Murphy's Law

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “Import?” Nick’s eyes opened wide. “Whatever for?”

  Dante shrugged. “The local produce isn’t spiritual enough for them? I don’t know.”

  “Well, that’s crazy.”

  “You better believe it. Here they are, in the midst of the greatest bounty on earth, and they import their lentils from Mumbai. I mean, really.”

  Nick shook his head, but Dante could tell he wasn’t really listening. He was toying with his glass, lost in thought.

  Dante looked away, allowing Nick a moment’s privacy. He knew what Nick was thinking about.

  He could read Nick easily. Though they had been separated by an ocean, in essence they’d grown up together. They’d spent all their summers together, either here in Siena or in Southbury. Dante felt closer to Nick than he did to Mike, who was ten years older and had been married forever.

  The Rossis had always given Nick a hard time about being a jock, but the truth was they were all proud of him. Nick was a natural-born athlete, had been all his life. Watching him hobble around was like watching a cat with a broken leg. Heart-wrenching. Though it was the concussion that had done Nick in.

  Yesterday, Dante had looked up secondary concussion in the Merck Manual in the Questura’s reference library and had winced at reading about “near-complete damage to forebrain functions” and “chronic vegetative state”.

  Nick was never playing again. Dante would tie him to a post first.

  Nick’s athletic career was over and, in all the ways that counted to him, Nick had lost his life. Unusual for a Rossi, Nick had never been that good in school. He’d made it through college only because of Lou’s coaching. And Nick had never shown even the remotest interest in anything other than hockey.

  He was a young man. In spite of his injuries, he was as healthy as a horse. Like all the Rossis, he’d live forever.

  But as what?

  “Listen.” Dante leaned forward, ready to give Nick the little Rossi pep talk, the one about how no matter what he was, what he did, no matter what was happening in his life, his family loved him—when his cell phone rang. Damn! Just as he was getting started.

  He listened carefully, then said he’d be back to the office right away. Snapping the mouthpiece closed, Dante signaled Attilio for the bill, ready for a fight.

  Attilio’s son Cecco had gotten mixed up with a bad crowd the summer before last. He’d been doing soft drugs and was barreling straight toward the hard stuff—and hard time—when Dante straightened him out. Completely off the record. Dante had come down hard on the boy, but now Cecco was studying economics at the university and helping his dad out in the restaurant in the evenings and weekends.

  Attilio refused to accept payment for Dante’s meals, which was annoying because the food was so good. Dante was forced to limit the number of times he came to Attilio’s restaurant.

  After he and Attilio had gone through their usual tussle, and Attilio had won, as usual, Dante hooked arms with Nick and they walked out into the Via Fosso. It was a ten-minute walk along the Banchi di Sopra to the Questura, but he veered left, taking the Chiasso Largo down to the piazza.

  There was something there sure to lift Nick’s spirits.

  They walked under the cool dark archway and emerged into the blinding sunlight of the Piazza del Campo.

  The piazza was dressed for the big event. As had happened literally a thousand times before, a tawny-colored ring of earth circled the square.

  “La terra in piazza,” Nick murmured.

  “Yeah,” Dante answered. The earth has gone down. Overnight the square had turned from silver to gold. Nick had already seen it with his eyes, but Dante was sure he hadn’t seen it with his heart and mind.

  They stood at the top of the piazza above the Fonte Gaia, the big monumental fountain. Half of Siena had come out, it seemed. It was the last day before the Palio, and excitement and anticipation pulsed in the golden air.

  For a Sienese, the Palio lasted all year. Each contrada kept its members busy from one end of the year to the other. Meetings, the baptism in the contrada of the infants born that year, planning the menus for the dinners, the endless scheming against rival contradas…it lasted all year and no one was left out. No one left behind.

  And now the preparations were reaching a fever pitch as the dirt had gone down and the square was turned into the world’s oldest, trickiest racetrack. With the world’s craftiest, most low-life jockeys wielding whips made of calf phalluses…what was not to love about it? The Palio was steeped in tradition, every second of it. Even the dirt was traditional—carefully kept in the vaults of City Hall and brought out twice a year, for the races.

