Murder in Italy

by Dianne Harman

  “And… he sounded real when he spoke to her. His voice was full of love and affection… the same love and affection he gives to me.” She broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. She felt so alone in the world. For so many years she had lived only for Bruno. She had few friends, for the people in the village were so poor she had little in common with any of them.

  She was always wary of them trying to get something from her, or come into her beautiful house and steal things. She had once been poor, and wanted to distance herself from poverty as much as possible. After all, she was Bruno Lombardi’s future wife, not just some poor village woman. But now… what was she? Had her brother Rinaldo been right? Was she nothing more than Bruno’s piece of candy on the side?

  “Perhaps he was just faking to her,” she said. “Perhaps he has to keep up the pretense.” That thought was comforting for only a moment. “But he told me they did not even speak to each other. He told me all they had together was icy silence. But on the phone, that was the furthest thing from icy silence I’ve ever heard.”

  She let it all sink in, and felt like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  “So now… where do I go? What do I do? What is the truth? I have been praying every day that he will see the light, let loose the reigns of the devil, and come to live in this true marriage, where he will be loved and respected as my husband. Just like God intended…”

  “It is a sin to pray for a marriage under God to end,” the priest said.

  “But is it under God, even if she was just doing it for status and wealth? If she does not truly love him?”

  “You do not see what goes on behind closed doors,” the priest said. “The marriage is his responsibility under God. If he did not seek an annulment, he has made a commitment to his wife to be with her until death does them part. Do not put yourself on Satan’s side and try to tear apart what God has put together.”

  Sofia felt so confused. The narrative she had told herself, about Satan being the author of Bruno and Chiari’s marriage, was crumbling. She had always thought herself on the righteous side, patiently waiting for Bruno to free himself from the shackles Chiari and the devil himself had put on him. But now a horrific thought was stirring within her. Perhaps she was the one who was sinning.

  “I don’t know, Father. I am confused. I am so, so confused.” Her voice broke. “Is it so wrong to want to be with the man I love? With the father of my child? Is it so wrong to want us to live as husband and wife?”

  “Yes,” the priest said shortly. “You do not need to be confused. Divine law is very clear. You have committed numerous serious sins. You have committed adultery with a married man, and you have allied yourself with Satan to pray for the downfall of their union.

  “You will incur eternal punishment. The divine spirit of God in your soul is dying, and you are on the road to hell. You have damaged the Word of God by carrying on with a married man and disrespecting the sacred sacrament of marriage. You have also attempted to use prayer for the work of evil.”

  Sofia let all the priest had said sink in. She didn’t know if she believed it or not. Half of her did, and felt devastated. Her stomach felt like it had dropped to the floor. But as soon as she felt that sensation, an anger arose in her. None of this was fair! None of this was right! What sin had she committed, except to love? Except to trust?

  “Are you deeply and truly remorseful for what you have done?” the priest asked.

  Sofia tried to bat away the angry part of her, and focus on the guilt twisting in her gut. “Yes, Father,” she responded

  “Say the act of contrition.”

  Sofia knew this front to back. She had recited it since she was a child, sometimes with feeling, often just as words coming out of her mouth. “My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things.”

  This made her feel angry. “I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.” How could she avoid Bruno, the love of her life? “Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. In His name, my God, have mercy. Amen.”

  The priest then said, “And I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit,” while Sofia made the sign of the cross over herself and wondered why life was so painful and unfair.

  “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,” the Priest said.

  “His mercy endures forever,” Sofia parroted.

  “Your eternal punishment is now remitted. The temporal punishment must be worked off with penance.” He paused for a moment. “Your penance is to pray for the success and blessing of the marriage between this man and his wife every day for the next seven days, and to stop sinning by breaking off the affair.”

  The priest’s words felt like a knife had been plunged through Sofia’s heart. She did not say anything.

  “Our sins are not truly forgiven until we take up our penance,” the priest said. Then his voice softened. “Turn to God, not man, in your hour of pain and suffering. You may now leave.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Sofia said, then left.

