The Da Vinci Cook

by Joanne Pence

  Angie didn’t walk toward the main altar, but immediately turned to the right. Before her, surrounded by a crowd and safely behind bulletproof glass ever since some madman attacked it with a knife, was Michelangelo’s Pieta.

  Although she had seen it many times, she was transfixed for a long moment by the beauty of the Virgin Mary, her face that of a young woman, her clothes heavily draped, holding the body of her dead son across her lap. Angie had heard all the criticisms—Mary was depicted as too young, her body too large—but she understood what Michelangelo was doing in creating a face of serenity, acceptance, strength, and innocence.

  Yet, even as Angie stood mesmerized by the beauty before her, something felt wrong. She turned her head slightly, half expecting to see the goateed man lurking near once again. He wasn’t there, but the feeling continued.

  She drew in a deep breath, and turned all the way around.

  The priest jumped back into the private staircase to the basement. He was still panting from his dash through the lower chambers and up to the public church area as he watched the two women. Earlier, the expression on the younger one’s face confirmed that she’d recognized him from Da Vinci’s.

  Was it an accident, or had they tracked him here? In the restaurant last night he’d heard bits and pieces of their conversation as other diners left and the two finished the bottle of wine and got a little louder. Also, they probably hadn’t realized that another American was nearby and could understand their rapid-fire speech.

  He’d been shocked by their conversation. From now on he had to be more careful.

  Piccoletti stepped back into the shadows when the younger woman turned. She and her sister whispered together, their big brown eyes scanning the crowd and the massive church. He didn’t move, quite sure they wouldn’t spot him behind this pillar. When Bruno called last night to tell him about the Americans asking about him, he didn’t want to believe it.

  Something elemental filled him as he watched Caterina Amalfi Swenson make her way from the church. His breathing quickened and he almost followed, but then stopped to cautiously eye the people around him. He had to be careful. He’d worked too hard for this, and far too long.

  His mind raged against all that was happening. Against all that had gone wrong. He had to fix it. He would fix it, and no one was going to stand in his way.

  His hands clenched in fury. “Why the hell are you here, Cat?”

  Chapter 15

  “Who’d kill an old lady like that?” Inspector Toshiro Yoshiwara put his morning coffee on his desk, hung his suit jacket over the back of his chair, and rolled up his sleeves. “Who’d they think she was going to hurt? They could have threatened her, sent her off somewhere, even knocked her into a coma. They didn’t have to kill her, for cryin’ out loud.”

  Paavo had arrived at Homicide before dawn, unable to sleep well after his conversations with Angie and Cat. Angie said she’d return home soon, and he only hoped she didn’t change her mind—or Cat didn’t change it for her. He’d used the quiet time to search online databases for information about Marcello Piccoletti, believing he was the key to both murders. “Whoever did it didn’t even try to make it look like a robbery. It was murder, plain and simple.”

  The two had spent the previous day and night on Flora Piccoletti’s murder, checking the premises, talking to neighbors working with CSI, and trying to find any clues as to the perpetrators. Nothing of substance had turned up. Paavo found lots of names and addresses. It looked like Flora had kept every card she’d ever received. Some were from Rocco, Marcello, and Josie. None led anywhere.

  The only time Paavo took away from the case was his bizarre foray into government with Frannie. After she’d ripped up the form packet and tried to set fire to a forms cabinet, all the while muttering, “Out, out, damned bureaucracy,” he practically carried her from the building, announcing that he was a cop so no one needed to call one. The lone security guard took one look at the raving Frannie and backed far, far away.

  Paavo only hoped he’d seen the last of her for a long time.

  He again tried to reach Marcello in Italy. If nothing else, he needed to tell the man about his mother’s death. Marcello wasn’t in his room at the hotel, and the person he spoke with at Da Vinci’s suddenly lost his ability to speak or understand English when Paavo identified himself as a policeman. He left messages for Marcello to phone him as soon as possible, emphasizing the urgency.

