The Suicide King

by Kristi Belcamino

  “Now, now, AnnaMarie. Your vulgarity makes you seem weak and desperate. Why don’t you try again? Or better yet, we can end this right there and right now if you tell me his name.”

  Eva heard weeping in the background—children wailing and crying.

  Her heart lifted in relief. Killing children was not part of her plan.

  “Antonio Turricci.” AnnaMarie spluttered the name and hung up.

  27

  Sunlight blazing through the hospital windows woke me. I blinked and lifted a hand to shield my eyes. My first conscious thought was that my head and neck and legs hurt. The second was that Bobby was dead.

  Mrs. Marino was slumped in the corner of the couch sleeping. Someone had put scratchy blankets over us. I unfolded myself from the couch and put my blanket on her. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I needed to find a bathroom and then Dante.

  A nurse gave me a glance as I stood. I pointed toward Mrs. Marino. “Can you tell her I’ll be back soon?”

  “Yes.” The woman spoke English. A small mercy. She pointed me toward a bathroom and then told me what room Matt was in.

  I stood in the doorway of Matt’s room, feeling numb.

  Dante had pulled a chair up to the bed and had his dark head resting near Matt’s shoulder. His mouth was open as he slept. Matt had more tubes coming out of him and was surrounded by more machines than I’d ever seen. My stomach dropped. It didn’t look good.

  I pulled up the other chair by Dante’s. He stirred at the noise of the slight scraping and lifted his head abruptly. “What?”

  His eyes focused on Matt and he let out a sob. I touched his arm. He swiveled his head, looking confused to see me beside him.

  “Is he conscious?” I asked, looking at Matt.

  He shook his head sadly.

  “Oh no.” I felt like I’d never said words so ineffectual. Had never uttered such an understatement.

  Dante glanced at me. “I’m sorry about Bobby. I never said that last night. I was so concerned with telling you about Matt, I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry about Bobby.” His voice choked on a sob.

  All I could do was nod. I had no words. And I had no tears. I was numb.

  Mrs. Marino rushed into the room. When I looked up, I saw two police officers standing in the doorway flanking her.

  “Ms. Santella? Mr. Marino?”

  They wanted us to go to the police station so we could provide information about the shooting for the investigation.

  The inspector looked frazzled when we walked into his office. He was younger and more attractive than I’d expected. I’d imagined some gray-haired, paunchy guy with a droopy mustache. Instead he had short hair, a trim goatee, and wire-framed glasses.

  His desk was piled with papers that he shuffled around. He acted as if we were an irritation. The police officers who had escorted us in said something in Italian and then closed the door behind us.

  He stood, came around and shook our hands and then gestured for us to sit. I hoped he spoke English because otherwise this was a colossal waste of time.

  “I’m Inspector Brossard. Mrs. Marino? Ms. Santella? Thank you for agreeing to come in.”

  We nodded. He jutted his chin at me. “I’m very sorry about your loss.”

  I pressed my lips together, afraid to speak, but gave a slight nod.

  For the next hour, we both gave our accounts of the shooting. Inspector Brossard was interested that we had both been in different locations during the shooting. Since Mrs. Marino had been in the courtyard, he wanted to hear what she said first.

  I listened intently when Mrs. Marino described what she had seen.

  They had just brought out the food and placed it on the buffet table when she heard noises.

  “I thought someone was popping balloons. Like little children,” she said. Her voice was wobbly. The shooting had aged her twenty years.

  “But then Matt fell. I didn’t see much after that because Dante threw me to the ground and stayed on top of me until, until they were gone.”

  The inspector asked her to further describe the positions of the three of them. She and Dante had basically fallen behind Matt’s body. Matt had shielded them.

  “Did you see anything at all that help identify these people with the guns?” He looked over his glasses as he spoke.

  I noticed how carefully he had worded that. Had she seen the murderers, is what I wanted to scream, but I kept my mouth firmly shut.