  The Sienese weren’t a reverent people, but they reserved a special place in their hard, flinty hearts for the terra in piazza. It was finely ground tufa stone, the color of a lion’s mane, dampened and then tamped down by thousands of feet. It was the solemn duty of every inhabitant of the city to come and tread the earth until it became as smooth as silk and as hard as marble, hard enough for the horses to race on.

  The earth had mystical, magic properties. In ancient times, any Sienese citizen sent into exile brought with him a small vial of terra senese, Sienese soil. Nick and Lou had been born in America, but by blood and by custom they were Sienese. Their mother had had a small bottle of Siena earth by her bedside in the hospital when they were born. And so they had been born in the contrada of the Snail. In Southbury.

  No true-blooded Sienese could see the track for the Palio set up and be indifferent. There was a saying for sufferers of depression around the end of June—don’t worry, soon there will be la terra in piazza.

  Sure enough, Nick was smiling.

  Dante was supposed to go as quickly as possible to the Questura, but this was just as important.

  He slowly walked Nick once around the piazza on the circular track. It took twenty minutes, but it connected Nick with centuries of his family’s and his adopted city’s history.

  When they drew even with the Chiasso del Bargello, Dante stooped and gathered a pinch of the earth and gave it to Nick. Nick closed his fist around the tawny earth, hard. He stood with his head bowed, then looked up into Dante’s eyes.

  And right then, right there, Dante knew Nick would be all right. He was back.

  “My men have tracked down the maid Faith saw the night Professor Kane was murdered,” he said. “She might have some additional information for us. Let’s get going. We’ve got a murder to investigate.”

  They walked companionably up the Via di Città and turned right into the Via del Castoro.

  Coming up to police headquarters from the Via del Castoro never failed to thrill Dante. Surely no other police station in the world could compare. Ahead, two medieval arches led the eye straight into the cathedral square. A narrow shimmering view of the terracotta tracings and bronze tiles of the cupola of the cathedral was visible between the high walls of the street.

  The right side of the street was formed by the façade of the Questura’s tall amber wall. Dante loved that it was such an integral part of the street, of the city, like a natural outcropping instead of a hated foreign body.

  He’d seen a lot of police stations in Italy and America and they were usually apart from the city, architecturally and psychologically. Not his Questura. It was as much a part of the thousand-year-old scene as a branch was to a tree.

  Dante remembered his four years at the Naples Questura fondly. The food and the women had been extraordinary. The Questura building in Naples was famous, a landmark of the city, set in an enormous square not far from the Bay of Naples. It was a Fascist-era art deco relic faced in white marble, possessed of an eerie beauty that dissipated the closer you came and saw how shabby it was.

  Nonetheless, the Questura building had been erected to inspire awe and fear, a stern reminder to the people-here are the police. Behave yourselves. Or else. Of course, the Neapolitans never did, which was part of their considerable charm.

  That wasn’t the message
the Questura here gave. Not in Siena. People entered and left the Siena Questura as casually as if it were the local butcher’s shop or the hairdresser’s, with no reverence and no fear.

  That pleased Dante to the profoundest reaches of his soul.

  Passing by the sentry who was busy arguing good-naturedly with one of the ispettori, Dante started up the stairs to the interrogation room. At the last minute, he remembered Nick’s knee and took the stairs slowly, one at a time, instead of his usual three.

  The interrogation room was on the third floor. Dante loved his Ed McBain and Michael Connelly novels. Steve Carella and Harry Bosch always managed to outmaneuver and outthink the bad guys in the interrogation room, mainly by keeping the bad guys uncomfortable.

  American police procedure authors took great delight in describing how interrogations were carried out in a state of near sensory deprivation, in shabby rooms smelling of smoke and sweat. The few stimuli were bad. Bad coffee, bad lighting, grime. Windowless, airless, cheerless rooms.

  Nothing could be further from the third floor room universally considered the interrogation room in Siena because it had a rather obvious two-way mirror.

  Like all the rooms in the Questura, it was airy with a high ceiling and a glorious view. Not of the cathedral, which was the inspectors’ privilege, but over the rooftops of the Eagle contrada.