  Paavo’s gut reaction told him that the easiest way to solve Flora’s murder was to find out what had happened at the Sea Cliff house. Using Marcello Piccoletti’s bank, credit, and telephone records, Paavo attempted to trace Marcello’s movements on the weekend and Monday, the day he supposedly left the Bay Area for Italy—the day before the murder. Marcello apparently worked at his furniture store all day Saturday, then had a first-time date with a woman who barely knew him on Saturday night. The date didn’t go well, and ended soon after dinner. The woman complained that Marcello seemed distracted and scarcely paid any attention to her.

  Paavo could find nothing for Sunday or Monday. He called Transportation Security and asked them to find out exactly when Marcello traveled to Rome.

  He obtained records from the furniture store to see if he could tell what was going on there financially. Most of the sales were for stock items at low prices and high discounts. A few items, however, jumped out. Several lamps, occasional tables, chests, and porcelain objects sold for what appeared to be bizarrely expensive prices.

  And all of it had been purchased by Caterina Swenson.

  His thoughts turned to Marcello Piccoletti’s relationship with Cat. Client and realtor? Childhood friends? Could there have been more? He didn’t like where his thoughts were leading. He made two mental notes: one to question Charles Swenson, and the next to talk to Angie, two people who could shed some light on the state of the Swenson marriage.

  He turned his attention back to Marcello.

  Eventually, the picture that emerged was of a man who was overextended as far as cash flow. Piccoletti wasn’t poor by any means, but most of his net worth was tied up in propertyhis home, his business, and his inventory, rather than in cash. Da Vinci’s restaurant and the furniture store both paid for themselves, but barely. Piccoletti’s problem was lifestyle: it was beyond his means.

  In fact, he’d sold nearly all of his stocks and bonds over the past five years, when his standard of living took a big jump upward.

  Paavo’s attempts to come up with any information about Rocco met with even less results than with Marcello. He found no address, no phone number, no one who even knew the man. Only people who lived on the edge took care that there was no way to trace them or their movements. To find nothing about Rocco Piccoletti made Paavo more suspicious, not less.

  He stood up to work the kinks out of his back and shoulders from the morning’s paperwork. “I finally talked to Angie and Caterina,” he told Yosh, and relayed the conversation he’d had. “I can’t help but think there’s a connection between the priest a couple of neighbors saw near Piccoletti’s house and the St. Peter’s chain that was stolen.”

  “That makes sense.” Yosh powered up his computer. “I’ve had no luck finding out anything special about Marcello Piccoletti. The man kept his life quite a secret.”

  “I agree.” Paavo rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s not much online either. His furniture store does a steady business, but it’s low-grade furniture. The margin is small, the competition tough.”

  “I want to know where Piccoletti’s money came from.” Yosh tapped a key. His computer didn’t seem to be cooperating.

  “Good question. Furniture crates are quite large. They can carry a multitude of sins,” Paavo suggested.

  “You think what? Smuggled goods? Drugs? I see no evidence so far.”

  “True, but we’ll find out.” Paavo’s voice carried cold determination.

  Giving up on the computer, Yosh went and got his mail. Snail mail, at least, was always availab
le. “Any word back on the vic’s ID?”

  “No fingerprints yet. It’s gone to IAFIS. Backed up, as usual.” The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System was supposed to help speed things up in getting fingerprint results, but since all requests were funneled through it, it created its own bottleneck. “Something should turn up,” Paavo added. “A high profile case like this, we should have people calling with all kinds of information.”

  Unfortunately, the phone remained silent.

  “Damnation.” Yosh was about to drop back into his chair when he froze midway. Officer Justin Leong approached, looking as if he’d just won the lottery. He held a plastic bag high in his hand.

  “This is definitely not a good idea, Angie,” Cat complained as her sister practically carried her around the block to a back alley that led to the rear entrances of the restaurants and shops along the Via Porta Cavalleggeri. It was about fifteen minutes before Da Vinci’s opened.

