by Maddy Hunter
“Emily!” I glanced straight ahead to see Fred barreling toward me in an outright panic. Sweat beaded his brow. Alarm strained his voice. “Where is everyone? Do you know? They’ve disappeared. How could they disappear on me like that?”
I recalled my episode at St. Peter’s and smiled. Déjà vu all over again. I pointed to the cathedral. “They’re getting the grand tour. Take a deep breath and calm down. No one left you behind.”
“Geesch, I went to the men’s room and when I got out, I couldn’t find the group anyplace.” He mopped his forehead with his sleeve, looking slightly less frantic now. “Gave me a scare.”
His hat was hanging by its chin strap around his neck, which looked kind of dangerous to me. If he accidentally caught it in one of these five - hundred - pound cathedral doors, he’d choke to death. “How come you’re not hanging with Brandy Ann and Amanda today?”
His eyeballs quivered in their sockets. He fiddled with his chin strap. “You know how it goes. Three’s a crowd.”
Now this was interesting. He’d turned pale at the mention of security cameras on top of the Duomo and was looking really uncomfortable at the mention of Brandy Ann and Amanda. Hmmm. “I’m going to pop into the cathedral to catch what I can of the tour. You want to join me?”
He hesitated. “You go on without me. As long as I know where everyone is, I’d just as soon wait out here. I don’t want to bother anyone.”
I guess this is what could be referred to as withdrawing back into your shell. But what had prompted it? “Hey, Fred, did the police stop you for questioning yesterday?”
He inched back a step. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just wondering. They apparently questioned a lot of people. Were you able to help them at all?”
“I didn’t see anything! How many times do I have to repeat myself? I saw nothing. Now leave me alone, would you?” Looking fitful and anxious, he headed off in the opposite direction.
I had such a knack for getting people to open up to me.
The center door of the cathedral swung open, and in the next moment I saw familiar faces start to exit the building. Quick tour. I shot a couple of photos of the mosaics over the doorways and the four tiers of arched colonnades that climbed to the roofline, then found Nana in the crowd, talking to the twins.
“Was that the abridged tour?” I asked them.
“Well, would you lookit you?” Nana chirped, circling around me to get the full view of my hair. “I seen you when you got on the bus, but I couldn’t believe my eyes. I like it, dear. I really do.” She patted the ragged strands and intermittent bald spots on her own head of professionally cut hair. “Kinda reminds me a my own hair…now that I got the good cut.”
I hung my head. Oh, God.
Britha, still attired in my cigarette pants and body suit, nodded toward the cathedral. “We would have had a longer tour, but there was a funeral going on, so we just got the highlights. The fancy pulpit. The big mosaic in the apse. The crooked chandelier.”
Barbro chimed in. “And an altar on two angels’ backs. Tell it all, Brit. Don’t be lax.”
“You follow me now,” we heard Giovanna call out. “I show you someting around duh corner of duh catedral.”
“Where’d you leave George?” I asked, as we moved en masse with the group.
“Him and Osmond needed to use the potty, so they had to duck out early.” Nana looked up at the church, beaming with excitement. “Your mother’s gonna be sorry she missed seein’ all this, Emily. There’s no way you coulda talked her into comin’, hunh?”
“Nope. A whole bunch of new entries were in the box this morning, so she decided she needed to stay behind to read them so she could pass them on to Gabriel and Sylvia later this evening. I guess they speed-read, so they don’t need as much time as Mom. Good thing they’re going to announce the winner tomorrow night. If they extended the contest any longer, Mom’s photo album of Italy would consist of interior shots of hotel rooms.”
“That reminds me.” Nana tapped Britha’s shoulder. “Can I show Emily?”
Britha handed over her camera to Nana, who pressed a couple of buttons and flashed me a picture of her and George standing in front of the tower. “Isn’t this somethin’? That’s exactly what the picture’s gonna look like and after it’s downloaded, they can erase it and use the film over again. It’s digital. You think I could use somethin’ like this, Emily?”
