“From what I know about Canopo, I would agree with you. Can you think of anyone who would want to do him harm?”
“No. I can think of no one.” He stared at the ground. The flash of anger had come and gone quickly, and Nino Reni retreated inside his own grief.
Conti had already come to the conclusion that none of the men was holding anything back, including the boy. He was tired of interviews and frustrated that the case was going nowhere. The door opened and his sergeant emerged, slapping his coat in an attempt to rid it of alabaster dust. His appearance confirmed that Nino was the last one to be re-interviewed.
“That’s all, Nino. Thank you for your help.”
“You’ll find him, won’t you Commissario?”
It took a moment before he understood that the boy was talking about Canopo’s murderer. Everyone, it seemed, now assumed it was murder. “Yes, yes of course. If you can think of anything that might help, you know where to find me.” The boy nodded and turned back to the door, not even glancing at the sergeant as they passed. Conti sighed and stuffed the small notebook back into his coat.
“Did you get anything from them, Capo?
Conti shook his head without speaking. The sergeant walked around to the driver’s side and got in the car. Conti looked at his watch, opened the passenger door and glanced up the street. “Just a moment, Sergeant,” he said through the open door, “this shouldn’t take long.”
Signora Canopo and her daughter had just turned the far corner and were now walking slowly toward him. The little girl grasped her mother’s hand tightly and stared down at the stone like she was counting the cracks between the cobblestones. The woman stared blankly ahead as she walked, but when she noticed Conti she tried to put a smile on her face, but without success. It would be a while before she could smile again. He waited as they approached, watching the mother walk slowly to match the pace set by the girl’s short legs.
“Signora, good morning. How have you been?” It was a weak greeting, but he could think of nothing else to say. When he spoke, the girl looked up from the sidewalk, noticing him for the first time. A look of fear took over the small face and she hid behind her mother’s dark skirt.
“As well as can be expected, Commissario.” She looked down at her daughter, whose face was hidden. “Please excuse Angela. I’m afraid she associates you with…”
“That is understandable, Signora.”
“We needed to get out of the house, so I thought we would come by to see Orlando’s co-workers. They have been very kind. Is there any news?”
Conti shifted his feet. “We are working through the evidence. These investigations are often slow and tedious.” Her face, already grim, became darker. Her lips tightened, and again she looked down at her daughter.
“I know you’ll do your best, Commissario,” she said as she stroked the girl’s hair.
“Thank you, Signora. As soon as I know something I will call.”
He suspected that she didn’t really want to hear any news of the investigation, knowing it would only make her feel worse.
They shook hands and she walked toward the heavy door, her daughter still clinging tightly and hiding her face. Conti watched as they disappeared inside. An already bad day had been made worse.
***
“Signor Montoya, buon giorno.”
Claretta Angelini, Polpetto’s secretary, stood when Rick was buzzed into the office and reached across the desk to shake his hand firmly. We have a new Claretta, he thought, a third one somewhere between the efficient cold fish of his last office appearance and the bubbly lady on the street. Same glasses, however, but with different matching earrings. Maybe all her earrings were red pendants.
“And a good morning to you, Signora Angelini.” Rick retreated to one of the two chairs against the wall. She sat down again, hands clasped together on the desk, examining Rick.
“Signor Polpetto is on the phone and will see you shortly. I hope we will be in the running for your business, Signor Montoya, I’m sure there is competition out there.”
Whose side was she on? It was a strange thing to say, and he wasn’t sure how to answer. “I’ve only started making my contacts, Signora, so it is difficult to gauge the competition, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I assume you’ve been to Galleria Landi?” She became more serious, more concerned, and her next statement showed why. “I read in the paper that the man who fell to his death worked for Landi, and since you were the last one to see him—”
“I don’t believe my name appeared in print.”
“Didn’t it? I must have assumed…” Her voice trailed off but she glued her eyes on his face, waiting for a reply.
Rick didn’t want to get into the murder case again. “To answer your question, yes, I have been in contact with Landi.” Mercifully the phone on her desk rang, and she excused herself to take the call. As she spoke, the phone tapped against her dangly earring. Distracting for her and for the person at the other end of the line. Rick’s eyes drifted around the room, shifting his attention from the earring.
This morning the ceiling lamp above him was turned on, but most of the room’s light still came from the small window above his head. The only magazine on the table next to him was a worn copy of Famiglia Cristiana. Rick picked it up, hoping that reading would forestall further communication with the lovely Claretta. Had he ever seen an issue of the magazine anywhere else but on sale inside the doorways of churches? Not that he was a regular churchgoer, he went just enough to keep his mother happy. These days, when she called from Brazil where Rick’s father was stationed, she invariably asked about his attendance at mass. She had even enlisted the family priest at the church in Rome where she, as well as Rick and his sister, had been baptized. The topic of Rick’s church attendance was as inevitable as her reminding him about his sister and her family back in Albuquerque, and what a terrible burden it was having one’s grandchildren living on another continent. About as burdensome as having a son in his thirties who wasn’t even married yet. He was musing on Italian mammas when the inner door opened.
