The Woodcock Game: An Italian Mystery Novel

by Неизвестный

  Oh, good heavens, thought Nino, a snob, lookhowsmartIam kind of girl and maybe she is a hypochondriac.

  Nino had a special regard of hypochondriacs, those who came to his office being sure they were going to die and discovering they were not. They need a graduate human to tell them they’re ok, sometimes a biologist or a veterinarian is enough.

  But when he told them something was going on, they were disappointed, they asked twice.

  And they were scared twice and needed double explanations.

  After all, he knew well doctors have a time, in their studies, where they experience all ailments they’re studying.

  But after a few months, they completely forget they never had Wiskott- Aldrich illness and they begin to study with no further delay.

  "Doctor?"

  Nino realized he was not listening to Madeleine.

  "Forgive me" he said

  "I was wondering if you could tell me about my cousin, the woman of the woods ..."

  Nino looked at her with interest, her being so different from Charlize, elegant, yes, but over the top, while Charlize instead was so delicate even in the sleep of death, so discreet in her dress and make-up.

  He noticed it was not the first time he met someone who knew Charlize when alive, but it was the first time he felt someone who could tell him more about her.

  And, for the first time, he noticed how the Raineris had never mentioned an alive Charlize, but a sick one, a faded Charlize, come and gone like a foggy day.

  Madeleine smiled again, ready to explain her visit.

  "I did not want to waste your time, but your wife told me this was the quickest way to talk to you, you have many patients during your private practice"

  "You’re welcome, but I cannot give you much time here, but if you want I’ll be available this evening, after dinner"

  "I just need to know what you think; I would ask the police, but I don’t want to sound like a nervous suspect and I promise I’ll not get you into trouble. I just want to know how she died. They say an allergy "

  “Who?”

  “Raineris”

  "No, there were no signs of anaphylactic shock"

  "Right, that’s what I told them: Charlize had no allergies, if not a slight allergy to pine tree essential oil and pine trees in general"

  "How light?"

  "She scratched her hands, sometimes her neck, but nothing serious. She had that reaction to a bubble bath”

  Nino sighed.

  "She had a severe allergic reaction a few days before she died, a reaction which required cortisone" he said

  "Well, it was certainly not for that" said Madeleine with a nervous laugh

  "Tell me about Charlize" said Nino

  "She was a shy, introverted girl.

  Her father had not been close all of their lives and this was their main quarrel, so much that she took her mother’s name: von Berger.

  They had a fight and didn’t talk to each other for months; then he called her, in May, to tell her he was sick.

  When she met Ascanio, Charlize was returning from her father’s funeral, in Italy”

  "Do you think they ever spoke of her father? "

  Madeleine shifted on her seat.

  "He was very authoritative, old-fashioned. He was 20 years older than his wife and he had brought to America the old morality, typical of Italian bourgeoisie, which he belonged to.

  This I was told.

  That’s why Charlize’s parents split: my mother and her sister were daughters of the 60s and no one could confine them in a label.

  Charlize never mentioned her dad’s name and I guess she never did to Ascanio "

  Nino thought which sorrows Charlize had taken with her, sorrows he could have used to find her executioner , but she had lived that week almost hidden from the eyes of the town, a small village, where an American beauty couldn’t pass unnoticed.

  She had flown away quietly, leaving everyone to contemplate her face and imagine her life.

  "I wonder why such a sweet woman had no friends, no one who cries for her death, claims her remains; just you, I'm sorry to remark, who does not seem to be concerned and just formally came here and ask questions you’re not really interested in"

  Madeleine smiled and looked down.

  "Dottore” she whispered “Sorry I gave you the idea I’m silly and airhead, but I’m just a woman who loves flirting, longs to be looked at, but I really cared for her

  No, Charlize was not my friend, I didn’t even called her Zizì, like her friends did and I didn’t get along well with such a discreet and taciturn creature.

  I like to go to parties, travel, have fun in every possible way.

  She dreamed of big houses with flowers at the windows "

  "Ascanio says Charlize didn’t promise him anything, she was not going to marry him"

  Madeleine looked at him in surprise.

  "It's not what I was told" she firmly said

  "Did you meet Ascanio?"

  "No, I mean my cousin.

  She said: ‘there will be no wedding soon, after all', when she told me she made a mess. She added her wish to marry her love had a big obstacle "

  "Did she tell you about her feelings for Ascanio?"

  "Of course: she told me she had never felt so secure, that age difference did not frighten her and that she had finally found someone to share her passions"

  "Which passions?"

  Madeleine smiled.

  Her mind went to the golden days of her teen age years, when she studied in America.

  Her mother had married a German man working at the consulate in Venice; she had asked to go back to her mother’s birth country and she lived with Charlize in a small flat in New York.

  Her cousin had many passions: birdwatching, who she practiced with the guide who flirted with both of them; gathering flowers for the herbarium that Charlize kept up to date.

  And then there was painting, drawing and photography.

  "Charlize was full of passions" she said with a sigh and Nino noticed her eyes had changed; Madeleine wiped the delicate tear that appeared in her eyes and sadly stated:

  “I should have been more in touch for all these years…”

  Human souls can be fickle, Nino thought, and, in a moment can change a frivolous creature in a beautiful, sensitive woman.