We came to a halt at some nondescript point along the side of the cathedral and gathered around Giovanna, who stood next to the building with her hand on the facade. “I give you all a chance to see, but what I show you is duh liyttle holes in the stone here. You all step close now so you can see.”
“I thought you said digital cameras were too expensive,” I whispered as I took the camera from Nana.
“They are,” she whispered back. “But this one’s got all sorts a fancy gizmos on it. I can’t help it. I love them gizmos.”
I glanced at the photo displayed on the viewer. Aw. The Leaning Tower of Pisa with a miniature Nana and George standing in front of it.
“Press that button to see the next one,” she instructed me.
I pressed the button to find a close-up of a smiling Nana and George in front of some crooked colonnades.
I looked more carefully.
EHH!
Giovanna ran her finger down the cathedral wall. “If you try to count duh liyttle holes, you won’t be able to, because duh number never comes out duh same way twice. It’s because of duh day-vil.”
I angled the camera toward Nana. “What happened to George? WHERE’S HIS FRONT TOOTH?”
“Duh day-vil plays with duh liyttle holes,” Giovanna continued. “He changes duh number and moves dem around. You can try to count, but duh day-vil, he won’t let you.”
“What’s a day-vil?” asked Nana.
“Devil,” I fired back. “Where’s George’s tooth?”
“He’s keepin’ it in the front pocket a his trousers. But it’s not a real tooth, dear. It’s only a cap.”
“Why isn’t it in his mouth?”
“It got knocked out,” she said sheepishly. “Accidentally.”
Oh, Lord. “You want to tell me how?”
“It was on account a my knee.”
I leveled quizzical eyes on her. “Your knee?”
She motioned me close and whispered in my ear, “I got to play the barbarian last night…but I got carried away some. I think it was the leather boxers that done it.”
Oh, God. Good thing leather hadn’t been popular in Brainerd. Grampa Sippel might have had to file for permanent disability at a very young age.
“Duh cloister behind you is Pisa’s main ceymetery,” Giovanna remarked, indicating the massive rectangular building north of the cathedral. “It was built between duh tirteent and fifteent ceynturies and eart’ from duh Holy Land was brought back to bury duh bodies of prominent people.”
Nana tugged on my arm. “What’s eart’?”
“I think she means earth.”
“Maybe she should try sayin’ soil.”
While Giovanna continued to talk, I punched the button on Britha’s camera to catch a peek of what other pictures the twins had taken. Euw. Very nice artsy composition. A statue of a naked man with a beard, bulging muscles, and an extremely large…Yup. I punched the button again. A statue of a beardless naked man with big hands, big feet, and a really big…Unh. Next photo. A statue of two naked men with beards, killer physiques, and appendages the size of — I studied the display more carefully. Wow. I wondered if either of these guys was related to Etienne.
“I take you now to duh baptistry,” Giovanna announced, working her way back to the head of the group.
I kept punching the display button. Oh, look at that. A picture of the Stolees, Teigs, and Lucille in front of the hotel in all their Florentine finery. Alice and Osmond at an outdoor café, showing off their camcorders. Duncan standing outside the Duomo. The rooftops of Florence. The picture I’d taken of the twin
s on the gallery. Boy, it had come out really well. And the close-up. Even better. You could see every feature on their faces with perfect clarity. This camera was really good…and I nearly dropped it when someone whacked me in the arm with a handbag an instant later.
“Eh!” I bobbled the camera, catching it in the crook of my arm at the last minute.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Gillian Jones apologized, thwacking me again when I turned around. Looking abashed, she clamped her hands around her shoulder bag like a pet owner controlling a frisky pup. “I’m sorry, Emily. I bought this new, and it’s quite a bit bigger than my usual pocketbook, so I’m a little out of control. But I couldn’t resist. It’s one of a kind. Isn’t it beautiful?”
I eyed the bag. Triangular. Purple leather. Euw boy. It was beautiful all right. It was also exactly like the one Marla Michaels was carrying. I guess the divas hadn’t yet run into each other this morning. “Yeah, that’s a great-looking bag,” I agreed.
