Two From Isaac's House

by Normandie Fischer

  Acie’s shrug looked as if it meant something.

  “Nicco?”

  There came the blush again, highlighting Acie’s freckles. “He probably doesn’t even notice me. Have you ever seen a man that gorgeous?”

  She grinned at her friend’s swoony tone and didn’t mention the Adonis as she bent to dig out her notebook. “Notes for a letter home.”

  “You told anyone there about the dead bodies yet?” Acie wiped the remnants of ice cream from her lips.

  She prayed she’d never have to. “My poor aunt would wring her hands, weep, and beg me to catch the next plane home. And my fiancé would go one better and demand I return.”

  “Then I guess it’s better you keep mum.”

  “That’s what I think. It took so much to get me here that I can’t leave yet. Besides, the bodies have nothing to do with me. The way I see it, this is only a case of my being at the wrong place at the wrong time. An unfortunate series of coincidences. I’m sure the police will solve the crimes, and it’ll all be about jealousy or money. It usually is.”

  “What about that Arab-American? Tony?”

  She kept her expression non-committal. After all, what did one lunch matter? “Who knows? He seems to have gone off somewhere. I really don’t expect to see him again, except maybe in passing at school. If he ever bothers to show his face there.” She tucked the journal away. The mention of murder had dried up any thought of writing.

  Acie brushed herself off. “Ready to head back?”

  “I am.” It was certainly time to think—and speak—of other things.

  They had reached the town proper and were making their way toward what they hoped was the right parking lot when her gaze fell on a figure emerging from a café just ahead. She grabbed Acie’s arm and ducked behind her.

  “What?” Acie asked.

  “It’s him.” She hissed out the words.

  “Him who?”

  “The man from the train, the gunman. In front of the café, the one with the mustache and scar.”

  “On his phone?”

  She nodded and then made the mistake of peeking around her friend, straight into his stare. “So much for his swift departure back to whatever desert hangout bred him,” she mumbled as she drew Acie down a side street.

  “Slow down,” Acie said. “He’s probably only staring at you because he’s curious. Stands to reason, he’s not seen you since the train, wonders where he saw you before. A coincidence. Or he’s thinking like most of the men around here, that it’s odd to see two Amazons walking together.”

  “Hilarious. Let’s just get out of here.”

  On the way out of there, they got lost. As in, very lost. They retraced their steps when they ran into more than one dead end. “Brilliant map readers,” Acie said. “Let’s quit acting like men and ask for directions.”

  They decided to regroup over a cup of cappuccino. Their waiter drew an X to mark the café and another to show the car park. All they had to do was trudge back up into town and then down the other side, around and through—well, maybe not actually through anything. It only felt that way.

  By the time they’d made it to the car, the sun had begun to droop toward the horizon, draping the mountains in soft magentas and shades of rose and yellow.

  “There you go, another gorgeous view,” Acie said. “Plus, we haven’t seen your friend again in the last however long it’s been. My guess, our wandering took close on two hours.” She checked her watch. “No, longer if we include that coffee break. Anyway, he’s gone, which means there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Unless he’s actually a murderer.”

  “Nah,” Acie said, her twang showing up in the word. “That only happens in movies.”

  They’d just entered Perugia’s suburbs when Acie’s cell phone rang. She began digging frantically through her purse and its outside pockets and then under her feet.

  “Down there.” Rina pointed between the seats.

  Acie scrolled through the missed calls. “Mae. She’s called three times. Oh, please let it not be the baby.”

  The Fiat’s engine noise kept Rina from hearing the other side of the conversation, but Acie’s voice soon slid into minor panic. “I’ll meet you there,” she said, ending the call and gesturing toward an upcoming street. “Take the next left. We need to get to the hospital. It’s Signor Bertelli.”

  “That sweet old man who owns the vineyards?”

  “A car just mowed him down. The family is gathering.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Was he walking by the side of the road? I mean, how could that happen?”

  “Mae said Giorgio’s uncle saw it. They were in town, and the uncle was waiting for his father to finish some business, and then just like that, this Mercedes pulls out and heads straight toward him.”

  “On purpose?”

  “It seems so,” Acie said.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Just get me there.”

  At the hospital entrance, Rina leaned toward her panicking friend. “Will you call me?”

  “As soon as I know something. You have my sister’s phone number. I’ll try to let you know tonight, but I can’t promise.”

  A shiver traced its way up Rina’s spine as she headed to the station to return the rental car. Perugia had seemed such a benign place, a hilltop full of history and delightful people.

  And now?

  Her first reaction was to run—fast and far. But hadn’t she spent years hiding from the things that frightened her—or lying low and being quiet so no one would know she was there, and no one would berate her or find a reason for anger?

  Wasn’t that how she’d been living—before?

  14

  RINA

  Sleep rendered her too sluggish to banish the boogeymen bouncing around in her dreams. Thank God, nights passed.

  She hadn’t heard from Acie before she left for class that morning, nor when she returned to the convent for lunch. Accidents—or non-accidents—proliferated, and she wanted to know why. The only one that didn’t seem connected to the others was this latest. Unless the driver of the Mercedes was also an Arab. She shook off that thought as absurd.

