Here in my beloved Italy, we are more civilized after centuries of warfare. There are, of course, still crimes of passion. Passion does not end with civilization. And there are thieves who will steal your purse, but not your life. Except perhaps in Sicily and Naples where violence continues as a way of settling disputes. Only the weapons are more civilized, the knife replaced by a submachine gun. Remembering that our hosts at this meeting were Sicilians, I crossed myself and glanced at my babies, playing on the floor with the dolls provided by Carolyn. Could the dead woman have been Sicilian?
“Tell me about this poor dead girl,” I begged. “Was she beautiful? Was she from Sicily?”
“I don’t know,” said Carolyn. “I only spent an afternoon and a dinner with her. She mentioned Perugia. Perhaps she was from there, and she was very beautiful. She had come to meet a lover, but he cancelled the assignation. She had dark hair and eyes that were—oh—just a bit slanted, very exotic. And she wrote poetry. We both loved the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay.”
“I do not know this poet,” I replied. “An American? Or French, perhaps?”
“Millay was American,” Carolyn replied. “Her poetry was very—sensuous. About love. I think that Paolina may have been influenced by it in her teens. She also spoke of her desire for a variety of lovers, not to mention her irritation that the man she expected to meet here had not arrived.”
“Ah, sensuality, lovers. A true Italian. Perhaps she was killed by love,” I suggested. Smiling, I asked if Carolyn too had been influenced by the American poet.
She blushed. “I read her poetry when I was only eleven or so, and I didn’t really understand what she was writing about then. I was enchanted by the words, the rhymes and rhythms, and by the fact that the book belonged to my mother.”
It seemed to me that Carolyn disapproved of the dead girl, of her lovers. Americans can be so puritanical about sex. “So how do you think she came to die in the swimming pool?” I asked.
“I’m not really sure,” Carolyn replied, her face and voice as serious as a Reverend Mother asked to explain the meaning of a passage in the writings of St. Catherine of Siena. “I suppose it could have been a diving accident, although diving is forbidden in the pools.”
I had to laugh. “What is not forbidden in this hotel? There are signs everywhere telling us what we cannot do, and booklets full of prohibitions in the desk drawer of the room. She would not have paid attention to such silly rules. But perhaps, heartbroken over her lover’s defection, she killed herself,” I suggested.
“She didn’t seem like the type,” Carolyn replied, frowning.
“But if she was in love—why not? Unless, of course, she was very devout. Sexual liaisons one can confess and receive forgiveness for, but suicide leaves one in sin and unshriven.”
“Well, Lieutenant Buglione mentioned suicide, but to me she seemed more irritated than heartbroken. He also thought the lover might have murdered Paolina. Perhaps she was unfaithful, and he was jealous.”
That hint of disapproval came through again. What, I wondered, if this American woman had murdered Paolina in a fit of Puritan righteousness? America was settled by all those censorious Protestants, from whom Carolyn might be descended, and now she lived in Texas, a violent place. “Was there any evidence that she might have been murdered?” I asked.
“Damage to her head where it hit the side of the pool,” Carolyn replied. “If she dove from the pool above, wouldn’t she have aimed at the deep end rather than the shallow? And her ankles. There were marks on her ankles. Bruising. How did the bruises get there?”
“That could be nothing more sinister than the marks left by ankle-strap sandals. My mother-in-law loves them, the higher the heels the better, but as she is older, the straps sometimes leave marks. Was Paolina wearing such shoes when you last saw her?” Carolyn thought not. “Perhaps then someone held her by the ankles and dropped her over,” I suggested, wondering if Carolyn was strong enough to do that. I had read that American women went to gyms and lifted weights. Perhaps under that pretty, if not particularly stylish, outfit, my new acquaintance was a muscular Amazon. Had my poor countrywoman so shocked Signora Blue that the signora had tossed her over the pool railing in a passion of outraged virtue?
