by Grace Brophy
She gave a loud moan and swayed, grabbing her husband’s arm for support. Umberto, after stealing a look in Cenni’s direction, whispered what must have been a warning, as she immediately straightened up, although she continued to hold onto his arm until they had exited the chapel. John Williams, in the fourth pew with Staccioli and Fulvio Russo, was the only one to display emotion, weeping intermittently, but softly, throughout the service. Staccioli and Russo eyed him with visible contempt when during the Absolute, he blew his nose openly and heaved a loud sigh.
Cenni was not sure why he was wasting a half-day attending Rita’s funeral, beyond a direct order from the questore. He had no expectation that one of the mourners would suddenly confess as the body was interred, although he did note with some interest Amelia Casati’s near collapse in the church. The best murderers always give the best performances. Even first-time killers often managed their guilt through self-justification: She brought it on herself!
As they exited the chapel, he looked around for signs of last night’s furious police activities, but saw none. Even the dumpster had disappeared. Two of his officers had spent two hours examining the five days worth of debris it contained, and as Piero had complained afterward, it was not all wilted flowers. Elena had determined after speaking to the florist in Rivotorto that Orlic had a weekly order for two dozen long-stemmed yellow roses for the Casati vault. They’d found the yellow roses in the dumpster. And Sergeant Antolini had finally located Guiseppe Guido, Assisi’s village drunk, in a detox tank in Foligno. He had been in his usual begging position on Good Friday, right outside the San Giacomo gate and was eager to express his outrage:
“Passed me right by, the countess did, carrying a bunch of flowers, headed for the cemetery. I watched her walk down the road until she disappeared around the bend. “Four-thirty, exactly,” Guido claimed, displaying his wristwatch. “Not even a nod for an old friend,” he complained. It seemed that Amelia Casati was one of Guido’s patrons. He could forgive those who never gave, but not a lapsed regular. He had abandoned his begging immediately after that. “No point in my waiting for her return. I guess her money’s too good now for the likes of me,” he’d added in disgust.
So Cenni had two witnesses to confirm that the countess had not been at home all Friday afternoon. But contrary to what Sophie Orlic had insisted the evening before, Amelia Casati had not left her sitting room in order to deliver a few peonies to the flower lady. She had been in the cemetery at the time of the murder. It was starting to come together.
18
“DIMMI!” CENNI SAID, joining Elena and Piero at their table in the rear of the Bar Sensi. He’d just returned from the burial service, and he now had two hours to kill before he could reinterview the Casati family. The count had insisted that his family and guests be permitted to have their funeral lunch in peace before talking, again, to the police, and the questore had agreed.
“Guests! What guests!” Cenni had replied caustically. “The only people attending the funeral were immediate members of the family and four outsiders. Of those, Williams and Staccioli are lunching in Williams’s bed sitter, courtesy of the police, which leaves that asshole of an ass-kissing mayor, and Fulvio— no comment there!” But Cenni knew there were no rewards in fighting the system.
He could have returned to Perugia to finish up some paper-work, but at this time of day that trip could take two hours, back and forth. He decided to hang out at the Bar Sensi and see whom the regulars had picked as the murderer.
As soon as he sat down, he realized that Elena and Piero were in the middle of a fight. Elena was fuming quietly to herself and Piero was looking uncomfortably flushed. Cenni wondered why, but didn’t ask. Nor did he have to. Elena blurted it out before he had time to order a coffee.
“How’s your blonde today, Commissario?” she asked recklessly, standing at attention. She nodded at Piero, “His is acting up. She’s told him to lose twenty pounds, and he’s starving himself, and me! I have a flash for the two of you. The worse thing that can happen to a man is to fall for a blonde with tits. You lose all your marbles!” On that inelegant note, she walked to the front of the bar, sat down on one of the stools, and turned her back on them.
“What brought that on, Piero? She wouldn’t get that way without some provocation. What did you say to her?”
“We had a pizza while we were waiting, and Elena offered me the last piece, you know, like she always does. I said I was on a diet, that I had to lose twenty pounds.” He hesitated before adding, “And that she could stand to lose a few pounds herself.”
“You’ve forgotten to mention that you threw Sergeant Antolini at her! I’d have thought you had more sense!”
