A young woman I had met in the lobby and with whom I had strolled around Sorrento and dined, said she thought the management must be German, which she deduced from the many signs warning guests of things they were not allowed to do. Perhaps I’d see her at breakfast. She was alone too, her lover having canceled their assignation. She was quite disappointed, although I assumed that he was still paying for her stay here.
I, too, was alone because my husband Jason, who was supposed to meet me in Rome at the airport, had been marooned in Paris by an air-traffic controllers’ strike. I suppose I could have stayed in Rome and waited for him, but I decided that I’d rather go on to Sorrento for the sightseeing that Jason was now going to miss—and all because of the French, who are always staging unannounced strikes that inconvenience hapless visitors to their country.
My trip from Rome to Sorrento was an adventure in itself—the train from Fiumacino, the airport just outside of Rome, to the railroad station in the city, the train from Rome to Naples, and then the funny little Circumvesuviana with its hard plastic seats, bumpy tracks, and hordes of tourists and school children. Of course, I had to manage my own suitcase on those legs of the trip, and pulling it up and down the stairs that take a traveler from one track to another was dreadful, although on several occasions, while standing at the bottom of a long staircase, looking forlorn, kindly Italian men and boys offered help.
Naturally, I accepted, unless the offer was to lift my suitcase onto the overhead luggage rack of a train car. I reasoned that if the Good Samaritan weren’t on hand to take it down at my destination, it would probably land on my head when I tried to do it myself. On trains, I left my bag in the area between cars and sat inside as close to it as I could get, keeping a suspicious eye on my belongings as people climbed on and off at each station. No one, I’m happy to say, exited with my suitcase.
In this manner, miserably jet lagged by my long flight from El Paso to Rome, I did get safely to Sorrento, a place of beauty in the land of romance. Someone said that homosexual lovers go to Capri, the adulterers to Naples, and the divorced to Sorrento. I belonged to none of those categories, being a married, faithful, heterosexual who was in Italy to write about the food of the Campania while her husband attended a scientific conference. Not very romantic, but I was happy to be there on the Bay of Naples.
Once in Sorrento, I had the rather silly idea that I could wheel the suitcase to the hotel, but a friendly taxi driver was quick to tell me that the hotel was well up the mountain. He said no lady but one from northern Europe would think of making that hike, so I took the cab. He was right. I could never have dragged my luggage through the crowded streets of the town and then up the hill, into the driveway, and onto an elevator that took me to the lobby. On the other hand, he charged me eighteen euros for the ride.
The hotel itself was built up and down a cliff and was very beautiful. It should also have been romantic, but it wasn’t. I barely arrived in time for the first of the two boring dinners—the evening meal began and ended rather early for a Mediterranean resort. Not that it mattered. Whatever the plans of the meeting Jason would be attending were, I did not intend to eat dinner here again. Our host was a chemical company in Catania. Surely no good Sicilian would be satisfied with such food. The readers of my newspaper column certainly wouldn’t be.
I hopped out of bed, thinking of the delicious bread the hotel provided at breakfast, flavored with fennel, if I wasn’t mistaken. Jason would, barring any other flight difficulties, be here by midday, as would other members of the conference. I set the coffee machine to prepare me a first cup while I showered and dressed, thinking I’d sip it by the pool on my floor before going down to breakfast; the hotel had a series of pools, one on each floor with waterfalls in between. What luxury. After my many years of being a stay-at-home wife and mother, it was rather nice to be by myself in a foreign resort that offered so many inducements to delight. Not that I planned to swim. A seriously frightening experience in France had made me wary of swimming, even though it was unlikely that I would be caught by a ferocious incoming tide in a hotel swimming pool.
I supposed that I would be happy to see Jason. We hadn’t been getting along all that well, if the truth be told, but I had loved him for over twenty years and was no doubt wrong in suspecting that he had taken too warm an interest in a female graduate student. She wouldn’t be here, so I’d have no cause for irritation. And it was unlikely that I would come upon yet another pesky corpse whose death demanded investigation, so Jason would have no reason to complain.