  CHAPTER 9

  Kat was pulled out of her sleep by the sound of loud knocking on the door. It took her a moment to remember where she was.

  “Kat, Kat,” she heard a woman’s voice say urgently at the door.

  The room was almost dark, as dawn had not yet fully broken.

  Kat sat up in bed and blinked. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Blaine next to her. He was rubbing his eyes and looking as confused and disoriented as she was. Then suddenly she realized she wasn’t in her own home in Lindsay, Kansas, but instead she was in Deborah’s house in Italy.

  She jumped out of bed and said, “Come in, come in.”

  Deborah opened the door. “I’m really sorry to wake you up.” She was in her pajamas, her hair sticking up in all directions. But it was the look on her face that alarmed Kat. Her eyes were wide and her features were creased in fear.

  “I just got a call from Luigi. You know his friend, the man he was talking about last night, the one who was meant to be his best man, Bruno Lombardi? He was murdered last night.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Kat said.

  Blaine had been half-asleep, but he quickly sat upright when he heard what Deborah said, and was instantly wide awake.

  “I hate to ask this…” Deborah said as she bit at one of her nails and looked awkward. “But since you helped solve the murder of the coed who was having an affair with my ex-husband, and the other murders in Lindsay… I was wondering if you and Blaine would come along with us to Sardinia?”

  Kat walked over to Deborah and hugged her. “Of course. I’ll be there alongside you every step of the way, but I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. I’m in a foreign country. I barely speak the language. Do you not have faith in the police here?”

  “We do,” Deborah said. “Although some of them can be bribed if the price is right. It may have something to do with organized crime, since Bruno was so rich. Who knows? But in any case, I’ll just feel better with you there. You have a sharp mind. You know what to look for. I think you could really be of some help, Kat, and I know it would make Luigi feel better.”

  “How is he holding up?” Blaine asked.

  Deborah let out a little sob and a single tear trickled down her cheek, which she quickly wiped away. “Not well. I have to be strong for him. Bruno was his oldest and best friend. As much as he had his arrogant ways, the two of them teased each other a lot. I think Luigi was the only person Bruno could really be humble with. It was a special friendship. A special, special friendship.”

  “That’s so sad,” Kat said. “I’m truly sorry for Luigi.”

  “Yes,” Deborah said. “I’m really sorry about this, too. This isn’t how you wanted to spend your trip.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly!” Kat quickly said. “Our trip is nothing. A man’s life has ended. That�
�s certainly more important than our trip.”

  “Yes, but…” Deborah began to say.

  “Say no more, Deborah,” Blaine interrupted. “We’re here to help and support you, and we’re happy to do it. In the good times and the bad times.”

  Deborah burst into tears. “You’re such good friends.”

  Kat gave her another hug, feeling her own heart hurting on her friend’s behalf. What a sad thing to have happened, and just before their wedding. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion.

  Deborah wiped her eyes as she pulled away. “I’m going to get dressed and put my warpaint on. I need to be strong for Luigi. He’s called a driver to come and pick us up and take us to a private airport where we will meet him. Then we’ll head to Sardinia on his plane. I’m sorry about the short notice.”

  “Not a problem,” Blaine said, “We’ll be ready to go when you are.”

  “Luigi’s anxious to get over there as soon as possible. It was Bruno’s wife who called, Chiari. She found him when he was late getting back from his tasting of a new wine release. He died in his wine cellar.”

  “How horrible,” said Kat with a shiver. “Poor woman.”

  “Yes, it’s so sad.” Deborah said. “I hope we can all offer her some support. Luigi says she can be quite shy at times and doesn’t have that many friends. I doubt if she has a good support network.”

  Kat began to arrange her outfit for the flight. “Thankfully, Blaine and I were too tired after the dinner last night to unpack many of our things. It will only take us a few minutes to get ready.”