“We must investigate this ourselves,” I suggested. An adventure, I thought with delight, knowing that I’d have few enough for the next few years. And with my mother-in-law coming to Sorrento to look after the children—but where was she? Violetta was so feckless. She’d probably gotten lost on her way here, or met some attractive man who made her forget completely her offer to entertain Andrea and Giulia. Well, Lorenzo would have to find his mother, I decided, feeling that I deserved to have an adventure before I settled down with the new baby.
Carolyn was looking at me dubiously. She probably thought that I was too fat to have any fun, and who could blame her for thinking that when I hadn’t even been able to get myself off the floor? Sometimes, I must admit, I felt I might be carrying a baby elephant, which would mean I had, what—another year or so of pregnancy?
“I had thought I might ask around,” Carolyn admitted. “See if I can find any clues.”
Interesting. Was she trying to divert suspicion from herself? “But how can you ask questions when you don’t speak Italian? I will help you. I can talk to the maids. Hotel maids know everything. They may know who her lover was.” Or if you were the person with her last night before she plunged to her death, I thought.
“But won’t your husband disapprove?” Carolyn asked. “It might be dangerous, and you’re—ah—”
“Pregnant? All the better. No one in Italy would harm a pregnant woman. You’ll need not only my help but also my protection. What adventures we’ll have. Something to while away the days while our husbands are talking about little chemicals too small to see and too nasty to taste.”
“But you have your children with you,” Carolyn protested.
We both looked at my babies. Giulia had curled up on the carpet and fallen asleep, while Andrea had taken her doll and was bossing it around in the stern voice of his Carabinieri. What darlings they were. Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to expose them to a possibly dangerous woman. “My mother-in-law is on her way to watch the children,” I told Carolyn. And to watch me, I thought. Violetta was so sure that I would be unfaithful to her son and provide her with bastard grandchildren if she didn’t keep her eye on me. Such foolishness. I adored my Lorenzo. Why would I want another lover when I had him? Of course, one doesn’t say that to one’s mother-in-law, even in Italy.
It occurred to me, not for the first time, that Violetta might be suspicious of me because I wasn’t from Lucca, but rather from wicked, wicked Rome. I giggled at the thought, and Carolyn smiled at me. Or perhaps the fact that Violetta herself had had a series of discreet affairs since the death of Lorenzo’s father made her think I might do the same, even though I wasn’t a widow.
My goodness. Carolyn had just agreed to accept my help in searching out the cause of Paolina’s death. She too claimed to think it would be stimulating, as long as I thought it was safe for me to join in. Poof. Of course I thought I’d be safe. I’d never endanger my baby. Signora Carolyn Blue would do well to consider her own safety. If she’d killed Paolina, I’d ferret out her secret and report her to the hapless Sorrento division of the Polizia di Stato.
I’d awakened in the car as we reached Sorrento to find a member of the Polizia Municipale trying to give my Lorenzo a traffic ticket for some little thing. “Lorenzo,” I’d said, “I think I’m starting contractions. Ask him where we can find a hospital.”
Lorenzo, of course, knew exactly what I was doing. If I’d been having contractions, I’d have been screaming and on the verge of giving birth. I’m not one to put up with long labor. We barely got to the delivery room last time.
“Now, now, cara mia,” he said soothingly. “Don’t upset yourself.” Then he turned to the traffic cop. “See what you’ve done. You’ve upset my pregnant wife.”
The fellow stared at my stomach and then at the two sleeping children in the back seat. “A million apologies, little mother,” he cried. “What a fine family you have. You must be from the south.”
Just careless, I thought, not that I begrudged my little product of forgetfulness his life. And I didn’t tell the policeman that we came from Rome. The Neapolitans and their southern neighbors sometimes envy our hosting the pope and having all the beauties of the papal city. And why not? Naples was a disaster since the war, a modern disaster with a history of foreign kings and stupid peasants, so unlike the glory of Rome. “Many thanks, sergeant,” I said to the policeman with a motherly smile.