“Don’t, Alex! I think Elena’s really mad! Normally she laughs when I tease her, but I’ve noticed that whenever I mention Genine, she gets huffy. Should I apologize, tell her I was kidding? She’s not really fat, you know. Come on, Alex, help me out here.”
Cenni could see that Piero was upset, and he was beginning to get the picture concerning Elena. Lately, Piero’s name cropped up in Elena’s conversations to an outrageous degree.
“My only advice, Piero: Never quote a platinum blonde with big breasts to an underendowed brunette, particularly about weight. For the rest, you’re on your own.” As he watched Piero walk toward the front of the bar, Cenni reflected that his two junior officers worked extremely well together and that they had become close personal friends in the last year. He hoped that Elena’s crush on him—and that it was no more than a crush—would wear off quickly, or he might have to transfer her. But he’d worry about that later. Right now, he had more immediate concerns.
The postmortem gave the cause of death as suffocation, but Cenni had decided to keep this information from the family. He’d gotten the questore to agree, in exchange for a promise to be “nice.” Being nice apparently meant dressing according to a code. Umberto Casati had found Cenni’s jeans and leather jacket disrespectful. He was also miffed that Cenni had conspicuously not addressed him or his wife by their titles, but there was nothing official that he or his wife could do about that and nothing that Cenni would agree to do.
The questore, who wanted to be all things to all people, had tried to soften the blow. “I know Saturday was your day off, Alex. I told that to the count, and that you went straight to the cemetery from a football match, the reason for the jeans. But tone it down, Alex, per favore. I’ve got too many people on my back right now.” Of course, when Cenni had asked for names, the questore had fobbed him off.
Cenni mused that approaching Umberto Casati about Georgio Zangarelli’s visit on Good Friday would be awkward. He’d lied when he said he was alone in his library Friday afternoon, but since the information provided by the Irish reporter substantiated that he had, in fact, been at home, he was within his rights to refuse to answer questions about the reason for Zangarelli’s visit.
The wife was a bigger problem. She’d been caught in a lie, and not a white lie either. By two accounts, she’d been out of the house that afternoon. But Sophie would hold to her story that Amelia Casati had been delivering flowers to her apartment. And the other witness was the town drunk. Cenni had some thoughts about how to move Amelia Casati to a confession. Laying on guilt might do it. She appeared to have a conscience. He’d say that he was planning to arrest Sophie Orlic, who Cenni now suspected was protecting Amelia Casati. Someone had struck Rita on the head, and for him the wife was the likely suspect. But she knew nothing of the faked rape and, therefore, of the actual cause of death. Telling her that Rita had been suffocated might have the effect of getting her to talk about what had happened, but it might also cause her to shut down completely, in an effort to protect Sophie or someone in her family.
And then there was Lucia. According to the Irish journalist, the maid had left the house a minute or two after 4:30. If Lucia were not outside the kitchen door hanging up clothes as she’d sworn on Saturday, then anyone in the house could have gone out the kitchen door an
d down those treacherous steps to the vicolo, exiting at via Fontebella without being seen. Umberto Casati had been seen saying goodbye to Georgio Zangarelli at 6:00, so he was an unlikely candidate. In addition, Cenni had strong doubts that with his arthritis Casati could have maneuvered that dangerous stairway. Amelia Casati and Paola were both out of the house by 4:30. That left Artemisia, and she was still a dark horse so far as Cenni was concerned. The bookbinder had confirmed that four pages had been torn from Minelli’s diary. That pointed to someone in the house, perhaps Artemisia acting as Fulvio’s accomplice. On Saturday, he’d noticed that Artemisia had an ace bandage wrapped around her right ankle. She could easily have twisted an ankle if she had used the garden steps.
“Commissario, scusi.” Cenni looked up to see Elena standing over him, with a hangdog look on her face.
“Si, Elena,” he said, smiling.
“Sorry about before . . . you know . . . what I said! But I’ve got some information for you, from our door-to-door inquiries earlier today and from that man over there.” She pointed to the bus driver who had been sitting on the bar stool next to hers.
“Dimmi,” Cenni repeated. “Talk to me.”
