“Thank you, Inspector,” Francine.
Gina shook his hand but did not speak. Instead she settled back into the soft back of the chair and took several calming breaths. To the relief of LoGuercio, who stood in silence, Rick took charge.
“The Inspector understands your shock at the death of your mother and friend, but you will certainly agree that the investigation must move quickly. The two of you are essential in helping him get started, so if you can give us a few minutes of your time it would be appreciated.”
“Of course,” said Francine, looking between Rick and LoGuercio. Gina nodded but remained silent.
Rick used his most soothing voice. “We noticed the lovely patio as we drove up, perhaps we could use that. Gina, why don’t we start with you?” He gestured toward the glass doors.
“You mean you want to talk to me alone?”
“That’s the way they do it,” Francine said with some impatience.
“Francine is correct,” Rick said, and then turned to her. “Do you mind if I call you Francine? Please call me Rick.”
She agreed, and the use of first names calmed Gina down somewhat. Francine sat back down as Gina led the two men through the door and out to the patio. On the round wood table two ceramic mugs sat on paper napkins and Rick suspected the women had been enjoying their morning coffee when the police appeared at their door. Without prompting, Gina sat at the table, followed by Rick and LoGuercio. They sat with their backs to the rolling valley view, which was just as well. Gina needed their full attention. She had pulled a tissue from somewhere in her clothing, dabbed her eyes, and slipped it back in place.
“Gina, I’ll be interpreting everything that you say for the inspector, as well as everything he says, for you. It doubles the time needed for our interview, but there’s no way around it, I’m afraid. Why don’t you begin by telling him about your mother?”
Rick told LoGuercio what he had asked, and Gina began to speak. Rick stopped her every few sentences, and after a while the routine achieved a certain rhythm. As she spoke she became more calm, and during the interpretation breaks she sometimes closed her eyes, either composing her next sentences or simply meditating. Rick wasn’t sure.
“My mother lived in Arizona. Scottsdale, to be exact. Many people would consider her fortunate, if wealth is the most important factor for happiness, but in fact her life was anything but easy. She managed to find three husbands, one of whom was my father, and when the marriages ended in divorce she was left each time with favorable alimony. Very favorable. After the third divorce I think she realized that she wasn’t meant for marriage, so she put all her energy and time into her pottery, something she’d gone back to after her first marriage ended. She had learned the craft when she studied here, but you probably know that.”
Rick stopped her and quickly interpreted for LoGuercio before turning back to Gina. “No, this is news to the inspector. She was here in Italy?”
“Here in Orvieto. Some kind of exchange program when she was in college. She had taken Italian courses so she already spoke the language. I hadn’t heard her speak it until this trip, and it sounded quite fluent.”
LoGuercio said something to Rick after hearing the Italian, and Rick nodded.
“She had friends here, Gina? Was she going to meet people she knew back then?”
“If she was, she didn’t tell me, but that wouldn’t be surprising, given our relationship. We haven’t talked much in years, and as you know I live in a different state. I was surprised when she invited me along on this trip, since it was clearly some kind of nostalgia thing for her. But given her health issues, I couldn’t refuse.”
“Health issues?”
“Of course, you wouldn’t know about that either. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer recently. That’s why she wanted to return, while there was still time. She hadn’t been back to Italy since she was here in college.”
Rick remembered what he’d seen in the square in front of the cathedral. “Your mother never told you she was going to look up anyone here, but do you think she did?”
“Absolutely. She saw someone in front of the church just after we got into town yesterday, though we couldn’t see who it was. And then she disappeared just before dinner at the restaurant.”
“Tell us about yesterday,” Rick said, at the request of the policeman.
“We were finally getting over our jet lag, after two nights of falling asleep in the afternoon and then waking up in the middle of the night. So we had enough energy to venture out further than the trattoria five minutes from here. Mom insisted we take the bus into town instead of driving the rental car. She said it was the best way to get a feel for the people, and we would have trouble finding a place to park legally anyway. The bus line ended at the little square where we got on the funicular. On the ride up is when we saw you.”
Rick nodded, but said nothing.
“The bus dropped us at the cathedral, which is where we started our sightseeing. That’s where Mom saw someone, but since she didn’t tell us, maybe it wasn’t who she thought it was. She wouldn’t tell us. We walked around the town for the rest of the afternoon, and had early dinner at a restaurant there. I don’t remember the name, but Francine should. She has a better memory than me.”
“You said your mother disappeared before dinner.”
“Right. That’s when I met you. Mom said she had something to do, and we didn’t press her on what it was, knowing she would have told us if she’d wanted to. She eventually showed up at the restaurant. She tried not to show it, but she was a bit agitated.”
“How long was she gone?”
“About a half hour. Maybe forty-five minutes.”
“Then what happened?”
“After our meal, Mom told us she was going to meet someone, an old friend she’d run into earlier. Francine and I assumed it was the person she saw in front of the church, but it could have been who she saw before dinner, if indeed she’d met with someone.”
“So you and Francine came back here?”
