Sheila Connolly - Reunion with Death

by Sheila Connolly

  “That’s what the police will do.”

  “We aren’t the police. We’re trying to avoid being the police.”

  I sighed. “Maybe that’s just not possible.”

  “What, you’re giving up? That’s not like you.”

  “I didn’t say I was giving up. What I am saying is that we set ourselves an impossible task, to try to discreetly interview a dozen or more people about a murder while everybody is wandering off in all directions or we’re all jammed together in a noisy space and can’t possibly talk.”

  “Well, if you put it that way …”

  “I do. But I haven’t given up.”

  I checked the time: still too early for breakfast down below. Then I noticed Valerie trudging in our direction. She didn’t look happy.

  When she reached our patio, Valerie said, “I have to tell you something.”

  I waved at the remaining chair. “Sit. What is it?”

  She lifted her chin. “I’m the one who gave Professor Gilbert the poppy drink,” Valerie said. “But I didn’t kill him.” She dropped heavily into a chair across the table and glared defiantly at Cynthia and me.

  “What?” Questions tumbled around in my head: when, how, and mostly, why. My confusion must have been obvious on my face.

  Valerie smiled without humor. “I apologize. When you asked me about the poppy drink, I didn’t tell you then that I made it and used it on the professor. I knew I hadn’t killed him—the stuff I gave him wasn’t strong enough. But after talking with you two, and with the others up here, I realized that I wasn’t being fair to the rest of our classmates. If I said nothing, just to protect myself, that would get in the way of finding out who really did kill him. And that would leave us all under a cloud, and I didn’t want that. So I figured I should eliminate one variable from the mix and let you focus on what really happened. I take it you haven’t shared any of this information with the whole group?”

  “No, we’ve kept it quiet,” I said, “although some other people may have put two and two together and guessed. But the police know somebody had given him something, and I’m afraid that was my doing.”

  “What, you’re some kind of international cop?” Valerie asked.

  “Not exactly.” I wasn’t about to give her a detailed explanation. “But I did go so far as to make sure that the autopsy was thorough, or the police would have been content to call it an accident and close the file. When the autopsy results came back, they found out about the poppy stuff, since it set off a drug test. I opened that box, but I think there’s a good chance I can close it again, since it’s pretty clear that another person was involved. Look, when did you feed the stuff to him?”

  Valerie sighed and leaned back in her chair, the tension beginning to drain from her. “Early on, when we were having cocktails before dinner. You know those drinks they were pushing at us? They were plenty strong enough to cover any odd taste—heck, they tasted odd anyway. And the color was helpful too. So I brought Professor Gilbert a drink and made sure he drank it—he was used to women waiting on him, so he didn’t think twice about it. And it wasn’t his only drink.”

  “You’re saying that the amount he drank and the timing mean that the effects would have worn off by the time dinner was over?”

  “Yes, most likely. I wanted him to look stupid during the dinner, maybe stumble a bit in front of everyone. That’s all I knew about the properties of Tuscan poppies, and when I got here and learned that Anthony Gilbert would be our speaker, it seemed too convenient to pass up, and sort of appropriately ironic.”

  “Did it work?” Cynthia asked. “I mean, did it have the effect you wanted?”

  Valerie shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I don’t really know. It gave me the creeps to be near him again, so I sat at the other end of the room. Everybody was drinking, so probably no one would have noticed. And nobody had seen him for a long time—they might just have written the effects off to drink or simple old age. He was pushing eighty, after all. I know, the whole thing was stupid, but when I heard he was coming, I wanted to do something.”

  “Were you … I mean, did he?”