  He thought how many times he judged on first impressions, as many do, letting the human mechanics, reminding of their primitive need to defend, accept or reject another soul, just basing the chance on the first moment in which two lives collide .

  And he thought we all fight the same battles for visibility, love and self-love, trying to experience what the hell we want our passage on Earth to be and how others perceive our experience.

  "Please" he said, handing her a tissue

  "Thanks" said Madeleine and gave him a mischievous smile, a moment, again showing that flirtatious nature that, now he knew, was hiding the need to have an answer: am I alive?

  "Sorry” he said “now I really can’t stay longer, there are patients out there and I owe them respect"

  Madeleine smiled.

  "Thank You"

  Nino got up and walked to the door with her, which he not often did, but the woman had touched his heart, with that bold malice turned into melancholy and sincere pain.

  He wanted to know more of who had been the woman of the woods, to see who could have wished her dead.

  "Would you come to dinner with us tomorrow?

  Madeleine smiled.

  “I’d love to, since the Raineris have not even thought of inviting me "

  “So let’s meet at 8pm, you know where I live, right?”

  “Sure, you’re renowned in this town, the receptionist told me immediately where to find you”

  Nino smiled.

  “It’s a small town, as is my fame ” he joked

  Nino closed the door, thinking that, maybe, Madeleine could lie and confuse even more what his mind was concealing about the murder: he
wondered why Charlize said she was 'not' concerned about the age difference.

  September 27th

  The morning was rather quiet, at Canali’s: Nino took his coffee, while Monica was about to begin her croissant.

  "Good morning papà, did you sleep well?" she said with a smile that lit up the room.

  Nino had an awful night and not a great awakening, but that smile was soothing all his pain and he wanted to immortalize it.

  "Wait till I put this on facebook" he said, taking the phone and taking a photo of his daughter.

  "So beautiful!

  So I’ll share my beautiful baby with the world"

  Monica gulped down her bite of croissant laughing and reached for her father to smack him a big kiss and Nino forgot about Madeleine and Charlize and Ascanio for a while '.

  "I'm jealous!" Said Elisa entering, joining their laughter

  She kissed her mother first, then Nino.

  "Not you, I'm mad at you because you steal attention" she said, frowning, but her sister gently push her off balance she had to cling to regain, while they kissed each other.

  She sat at their breakfast table.

  "I was just passing by….chance" said Elisa laughing and biting a brioche

  "And, by chance, would you like a bit of coffee?" said Emma pouring her a fresh, hot coffee.

  "Any news on the crime?" Elisa asked, watching her father

  Nino, who had forgotten about that for a while, turned serious.

  "Your father received a visit from her cousin"

  Elisa looked at him, without saying a word, intent upon her croissant she had just bitten.

  "I don’t know what to say" he nodded "A frail woman, but smart enough not to say anything that would involve her or get her in troubles"

  "It looks like a potential offender who is afraid of being discovered" said Elisa

  "That’s what I thought too.

  And I'll tell you: suddenly, after a few minutes she was talking to me, there was a transformation that made me think she repented of something ... but there was nothing ambiguous or bad, only a thin, bitter remorse "

  No one spoke for a few minutes.

  "Who knows how Ascanio is coping with this tragedy?"

  Nino surprisingly noticed he hadn’t heard from any of the Raineris, even Davide seemed to be silent…too silent at least.

  "I'd like to know how the Guastalli Raineri are handling grief" said Emma

  "The Guastalli Raineris will handle that like they handle everything" said Elisa "with poise and confidence, that is, without shedding a tear"

  Just as she finished the sentence, Elisa got up.

  "See you love, I’m in a hurry: I have to go to the post office before going to work. Hello folks, hello Doctor " she finally said, kissing her father

  “I’m coming out with you, I’m late too”

  When Nino got in the car and the phone rang, showing Ghidelli’s name, he was happy he started the day with his daughters’ smile.

  "Doctor, do you have some free time today?" asked Ghidelli

  "The great pathologist, the grumpy and impatient pathologist, the judge of us fans of Law&Order wants to see me?"

  "Yes, yes, be sarcastic, I deserve it, but I need you. And I'll deny I ever said so "

  Well, Nino thought, what would I have to pay for this satisfaction?

  He entered his office smiling, letting his patients see the vulnerable man, instead of the stern doctor.

  He spent the morning visiting and thinking of what Ghidelli could want, even coffee with colleagues and his father didn’t do something to his mood.

  "What's wrong?" asked Giacomo Canali

  "Well ... don’t know, there’s something I have under my nose, every time I meet one of the Raineris, but I can’t figure out what it is. It makes me mad, it seems they’re all hiding something, but each one of them conceals something different.

  Everyone had a reason to be angry with Charlize, though none enough to kill her "

  "But the autopsy says 'natural death'"

  "Come on, Dad, you know how many poisons and methods can simulate a natural death. No one hides a corpse that died naturally "

  Giacomo smiled at his son's words.

  "Think of the woodcock" he said looking into his eyes

  "What?"