  As shadows began to lengthen, she called Mae’s house and left a message when no one answered, then headed to Santino’s. She found an outside seat, ordered a cappuccino, and tried to rein in worries. What she ought to do was pray. Prayer sounded like a good idea, because thinking had accomplished nothing.

  But the last time she’d messed with spiritual things of any sort, she’d been thirteen and singing in St. Luke’s children’s choir. She could probably still recite the catechism—what was it? One of those creeds, the Nicene? Some of the songs occasionally floated into consciousness, resurrected by a phrase or tune. Back then, Auntie Luze’s God was big and great and grand, like Uncle Adam’s, which had seemed the same, despite the fact that one was worshiped in a Protestant church and one in a Jewish synagogue.

  Then something had happened, something between Auntie Luze and a deacon’s wife, and they’d never returned. Luze still read her Bible, but Rina couldn’t remember hearing any more about God from her aunt until she’d received a gold-engraved leather Bible before she headed off to college. No, that wasn’t exactly true. Her father had mentioned his name fairly often—as a curse.

  She longed for something that would lure Acie into the chair next to hers. That absurd thought brought a shake to her head and then a slight ping as the ache returned. She dug out her next dose of acetaminophen.

  A nap was in order. She started to signal the waiter, but the “Hey” at her shoulder nearly stopped her heart.

  It had worked: she’d wanted to see Acie, and Acie had come.

  She closed her eyes. No. This was coincidence. She was not seeing pointed hats. Certainly not with the last of the afternoon sun splashing off Acie’s bright hair, highlighting and streaking it.

  “I hear you’re looking for me.”

  “I was.”

>   “Well, here I am.” Acie eased herself into an empty chair with a dramatic sigh. “It’s been crazy at our house. I walked with the twins to the Standa for groceries, my poor shoulders, but I bought us all a gelato as a treat for carrying all those things up and down miles of steps. I’ll drive next time Mae wants more than one bag, even if I have to go around Robin Hood’s barn to get there by road. Then Mae needed to go up to see the obstetrician, some Swiss fellow married to one of Giorgio’s cousins, and I had to go with her, which meant the boys, too. The babe’s doing fine, the doctor says.”

  The waiter appeared at her elbow. “Water?” she asked. At Rina’s nod, she held up two fingers. “Due bicchieri di acqua naturale, per piacere.”

  He bowed, promising to bring a liter bottle of water and two glasses.

  She didn’t try to stem the flow of Acie’s words. She felt too unnerved to say more than, “Signor Bertelli?”

  “It seems he’ll be all right. Giorgio was there most of the night. But listen, I wanted to tell you. You won’t believe who I saw at the Standa. I felt as if I were back home, the way I used to see someone I knew every time I went to the store. You’ll never guess.”

  “Not if you don’t tell me.”

  “Your friend with the gun. He was paying for a carton of something that looked like milk.”

  “The supermarket? Here?” Her voice hiked an octave on that last word.

  Acie nodded. “He stared right at me. Up close like that, I can see why he worried you. The way that scar pulls at his eye and his squashed nose. I wanted to grab the boys and run, his eyes looked so, I don’t know, so dead, like he’d be happy to blow me away right there. I was never more glad to see someone’s back.”

  “Oh, Acie.” She felt the cold all the way to her hands.

  “Hold on, I’m still clinging to my undercover policeman theory.”

  “Sure. With a face locked in a perpetual scowl.”

  “Maybe he was in a car accident and can’t help his expression. After all, he was buying milk. We shouldn’t judge—”

  “I know, I know.” She raised a palm to stop Acie’s words. “He can’t help his looks. But he could certainly help having that gun.”

  “True,” Acie admitted. “Anyway, like I said, the Standa was crowded. Natalie—you remember me telling you about her, the English girl I met on the train? Whose friend was murdered? There she was, in the aisle next to canned goods. She was headed toward the door just after I turned from watching the gunman leave. Glory, girl, you’ve got me calling him that, too.”

  “Did you talk to her, find out anything?”

  “No chance to. She dashed out of the store without buying a single thing. She seemed very distracted.”

  Rina leaned back, trying to relax. But relaxation wasn’t happening. She toyed with her cup. “You have had a busy day. It’s odd, isn’t it, them both being there?”

  “And on that train.”

  “Did she look like she was chasing him when she fled?”

  Acie darted a glance at the street. “I hadn’t considered that. Do you think maybe she knows something about him? About his gun?”

  “Maybe it was just a coincidence. But I didn’t think she lived in town.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  Rina changed the subject so she wouldn’t have to think about that horrid man. “By the way, how’d you find me? Here, I mean.”

  “You left a note, remember?”

  “Not saying I’d be here.”

  “No, that was luck. I picked out your shirt as I walked past.”

  “I wondered if I’d conjured you.”

  Acie snorted. “Maybe you did. But speaking of guns and bodies, was the American guy in class this morning?”

  “No.” And wasn’t that an interesting leap? Guns, bodies, then straight to Tony.

