by Julie Sarff
Twenty minutes later, the second policeman, whose name happens to be Signor Techetti, led Alice and me into a 1950’s-style post-war concrete police building. Brandon and Justin, having followed us the entire way, were instructed to wait in the lobby while Alice and I were “processed” in the back. Alice turned a pasty white color as she was fingerprinted.
“Look here,” I said authoritatively while the policewoman pressed my index finger into ink and then rolled it back and forth on a small white piece of paper, “What is my aunt charged with?”
The policewoman glared at me darkly before informing me it was none of my business. Then, she wiped my finger with a tissue and escorted me to this dank holding cell.
Now here I am. I stare across the room at the scary, squalid, stainless-steel urinal on the wall and faster than you can say “power of suggestion,” I have to pee. My subconscious knows there’s no way I could ever use that toilet and so the inevitable has happened; I now have to pee so desperately that I cross my legs tight.
“Guard,” I holler. “Guard!” What are they feeding these policemen? The one who gets up from a small desk at the far end of a dark hall and waddles my way is as enormous as that burly man whose nose I broke. (Yes, turns out I broke it. He had to go straight from the police station to the hospital and the police woman who fingerprinted us told me I was in big, big trouble. She made it sound like I may never feel the sun on my face again.) I stare in awe at this huge guard who shuffles over to the bars on our cell, looking like an overstuffed plush bear.
“What is it that you want?”
“I have to pee?”
“Have at it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Pee, here? Where other people can see me?”
“Signora, you are the only one in the cell. In fact, you and your aunt are the only ones at the police station at the moment, so go ahead, have at it.”
“B-but you’re here.”
“I’ll go back to my desk, you’ll have complete privacy,” the fat man breathes. He makes a great show of turning around and shuffling back to his desk where he busies himself with a bunch of papers.
Okay, I can do this. How long will I be inside an Italian prison for assault? Who knows? Look at what happened to poor Amanda Knox. She spent years in prison before they found her not guilty. I have to get used to it. Moving as fast as I can, I drop my beautiful pants and underwear to the floor. Then I squat. Gee, now that I’m here I can’t manage a drop. I concentrate harder. Nope, not one measly drop. Hmm, fancy that, I guess I didn’t have to pee after all. Indeed, it was the power of suggestion.
I chock it up to nerves, pull up my underwear and pants before returning to sitting on the cold bench, staring straight ahead. How long have I been in this cell? Hours? Time dribbles slowly like the continual drip of Brandon’s broken kitchen faucet. I worry about Alice. How will she survive this cell? It’s filthy. Well, it’s not that filthy. It smells as if it has been scrubbed with bleach, but still, Alice’s standards of cleanliness are so high that anything outside her own house and Ca’ Buschi are considered positively verminous.
Unbelievably, time slows down even more and just when I think I can’t take it anymore, there she is. Alice is coming through the door that leads to the police office where we were “processed.” She’s being led by yet another police officer. He enters some numbers on an electronic keyboard and the gate slides open. Alice trudges in looking like a cow on its way to slaughter.
“Alice, oh, Alice, what is going on?”
Alice sinks down beside me on the cold bench and is ghostly quiet. I try to soothe her by throwing my arms around her and squeezing tight. “Oh, God, Alice, it’s so good to see you. They’ve been keeping me here by myself in solitary! It’s horrible. They must be trying to shake me down.”
Alice looks disdainfully at the arms that embrace her. I’ll give her credit, even in her darkest hour, she doesn’t give way to sentiment. She’s not a hugger.
“Lily, get a hold of yourself. You haven’t been in solitary. We’ve only been at the station ten minutes.”
“What?” I pull free.
She taps her watch, “Ten minutes, Lily, that’s it.”
My goodness, time in prison is absolutely glacial.
“Alice,” my voice rises, “What’s going on, why are we here?”
“Oh, Lily, do be quiet. Allow a woman to think.”
“But fraud, Alice? What fraud?”
