Sicilian Murder

by Alec Peche

  “No, we used a tissue to remove them, so that might smear any fingerprints that were on them. Do your Italian criminals wear gloves to commit crimes?”

  Lombardo smiled at that question and said, “Yes they have watched enough American movies to know that.”

  “Tell me about the cell phone movement that you mention here,” Marie said pointing to a note on one of the pages taped to the board.

  “Yes we were able to get a report from an Italian telephone company that reported the pings that Randy's cell phone made. I looked at the last three months, but I will likely seek more data on prior months. There are dead zones in Sicily where his cell phone wouldn't ping, but I did make a drawing of where it did ping. Our victim spent a lot of time in this region,” Sara Cavallaro said pointing to a map of Sicily on the wall. She moved a finger to indicate the area.

  “The Wisconsin chemist report reports that the plant analyzed is from the oldenlandia adscensions species. The swabs from his clothing suggest he spent time near caves that grow a particular moss. Oldenlandia adscensions is a desert plant and normally would be incompatible with a moist cave. Randy thought he was going to have a blockbuster on his hands which puzzled us as oldenlandia adscensions as a folk remedy has already been exploited to the maximum, however if he discovered a new species of the plant with unique properties that would have made sense.”

  “How did he find plants? I see from his passport that he traveled extensively around the world. I assume that wasn't vacation time,” Cavallaro asked.

  “No, he'd spent time sourcing new products by talking to folks about what they used for healing in different parts of the world,” Brenda said. “Randy spoke with people in Sicily to find this unique oldenlandia adscensions plant. Unfortunately, we don't know yet what he planned to market the product for. We need to find this same group of people and see what they said about their healing solutions.”

  “You can't tell that by looking at the plant analysis report?” Lombardo asked.

  “No. oldenlandia adscensions by itself is one of the most over-produced and unproven products on the market. He wasn't a marketing fool and so he wouldn't have gone to this level of secrecy for a product he already sold in his store. He had a new use for this ancient plant and we don't know what it is.”

  “Your cellphone pinging makes almost a perfect circle around the area where the Entella cave is located,” Angela said. “That gives additional evidence to the idea that this might be the cave close to the oldenlandia adscensions plant that Randy Chen was sourcing. Jill, maybe we could collect some soil close to the cave entrance and send it to your Swiss lab for comparison?”

  Jill studied the Vice-Questore's map and had to agree.

  “That's a good suggestion. Also if we focus on that area, maybe we could look at the individual pings of the cell phone to determine how much time he spent in the many small villages close to the park in which the cave is located. We still don't know where Randy was murdered and it hasn't rained since we've been here, but I think it would be a needle in a haystack to find Randy's blood at a murder scene as he mostly bled inside his skull. The 'where' he was murdered doesn't help us find his murderer so much as the 'why' he was murdered. I doubt he offended anyone in whatever village he visited, so I'm running on the assumption that someone else had plans to market that plant – that's what makes the most sense to me. What do you folks think?” Jill asked looking at Lombardo, Rosso, and Cavallaro.

  “For the prosecution of this case, having the location would be helpful,” Lombardo replied.

  “Well, at least you know where the body was dumped in the crater. Someone could have simply buried him or dropped him off a boat out to sea. Have you found the source of whatever transported him up the mountain?” Jill asked.

  Glancing around the room, she noticed expressions of distaste about her comments on dumping Randy's body. So she added, “Whoever disposed of Randy's body in the crater, did so through an elaborate set-up designed to fool the authorities into thinking it was an accidental fall. And the murderer did fool you. Sorry to be harsh with my words, but that suggests to me that they knew something about police procedure because the far simpler plan would have been to dispose of his body. Sure the police and embassy would have applied pressure to find him, but this island offers numerous locations to bury someone, and as I said he could have been dumped into the sea and have his body swept away by the current from Sicily. Instead this person had the planning skills and patience to stage the murder as an accident. The murderer needed the snow on Mount Etna to be a key part of this plan. This murderer was watching the weather forecast and had already had a plan in mind to get our victim somewhere away from his hotel room to be murdered. Furthermore, this is the work of more than one person. Chloroform takes around five minutes of breathing to work. Your average human would not stand there passively for five minutes with a cloth over his face. So at the point he'd been knock over the head or someone restrained him. Once he was dead or dying from the brain bleed, it would have taken two people to move his body.”

