by Unknown
“I imagine she has, but what can he do? Do you suppose he’s on his way here?”
“What good would that do?”
“None, probably, but if it were me, I’d want to be on the scene,” I said. “Come on. She’s headed toward the train station. Let’s follow her.”
“Your antenna’s beeping again?” Lettie stopped and looked at her watch. “I promised Beth I’d meet her at the hotel at eleven. Oh, well, I guess I have enough time. Let’s go.”
We lost sight of Shirley in the crowd outside the station. The majority of people seemed to be milling aimlessly about and a lot of them were young—teens in groups of three or four. I watched two teens, a boy and a girl, walk unobtrusively toward a man in an orange and blue T-shirt that said MIAMI DOLPHINS. The boy draped a newspaper over his own right arm. The girl moved directly in front of the man, talking rapidly and pointing to her wrist as if she needed to know the time. The Miami fan moved back slightly and looked at his watch as the boy asked something and gesticulated with his empty left hand. Apparently aware that something was wrong, the Miami fan dodgedsideways but was blocked by the girl. Beneath the newspaper, the boy’s right hand darted into the man’s hip pocket, but the man jumped back, chopped downward with both hands and yelled, “Va via!” The wallet skidded across the sidewalk, and the Miami Dolphins fan pounced on it a microsecond before several other hands closed in.
Lettie, wide-eyed and incredulous, said, “It’s like a shark feeding frenzy! It’s absolutely awful. I never . . .”
“Are you up for going inside? Looks like we can’t get in the door without running the gauntlet. See? Over there are some more of them—” I pointed “—and over there.” Approaching the main entrance, I felt like Tippi Hedren driving through the flock of devil-possessed seagulls in The Birds—one false move and I’d be pecked to death.
“Let’s stick together,” Lettie said, “and shoot through the middle.”
“Remember what that man said? ‘Va via.’ I guess that means ‘Go away.’ I’ll try to remember that.” I checked to make sure the clasp on my shoulder bag was next to my body, locked my hand around the strap and forged ahead.
“I don’t think it matters what you yell, as long as you yell something,” Lettie said. “Just draw attention to yourself any way you can.”
Once inside, we found a relatively empty space near a rack of timetable booklets where I felt safe enough to stop and look around. We watched the bustle of comings and goings for a few minutes, but I didn’t see Shirley. There were quite a lot of people who didn’t seem to be going anywhere—loiterers, many of them teens who didn’t look much different from those in the U.S. “You know, Lettie, it occurs to me that Crystal would stand out even among these kids as the weird one.”
“Do you really expect to find her here? I mean, what are the odds?”
“Very slim, I know, but at least we’re looking,” The station smelled of axle grease and diesel fumes. Brakes squealed against the background drone of a hollow female voice chanting arrivals and departures. I got knocked and bounced into a spot between two opposing streams of foot traffic.
Down near the tracks, a middle-aged woman in jeans yelled out something that sounded like “Don’t want your baby!” A rail-thin Roma woman in a shawl had handed her a blanket-wrapped bundle and was groping for the other woman’s waist pack. Several men jumped to the rescue and wrestled a pilfered coin purse away from the Roma woman. The almost-victimized woman stood with her mouth open. The infant she held was, for some strange reason, not crying.
“This place is a zoo, Dotsy. I can’t believe . . . why don’t the police do something?”
“Let’s check a bathroom or two just in case.”
We trekked around the cavernous station, checking ladies’ rooms, and trying to stay well away from the tightest knots of people.
“Look, Lettie! Over there.tie! O
In a corner beside the porters’ station stood a short, round woman with salt-and-pepper hair cut in a blunt, Dutch-boy style. She exchanged something—a small package, folding money—with a very scruffy man I might have thought was Ivo, had Ivo not been in jail. I think I knew, even before she turned her face toward us, that the woman was Lucille Vogel.
“Do you think it’s a drug deal, Dotsy?”