  “I slept with him, all right? I was the girl of the moment for about fifteen seconds in 1969 and then he lost interest. It hurt, but I survived. It took me a while to realize I was far from the only one, and he was a jerk in other ways too. He was a mean-spirited bully. I wish I’d had the guts to complain to someone, but I couldn’t figure out who—the college didn’t have a support system in place, like they do now. So I figured the best thing I could do would be to hunker down and get a good education while I had the opportunity. When I saw him at the villa, though, it all came back. There he was, smug and sleek, and that seemed wrong. I knew there were other women there who had had run-ins with him. I wanted to do something, and I figured embarrassing him, attacking his ego, was the best way. So I tried to dope him, just a little, so he looked like a stupid drunk, and bring him down a notch. Am I in trouble?”

  I looked at her, searching her face. “The autopsy showed the presence of an opioid in his system, but according to the official record it would not have been enough to kill him. Given what you’ve told me, it had in fact probably worn off by the time dinner was over. I think we can set that aside.”

  “Thank you. And I didn’t try to get in the way of what you were doing, at any time. I talked to a lot of the other women, and I reported everything I learned to you. I really didn’t want to think that I had killed him, and from everything you’ve said, I didn’t. But someone did.”

  “If we eliminate you, we’re back where we started,” Cynthia protested, “with a body and a handful of suspects who knew him and/or had a motive to do him harm, and no way to eliminate them. If we go to all of them and ask for alibis, it’ll be one unholy mess.”

  “If the police get involved, it’ll be an unholy mess anyway. Should we look for the most damaged person?” I suggested. “Is it easy to hide the kind of anger and hate that lasts forty years?”

  Valerie and Cynthia turned to look at me, and I held up my hands in mock surrender. “No, I’m not suggesting we go directly to each person and ask, ‘Where were you at midnight on the day and who can vouch for you?’ But I think we’ve agreed that the professor’s kind of behavior can cause long-term harm to vulnerable young women. Nobody who came on this trip was expecting to be confronted by him so many years later. There are women who have put that part of their history behind them and it wouldn’t matter to them. But there are others for whom it was traumatic, and maybe they wanted to rewrite history, or to make peace within themselves by confronting him after all this time. Professor Gilbert might have misconstrued their intentions, given that he requested that bottle of wine. Maybe in his misguided mind he thought the woman was looking for a repeat performance.”

  “Jerk,” muttered Valerie. “I can’t believe I ever fell for his crap, even when I was nineteen.”

  “You weren’t the only one, Valerie,” I pointed out. “In any case, if he thought he was going to have an amorous evening, this time he got something else altogether.”

  “Laura,” Cynthia interrupted, “we’ve got less than twenty-four hours. How do you suggest we figure this out in that amount of time?”

  I stood up. “I need coffee. Let’s go get breakfast.”

  “Hang on a moment, Laura,” Cynthia said. “Valerie, we’ll meet you down there.”

  Valerie gave us an odd look, but left. I turned to Cynthia. “What?”

  “As long as we’re looking for confessions, I … I’ve got something to say.”

  “Don’t tell me you killed him.”

  “No, of course I didn’t. But the night he died …” She looked uncomfortable.

  “What? Spit it out, will you? I’m hungry.”

  “I was with the two chefs, but I kind of, uh, misrepresented our activities.”

  I cocked my head at her. “You mean no wild orgy?”

  “Not exactly. I did spend the time with them, so my alibi
holds. But mostly they wanted to practice their English on me—they’re hoping to find jobs in a restaurant in Florence and they thought it might help.”

  “So why did you lie about it?”

  Cynthia looked away, out over the steep vineyard. “It made me sad, I guess. I keep trying to pretend I’m not as old as I really am, and maybe I hoped … Forget about it.”

  “Let’s go get breakfast, shall we? And please, no more revelations before I’ve had my coffee.”

  Did I really think that coffee would help?

  We trooped down our steps in single file. Valerie was waiting for us, so I pulled her aside before we reached the patio. “Thanks for telling us, Valerie. You probably would have been in the clear if you hadn’t said anything.”

  “I know. But that didn’t seem right. And I want to know who actually had the guts to kill him.”

  “I understand. I’m glad you came clean with us.”