  Again Jill was met with silence as everyone was contemplating her comments. She'd also probably angered the Italians with her comment about the murder escaping their attention, but facts were facts and she was done talking.

  After the silence went on for a while, her team studied the few sheets of information on the dry-erase board. Jill's mind was shifting through where to go next with the investigation and so she studied the map of Randy's phone movement. It was sloppy for the murderer to have allowed the phone to continue to transmit.

  “Are these individual pings on your map or if say Randy stood in one place for ten minutes, there might be two pings at the same location?” Marie asked Cavallaro.

  The Vice Questore seemed to shake herself to move beyond Jill's comments and on to thinking about Marie's question.

  “This map is simply the mobile phone pings. If there were two in one place, there is still just a single dot. I will take a second look and add time.”

  “Do you have a computer person in your department that could program a computer to construct the data in that manner for you? It sounds like a tedious way to track Randy Chen's movement over the past several weeks,” Marie said.

  “We might have someone that could do that, let me check,” Sara said pulling out her phone to make some calls.

  “We have someone who could likely do this quickly if he's available to take our call, “ Marie replied thinking of Henrik.

  Cavallaro paused thinking of the time and effort to persuade one of the department's computer experts. She decided it was time to cooperate more with these Americans, and so said, “Go ahead and contact your person. I'll send you the report and you can forward it to your expert. Let me know if he or she can't do it quickly or at all.”

  While Rosso and Lombardo frowned over her response, Sara added, “What? It will not hurt the case to have their friend do something that you know would likely take us a week, by the time we cajole the right people in the Carabinieri.”

  As Rosso and Lombardo continued to show their disapproval of her methods, Cavallaro went on to the next subject – transportation.

  “We researched the vehicles that could take Mr. Chen's remains to the crater. In addition to the vehicle that you rode in, Dr. Quint, to reach the crater, I understand that there are also quads which I believe you Americans call, 'all-terrain vehicles'.”

  Jill nodded and Cavallaro continued.

  “Many people own quads for their farms, wineries, and tourism. We checked the large vehicles that carry tourists to the crater and we're confident that none of them were used to transport Mr. Chen. Which leaves us with the quads. Our officers contacted some of the witnesses that waited out the snowstorm. We specifically asked them if they heard the sounds of quads and the larger vehicles while they were waiting for the weather to clear.”

  “Good question,” Jill cut in.

  “Well the answer was 'no', so not necessarily a good question. One of
the witnesses mentioned seeing faint tracks at the crater before the snow melted, so we showed her the different tracks made by the two vehicles and she identified the quad. We then returned to other witnesses who also then remembered seeing the quad tracks before the snow disappeared.”

  “So we have the vehicle that transported Mr. Chen,” Marie said monitoring her email, looking for the response from Henrik, who thought it would take about ten minutes for her data on Randy's cell phone pings.

  “We do think we have it; unfortunately that doesn't get us much farther. We checked our records and there are over two-hundred quads registered in Sicily. We can test a vehicle once we have a suspect, but otherwise we can't do much more with that information at the moment.”

  Marie looked up and said, “Angela, do you have your projector attachment with you?”

  “Send me what you want to be projected and I'll put it on that wall,” Angela said pointing to the lone empty wall.

  Soon they were all staring at a map of Sicily with different size bubbles representing the amount of time Randy Chen spent in each location.

