“No, no, Gia. I did just what you told me. I took two buses, that one to North Beach and then another one to get back here. I made sure nobody got off at my stop and no cars were following the bus. I watched. I done just like you told me.”
“Good job,” I said, standing. “I’m going to be gone for a few days. You want to stay in my place?”
“I got a place to stay. I’m good.”
“You sure? My place will just be sitting there empty.”
“No, no I’m fine.” I wondered if she was going to tell me she slept at Saint Boniface or whether she liked keeping that secret. I didn’t want to intrude on her privacy so I didn’t mention seeing her there the night before. For a fleeting moment, I wondered what would happen if I paid for her to go to rehab. Was there any hope? Could I help her? I remembered something Dante told me once “You can’t save someone from themselves.”
But I wondered if I needed to try.
“Ethel?” I paused and waited.
“Yes?” She looked up and gave me a sweet smile.
“You ever think about kicking?”
Her eyebrows creased together.
“You know,” I said. “Maybe go somewhere where they can help you stop drinking and stuff?” I looked away. I waited a few seconds and looked back at her. She was staring right at me.
“Nah. Gia. I want to drink. I want to do what I want to do and what I want to do is drink.”
“I like booze too, Ethel.” I said. “Maybe if you stopped drinking, maybe you could be my roommate and we could find you a job at my friend’s salon or something. She’s awfully nice. We could …”
I was trying to figure out a way to tell her that her life could be better. But how could I say that without insulting everything she was right now?
“Gia,” she waited for me to look her in the eye. “I may be homeless, but I’m free.”
I thought about that for a second. There was nothing I could say. I pressed my lips together tightly and nodded.
“Okay. You let me know if you change your mind. I know some people.”
She looked away but I saw her acknowledge what I said with a slight nod.
I gave her one last look before I walked toward Market Street so I could hail a cab to the airport.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Col De I’iseran
My plane touched down in Geneva at dawn. I’d slept through most of the flight after helping myself to several mini bottles of red wine. I woke to the flight attendant’s announcing our imminent arrival and lunged for my giant bottle of water. My tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth and my pulse was pounding a Congo line behind my eyes. Drinking on an overseas flight was one of the worst ideas I’d had in a long time.
With only my backpack, I ripped through customs, arranged for a rental car and headed toward my hotel in the center of town. I loved downtown Geneva with its stately old buildings, café tables on the sidewalks, and wrought iron balconies overlooking the street.
Checking in was an exercise in practicing my rusty French. I probably came across like a preschooler, but I got what I needed from the desk clerk.
The small room had a tiny, white desk with an upholstered chair, a white-framed bed with flowered bedspread, a dresser, a coffeemaker, and a bowl of fruit. No TV, which was fine by me.
I showered, ate an apple, some grapes, and drank about a pot of coffee before I headed out. I dressed as demurely as I could, in simple black pants, a white blouse and black blazer. I pulled my hair back in a low ponytail, grabbed some dark sunglasses and kept the makeup to a minimum. My rental car was ostentatious enough.
I missed driving my Ferrari, so I’d rented a Tesla Signature Roadster. I realized this was drawing attention to myself, but by the time word got back to my godfather — and that’s assuming he did have spies here in Geneva — I’d be long gone.
My plan was to show up at the widow’s house at eight–supper time–and surprise her. I hoped she’d open her doors wide. She’d put her address on the envelope for a reason, right?
Until then, I would take the Tesla for a spin. I’d been mellow on the drive from the rental agency to the hotel—I’d been more interested in the spectacular views of Lake Geneva including the famous Jet d’eau — a fountain in the middle of the lake that spouted water more than four hundred feet in to the air.
But now I itched to see what was under the hood. I was going to take the Tesla for a test drive through the nearby French Alps.
I grew up going to the races at Laguna Seca raceway. When I turned sixteen my parents bought me an orange twin turbo Dodge Viper and enrolled me in the Skip Barber Racing Course at the racetrack.
As soon as I learned to race, I decided I also wanted to learn how to work on cars. I got a job that summer in the pit crew at Laguna Seca, helping the mechanics change tires and refuel the cars. I think for a while my parents suspected I was the kind of girl who didn’t like boys, but that ended the night they found the thirty-year-old French racecar driver in my bed. They were supposed to be flying out to Europe that day but the flight was grounded due to fog. Thank God my mom was there to stop my father from killing the poor guy on the spot. He escaped with his clothes in his hands. I never heard from him again.
After that, my mother gave me the birth control talk privately while my dad publicly announced that he would harm any man or boy that touched his teenage daughter. My father must have suspected Dante was gay before I ever had a clue because that was one guy my father always let me spend time around.
Today, I didn’t attract as much attention as I thought driving the Tesla through town. There was some international finance meeting and it looked like billionaires from across the world had convened in Geneva solely to putt around in their luxury sports cars. I spotted five Ferraris, including one Ferrari 458 Italia Spider, three Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4 Bicolores, and even a McLaren MP4-12C. The dozens of Porsches, Jaguars and Mercedes seemed provincial next to the higher-end luxury race cars.
