Rick was holding his hand over his cell phone. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with the Sergeant, Inspector?” There was annoyance in his voice.
“You’ll stay in front of the house and keep the Signora calm, Riccardo. Okay, let’s go.”
They began walking up the driveway in silence. A three-quarter moon gave just enough light to see the driveway as it bent right and left as it climbed the hill. By the time they reached the parking area in front of the villa, Rick’s eyes had become adjusted to the semi-darkness. He could see the outline of the villa and the Mercedes parked by the front door. He also noticed a structure he had not seen on the previous visit. A small, low house, which he guessed to be a maintenance storage shed, squatted at one side of the parking area. Likely it was where Donato stored his gardening equipment and other tools to fix what needed fixing.
Without speaking, the policemen split into two groups and moved as planned. Rick watched them disappear. The villa appeared larger in the darkness, perhaps due to the black shadows from a moon now unencumbered by clouds. He hadn’t remembered what was around it, but saw that trees ran along both sides, shading and cooling the roof during the day, now offering darkness to anyone wanting concealment. The tall pine trees they had driven through on the way from the road formed a natural colonnade on two sides of the wide gravel lot.
Rick put the phone back to his ear. “We’re here, Gina,” he whispered. “I’m out in front.”
“Thank God.”
“So if you hear someone outside now, it will likely be the policeman searching the grounds. You’re still locked in your room?”
“I haven’t moved since you called back. The lock is so puny, Rick, if he gets in—”
“He won’t get in now, Gina, the place is surrounded by police. So just stay where you are. Is Francine still sleeping?”
“I can hear her snoring. She was probably asleep when her head hit the pillow. I doubt if she even got undressed. Booze does that to her.”
“They should be done checking in a few minutes. Then I’ll come inside and we can talk.”
“Keep talking now, Rick. Don’t hang up, I’m scared.”
He could tell that from her voice. “I will, but I’m afraid my voice will be heard. Let me get farther away from the house.”
Rick thought that an intruder could be hiding among the thick growth of trees that circled the parking area, watching the action, but more likely he was long gone. Gina had become calmer when she knew they were on the way, helped by Rick’s reassuring voice on the line. When they were almost there, he had started to wonder if she had imagined the whole thing. Or worse yet, had called to get attention.
Despite the cowboy boots, he stepped as quietly as he could across the lot toward the shed. The side of it would offer a barrier so that his voice wouldn’t be heard. Like on the portico of the villa itself, ivy hung down from the roof of the little building. It was probably the vines that kept him from noticing it during the day. Perhaps the camouflage was intentional, to keep the high-end villa renters from seeing something that detracted from the beauty of the grounds. The shed was well hidden between the hanging ivy and a row of terra cotta pots sitting on the brick walkway that circled it.
“Rick, are you still there? I think I hear something outside the window.”
He ducked under the branches of a tree next to the shed, the phone pressed to his ear. “Gina, I told you to—”
The terra cotta pot crashed against the side of his head. The phone fell from his hands and clattered on the brick. He fell to one knee and his hand flew instinctively to his head. Dirt, but no blood. At the same time he realized that the darkness was not due to the lack of moonlight. He heard someone running away but couldn’t see him. He couldn’t see anything but a few orange flashes at the corner of his eyes. Were his eyes open? He tried to focus, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate. It slipped back—back to some vaguely distant past—another smash on his head, shouting, and footsteps running. Albuquerque? Yes, that’s it. A bar on Central Avenue. Despite the pain, he smiled, pleased with himself that he had such a good memory. It would take more than a bump on the head to rid him of that.
He passed out and crumpled to the ground.
When his eyes came back into focus he was sitting against one of the posts that held up the portico at the entrance to the villa. Rustic lamps on either side of the doorway lit the scene, and Gina, dressed in a bathrobe, knelt before him holding a cold cloth to his head.
LoGuercio stood behind her. “You were right, Riccardo, I should have let you go with the sergeant.”
“Or you should have issued me a helmet. Did you get him?”
LoGuercio shook his head.
He reached up to touch his head but Gina pushed it away. “It’s going to leave a mark,” she said, as if he didn’t know that already.
Rick shifted to English. “I’d like to be able to say ‘you should see the other guy,’ but I’m afraid I can’t. What a jerk I was to pick that place to talk to you.”
“What are you saying?” LoGuercio said, not liking to be left out.
“She said how brave I was to take on the intruder, and I told her that I had to, because the rest of you had disappeared.” Rick noticed LoGuercio’s frown. “All right, I was noting that my choice of spots to lurk may have been a slight error in judgment.”
“That’s better.” The inspector pointed at one side of the parking area. “We think he ran that way, through those trees past the shed. There’s a road about a hundred meters in that direction and there are some tire tracks next to it that look fresh. The car’s long gone. Now if you had—”
“I know, don’t remind me. And whatever you do, don’t tell my uncle.”
“Have the commissario find out that his nephew is a total scemo? Why would I do that?” He rubbed his eyes. “I need some sleep. Tell the signora that I’m going to leave a policeman here on guard for the rest of the night. And then let’s get back to Orvieto.”
Rick did as asked, said goodnight to Gina, and climbed into the car. They had decided not to wake Francine; Gina would tell her what happened in the morning. As they drove down the driveway Rick leaned back into the headrest and remembered he had some aspirin back at the hotel. He closed his eyes.
“It has something to do with the murder, doesn’t it?”
“Of course, Riccardo. Otherwise it would be too much of a coincidence.”