He protested that he had not yet reached so high a rank. Then he offered to escort us to the hospital, and I told him that perhaps the baby was simply restless and telling his mother she needed to lie down and rest. Naturally we parted amicably without the citation he had meant to give Lorenzo.
“What are you thinking?” Carolyn asked curiously.
“Oh, just that, from what I’ve seen, the Sorrento police will need all the help we can give them.”
We smiled at one another, a conspiracy of women, as Carolyn said, “The lieutenant in charge did seem more excitable and melodramatic than logical.”
6
Scientists Incoming
Carolyn
The first event of the meeting in the accompanying persons’ packet I had received at Hotel Reception when I arrived was to be a cocktail party at seven, followed by a dinner. The program did not say where, but I feared it might be this hotel with its thoroughly boring entrees. It distressed me to think that Paolina’s last dinner had been duck, tough, greasy, and overcooked, with a skin like hard plastic. She had tapped her knife against the offending skin and been rewarded with a sharp, cracking sound.
Jason had neither called nor arrived, although he was usually more considerate than to leave me uninformed. Was I expected to present myself, unaccompanied, for the evening’s events? I could hardly plead exhaustion. I’d been here two days and had, after lunch, finished the Hazzard book about Graham Greene on Capri while sitting on my balcony in a comfortably padded chair with the gorgeous blue green water of the Bay of Naples before me. Capri no doubt lay somewhere in the distance, overhung with the rain-bloated clouds that shrouded the peak of Vesuvius and the bay. Or was Capri in the other direction? When the wind picked up later in the afternoon and ruffled the pages of my book, I went inside for a refreshing nap.
I had tried to get CNN or some other news program that might have information on the French airport strike, but had, instead, happened upon a pornographic movie, three sweaty people, a woman and two men, in a tangle of limbs. Naturally I turned the set off immediately and called the desk to complain. The young woman seemed more amused than sympathetic, even when I suggested that people with children, of whom there seemed to be a fair number, would not want their children to see such things. The desk clerk told me that children were not allowed to use the television remotes or ride the elevators or use the pools if unattended by a responsible adult. Then she gave me the names of the channels she thought might offend me. There seemed to be quite a few, and if I was not mistaken, one had been a cooking channel I had clicked over just before I hit the offensive ménage a trois. A hotel clerk with a sense of humor, however twisted.
Perhaps the thing to do was call Hank Girol, whose wife was stranded in Paris as well. He might have news about the strike in France or at the least an opinion on whether we should attend the party without our spouses. If not, perhaps we could eat a meal that I could write about in one of those fine restaurants in the area that he claimed to know. My readers wouldn’t want to hear about Paolina’s plastic duck or my giant meatball entree. But first we had to escape. It had occurred to me that the Grand Palazzo Sorrento might try to keep me from eating elsewhere. Their dinner menu had no prices, at least for those of us staying here. One just ordered, regretted the culinary result, and the cost, whatever it was, would presumably appear on the bill at the end of the visit.
Braving the possibility of another telephone encounter with the humorous desk clerk, I dialed Reception and asked to be connected to Mr. Girol’s room. He said that his wife expected to be in this evening, perhaps in time for dinner, and suggested that Jason might have obtained tickets on the same Paris-to-Naples flight. He definitely thought we should attend the cocktail party because, as he put it, “You can count on good wine and wonderful appetizers from an Italian meeting. Think crostini with truffles and mouth-watering antipasto verdure, slices of Parma ham on crusty bread and . . .”
I did consider those delights and agreed that we should attend the party, whereupon he offered to pick me up in twenty minutes and asked my room number. Not something I’d ordinarily give out to a man I’d known for only an hour or so. Still, his wife was about to arrive. What harm could there be? If he proved overly friendly, I could always threaten him with a word to Sibyl.