Needless to say, nobody batted an eye at my Tesla.
As soon as I left the city limits, my spirits lifted. Driving fast had always been my therapy. Before long I was hugging the mountain curves along the Alps that served as the natural boundary between three countries — Switzerland, France, and Italy. I steeled myself for my visit that night. I needed to get proof that my godfather was a killer and then I’d have to take care of it myself. I was the only one left to avenge my family’s name.
The thought made my stomach hurt, but I knew I had to do it for my father. He would’ve expected no less of me. There was a reason he wanted me to study karate, learn to fix cars, and shoot guns when I was only fifteen. He knew that someday these skills would come in handy. He had prepared me well.
I brushed aside these thoughts and pressed my foot to the gas pedal. As my speedometer’s numbers increased, my thoughts flew out the window into the wind and I concentrated on the rush that speed gave me.
I hopped onto the Route des Grandes Alpes, also known as the N902, which climbed higher and higher, past Bourg St. Maurice, until the air was so cold I had to crank the car’s heater.
One of my books on Budo had talked about how for many American’s driving the freeway had become an act of meditation. In Japan, the book said, people reached a meditative state through the tea ceremony. But when Americans tried to imitate this, they were unable to achieve that subconscious state. The theory was that for the Japanese, the tea ceremony was so ingrained in their culture and life that when they performed the ceremony, their minds and bodies naturally went into auto pilot – they did it entirely without thinking and as a result, their thoughts wandered and they were able to achieve that meditative state.
In America, the book said, the activity that had become so rote and automatic was driving. So much so that many people did it on auto pilot and achieved a state of meditation. At the time I read it, this theory made perfect sense. More than once, I had headed on a familiar freeway and completely missed my exit witho
ut realizing it because I had been daydreaming, or meditating, or whatever subconscious state you could call it.
That’s one reason I embraced driving as my own unique therapy.
On this day, in a million-dollar car, on one of the most scenic roads in the world, I really didn’t take much of it in. Instead, I turned inward, going over everything I knew about my parents’ deaths hoping that some little tidbit that had escaped me would surface. I sifted back through a lifetime of memories about my godfather, trying to understand why he would turn on my family like this. Nothing made sense. I realized I could think about it for the rest of my life without understanding.
It wasn’t until I reached the stretch of N902 called the Col de I’Iseran that I realized I should probably find a spot to turn around and head back. I didn’t want to be late to the widow’s house. Even though she wasn’t expecting me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mafioso
The forensic pathologist had lived in a modern home with sweeping views of Lake Geneva. Driving to the home, I tried not to look at a long, unmarked driveway as I passed it. I hadn’t been there for years, but I knew the tree-lined driveway would lead to the charred remains of my parents’ house. I’d deal with that later.
Every once in a while, I caught a glimpse of the backside of the doctor’s house from the winding road leading up to it. The backside faced the lake. The setting sun reflected off the wall of windows overlooking the water. As I got closer I could tell that a forest of large trees surrounded the house on the other three sides. A Koi pond sat in the center of a large circular driveway.
It looks like the doctor had definitely kept up with the Joneses. I wondered if the opulence was mainly a result of him being on the mob payroll to falsify autopsy results.
A maid answered the door. After seeing the house, I don’t know why this surprised me. The woman was about my age, a very beautiful blond woman dressed in a gray pencil skirt, black button-up blouse and frilly maid apron over that.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Gutmann. I’m not expected. Can you please tell her that Giada Santella is here to see her?” If anything, I hoped my last name would spark some interest.
Without any expression, the woman asked me to wait and silently glided down the hall in her ballet slippers. When the woman returned, she gave me a slightly annoyed look.
“Mrs. Gutmann has just sat down to dinner.”
Yup. Why I’d arrived at eight on the dot. I tried to look pleasant.
“Fortunately,” the woman continued, making it clear that it was actually not fortunate. “Mrs. Gutmann is dining alone tonight and has asked you to join her.”
She turned on her heel and began walking down the hall to another doorway without waiting to see if I was following. I waited a few seconds just to see if she would look. When she didn’t, I caught up, my heels clicking loudly behind her silent glide.
An open door revealed a brightly lit room with a glass topped table and sideboards filled with flowers. At one end of the table, a woman with an elegant silver chignon nodded at me without getting up. Her blue eyes took me in from head to toe as she gestured at the spot to her right.
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Gutmann,” I said nodding my head at her. “I apologize for the unannounced visit.”
Mrs. Gutmann acknowledged my apology with the slightest downward dip of her chin. “I see my letter ended up in your hands. As planned.” Her voice was soft and I detected a note of sadness. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I dipped my own chin in acknowledgment.
“You said ‘as planned,’ but how did you know I would be the one to find it?”
“Miss Santella, I only had my man slip the letter into the door after he saw you enter the house.”