  Our breakfast was a quiet affair. I was thinking, or trying to. We’d crossed one more person off our list—Valerie—but as for the rest we were indeed back to square one, except that we’d gotten to know a lot of the women better. Was I ready to point a finger at anyone in particular as a killer? Nope.

  I liked these women. We weren’t the same people we had been forty years earlier, but if anything we’d improved with age. When I stopped to think about it, this whole event had been extraordinary. We’d all gotten along well. We’d all followed the jam-packed program and apparently enjoyed it. No one had whined or complained or dragged their feet. No one had thrown her weight around or tried to impress anyone else. I tried to imagine a comparable group of men setting off on an expedition like this one and almost spewed coffee. Not in a million years.

  Maybe the whiners and the divas had chosen to stay home. Did anyone acknowledge that she was a diva? High-maintenance? A pain in the ass? Wouldn’t you know by this point in your life?

  Or maybe there were still women who didn’t feel complete without a man around, or who had become accustomed to letting a man take care of her. Maybe we were the most independent-minded women of our cohort. Whatever the reason, I liked these women. We were still smart, funny, interesting people. I wanted more and more to erase this stain from the holiday and send everyone home with happy memories.

  “Your thoughts?” Cynthia asked as I was finishing my second cup of coffee.

  I took a deep breath. “If we don’t come up with a name by tonight, I say we throw it on the table after the fun part of the banquet and see what happens.”

  “God, that sounds like a recipe for chaos. Isn’t there a quieter way?”

  “If you’ve got any ideas, now’s the time to lay them out,” I replied.

  “I’ve got nothing,” Cynthia said. “We’re heading for some pretty serious caves at Carrara, aren’t we? Maybe we can take people into dark corners and force a confession out of … someone. Is anyone claustrophobic, do you know?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. But nobody asked, just like nobody asked if we were afraid of heights. We are a fearless bunch, aren’t we?”

  “That’s a fact. We even face weird food without flinching too. But back to basics: where are we supposed to find this bus for today?”

  Connie spoke up. “I know the answer to this one! We go up the hill there and get into the vans, and the vans will drive us to the bus a mile or so farther up.”

  “I bet this bus makes our drivers very happy. So, are we ready?”

  “All set. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Chapter 23

  The bus proved a happy surprise: plush seats, plenty of leg room, and a good view from the large windows. That last proved important, at least as we neared Carrara. The town—city?—itself looked modern and prosperous; the only peculiarity was the presence of marble sculptures on every other corner. It was kind of sweet—the Carrarans (Carrari?) certainly celebrated their local product. But we were never out of sight of the looming white mountains inland. We wove our way through commercial and residential streets, and then we began climbing. Again. The large bus went even more slowly than our vans had, despite an experienced hired driver, which gave us plenty of time to admire the vistas around every corner. However, the hairpin turns were scary, and not for the first time I hoped that we wouldn’t encounter anyone coming the other way. All the traffic seemed to consist of large, slow-moving flatbed trucks loaded with large chunks of marble.

  By the time we were halfway up, I was saying “oh my God” about every fifty feet—and now it wasn’t from fear. We were in the heart of the mountains; even the gravel by the side of the road was made up of white marble chips. Looking up, the tops of the mountains were wreathed in cloud, and we were headed straight for them. In some ways it looked like a moonscape—certainly not like any mountain I’d ever seen, because it was nearly monochromatic. And all that white slag that had looked like snow from a distance spilled down the slopes and rested where it fell.

  We were maybe two-thirds of the way to the top when the bus driver maneuvered the bus through a narrow driveway and into a parking lot. We tumbled out to find a scene with an air of unreality. There were sculptures in process; some men in masks were sanding and smoothing a few near a flimsy open shed. The workers were so covered with marble dust that they resembled statues themselves. Fragments of abandoned sculptures littered the surrounding ground as well—odd architectural bits and pieces, the occasional arm or foot, broken off or never finished. We humans in our brightly colored clothes looked out of place in this sere gray and white landscape.