  “I have to pack myself,” Deborah said. “I’d better get a move on. We only have twenty minutes or so before the driver arrives. Feel free to grab some bread from the kitchen. There’s cheese in the fridge, if you’d like. Or cold cuts. Or cereal. I doubt we’ll be able to eat for a while.”

  With that said, they all rushed around to get ready, packing, and throwing together quick breakfasts for themselves.

  Soon they stood in the hallway surrounded by their suitcases. “I don’t know if I’ve got too little or too much,” Deborah said. “I don’t know how long we’ll be there. Oh, that reminds me. I need to ask the neighbors if they can feed Primo for a couple days.” Deborah rushed out of the room and headed next door.

  Blaine and Kat looked at each other, and Blaine ran his hand up and down Kat’s back. It was the first time they’d been able to slow down and breathe since waking up that morning.

  “Well…” Kat said. “What can I say?” She didn’t know what to say at all, but the situation seemed so strange she felt compelled to say something. “This is unexpected.”

  “Indeed,” Blaine said. “The curveballs life throws…”

  Kat sighed. “I just feel for Deborah. She went through so much in Lindsay. Now she comes here to start a new life. Everything starts out good, and soon it’s like a fairytale, marrying a wonderful man who lives in a castle, for goodness’ sake! That’s what I wanted for her. Not this.” Kat felt a little tearful and hung her head with a feeling of great sadness.

  Blaine gave her a hug. “People would kill for friends like you. Oh, gosh, sorry, bad choice of words. What I meant to say was you’re such a wonderful friend…” He buried his face in her hair for a moment. “I guess… we can’t predict or control what life has in store for us. But being good friends, that’s a choice. And it makes everything easier.”

  Kat looked up at him and managed a small smile, in spite of the heavy feeling in her heart. “Yes, you’re right. Love and friendship make the road feel a little smoother.” She thought of Bruno’s poor wife. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to find Blaine dead. She wasn’t sure she’d ever recover. “I don’t know how I can be of any help in the investigation, like Deborah hopes. But I do know I can support Deborah, so hopefully I can be of use to this lady Chiari, too. She probably needs all the friends and support she can get right now.”

  Blaine nodded. “And though I don’t know Luigi well, I’ll be there for him, too.”

  Kat smiled up at him, then wrapped him up in a great big hug. “I’m so glad I married you.”

  They heard a car pull up outside as Deborah rushed back in the house. “The driver’s here,” she said quickly. “Come on, let’s get these suitcases out to him.” She lugged hers out the door and hurried to the waiting limousine.

  “The next door neighbors say they’re too scared of Primo to feed him, and anyway, they’re going on vacation tomorrow.” She bit her lip and looked down the street. “I don’t know anyone else, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking them. I think I’ll just have to bring him along.”

  Kat nodded. “Sounds like a plan. That’s one benefit of having a private plane, I suppose. It’s not too complicated to bring him.”

  The driver got out and helped Blaine load the suitcases in the trunk.

  “Yep,” said Deborah. “I’ll just go back in and get some dog biscuits.”

  “Okay,” Kat replied. “Is there anything you want me to do?”

  Deborah looked stressed. “Um… no, I think we’re good to go.”

  Within a few minutes, they were all loaded in the limousine, Primo included, and rushing to the airport. The driver had obviously been told to step heavily on the gas. People seemed to be quite lax about seatbelts in Italy. Kat hadn’t seen Deborah or Luigi use theirs. But now, even Deborah was raising her eyebrows and buckling up. “We don’t want two tragedies in one day,” she said, shaking her head.

  The Italian scenery, bathed in the lilac light of dawn, wasn’t so easy to appreciate when they were bumping along unpaved backroads. They were obviously taking some kind of shortcut, and it led through an impoverished looking agricultural area, where everyone seemed to have pickup trucks parked outside their small concrete homes.

  Soon they reached the private airport. It was larger than Kat expected. Someone in uniform rushed toward the limousine as the driver brought it to a stop, and then rushed just as fast in the other direction with their bags.

