A Villa in Sicily: Olive Oil and Murder

by Fiona Grace

  “If only you were that concerned about my being framed,” she muttered. “You realize it’s mostly because of Nessa that the police even suspect me at all?”

  Mason shrugged. “Like I said, a shame.”

  “So I can’t just sit back and let them pile up evidence on me. I have to do something.” She pounded the bottle on her thigh, and it began to bubble over, dripping on her already wet jeans. She ran a finger up the side of the bottle and sucked on it. “I guess I just don’t know where to start.”

  He rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “If I were you, I’d start with the victim. Find out what you can about him. Check his social media, his business website, stuff like that. Make connections. One of those connections could lead you right where you’re wanting to go.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. That made total sense. She could easily hit up Google, and without even setting foot outside. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?

  “Wow, Mason. I think that may be the first smart thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  He let out a bitter laugh. “You’re hilarious.”

  She sipped her beer. “Thanks.”

  “But you better be careful, girl. You don’t want to get that pretty nose of yours too close to the truth. Could get bitten off.”

  He stared at her in an intense way, and it seemed like this would be the moment in a murder mystery movie where the foreboding organ music would swell up and leave the audience chilled.

  But Audrey only giggled again. He called me pretty. Well, my nose, at least.

  From the way he looked at her, he must’ve been used to that kind of reaction. “Seriously. I know you want to clear your name, but if that person killed once, there’s not much that’d stop him from killing again.”

  *

  That night, Audrey fell down a rabbit hole.

  Vaguely aware that it was the internet that had gotten her into this trouble in the first place—because it was that stupid ad on her Facebook feed that had led her to Mussomeli—she snuggled under the covers of her bed and let her thumbs get their exercise, typing in, Ernesto Fabri, Mussomeli.

  There were a number of hits, including photographs of the same cigar-sucking, massive-biceped guy, in younger days, before the giant pot belly and the receding hairline. The first website was for Fabri Fratelli Construction.

  She clicked on it and was dismayed to find out the entire thing was in Italian. Of course. She scrolled to the bottom, though, and found what looked to be the address and phone number. Grabbing her pad, she scribbled that information down, wondering if she’d have the guts to snoop around there and ask questions.

  As she finished, Mason’s words came back to her: If a person killed once, there’s not much that’d stop him from killing again.

  A shiver snaked down her spine. She’d just shoved the willies away when a giant red furball dropped in her lap.

  She jumped, not as high as last time. “Nick, can you stop floating around the place like the face of death? Can’t you make a little noise so you don’t scare me?”

  Unconcerned, he circled around her bed, scanning for the most comfortable spot, and found it at her elbow. He plopped himself down, head on her pillow, and licked at his paw.

  “Fine. Whatever. This is your bed. I just borrow it.” She went back to the Google results and noticed a search result for FINDANYONEANYWHERE.com. She knew it was clickbait, but she opened it anyway. It had a listing for Ernesto Fabri in Mussomeli, Sicily, with some of the numbers and important data concealed unless the user purchased a paid report. Audrey wasn’t stupid or desperate enough to do that; besides, the free listing gave her enough information:

  Fabri, Ernesto R. Age: 49, Tomasino di Bartolo ***, Mussomeli, Sicily, IT. **bri@fabri.com. Possible Relations: Mariana (De Mauro) Fabri (39). Eduardo Fabri (68) Giuseppe Fabri (46). THIS INDIVIDUAL MAY HAVE A CRIMINAL RECORD. CLICK HERE TO ORDER DETAILED REPORT.

  Right. Berto had said that Mariana Fabri was the ex-wife, living in Agrigento.

  She clicked out of it and typed in Mariana Fabri, Agrigento.

  Immediately she came up with a bunch of hits, but the second she saw the images of a blonde woman in a tight-fitting, cleavage-revealing shirt and a tan, she knew she’d found the right woman. She scanned through the pictures and finally found one of her with a man who looked like Ernesto, from about a decade ago. He had one of his big biceps wrapped possessively around her neck.