  Chapter 20

  “Wow, Henrik thoughtfully colored the bubbles likely to represent where he stayed overnight, based on the time of the phone pings,” Jill said reading the legend. “That's helpful or otherwise we would be chasing cities that aren't important.”

  “Look, it even has the ping location on the day of his death, and from there the trip to the crater. Whoever murdered Randy had no idea about phone pinging,” Marie said pointing at the various bubbles on the diagram.

  “I wonder why Randy spent so much time overnight in Palermo or Catania, yet traveled all over the island?” Angela asked pointing at two bubbles. “It would have perhaps been a better use of time to stay overnight. This also looks like he spent time near these villages.”

  Cavallaro said, “Yes those are the villages of Contessa Entellina and Campofiorito. So the question is – are these the villages where he spoke with Sicilians about their folk remedies as you called it, or is this where the plant grew?”

  “The third spot he spent time was here,” Angela said pointing to the middle of nowhere and glancing at her phone. “Is this a park, or farmland, or simply uninhabited? When I bring up this area on Google Earth it appears as though nothing is there but vacant land.”

  “Are any of the caves close to these cities?” Jill asked.

  Marie studied her earlier list and said, “Entella cave is perhaps within a close distance. It's the cave that has been closed to the public as it is structurally weak with stuff falling from the ceiling.”

  “Remember the plant can't grow inside the cave, but certainly can be close to the entrance, but then how did Randy get the moss on his clothes if he couldn't go inside the cave. Do you know if the cave entrance is physically blocked by a barrier?” Jill asked of the Italian officials.

  They looked at each other shrugging, “I've never been there, so I can't tell you. I will call the University to see who has explored the cave. Could there be more than one entrance?” Cavallaro asked.

  “We don't need to go inside as our plant is not there. We just need to find the entrance or entrances if there is more than one. Would your contact be able to give us the geo-coordinates to explore the area?”

  “I don't know,” Cavallaro said stepping outside the room to make a call.

  “Dr. Quint, do we want to focus on a cave or Mr. Chen's cell phone movements?” Lombardo asked.

  “Both, they're connected. I think we should visit the two cities and see if we can find the folk remedy that Randy was interested in and we should find the cave so we can physically locate the plant. As a botanist, I'd like to think I'll recognize the genus of oldenlandia adscensions plants. I think that once we start asking questions in the two cities about a folk remedy, we'll get two responses – people will volunteer the information and Randy's murderer will hear about us asking questions and we'll be watched. Don't you think that's our scenario?”

  Cavallaro had returned to the room to hear Jill's question, and she looked at her fellow law enforcement representatives while thinking back to the history of crime in Sicily.

  “If organized crime is behind Mr. Chen's murder, I have no doubt that they will be clued into any conversations we have in small villages in the area south of Palermo. Since Mr. Chen's murder was so well-organized, my preliminary thought is that the mafia is involved,” Cavallaro said.

  There was silence in the room after the Vice-Questore's assessment. It was a sentence they all dreaded, but each of them had individually thought that was perhaps who was behind Randy's murder. They were all aware of how worthy an opponent the mafia was on the island of Sicily and how their own lives would be in danger. Fortunately, they were diminished in power from their peak, but still a worrisome opponent.

  “So what are our next steps?” Marie asked. “Can we get protection from the police and is there an organized crime expert in one of your branches?”

  Marie was scared of the word 'mafia'. Sure they had faced bad people in the past, but there was a difference between a single deranged killer and a large organization that had the power to influence lots of people in Sicily.

  Lombardo spoke in a string of Italian so fast and emotional that only his fellow Italians could follow what he said. Angela shrugged indicating she'd been unable to translate what they said. Jill waited patiently for the Italians to speak in English about their plan, all the while thinking about what her team should do next.

  Rosso left the room pulling out his cell phone and speaking as he left. Jill turned eyebrows towards Lombardo and Cavallaro asking with her facial expression for a translation of what had been said.