My husband had progressed from worry about my safety to anger at my propensity for getting myself into dangerous situations. He had a point. Why was I suddenly giving in to a desire for adventure? Because it was exciting, I suppose. Because, until the last few years, I had led such a placid life—wife, mother, hostess. The new, forty-something Carolyn was definitely beginning to enjoy these recent escapades that had required me to overcome fear and exhibit courage. But Jason was not happy with me! He wanted back his gourmet cook and tidy house-keeper, his docile wife.
Once I was dressed for the day, I took my cup of coffee out to the pool, duly noted the signs that forbade me to take hotel towels out with me, jump or dive over the waterfall to the next level, or bring food or drink into the pool area, although apparently I could purchase it from the refreshment counter, to which I could also report emergencies. I ignored the last one because the refreshment station was unmanned, probably because I was visiting the pool before it was open for the day.
Wondering if the hotel provided a book with an index to its numerous rules, I set my coffee down on a little table, pulled a padded deck chair into place, and prepared to laze about in the fresh morning air for fifteen minutes or so. In El Paso, where I now live, one has to get up almost before the sun to enjoy fifteen minutes of cool air. Most months of the year the temperatures shoot up into ranges that I consider unsuitable for human existence. Of course, as we in El Paso say, “At least the humidity is low, so it’s always comfortable.” Comfortable if you don’t mind stepping from your air-conditioned house into a hot oven supplied with skin-cancer-inducing sunshine.
I took a sip of my coffee, turned toward the pool to sit down, and noticed that there was someone in it. Moreover, the person was resting on the bottom at the shallow end. Some lung-strengthening exercise? I used to see how long I could hold my breath when I was a child. So had a girl child in Donna Tartt’s novel The Little Friend. Her underwater practice had saved her life. Mine had made my mother very nervous. In fact, the lady in the pool was beginning to make me nervous, and it wasn’t just the skimpy bikini with that uncomfortable-looking thong bottom. I reflected on how lucky I was to have missed that style when I was young and foolish enough to have adopted it—not that my father would have approved.
She still hadn’t come up. She wasn’t moving either. Just resting there. My heart rate accelerated. Surely, she wasn’t . . . I kicked off my shoes, jumped in—getting my mint green slacks outfit all wet—and waded toward the woman. The water was about three and a half feet deep where she lay, and I had to duck under to pull her up. Oh, my goodness, I thought as I lifted her to the surface and turned her face into the air. It was Paolina, my tourist friend from yesterday, who had been jilted by her boyfriend, who shared my love for the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, who wrote poetry herself, something I have never been moved to try.
2
Pandemonium by the Pool
Carolyn
As a teenager I had been a lifeguard at a lake where my family had a summer cottage. Among the techniques we learned was artificial respiration, so I tried it on Paolina, although I could find no pulse and her face was a bit blue, her skin cold and spongy. My attempts to resuscitate the poor girl had no effect whatever; she had drowned.
I then utilized the phone behind the bar to call the front desk, getting instead room service and then housekeeping. Some poor maid, having heard a hysterical voice saying, “Morte. Dama morte,” which
I hoped meant dead woman, connected me with the front desk and an English speaker. While I sat down, weak-kneed, to contemplate poor Paolina’s limp, dripping body, the forces of hotel management and then those of law enforcement gathered and stampeded in our direction—Paolina’s and mine.
Paolina was an interesting name, I mused sadly. Yesterday I had simply accepted it. Today it occurred to me that it was the name of a Perugian palace, taken over by a pope and turned into a fortress to keep the quarrelsome Perugians in line—Rocca Paolina. Had my late friend been named for the fortress? My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Signor Pietro Villani, the hotel manager, accompanied by a phalanx of hysterical employees, all chattering in Italian. He introduced himself with great formality and a disapproving eye for my sodden clothing.