19
THE COMMISSARIO AND Elena traveled back to headquarters in separate cars, at his request. He wanted to review the day’s events with Piero. At first Elena was glad of it; she needed an hour alone to forego being the cheerful, companionable, never-takes-offense Elena. A lot like a friendly beagle, she thought. When they get bored throwing sticks at you, they push you away. Amazed at her own contrariness, she laughed. Now you resent the commissario because he doesn’t pine for your company. And who would, after that nasty crack you made today? You’re lucky he’s still talking to you, she told herself. The commissario’s obsession with Sophie Orlic was not something one aired in a public bar, yet there had not been a single word in retaliation from him. He’d even taken her along to the count’s house to take notes, a job he usually reserved for Piero.
Back in the office, she removed her jacket and settled down to write her report with regard to the inquiries that she and Piero had conducted in the morning and the four interviews that the commissario had conducted in the afternoon. Piero had gone off to visit the Canadian, who had called the commissario to say he wanted out of his bed sitter and was willing to talk. “Four days alone in a room with Staccioli works better than the rack,” Elena had wisecracked. But he had nothing new to reveal, not a hint of Minelli’s lover’s name, so they decided to leave him with Staccioli for another day.
She couldn’t settle to work, not yet. She was antsy, still thinking about the fool she’d made of herself earlier in the day. Basically shy where women were concerned, Piero was very slow on the uptake. Elena doubted he even knew what had sparked her tantrum. But the commissario knew! She could tell from the way he’d treated her later in the day: mournfully gentle whenever he spoke to her, and that disconcerting way he had of searching her face, then quickly looking away when she caught him at it. Fortunately, she had regained her equilibrium after deflecting the advances made by the bus driver before he’d learned who she was.
The bus driver had initially seemed genuinely surprised when Elena told him to back off, which he didn’t. This caused Piero, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Elena after her outburst, to move nearer. Orlando, the bartender, finally got the bus driver to chill out, with the rather startling news that the cute brunette he was hitting on was actually a cop. Then the bus driver was eager to discuss Rita Minelli’s murder. He insisted that he’d seen Minelli walking on Via Fontebello on Good Friday, shortly after he had discharged his passengers and parked his bus. “Near as I can guess, about a quarter to five. She passed me walking in the direction of the Basilica. Sexy lady, hard not to notice. Damn shame to kill the good-looking ones,” he added, winking at Orlando. “And then on Monday I seen her picture in all the papers. Knew her straight off. You can ask my wife.” A wife, yet he’s hitting on me, Elena had thought, grimacing at Piero.
She’d immediately informed the commissario of the bus driver’s claim but Cenni was skeptical, particularly after he’d learned that Elena and Piero had finally located the store where Rita had purchased the statue, a hardware store in Piazza Mattioti. The owner was certain that Minelli had visited the store on Good Friday, “at four-thirty, maybe a few minutes later.” He’d wanted to close early and tried to rush her out. “She bought the same statue she always does. I sold her half a dozen of them in the last few months, asked if she was starting a new religious order,” he’d said, amused at his own wit.
The commissario had latched on to that right away, telling Piero to get on to the people who emptied the dumpsters near the Casati vault to learn if they’d found any statues like it in the last two months. “It starts to make sense,” the commissario said, thinking out loud. “The statue was her excuse for visiting the vault if anyone saw her. No doubt, she threw it into the dumpster when she left. I can’t imagine what she’d be doing on Via Fontebello if she had purchased the statue on her way to the cemetery. From the hardware store in Piazza Mattioti to the cemetery is no more than a ten-minute walk, fifteen at the outside. A detour by way of Via Fontebello would take her at least thirty minutes and only if she were trotting. Ask him if the woman on Via Fontebello carried a package?”
The answer Piero brought back was “No, not that he saw anyway.” Cenni sat quietly, thinking. He’d then asked Piero to show the bus driver Artemisia Casati’s picture. The driver was a bit sheepish, particularly when Orlando, looking over his shoulder, blurted out that the woman in the picture was Count Casati’s daughter. He insisted, stubbornly, that Artemisia Casati might look like the woman, but he was a hundred percent sure that it was the murdered American he’d seen on Via Fontebello. When the commissario approached him directly and asked if the woman had walked with a limp, he looked around nervously, answering Maybe, then quickly changing it to Maybe not before flying out the front door as though pursued by the devil.