“It would appear so. That would explain her mood swings, you know, if she’s an addict she might have been suffering withdrawal symptoms in our first couple of days here. She would have been irritable.”
“And yesterday, she might have finally got hold of . . . well, got a fix or whatever they call it. That would explain why she was nice when she came up to the elevator. You remember?”
“Right. Now if we could just find out what’s happened to Crystal and who killed Meg as easily as we found out why Lucille Vogel has mood swings.”
“Wonder how she found out where to get drugs?” Lettie turned away from the porter’s station.
Lucille walked toward us, her head lowered, her eyes down. She zipped her bag, glanced around quickly, and headed for an exit.
“These people, drug dealers and addicts, they have ways of finding each other,” I said. “A sort of underground network, so I’ve heard.”
I suggested we take one more look around the station. Too bad I didn’t know enough Italian to strike up a conversation with some of the kids. I’d be willing to bet some of them knew something. The police weren’t knocking themselves out to find Crystal. If it worked the same way as it did in the U.S., she wouldn’t even be considered a missing person until she’d been missing twenty-four hours.
“What do you think, Dotsy? Has Crystal been kidnapped, or has she run away?”
“Ordinarily I’d guess she had run away, but with this man, Ivo, in jail, it’s possible she’s been taken. Maybe somebody wants to offer her in exchange for the prisoner.”
Lettie shivered. “If that’s the case, they’ll contact the police, won’t they?”
“Yes. In fact, I’d think they would already—”
“Dotsy, look!”
Lettie pointed toward the swinging door of a women’s restroom. A skinny, haggard woman had just emerged and turned right, toward the station’s main exit. She was wearing a green silk blouse, a multi-colored skirt, a gold rope belt and designer shoes.
“She’s got Shirley’s clothes on,” Lettie said.
“Where’s Shirley?” I asked, a rhetorical question.
We dashed into the restroom shouting for Shirley. She wasn’t there or in any other restroom or waiting room or platform in the station. We looked everywhere. A fast train from Rome pulled into the station and opened its doors, disgorging scores of people nd rendering hopeless any chance of finding the woman in Shirley’s clothes again.
Chapter Ten
In the tiny lobby of the caserma, I pretended to read the posters on the wall and felt uncomfortable. I wished Captain Quattrocchi’s door would open so I could see for sure if he was even there. The man behind the front desk and I had been unable to communicate well, and I was still unsure if he knew I wanted to speak to Quattrocchi personally. Had he told me to wait or go home? He might have said, “Come back later.” He glanced at me occasionally, as if my presence was ruining his day.
Quattrocchi popped his head out and smiled when he saw me. He waved me in. “Good day, Mrs. Lamb. I am happy to see you.” I was surprised he remembered my name. His office was plain, with a government-issue desk and several straight-backed chairs ranged around the walls. There were no windows and the room smelled of smoke. Seating me in one of the utilitarian chairs for visitors, he rolled out the soft leather chair behind the desk for himself.
“I understand that Shirley Hostetter has already told you about the disappearance of her daughter, Crystal,” I began.
“That is correct. She has also notified the police.”
It took me a second to recall that there was a difference between the carabinieri and the police. I told him what Lettie and I had seen at the train station—the wom
an wearing Shirley’s clothes. As he took notes in Italian, I went over my story slowly and repeated most of it. His gaze locked on my face in deep concentration.
“Excuse me, did you say you did or did not see Mrs. Hostetter after you saw the woman wearing her clothes?”
“I did not see her.” I was relieved to know that he had apparently understood me.
He jotted a few more notes and looked at his wristwatch. He wore it with the watch face inward, over his pulse. “It is time for lunch. Mrs. Lamb. Will you allow me to take you to a restaurant near here? I would like to talk to you some more.”
“All . . . all right,” I managed to stammer out. This was a complete surprise. I felt as if I had been asked out on a date, and I was way out of practice. “Will you call me Dotsy?”
“Dotsy? Very good. Then you must call me Marco.”