  Bingo.

  It turned out that Mariana Fabri was the classic over-sharer. She was active on just about every social media platform out there, especially Facebook, and her profile was completely public. She had almost the limit of five thousand friends, and updated about once an hour, with a funny meme or a photograph of herself.

  A lot of photographs of herself.

  Apparently, since her split from Ernesto, she’d gone through a second youth. Audrey scanned through selfie after selfie of the woman, feeling almost embarrassed with how little she was wearing. They were mostly bikini shots, either her posing in the arms of random men, or holding some fruity cocktail and looking a little bleary in the eyes. Her hair had gradually gotten longer and lighter, too—now it was white blonde. No posts about children. It was all about her—what beach she was jetsetting to for a party, what pseudo-celebrities she was living it up with, what fabulous concert she’d attended.

  Audrey felt a sick feeling plant itself in her gut as she scrolled. Sure, Mariana had made it all public, inviting the scrutiny, but Audrey couldn’t help feeling like she was intruding. Stalking.

  She stopped when she came to a memory of a picture that had been taken fifteen years before. A much younger Mariana, dressed as a blushing bride, complete with veil and too-much-tulle white dress, with a much trimmer and more attractive Ernesto, toasting their wedding. Over the picture, Mariana had written a caption, with a laughing emoticon.

  Audrey eagerly pushed the Read Translation button.

  It said, “Worst day of my life!”

  Interesting. She clicked on the comments. There were many from her male admirers, all in Italian.

  She clicked on the translation of one, that said, Thank goodness for divorce!

  Mariana had replied, Not yet. I ask for one every year and he says no. Bastard.

  Audrey stared at the words so long that they blurred together. There it was, a big fat motive. So if he had a life insurance policy, and he was killed, she’d be the beneficiary. Not to mention that she’d get him out of the way so she could remarry.

  Her eyes went to the woman. No cloak, no mask … heck, this woman clearly loved to bare everything. Everything. Was she the murdering type?

  Audrey dropped her phone and tilted her head to the ceiling, thinking. No, Mariana probably had just as much strength as Nessa did, as Audrey did, and probably couldn’t have pushed a man like Fabri. But anything was possible. Maybe there was a fight, and he’d lost his balance.

  In that case, Nessa wasn’t off the hook. Neither was Mariana.

  Her thoughts ran in circles, but they kept coming back to the same conclusion: She had to talk to this woman. There was no way around it.

  No, Audrey wasn’t allowed to leave town.

  But what the police didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. It’d only hurt her … if she got caught.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  The next morning, before she even slid out of bed, she grabbed her phone and called Mason.

  He answered, groaning. “You realize it’s barely seven in the morning?”

  She ignored his complaining. “You said you had a car?”

  “Yeah …”

  “Can I borrow it?”

  Now he seemed more awake. “What do you need a car for?”

  She was a woman with a plan. She’d spent the entire sleepless night ruminating. When she finally did fall asleep, well after three in the morning, she had dreams of leading the police on a car chase through the mountains of Sicily, only to plunge off a cliff into the same Mediterranean Sea she’d ogled with desi
re from the subway back in Boston. A fitting ending to her life.

  But now, she had a nagging need to escape. Never before had she felt it so bad. It was even worse than the impulse that had brought her all the way from America. That one was about preserving her sanity. This one felt like a matter of life or death.

  “I want to go to Agrigento. It’s a town on the coast. Not far from here. Fabri’s wife lives there. I think she might be able to help me clear up a little bit on his past.”

  A pause. “So all my warnings did no good, I see.”

  “No, listen. She has a motive to kill him because he never granted her a divorce, and she clearly wanted to move on. She’d asked him a bunch of times, and he said no.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “It’s amazing the things people post on Facebook.”

