***
Inspector Albani stepped out of the police car, adjusted his hat, and looked across the field. The area was just as Lorenzo had described it, surrounded by trees, but open and flat. He pushed away the snow with his boot to reveal dormant grass. The regular clanking of a distant ski lift’s chairs was barely audible. He looked toward the sound, and through a break in the trees could see skiers coming down off the mountain into a large valley. In the summer, the driver had told him, it was a nine-hole golf course. Luca Albani was neither a skier nor a golfer.
The tire tracks made by the boys’ car were still visible. Little snow had fallen in the hours since they had made their pit stop, but it was starting again. The same for their footprints, now small but regular dips in the snow. They were the only indentations in the blanket of white that covered the field. Luca sighed, confirming that any marks made by the vehicle that brought Taylor and his murderer to this spot had long since disappeared. Was this where the violence had taken place?
“Come out here, Lorenzo.” The boy squeezed his body from the backseat and zipped up his ski coat. “Now, take me through what happened.” Luca looked toward the driver, and the occupants of a second police car. “Listen to what he’s saying,” he said as they got out of the car.
The boy looked around, getting his bearings. “We parked there. You can still see some of the tire marks. Then the four of us walked over to the edge and pissed near those trees. I was on the end, and when we were walking back I noticed something blue sticking out of the snow. You can just see the tracks from where I walked over and got the cap. It was right over there.” The others looked where he was pointing. “I brushed the snow off it and walked back to the car to join the others. We drove back out to the road and into town. That’s all.”
Luca rubbed his chin and tried to picture the murder scene. It was unlikely that the wind had blown the hat from somewhere else, given the protection of the surrounding trees. Equally unlikely was that someone had come up here to dispose of the hat after Taylor had been killed. More probably, Taylor and his assailant had driven here, and it was in this field that the murder took place. In the struggle the hat had fallen to the ground and the murderer had not noticed. Or he did notice and either didn’t care or was too busy figuring out what to do with the body. Where exactly had the struggle taken place? Near, but not next to where the hat was found? If they drove into the middle of the field, rather than stopping at the edge where the boys had, then their vehicle could have had four-wheel drive to get through the snow. And they would not have walked very far from it. He turned to the driver of the second car, a sergeant.
“You’ve got the shovels, right?”
“Yes, sir, they’re in the back.”
“Start from over there, where he said he found the cap. Dig through the snow to see if you can find anything else. Like skis and poles. Or some object that could have been used to crack the victim’s skull. Or any sign of struggle. Work out from that point until you’ve covered the whole area.”
They began the search and something was found almost immediately. It was not the murder weapon, but potentially almost as useful.
“Sir, you’d better come look at this.” The policeman stood stiffly, pointing toward his feet, not wanting to disturb what he’d found. The snow came up to his ankles. The inspector slogged toward the man, his borrowed boots at least a size too large. He reached him and peered at the spot. After a moment he removed a plastic evidence bag from his pocket, opened it completely and brushed snow into it.
“Good work. It could just be mud, but since the ground is frozen, it’s more likely to be blood.” He held up the bag and they looked at the dark brown stain inside the clump of white. “We’ll send it to the lab. Keep looking, we could find the murder weapon.”
After more than an hour of searching, the only objects found had been in the area for a long time and did not appear to be related to the crime. It was what would be expected for a spot which the youth of Campiglio had used for activities that were either immoral, illegal, or both. Luca left one group of men to continue the search and sent another to check the road back into town and farther up the mountain. The murder weapon could have been thrown from the killer’s vehicle. While they worked, he drove back into town, dropping off Lorenzo in the same square where he had been accosted earlier in the day. Lorenzo got out of the police car and shot off like a trout released in a stream.
Chapter Seven
“You weren’t supposed to work, Rick. You needed a break, especially after what you witnessed last night. Helping Luca with the man’s sister, catching the hat thief, I’ll let that pass. But working on translations the rest of the morning, well, that’s unacceptable. Do you see me calling my office?”
The chairlift was approaching the highest point of Campiglio’s hundreds of kilometers of ski trails, a full 2,500 meters above sea level. The wide trail below ran between two jagged escarpments, its location above the tree line giving it a barren, moon-like quality. Rick and Flavio looked down at the skiers on the two sides of the lift. The trail on the left was wider, attracting the snowboarders and the faster skiers. Several ski school groups made their way slowly down on the right, led by instructors exaggerating their lifts and dips as they encouraged the students to do the same. Rick thought he recognized Gina Cortese, but it was impossible to be sure with the hat and goggles.
“Your office would call you if there was a problem, Flavio. I’ve got no staff, not even a secretary, so I have to keep on top of things myself. And it was just a short translation, I did it without a dictionary. Even you could have done it. With a good dictionary, of course.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the view. The only sound was the call of the ski instructors. Appoggiare—SU—giu. Appoggiare—SU—giu. The students dutifully dug in their poles and flexed their legs up and down, trying—mostly without success—to mirror the movements of the instructor.
