“But you surely made notes?”
Piedro scratched his head. “I tried to, but they talked so quickly that I--”
“Who's 'they'?”
“The police in Rome.”
“Will they send a written report?”
Piedro shrugged. “Maybe.”
Garini suppressed an exasperated sigh. “Did you ask for one?”
“Yes, I did.” Piedro hung his head. “But they mumbled something and hung up.”
“All right. But until then, we know at least that Ileana Marani has an alibi from some minister or other who was with her during the crucial time. That much is sure?”
“Yes.” Piedro nodded. “But . . .”
Garini held his temper back with an iron hand. “But what?”
“But it's a government alibi.”
Stefano lifted his eyebrow. Why did every conversation with Piedro feel like a cross-examination? “So?”
“You told me you can never believe anything the government says.” Piedro looked up with earnest eyes. “They are all bribed, you said.”
II
At the Christmas fair, the hours flew by, and they sold the new lace collection as if someone had told every woman in town to stock up on underwear - with one exception. The dressing gown seemed to be invisible, and customers kept ignoring it, even if Carlina drew their attention to it.
“I'll put it on myself in a minute,” she said to Ricciarda when it was past five o'clock and they had not sold a single one. “Just to make them notice it.”
“It's strange.” Ricciarda frowned. “I was so sure it would sell.”
From this moment on, Carlina changed her strategy. When yet another woman slid her gaze over the dressing gown without a spark of interest, she asked them right out why they didn't like it . . . and she was delighted by the way her customers replied. The ladies loved to be asked and felt like designers. They criticized pretty much everything, from the fall of the lace to the seams at the side and the pattern in itself, but when they had collected the answers of more than ten people, the major problem became apparent - the ladies didn't like the uneven tails. Apparently, it was too bohemian. “Funny.” Carlina shook her head. “I'd never have thought that our customers would be so traditional.”
“Me neither.” Ricciarda shrugged. “You always learn.”
When the Christmas Fair finally closed at a quarter past ten, the sales people collapsed. Carlina heard the popping of champagne corks and smiled. They still had to dismantle everything and pack it into boxes, but that was less exhausting than standing and talking and smiling.
As they had to hand over the room in pristine condition early the next morning, Carlina had decided to ask her cousin Sergio to bring his small transporter and help. Uncle Teo had the job of accompanying him and helping him pack. The apartment of her deceased grandfather on the ground floor of their house had not been rented out yet, so they had agreed to store everything there for the time being. It was dry, safe, and free.
The timing worked well - they had just finished wrapping up the mannequins when Sergio appeared. In his wake trailed not only Uncle Teo but also Signor Morin, the Frenchman.
Carlina lifted her eyebrows in a mute question.
“I've asked him to come along and help,” Uncle Teo said with an airy move of his hand. “Every pair of hands is welcome, I said.”
“Of course.” Carlina suppressed a grin and nodded at Signor Morin. Obviously Uncle Teo had adopted him into the family. Well, why not. They both had sad memories to deal with this Christmas, and if it helped, she was all for it.
Half an hour later, the exhibition room was as empty as it had been two days before. The other women had all left, wishing each other “Buon Natale” with tired faces.
Carlina closed the wooden door of the exhibition room with a relieved sigh. “That's it.” She smiled at Ricciarda. “Thank you very much. You've been a great help.”
Ricciarda's long ponytail hung limp on her drooping shoulders. “I'm exhausted.”
“Me too.” Carlina went down the staircase next to her assistant. Each step made a hollow sound, echoing through the building. With a feeling of shock, Carlina realized they were the last in the empty building, in the middle of the night. It didn't feel good. The memory of Sabrina's murder made her shiver, and she threw a surreptitious glance over her shoulder. “It's a bit eerie, isn't it?”
“Yep.” Ricciarda hurried forward.