  Giacomo Canali turned to leave, but repeated, without looking back and waving good bye

  "Think of the woodcock"

  Nino had thought of those words the whole morning, but as he stepped out of the car, at 12:30, to enter the kingdom of Ghidelli, he was smiling, amused the pathologist had to ask him something.

  He walked down the long corridor and, when he got to the door, he knocked.

  "Come in" said an angry tone

  "Good afternoon sweet pie" said Nino, without holding back the urge to tease him a bit

  "Yes, to you muffin" said an annoyed Ghidelli "You do not know how much it costs me to ask this"

  The two doctors looked at each other and burst out laughing: they teased each other and sometimes Ghidelli played the hostile game, but they had known each other for so long that there were no edges to smooth out.

  They were, plain and simply, friends.

  "What do you want?" said Nino approaching him and giving a gentle pat on his friend’s back

  "Look" the man said, handing him a paper

  Nino read it for a few minutes.

  "Oh man!"

  "Yes.

  Pine tree essence was on both hands, sprinkled with an ointment to cure colds, but she had no signs of allergy.

  So ... "

  "... Someone wanted us to believe that her death was due to an allergy, but the ointment was applied after she was dead"

  "Well, her hands were soft because the ointment was oily"

  "So maybe her hands were not softened and fragranced to confuse the dogs"

  "No, apparently being found by hunters was not in the murderer’s plans"

  Nino sighed: a body carefully laid and covered with leaves, with a strong scent on it that any police dog could easily find, once the woman was reported missing and a whole family, the Guastalli Raineri, reluctant to report the disappearance of Charlize but ready to steer investigators on the woman’s allergy.

  None of them, however, could have know Charlize’s allergy couldn’t kill her

  "Her cousin confirmed Charlize Von Berger didn’t need cortisone.

  she says that, at most, she had itching and redness. In short, if she made a pine bath she’d scratch a bit, nothing more "

  Ghidelli showed Nino another paper.

  "Look here"

  Nino read, then looked at Ghidelli and chuckled sarcastically.

  "This is Charlize’s father?"

  "Him" confirmed Ghidelli

  "But ... then ..."

  "No. That's the nice thing about that: La Signora is not telling us everything "

  "Yes, I think she is not the fairy queen with blue hair who wants us to believe"

  "But there’s another thing that made me think how using pine tree essence and ...."

  Ghidelli put something in the microscope, moved away a bit and invited Nino, with a nod, to look inside.

  Nino raised his face and watched him.

  "Nicotine?"

  "So, I asked myself: why is someone using pine tree oil on someone who’s allergic to it, if they’re already dead?

  Not to make us believe she died from that, everyone knows a corpse will not have allergic reactions.

  And even to sidetrack dogs.

  No, he did it to erase something else and then ... "

  Ghidelli showed Nino a report.

  "Nicotine on her hands" concluded the pathologist

  "I remember my mom used to clean nicotine stains with a mixture of essential oils, including pine tree" said Nino

  "Yeah ... I thought it would serve to remove at least the smell"

  Nino took the phone and dialed his mother’s number.

  "Ciao mamma, can you please
tell me how you used to clean the nicotine stains, do you remember that ointment with essential oils? Pine tree, maybe? "

  He nodded a few times.

  "Thanks, Mom. We’ll meet today at four, as usual "

  He switched off the phone and smiled at Ghidelli.

  "Pine oil is the main component to remove brown stains from nicotine"

  Nino looked again inside the microscope.

  "But Charlize" continued Ghidelli "was not a smoker, so she could not have nicotine on her hands if not accidentally"

  "Unnecessary and naive attempt to sidetrack the investigation?"

  "And why remove it, or at least trying?

  Now, to find the murderer, we have to understand why he made such a mess and… "

  A mess…that was the word Charlize used to describe her situation.

  "Someone who did not commit the murder, but found her"

  “Or someone who wanted to hide another’mess’” Nino said

  "There's one more thing" said the pathologist

  He showed a paper.

  "We found traces of nicotine in her ears. A lethal dose "

  Nino took a deep breath.

  "Assuming that nicotine in its pure state is lethal in two drops, it is not hard to understand how she died"

  "Cardiac arrest. I told you she had simply surrendered "

  "Any ear infection?"

  "No, and there’s no trace of a drug mixed with nicotine"

  "So?"

  "So there’s a trace of foam rubber, she put the earplugs in. And she died "

  "The needle scratch on her arm?"

  "She tried to get cortisone, probably she bought the kit, frightened by the reaction of a few days before"

  "Feeling bad, she believed she was going to have another crisis ... after all she was in the house of a painter with dozens of bottles of pine tree oil"

  Ghidelli turned to the table where the papers were.

  "The so-called crisis of the previous days was not an allergy ..."

  "But a wrong dose of nicotine" concluded Ghidelli

  Nino breathed heavily.

  "The murderer did not know the lethal dose, but that only very little is needed"

  "Exactly, and the second time, it gave Charlize time to take the kit, but this time not enough to save her. Do you agree? "

  Nino nodded.

  "Yes, it is plausible. It’s not difficult to understand who decided the body had to disappear "