Polpetto was definitely not what Rick expected, despite scrutinizing his photo at the ministry. The man’s body almost filled the doorway, and his face radiated a smile that went with his size. He wore a wrinkled blue blazer with a pair of dark brown slacks which had not seen a hot iron since leaving the hangar at the clothing store. No fancy tailor for this guy. He was off the rack, though if ever someone needed to have clothes measured to fit, it would be Polpetto. At least the tie was fashionable, though it barely went with the striped shirt.
“Signor Montoya. Please come in. Signora Angelini has told me that your Italian is fluent so I won’t have to expose my terrible English.” He crushed Rick’s hand in his as he guided him into the office past the secretary’s frown. Polpetto noticed her and said, “Let me chat for a moment with Signor Montoya and then you can come in when we are ready to discuss the, uh, business issues.” Her expression did not change as the door closed.
Rick was analyzing that little exchange when he was stopped in his tracks. The contrast with the sparse outer room was so dramatic that he and Polpetto could have wandered into another building. Shapes, textures, and colors covered the walls, like a tourist shop in Old Town Albuquerque. It was all drawn together—spatially if not chromatically—by the bright orange carpet that covered the floor. The only uncluttered space was the ceiling, but given his size, Polpetto may have worried about bumping into anything hanging from it. Shelving was so extensive and cluttered that Rick couldn’t be sure what color the walls were painted. As his visitor took in the scene, Polpetto maneuvered his way to an old sofa and lifted a stack of magazines to clear a place. After looking around for a moment, he dropped them with a thud on the floor behind his desk, where apparently there was some rare space.
“Please, please.” He stretched his hand to the sofa. Whe
n Rick sat, Polpetto took his place behind the desk and moved papers to clear his view. “I fear that my habits are not the most organized, despite all of Claretta’s efforts.”
So now it was ‘Claretta.’ Had the woman really made any attempt to clean up Polpetto’s act? Talk about the Augean stables. Rick managed to keep a serious look on his face.
“We all have our own work styles,” Rick shrugged, trying to be as diplomatic as his father, though his father would have had little patience with the disorder of this office. “Thank you for seeing me this morning. I am already impressed by your, uh, collection. Is this the kind of thing you import and export?”
Polpetto’s face lit up, if further lighting was possible. “Yes. Or I should say much of it is. No, perhaps most of it isn’t. I like to collect things. But I haven’t offered you coffee, let me—”
Rick quickly raised his hands. “No, thank you, I just had one. What things do you collect?” Rick again turned his gaze to the rows of shelves. “I see a bit of alabaster.”
“Yes indeed.” Polpetto’s eyes darted to the door and back, as if worried that Claretta could come bursting in any moment. “Those shelves on the right hold mostly alabaster, much of it Etruscan, small pieces of minor value, of course, not museum quality, but I enjoy looking at them. The bronze figures are also Etruscan. Though there may be a copy or two among them; it doesn’t matter. The animals are my little menagerie, like a circus. That’s why the warriors are on either side; we surely don’t want the animals to escape.”
Several bronze soldiers bearing shields and spears flanked the various small animals. They will certainly keep the animals in line, Rick thought. Time to change the subject. “That shelf there, Signor Polpetto, the stone fragments?”
Polpetto pulled himself from the chair with some difficulty. “I’m glad you noticed, it is one of my favorite collections within the collection.” He beamed as he walked to a shelf of fragments from marble tablets, like the ones he frequently saw cemented into the walls of churches in Rome. Their flat surfaces had letters and decorations, some more worn than others, some more elaborate. Polpetto’s large hands picked one up as if it were a bird’s nest and held it up for Rick to see. Letters cut into the stone next to a fragment of garland.
“Do you read Latin, Signor Montoya?”
“Only the numerals, I’m afraid.”
Polpetto gazed at the piece of stone as if seeing it for the first time. “This comes from the burial urn of a likely middle class Roman citizen. Only the last five letters of his name—ULIUS—are found on this fragment, which doesn’t narrow it down very much. To think that I can hold in my hands a bit of the life, or rather the death, of someone who lived so long ago is fascinating, is it not?” Polpetto didn’t wait for an answer. “All we can do is conjecture about who he was, what he did in his life. Was he a good man? Was he loved, or hated? Did his family have this memorial made to him out of obligation or true affection and grief? We will never know, but the lack of information does not alter the beauty of this stone and its untold story.” He carefully returned the slab to the shelf and gave Rick a playfully reproachful look. “But you have not noticed the pieces which may be the most familiar to you.” Polpetto pointed over Rick’s shoulder with his chin, still beaming. Beaming, Rick decided, was a large part of Polpetto’s persona.
Now what? The only collection Rick had as a kid was Matchbox toy cars. Could this guy have a first edition Topolino? But the shelf held a bigger surprise: handwoven baskets of various sizes, which Rick knew had come from the American Southwest. He nodded in appreciation, and his host grinned.
“I saw from your card that you live in Santa Fe, and I have noticed your boots. You must know where these are from.” He took one of the baskets from the shelf and passed it to Rick. The weaving was tight, with a faint brown W-shaped design wrapped around it, the only decoration on the otherwise light brown surface.