  Worry laced Acie’s features. “What, really, do you know about him? I’ve been making light of that gunman, but there are an awful lot of things happening that this Tony’s been a little too close to, don’t you think? I mean, he’s an Arab—okay, an American who speaks Arabic—and he knew the dead man. And he was on the same train when Natalie’s friend was killed.”

  Again that echo of Rina’s own thoughts. “Of course,” she said, trying to find humor, “you and I were on that train, too, and I was pretty close to the action. Also, I was in on the discovery of the dead guy.”

  “I know, right? But you and I are innocents.” Acie’s eyebrows danced over now-laughing eyes. “Aren’t we? Two down-home girls from North Carolina who meet up in Italy, of all places.” She straightened and took a sip of water, a sudden frown wrinkling her forehead. “You remember that American girl, the one who was tried here for murdering her roommate?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Amanda Knox. It was all over the papers back home, how she and her boyfriend were convicted of the murder, then set free on appeal, and she scurried home to the States.” Acie held up a hand to stop her from speaking.

  Something rang a bell. The name or the situation sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Hang on,” Acie said. “Another court reversed the appeal and declared Amanda guilty, but the yo-yo didn’t stop there. Eventually, the Italian Supreme Court came back and said she wasn’t guilty. After all those years. Her poor family. Can you imagine?”

  “But here, in Perugia. Who knew it was such a hotbed of murder.” Not she. Certainly not she, and obviously not Acie either.

  “Maybe the place has strange vibes,” Acie said, her eyes alight. “Maybe it’s cursed.”

  “Really? That’s what you’ve taken away from this whole thing?”

  “Dead bodies, Americans, Arabs… It’s not like locals are involved.”

  “But it doesn’t follow that we’re dealing with curses, either.”

  “Fine,” Acie said. “No curses. But take your friend Tony. You said he was here to study Italian, and he hasn’t been to class.”

  She had to concede that one. “He said his company sent him, but why? Why would they even care if he knows Italian? He’s working in the Middle East, for heaven’s sake.” She pressed the heel of her hand against her stomach. “My gut hurts.”

  Acie turned, called, “Scusi,” to the waiter, and ordered two Perugino dark chocolates and two small gelatos, vanilla. “This will do the trick. The combo always soothes me. Must be the sugar.”

  “Chocolate and vanilla?”

  Acie refilled the water glasses. “And cut back on the coffee.”

  “Wish we could introduce Italians to sweet tea.”

  “That would be fab, especially with hushpuppies and barbecue, vinegar based.”

  Rina had to admit, the ice cream did slide down easily and the chocolate did do what chocolate should. She pointed to her bowl. “Good stuff.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Always.” Acie licked the back of her spoon. “Back to Tony. What do you know about him?”

  “Where he went to school and where he works. He provided all sorts of bona fides, but I can’t check on any of them, wouldn’t know how to if I could. What does one do, call MIT? Ask the American Embassy? Do a Google search?”

  “Do you have the name of the company he supposedly works for?”

  “It didn’t occur to me to ask.”

  She’d dropped into a wonderland of crazies, and deadly ones at that, but what had her staring into space as she dressed for the day was the conviction that her holiday adventures were happening in her as well as to her. She puzzled over this as she brushed her hair and pulled it back, but the more she worried, the more her thoughts took on a shadow form, seen out of the corner of her eye and ready to disappear if she focused on them directly.

  Perhaps she should call it quits and return to North Carolina and a simpler life where she could try to recapture her saner self. Jason would like that. So would her auntie.

  But would she? Did she actually want to go back home—or even fly elsewhere—and leave Perugia with all this unfinished business? That was the question she
had to answer before she bought a return ticket to North Carolina or even one to another European city. She’d told Acie she wanted to stay and finish her adventure, but what if it got her killed?

  She sat down on the edge of her bed as that thought took hold. Two people were dead, but her only link to them was a man she never had to see again.

  So, she’d be fine. Adventures by nature weren’t risk-free. Life wasn’t risk-free. She could cross a street in Morehead and be killed.

  On that thought, she grabbed her notebook and a few Euros and headed toward the school. She’d store up distractions to banish pictures of guns and death and men who clobbered her for no apparent reason.

  She’d stopped looking for Tony—until she took her seat in class, and he wasn’t there. He hadn’t come. Of course, he hadn’t come. Maybe he’d given up on Italy—and on being friends.

  She took out her workbook and tried to concentrate on the lesson. It was time to quit making a big thing out of nothing, exaggerating and finding mysteries where there were none. If he had some secrets, so what, really? Didn’t everyone? Why did she think she needed—or was entitled to—answers from someone whose life had barely touched hers and certainly wouldn’t come any closer?

  A slice of onion pizza on the way back to the convent gave her something else to think about for almost six minutes. Until she saw him. And him. Tony and the gunman.

  Tony’s big shoulders slouched toward the shorter man, his head angled to hear something the other man said. She stopped and ducked into the doorway of a shop.

  When they began to walk again, she followed, hugging the sides of the buildings. They crossed the Via dei Priori and took a small turn to the right down a one-way street where blackened buildings absorbed any stray light. Here, fewer people passed. Her shoes clopped on the stone pavement, sounding loud when she wanted silent. Please, let them not notice me. The words repeated as she followed. Please.