“Yes, Francine had it all worked out. We got on the bus where it had dropped us off, at the bottom of the funicular, and our stop is close to the driveway up to the villa.”
“We passed it on the way here.” He didn’t mention the crime-scene tape. “The rest of the evening…?”
“Francine and I had a drink out here and I went to bed. It was about ten.”
“You didn’t hear your mother come in?”
She shook her head. “She took the best of the bedrooms, of course, which is the one here on the ground floor. Our rooms are upstairs. If she came in I didn’t hear her.” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “But she wouldn’t have come back and then gone out again, would she?”
“We don’t know, Gina.”
After Rick finished interpreting he asked LoGuercio what other questions he had.
The policeman shrugged. “At this point we usually ask if they have any idea who could have killed the victim, but I’m not sure she can offer anything.”
Rick turned back to the woman, who had been trying to understand a word or two, but without success. “Gina, do you have anything else you can offer that could be of help to the inspector? Does something come to mind?”
Her lips quivered and Rick wondered if she was going to break down. “I wish I could, Rick. If only I could. I can’t believe that someone she knew could have done this, she must have just found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and…” She pulled out the tissue.
Rick looked at LoGuercio who was holding up a hand to indicate they’d heard enough for the moment. He took the hint. “You’ve been very helpful, Gina, and if you can think of anything that might help, even some tiny detail, you can call me. I’ll leave my cell phone number with you both.” He got to his feet. “Could you ask Francine to come out, please?”
She nodded and gave both
men a wooden smile before going back inside. Rick sat down and watched LoGuercio flipping through the pages of his notebook.
“You handled the woman very gently, Riccardo, and I think that helped to get her to open up. We will talk with her again, but for the moment there is much to be done. We must find out who Signora Van Fleet knew when she was a student here years ago. I suspect that at least one of them is still living in Orvieto. We Italians tend to stay close to our birthplace, unlike you Americans. Unless we’re policemen.”
As LoGuercio was speaking, the door had opened and Francine Linwood appeared on the porch. She had taken advantage of the time to change into a different outfit—a long, loose skirt and a blouse, with sandals—as well as put on some makeup. She carried a coffee mug. Rick stood and motioned her to the chair just vacated by Gina. Rick was about to explain the interpreting drill but she spoke first.
“Where did this take place, Rick? Is her body in some morgue somewhere? When can we arrange to have her sent back home?”
“Since this just happened,” Rick answered, “I’m not sure if the police have advised the embassy. They will assign a consular officer to deal with these issues.” He left her other questions unanswered.
“If there is an issue about next of kin, Gina is it. Rhonda’s parents are long gone, as you would expect for someone of our age.”
Rick quickly interpreted for LoGuercio and turned back to Francine. “So you and Gina are it? No other close friends?”
For the first time, Francine showed some emotion, covering her mouth with her hand and blinking. “I think I was her closest friend. Much more so than even Gina. They weren’t quite estranged, but nearly.”
“Francine,” said Rick, “we regret that you have to go through this questioning, but it has to be done.”
Her answer was a wave of the hand and nods. LoGuercio took out his note pad.
“How long had you known Rhonda?” Rick asked.
Francine’s chest slowly rose and fell as she took in a long breath and let it out. “Let me see. We go back a long time, we were in college together, and were in the same sorority. One of the years we were roommates. I remember when she went off to this exchange program here—did Gina tell you about that?” Rick nodded, and she continued. “The sorority sisters joked back then that she did it to marry some rich Italian count. That didn’t happen, of course, though she later did well—in a monetary way—with the husbands she had.”
While Rick interpreted she took a drink of whatever was in the mug.
“Rhonda was very different when she returned from the year abroad. I guess that would be expected, and I understand it more now that I’m here. The different culture, the history, the food; it would change anyone.”
“You’ve been close to Rhonda ever since college.”
“No, in fact we lost touch for many years. I married someone and lived on the coast, but it didn’t work out and I ended up moving back to Arizona. We ran into each other in 2000, I remember since it was just after my divorce. I went into her pottery shop—did Gina mention that Rhonda had a shop?” Again Rick nodded. “I went into her pottery shop and we recognized each other. You know how women are, after a few minutes it was like we’d never been apart. She had also just gone through a divorce, even nastier than mine, so we quickly found that we had as much in common as when we were back in school.”
“How did this trip come about?”
“It was Rhonda’s idea, of course. She’d been talking about it for a long time, but then she found out about some serious health issues, which made the trip more urgent. I’m sure Gina told you about Rhonda’s cancer. How ironic, since now she’s gone. She also decided that she had to return to Orvieto, where she’d spent that year when she was a student. We were going to stay in a few other cities, but that changed when she got the news from the doctor.”
“So just Orvieto.”
“This was it for me and Gina, but Rhonda was going to spend a few days in Milan by herself after the villa. She didn’t tell us why.”
Rick’s translation caused a flicker in LoGuercio’s eye as he took notes.