  They were led through a large shiny hangar with ten or fifteen small planes inside, and then out onto the tarmac.

  “There it is,” Deborah said, pointing to a plane with the steps lowered down onto the tarmac. The words ‘Gulfstream G550’ were printed on the side of the plane which had seven windows on each side of the fuselage.

  When Kat had heard the words ‘private plane’ she’d been a little worried that it would be some tiny thing that would feel small and unsafe in the air. When she saw the big Gulfstream, however, she let out a private sigh of relief. With its huge wingspan and sturdy body, it certainly wasn’t small. They watched the man with their bags store them in the hold of the plane.

  Deborah, Blaine, and Kat hurriedly walked up the steps, Primo trotting along obediently behind them.

  “Oh, thank heavens you’re here,” Luigi said, meeting them inside the plane. He gave Deborah a quick hug and a kiss, but there was no time for any more pleasantries. “I’m going to be in the cockpit with the pilot. Please make yourselves comfortable here in the main cabin. If you’d like, Martina will get you some coffee.” Before they had a chance to reply, he rushed towards the cockpit saying, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  The interior of the plane was sleek, luxurious, and modern. A deep plush gray carpet made it soft underfoot, while a creamy white and gray color scheme gave a soft effect to the reclining chairs and coffee tables.

  “Hi, I’m Martina,” a stewardess said. She was in her thirties and wore an attractive cream and gray uniform to match the décor of the plane.

  “Hi, Martina, nice to see you again,” Deborah said. “I wish it could be under better circumstances.”

  “Yes, my condolences to you,” she said kindly. “Now, Mr. Luigi is very anxious to leave immediately, so if you could all please take a recliner seat and buckle up, then we can takeoff. The coffee is almost ready. I’ll get it for you once we’re airborne.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The flight was sho
rt, taking just under one hour. Primo had curled up in a corner and slept through the whole flight. Most of the time, Kat, Blaine, and Deborah talked about Bruno and Chiari while sipping their coffee.

  “I’ve only met him once,” Deborah said. “But he and Luigi talked on the phone every single week. Usually Sunday afternoons. You know, like how you make calls to family? I truly believe they saw themselves as family, even though they weren’t related. They could talk for hours and hours, about wine, politics, books, new gadgets, and all sorts of things. They were truly like brothers.”

  “What a great thing, to have such a good friend,” Blaine said.

  “Yes,” Deborah said, getting a little teary-eyed. “I was so excited to see him again. Luigi couldn’t wait to spend the few days with him leading up to our wedding. They’re both so busy, what with their vineyards, and all the publicity Bruno does. They were never able to get together as often as they’d have liked.” She swallowed and looked toward the cockpit. “If I know Luigi, I expect he’ll be regretting that now. All those ‘reasons’ they both had for not making the trip… well, they’ll seem really insignificant now.”

  That struck a chord with Kat. It had taken a wedding to get her to come to Italy and see Deborah, who had become one of her best friends. Although, of course, she had a busy life back in Lindsay, and she and Blaine couldn’t go jetting off every weekend, but she took what Deborah was saying to heart. “We let life get in the way sometimes, don’t we?”

  “And the sad thing about it is that so much of it doesn’t really mean anything,” Deborah said. “We fill our time with so much stuff. We’re always busy, so, so busy. But I’ll bet half of it isn’t really that important.”

  “That’s so true,” Blaine said.

  “We’re all lucky that we have jobs we love,” Kat said. “That certainly helps us know we’re not whiling our lives away.”

  “Yes,” Deborah said. “But… that’s not really what I was getting at. See, I don’t think it matters if you don’t enjoy your job. Someone has to pump gas. Someone has to check the groceries, and most people don’t find those jobs particularly fulfilling. But what matters is priorities. Remembering what’s important, each and every day, instead of getting swept up in the… I don’t really know what to call it. The noise, I guess? The noise of life.”