Murder in Italy

by Dianne Harman

  Kat nodded. “Death does change things. We forgive more quickly.”

  “Yes,” he said. “When he was alive, I had nothing good to say about him. Now?” He choked. “He had some good points, I can see that now.”

  “Did you know him?” Kat asked.

  “I worked for him until just recently,” Rinaldo said. “I was fired because of the horrible vineyard manager.”

  Kat looked wide-eyed at Deborah and said. “Yes, Gabriele is not the most pleasant person in the world.”

  Rinaldo swore. “I would not be surprised if he killed Bruno. The man is a psychopath.”

  Kat leaned forward in her chair. “Why would you say that? What reason would he have to kill Bruno?”

  “He always wanted to be at the forefront of everything. Ever since his days at the magazine, he has courted publicity. He loves fame. Adores the limelight. But so does, or actually I should say, so did Bruno. Bruno never allowed Gabriele to have his face on the labels of the bottles, or conduct interviews, or make any appearances. Bruno kept him firmly behind the scenes, and he hated it. The way he saw it, he did all the hard work, and Bruno just milked all the glory. He was very resentful about it.”

  Kat’s heart was beating more quickly. “Bruno was poisoned. The poison was left in a wine bottle in the cellar.”

  “That makes sense,” Rinaldo said. “He could easily slip the poison into the bottle. Other people have access to the cellar, but Gabriele tries to keep all of them out. He thinks it’s his domain. As a matter of fact, he thinks the whole place is his domain.”

  “So you think Gabriele could have possibly killed Bruno, so that he could get in the limelight?”

  “I do not know, but it seems likely,” Rinaldo said. “Of course, Chiari will inherit the whole estate…”

  “What about my son?” Sofia asked in a loud voice, wiping her tears as her sadness turned to anger. “He will not be cast aside!”

  “Who are you kidding?” Rinaldo shouted at her. “Bruno cast him aside in life, and he will cast him aside in death, too. He never publicly acknowledged him. Don’t be so stupid.”

  Sofia continued to sob.

  “Sorry for my temper,” Rinaldo said. “Sofia is just stupid enough to believe that Bruno would leave Chiari for her or her son, when it was never going to happen. Not in life, not in death. Chiari will inherit the whole estate. She is not interested in wine. She will hand over the winemaking process to Gabriele. He will finally get all the glory, just like he so desperately craves.”

  Kat blew a stream of air out of her lips. “It’s definitely a theory.”

  “It is,” he said. “The only other person I could think of who would want to kill Bruno is Vito Rizzo.”

  Kat’s eyes widened. “His name keeps coming up.”

  “For good reason,” Rinaldo said. “He hates Bruno with all his heart and soul.”

  “But how could he have managed to get the poison into the wine bottle?”

  Rinaldo shrugged. “Maybe he and Gabriele are in it together. No, Gabriele would not want to share the glory again, and Rizzo would probably be intimidated by him. Maybe one of the vineyard workers was paid off by him.”

  “Yes, I’d thought of that,” Kat said. “Can you give me a list of names? I will be interviewing them eventually.”

  Rinaldo wrote the names of his former colleagues down on the back of an envelope and handed the list to Kat. “These were the ones below me, which means they wouldn’t have access to a key. But the names of these people,” he drew stars by some of them, “are in more of a supervisory capacity. They will have keys.”

  Kat folded the envelope and tucked it in her purse. “Thank you, Rinaldo.”

  Diego was now snuggled into his mother’s lap. He turned to face Kat and Deborah and looked at them with hateful eyes. He said something in Italian.

  Deborah rocked back, shocked, then turned to Kat. “He said he hates us because his father is dead.”

  “Talk about shoot the messenger,” Kat said, then lowered her voice a little, even though no one in their company could speak English. “Is he… okay? In the letter he sent, and now, he seems very…” She couldn’t think of the right word.

  “He’s a very angry young man, for sure,” Deborah said.

  “Yes,” Kat agreed.

  Sofia had resumed crying uncontrollably.

  “Maybe we should leave them to grieve for a while,” said Kat, and come back tomorrow? It seems awful to ask them a load of questions when they’re in this state.”

