better about herself and the love and forgiveness of the Lord. She looked about ten feet tall, and I don’t think she ever forgot it.”

Paavo could imagine his Angie, in her headstrong way, doing something without clearly thinking it through, and then having to deal with a major, “Uh-oh, I’m in trouble now,” at the consequences.

Unfortunately, she still did that sort of thing.

“Come on!” Angie took off down the street after Marcello.

Cat took a few steps then yelled, “Stop! The restaurant is back there.”

“We can’t let Marcello get away. Not after waiting all this time to find him!” Angie called back.

Marcello turned the corner, and so did Angie. She wanted some answers.

Why had he followed them? Why wait until after they had left the restaurant to talk to them instead of doing so earlier? And why did he want them to stay in the restaurant itself?

She followed him for three long, winding blocks, going farther and farther from the part of the city that she knew. She turned a corner, and he was gone. Vanished into thin air.

She had suddenly come upon a neighborhood of apartment buildings, most four or more stories high, that bore signs of the constant soot and exhaust that filled the air. Most were rather heavy, squarish structures in stone, brick, or stucco, painted in earth tones—ocher, terra cotta, burnt sienna, as well as simple tans and beiges, with plain windows but often large, stylish doors and doorways.

Cars weren’t simply parked on the street, but were double- and even triple-parked. The tiny vehicles, many so small they’d probably be seen as kiddie cars on U.S. streets, were somehow wedged into spaces so minuscule it didn’t seem possible without the aid of a crowbar. Only a narrow one-way lane down the center of the street remained open.

Pity the person who was parked on the inside. How could he ever retrieve his car? It was madness. Angie decided she would never again disparage San Francisco’s parking situation.

Skirting around cars and up and down the hilly, narrow streets was exhausting, and she stopped on a corner, holding a lamppost and trying to catch her breath as she scanned the area. Lights were still on in a number of buildings, but she saw no movement of any kind. Slowly, she walked down the block, half expecting him to jump out and yell at her for following him.

Or whoever he’d been running from—clearly he’d seen or heard something that had spooked him—might jump out at her as well.

“Do you see him anywhere?” she asked Cat. “Maybe we don’t want to be here. I don’t know anything about this neighborhood.”

Cat made no comment, which was unlike her.

Angie turned around.

“Cat?” she whispered. Cat wasn’t there.

Angie hurried back toward the corner. She looked down the street she’d been on before turning the corner and losing Marcello.

“Cat!” Her call was loud this time, but it echoed in the dark night.

Looking in every direction, she spun around. Where was her sister?

She retraced her steps as best she could remember, but the night was dark, the streets weren’t well lit and tended to curve rather than line up in square city blocks the way she was used to in San Francisco. What’s more, the streets all looked the same to her, and she wasn’t sure which she’d run down. None of them were familiar.

She saw some movement from the corner of her eyes. It wasn’t Marcello. He was far from her. She ran in the opposite direction, and after a while stopped.

She was lost.

And she couldn’t find Cat.

Benedetta Rosangeli was in her seventies and dressed all in black. She loudly lamented Flora’s untimely, frightening death, tore at her handkerchief, kissed her rosary beads, and then poured coffee, put out cookies, and sat down to gossip with Maria and Paavo.

“Tell us,” Maria said after she and Paavo each had an obligatory cookie, “What do you think is going on with the Piccolettis?”

“Well . . . ” Benedetta’s elbows were on the table, and she leaned forward as if about to share major secrets. “Flora told me that the Vatican was interested in buying a sacred relic Marcello had obtained while in Italy.”

“The Vatican?” Maria was surprised.

“That’s right.” Benedetta’s head pumped up and down. Paavo’s mind turned toward the fake priest people had seen near Piccoletti’s house. “Flora had no idea how Marcello got the relic or what it was. But she believed Marcello when he told her it was both wonderful and priceless. Marcello was going to sell it, and with the money, buy Flora a castle in Italy. Flora was quite excited. But then, his story apparently changed. Flora tried to hide that she was upset, but it was clear to me that she was disappointed in him. Again.”

“Disappointed?” To Paavo, it seemed a strange word to use. Benedetta pushed the plate of cookies toward him, but he shook his head.

“All her children were disappointments. Marcello, her firstborn, was the last one she most held out hope for, but he was a failure, too.” Benedetta gave a shrug over the perversity of life.

“What about Rocco?” Paavo wanted to know. “What did Mrs. Piccoletti say about him?”

Benedetta waved her hand dismissively. “He’s lived in Florida for years. Flora banished him from her house. Same with her daughter, Josie. She was so angry with them both she couldn’t see straight.”