Secrets of Bella Terra: A Scarlet Deception Novel

by Christina Dodd

  Chapter 36

  “What has Massimo Bruno to do with any of this?” That salami-and-cheese sandwich was actually looking pretty good to Brooke.

  “Oh. Massimo.” Sarah smiled painfully. “He is the pivot on which the whole story spins. Massimo was from the Old Country. He was a little old man, kindly and generous, who bought grapes from various families and made highly regarded wines. He was also a thief and a racketeer who disappeared for weeks at a time.” Sarah considered Rafe and Brooke. “At least, according to my mother, this was the case. As I said, I wasn’t born yet. One fateful year, that was 1930, on the same day, the Di Lucas and the Bianchins each had a son.”

  “Anthony Di Luca,” Rafe named his grandfather.

  “And Joseph Bianchin.” Brooke tried not to eat salami and cheese, of course. They were so fatty and cholesterol-laden . . . and so tasty, especially on rye with tapenade. And as concierge, she should avoid anything so garlicky in the best interests of the guests.

  “Exactly,” Sarah said. “The oldest sons of each family. On the birth of any son in the valley, Massimo traditionally gave a bottle of homemade fine wine to the families, to be laid down and decanted when the young man turned twenty-one. Massimo’s skill as a vintner was revered. To be presented with a bottle of wine of his making was an honor. The families were grateful.”

  Every word Sarah spoke punctuated Brooke’s knowledge that she had landed among people connected by histories to the past. Even their tragedies reflected their traditions.

  Sarah continued. “That year, as Massimo made his wine, the revenuers broke into his cellar and discovered the alcohol.”

  “During Prohibition, a household was allowed to make enough grape juice for their personal consumption. I’m going to guess he’d made more than that?” Brooke stood, walked over to Rafe’s plate, and took the coveted sandwich. She took a bite. It was wonderful. “And perhaps he had allowed his grape juice to ferment?”

  Sarah ignored the byplay. “Exactly. The revenuers used their axes and destroyed his barrels. And although Massimo preferred the Bianchin family, he gave the last bottle of wine he ever made to the Di Lucas for their son Anthony, my Anthony, saying he had been born first by a few hours. To the Bianchins, for their son Joseph, he gave a silver rattle. It was a triumph for the Di Lucas, a blow to the Bianchins. Not long after, Massimo disappeared.”

  “Really? He was never seen again?” Brooke took another bite. Yes, the sandwich had been made just the way she liked it. She grinned at Rafe, walked back and sat down, and devoured it.

  When she looked up, he grinned back at her.

  He knew how much she loved salami and cheese. He’d flaunted those sandwiches. He’d suckered her.

  “My mother believed he was one of the thieves who were shot stealing a Monet in Belgium.” Sarah shrugged. “Maybe so. Maybe not. I don’t know.”

  Rafe had suckered Brooke, and why?

  Because after last night, he was concerned about her getting enough to eat. Which was sort of sweet. Not that he didn’t polish off the other four sandwiches and the apricots. “What happened to the bottle of wine?” he asked.

  Of course. Brooke caught her breath. She’d allowed herself to be distracted by the story. Well, by the story and the food. But it was the wine that should have her attention.

  Sarah told them, “Twenty-one years later, the Di Luca family celebrated Anthony’s birthday and his wedding day—”

  “And yours,” Brooke said.

  “Yes, my wedding day, too. Anthony and I were married with a full Mass in the church, and came back for the reception right here in the front yard.” Sarah waved her hand toward the lawn. “Anthony’s father built a dance floor on the lawn. We had a band. Everyone in the valley was invited. Everyone brought a dish. Everyone except the Bianchins.”

  “They weren’t invited, or they didn’t bring a dish?” Rafe asked.

  “We invited them. They didn’t come. We roasted a lamb and a steer. When night fell, we had Chinese lanterns strung from the trees. The night was clear and warm, and it was beautiful, so beautiful. Even now, I remember . . .” Sarah sighed nostalgically. “For the highlight of the evening, we were going to open Massimo’s wine, but before we could, the Bianchins attacked with guns, knives, and sledgehammers. My God.” Sarah held her fists close to her chest, old grief contorting her face. “Men shouted. Women screamed. Everyone ran. The Bianchins smashed everything. All the wine. All the gifts. They upended the tables. My mother screamed at Joseph’s father. He slapped her face. Joseph tried to take me. Anthony fought and they shot him in the hip.”