  “No,” she sobbed, as if everything depended on her answer. “No. No, I’m sorry I didn’t. But I thought I heard them speaking Italian.”

  The inspector looked skeptical.

  Then I told him what I had seen from the balcony. He’d been taking notes, but as soon as I mentioned seeing the woman, his pen froze in mid-air. He’d been less than interested in my description of the bikers, but the woman had given him pause.

  He looked up. “Can you describe her further?”

  “Not really. She had long hair. She wore black. She seemed, I don’t know, voluptuous. Her clothing was very formfitting and showed her curves.” It felt stupid describing her this way, but I wanted to be as accurate as possible.

  When I finished speaking, I waited for him to look at me again. “Do you think she did it? Who is she? Why?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead he just stared at me for a few seconds, locking eyes with me. I finally had to look away. Then, to my surprise, he answered. “No, I don’t think she did it.”

  I looked up, astonished. “What?” I was confused.

  “Could I please have your phone numbers and the names of the hotels where you will be staying?”

  Mrs. Marino rattled off her information while I stared at him. He looked my way. I dug into my bag. I dumped out my pile of my travel documents, searching for the address of the villa. My papers splayed across his desk. Then I found a slip of paper with what I needed and scribbled down the address of the villa and my cell number. I pushed it his way, but he seemed not to see it. His face had grown white. He was staring at a piece of paper with my writing on it. It contained information about my mother’s villa in Sicily. An address and her name and some other contact names and phone numbers. Bobby and I had planned to visit the villa my mother owned on Tuesday. The realization that Bobby was dead struck me like a punch to the gut. A sob rose to my throat and I gasped.

  The inspector looked up at me, startled.

  “Sorry. It’s just—” I burst into tears before I could finish my sentence. Mrs. Marino dabbed at my tears and rubbed my back, speaking soothing words in my ear. “Poor baby. My love. Now, now. My love.”

  When I looked up, Inspector Brossard was intently writing something in his notes, hiding his writing with the palm of his other hand and still looking at the piece of paper with my mother’s information. He looked at me with hooded eyes. I opened my eyes wide and snatched the piece of paper off the desk, shoving it into my bag with my other belongings.

  “Were you planning on leaving the Amalfi coast anytime soon?” he asked casually.

  Was that what this was all about? I was suspicious that he was writing down the villa address in case he needed to come arrest me for murdering my own goddamn boyfriend. I stood so abruptly my chair tipped over backward. Deep down I knew my anger was emerging in place of all-consuming grief that would bring me to my knees never to rise again.

  “Are we done here, Inspector?”

  “Mrs. Santella, I need to know if you plan to leave the area.”

  “It’s miss. And yes, I plan to leave the area. I don’t fucking live here, do I? I plan on going back home to California, Inspector Brossard.” I shot a glance at Mrs. Marino, hoping I didn’t offend her with my language, but she just patted my arm reassuringly.

  He shuffled his papers again and stood, fingering his goatee as if he were already thinking of something else. “Thank you for your time.” He opened his office door. Mrs. Marino walked out, but I stayed put. When I realized he wouldn’t look at me and
wasn’t going to budge until I left, I stood. He walked me to the office door.

  At the door, I paused, getting right in his face.

  “I don’t appreciate being treated like a suspect when the man I love was just murdered.” I hissed the words in a low voice.

  “You are not being treated like a suspect.” His voice was calm and matter-of-fact. His English crisp. No accent apparent.

  I spluttered for a second and then said, “It doesn’t seem like you are taking this very seriously. You are treating me suspiciously and then you rule out, discount, what I saw.” Anger surged through me, and I couldn’t stop. “And you didn’t appear very interested that Matt had been threatened in Washington, D.C. Who else died last night? Any politicians? On which side of the health care plan were they? I think you need to bring in the FBI or CIA or something. You need to figure out who the fuck killed my boyfriend! And you are dismissing your best lead. I saw a woman acting strangely and then fleeing the scene. And, by the way, did you question the woman on the balcony next to mine? She might have seen the same thing.”

