She went downstairs and into the guard booth.
“Hello, Marino. Listen, I’d like to make a couple of phone calls from your line.”
She called the café nearby.
“Ciao, Isa. This is Stefania Valenti. Could you send a stuffed focaccia and a beer up to my office for Lucchesi? And the usual coffee for Marino, of course. I’ll come by later to pay. Thanks.”
She hung up and dialed a second number.
“Raffaella, this is Stefania. Shall we say at your office, in an hour?”
Raffaella Moretto worked at La Provincia di Como and edited the paper’s cultural page with intelligence and passion. In the past, however, at the start of her career, she had also covered local crime, and they’d met in those circumstances, on opposite sides of the barricade, giving rise to a lasting friendship, even outside of work.
A year earlier her newspaper had published a series of articles, under her stewardship, on the most beautiful churches and villas around the lake. Stefania remembered having seen something about Villa Regina and asked her to pull up the article from the archive.
Normally on these occasions they would go into town to have lunch together. This time, however, Raffaella already seemed in a hurry over the phone. Another engagement, perhaps.
After parking her car, Stefania entered the bright, glass-encased lobby. The newspaper’s office, brand new and very high-tech, was in the hills outside the city. A futuristic, colossal construction. The paper had a daily print run of forty-five thousand.
At the reception desk she gave her name and went up to the second floor, where the editorial offices were.
“So, Raffa, how are you?”
“Like a flower, can’t you tell?”
“No, I can’t: I forgot my glasses again this morning.”
Raffaella made a face and then embraced her.
“Want some watery coffee with milk and cream, Swiss style?”
“Sure, thanks.”
“When are you northerners ever going to learn how to drink coffee properly?” she resumed, waving her arms. That’s how Raffaella was. She could never keep still. She gushed energy from every pore, like a volcano in continual eruption.
“Listen, darling, I’ve laid it all out for you on the table. So sit down and make yourself comfortable, and do whatever you need to do. Our very own Anna is next door, at your service, if you need copies or anything else. Now, there are a couple of things I have to tell you while we’re having our coffee, but then I have to go.”
“No sugar for me,” said Stefania.
“Here’s the article we published,” Raffaella continued. “And here’s the complete file. I also pulled out an issue of Grandi Dimore from a few years ago that featured something on Villa Regina. In the pictures you’ll find some of the villa’s prior owners. These, on the other hand, are the villa’s current owners, a really lovable lot. Here: the official portrait of the family in full regalia. Last Christmas, give or take a few days. But why are you so interested in the Cappellettis?”
She pointed to a color photograph, also reproduced in the article.
“Here are some other photos taken the same day—but which the family later didn’t ‘approve.’”
“Stop for just a second. You’re making me seasick. Who’s this guy? And this lady?”
“I don’t know them all! I only spoke with the matriarch and an American nephew. . . . ‘Spoke’ in a manner of speaking, since he didn’t know a word of Italian. The snobbery, I’m telling you . . . They were all so irritating. I practically had to pull the words out of them, and in the end they told me to tell the usual lies, the ones everybody knows.”
“No surprise. You probably got them upset with your constant jabbering, as you always do. Of course, they, too . . . Who are they, anyway? Did they land here from Mars? Do they have to give their approval or disapproval for everything?”
“Down to the smallest detail, darling. When they agreed to grant an interview after numerous requests, they stated in writing—I swear—that they had to see the article as well as the photos of them and the villa and approve them before we could publish them.”
Stefania shrugged.
“Just imagine, when they gave me back the text of the article it was so changed I hardly recognized it.”
“And what’s the villa like?” Stefania asked in curiosity.
“It’s very beautiful. Both outside and in. And it’s almost unknown to the public. Anna,” she said to the secretary, “please call Dr. Rivolta and tell him to come here and meet a friend of mine.”
Stefania looked at her affectionately. Raffaella never changed: small, plump, always moving. She was never quiet for a minute and was always doing three things at once, laughing and dashing about in an office packed full of papers and books. She alone could find things in that chaos.
“But why do you want me to meet Rivolta? Aside from the fact that I’m not in the hunt at the moment, I really don’t see the point . . .” said Stefania.
“What, are you crazy? He’s game, don’t you worry about that. This’ll arouse his curiosity, and maybe something’ll even come of it. Anyway, when are you going to run into another one like him? And he’s available, on top of everything else.”
“No, no . . . I mean yes, of course. . . . It’s not that I don’t like him. I’m just not interested.”
“Just leave it to your Lella. As my granny used to say: ‘The fish you can’t sell the day it’s fished you’ll never sell.’ Nobody’ll have it the next day. Dr. Rivolta!” Raffaella then said dramatically to a graying man who’d appeared in the doorway, “Please come in so I can introduce you to a dear friend of mine, Inspector Valenti.”
Stefania turned around abruptly towards the door and turned as red as a poppy, not knowing where to rest her eyes.
Let’s hope he didn’t hear anything, she thought.