Alice stares at me. Her face is a mixture of emotions, mostly befuddlement and concern. I can tell by the way she glares at me that she never thought she would end up here, in a jail cell in her home town.
“I don’t know,” Alice answers quietly, “I really don’t.”
“Well, they must have said something?” I huff.
Alice lets out a sigh. “All they did was fingerprint me like they did you. They took my mugshot, too. There hasn’t been much time for anything else. I asked them why I was here and they repeated that I was being charged with conspiracy to commit fraud. It’s very bizarre. They said that Signor di Meo has been arrested as well. I have no idea what they’re talking about.” She twists her wedding band around her finger in anxiety. “Nothing makes sense. It’s as if the whole world’s gone mad.”
“Signor di Meo?” I whisper. In the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind the wheels begin to spin. Signor di Meo is Arona’s florist. He’s the man who keeps Villa Buschi in epic displays when Brandon is in residence. A veritable creative genius, I was just admiring his huge vase of dusky orchids that adorn the dining room table --they’re di Meo’s take on Easter holiday chic. He’s also trimmed the villa staircase in more traditional holiday palate of pastel colored flowers woven into a swag. It’s quite breathtaking. Where he gets all his fancy ideas, I’ll never know, but I bet I’d fall over dead if I ever saw what he charges Brandon for one of those beautiful displays. I’m pretty sure each one is more than I make in a week.
Anyway, as I remember quite well, there’s much more to the florist than just a passion for flowers. Not long ago, I learned some shocking news about Signor di Meo. News so sordid that for the last several months, every time I see him out and about in Arona, I scowl. Yes, I throw him a harsh glare, because Arona’s finest florist had an affair with one of the woman on the list that Francesca, Rupa, and I found at the Buschi’s second estate in Switzerland. And when we visited with that same woman to find out if she was the missing heir, she had much to say about Signor di Meo. I’m trying to recall the exact word she used to describe her ex-lover. Shyster. That’s right. That’s what Signora Tazzini called him. From her account of their brief affair, it appears as though di Meo was also searching for the Buschi heir. After all, he sought Signora Tazzini out and then seduced her. It sounds like he believed Signora Tazzini was Carlo Buschi’s daughter. But why? How did he know?
What makes this story all the more puzzling is that Signor di Meo was searching for the missing heir long before any of us at Villa Buschi even knew such a person existed. As the timeline goes, we, the staff, found out about the missing heir a little over a year after the Tazzini/di Meo affair was called off. We found out when Signor Fini from the tax office came to inform us that the Italian state was holding 21 million euro in escrow from the sale of the Buschi estate for Carlo’s long, lost daughter. And how did Signor Fini know about this woman? Signor Fini knew about her because when Buschi’s Roman lawyer died, the lawyer’s wife went to clean out his files and found the mysterious will, which she then turned over to the government.
It’s all enough to make one’s head spin. But like they say in late night advertisements, Wait, there’s more.
Ever since I met the forlorn Signora Tazzini, I have believed that di Meo’s original plan was to divorce his current wife, and marry the Buschi heir. He was moving fast, seducing Signora Tazzini, and hoping she wouldn’t find out about the 21 million euros until after they had put a ring on it. But, when he learned she was only Buschi’s goddaughter, he went running back to h
is wife. It was all absolutely appalling behavior, but what does any of this have to do with Alice?
All of a sudden, I don’t feel so good. There’s something about being incarcerated. It’s quite suffocating, as if the walls are closing in. My mind begins a series of horrible thoughts. What will happen to me if I go to prison? What will happen to my children? Here I am seeking sole custody of my children from Enrico, claiming that he’s an unfit parent after the whole Federica incident and now what?
A thousand more black thoughts run through my head. My children being forced to live with Enrico while he carries on with one woman after another. Brandon sleeping restlessly by himself, waiting years for my prison term to end.
“And who will feed Rocket? Who will take care of my cat if I am carted off to prison?” I murmur out loud.
“I’m sure your friend Rupa will take him in. Honestly Lily, you’re getting ahead of yourself. Neither of us has been charged with anything yet, have we?”