  Also, by unspoken agreement, it was where the stationhouse coffee machine was kept—a huge moke maker kept stoked by twice-weekly offerings of freshly-ground Arabica from Ugo, the proprietor of the corner bar.

  The coffee offered to potential criminals was some of the best in Italy.

  The woman sitting on a chair and cheerfully chatting with Ispettrice Corsi didn’t look like a criminal at all. In fact, Dante noticed as he pulled back his shoulders and pulled in the annoying gut he was starting to develop and which he was going to start exercising away—any day now—she looked like a young Sophia Loren.

  “Commissario.” Rita Corsi rose, smiling. The other woman rose, too. “Come meet my husband’s second cousin, Sara Pellegrini. Sara, this is Commissario Dante Rossi and—” She looked inquiringly at Nick.

  “My cousin, Nick Rossi,” Dante said brusquely. “He’s…helping us in our inquiries. With the Americans, you know.” He pursed his lips and looked wise, pretending calling in outsiders to help with police inquiries was perfectly normal.

  Rita nodded and Sara Pellegrini smiled at both of them, more warmly at Nick, Dante was annoyed to see.

  “Well…” Dante pointed to a chair for Nick and motioned for the beauteous Signorina Pellegrini to take a seat. She did so in a way that took chair-sitting to new sensuous heights.

  “Why don’t we get started?” He made his voice deep and official. “Signorina Pellegrini, we’ve had the devil’s own time tracking you down. Were you unaware of the fact the police wished to speak with you? We contacted your employer, Stella Catering, and we left messages on your voicemail. Your boss gave us your parents’ number and no one answered there. It was only thanks to Ispettrice Corsi here—” Dante nodded at Rita. “—that we were finally able to get in touch with you.”

  “I’m sorry, Commissario Rossi.” Sara Pellegrini’s voice was low and pleasant. “I had no idea. I got word on the evening of the 28th that my grandmother was ill. She lives in San Casciano and they took her to the hospital in Florence, Careggi. My parents and I have been there ever since. I had some free days coming, so I just took them.” She bit down on a luscious lower lip and her eyes took on a sheen. “Nonna is very ill. None of us have been thinking of anything but her.”

  “I…see.” Dante tried to keep his voice brusque and business-like, but it was hard. He had a nonna that he loved, too. “I hope she’s doing better.”

  “She is,” Sara replied. “She’s a little better now, though she’s not out of danger. So—” She looked at Rita, Nick and then Dante. “I’d like to get back to her as soon as I can, please. Rita got in touch with me and I drove here immediately, but I’d like to go back this afternoon. What is all this about?”

  “It’s about late in the evening of the 28th, Signorina Pellegrini,” Dante replied evenly. He watched her carefully, her magnificent breasts for the moment forgotten. If Faith was telling the truth, Sara Pellegrini was the last person to see Roland Kane alive and as such was a material witness. “You were on duty at the Certosa that evening, am I correct?”

  She nodded, eyes wide.

  “And after dinner, around 10:00 p.m., you delivered a bottle of whiskey to room seventeen, occupied by a certain Professor Roland Kane, one of the Americans—”

  Dante stopped. Sara Pellegrini was shaking her head. “What is it, Signorina Pellegrini?”

  “I got the call from my mother around 5:00 pm, Commissario. My mother said Nonna had been taken to the hospital. I called Paolo, a colleague who works at Stella Catering, and asked him to cover for me. I set the tables, helped the cook out in the kitchen until Paolo arrived and then left. I don’t know exactly what time I left but it can’t have been much later than 5:30. By a quarter to seven I was in Nonna’s room at the hospital. You can check with the hospital staff. You can check with my family. For that matter, you can check with Paolo, too.”

  Dante leaned forward. “Signorina Pellegrini, please think carefully about what you’re saying. I understand that with the shock of your grandmother’s illness things might seem a bit confused. Are you certain you left at 5:30? Because we have an eyewitness who says she saw you after ten p.m. on the second floor, where the guests sleep. Delivering a bottle of whiskey.”

  “Me?” The woman’s eyes rounded. “You’re wrong, Commissario. Even if I hadn’t been called to Florence, we’re usually done clearing away by ten, and anyway, it’s not the Certosa’s policy to offer room service. Any guests who have special requests are supposed to address the administration. I’m sorry. It certainly wasn’t me delivering a bottle of—what was it?”