  “It’s a great idea. Trust me,” Angie said. The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she remembered how people who knew her best—Connie, her closest friend; Stan, her neighbor, and others—often called them “words of doom.”

  “Hah!” was Cat’s only remark. Angie could almost hear Connie warning Cat about the noose around her neck, the steel trap at her feet, or the band striking up a funeral dirge.

  “You said you wanted to talk to Marcello,” Angie pointed out, trying not to think of how even good friends misunderstood her. “This is a whole lot better than sitting in the dining room stuffing our faces and hoping he shows up. That could take days. And maybe he’d never let us see him. Once we’re inside, we’ll find a way to look through papers, check phone records, do whatever it takes to lead us to Marcello.”

  Cat balked at the alleyway. “You may have a point, but there’s got to be a better way to go about it.”

  “Name one,” Angie challenged.

  Cat paused. “Something will come to me soon.”

  “Look at it this way,” Angie said, hurrying her sister into the soot-filled and littered alley, “you want to go home. I want to go home. Enough said?”

  At the back door to Da Vinci’s, Cat squared her shoulders. “I’ll try it, but if things get dicey, I am out of there.”

  Angie was already knocking on the door. A skinny fellow with a black toupee opened it. She’d seen him bussing dishes the night before. “I’d like to see the manager,” she said.

  “Sì, sì.” The man bobbed his head nervously before he turned and ran back inside. Angie and Cat exchanged glances and waited.

  Before long the short, round, bald-headed man who had waited on them came to the door. “You wish to see me, Bruno Montecatini?” he asked, resting his hands against a bulbous belly. “I remember you both from last evening. What can I do for you?”

  “To tell the truth,” Angie said, “we’re looking for work. That’s why we were asking about Mr. Piccoletti last evening. Marcello told us that if we were ever in desperate straits and needed a job, to come to his restaurant. We’re desperate now.”

  “Desperate?” Bruno looked from one to the other, taking in their clothes, shoes, and handbags. Their outfits might be wrinkled, but they still screamed money.

  Angie saw the doubt in his eyes. “Something terrible has happened. Back in the States, someone in the family emptied out all our bank accounts and ran off. The banks found out and closed our credit cards. Until it gets straightened out, for a few days we have no money and no credit.”

  “What? They can do that?” Bruno looked appalled.

  “Yes. We know you’ve heard how uncivilized and lawless the U.S. is. This proves it. Marcello will understand. We’d explain it to him, if we could find him, but we haven’t been able to. And we haven’t even eaten today.” At the thought of food, her stomach growled.

  “Marcello’s a dear friend of mine,” Cat added in a sweet, guileless tone. “Very dear. We’ve worked together in San Francisco. He would never turn us away. Please, signore.”

  “What will I do with two people who don’t speak Italian?” Bruno asked, his arms extended, palms up. “Most of our customers are not tourists.”

  “Parliamo un po ’d’italiano,” Angie said.

  “You speak a little Italian?” Bruno looked skeptical. “I’ll have to check with Marcello first . . . in San Francisco. You come back later.”

  With that, he shut the door in their faces.

  Officer Justin Leong had overheard witnesses saying they’d seen a priest near Marcello Piccoletti’s house about the time of the murder, so when he found a priest’s black shirt and Roman collar in some bushes nearby, he brought it to Paavo. One thing about it was especially interesting: it was a fake. It came from a costume shop called Mandell’s.

  Paavo drove straight there.

  The shop was small and dark, with costumes and masks of every kind filling the walls, shelves, and racks. The manager was a short, stocky fellow with a long brown moustache that looked like a costume accessory. When he spoke, saliva collected at the corners, giving him a watery lisp. A fake moustache never would have stayed on. Paavo showed his badge and asked to see the records of everyone who’d recently rented a priest’s costume.

  The manager went to his records. “I sold one last week, but I can’t help you. It was a purchase, not a rental, and the man paid cash. ”

  The manager’s answer made more sense than someone having to answer all the questions a rental required. “Do you remember the customer?”