Signor Villani then bent over Paolina and took her pulse. “Morte,” he announced in sepulchral tones, and made a demand of a well-dressed lady in a chic, black suit. She removed a mirror from her handbag and gave it to him. He held the mirror to Paolina’s lips. “Morte.” His voice deepened with disapproval, and he turned to me. “Signora,” he asked, “are you a guest of this hotel?”
“Carolyn Blue. Room eight-oh-eight,” I replied, wondering whether he thought that I had sneaked in.
He turned to the table at which I had been sitting. “Is that your coffee, Signora?”
I nodded. Why was he asking about coffee? Another of his guests was dead on the cement. Surely he was not about to offer me a refill.
“Food and drink that have not been purchased from the bar are not allowed in the pool area.” He stared at me. I stared back, until he gave up waiting for my apology and asked, “Do you know this woman?”
“She is a guest of your hotel,” I replied. “Paolina Marchetti. I met her yesterday.”
His minion in the black suit whipped out a handheld electronic device over which her fingers flew. “Paolina Marchetti, room nine-oh-five,” she announced.
“You were swimming with her, Signora?” Signor Villani asked. “These are not hours during which the pools are open to guests.”
“I came out to enjoy the lovely air of this beautiful Sorrento morning,” I began. The hotel staffers nodded appreciatively, murmuring “Bene,” and the like, and breathing deeply to savor the air themselves. “Then I saw the body at the bottom of the pool, so I waded in, dragged her out, and administered artificial respiration, which was of no use, as you can see. I assume she died sometime last night. As for me, I do not swim in my clothing, only in swimwear.”
“Night swimming is not allowed,” said the manager grimly. “See what happens when guests endanger themselves by breaking the rules.” His employees all nodded. Some frowned. One wiped a tear from her eye at the fate of the rule-breaking Paolina.
Can this man be Italian? I wondered. All these rules, not that the Italians don’t have rules—and laws—and layers of governmental bureaucracy. But my impression has always been that Italians pay no attention. The low birthrate is a case in point. Although the Pope resides in Italy, and the Church forbids birth control, the Italians obviously practice it. And the traffic. Italian drivers pay no attention to red lights or stop signs or no-parking signs. They even park on the sidewalks. And race their cars through narrow, medieval streets.
“Lieutenant Buglione at your service,” said a policeman in a delightful uniform. “Polizia di Stato negli Sorrento .” He shook the manager’s hand. Then he took mine and kissed it. “You must be American lady who drowned. I am so happy to see you have recovered. Sergeant Gambardella,” he continued, pointing out the accompanying officer, who shook the hand of Signor Villani and then bowed over mine.
“I am—am not the victim,” I stammered. “She’s over there.” Because the crowd of hotel employees had encircled us, Paolina’s body was hidden from view on the apron of the pool. “Behind the lady in the black suit.”
The employees stumbled in their haste to clear a path to the corpse, all but the lady in the black suit, who turned and pointed dramatically with her electronic device. “Signorina Paolina Marchetti. Room nine-oh-five.”
“And she has drowned, poor lady?” asked the lieutenant. “So young. So beautiful. Such a tragedy,” he sighed.
“Actually, since her room was one floor up, perhaps she died in a diving accident,” I suggested. When the crowd moved aside, I had noticed that her head was injured.
“Diving is not allowed,” said Signor Villani. “Is not allowed even to climb on the railings at the waterfalls. This is most unfortunate. The owners will be horrified.”
“Yet, I think this pretty American lady is saying what is true. See the head.” The lieutenant bent down and gently lifted aside wet strands of hair, revealing an even larger wound than I had first noticed. “This head has crashed against something, or something has crashed against this head. Is perhaps murder here? Someone throw her over from up there?” He pointed up toward the wrought iron barrier at the edge of the waterfall on the ninth floor. “What do you think, Gambardella?”
“No Ingles, mi luogotenente,” said the sergeant sadly.