They burst through a small side door that led to the silent street. The air met them like liquid ice, and in the yellow light of the street-lamp, a maze of tiny snowflakes trundled to the ground. The green metal posts that dotted the street already sported white caps. For once, Florence was silent and empty.
“Oh, look, Ricciarda!” Carlina pointed at the metal posts. “It has started to snow! How pretty!”
Ricciarda turned her head. They were still underneath the arch that formed the ground of the exhibition room above them. In the shadow of the massive wall, her foot missed the last step that led down to the street, and she fell onto her knees with a sharp cry of pain. Her handbag banged onto the ground, gaped open, and the contents exploded over a radius of several meters.
“Gosh, I'm sorry!” Carlina hurried to her side. “Are you hurt?”
Ricciarda shook her head and picked herself up. “I'm fine.”
Carlina helped her to collect her belongings. She started with the things that had ended up furthest away, on the street, to save them from the snow.
Ricciarda remained underneath the arch and gathered the things around her feet with hurried moves.
Carlina picked up a small frame and wiped the snow from it. When her glance fell onto the picture, she froze. Her breath came out in a soundless gasp, forming a white cloud. The woman looking at her from the frame was the first lady of Trevor's album - Snow-White. Suddenly she knew why Snow-White had seemed so familiar. Her chest constricted.
“She was my mother.” Ricciarda's voice was expressionless.
Carlina looked up, straight into the mouth of a gun.
Chapter 16
Piedro burst into Garini's office. “A woman wants to see you urgently.”
With one swift move, Garini covered the picture of Piedro's mother with a piece of paper. Once again, he had gone over the pictures. Something about them made him uneasy - he had the feeling that he should have recognized some faces, but the more he looked at them, the more elusive they became. “What on earth are you still doing here?” He checked his watch. “It's past ten.” The winter night had long ago blackened out the last lingering light of the weak sun. Garini frowned. Usually, Piedro made sure he left the station the second his shift was over.
Piedro made a face. “My father asked me to drive him home, but then the mayor came, and they're still in his office. Dad said it would only last a few minutes, and now they've been there for hours.”
The mayor. Sabrina's husband. Garini felt a prickle of unease go up and down his spine.
“Will you see the woman?” Piedro asked.
“Who is she?”
“She says it's urgent.”
Garini suppressed the urge to snap at his subordinate. “That wasn't the question. What's her name?”
Piedro looked at the floor. “I forgot to ask.”
“Piedro.” Garini forced himself to speak without lifting his voice. “I am in the middle of a complicated case, and I don't wish to talk to some woman who wants to see me urgently if you can't even tell me her name or what it's about.”
Piedro pressed his lips together. “But I know what it's about.”
“You do?” Garini's voice sounded dry. “That's good. Will you share it with me at some point during this night?”
Piedro swallowed. “She says she has important information.”
“Yes?”
“Important information about the case.”
“Which case?” It took an iron hand not to lose control when talking to Piedro.
Piedro wrung his
hands. “The strangled charmer. The American.”
“Ah.” Garini lifted his head. “Now we're getting somewhere. This is interesting. Did she tell you more?”
Piedro nodded, then shook his head, then shrugged.
“I beg your pardon?”
“She kind of said she knew who killed the American.”
Garini jumped up. “What?”
“Yes, but she said she only wanted to talk to the investigating officer, not to anybody else, so I came to ask you about it.”
Garini went to the door. “Then let's go and talk to her immediately.”
Piedro had installed the unknown woman in the interrogation room on the ground floor of the police station. With a wistful feeling Garini remembered how he had once talked to Carlina there. How long ago it seemed. He waited until Piedro was also inside the room, then closed the door and looked at the young woman sitting next to the rickety table.
Her hands were clutching a shiny handbag, and she looked at him with fear in her face. Her dark-brown hair was parted in the middle, and her brown eyes looked huge due to the deep smudges underneath. One eye was a bit out of focus, just like Mona Lisa's.
