Return to Umbria

by David P. Wagner

  Betta stopped and peered around the edge of the building where the street made a slight turn. Tullia stood in front of a tall metal gate facing a large man who Betta immediately recognized as the other man at the mayor’s lunch table. Vincenzo Aragona’s thick index finger repeatedly jabbed the air in front of his wife’s face as his voice rose in anger. Betta flattened herself against the stone of the building and watched through an opening between the stone. Even without seeing the two clearly, their voices were easy for her to understand.

  “You’ve decided to come home? Why don’t you end this charade and just spend all your time in that little apartment?”

  “And why don’t you just move into that room in the winery? You spend most of your time working anyway. It’s as if you don’t have a wife.”

  He pointed at her shopping bag. “It’s my work which allows you to patronize the most expensive boutiques in Orvieto. You don’t seem to be complaining about that.”

  “I’m surprised you noticed, Vincenzo.”

  “You have to stop this…this arrangement. People are beginning to talk.”

  “And your precious status in the community might be harmed.”

  “You will regret this, Tullia.” His voiced was reduced to a growl.

  “I’m going inside, you can stay out here and shout at yourself.”

  She turned toward the gate and he grabbed her arm, pulling her roughly toward him before putting his face a few inches from hers. “I mean what I said, Tullia. I have enough to worry about at the moment, I don’t need something else.”

  She peeled his fingers from her arm and rubbed it in pain. For the first time fear showed in her eyes.

  Betta edged back from the corner and walked quickly away, stunned by the vicious edge to Aragona’s words. Tullia was in a situation any woman would dread and Betta wondered how she would cope. She knew, from recent personal experience, that it would not be easy.

  Chapter Eight

  It crossed Rick’s mind that all the ceramics stores on the street might be owned by the same person, and that person had saved money by hiring one decorator for all his shops. Every one had large pots stacked outside the doorways, plates hung on the sides of the doorways, and shelves stacked with smaller ceramic pieces to entice the shopper once inside. The designs of the ceramic decoration also varied little from one place to another. Apparently the tourists didn’t mind the similarity, or even liked it. They squeezed past the outdoor wares and poked through the shelves, sometimes emerging with some treasure inside a bag decorated in the same colorful design. There was one shop which proved the exception: Studio Crivelli. Apparently Crivelli styled himself as something of an avant garde artist, and a minimalist one at that. A simple sign was the only indication to passersby that something was being sold inside, its color and material hinting that it could be ceramics. At least there wasn’t a brass plate next to the door warning “by appointment only,” as Rick often saw outside galleries in Rome. The wood door was painted a bright turquoise, reminding him of the gates to adobe dwellings in New Mexico. It was open, and Rick followed LoGuercio through the door.

  Inside, Studio Crivelli continued to revel in its contrast with the other ceramics stores. Rick counted a mere two dozen pieces, most of them on shelves and lit by tiny spots set in the ceiling. Larger ones, the size of umbrella stands, sat on the floor under the shelves, each with its own hidden lighting. None of the historic designs of the other shops here, thank you very much—Crivelli’s ceramics were starkly modern, with bright lines of color that swirled around the surfaces. Though each was different in the way it mixed its colors, the fundamental style was the same.

  At the rear of the room a table made of an ebony plank sat on two equally dark sawhorses. After noting a pair of shapely legs under the table, Rick raised his eyes and saw that they belonged to a girl in a short dress with spiky blond hair. The only item on the table was a thin tablet, propped on its own stand, with a similarly thin keyboard. No telephone, but he guessed that any tablet worth its salt would include that function. The girl stood up, pushed the dress down slightly over her hips, and smiled.

  “You must be Inspector LoGuercio and Signor Montoya. Signor Crivelli is expecting you.” She raised her arm with a ballerina-like movement, gesturing in the direction of a door that was slightly ajar at the back of the room. LoGuercio thanked her, and they walked to the door and pushed it open.

  While the space would not be described as cluttered, the minimalist décor of the showroom had not been extended to Crivelli’s office. The furniture was modern and colorful, mostly plastic and metal, including four chairs that surrounded a coffee table. The art on the walls was abstract impressionist, in keeping with the style of ceramics. A few small pieces of pottery sat on a corner of the desk, perhaps anxious to get into the other room to a position of honor under the spotlights. Crivelli stood when his two visitors entered.

  He was a large man with a red face crowned by thick white hair in need of a cut, or at the very least a brushing. His beard had the same color, but in contrast with the hair it was neatly trimmed, causing Rick to wonder if the man had two barbers, each for a different part of his head. The blue blazer hung well on his body, indicating it was tailored rather than off the rack. A dark tee-shirt and blue jeans completed a wardrobe intended to project the image of a successful artist. He came around the desk and extended his hand.

  “Inspector, welcome to Studio Crivelli, but I imagine you are not here to look at ceramics. And this must be Signor Montoya. I don’t believe policeman usually wear cowboy boots. Please sit down.”

  The boots did it again, Rick thought. And so much for trying out my police building pass.