  “You’re right,” said Deborah.

  They said their goodbyes and condolences, and left.

  CHAPTER 17

  After they left Sofia, Kat and Deborah decided to check into the hotel where Luigi had arranged for them to stay. It was a beautiful luxury boutique hotel in the city center of Cagliari, Sardinia’s capital. Luigi had called ahead and insisted that Primo be allowed to stay there, indicating he would pay a heavy premium if necessary. Kat loved driving through the city, with all its historic, brightly-colored buildings. They eventually pulled up outside the hotel, which had a muted red and gold exterior reaching up four floors.

  The inside was no disappointment, and their room was old-style Italian plush. After a quick hot shower, though, they were at a loss for what to do. They got a text from Luigi saying he and Blaine were running late and wouldn’t make it for dinner. The men would grab dinner on the road, and they urged the women to treat themselves.

  “Why don’t we pay a visit to the much-talked-about Mr. Rizzo?” Kat said.

  Deborah sighed. “Oh, gosh, now that I’ve heard so much about him, I’m dreading it.”

  “Me too, a little,” said Kat. “But I don’t think anyone could be worse than Gabriele.”

  They needn’t have worried. They caught Vito Rizzo in his absolute element. They looked him up online to find the address of his winery. He had a tasting room open to the public. When they got there, it was swarming with locals and tourists.

  Rizzo had a cigar on an ashtray that he kept picking up and putting down. He was pouring wine himself, and smiling and laughing with the patrons. He had a loud, booming voice that carried across the room, but Kat could tell he was the type of guy who would be just as loud when he was mad.

  She decided to play it differently. She got in line and eventually sauntered up to him with an empty glass. “Hello,” she said in English.

  “Hello.” He replied in English with a wide smile and thick Italian accent. “Welcome to Rizzo’s winery. I hope you will enjoy yourself immensely.”

  She smiled as he poured. “I expect to. Your wine was recommended to me by some very good friends. I understand it’s the best in Sardinia.”

  “You understand correctly,” he said. “Though not everyone does. Someone else usually gets that award.”

  “Oh, who’s that?” Kat asked, sipping her wine innocently.

  “Bruno Lombardi, of course.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Though now that he’s dead, maybe I have a chance to be number one.” He laughed very loudly. “Sorry, that was in bad taste, wasn’t it?”

  “Perhaps,” Kat said. She looked at him over the top of her glass. “I think you should know that I’m investigating Bruno Lombardi’s murder.”

  The smile fell from Vito’s face, and all the color drained out of it. “Come into the back with me now,” he said in a commanding voice.

  “I would be happy to.” Kat signaled to Deborah, and they both followed Vito out of the crowded room and into a nearby office.

  He sat down behind a large desk and motioned for the two of them to sit down. He was so panicked he didn’t even greet Deborah or ask Kat her name. “Are you with the police? No, you can’t be. You must be some kind of private investigation team?”

  “Something like that,” Kat said evenly.

  “Please, please,” he said, “do not get me wrong. I did not like Mr. Lombardi. He was my professional rival. I joke about him, but I did not kill him. I am n
ot a murderer.”

  Kat watched him, hoping he would blurt out more in his panic.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said, seemingly more to himself than to them. “I have an alibi.” He took out his cell phone. “Look. I know the date and time he was killed. Everyone in the wine industry knows about it. At that time I was at a wedding shower here in the winery. A couple from one of the local villages decided to hold their shower here.” He flicked through several photographs shown on the screen of his cell phone and stopped at one particular photograph.

  “Look. Here’s one of me with the happy couple.” He clicked a little icon, a circle with the letter ‘I’ inside. “Look at the time. 7:05 p.m. I was here. That’s the time he was killed, right?”

  “Yes, 7:00 p.m.,” Kat said. “You certainly do have an alibi. You could not have committed the murder.”

  Vito looked exceptionally relieved. He even began to smile again.

  “While you could not have committed the murder personally,” Kat said. “and I’m not accusing you, only looking at every possibility. Is it not possible you could have ordered him to be killed?”