“I lived in Albuquerque, not Santa Fe.”
“Oh, but I thought…Well, this basket is from Zuni Pueblo.”
“Of course, I should have recognized it. The design is clearly Zuni, very different from, say, Sandia or Santa Ana.” Rick didn’t know one basket from another, but he had spent time playing the tables at the Sandia and Santa Ana tribal casinos north of Albuquerque. Polpetto was impressed: first the cowboy boots, and now expertise in indigenous basketry.
“But we are not here to discus basket weaving, are we, Signor Montoya?” The fun was over for poor Polpetto, and his smile drooped with disappointment. “Let me ask Claretta to join us.” He opened the door and nodded toward his secretary. Or was she his assistant? Or was she…? The rolling desk chair appeared in the doorway followed by Signorina Angelini, who pushed with one hand and held a pad in the other. She had to provide her own seating. Polpetto returned to the desk and settled into the chair which groaned weakly in protest. He blinked at Rick in anticipation.
“Allow me to explain what interests my gallery.” Rick hoped this would be the last time he had to present the speech.
As he listened, Polpetto offered the appropriately serious facial expression and nodded occasionally, while his secretary took careful notes. At one point he rooted through the piles on his desk to unearth a pen and paper himself, scribbled something, and returned the paper to the pile. Would the man ever find it again? That was Polpetto’s and Claretta’s problem. Rick ended his presentation and relaxed into the sofa, feeling a small object under his right hip. He reached down without being seen and felt what he knew was a round piece of hard candy, fortunately still in its paper wrapper, which he left where it was.
“Perhaps we can be of some help, Signor Montoya,” Polpetto was saying. “I do have my contacts in the business, and our company would be able to facilitate the exportation better than anyone in Volterra. I hope that doesn’t sound presumptuous, but it is my specialty to get things through customs, in both directions.” He beamed at Claretta, who returned his smile.
“I’m sure it is,” Rick said.
“If you would give me some time to pull together products that could be of interest, I will get back to you with a proposal.”
His manner was very professional, not that Rick had much customs experience by which to judge. It was time to drop the other proposal on Polpetto. Should he raise it with Claretta present? If Santo really was a dud, as Conti hoped, and Landi was not the culprit either, Polpetto and his secretary could be his last chance. But the man didn’t come across as one mixed up in illicit artifacts. Claretta, maybe, but not her boss. Still, Rick had to be thorough.
“In addition to those items I mentioned, Signor Polpetto, if you know of any unique piece of art, and I mean ancient art, we have wealthy clients who could be interested. Price is less of a consideration in these transactions, as you can understand.” His heart wasn’t in it this time, and it probably showed.
Claretta turned the page of her pad and scribbled something. Polpetto stared blankly at Rick for a few seconds and then his face relit.
“Yes, of course. I think I do understand. Let me consider that.”
He picked up the pen and started to put it in his shirt pocket, then placed it back on the desk, and finally opened the drawer and found a spot for it there. Rick decided it was time to take his leave, and he was about to get up from the sofa when Polpetto spoke.
“Do you mind if I ask you something, Signor Montoya?” He looked at his secretary and then back at Rick.
“What is it?”
“Well, I suppose everyone in town is wondering about the death of that man, Canopo. And I read in the paper about an American being the last one he spoke to. Was that you?”
So that was it. Polpetto’s expression combined curiosity and shame, and curiosity was winning. Claretta’s head tipped in Rick’s direction, waiting for his reply. She hadn’t gotten much out of him in the outer office.
“Yes it was.”
“
Did the, uh, police question you?”
“Of course, but I couldn’t give them anything that was of any help.”
“I suppose not.” His face again darted to his secretary and then back to Rick. “That afternoon, you didn’t see anyone else?” Polpetto didn’t say it as if he was expecting an answer, and Rick volunteered none. “A terrible business, and on your first day in Volterra. It doesn’t speak well of our city, does it, Signor Montoya?”
“Such things can happen in any city.”
“Yes, I suppose no place is immune to murder.”
Rick frowned. “Murder? I assumed it was suicide.”
“I am no detective, Signor Montoya, but from what I read in the newspapers it made no sense for the man to take his own life. Family, job, and all. Perhaps we all watch too many crime shows on TV, but there must have been something else. My wife agrees,” he added, which settled the issue. Rick noticed that Claretta was scowling. “My wife watches a lot of crime shows on TV,” Polpetto emphasized. His face returned to its usual brightness. The discussion of Canopo was over. “But I am keeping you too long, you have other appointments. I will be in contact regarding your proposal. Proposals, I should say. Let me see you out.”
Polpetto believed that Canopo was murdered. Why would that make sense? It was curious that the man mentioned his wife’s opinion. Rick pictured them at breakfast, he preparing to meet with the American art dealer, and she, remembering the news stories, insisting that he ask about the murder. Polpetto would be too embarrassed to bring up such things on his own. Someone must have pushed him to it. And what about Claretta’s reaction at the mention of Signora Polpetto?
The three got to their feet, and Rick shook hands with Claretta.
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