“We arrived three mornings ago, stayed in Rome one night, then picked up the car and drove here. We were still exhausted, so yesterday was our first foray into town. We took the bus, at Rhonda’s insistence, and it turned out she was right. Parking would have been a nightmare, and it was fun coming up on the funicular. That was when we saw you, of course.”
She smiled and brushed back a tuft of the short hair.
“And what happened after that?”
“The bus dropped us in the square in front of the cathedral. Rhonda was so excited to see it, since I guess it’s kind of the symbol of the town, so it brought back a lot of memories. We were taking in that gorgeous facade when she slipped away and talked with someone. Someone from her time here, of course.”
“Had she told you before the trip that she was planning on meeting anyone from her exchange year?”
“No. But Rhonda keeps her relationships to herself. Kept, I should say.”
“Did you see the person in front of the cathedral?”
“No, but now I wish I had. After that, Rhonda was still excited, being back in Orvieto and all, but seemed a bit distracted. We walked around and saw other things: churches, old buildings, some other beautiful plazas. And shops—we went into a lot of stores. She was very interested in the ceramics shops, since that’s what she makes—I mean, made—back home. And what she studied when she was here. There were a lot of shops selling ceramics.”
“And then?”
“We had dinner. It was early by Italian standards but we were hungry and Gina was starting to fade. We went to some place that was in a basement, brick ceilings and floors. I forget the name but Rhonda said it has something to do with rope, or rope makers. We were the first ones in the restaurant, but by the time we left it was about half full.”
She held out her hand as if to hold a thought. “Wait, I forgot. She took us to the restaurant but instead of going in, she said she had something to do and would meet us there later. Gina went for a walk, but I went in and ordered a bottle of wine. When Rhonda showed up I didn’t even bother asking her where she’d been. I knew she wouldn’t tell us.”
She looked up when a slight gust blew in from the grassy area around the pool, bringing a few stray leaves with it. The breeze picked up the earthy smell of the geraniums planted in terra cotta pots at the edge of the brick. A few of their red blossoms fluttered down like confetti, joining the leaves in a dance around the patio before the gust vanished and they fell lightly to the ground.
“When we left the restaurant, Rhonda told us she was going to meet a friend and that we could get the bus back to the villa. From the way she said it, there was no question in my mind that she wanted to be alone, so I didn’t even suggest we go with her. She pointed us in the right direction, and I took over from there since Gina is useless with directions. We got back here about nine o’clock, but I don’t wear a watch so I’m not really sure of the time without the usual cues I have at home, like TV programs. We each had a glass of wine and then Gina went to bed. She was completely beat. I had another glass and turned in myself, hoping to sleep through the night, which I did. We were having our coffee this morning when your policeman arrived.”
Rick interpreted, got a question from LoGuercio, and turned back to Francine.
“You said that Rhonda didn’t say who she was going to meet last night. Did she at least say it was the person she ran into in front of the cathedral?”
“She wouldn’t tell us, but it was normal for Rhonda to be secretive. Especially if it involved men. I thought at the time, which is terrible to think of now, that after dinner she was meeting some man. I even thought that she really hadn’t met anyone in the square and she was really going to meet Donato.”
“Donato?”
“He’s the
caretaker for the villa. I don’t remember his last name. Some long Italian word.”
LoGuercio frowned and wrote in his notebook when he heard the name.
“So she didn’t even confirm that it was a man she was going to meet?”
“I don’t believe she did, Rick, now that I think about it. I suppose it could have been a woman. It’s just that, knowing Rhonda…” She didn’t finish the sentence.
LoGuercio looked at his notes after hearing the translation. “Most of what she said, Riccardo, confirms what we heard from the daughter. You can tell her now where we found the body. Perhaps that might spark something in her memory, and I want to see her reaction.”
Rick turned to Francine, who had been watching the two men talk. “To answer your earlier question, he is not sure where the murder took place, but the body was found on the road near your bus stop.”
“You mean right down at the end of the driveway? Someone was waiting for her when she got off the bus? It could have been us if the murderer had been there a few hours earlier.” She pulled nervously at a large silver and turquoise ring on her left hand and her eyes darted between the two men. “Are we in danger?”
Rick wanted to answer directly, but decided he should leave it to LoGuercio.
“Tell her we don’t think she has anything to fear. It is almost certain, based on what she and the daughter told us, that this crime is connected to the victim’s previous time in Orvieto. And tell her again we don’t know where the murder actually happened. But if she likes, I can assign a policeman to the villa.”
Rick interpreted, and his words seemed to calm Francine.
“Yes, the inspector is right. It has to be someone she knew before. No need to put a man here whose time would be better spent helping to find the killer.”
“If you change your mind, you can call me and I’ll tell Inspector LoGuercio.”
“Thank you, Rick, I appreciate your concern.” For the first time her lips formed into a tired smile.
Rick got a nod from LoGuercio which he took to mean that the interview was over. They both got to their feet, followed by Francine, and the policeman shook her hand and thanked her in accented English. She said he was welcome, and expressed hope that the investigation would be successful. Rick didn’t bother interpreting.
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