More uniformed men appeared. A doctor in a white coat and little, round eyeglasses arrived and knelt beside Paolina. The lieutenant, speaking in Italian, evidently demanded that everyone go to the lobby and await questioning. Another policeman rushed to the elevator to roust out all guests on the ninth floor. Soon there was greater pandemonium in the lobby than there had been at the pool. Signor Villani was wringing his hands in dismay because so many of his employees were being kept from their jobs and so many grumpy guests were circling his lobby complaining at the inconvenience and demanding that they be allowed to eat breakfast. I was very hungry myself, having eaten so little of my detestable dinner. I hate mushy peas. It always amazes me that the English actually have a dish called “mushy peas.” And why would an Italian hotel want to reproduce it?
Before the lieutenant could begin his interviews, I suggested to him that the guest interviewees be seated at their own tables in the breakfast room, under guard by some of his men. After that the manager looked upon me more favorably. In no time at all I was seated among a covey of guests, attended by two policemen, all of us happily eating things we had chosen from the lavish breakfast buffet of the Grand Palazzo Sorrento. They even provided cake. And champagne. Although the champagne bottles weren’t open. Just for show, I suppose. You haven’t lived until you’ve had poached eggs on fennel toast, fresh fruit, and cake with deep, lush frosting. It’s hard to believe that one establishment could produce such a wonderful breakfast and such horrible dinners.
3
Meeting the “Executive Garbage Man”
Carolyn
We all lingered over breakfast while Lieutenant Buglione interviewed the hotel staff so that they could return to their posts. Guests who spoke English were avidly interested in my discovery of the body, which was not, in my opinion, the most felicitous subject to discuss over breakfast. And at the back of my mind hovered the thought that Jason, if he actually arrived today, would be unhappy that another dead body had intruded on a trip of ours. Since I hadn’t read a newspaper this morning, I didn’t know whether the air-traffic controllers’ strike had been settled, as he expected.
With any luck, Paolina’s death would prove to be accidental. Jason might not even hear about it, or that I had discovered the body, or that I had gone sightseeing yesterday with the dead woman. For all her charm, Paolina had evidently been a reckless young woman. Not only had she complained about the defection of her lover, but also she had confided that she liked variety in her lovers. How many lovers did she have? I had wondered. Had she practiced safe sex, if such a thing were possible when entertaining a “variety” of men? And how many was a variety? If she was reckless in her love life, she might well be reckless in swimming pools, not that I counted using the hotel pools during forbidden hours as particularly reckless. Everything here seemed to be forbidden.
“Excuse me.” A tall, broad-shouldered man with thick, black
hair, somewhat curly, and an American accent, towered over me. “May I sit down?” Some of the guests had finished breakfast and filtered back into the social areas with police escorts. The seat beside me was vacant, although the dishes had not been removed, but I was happy to meet another American. The closest I had come to someone from home since arriving in Italy was a pair of middle-aged Canadian honeymooners on the Circumvesuviana . Their main topic of conversation, on learning that I was from the United States, was a complaint about Asian immigrants jumping off boats and wading ashore, after which the Canadian authorities had to research their backgrounds at great expense in time and money. By then, many of the Asians had picked up some English and some money and left Canada to sneak into the United States.
I smiled at the large American and invited him to sit down, which he did, having brought his own coffee with him.
“Hank Girol,” he said, setting down his cup and shaking my hand vigorously. His hand was so large that I doubted gloves were made in his size. “I couldn’t help overhearing when you said that you were meeting your husband here for a chemistry meeting. Are you a chemist as well?”
“No, an accompanying person,” I replied. “Although I do write a cuisine column, so this is a working trip for me, too.”
Mr. Girol’s face broke into a wide smile. “I believe that I’m an accompanying person at the same meeting. My wife is Dr. Sibyl Evers from Rutgers. She’s attending a conference sponsored by a chemical company in Catania.”
I nodded. “That’s the one Jason will be attending if he ever gets out of Paris.”
“The coincidences multiply,” exclaimed my new acquaintance. “My wife is stuck in Paris, too, but she called this morning to say she hoped to get a flight by afternoon or early evening. So are they offering any activities for us significant others?”
Mozzarella Most Murderous Page 2