  “I hope you’ll accept a coffee. I usually have one next door at this time of day, and I took the liberty of telling Angelica to bring it when you arrived.

  “A coffee would be welcome,” said LoGuercio. Rick nodded his agreement.

  Crivelli settled into the chair and crossed one leg over the other, exposing a beige sock inside a dark brown loafer. “The sergeant who called didn’t tell me what this is about. If you were the Guardia di Finanza I might be worried, but since you are the regular police…”

  “We are not interested in looking at your books, Signor Crivelli, we are investigating a murder which took place last night.”

  It was the direct approach intended to elicit a reaction from Crivelli. What LoGuercio got was a puzzled frown.

  “The murder of that American woman? I read about it in the paper this morning. Do you think she was in one of my shops? I don’t recall seeing her, though the picture in the paper looked vaguely familiar. I could have seen her in the shop, but Angelica handles most customers.”

  At that point Angelica herself appeared carrying a plastic tray with three small cups and saucers, as well as a sugar bowl, all in the same bright style of the other ceramics in the shop. She placed it carefully on the table and retired, each delicate movement followed by the eyes of the two visitors.

  “Signor Crivelli,” said Rick after stirring sugar into his cup, “the woman looked familiar because she was a student here many years ago when you were the pottery instructor. Her name then was Rhonda Davis.”

  Crivelli put his cup back down without tasting it. “Dio mio, Rhonda? I was thinking about her just recently, wondering what became of the girl. She was one of the most talented students I had during the years I taught that course. Not that there were many with talent, but she was outstanding in both creating forms and decorating them. It would have been wonderful to see her again.” He had been staring at a painting on the wall while he spoke, but now his head jerked up. “Inspector, could she have been intending to find me?”

  “We have to assume she would have wanted to seek out people she knew from that time. Professor Tansillo gave us your name. She hadn’t written to you to say she was coming, I assume?”

  “No, no, of course not
. I had no contact with her after she left Orvieto all those years ago. Nor with any other of my students, for that matter. So you think that the person who did this was someone she knew then?”

  “We’re looking at all possibilities,” answered LoGuercio. “Tell us what you remember of Signora Van Fleet—that was her married name—when she was a student.”

  Crivelli rubbed his bearded chin with the back of his hand. “She arrived late to the program, which annoyed me since I had gone through the basics with the others and had to repeat it for her. If I recall, she had been doing an internship in Milan at Richard Ginori, the porcelain makers. Something happened and so she applied for admission to our program here.”

  “A problem with the internship in Milan?” Rick asked.

  Crivelli shook his head. “No, it was something else. Something personal, I think, but I don’t recall what.”

  “Are there other people who might still be in Orvieto who knew her when she was here?”

  “Signor Montoya, I did not interact with others in the program. At that time I was struggling to get my own business started, and I took the job with the university to help make ends meet.” His white beard framed a toothy smile. “As you can see I’ve done well. But inside the program back then I had contact only with the students during my class, and with Tansillo to get my check.”

  “You did no socializing with students or other professors?”

  Crivelli snorted, as if Rick’s question was a joke. “Good heavens, no.” He finished his coffee and returned the cup to its saucer before looking at LoGuercio. “Isn’t this when I’m supposed to tell you where I was when the murder took place? I read a lot of gialli, especially those by British crime writers.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Rick wondered if Crivelli noticed the annoyance in Paolo’s voice. The man was beginning to grate on both of them.

  “I live in Todi, as you must know already, where my other shop is located. But I have a small apartment upstairs that I use if I’m kept late in Orvieto. That was the case last night. I had dinner with friends and slept here. So there is no one to corroborate my alibi for the entire evening, I’m afraid. Not even my wife, since she was in Todi.”

  “May I ask with whom you had dinner?”

  “Of course, Inspector. I dined with Mayor Boscoli and his wife.” The grin returned. “I’m sure he will be glad to confirm that if you call him.”

  ***

  “He’s a real charmer, isn’t he?”

  Rick didn’t answer immediately. He had pulled out his cell phone and noticed a missed call and message, but didn’t recognize the number. He’d check it later. “I’ll agree with that, Paolo. Being a snob appears to work for him, his business looks like it’s based on snob appeal. Small production, probably limited-edition pieces. If you’re a discerning collector, your home cannot be considered complete without a signed Crivelli vase.”

  “Did you see the way he dropped the mayor’s name?” LoGuercio said. “I’ve already got Mayor Boscoli on my case, I don’t need Crivelli to be complaining to him.”

  “I’m sure the mayor has more important items on his agenda that telling you how to solve a murder.”

  “You could have said that about Morgante. And speaking of Morgante, Riccardo, what are your thoughts about him running to Bianca Cappello’s office?”

  They had turned up a side street in the direction of the police station, squeezing into a doorway to let a car pass. Ahead there was a break in the buildings lining the left side of the street, opening to a small square that allowed a wider view of a stone palazzo at the far end. Based on the styles of palazzi he passed regularly in Rome, Rick guessed the building was from the seventeenth century. A small, stone balcony, supported by columns reaching to the street, looked down from the third floor.