  Brooke remembered Anthony, a quiet man who could fix anything, who raised his grandsons and treated his wife with respect, who walked with a limp and in his last year remembered none of them.

  “After the blood was running, the tables overturned, the feast ruined . . . the Bianchins ran away. The cowards left my wedding celebration in shambles, for they believed they had smashed the bottle of wine Massimo had given, and they knew they had killed Anthony.”

  Rafe leaned forward. “Was this never reported to the police? Were the Bianchins never indicted for it?”

  Sarah chuckled. “Of course. There was jail time served. A little. But the Bianchins had money and they knew how to buy a judge and keep him bought—and they did.”

  Brooke sat, hand suspended in midair. “It’s like the California Mafia.”

  Sarah sobered. “Not quite so bad, but you have to understand, our parents learned their lessons during Prohibition when corruption was rampant in the police force. They didn’t trust revenuers. We didn’t trust cops. Because even in the fifties, no one liked foreigners.”

  “The family had been in the U.S. for sixty years,” Rafe said.

  “We spoke Italian,” Sarah said matter-of-factly. “We were Catholic. We drank wine.”

  “Horrors,” Brooke said.

  “We were different,” Sarah insisted.

  “What about Nonno?” Rafe asked. “He didn’t die, obviously.”

  “We thought he was going to, but he recovered.” Sarah smiled slightly. “And I had a son exactly nine months after my wedding day.”

  Brooke thought that through. “Nonna, if I assume you didn’t celebrate your wedding night at the hospital—”

  Sarah smiled slightly. “Let’s just say Anthony was practiced at climbing in my bedroom window at my father’s house.”

  Sarah had just confessed to premarital sex. Wow. Brooke wanted to give her a high five.

  But Rafe looked as if he’d been slapped in the face with a fish, horrified by the idea of his grandfather and grandmother’s passion.

  Brooke exchanged a grin with Sarah, then asked primly, “What happened to Massimo’s wine?”

  “We kept the bottle.” Sarah ate a dried apricot wrapped in a thin slice of caprino cheese. “Anthony let it be known it hadn’t been destroyed. I didn’t blame him. He was angry. He was in pain. He wanted to smear the Bianchins’ noses in the fact that they had failed. Me, I thought a little smearing was fine, but after a while, it became obsession. Every Christmas, I tried to convince Anthony to drink it. On his birthdays, on my birthdays . . . He refused. I said it was going to turn to vinegar. What was the point of having a bottle of vinegar? But he said it was fitting that the wine the Bianchins coveted should be sour. We hid the bottle in the cellar, and Anthony loved knowing that Joseph and the Bianchins still lusted after that bottle.” Sarah clutched the arms of her chair.

  “So you’ve still got it?” Brooke was in awe.

  “Not . . . exactly.” Sarah picked up a cracker, then put it down. “You know, as Anthony aged, he became senile. Dementia, the doctors called it. I took care of him, kept him here until the end.”

  “That was good of you, Nonna,” Rafe said.

  “Good of me? No. I loved him,” she said simply. “After he was gone, on his birthday, I thought . . . well, I thought I’d take the bottle to the cemetery and share it with him at last. But when I went down to the cella
r, it was gone.”

  “Gone? Really?” Rafe sounded as if he didn’t know whether to believe her.

  “We kept the bottle down by the floor in a hole in the concrete wall. It was gone. In its place was a note in Anthony’s handwriting saying, ‘Upstairs.’”

  “What does that mean?” Rafe sounded confused.

  In exasperation, Sarah said, “I don’t know, dear. Your grandfather had dementia. You tell me.”

  “Upstairs in the house?” Rafe asked.

  Sarah answered, “I looked.”

  “At one of your neighbors’?” Brooke asked.

  “Anthony would never have trusted anyone else with the bottle,” Sarah said.