As she was shaking Rivolta’s hand, she saw another person come out the door of the archive room, which was in front of them. The face was familiar to her. The glasses, too. She would never have expected to run into him here.
Valli, too, seemed surprised to see her:
“Our favorite police inspector. How are you?”
“Not too bad, and you?”
“A little tired. I’m glad Easter’s on the way. I need a few days off. Just so long as nobody comes along in the meantime to bust my chops.”
At that point Rivolta took his leave and, muttering some excuse, went back to his desk.
Raffaella, meanwhile, had stepped forwards. She wasn’t the type to get easily discouraged.
“Did you know our friend Valli has a house on the lake like you?” she said to Stefania.
“Actually, it’s my parents’ house, and it’s in Lanzo, in the mountains. There’s a view of the lake in the distance. Lake Lugano.”
“Where’s your place, Stefi?”
“Ossuccio, a bit higher up.”
“Well, what a lovely coincidence. Our adviser has a passion for hiking in the mountains, just like you. It must be so beautiful. It would do me a bit of good, too, let me tell you, but what can you do? I’m always shut up in here. You’ll have to invite me another time. But when are you going up?”
“I have to wait for Camilla to get out of school tomorrow, and then we’ll head up.”
“And you, Valli?”
“Unfortunately I can’t get away until Saturday. We have a provincial council meeting on Friday evening.”
“So, what’s on the agenda? I’ll be in the cathedral listening to the Requiem being sung by the Schola Cantorum of the Ticino. Sorry, Stefania, I have to go now. It’s getting late.”
“You come with me, Valli,” she added.
She planted a noisy kiss on Stefania’s cheek, winking, took Valli by the arm, and disappeared into the elevator with him.
Good God, tho
ught Stefania, let’s hope she doesn’t make any more trouble for me.
5
Built in 1765 at the behest of Ludovico Antonio Borsari, marquis of Stabio, Villa Sorgente (as Villa Regina was originally called—ed.) was enlarged by Borsari’s son, Giovanni, with the addition of the lemon-house, a labyrinth, and the Grotto of the Nymphs in the spot where, at the time, water sprang from the spring that gave the house its name.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century the gardens were expanded and embellished with fountains, and the monumental dock with its overhead balcony with nymphs and naiads was built. In 1812 the villa was included in the dowry of Enrichetta Borsari, who was to marry Count Prospero Parravicini later that year. The couple soon created the park with its English gardens farther up the mountainside and acquired broad tracts of forest and vineyards.
In 1862 Maria Giulia Parravicini had a number of greenhouses built for growing camellias and eventually gave her name to the famous camellia called Rosa Julia, which passionate floriculturists still appreciate today. When the countess died in 1878, leaving no heirs, the villa came into the hands of Leopoldo Parravicini, her second cousin, who never moved in and let the property fall into neglect. Indeed, such was its condition that when the villa was put up for auction to cover the gambling debts of the same Count Leopoldo in 1896, the new owner, Luigi Davide Montalti, of the noted Milanese banking family of the same name, had to intervene and refurbish large sections of the structure.
Over the course of the next twenty years the new owners restored the villa to its former splendors, however sacrificing a good deal of the land up the slope, which was sold to cover the immense costs of shoring up the structure. The new owner changed the name of the villa in homage to his eldest daughter, Regina, who was born in 1902.
In 1924 Regina Montalti had a driveway installed linking up with the state road, calling it the Allée of the Plane Trees, as well as a stately entrance gate in wrought iron.
In the mid-1940s the villa became the property of the Cappelletti family. Today the villa’s interior, aside from its forty perfectly restored rooms and salons, houses a precious collection of French Impressionist paintings belonging to Durand Antiques of Geneva.
In the photo, Germaine Durand Cappelletti, in the villa’s Imperial Salon, with her four children. Two of them live in the United States. One of them is a well-known lawyer, while the fourth, Paolo, is a senator of the Italian Republic.
All that’s missing is the family accountant, thought Stefania.
She quickly skimmed through the rest of the article, which described the villa in every detail, down to the stuccos, marble statues, frescoes, tapestries, and architectural peculiarities. No more mention was made of either the Cappelletti or Durand families.
She examined the contents of the folder and found three drafts of the article, each with a different date. “Good thing they printed them out,” she said, thinking of the many times she had written over original drafts of reports on her computer.
They must have been quite a pain, she thought, wondering how Raffaella had managed to put up with that family.
The oldest proof must have been the original version of the piece. She compared it with the one that was eventually published in the newspaper; in the section that had most drawn her attention, a number of sentences had been changed:
At the end of the war the villa was acquired by Remo Cappelletti, but the family didn’t move in definitively until 1947, when the eldest son, Giovanni, married Germaine Durand, who came from a prosperous family of Genevan antiquarians. All four of the couple’s children were born here: Paolo, now a senator of the Italian Republic; Marie Claire and Augusto, who have followed in their grandfather Gustave’s footsteps and manage the family’s vast network of antique shops in Switzerland and the United States; and Filippo, a well-known criminal lawyer at the Forum of Milan. Upon the decease of Giovanni Cappelletti in 1979, Germaine Durand moved permanently to Switzerland with her daughter.