“Damson leather,” said Gillian. “It’s so scrumptious. You can’t find leather like this back in the States.”
Nope. Not unless you were living in the same town as Marla Michaels.
“And I found the most gorgeous leather jacket in a little shop by the San Lorenzo street market. For a hundred and fifty dollars! What a steal. They had to shorten the sleeves, but they did it in an hour. Can you imagine?”
I regarded her hair, thinking it looked the same as it had yesterday. She must have discovered a shop where they’d eliminated the blowtorch demonstration.
“Duh baptistry was completed in twelve eighty-four and is duh largest in all Italy,” Giovanna called out, before we started our march across the field. “Duh circular shape was inspired by duh Church of duh Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and dee acoustics are beytter dan some of duh finest opera houses in Europe. It is very particular and very suggestive. You follow me. Duncan will give you your teekets at dee entrance.”
As the group surged forward, I handed Britha’s camera back to her. “You’ve taken some nice shots there.”
“Thank you, Emily. You can’t find good nudity like that back home.”
“There’s George,” said Nana, waving to him and Osmond as they strode back from the restroom amid a scattering of other people. George waved back and flashed a wide grin that highlighted the newly acquired space between his teeth. I winced. Oh, God. How many days left on this tour?
I slowed my pace, allowing the group to pass me so I could hang out at the back and keep a better eye on things. Of course, the chances of something happening when the group was all bunched up like this were probably slight, but being isolated was better than getting clobbered by Gillian’s damson shoulder bag again. Damson. I guess purple wasn’t descriptive enough. Boy, you could sure tell she was a writer.
“Psssst.”
I glanced sideways to find a tall, ponytailed man in an untucked oxford shirt, slouch cap, and sunglasses beckoning to me with a curling motion of his right index finger. Curling motion. Right index finger. Oh geesch. Did that mean he wanted to boff me? I quickened my pace and kept walking.
“PSSSST!”
From the corner of my eye I could see the man making a furious motion with his entire hand. Unh-oh. He’d progressed from a single finger to the whole hand. I wondered if that was the gesture for group sex. God, these Italians were kinky. I angled my face away from him and broke out in a shuffling run to catch up with the group.
“Emily! Will you get over here?”
The voice stopped me in midshuffle. I turned around to regard the man in the slouch cap. “Jackie?”
“What? You don’t understand hand gestures anymore?” She ate up the distance between us in a few long strides.
I gaped at her. Him. “We’re in Italy. I thought you were motioning that you wanted to have sex with me.”
She flexed her fingers and raised them to eye level. “Mmm, I think you use the fingers on your left hand to indicate you want to have sex. You want me to check my nonverbal Italian book?”
I looked him…her…him…up and down. “Why are you dressed like that?”
She whipped off her sunglasses to reveal a face devoid of makeup. “I’m undercover,” she said in a low voice. “I think I can keep better tabs on our suspects if I’m in disguise. And besides, costumes are more fun. It’s like being onstage.” She struck a pose. “What do you think? Good disguise? You think anyone will catch on?”
“Oh, yeah. Great disguise.” She’d gone from six-foot transsexual to six-foot transvestite. The only ones unable to catch on would be infants and blind people. “The sandals are a nice touch. Very…flat.”
She tapped a finger to her temple. “That took a lot of planning. I even had to remember to remove my nail polish because, let me tell you, if you’re a guy with painted toenails? You draw a lot of attention. So tell me. Who do you want me to tail?”
We lagged behind the group as I repeated Etienne’s earlier phone conversation. “So that’s the scoop,” I said when I finished. “And I’m finding it very telling that Brandy Ann and Amanda both have the same failing in common.”
“Euw. Did they let you read their contest stuff? Let me guess. They split their infinitives? Use double negatives?”
“Jack! We’re looking for a motive for murder!”
She waited a beat. “Too much passive voice?”
“Money problems, Jack! They have serious money problems and need that ten-thousand-dollar cash advance. Keely could use the money, too, but she’s banking more on the prestige that being a published author will give her. Even if she never published another thing, the words ‘published author’ in her bio would help her online consulting service take off like gangbusters. It all boils down to greed. Plain, simple greed.”