  “In the shed?” Rafe shook his head and answered himself. “If such an old, fragile wine were still drinkable, the changes in temperature would certainly ruin it. Although perhaps the dementia confused Nonno enough that—”

  “I cleaned out the shed,” Sarah told him. “There’s nothing there. I’ve cleaned every nook and cranny inside the house. Nothing.”

  Brooke looked toward the house, remembered the candles on the dining table that had been so carefully lifted from the bottles. . . .“This is just weird.”

  “You believe Joseph Bianchin sent someone to get the bottle from you?” Rafe asked.

  “Who else?” Sarah asked.

  “Today I learned from Eli the worth of a rare bottle of wine.” Rafe still looked faintly stunned at the realization. “Joseph Bianchin may not be our only suspect.”

  “He as good as admitted his guilt to me.” Sarah looked from Rafe to Brooke. “He came to the hospital. To threaten me.”

  Rafe’s blue eyes grew heated. “That son of a bitch. If he weren’t so old, I’d teach him manners.”

  “You can’t teach a jackal manners,” Sarah said.

  Brooke thought it was time to get them back on track. “Don’t worry, Nonna. Rafe will trace the crime back to him.”

  “For all the years of his life, Joseph has covered his tracks.” Sarah leaned forward. “But if you could find out why now, perhaps the rest will be revealed.”

  “Yes, knowing why now might help us solve this case. I’ll put my hacker boy on the case.” As he did so often and so compulsively, Rafe checked his phone, then hefted himself up off the porch. “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m going to go tap on the walls in the cellar.”

  Sarah laughed. “Of course you are. Have fun!” She watched him fondly as he headed into the house. Maneuvering carefully, she rose from the rocking chair and walked over to sit on the swing. Looking into Brooke’s eyes, she said, “Dear, I wish you’d give that boy another chance.”

  Chapter 37

  “How many chances should he have?” Brooke asked. “He’s never gotten it right.”

  Sarah counted on the five fingers of her left hand, then lifted her cast and continued to count the fingers that stuck out from the plaster.

  Brooke watched, and when Sarah held up nine fingers, she asked, “What does that mean?”

  “It means I was married to Anthony for almost fifty years, and he messed up nine times. Nine major times, I mean.” Sarah chortled. “Minor stuff, he was good for nine times a day.”

  “Like grandfather, like grandson.”

  Sarah continued. “I’m a good Catholic girl. I would never have divorced him. But every once in a while I wanted to, so badly, and once I actually threw him out of the house. Told him I was done with him and he should go stay at the resort.”

  Brooke couldn’t imagine seeing Nonna that mad. “What did he do?”

  “Said he was tired of taking care of our grandsons. Said our son should take care of his sons. Said we deserved to have a few years alone together before it was too late. I told him he was a fool to think those boys could survive any more anguish in their young lives, that when the boys were grown, we would have all the time alone together we wanted.” She took a breath, then released it heavily. “It turned out I was wrong and he was right. I’ve always wondered if he recognized the signs of his own impending dementia.”

  Brooke ached for Sarah’s pain. “I am sorry. But what choice did you have?”

  “Exactly. Even if I knew what would happen, I wouldn’t change my decision. So. In fifty years, I forgave a man major missteps nine times. By the way, that time I threw Anthony out and told him to go stay at the resort? He slept in the car. It was cold that night, too. Damned old fool. I wish I had him back”—her voice shook with sudden emotion—“so he could do something else stupid and unforgivable and I had to forgive him again.”

  Brooke put her arms around Sarah.

  Sarah put her good arm around Brooke. “If you like each other, you can always find your way back to love, even if you have to march through hell to reach the path.” Giving Brooke an extra squeeze, she said, “Now I’m going to go lie down on my own bed in my own bedroom until it’s time to leave.”

  Brooke stood and helped Sarah stand, then watched her walk to the entrance. There she softly stroked the doorsill as if seeking welcome from an old friend, then made her way into the house.

  Troubled, Brooke followed and lingered until she was sure Sarah had everything she needed.

  Brooke wandered down the hall to the kitchen and stood listening at the door of the cellar. The light was on, and she could hear Rafe tapping on the walls.

  Good. He was occupied.