Garini recognized her immediately. For an instant, he didn't move. What on earth had Piedro been thinking? Then he went to the table and nodded at her. “I'm Commissario Garini. I'm in charge of the case of Trevor Accanto's murder.” Stefano took in every detail of the woman's face. Her mouth trembled, and the lines around her eyes made her look older, but even her obvious exhaustion couldn't take away her beauty. Carlina is convinced that this woman strangled Trevor. He was not so sure. “You came in answer to our newspaper announcement?”
The woman gave him a small smile and nodded. “Yes.”
“That was courageous of you. Thank you.” Garini took a chair next to her.
Piedro created a maximum of noise by scraping another chair over the floor and dropping into it with a thud.
“Please tell me what you wish to share,” Stefano said.
The woman gave Garini a nervous glance. “I will only talk to you, to nobody else. I don't want my statement to be typed or recorded or anything.”
Garini looked at Piedro and made a move with his head toward the door.
Piedro lumbered to his feet and shuffled from the room.
“He's not very bright, that one, is he?” The woman frowned.
“Signora,” Garini met her gaze, “I can't talk badly about my colleagues.”
The woman inclined her head. “Fair enough.” Then she faced Garini. “The newspaper said you needed to talk to me. I--” She swallowed. “I was afraid of coming, but I . . .” Her voice petered out, and she started to fold her fingers into an intricate pattern without releasing the handle of her handbag.
“Yes?” Garini didn't take his gaze off her. She seemed intelligent and strong, and he could tell that she thought out things before she acted on them.
“I will not give you my name or tell you my address.”
“I understand.” Time enough for that later. Garini decided to give her a long leash and to let her tell the story in her own way. Intensive questioning would only frighten her off.
“I know who killed Trevor Accanto.” Her voice was quiet and determined, even though fatigue etched deep lines into her face.
She has no idea how convincing she is. “Please tell me more.”
She took a deep breath. “It's a long story.”
He nodded. “We have time.”
She gulped. “I went out with Trevor two years ago, during Christmastime. He dropped me afterward. I resented him ever since, but I . . . I didn't kill him.” She bit her lips. “I was at that store, Temptation, on the day when he was killed. I bought a pair of those nylons.”
“I know.”
Her eyes widened. “You know? Are you . . . why didn't you arrest me?”
“I didn't know where to find you.”
She grabbed her handbag and jumped up. “I'd better go.”
He didn't twitch a muscle. “Please remain seated. If you say you didn't kill him, I'll believe you.”
Her mouth dropped open. Without taking her gaze from him, she dropped back onto her chair. “I'd not have thought they have men like you on the force.”
“Men like me?”
“Men who listen.”
“Thank you, Signora.” He inclined his head. “Will you trust me with whatever information you have?”
She nodded. “When I saw my picture in the paper, I was afraid. I knew Trevor, I had no reason to love him anymore, and I had bought the nylons.” Her face twisted. “I knew I was in a difficult spot. At first, I wanted to leave the country, but I knew that would draw even more attention to me.”
“Yes?”
“So I hid at home. When I went out, I put on sunglasses and a big scarf, so people wouldn't recognize me.” She took a trembling breath. “But of course, many people know me, my neighbors, my colleagues . . . Thankfully, I have changed a bit since the picture with Trevor was taken, but still, it was dreadful. Every second, I expected a knock on my door, the police coming to arrest me. I could not prove anything. I could not prove that I had been far away from the Basilica when Trevor was killed.”
“Where were you?” She had one hundred percent of his attention.
“I walked around the city, but I didn't go into any store. It was Christmastime again, and as I saw the decorations in the streets, I remembered my time with Trevor.” A muscle twitched next to her mouth. “I first wanted to have an early lunch at the Garibaldi Hotel, in the restaurant of their roof terrace, to recall the good time we had.” Her gaze dropped to her clenched fingers. “I was also hoping I might see him, but then the thought unsettled me too much. I doubt they enjoy crying guests.” Her pale cheeks looked pinched in. “If only I had gone there. The waiter might have remembered me, and I would have had an alibi.”