  Finally, I ran out of breath and stood there panting.

  Brossard stayed silent, his lips pressed tightly together. His face expressionless.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, raising my voice. “How can you say you don’t think she did it?”

  “Arrivederci.” He stepped back inside his office, closing the door behind him. I tried the handle. It was locked. For a second I stared at the door, my hands balled into fists. I wanted to pound on the door. Looking down and seeing my already scabbed-over knuckles from pounding on the glass in the back of the squad car, I turned and sank into Mrs. Marino’s waiting arms.

  28

  Antonio Turricci.

  It was nearly the same name as the man that had killed her sister. That man, whom Gia had ended up killing was named Matteo Antonio Turricci.

  Now that she knew her niece was alive, Eva would hunt this Turricci down and make him pay dearly for Chiara’s death.

  Francesca ordered her to leave and return to the villa immediately.

  “I need to warn Gia.”

  “Yes,” Francesca agreed. “But in ten minutes, every square inch of that coast is going to be crawling with not only polizia but American law enforcement. An American senator was shot, Eva. You’d be a fool to stay. Gia is safe for now in police custody.”

  “We know that’s not necessarily true,” Eva said. “But if you say I’m a fool to stay, I will come home. You are always right about these things.”

  Still, Eva felt guilty as she drove south to her villa.

  But it made sense to come home where she could access her bank of computers and do some hacking to find out where the killer might be hiding—or attacking—next.

  Meanwhile, she’d had Francesca spread the word along the Amalfi Coast about Gia. Anyone who saw her was asked to immediately call and report her whereabouts.

  On the drive home, Eva learned that Francesca’s source within the police department had said the young woman had left the station immediately after being questioned. But nobody knew where she’d gone. Eva would either find the woman’s cell phone number or figure out where she was staying and warn her. She must leave Italy immediately. Her life was in danger.

  In her digging, Eva found details of how Gia’s trip had come about by way of a gossip column in the San Francisco daily newspaper’s online section.

  Gia had flown to Italy to attend the wedding of Calistoga restaurant owner Dante Marino and an up-and-coming state senator, Matt Stinson. The senator had made some enemies with a new healthcare proposal and had received death threats the day before. Several politicians had flown to Italy for the wedding. Witnesses said the shooters did not seem to have clear targets.

  The gossip column didn’t mention Gia.

  She researched every airline with flights leaving from San Francisco to Italy the two days before the wedding. Armed with that information, Eva hacked into the airline’s passenger manifests for all the possible flights until she found Gia Santella’s name.

  She had purchased the tickets for her and her companion, Bobby Kostas.

  The threats against the senator gave Eva pause.

  Even though she’d seen an Italian man instructing the motorcycle-bound killers, there was nothing to say that all of them hadn’t been hired by American politicians. But then again, her gut instinct told her the attack was strictly for her benefit.

  After all, Chiara’s body had contained a clear message: “Next time it’s personal.”

  Soon, she’d learned a little about Turricci, mainly from Italian gossip columns. She’d learned, for instance, that he was someone who would be ostentatious enough to drive a car like the white vintage Lancia she’d seen.

  If she could tie him to the car, she would have proof that he was behind the shooting and that the target was indeed her niece. That would rule out the possibility that a group of Italians had been hired to take out the senator.

  Eva found a magazine profile of Turricci. The large photo that took up both sides of the magazine showed him leaning against the Lancia with a cigar in his hand. He wore white jeans and loafers without socks and a buttercup yellow V-neck sweater.

  His features were rugged but handsome. Carved cheekbones flecked with a five o’clock shadow. Black eyes. Full lips. Thick black head of slicked back hair.

  It was him.

  She stared at a few other photos of him that came up, but only long enough to confirm that it was the man she’d seen parked in the alley across from the hotel. The man driving the vintage white car.