Perhaps I had committed a faux pas. To ask him to call me by my first name was to require, for the sake of good manners, that he reciprocate by asking me to do likewise. But perhaps calling carabinieri officers by their first names was not done. I didn’t know. Too late, now.
He guided me through narrow streets to a small trattoria, taking my arm gently as we crossed each intersection. The air in this part of the city was freshened by a gentle breeze off the River Arno, just to the south. I relished its coolness as it wound through my hair and dried my wet scalp.
“Dotsy. That’s a pretty nam. It is a . . . an above name?” He tried again. “It is not your . . . baptism name, yes?”
“My baptism name,” I said, falling easily into his brand of English, “is Dorothy. But I much prefer Dotsy.” I wondered if he saw me as a witness, a potential suspect, or what? He knew I had been sitting outside the elevator yesterday when Meg’s body was discovered. But what about when Meg was killed? Was he sure he had the right man in jail and didn’t need to look at anyone else? Or did he still want to nail down exactly where everyone was at the time of the murder? And what time was that? I still didn’t know. It could have been any time between the phone call from Lettie to Meg, about a quarter to 5, and Beth’s call to the front desk, about a quarter to 6. Wilma Kelly had talked to Meg after Lettie did, but how long after? I slapped a sticky note on my brain to get what I could out of Quattrocchi—Marco—on that point. As I thought about all this, I nearly ran over the woman in front of me on the sidewalk. Marco, ever vigilant, steered me around her.
Inside the trattoria, a waiter seated us at a small table near the window. The room was filled with the aromas of herbs and baking bread, and Marco helped me with the menu. “May I recommend the ribollita? It is a thick sort of . . .” He rubbed his fingers together as if feeling the texture. “A sort of soup. Minestrone, but with some parmigiano and bread. It is what you Americans call cozy food.”
I laughed. “Comfort food, we call it.”
Marco ordered for both of us and snapped a napkin across one knee. “So, Dotsy, are you married? Children?”
“Divorced and five children, all grown now.”
Marco raised his eyebrows, but thankfully made no comment about my figure or the effect thereon of five pregnancies. I think my body is pretty good for a woman my age. I’m about ten pounds heavier than I would like, but then I always have been ten pounds heavier than I would like.
“What about you?” I asked.
As the waiter plopped a carafe of Chianti in the center of our table, Marco said, “Two boys and one girl. My youngest is still at university and my oldest is preparing to follow in the feet of his . . . how do you call it . . . old man. He is . . . trying, ah . . . training to become carabinieri.” Marco poured wine into both glasses.
As soon as I felt I could reasonably change the subject, I said, “What do you think has happened to Crystal Hostetter?”
“I think she has run away, but she will be back soon. I think she and her mother are not . . . ah, getting along very well. These kids, eh?” He raised his glass to mine. “Salute.”
“Cheers,” I said.
“I have sent out some men to look through the three main Roma camps outside of town, and everyone on duty today has been given a . . .ah . . . description of her.”
I imagined that description: Subject was last seen wearing a black T-shirt with white letters and red blood splatters. On the front it says ‘psycho-scum,’ and the back has large spiders. Black capri pants, black leather platform shoes with ankle straps, black-and-white striped knee socks, leather neck band with metal spikes sticking out and silver jewelry on ears, nose, fingers and tongue. Safety pin through right eyebrow; hair in long magenta spikes.
“I do not believe she has been kidnapped,” Marco continued. “That is not the way of the Roma. She may be running around here in town, or she may have gone somewhere with that boy she was seen talking to. Bread?” He passed me a basket of fresh crusty rolls.
“Do you know who that boy was?” I ripped my roll in two, scattering crumbs across my side of the table.
“I have no idea. The man . . . Ivo . . . he says he knows nothing about it.”
“Do you think Ivo killed Meg Bauer?” I had not meant to be so blunt or to bring it up so soon, but it slipped out.
Marco looked like I had slapped him. He was silent a long moment. “Well, yes,” he finally said. “To think that it was anyone else is beyond imagining! We know he broke into her room, and a few minutes later she was found murdered!”