Anger boiled inside Garini. The charming American with his unusual magnetism had managed to destroy so many lives, living by one rule only - how to get the maximum of pleasure for his own life. “Please go on.”
Mona Lisa hesitated. “I felt I was going crazy, waiting to be arrested, like a trapped mouse, unable to do anything.” She lifted her head and stared at him. “In the end, I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt I had to DO something.”
“Yes?”
“So I went back to that lingerie store.”
He stiffened. “You went to Temptation?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “This morning, at ten.”
This morning. He knew Carlina had been at Temptation at ten, having come straight from the setup of the Christmas Fair. Had it been only this morning? The day had been so long. “Why did you do that?”
“I felt I had to retrace my way, had to find someone who might be able to confirm that I had been far away from the church when Trevor was killed. I didn't remember where exactly I had been going, so I figured I'd start with the lingerie store.”
His mouth was dry. He didn't take his gaze off the woman in front of him.
“I stood in front of the shop window of Temptation and looked inside, and that's when I saw her.”
“Who did you see?”
“The murderer.”
“What?” He bent forward. It cost him all his self-control not to shake her.
She eyed him with trepidation but continued to speak in the same calm way as before. “I saw her through the window, standing behind the cash register. She was talking to a customer, and when she smiled, I knew it for sure.”
He forced himself to remain calm. “What did you know for sure?”
Mona Lisa frowned. “That she was his daughter, of course.”
He thought he'd misunderstood. “I beg your pardon?”
“She has his mouth, and there's something about the line of her cheek that immediately reminded me of Trevor. I saw it in a flash.” She nodded in thought. “And while I was standing there, I suddenly knew the truth. She was his daughter, and she had killed him.”
> She's mentally deranged. Did Trevor have that effect on all the women he discarded? “I happen to know for sure that Carlina Ashley is not Trevor Accanto's daughter.” He tried to put a certain calm authority into his voice.
“Who?” Now it was her turn to look confused.
“The owner of Temptation,” he explained. “She has green eyes and brown curls.” Had they been talking at cross-purposes? Maybe she wasn't mentally deranged after all. “Aren't you talking about her?”
“Oh, no.” Mona Lisa shook her head. “I saw her standing in the background, talking to another customer. She was the one who sold the nylons to me on the day of Trevor's death. I don't mean her. I mean the younger one, the one with long, black hair.”
Garini froze. For one crazy instant, he again heard Fabbiola's voice “Beware of children. They will harm you.” Could it be? Was Ricciarda Trevor's daughter? But Ricciarda has an alibi. She was at Temptation during the time of the murder. He took a calming breath. A voice inside him sneered. Was she really? What if she left the store unattended? He'd never considered the thought, misled by the total trust Carlina put into her assistant. How stupid. The pictures twirled in his mind as if he was looking into a kaleidoscope. Ricciarda, restrained and composed during their first interview at the café. Her quiet face while she looked at the pictures of the women involved in the case - and her calm statement as she denied all knowledge of them. Could it be? His whole take on the case shifted and re-arranged itself at such speed that he felt dizzy. Could it be possible? It gave her a direct link - a father who had never been there. But that wasn't a sufficient reason to kill him. He had never seen a likeness between Trevor Accanto and Ricciarda, but then, he'd only seen Trevor once, after his death, and later in pictures. Quite often, a likeness came through a tone of voice, a way of moving, not through the physical traits alone. He shook his head. The whole idea was fantastic, created by a desperate woman who wanted to point at someone else to get herself out of trouble. Garini narrowed his eyes. “Why do you think she killed her father? What makes you so sure?”
Mona Lisa pressed her lips together. “I don't think he was much of a father if he went gallivanting around town with another woman every Christmas.”
Charmer's Death (Temptation in Florence Book 2) Page 24