  “Tenete Rosso has left to call the Guardia di Finanza. It is where our law enforcement resources directed at fighting organized crime are located. They have offices in Catania and so we hope to have them join our conversation soon. Angelo is seeing how soon they can get here. I haven't prosecuted an organized crime case and so can offer no expertise in that area,” Lombardo said.

  Lombardo looked up in surprise when Rosso returned to their conference room saying, “They will be here in under thirty minutes. Perhaps we should take a coffee break until their arrival.”

  Jill shook her head. She wanted to stay alive and ten steps in front of the mafia. They needed every minute of the day to solve this crime and get off the island. She was convinced they would be safe once they returned to the United States. She resumed studying the map of Randy's cell phone movements thinking about a plan for her team.

  She summarized where they were in the case. They confirmed Randy was murdered and how, they confirmed he was chasing after a plant from the oldenlandia adscensions genus. He'd been hiking close enough to caves to get some moss on his clothing. They didn't know how he was taken up the mountain. They'd been bugged so their movements and their conversations could be monitored...and all of these facts added up to more than an individual being behind Randy Chen's murder.

  “Can we hire our own protection? Are private citizen allowed to carry guns in Sicily?” Jill asked.

  Lombardo and Rosso frowned at Jill and asked, “Why?”

  “I want to visit the two towns today and talk to people. But I'd like some protection which we may eventually get from you, but at the moment, I'm idle and wasting my client's money. I'd like to start by hiring private resources and keep investigating and when your law enforcement resources can offer us protection, then we will rely on you.”

  Cavallaro offered, “Yes you can hire your own protection, and yes they can carry guns as long as they have obtained a license to carry a weapon.”

  Rosso could feel the case slipping away from him again as the doctor was planning to take off in pursuit of new information while he and his colleagues were just beginning to mobilize. He gave some thought of what he could do to stop Jill Quint and her team from running off on their own.

  “Look why don't I arrange a police van and driver. We'll have a mobile o
ffice while we can continue to discuss this case, and yet move towards the two cities in question under full police protection.”

  Jill liked that idea feeling safer with a squad of law enforcement rather than armed security guards to protect herself and her friends. She nodded her agreement, and Russo again left to make arrangements.

  Forty minutes later, Jill and her team were inside a twelve-person van with an armed officer at the steering wheel. The new arrivals from the new branch of Italian law enforcement were briefed in the first hour of the ride about the case and the Americans role in it. Jill stayed facing forward occasionally contributing to the conversation as these Sicilian roads were not straight, and she was doing her best to avoid carsickness. Angela was taking the lead on conversing and designing a script they would use to question the locals at the various stops planned in the two cities. Brenda was quiet and overwhelmed by the people and place she found herself. Jo and Marie were talking on their own about other things that they saw along the way. A robust conversation was taking place as one of the finance officers didn't speak English and so there was a lot of translation that was time-consuming. Jill was glad she had Angela aboard to track the conversation. She was occasionally texting her in the front seat to keep her abreast of any significant comments. Angela said in one of the texts that the Finance Police were suspicious of Jill and her crew, but Lombardo, Rosso, and Cavallaro convinced him of the error of his thinking.

  Chapter 21

  Salvatore Denaro stepped out of his villa in the city Corleone, Sicily, made famous for scenes from The Godfather which were filmed there. Now like most areas of Sicily, the commune was looking sad and deserted as people moved away from the island allowing their previous homes to crumble. Still he looked around with pride at the life he'd built, perhaps he'd spend some of his fortune to bolster the town. First though he needed to get rid of the visitor to his island that was threatening his empire, his family, and his fortune. He'd come up with a plan to rescue his town, his island, his family. He had a vision of being the head of the most important family in all of Italy. All he needed to do was set up his drug manufacturing warehouse on the back of his property where no one would bother with it. And then several villagers from a commune fifty kilometers away had spoiled his vision by telling his island's secret.