  “Facebook post nothing. She’s a woman. That guy was a rock. She’d have a hard time—”

  “Right, but he could have slipped during a fight. I don’t know. I won’t know unless I ask. And Agrigento isn’t far away, so there’s a chance—”

  “That you’re driving to the coast to meet with a murderer and I’ll never see you—or my car—again? So, yeah, as to whether you can borrow my car? I’d say that’s a big no.”

  “Come on. What am I supposed to do? Sit back and let them conduct the investigation themselves?”

  “Well … yes. Last thing I heard, that was their job. Not yours.”

  “No. I told you. If I do that, next thing I know, they’ll be knocking on my door with an arrest warrant. I need to be proactive.”

  “No. You need to sit tight. Mind your own business. Acting strange is only going to make you look more suspicious.”

  Audrey went to the picture window and threw it open. She peered out onto the street. No Officer Ricci, surprisingly. She hadn’t seen him since yesterday, when he stopped by on his reconnaissance mission, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be around again, camping out outside her place. “I was minding my own business. That got me where I am today.”

  There was a short pause. Finally, he sighed. “Fine. It’s the blue Fiat in front of my house. I’ll leave the keys in the ignition.”

  Okay, so, distancing yourself from the crazy neighbor so you’re not implicated. Got it. She didn’t bother to question it. He’d said yes. That was enough. “Thanks. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “Be careful, Boston.”

  She hung up and decided to forgo the shower, quickly dressing and grabbing an apple from the kitchen. Once again, she tripped over Nick as she reached for the door. “Oh. Um …” She reversed direction and filled a cereal bowl with a scoop of dog kibble and a slice of the apple. “That should keep you. Don’t go anywhere.”

  She closed the door and was just about to head toward Mason’s house and take a bite of her apple when she noticed Officer Ricci coming toward her.

  Her gut dropped.

  “Ciao,” he said, giving her a wave. There was a suspicious lilt in his voice that Audrey didn’t like. Or maybe that was just her imagination? “You’re up early. Where are you headed?”

  “To visit a friend,” she said, lips tight. “That’s all.”

  She turned away from him so that he couldn’t detect the lie on her face, then feeling guilty, held up her hand for a wave.

  “See you later!”

  When she rounded the corner, she realized her heart was beating out of her chest. She clamped a hand over it and picked up the pace.

  Mason’s powder blue Fiat was parked almost directly in front of his home, but Mason was nowhere in sight. Audrey had pegged Mason as more of a pick-up truck, gun-fanatic, country-music-loving Southern boy, and this car was almost the exact antithesis of that. It was so tiny that the walls closed in on Audrey as she slid into the seat, and she wasn’t exactly big. Mason probably had trouble fitting all of his six feet of perfection behind the wheel.

  Of course, a pick-up truck probably couldn’t manage the narrow streets very well. The car was made for a city like Mussomeli.

  She found the key already in the ignition, a metal keychain dangling against her knee. The car sputtered to life as she twisted the key, checking in her rearview mirror, expecting Officer Ricci to show up, banging a bully stick against his palm and shaking his fist like a Keystone Cop.

  But no, there was no one on the street at all.

  No witnesses to notice her escape.

  “I’m crazy,” she whispered to herself, peering at a street sign up ahead. It was an inverted triangle. No clue what that meant. Luckily, Sicilians drove on the right side of the road, just like Americans, or else she probably would’ve called it a day and gone back home, tail between her legs, and waited to be arrested.

  Then she looked down and realized something.

  The car was a manual.

  Driving an automatic car was hard enough, considering she hadn’t owned one at all in Boston. Never had the need to, with the T. She’d learned the basics on how to drive a manual on a whim about a decade ago, from one of Brina’s boyfriends, while he was killing time waiting for Brina to get ready for a date.

  Gingerly, she stepped on the gas, and the car lurched forward, gears grinding. She winced. “Mason, I apologize to you in advance if I leave your transmission in the middle of the road.”

  She threw the shifter back and inched away from the curb.