  Vito lost his smile immediately. “Yes. It is possible.”

  Kat’s heart started beating. Was that a confession? Would solving the murder be that easy? She glanced at Deborah, who was gripping the edges of her chair a little too tightly.

  “But I did not,” Vito said. “Listen, if I had wanted to win this wine war by unfair means, I would have done so a long time ago, but I refuse to stoop to that level. I can only struggle to convince the critics that my wine is the best. Bruno is… was an excellent showman. He was something akin to a celebrity.

  “I had to build my own celebrity brand to counter him, but I am not lean and muscular with big brown eyes. Nevertheless, I was working on, and am still working on, an old Italian grandfather style of marketing.” He leaned forward. “Now, do you have any more questions?”

  The abruptness with which he switched topics threw Kat off. Perhaps it was designed to, but she had no way of knowing. All she knew was that her mind was blank. “Hang on a second.”

  He stood up. “I don’t have a second. Part of my branding is that I am always present. That I am accessible. I need to be outside, serving wine.”

  “But…”

  “In any case, I am not obliged to answer any of your questions. You are not the police.” He handed them a business card from a holder on his desk. “If you have any further questions, please direct them to my publicist.”

  “That’s not exactly accessible!” said Deborah.

  He was losing patience. “Accessible to paying customers, not to people poking around my business.”

  “We’re not poking,” Kat said. “We’re…”

  “I don’t have time for this!” he bellowed.

  Kat stood up, her adrenaline pumping. “You have to have time for this! You’re making yourself look very suspicious, Mr. Rizzo. If you were innocent, I would think you would jump at the chance to clear your name.”

  “What else can I tell you?” he shot back. “I showed you where I was at the time of the murder. Then you accuse me of paying someone else to do it. I’ve already told you that is not the case. What more do you want from me?”

  In all honesty, Kat just wanted a meandering conversation. One where she could scope him out and explore any issues that came up. She couldn’t think of a plausible answer to his question.

  “Thank you for your visit,” Vito said insincerely with a fake smile on his face. “Hope you can come by Rizzo winery any time, to enjoy the wine.”

  He ushered them out the door. Kat’s head was in such a whirl, she couldn’t think of what to say to change his mind. He was a very strange character. Very temperamental, she thought.

  Before they really knew what had happened, she and Deborah were outside in the parking lot, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight. They made their way back to the car to get some shade.

  “Well,” Kat said, sitting behind the steering wheel. “That certainly wasn’t productive.”

  “It wasn’t too bad,” said Deborah. “At least we know he didn’t commit the murder himself.”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have expected him to,” Kat said. “Can’t imagine him creeping into a cellar unnoticed, can you?”

  Deborah suppressed a laugh. “Perhaps not.”

  “It is possible he could have paid one of the vineyard workers to do it, if he’s in cahoots with them? When we get back to the Lombardi estate, we can check up on the workers, and see if any of them know him personally.”

  “That sounds like a good plan.”

  Kat pulled the car out of the parking lot. “I’ve had enough of difficult men for one day, between Gabriele and Vito Rizzo. I say let’s go back to the hotel, get room service, and watch a mindless movie.”

  Deborah smiled. “That sounds like an excellent plan.”

  *****

  Even though she’d had a shower earlier, Kat took a long soak in the tub while they waited for their dinner to arrive. After all that driving, her body was telling her that she needed it. They’d agreed that Deborah would do the driving the next day.

  She lay back in the bubbles and thought about each of the suspects. Rizzo could have hired someone to put the poison in the wine bottle. Gabriele could have done it too, for his own reasons. Even Chiari could have done it, as an act of revenge. Sofia could have, too, for the same reason. What about Rinaldo? Perhaps he was angry about being fired, and decided to seek his own revenge.

  Kat’s mind boggled. There were just too many possibilities.

  She tried to think of other things. She texted a message to Lacie on WhatsApp. Lacie had sent her pictures of Jazz and Rudy enjoying themselves on their long dog walks and anther picture of them curled up on the couch with Tyler and her. Kat replied saying how happy they all looked. Her heart felt warm seeing the pictures. She missed them all, even though she’d only been gone a short time. She missed Lindsay, too. She didn’t know how Deborah had done it – uprooting her whole life to move to a foreign country. Kat was certainly enjoying the trip, but she’d enjoy going back home, too.