On the right, the Cappelletti family in a photo from 1944. On the left, Germaine Durand Cappelletti in the Imperial Salon.
So, what’s so different to warrant changing the sentences? Stefania asked herself.
If they’re happy, everyone’s happy.
She took a quick look at the photos of the villa that hadn’t been published, and in this instance the choice made by the owners was quite effective, in the sense that the selection served to highlight the great house’s outstanding features while hiding its small defects.
As for the photo of the Cappelletti family, Stefania studied it closely. It was hardly the height of glamour, but it wasn’t a bad shot, either. From the image you could see that the Cappellettis were a family that still bore the signs of sudden wealth. Certain details would never escape the trained eye: they were dressed in quite dignified fashion, no doubt, but their overall bearing, the expressions on their faces, and the overall tone had a good dose of embarrassment and a kind of woodenness in front of the camera. In a word: they lacked the elegance—even physical elegance—that instead distinguished the members of the Durand family. There was no greyhound crouched at their feet, of course; only the pathetic floral background of a nouveau-riche family from the provinces.
To make up for it, the Cappellettis were almost all quite good-looking; two in particular, male and female, probably brother and sister, were unusually beautiful, still diamonds in the rough. The same could not be said of the Durands, who were elegant and extremely refined but, except for Germaine, decidedly plain.
Stefania thought she’d like to get to know them better. She glanced at her watch and gave a start. Maybe the Durand family was a little embarrassed of their ever-so-inelegant relatives.
She slipped the photo into her pocket, left a note for Raffaella, and quit the newspaper’s editorial offices with a hurried step.
Back at her office, she grabbed the reassembled blueprints that Lucchesi had stuck together with tape and numbered. He’d done an excellent job. A Kinder-brand Easter egg, wrapped in pink grocer’s paper, sat on her desk. There was no need to read the attached note to know that it was a present from Lucchesi and Piras.
She smiled to herself. Before returning to the office, she had gone to a pastry shop and ordered a huge ice-cream cake for all present and future members of the Piras family, and a little chocolate bunny each for Lucchesi and Marino.
She lit a cigarette and began studying the material. It was the plans for the construction of the road and colossal viaduct in the San Primo area. The Valentini Roadworks logo was quite visible at the top of each page, along with that of a well-known engineering design firm from Milan, people who sprang into action only for great works.
The city hall of Lanzo had provided Lucchesi with copies of the relief maps of the current state of affairs—that is, the state before the start of the excavations and demolitions. One plate in particular marked the presence and location of peasant dwellings in the area affected by the construction.
After searching for a few moments she found the cottage where the body had been found. She circled it in red pencil, tacked the sheet to the back of the door, sat down about six feet away, and started studying it.
The cottage was in a rather secluded area: the nearest hut was no less than a kilometer away, based on the scale provided in the key.
How odd, thought Stefania.
All the others were close together, almost forming a small agglomeration, a sort of rural village at the top of the mountain, and lined up as though along the old mule track that went up to the pass. She remembered that old trail well: it climbed almost straight up towards the mountain, cutting directly across several of the main road’s winding turns.
The cottage in which the bones of “K.D.” had been found was instead not only far away but stood on the other side of a dense triangle of woods at the bottom of a small depression. The vegetation was rather thick around there, at least for
three quarters of the year, until the leaves started to fall. It must have served as a sort of protective screen for the house, making it practically invisible to the other cottages and stables.
In addition it was the cottage closest, as the crow flies, to the fence marking the border, which around there blended in with the woods.
It was also the house farthest from the border guard station, thought Stefania.
A short distance to one side of the cottage, another thin strip of woods led towards the steep slope of the valley, which at certain points plunged straight down in sheer drops to the torrent below. Apparently there were no mule tracks or trails connecting the house to the other cottages, or at least not according to the map. Whereas on the side of the torrent you had to be a goat to manage it.
There probably used to be a footpath, Stefania concluded, perhaps a small one now forgotten.
It occurred to her how some things can be imperceptible when seen close up and then emerge as plain as day when seen from a different perspective.
Her meditations were interrupted by Beethoven, third-millennium version.
“Mommy! Did you hear the ringtone I put on your phone? Martina changed it for me. She said it’s called Elise.”
“It’s called Für Elise, as far as that goes, but don’t tell me you called me just to tell me that.”
“No, I wanted to tell you that I also changed my own ringtone and that they charged me five euros for it and so—”
“So they used up your recharge money. Well, it doesn’t matter, you’ll just have to economize. What’s the problem, Cami?”
“That’s just it. Is it a problem for you if I call Papa?”
“Of course not, every so often. Okay, bye, love. I’ll see you this evening.”
Shadows on the Lake Page 6