  It was Turricci. The attack at Hotel Rizzoli was for her benefit.

  But something had gone wrong. Gia had lived.

  Had that been Turricci’s intention?

  Eva stood up and dialed Francesca’s line. It was four a.m.

  “Ciao bella?”

  “Gia was the target. I need to go back and find her and warn her, convince her to leave Italy. Can you contact your source in the Positano police department and ask if anyone picked Gia up from the station?”

  “Already done. The boyfriend is dead. Lieutenant Brossard confirmed that Gia left the station alone. He said she was staying at a villa nearby, but when he tried to contact her a few hours later, the caretaker said she wasn’t there. We could check airports in to see if she is taking a flight back to America, but I don’t think she is. They have not released her boyfriend’s body yet.”

  “Bobby?”

  “Yes,” Francesca said. “I suspect she will wait for that to happen. Although, I’m a little baffled as to why she would check out of the villa they rented early. I don’t know what she might be up to. She was spotted at the hospital, where the man, Dante, is, but she is no longer there.”

  Eva was silent for a few seconds and then said. “Spread the word we want to speak to her.”

  “It is done.”

  “I should get back in my car and drive straight back there to warn her. Or stop Turricci in case he’s planning to attack her again.”

  “I just got word that Turricci was seen on the ferry back to Sicily earlier.”

  “Dio Santo!” Once he was in Sicily, the ante was upped. Travel to Sicily with Don Pedro’s evil bitch wife after her would be even more dangerous.

  “Eva,” Francesca said, taking a motherly tone. “Go lay down. Get some sleep so you can have a fresh mind to hunt Turricci down and make him pay.”

  Eva never argued with Francesca.

  Within twenty minutes she was in bed and asleep.

  A few hours later, while the two women drank espresso, Francesca handed her a newspaper article about the Positano slayings.

  The shooting had made international news. Along with Gia’s boyfriend, three other people were dead. One was a Republican, Senator Stan Larkin. He’d been on the other side of the health care plan. He was someone Matt Stinson had been trying to woo into coming over to his side. The article said the two men were friends but had opposite position
s on the proposed bill.

  “Witnesses said four gunmen in black with black sunglasses burst into the courtyard and began firing semi-automatic weapons, slaying four people. Ten others were taken to the hospital. Three remain in critical condition, including United States Senator Matt Stinson.

  “Authorities say that they are investigating the shooting, which targeted a wedding reception for Stinson who had wed his longtime boyfriend, Dante Marino, earlier that day. The thirty-one-year-old senator was targeted last week in Washington, D.C., by a group that opposes his new health care plan, and authorities are investigating whether factions of this group traveled overseas to assassinate the senator.

  “Witnesses speculate that the target of the shooting was the senator. It seemed that the motorcyclists paused in the doorway until they located Senator Stinson and then began to fire, according to one witness, who asked that her name not be used. The woman, a resident of Positano, said the men looked like La Cosa Nostra, and she feared for her life if her identity was revealed.

  “A source from within the police department said investigators are looking at a possible organized crime connection. But the source says he cannot fathom any reason the mafia would target the senator. It would be a risky move and uncharacteristic for the crime organization to go after American tourists.”

  But Eva knew. La Cosa Nostra targeting her niece.

  “I need to know Turricci’s social schedule. I need to know where he lives. What he does. What time he goes to the bathroom. Everything.”

  “You will find it,” Francesca said. “Maybe not right away, but you will. I have no doubt.”

  Eva gave her a wry look. “Thanks.”

  Francesca left and Eva kept digging.

  After several dead ends, Eva’s research paid off. A ball was being held in three nights in Sicily. Turricci would be there. Because it was more dangerous than ever to enter Sicily, Eva would have to have a foolproof plan to sneak into the country, then into the ball, and kill Turricci with her bare hands. As she studied satellite images and blueprints of the mansion where the ball was being held, Francesca knocked and then entered Eva’s office.