“And if the lovely vice consul had not gone off to assist Cat, you might have skipped the afternoon skiing yourself, Flavio. Admit it.”
“That is certainly possible.” Flavio grinned and slapped his gloves together. “Speaking of lovelies, Rick, when I talked with you a few months ago you said you were dating someone. An art history professor, as I remember. You haven’t mentioned her since you arrived.”
“And you haven’t brought her up.”
“Have I touched a nerve, my friend?”
Rick chuckled. “No, Flavio, you have not. Erica is in the States at the moment, teaching a seminar on Italian Mannerism at a major university.”
“The University of New Mexico?”
“Another major university. On the East Coast.”
“They have universities on the East Coast?”
“A few. But when she left, our relationship was up in the air. I’m not sure if it’s going anywhere.”
“So you have no qualms about dating this Taylor woman.”
“I do not think, caro Flavio, that my comforting a fellow American in her time of grief could be categorized as dating.”
“Whatever you say, Rick.” They watched a snowboarder crash and burn on their left. “Did Erica use the S word before she departed for America?”
“The S word?”
“Spazio. Did she say she needed space?”
“No, I don’t remember her saying that.”
“I got the space thing a month ago from a girl. Lives in Bolzano and works for a vineyard we do business with. Beautiful dark eyes to go with her hair. Speaks Italian with a sexy German accent.”
“Everybody in Bolzano has a German accent.”
“Not like Inga.”
They pushed up the safety bar and leveled their skis in preparation for the dismount. When they came to a small snow hill they slid gently off. The empty chair continued ahead for a few meters before whipping around to start its empty descent. Ha
ving skied the wider run twice already, they decided to take the other, less crowded run. Once again Rick marveled at his friend’s style, taking each bump, large or small, like it wasn’t there. The upper part of his body barely moved as his arms reached out to place the pole at just the right spot before starting a smooth turn around it. Rick tried his best to copy. He was certainly not a bad skier, but still found himself fighting the mountain. Flavio had become part of the mountain.
Halfway down the lift they stopped, allowing Rick to lean on his poles and catch his breath. Below, the trail split into three smaller routes that made their way back to the Campiglio, but all that was visible from this point were white peaks. Somewhere between the peaks lay the town, waiting for the afternoon’s skiers to descend for the evening.
Rick was ready to start off again when a man wearing the uniform of a ski instructor shot past him, his skis slapping the snow. He was followed by a skier about half as tall, then another, until about ten kids had whizzed past. The skiers, each about eleven or twelve, all wore the same yellow bibs with matching yellow helmets, some trailing ponytails. Bees on skis. They kept close to the ground, not that they were that far from it anyway, given their height, and they were having no trouble staying with the instructor. As quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. Rick looked up and saw Flavio grinning.
“That was me twenty years ago, Rick. They pick the best kids in the town and train them after school in the winter. Every ski town on both sides of the Alps does the same thing.” He looked in the direction the line of kids had taken. “You never know, there might be a future Lobo among them.”
“I doubt it,” Rick said. “UNM learned its lesson when they gave you a scholarship.” Flavio didn’t hear the comment. He had shot down the hill after the kids, as if by catching them he could catch some part of his youth.
Rick’s wide turns brought him down to the flat area near the entrance to the chairlift, the meeting point for ski classes. As he approached, he noticed Flavio standing with one of the instructors, who was calling out to her class.
“As you ski down to Campiglio, remember what I told you. Take the turns wide and shift your weight as you do. A domani.” Rick recognized the voice. The class returned her a domani and pushed off down the hill as he slid up next to Flavio.
“I think you two have already met,” Flavio said.
Gina Cortese studied Rick for a few moments and said: “The policeman.”
“I’m actually not a policeman, but I am helping the inspector with this case.” Rick wasn’t sure if that was the best way to characterize his role, but it was what came to mind.
“Are you involved in the investigation too, Flavio?”
Flavio shrugged, lifting his ski poles by his wrist straps. “Not really. I know Luca, the inspector, from Trento. And I know Riccardo here from our college days in America.”
Gina looked from one face to the other. “Is everybody involved in this investigation? Reinforcements, since it’s now a murder?” The two men remained silent. “Well, you can cross me off the list of suspects. I was teaching classes all day Saturday. And when I was done I went home and had a hot bath, and then—”
She suddenly began sobbing uncontrollably. Flavio shuffled next to her and put his arm over her shoulder. She pressed her head against his chest.
“It’s all right, Gina.”
“I waited for him. Then I was so mad at him for standing me up. So mad. And he was dead, Flavio. I got mad at him and he was dead. I didn’t know, I didn’t know.”
“You had no way of knowing,” Flavio said softly. “It was a natural reaction when he didn’t appear.”
Slowly she regained control and separated herself from Flavio’s arm. She ripped at the zipper of her ski coat and extracted a tissue before pressing it against one eye and then the other. “I have to go, I have another class. It was nice to see you, Flavio. And…”
“Riccardo,” Flavio helped.
She pushed off across the snow, cross-country style, as she adjusted her goggles. Two people, a man and a woman, waved at her as she approached them.