  “Whiskey.” Dante pinched the bridge of his nose. “Signorina Pellegrini, were you the only woman on staff that evening?”

  “Yes. Actually, there are only two women in our cooperative. We just started up last year, and winning the bid for catering the conferences up at the Certosa was our first big—”

  Dante stopped the history of Stella Catering in full stride. “So could it have been your female colleague who was seen at the Certosa? Maybe she replaced you instead of Paolo.”

  Sara smiled, the mysterious smile of La Gioconda, the Mona Lisa who’d been born not far from Siena. “Not likely, Commissario. Anna gave birth a week ago. To the most darling little boy. Why, he’s already smiling, can you believe it? Strapping little boy, too. He weighed—”

  Dante leaned forward. “Let me see if I get this straight. We have an eyewitness who is willing to swear under oath that a female employee at the Certosa—” Dante pulled out his notebook and flipped a few pages. “Dressed in a black-and-white uniform and wearing white gloves—”

  Sara Pellegrini snorted, a most unladylike sound.

  Dante looked up from his notes. “Yes?” he asked politely.

  “The Certosa is nice, but it isn’t the Excelsior Hotel. None of us wear uniforms unless it’s an official dinner. And I certainly don’t wear white gloves.”

  Dante looked up at the ceiling and then out the window. It was the hottest part of the afternoon, when even the pigeons refused to be out and about, taking refuge in the shade under the eaves. The big windows were open, the rooftops gray-red in the hard afternoon sunlight. The view always helped him think. “If it wasn’t you at the Certosa, Signorina Pellegrini,” he said, knowing what the answer would be, “then who was it?”

  She shrugged, smooth shoulders rising and falling. “Who knows?”

  Dante looked over at Nick, whose face was as grim as he knew his was. Someone was lying. Either Faith Murphy or Sara Pellegrini. If Sara’s relatives or this Paolo could vouch for her, then Faith Murphy had just moved up in the Murder Suspect Sweepstakes.

 
Dante took down the name of the waiter who had replaced her, the name of the two owners of Stella Catering and the number of Sara Pellegrini’s parents.

  “Commissario?” Cini stood in the doorway, eyes widening as he saw Sara Pellegrini. He stared, slightly slack-jawed.

  “Over here, Cini,” Dante said dryly.

  Cini’s head snapped around to him. “Eh? Oh! Yes, sir. You have a phone call in your office from Florence, sir.” He stood to attention, but his eyes wandered Sara’s way.

  Dante pushed himself up from his desk, grabbing the numbers Sara Pellegrini had given him.

  Cini’s eyes were riveted again on the young woman as if they were magnets and she was made of iron filings. Gorgeous, brunette iron filings.

  “Cini, while I take the call, why don’t you stay in here and…keep an eye on things?”

  “Yes, sir!” Cini moved enthusiastically into the room.

  Nick was watching the scene with a half-smile on his face.

  Dante knew Cini needed a little boost to his love life. He hadn’t dated since he’d been jilted a couple of months ago by the daughter of Dante’s high school math teacher. Maybe he should clear the decks for Cini.

  “Nick—why don’t you wait for me downstairs at the corner bar? I won’t be long.”

  “Absolutely.” Nick got to his feet and hobbled to the door.

  “See you in about ten minutes,” Dante said, in the tiny little vestibule just off the landing.

  Nick nodded, moved past the big locker where the officers kept their weapons and started down the ancient, uneven staircase.

  Dante watched him for a second then, hating himself for sounding like his mother, and Aunt Lidia, and Aunt Beatrice and Nonna, called out, “Be careful going down. The steps are steep.”

  Nick didn’t turn around. He just lifted his hand to show he’d heard and continued his slow way down the stairs, one at a time.

  Dante opened his office door and breathed in deeply. Someone had had the good sense to open his windows. He could smell what was going on in the neighborhood. Freshly-ground coffee, suntan lotion, tomato sauce cooking, jasmine in full bloom, dust, heat…the heady smells of Siena in the summer.