  “She was distraught about the news of her friend’s murder and called the pharmacist. He rushed over with some potion to calm her down.”

  LoGuercio nodded and rubbed his eyes. “Could be that. And it’s an interesting that you said that here.” He stopped Rick with his hand and pointed to the building. “See that? There was a case of a distraught woman that took place right up there. She found out her husband was having an affair and climbed out on the balcony and started screaming, threatening to jump. It drew a crowd. People came from the whole neighborhood. Her husband was a prominent businessman, so that made it an even bigger event.”

  Rick studied the balcony and saw that it was a long way to the pavement. “What happened?”

  “She jumped and died.”

  “That’s terrible. You tried to talk her out of it?”

  LoGuercio’s eyes stayed on the building. “Me? No. I wasn’t there.”

  “Didn’t someone call the police?”

  “They probably did, but it happened in 1710. I may have the year wrong. Sometime back then.”

  Rick shook his head.

  They were in front of the police station when he remembered the phone message. “Paolo,” he said after listening to it and closing his phone, “that was from Francine Linwood. She has something she wants to tell us.”

  “We can’t drive there now, I’m supposed to contact the prosecuting attorney, and you were going to make that phone call to the police in Arizona.”

  Rick stuffed his phone in his pocket. “She’s here in town. You make your call to the prosecuting attorney and I’ll walk over and see what she has to tell us. It shouldn’t take long. When I get back we’ll call Phoenix.”

  “That will work.” LoGuercio walked to the door of the police station and went inside.

  Rick pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Damn.” He punched a number and put the phone to his ear as he walked. It went to messages. “Betta, things are running longer than I expected, I have to talk with one of the American women again. It’s going to be impossible to meet Morgante at the cathedral. I’ll call him and tell him. Hope you’re having fun. Ciao.” He took Morgante’s card from his wallet and dialed the number. Same thing, to messages. “Signor Morgante, Riccardo Montoya. I’m afraid we’ve gotten busy with the case and won’t be able to accept your kind offer to see the cathedral today. Hope that doesn’t inconvenience you.” He hung up and picked up his pace.

  Francine Linwood had called from a bar on one of the small squares in Orvieto, so small that Rick had to use the GPS on his phone to find it. The afternoon sun was beginning to drop behind the tile roofs of the surrounding buildings, slowly shrinking a rectangular patch of sunlight on the similarly rectangular paving stones. Eight small tables with umbrellas were arranged outside the door of the bar, most of them occupied by people whom Rick guessed to be locals. Of those, half were older couples, dressed more formally, the other half younger people more interested in reading their cell phones than live conversation. Francine sat alone with a wineglass and a dish of peanuts in front of her. She seemed to be staring at a tower in the distance, but Rick couldn’t be sure. Her eyes were covered by sunglasses, even though the spread of afternoon shadows had made them unnecessary. The shadows had also begun to lower the temperature, but she had come prepared; a shawl of bright Southwest colors draped the chair next to her. She spotted Rick and waved. From the smile he concluded that the information she wanted to impart was not that serious. Or she was already three sheets to the wind. He made a mental note to look up the origin of that phrase, though he suspected he already knew.

  “Hi Francine.” He took the chair across from her and looked around the square. “Very picturesque spot you’ve found. Away from the bustle of the tourist crowds.”

  “Close your eyes and you’re in Italy,” she said, removing her sunglasses and taking a drink. “The sign in front of this place says bar, but inside everyone’s drinking coffee. What’s that about? But the barman was able to find me some chilled white wine. Very good, too. Can I get you some? My treat.”

  “Tha
nk you, I’ll pass.” He stretched out his legs next to the table and rested one boot on top of the other. “Are you holding up all right?”

  She picked up the glass. “With a little help from my friend here, I’ll make it.” She took another sip. “Where is the inspector? I was expecting to watch you in action again, in both languages.”

  “He’s busy with the case. Where’s Gina? Did you leave her back at the villa?” If Francine did come by herself, Rick thought, I hope she took the bus.

  “She wanted to be alone and meditate, so I dropped her off at the cathedral. We each deal with grief in our own way.” She held up the glass to illustrate her point.

  “What did you want to tell the inspector, Francine?” He hoped his impatience was not too obvious.

  “Well, Rick…” She paused and carefully chose one of the peanuts to put in her mouth. “As much as anything, I wanted to ask him about the investigation. As Rhonda’s best friend, I think the authorities owe it to me to keep me informed. Has he told you what’s going on?”

  “Not very much,” Rick lied. “I think there may be some suspects, but remember, it hasn’t been even twenty-four hours since the murder happened. I’m sure the inspector is working as quickly as he can.”

  “Suspects? I hope I’m not one of them.” She emitted an alcohol-induced giggle.

  “Is there any reason you should be a suspect?” Rick didn’t expect much of an answer.