I stare at her blankly. “Alice, how did we get here? How is it that there are so few crimes in Arona, and yet lately I am connected to all of them? First Federica shot Enrico and was put in prison, and now it’s me and you.”
“Well, you got here because you broke a policeman’s nose. You’re in trouble for that. Big, big trouble.”
Why does everyone keep saying that? I swear I feel like I am five years old and Martha Finch has just ratted me out to my mother for using the p-word.
“Lily Bilbury? Alice Bettonina?” The big, plush guard calls out, interrupting Alice, who I believe was winding up for a long lecture on what happens to women who assault members of the police force.
“Si?” we both respond, rising to our feet as the guard reaches the bars of our cell.
“Your lawyer is here.”
Our lawyer? Well, that was fast, Thank heavens Brandon has one on speed dial. The door at the other end of the hallway opens and I am over the moon to see Dario, Rupa’s husband, step through the doorway wearing his signature pinstriped suit.
“Thank goodness!” I shout. The guard punches in the number on the keypad near our cell and the gate slides open. In slips Dario.
“Please, Lily, I beg of you to let go,” he says a moment later. In my sheer terror of being sent to prison, I have latched onto Dario like a vise. Gently, he unwraps my arms before sitting down beside Alice on the bench.
“Drove as fast as I could to get here. Luckily, I was at a client’s nearby and wasn’t working out of the Milan office today. Although I’m not sure how much use I can be to you. After all, I am not a criminal lawyer.”
“Criminal?” Alice cries out, “Why would we need a criminal lawyer?”
Oh my, she’s in such denial. Of course we need a criminal lawyer. We’re sitting in an Italian jail cell.
“Signora Bettonina, it was all I could do to get the police to tell me your charges. Apparently, they are about to charge you with conspiracy to commit fraud stemming from the sale of the villa after the death of Carlo Buschi.”
“Huh?” Alice and I both say in unison.
“At this point that’s all I know. That and the florist has been arrested too.”
There’s silence. Alice looks down at her hands, and I notice they’re shaking.
“But, obviously, they’ve got the wrong woman here in Alice.” I point at her dramatically. “Although that Signor di Meo is a shyster and an adulterer.”
“Lily!” Alice reprimands at the same time that Dario says, “Now, what makes you say that?”
It takes me a few minutes and a lot of energetic miming to repeat the story I learned from Signora Tazzini. When I’m done, Alice cuts in, “Come to think of it, Signor di Meo had a strange relationship with Carlo Buschi in those later years. They would lock themselves away in the library and gossip away. I never knew what they were talking about. Sometimes Signor Tacchini would join them in the office and three of them would sit around and smoke pipes. Bah, pipe smoke, it’s impossible to get out of the curtains.”
I stare at Alice and blink. “AND?” I shout so loud that I startle the guard at his desk on the other end of the hall.
“And,” Alice continues slowly, “I think in Buschi’s later years, those were the two people he confided in. The rest of us at the villa were just staff.”
Well, actually Buschi confided in three people at the end of his life, I think as I sit there and chew it all over in my mind. Buschi confided in Carmelina Cavale too, didn’t he? Maybe not about his daughter though? Maybe only Signor di Meo and Signor Tacchini knew about the existence of a daughter.
Shrewdly, I decide there is no reason to bring poor, deceased Carmelina into this whole mess. I glance over at Dario, his forehead crinkled with dozens of wrinkles as he considers Alice’s information.
“Alice,” I ask, “What happened when Carlo Buschi died. I mean with the house, why was it sold?”
“What do you mean ‘why was it sold?’ What a dumb question, Lily. We, the staff, knew nothing about an heir or a will or anything, and then a tax man from Stresa arrived and said Buschi owed the state a lot of money and it had to be sold.” Abruptly, she gasps and puts a hand over her mouth.
“What is it, Signora Bettonina,” Dario asks.
“Signor di Meo jumped right in to help sell the house. He connected me with his cousin who was in the real estate business. His cousin arranged for it to be sold at auction.”