I’d assumed the letter had been on the floor when I came into the house. I never considered that someone had slipped it through the mail slot after I’d arrived.
“You wanted me to get it?”
“I am an orphan, as well, Miss Santella,” she said, waving at a woman carrying two soup bowls in. After the soup was placed in front of us — a fragrant shimmer of broth — she continued. “I wanted you to be the one to find out about the deception.”
“Why? Why did your husband do that?” I cringed after I asked it. I wondered if she would kick me out before the main course.
“Apparently, his business was failing and he was too ashamed to ask me for help,” the woman said. “I inherited, like you, more money than I will possibly ever need, but my husband’s pride prevented him from telling me we needed the money. So, he decided to borrow some — from the wrong people. And as you may be aware of, once you are granted a favor by these people, they don’t hesitate to ask you for favors in return.”
She lifted one eyebrow.
I knew who those people were – Italian mafia. Their favors came at a very high cost. My dad had warned me about this once when I became friends with the daughter of a powerful Monterey attorney.
“We are polite to the Capazzos, but we are not friends,” my father had told me. “One day you will understand why.”
It wasn’t until I was a teenager that my father explained how difficult it was for him to remain separate from the Monterey mafia scene because he was a paesano from the same area of Sicily. He told me that my godfather was the one who kept the peace and kept our family from being controlled by the mafia and yet still able to make a living in the seafood business. I didn’t really understand what he meant at the time.
But now, at Mrs. Gutmann’s table, I knew exactly what she was talking about. Her husband had been indebted to the mafia and when it had become too unreasonable, he had taken his own life.
“Does anyone else know about this?”
“No,” the woman said, gingerly patting her rose-lipsticked mouth with a white linen napkin. “The reason I contacted you was that I always liked your mother.”
My heart beat faster. “You knew my mother?” My voice squeaked a little.
“Only from various functions here and there in Geneva, but your mother was a lady of grace and class and always struck me as something better than … this mafia business.”
The doors swung open and two women came in carrying plates of seafood, fresh clams, and scallops in a white wine sauce along with tiny pieces of toasts to soak up the juices. Mrs. Gutmann dipped her fork into the dish and I followed suit.
After we ate, she gestured that I should grab my wine glass and join her on the deck overlooking the lake. The night air was warm. We sank into plush couches on the deck and watched the sun set to the west.
“I suppose you are here looking for some answers,” Mrs. Gutmann said, lighting a slim cigarette from a gold case. She didn’t offer me one.
“I need to know who killed my parents. And why,” I said, staring out at the lights of Geneva across the lake. “I think I might know but I’m looking for proof before I act on it.”
“And you think you might find that proof here?”
“I was hoping to.” Now that I was halfway across the world, I started to doubt why I’d come here at all. What had I expected to find?
She stood up, smoking and standing at the rail overlooking the lake.
“I can tell you one thing and one thing only,” she said still facing the lake. “But it might mean everything you ever believed was a lie. Do you want to unearth the past in that way?” She paused. “My dear, I’ve learned a lot in my sixty-five years here on this earth, but the most important lesson that I hold dear to my heart is that ignorance can be bliss. However, as much as my heart knows this, my brain will never settle for knowing less than the truth. I suspect you are like me. It makes me sad for you. The people who are happiest in this life are not like you and me. But I like you and I respect your need to know.”
She turned to me so quickly I nearly jumped. “If you are certain, I can only point you in the right direction. That is all.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Blood Spatter
My he
art was racing. I didn’t know if it was from the bottle of wine we’d shared or from the knowledge that this woman was going to give me the answers I sought.
I closed my eyes for only a second and then opened them, nodding vigorously. “I need to know.”
“You will find what you need in Sicily.”
I waited. But she turned on her heel and left saying, “I’ve said too much. The maid will see you out.”
“Wait,” I tried to follow her, but she disappeared into a small doorway off the deck. The door was locked from the other side. I pounded on it. “Mrs. Gutmann. Please. Please tell me more. Was that all you were going to tell me? I need your help. I need more than that.”
The maid appeared at the door. “It’s time for you to go.”
By this time, it was dark. But I didn’t want to put off visiting the remains of my parent’s house.
When I got to the end of the long driveway, my headlights shone on a hulking mass that had once been my parents’ love nest. Only half the house had burned. I guess that is how they were able to find my parents’ bodies. I’d been told they had burned to death in their beds and that the fire had taken place in the dead of night. But now, with the car’s lights shining on the house, I realized that the portion of the house that was still standing included their bedroom.
I walked around to the back of the house and let myself in through an unlocked door. All the windows had been smashed. I could see clearly thanks to a nearly full moon that seemed to dangle right above the house.
Inside, the floors were littered with jagged glass. Squatters and thieves had looted the house long ago. Nothing was left except piles of empty food containers and other trash. Not a painting was left on the wall. Not a bit of furniture. I made my way up the stairs to my parents’ bedroom, heart racing, wishing I had been able to bring my gun to Geneva.
City of the Dead Page 10