  The story that Nonna told explained so much about the recent days: the attack on Nonna, the murder of Luis Hernández . . . and maybe a couple of other things. Pulling her phone from her shirt pocket, she looked through her contacts until she found one very special name, one she had hoped never to call.

  But this was an emergency.

  He picked up on the first ring, and his voice, tinged with a French accent, was warm and welcoming. “Brooke! Chérie! When I gave you my private number, I never dared hope you would actually call.”

  “Gagnon, I’ve been waiting all my life to call you.” Contacting the most charismatic con man she had ever met seemed a precarious move at best; she knew better than to think any favor he did for her would not require a favor in return.

  He laughed. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “I don’t know. I never lie.”

  “Only in the pursuit of courtesy.” The man possessed charm all the way to his toenails.

  Maybe Brooke’s mother had a point. Maybe Brooke should forget Rafe, give Gagnon a whirl, go to Scandinavia, be a wild woman.

  But the fact of the matter was . . . Rafe was dangerous. She knew that. She’d never doubted that. But she also knew he would never do anything criminal. She didn’t know that about Gagnon. In fact, she thought . . . well, she thought any woman who trusted Gagnon could land in prison or worse.

  Which did not eliminate Sweden. She could still go there.

  Gagnon got down to business. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve got a situation in Bella Valley that I think might be bigger than I’d imagined.”

  “Tell me all about it,” he invited.

  She did, and when she had finished, he said, “This is truly fascinating. Let me check on it and I’ll get back to you before your evening is over.”

  “Thank you, Gagnon. When you visit the resort again, I promise you a very special bottle of wine to express my gratitude.” Hopefully that wouldn’t get her into too much trouble.

  “Only if you’ll share it with me.”

  “I will, indeed.” Sharing a bottle of wine with Gagnon would fulfill every woman’s fantasy. The trouble with Gagnon, as far as Brooke was concerned, was simply that he was too handsome, too clever, too lacking in integrity, and, when it came to women, too inconsistent.

  “I look forward to it, chérie. And, chérie—I want to enjoy that wine with you, so until this murderer is caught, you be very, very careful.”

  “I will.”

  He hung up without another word.

  Now Brooke walked to the dining room. Once there, she again went to the table and a
rranged the wine bottles before her. One by one, she lifted the candles out, turned the bottles over, and shook them. They were empty.

  All the while Brooke thought about her mother and how she wanted Brooke to leave Bella Terra and the memories of Rafe, and how Sarah wanted Brooke to give Rafe another chance.

  What about Rafe—what did he want?

  For that matter, what did Brooke want?

  Looking across, she saw a memory leaning against the wall.

  Rafe. Not Rafe as he was now, but the blurry outline of Rafe as he had been at Christmas her senior year of college.

  Brooke had come home to cold weather and rumors that Rafe had been a prisoner of war, and when she asked her mother about it, Kathy looked her in the eyes and said, “I didn’t think the story was important enough to disturb your studies. Besides, you’re engaged to another man.” Her mother’s voice warmed. “I can’t wait to meet Dylan.”

  “You’ll like him.” By that, Brooke meant he was the polar opposite of her father: scholarly, unadventurous, as faithful as an old dog.

  Brooke refrained from asking anything else about Rafe. After all, he didn’t matter to her anymore.

  As always, Brooke and her mom headed up to Nonna’s on Christmas Eve. Every previous year, she’d come home, celebrated with her mom, visited her friends, and whenever she saw Rafe, she had pretended that he didn’t matter to her.

  Every year, it became more and more true.

  He helped, of course. His military haircut, his ramrod posture, reminded her of her father, and that was enough to put a distance between them. Then she took care never to be alone with him, and in that, her mother helped. Whenever Kathy saw Rafe Di Luca, she managed to get between him and Brooke.

  Every year on Christmas night, Brooke and her mom always went up to Nonna’s to pay their respects—as Kathy said, Sarah had been unfailingly kind to them.

  The home ranch was always full of visitors and family; Brooke and her mom always ate too much of Nonna’s cooking, drank a mug of mulled wine, exclaimed about the decorations on the tree, and talked to Eli and Noah. Brooke carefully kept her conversations with Rafe to a casual, “Hi, how are you?”