  Audrey didn’t breathe the entire trip down Mason’s street. She wrapped her white-knuckled fingers around the steering wheel and said silent prayers the entire time. But when she turned onto the main drag, even though she was soon to be an “outlaw,” she could breathe a little easier. She eventually got the hang of shifting, too, and the gears didn’t grind nearly as much, even on the many hills.

  She rolled down the windows and let the warm summer air roll through cabin, taking big mouthfuls of it. It felt good to be free.

  “I can do this,” she said to herself with a smile as she checked her phone in the cup holder beside her.

  Agrigento, only about twenty-eight more miles away. Luckily, Mariana Fabri, the over-sharer on social media, was well spread out all over the internet. It only took a quick Google search to find her address, which was what she punched into her GPS.

  She reached over to turn on some music but the only thing that came through was some terrible Italian pop that sounded like an animal wailing in pain. She flipped it off and reached into the other cup holder for her forgotten apple half, her breakfast, which she was sure would now be mostly brown goo.

  But it was gone.

  She reached blindly into the passenger’s side floor, feeling around the seat for the missing fruit. Instead, her hand came in contact with something furry and warm.

  The second she touched it, it flinched.

  “Ack!” she screamed, nearly letting go of the wheel as Nick jumped out at her, sitting himself on the passenger seat and making himself at home, already half-done with her breakfast. As he munched, he peered, unconcerned, over the dashboard as she veered sharply to the right and nearly hit a street sign.

  She corrected just in time, then came to a stop at something she was pretty sure was a stop sign.

  There were no cars behind her, so she turned to him, frowning. “Really?”

  He finished the rest of the apple—even the core—and licked his paws.

  “Nice. How did you even get out here?”

  Behind her, a car beeped.

  She jumped and pressed on the gas, heading toward the edge of town.

  “You play nice and innocent,” she muttered to him, “but deep down, you’re a sneaky one.” All she could think was that there must be a hole somewhere that he was escaping through. She didn’t put it past her place to have plenty of holes in it. It was like the Swiss cheese of homes.

  She was about to berate him on eating her breakfast when a siren sounded behind her.

  Then she really jumped, so high the top of her head nearly scraped the car’s roof. Peering in the rearview mirror, she saw the
red flashing lights. She navigated over to the side of the road, biting her lip. As she did, she realized she was about a stone’s throw from a sign that said, Partiamo ora da Mussomeli, which she hoped meant that she was still within the city limits.

  Her heart sped up as she tilted her head to look in the side-view mirror and saw Officer Ricci stepping toward her on the dusty shoulder of the road. Perfect. She was totally screwed.

  Breathing hard, she threw her head back against the headrest and tried to calm herself. That was when Nick lounged across the seat and rested his head on her lap.

  Oh. She’d forgotten about him.

  No. Now she was totally screwed.

  She shoved the fox off her lap and powered down the window. “Hello, Officer!” she said brightly, waving. “Nice day for a drive, huh?”

  Who was this girl? It didn’t even sound like her own voice. Somehow, even though she wanted to throw up, she’d actually managed to sound halfway normal. Was that what being suspected of murder did to a person? Now that she was a hardened criminal, she could lie like that, with the drop of a hat? She scared herself.

  Officer Ricci crossed his arms. “Where were you headed?”

  He no longer sounded friendly. In fact, he sounded downright pissed.

  “Um… just like I said. On a drive, to check out the city,” she said, shielding her eyes from the sun and squinting into the distance. “Though I think I might’ve gotten a little lost.”

  “I think so.” His face was stone. “I thought you said you were going to visit a friend?”

  She gritted her teeth. She had said that. “Yes! Right!” she hedged. “Checking out the city, visiting friends in town, it’s all good.”

  “You were almost outside of town.”

  She nodded. “I just noticed the sign. Whoops. Good thing you stopped me.”

  “You know, Detective DiNardo won’t be happy. I could have you arrested.”

  Before she could answer, Nick made a little squeaking noise that almost sounded like an “uh-oh.” Officer Ricci shifted slightly, peered in the back seat, and shook his head.