“I didn’t know Gina that well. She’s a few years older than me,” Flavio said as they watched her talking with her students. “But that’s the way I remember her.”
“You mean emotional like that? First she’s mad at us, then she’s mad at herself. I couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t—”
“An act, Rick? With Italian women it’s sometimes difficult to know the difference between what’s real and what’s an act, they often don’t even know themselves.”
“Those are the most profound words I’ve ever heard you say, Flavio.” They continued to watch Gina, who now moved toward the ski lift line with her two new students. Rick broke their trance. “Do I remember passing a chalet partway down this trail where liquid refreshment is served?”
“Your memory is correct, Rick. A fine idea.”
Their lengthening shadows were growing faint as a gauzy cloud attempted to block the late afternoon sun. Other skiers were also opting to head down rather than get on the chairlift again. In another hour the lifts would close and those left on the mountain would converge on the lower trails. It was the time of day, thanks to tired skiers and lower visibility, when the most accidents happened, especially on crowded weekends. Rick and Flavio skied slowly, dropping from the open expanses of the higher elevations into the woods where trails were cut through the trees. They came down into a valley where a four-seat chairlift took them up to their destination. It would be their last lift of the day; from there it would be all downhill.
***
Inspector Albani looked out through the glass wall into the main office of the Melograno Real Estate Agency. The chair was the most comfortable he had sat in since coming to Campiglio, certainly a lot easier to sit in than the one he used at the police station. When he’d been shown into the small conference room by Melograno’s receptionist he almost took the seat at the head of the table. It had a slightly higher back and, unlike the other chairs, armrests. Melograno would take the place of honor. The policeman looked out the glass around the large room, which seemed busier than it had been during his and Montoya’s previous visit, despite it being a weekday. All three of the cubicles on the opposite side of the room were filled today—one by the woman who had escorted him to the conference room, the same one who had greeted them the previous visit. In the other two sat a woman talking on her phone and a younger man working diligently at his computer screen. Was there a physical similarity between this man and Melograno? Luca decided there was not.
Melograno’s door opened and the policeman watched Mayor Grandi emerge, followed by the real estate developer. Interesting, thought Luca. The woman had called Melograno to tell him that the inspector was waiting, so Melograno must have told the mayor. Would there be any reason for the mayor to have slipped out the back? Not really. Melograno did not know he was going to get a visit from the police, so the mayor being there was just a coincidence. Unless someone at the police station had alerted the mayor. As Luca turned this over in his mind, the mayor glanced over to him and turned to Melograno. They exchanged a few words and Grandi strode toward the glass room. Luca arose from his seat and opened the door as the mayor reached it.
“Inspector,” he said, as if there was a need to confirm the policeman’s existence. No handshake was offered. “This business with the American has become especially troubling. And now the stabbing of Guido Pittini. Please come to see me so you can explain what you are doing to resolve them. I’ll be at my shop.”
Luca was given no chance to reply; the man turned on his heel and walked to where Melograno was waiting. The mayor said something into Melograno’s ear while keeping his eyes on the policeman, then moved toward the door. One of the women rushed up to him with his coat and he took it without acknowledgment before pulling open the door and disappearing.
Melograno,
in contrast, was polite, like the two were playing good-suspect bad-suspect roles. He shook hands with Luca and asked him if he’d like a coffee or something else to drink. When his guest politely declined, the door was closed and they took seats at the table. As expected, Melograno sat at the head, in the taller chair.
From the moment Melograno had emerged from his office with the mayor, Luca had noticed a change in the man’s body language since they’d met the previous day. To begin with, he seemed even more unkempt. The eyes looked like they needed sleep, just as the face begged for a razor and the hair a comb. The annoyed demeanor was still there, but it was not as convincing. This time he was going through the motions. As Melograno talked, the policeman’s instincts were confirmed.
“The mayor is correct, this incident has turned nasty, very nasty indeed. I knew Signor Taylor as well as anyone here, so the news of his death has been a great shock to me. Do you have any suspicions as to who could have done this?”
He didn’t know Taylor as well as the mayor’s ex-wife, thought Luca. “I am just beginning the investigation,” he said, deflecting the question. “Could you tell me again about your meeting with him? Perhaps you have remembered some detail that could be helpful.” Melograno frowned as the policeman’s pad and pen appeared.
“I don’t know what else I can say.” More of the previous bravado appeared. “You do remember what I said then, don’t you?” When no answer was forthcoming, he gave a theatrical shrug and continued. “All right. Our meeting was relatively brief. I asked him about the loan I had requested from his bank. He said it was still pending but there were some questions. I asked what were the questions. He told me. I answered the questions, or at least I believe I answered them.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, Signor Melograno, what were the questions? Bear in mind that I know very little about banking.”
Melograno looked at him as if trying to decide if the last comment was intended to be sarcastic. “They were financial issues. Collateral, my company’s income, that sort of thing. I hardly think—”
Death in the Dolomites: A Rick Montoya Italian Mystery Page 10