“What time do you think it happened?”
“Very close to five thirty; certainly within a few minutes before or after. We know this by comparing the times given to us by Mrs. Kelly who stopped by her room, by Mrs. Osgood who talked to her on the phone, and by the time of Mrs. Hines’s call to the front desk.” Quattrocchi squared his hands about six inches apart. “Those three things narrow the time of death to about five thirty.”
“But it doesn’t make sense to me. Why would a thief who plans to do a little stealing decide to go ahead and commit a murder while he’s at it? It doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t he run?”
The waiter brought our bowls of ribollita, and Marco showed me how to doctor it up properly with grated parmigiano and a drizzle of olive oil.
“And to use a weapon that he just happened to find on the scene?” I continued. “What are the chances of finding a knife that’s just right for doing the trick at exactly the time you need it?”
I tried the ribollita. It was excellent but still too hot to eat, so I ate a bit more of the bread.
“Ah,” Marco said. “So you know about the knife.”
“Too bad it wasn’t a gun. Then we’d know the time of death, exactly. I mean, I assume in a hotel like that, a shot would be heard.”
“Yes, a gunshot would have been heard.”
“Where was the knife? I mean, before . . .”
“Mrs. Hines says she put it in the center drawer of her dresser the night before. She showed it to some people who came by their room, and then she put it back into its little box and put it into the drawer. That is the last time she saw it.”
I had to concentrate hard when Marco talked because he a way of putting the same emphasis on all his words, as if he were reciting a list of nonsense syllables, which to him, English probably was.
Soon, I thought, Marco would become wary of my questions, but I ventured one more. “I’ve been wondering about those flowers that Beth . . . Mrs. Hines . . . got. The pot of white narcissus. Doesn’t the timing of that seem a little strange to you?”
“Roma do not usually send flowers before they rob someone.”
Quattrocchi grinned, and I felt uneasy. I couldn’t tell, through his beard, if it was a companionable grin, or if he was making fun of me.
“Who did send them?”
“I do not know. I do not think it is important.”
“But if it was important, could you find out?” I tried the soup again and found that it was just right. I tucked into it.
“Sure, sure. We could find out how it was paid for by asking the ah . . . the florist. I
f by cash, the buyer would have come in personally, and they would be able to give a description. If by check, we would get a name from that. If by credit card, we would get a number, and from that get the name.”
A sudden panic grabbed me by the throat. If he found out I had already been to the florist—already knew who sent the flowers—he would know I wasn’t being entirely honest with him, and that I was snooping around on my own. How could I explain that? Now that I’d mentioned it, he’d probably check out the florist as a matter of course. What were the odds he’d talk to the same clerk who waited on Lettie and me? What were the odds she’d mention the two Americans who were in this morning, asking questions about those same flowers? Pretty good, I’d say. I remembered the “loopy in the head” signal from the young girl to someone in the back room. There was a good chance that she’d gone straight to the back room and had a good laugh with whomever else was there; that I had become the story of the day. In that case, even if Marco or his men talked to someone else at the shop, she’d probably mention me.
Quattrocchi wiped soup droplets from his beard and suggested dessert. I said, “Not for me thanks, I’m diabetic.”
“Do you take . . .” He apparently didn’t know the right word.
“Insulin? Yes, I do.”
“Does it bother you, being so far from home, from your regular doctor?”
“Oh, no. I know how to handle it myself. I’m careful, and I test my blood sugar level several times a day.”
“I won’t have dessert either, then. Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No, go ahead.” I looked at the carafe of Chianti. There was enough left for us to each have a glass, so I held my thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Could you pour me a half glass of wine?”
“So why did you and Mrs. Osgood go to the train station this morning?” he asked while pouring. He seemed to want to steer the conizetion away from the crime.
“For two reasons, actually. I had a feeling the station would be a likely place to spot Crystal if she’s anywhere nearby, and because when we saw Shirley heading that way, Lettie and I both thought she was dressed rather strangely.”