Dario’s eyes narrow.
“Oh, there’s something nefarious afoot here,” I interject. “I mean, we know from Signora Tazzini that Signor di Meo was searching for the heir. He used her. He thought Signora Tazzini was the heir and was cozying up to her in case she was going to inherit the villa, but when she turned out not to be the daughter, he dumped her.”
“So whatever money he may have received in participating in the sale of the house, it wasn’t enough,” Dario’s mind is clicking away and he’s saying what I now suspect to be true. “Knowing there was a daughter out there who stood to inherit a fortune, he must have decided to do a bit of searching on his own.”
Alice frowns. Her worried expression belies the fact that she’s having a hard time believing this whole conversation. “But,” Alice says slowly, “If we hadn’t sold the house, how else would we have been able to pay the back taxes on the villa?”
“It doesn’t matter, Alice, if Signor di Meo knew of the existence of an heir, or more importantly, if he knew of the existence of a will that gave Villa Buschi to the heir. It should have never been sold without the consent of that person.”
“Pfffft,” Alice lets out a sound like a slow leak, “But the will is a disaster, the daughter is not even named. How can that be legal?”
Dario scratches his head. Even in his nicest suit he still looks like a peasant with his big round face and bright sparkly eyes. He has rosy cheeks too, as if he spends the whole day out-of-doors instead of cooped up in some office building. “I’m afraid I don’t have the answers. None of this is my expertise. I am an expert in international law, although as of a month ago, I became Mr. Logan’s personal lawyer in Italy.”
A month ago? He became Brandon’s personal lawyer a month ago? What is Brandon up to? Why didn’t he mention he had hired Rupa’s husband as his lawyer?
“What we’re going to need here is an expert in criminal law and I’ve made a few calls. In the meantime, I think it might be a good idea to have a look into Signor di Meo’s assets in the years that followed Signor Buschi’s death.”
“Why?” Alice asks skeptically and I lean in closer to Dario to hear the answer.
“The Italian government must know the same thing that you ladies have just told me. I don’t think they know about Signor di Meo seeking out the Buschi heir, how would they? And I definitely don’t think they knew he had knowledge of the existence of a will. So here’s what I suspect; the sale of Villa Buschi must not have been on the up and up. I would suspect that if we look at Signor di Meo’s assets after the house was sold, we might see an increase i
n his bank account or something. And I don’t believe the story about back taxes.”
Alice gasps at this revelation. I, however, am tracking right along with Dario Brunetti because I remember something Signor Fini said almost a year ago. We were talking on the phone on a cold November day and he said that, when the Italian government found out about the will and the heir, they went to freeze the assets “from the real estate agent.” That’s when they found some kind of “irregularities” surrounding the sale of Ca’Buschi.
My words tumble out one after another as I relate this information to Dario.
“Yep, it sounds like the real estate agent was pocketing some good money from the sale.”
“But,” Alice states firmly, “I met with the man from the tax office myself, he came to Villa Buschi and showed me how much Carlo Buschi owed. When I saw that there was no other choice, I was happy for Signor di Meo’s help in finding a real estate agent to sell the house.”
Dario and I are quiet. Now I know why Alice is here. In the government’s eyes, she must look like an accomplice. No use sugar-coating it. “You were duped, Alice,” I say sadly.
“Yes, I believe you were duped into complicity too,” Dario concurs. “If we have this all figured out straight, what I expect is this; there was probably some sort of kickback to Signor di Meo from the auction company that sold the house. I bet the state must have found something suspicious in di Meo’s bank statements, which is why they moved to arrest him. If they found something, then I’m sure we can find it too. I would hazard that the tax agent, who showed you a statement for back taxes owed, was a fraud. Signor di Meo, his cousins, and the auction house effectively swindled the rightful Buschi heir, whomever she is, out of part of her inheritance. The bottom line is Signora Bettonina doesn’t belong in here and if I can, ladies, I intend to get both of you out of this jail within hours.”