Jackie sighed. “So who do you want me to follow? And you better tell me quick so I can catch up. Everyone just filed into that circular building over there. What is that anyway? Another baptistry?”
“The largest one in Italy. With the best acoustics in the world.”
In the next moment I heard double screams so loud and bloodcurdling that they electrified every hair at the back of my neck. The sounds rang out…ricocheted…vibrated…then blended into a chorus of notes that lingered in the air, leaving an almost musical contrail behind.
Wow. I’d never heard such incredibly symphonic screams before.
We riveted our attention on the baptistry. Jackie stared down at me in exasperation. “Let me guess. Seeing that our whole group is inside there, I suppose you’re gonna want to check it out. Right?”
Chapter 9
We raced down the path, bounded up the three stone steps of the baptistry, and flew through a door that was only slightly less tall than the space shuttle. “Biglietti?” a uniformed ticket-taker inquired as we entered the short foyer. “BIGLIETTI! BIGLIETTI!” she screamed after us as we tore past.
The interior of the building was a vast empty space encased in stone. I saw no frescoes, no statues, no chairs, no nothing. What I did see were people frozen in place, staring in shocked silence at the two women who were standing by the spa-sized baptismal font in the center of the room, swinging their damson leather shoulder bags at each other.
“You bitch!” screamed Marla. “I should have known you’d buy something just like mine! You can’t stand not to copy me! First, it’s my books. Now it’s my shoulder bag!” WHAM! She connected with Gillian’s thigh.
Looked like the divas had finally run into each other.
“Copy you? COPY YOU!” THWWWWACK! Gillian delivered a blow to Marla’s shoulder, driving her back. “The only similarity between your books and mine are the punctuation marks!”
“You used my first love scene in Barbarian’s Bride almost word for word in your stupid cowboy island book!”
I sincerely hoped the cowboy had been more fortunate than George and escaped the encounter with his front teeth intact.
“You’re accusing me of plagiarism?” Gillian shrieked. “Honey, if I’m goin
g to commit plagiarism, I can do a whole hell of a lot better than stealing scenes from some unpolished, unprofessional, unimaginative hack like you!”
“I have half a mind to sue your ass off!” Marla raged, her voice mimicking the tonal brilliance of a really good sound system.
“That’s exactly why you can’t write!” Gillian’s voice echoed in surround sound. “You only have half a mind!”
SWOOSH swoosh swoosh! They swung their pocketbooks over their heads. WHUMP! The bags thumped together in midair like boxing gloves.
“Ladies.” Elbowing his way through the crush of paralyzed onlookers, Duncan reached the center of the room and inserted his commanding presence between the divas and their dueling shoulder bags. “Enough.”
The women dangled their bags by their shoulder straps, looking as if they were contemplating sneak attacks. Oh, God.
“Protect your boys, son!” Dick Teig warned. “You might want to have children someday.”
“Copycat!” yelled Marla.
“Drudge!” Gillian spat.
“Lickspittle!”
“Muckmouth!”
As the screaming continued, I listened to the demeaning barrage of insults reverberating off these sacred walls, feeling shock and awe at what I was hearing from the world’s two most famous romance divas.
Boy, Giovanna was right. The acoustics in this place were incredible. They sounded even better on the inside than they did from the outside!
Forty-five minutes later, with the divas banished to opposite ends of the group, Duncan’s manhood intact, and Giovanna’s tour ended, I sat cross-legged on the grass outside the baptistry, wishing I knew yoga and trying to regroup.
“Mind if I join you?” Gabriel Fox sauntered in my direction and when I gave him a nod, he stretched out on the lawn in front of me. “After what you’ve witnessed these last two days, you mustn’t think much of the people who work in publishing. But I’d like you to know, we’re not all like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like Marla Michaels and Gillian Jones. We’re not all raving lunatics. Most of us actually enjoy working with each other the majority of time, but competition seems to bring out the worst in some people.”