  She padded back into her room (they’d gotten two, but Deborah had come over from hers to join Kat for the evening) to find Deborah doing a soduku puzzle and looking at the Hugh Grant romcom now and then, with Primo curled up at her feet. The décor of the room was rich and sumptuous, with reds and purples and brown leather furniture. Deborah had drawn the heavy red curtains and the room was bathed in soft golden lamplight. It looked and felt unbelievably cozy.

  It only got better when their dinner arrived. They’d gone for real comfort food, to make up for the difficult day they’d had. Kat had ordered pizza. “I can’t believe I’ve had so little pizza so far. I’m in Italy, for goodness’ sake!” she’d said before ordering. She’d gone for a sundried tomato, olive, oregano, and pulled pork pizza.

  Deborah had chosen lasagna. For their side dishes, they’d chosen a green salad and a plateful of arancini – little golden brown balls filled with rice, tomato sauce and mozzarella. Then to finish, they’d both chosen gelato. Kat went for nicciola, which was hazelnut, while Deborah opted for zuppa ingelese. “That translates to English soup,” Deborah had said, laughing. “No idea what it is, but I’ll try it.”

  They began to eat their main dish and sides, and before they knew what had happened, it was all gone.

  “Time to try the English soup,” Deborah said. She dipped her spoon in the gelato and tasted it. “Oh, it tastes like custard!” Deborah had been to England many times. “Wow. They sure are creative. Now I can see why they named it that.”

  Kat and Deborah were happy to spend their evening watching the movie. They were both tired from their emotionally draining day, and both of them ended up falling asleep before the movie had finished, Deborah in the armchair, and Kat on top of the bed quilt.

  They didn’t wake up until Luigi and Blaine came in. Kat was still only half awake, since they’d bee
n very quiet when they’d come in. She was just happy to get under the covers in the dim-light, feeling full and warm and safe, and then to cuddle up to Blaine and fall into a deep, restful sleep. Talk about golf and their detective work would have to wait until the following morning.

  CHAPTER 18

  The next morning, the four of them decided to take it easy. The previous day had been a long day for all of them, so Kat and Blaine were perfectly happy to have a light breakfast in their room, and then take a lazy morning walk through Cagliari.

  In the medieval quarter, with its limestone walls and rustic charm, they found a little restaurant that smelled so delicious they decided to stop there for lunch. They called Deborah and Luigi and asked them to join them. They enjoyed a glass of wine while they waited for them. It was a sunny day with a gentle breeze blowing, and Kat could feel the stress from the previous day melt away.

  When Deborah and Luigi arrived with Primo, they looked much more relaxed, too. They talked about things that had nothing to do with Bruno or his murder, but instead chatted about the cultural differences between the United States and Italy, where they’d traveled before, and places that were on their wish list.

  Kat had a delicious dish of spaghetti, wild asparagus wrapped in pancetta, and bottarga, salted fish eggs. Blaine had chargrilled sardines with capers and bruschetta. Deborah opted for pasta shells with walnuts, clams, chili and bottarga, while Luigi had pan-fried seabass with a cannellini bean mash. As is always the case, all good things have to come to an end sometime, and soon their investigation-free bliss came to an end. Kat began to start thinking about what they’d do next.

  “Deborah,” she said. “I think we should go back to Sofia’s and ask her some more questions. She’s had time for the news of Bruno’s death to sink in by now.” She turned to Luigi and Blaine. “She didn’t even know Bruno had died. We had to break the news to her.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Luigi said. “Unless she’s in the wine community, she would not know. The local press here in the south part of the island seldom report events such as murders that occur in the northern part of the island. It’s just not newsworthy, so I’m not surprised she didn’t know about Bruno’s death. By the way, Chiari called to say the police are doing some investigating up there, and seem to be zeroing in on Bruno’s brother Salvatore. She’s very upset about it.