  There were also two bathrooms, so everybody took her turn. One never knows where the next one will be.

  Finally Jane herded us toward another parking area, where there were some smaller vans (covered with white dust) waiting. Apparently we were going into the mountain, where we would get up close and personal with marble; we were going to follow in the footsteps of Michelangelo. If anyone had claustrophobia, now was the moment to declare it. Nobody did, or they didn’t admit to it: maybe curiosity outweighed panic.

  We boarded the vans and headed into a dark, narrow tunnel leading straight into the heart of the mountain. A long, long way ahead we could see where the tunnel emerged on the other side, but we stopped in a large chamber an equal distance from each end. We had arrived.

  We stumbled out of the small vans into a dark and dripping world. There were lights strung here and there but they cast huge shadows and left a lot of corners in darkness. A few pieces of large machinery lurked in the gloom, looking for all the world like mechanical dinosaurs, but nobody was using them at the moment. I wondered how much noise marble mining generated.

  Once we had regrouped, we were ordered to put on hard hats—there was a long row of tables with various sizes of them waiting for us. We all spent a couple of minutes trying on different hard hats until everyone was satisfied, as though style mattered a thousand feet underground. But there would be pictures, so maybe it did. Then the tour guide, a young, plump woman, stepped up and spoke in accented English.

  “You see where we come in? That is four hundred meters away—that is more than a thousand feet. The other end of the tunnel, the same. And the same again of marble below us, and the same above us. You are surrounded by the marble of the mountain.”

  That was a startling statement. We were standing literally in the heart of the mountain, and the rest of the world was no more than a small square of light a very long way away.

  She went on, about how the tunnels had first been built, about how the slabs of marble were cut and allowed to fall on giant pillows filled with marble dust (what else?), about the history of the families who had been carving marble for generation upon generation, even about safety regulations. A lot I tuned out, more fascinated by our unlikely situation. The scale of the space was so unreal, and we humans seemed so small in the midst of it. It was hard to estimate how far above our heads the “ceiling” was. It was even harder to imagine what cutting a multi-ton slab and detaching it from it
s matrix would be like. How did the workers stand it? I noticed that most of our group was equally distracted, staring up and around, walking through puddles underfoot without even noticing. Good thing there wasn’t going to be a pop quiz at the end of the tour, because I was pretty sure we’d all fail it. There was simply too much else to absorb.

  We must have spent half an hour inside, poking into dark corners, before we trooped back to the vans. On the way out I snagged a seat next to the tour guide.

  “How did they get the stone out of the caves and down the mountain back before there were trains and trucks?” I asked.

  “They would slide them. With lots of soap. And many men to hold them back with ropes.”

  Of course. Giant marble sleds. I wondered how often they had broken loose. How had they warned the people waiting below?

  When we had all returned to daylight, we made a beeline for the gift shop. It was funny to see everyone arguing over which piece or pieces of marble—in the form of coasters, statuettes, boxes and so on—to haul home with them, but I understood the desire. I knew I felt different after spending time inside the marble, and I wanted to bring home a keepsake. The matching salt and pepper shakers didn’t weigh that much, and I would remember the experience every time I sprinkled salt on something.

  The next stop was obvious: it was time for lunch. We dutifully boarded the bus and started the tortuous trek down the mountain. We could see huge holes punched in the sides of all the slopes, quarries that had been operating forever and were still going strong. How long would it take the world to run out of Carrara marble? It didn’t look as though it would happen any time soon.

  In a strange way it was a relief to be back on flat ground, in the middle of the modern world, although the mountains still loomed around us. The bus driver let us out next to a small park and we headed to a brightly lit restaurant a block away—which our group filled entirely. I found myself sitting with more people I hadn’t had time to have a real conversation with, but then the food started arriving and I shut the door on conversing to concentrate on what was in front of me. There was no way to speak privately in this melee, and I wanted to give the food the attention it was due.