Interesting name. There had been a famous Sibyl who lived in a cave on the coast near the Greek colony of Cuma in the fifth century BC, one of Apollo’s prophetesses. Now what was the story about her? I’d have to look in the history book I’d brought along. However, while I was gathering clothes for the evening, I remembered. She had offered nine books of prophesy to the Roman King Tarquinius for a very high price, and he, not being a worshipper of Apollo, had refused, whereupon she burned three of the books and offered the six remaining for the same price. Eventually, with just three books left, while six had disappeared into the fire and her price remained the same, the king was so impressed that he purchased what was left of the set and took it home to Rome for consultation in time of need. What else could he do in the face of a woman so sure of herself? I wondered if Hank’s Sibyl had such a determined character.
But twenty minutes? With so little time, I couldn’t stop to speculate as I struggled into pantyhose—horrible invention—yanked a cocktail dress over my head and zipped myself into it, combed my hair and added jewelry, and dumped a few items from my shoulder bag into a silver evening clutch. Evening bags are so impractical. One’s lucky to get a room key, a Kleenex, a lipstick, a credit card, and a bit of money into an evening bag. What do women do who wear glasses? Given my age—forty plus—I might have to wear glasses myself someday.
At the knock on my door, I sallied forth to meet Hank, who complimented me on my teal dress with its silver cording. I thought it was rather nice myself. I had a pretty matching hair clip to hold my hair—blonde—and a matching necklace and earrings. I had bought them in Barcelona the last day there. Jason, my frugal husband, had thought the Gaudi silver earrings I purchased before his arrival were quite enough in the jewelry department for one trip—and this was the first chance I’d had to wear them since I’d found the dress to match—in an El Paso boutique, of all places. The earrings were a little heavy, which brought to mind an image of my earlobes sagging like a dachshund’s in my golden years. I’d seen women like that. What could they do? Have their ears trimmed? Perhaps there was a plastic surgery specialty for women with elongated earlobes. I’d heard of an eyelid ophthalmology specialty.
“What’s so funny?” Hank asked as we got on the elevator. I told him.
When we got to the desk to ask where the cocktail party would be held, the clerk said, in reasonable English, “I know the voice. The pornography signora. No?”
I was horribly embarrassed and said, “I beg your pardon?” in a huffy tone.
“No rule you must watch sexy films,” she assured me. “I go find where is party.” She tripped off, Hank looked to me for an explanation, and I said, “Don’t ask.” So we stood silently and eavesdropped on an English couple at the next registration spot, the man and woman both in tweeds, both somewhat frizzy-haired, although his was disappearing and hers was a strange taupe shade. He had spectacles sliding down his nose, and she was carrying a plant, roots dangling with dirt still clinging to them. Horticulturists? He probably had potting soil in
his pockets, which bulged and sagged with the weight.
Dottore and Signora Stackpole, as the desk clerk called them—could they be members of the conference? —were asking questions: Was the bathtub at the end of the hall or in their room? Would they need coins for the water heater? Could soft-boiled eggs and toast fingers be had from the breakfast buffet? What kind of tea did the hotel serve? Not made with tea bags, surely? Could the clerk name the flowers growing outside the entrance, and would they grow in England? Where was this cocktail party mentioned in the chemistry conference brochure?
At this point Hank interrupted to introduce himself and me, and the concierge interrupted to tell us all that the cocktail party would be starting momentarily in the Victor Emmanuel room.
“I can’t even think of cocktails, Francis,” protested the Englishwoman. “I need to pot this—whatever it is. What is it, young lady?” The desk clerk didn’t know and wasn’t sure patrons could bring uprooted plants into the hotel. “What I need is a good cup of tea and a lie down,” Mrs. Stackpole continued over the clerk’s remarks.
Ignoring his wife, Francis Stackpole introduced himself and declared that he could use a nip of something stronger than tea. “Lead on, young fellow,” he said to Hank. Then the professor from England waved over a bellman and ordered him to take Mrs. Stackpole and the bags to their room. “Come down when you feel fit, old girl,” he said to his wife, and looked expectantly at Hank and me, as if we might have a “nip of something stronger than tea” on us.
Mozzarella Most Murderous Page 4