“Didn’t even pick up his change! Who says cops are bad for business,” Orlando had quipped.
Elena didn’t dwell on Piero while she was at the Casati house; she was too busy taking notes. The interviews had begun with the count. As soon as the subject of Georgio Zangarelli came up, the count insisted that Elena leave the room. It didn’t matter in the end, because the commissario told her everything anyway, probably more than he would have told her under ordinary circumstances. Sometimes having people feel sorry for you pays off, she thought.
Apparently, the count was helping Zangarelli to become a Knight of Malta, which Cenni thought extremely funny. “Zangarelli could buy and sell the Vatican twice over, and he’s down on his knees begging to be a Knight of Malta! The biggest fools in Italy parade around in those moth-eaten costumes. They’d be pathetic if they weren’t so dangerous. Casati’s helping Zangarelli to ‘resurrect’ his family’s three hundred-year-old coat-of-arms; creating one is more like it. Is there anyone in this country with a little money who doesn’t claim at least one duke in the family tree? Or a pope?” he added, thinking of Umberto Casati. “What’s your guess, Elena? How much is a Knight of Malta worth on the open market?”
Elena had stayed in the room the full time during the interview with the countess and had been surprised to hear the commissario announce, deadpan, that he intended to arrest Sophie Orlic for the American’s murder. The countess’s eyes teared up a bit at that. Elena was surprised that she could still see out of them, they were so pink and puffed up, but she held steadfast to her story that she’d been out of the house no more than fifteen minutes, twenty at the outside, just long enough to bring the peonies to Sophie. “It was foolish of me to say that I had been home all afternoon, Dottore. I certainly see that now, but you made me quite nervous on Saturday. I’m not used to being interrogated,” she added, throwing the blame back onto the police.
The first real slip in her attitude of noblesse oblige came when the commissario quoted the beggar, Guiseppe Guido
, to her. “Why, that nasty, ungrateful drunk! When I think of the money I’ve thrown into his lap over the years! He’s lying,” she said flatly and refused to discuss it further.
The interview with Lucia was all nervous giggles and excuses. “But if I’d told you I left the house at four-thirty the countess would have docked me four euros. What difference can thirty minutes make to the police?”
The interview with Artemisia was the strangest of all. She was supremely unruffled, even more so than she’d been on Saturday. Artemisia was even polite to Elena, although on Saturday she had looked right through her. The most bizarre moment in the interview was when Artemisia openly flirted with the commissario, suggesting that he was using Rita’s murder as a pretext to see her. The commissario had laughed good-naturedly in response, but Elena sensed his extreme discomfort in the subtle shift of his body away from Artemisia and toward her, and his asking a question to which he’d already had the answer.
Then Cenni told Artemisia that she’d been seen late on Good Friday on via Fontebello. She denied it immediately. “Oh, I don’t think so, Dottore. Surely that was my cousin. Some people say . . . said,” she amended, smiling in recollection, “that we looked alike—never could see it myself. What do you think?” she asked him sweetly. And when the commissario asked Artemisia how her ankle was healing, she beamed with pleasure. “You noticed,” she said. “Sei molto gentile! It’s fine now,” and she held it up for him to admire. “I twisted it on a loose stone walking up to the Piazza del Comune on Good Friday.”
Later, on their walk back to the Piazza del Comune, the commissario had been very quiet. Elena spoke to him twice before getting a response.
Elena got up from her desk and walked over to the small mirror that hung over the file cabinet that she shared with Piero. Her cousin Fausto had nicknamed her The Tractor when they were children, referring to her short, muscular stature. But Elena knew that he also meant the way that she ploughed through life, never looking sideways. It’s not easy for a tractor to compete with a skinny platinum blonde. Elena had dark curly hair, cut very short so she didn’t have to worry about it, and decent enough features, nothing out of the ordinary, although she was rather vain about her short, slightly uptilted nose. If she wasn’t in competition with Miss Congeniality of the spectacular breasts, she’d do fine, though she had to admit that she was a bit lacking in the cleavage department.