  “Not especially.” He grinned. “I can only say he probably looked nothing like a priest.”

  Chapter 16

  “I read about the murder in the morning paper and immediately checked our records. Marcello Piccoletti is a client,” Peggy Staggs said as she led Paavo into her office. A petite, green-eyed blonde, she owned the Assurance Security Company. Standing up to greet them as they entered was a hundred-pound brown and white dog with long floppy ears and the widest, most gargantuan nose Paavo had ever seen.

  “What kind of dog is this?” he asked, stroking the dog’s soft brow.

  “An Italian spinone,” Staggs said with a smile. “He’s not much of a watchdog, but he’s fun. His name’s Guido.”

  “Italian? Is he from Italy?”

  Staggs’s jaw tightened ever so slightly. “As a matter of fact, he is. The breed is very special to me.” She sat behind a large oak desk and faced her computer. “As for Mr. Piccoletti, he signed on as a client only two weeks ago. I’m calling up his records.”

  Paavo sat facing her, and she swiveled the computer monitor so he could see it. “It shows that his alarm system hadn’t been activated. Either the owner was home or he forgot to turn it on. If it’s not activated, there’s nothing we can do. Especially when there’s movement in the house.”

  “Movement? What do you mean?” Paavo scanned the information, but it was all in code.

  She handed him a company brochure. “We have a service where, say, a person lives alone, we can listen in to make sure they aren’t hurt or sick. It’s sort of like OnStar’s car service. You can call OnStar, but also they can listen to you whenever they want to. That’s how, for example, if you’re in an accident and the air bag is deployed, they’ll try to talk to you. If you don’t answer, they’ll call the nearest 911 to see what’s going on. We do the same thing for people living alone.”

  “Are your installers able to listen to what’s going on inside the homes?” Flipping through the brochure, Paavo thought it looked like a good system except for the major loss of privacy that resulted from using it. Did Piccoletti realize that was part of the package?

  “Only while they’re doing the installation—to be sure everything works properly. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.” The dog came over and laid his head on Paavo’s knee, his golden eyes questioning. Paavo petted him. “If a home has a safe in it, do you do any special monitoring of the safe?”

  “We usually put a silent alarm on it, and sensors
on a safe to alert us whenever it’s opened.”

  “If it is opened, then what?” He tried to hand back the literature, but Staggs indicated it was his to keep.

  “If the home owner hasn’t punched in a code to tell us the opening is legitimate, we phone the home to make sure the opening was authorized. If not, we contact the police to investigate.”

  “Can you tell when Piccoletti’s safe was last opened?”

  She examined the record. “For some reason, Piccoletti didn’t want us to monitor the safe—he had no alarm system connected to it. However, that doesn’t stop the sensor from recording when the safe was opened.” She tapped the screen.

  “Really?” Paavo leaned closer.

  Staggs gave a shrewd smile. “Absolutely. People often make requests in the heat of the moment, and later they wish we had information they’d asked us not to keep. We find it easier to keep information we don’t use than to resurrect something from nothing. The last time the safe was opened was Tuesday, 1:26 p.m.”

  That was around the time of the murder. Since someone had called Cat’s boss that morning about the chains having been stolen, the safe should have also been opened earlier that day. “What about earlier Tuesday or Monday night?”

  Staggs scrolled through the data. “Interesting. It was also opened less than a half hour earlier at 1:03. Before Tuesday afternoon, let’s see . . . the prior Thursday, five p.m.”

  That couldn’t be right. “You’re sure?”

  “Our system never lies.”

  No, he thought, but someone does. “How did you get the Piccoletti job? Do you know why he chose your company?”

  “Yes. He said his realtor referred him. She had an odd name. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it reminded me of one of my favorite singers from my younger days, before he got a little—what should I say?—weird.” She smiled. “I’m talking about Cat Stevens.”