“He was looking for something.”
“Either that or our murderer only attacks women from Arizona.”
Chapter Ten
Betta was still sleeping soundly when Rick quietly slipped out of the room and walked down the stairs to the lobby. Outside the night chill remained, and he was glad he wore a sweat shirt over his usual tee. He crossed the street, put his leg up on the wall, and began his stretches, causing his head to throb slightly. A bit of pain wasn’t going to keep him from his morning run. Rick finished his warm-up with jumps and twists before starting off down the street. A street light looked down at the running figure and created a long shadow, its last duty before ending the shift and shutting itself off. He started up the street, away from the cathedral, and then turned in an alley to work his way to the edge of the town. The street ran parallel to the walls, offering a view of the valleys below. Tufts of fog drifted between the hills as if searching for a hiding place from the sun which would soon appear over the eastern horizon.
The morning run had been a part of Rick’s routine since his college days. Its benefits were mental as well as physical, allowing him to go over the events of the previous day as well as look ahead to those of the next. This morning his thoughts were stuck on the problems at hand, but as he had done in the past, he tried so push them from his mind and replace them with something else. Betta? That made him smile. Might as well concentrate on the surroundings, in this case Orvieto. He never got into the “zone” that ath
letes claim comes over them, he always looked around as he ran and tried to notice the small things. Like all Italian cities, there were many small things here to notice. As if on cue, a black-and-white cat skittered across his path.
Rick had found the previous morning’s route a good one. It skirted the edge of the town, giving him sprawling views of the valley, then cut into the city itself through some narrow streets until reaching a main thoroughfare. The few souls he passed were workers on their way to a morning coffee, or those who would man the machines to make it. He continued his loping stride through the middle of Orvieto, bending left and picking up speed as the route went on a slight decline toward the funicular station. This would be the furthest point before turning back on a loop that loosely followed the ciabatta shape of the city itself. As he had done the previous morning, Rick slowed and ran through a stone gate to enter the fourteenth-century Fortezza which guarded the southern cliff of the city. In a few hours it would be filled with children and mothers, and at this hour it offered Rick one of the few flat patches of grass on his run. He paused at the edge of the rampart to enjoy the valley view and catch his breath before starting back. As always on his morning runs, even in Rome, he enjoyed the peace of the hour. Here the bonus was seeing the sun start to glow behind the hills to the east. After running lightly in place to keep his leg muscles limber, he turned from the wall and took his first stride of the return run. Unfortunately, thanks to the incline, it would be the more difficult part.
The route brought him out at the plaza they had walked through the first evening after dinner. His legs enjoyed the first level ground since he’d begun his climb near the funicular station, and he slowed to a trot while passing the building which housed the city government.
“Signor Montoya.”
Rick stopped and looked at a man who had emerged from the glass doors.
“Mayor Boscoli, buon giorno.”
Boscoli looked at the streaks in Rick’s sweat shirt. “You appear to be at the end of your run. Can I offer you a coffee?”
“That’s kind of you. Perhaps a juice instead.”
“There is a bar across the street that all the city employees use.”
They entered the bar and the mayor ordered a spremuta for Rick and a coffee for himself. The man behind the counter greeted the mayor with deference and gave Rick a quick glance without reacting to the outfit. Perhaps Boscoli brought joggers in with him every morning. Like in many such establishments in Italy, there was nowhere to sit, but it was early enough so that they had the counter to themselves. The barista worked quickly, dividing his efforts between squeezing Rick’s orange juice and making the coffee.
“I understand you are visiting from Rome, Signor Montoya.” The neon lights of the bar gleamed off the mayor’s head.
“That’s correct, we’re up here for a few days to see the sights.”
“I hope this investigation has not taken you away from your enjoyment of the city.”
“We’ve been able to do both.” Rick remembered LoGuercio’s comment about the mayor being a political adversary of the cultural commissioner. “Signor Morgante, who I met in LoGuercio’s office, has kindly suggested things to see.”
Boscoli at first only nodded his head. “Yes, Morgante,” he said after a few moments. “Did he suggest you eat at Lucia’s Restaurant? He usually does that with visitors. His cousin owns the place. You might instead want to consult the guidebooks when it’s time for lunch.”
The coffee and juice arrived and sugar was added to both.
Rick had heard enough about Morgante. “How long have you been mayor?”
“Three years. I’m up for re-election in the spring. Unless the coalition dissolves, and that is always a possibility in Italian politics. I trust you follow Italian politics, even though you are American?”
“How did you know about my American nationality? Is my accent that noticeable?”
The mayor shrugged. “You are virtually without an accent.” He downed his coffee in one gulp and patted the whiskers around his mouth with a paper napkin. “Do you think the inspector is close to solving this murder, Mister Montoya?”
Rick tried to read the face of the mayor. The use of “Mister” instead of “Signor” had an intimidating edge to it, which probably came with the office. Rick was familiar with his type: politicians who were all sweetness with their constituents but short with underlings and people who they decided didn’t count. He’d seen them in New Mexico and Rome; the same animal speaking a different language.
“I wouldn’t know, Signor Boscoli. My help to the inspector has been in interpreting, since a couple of the parties involved are Americans.”
“You must have some sense of how the investigation is going.”
“Even if I did, it wouldn’t be correct for me to tell anyone, don’t you think so?”
It was obvious the man didn’t think so. “Of course,” he said, and looked without subtlety at his watch. “I must be going.”
Rick thanked him for the juice, they shook hands, and Boscoli walked quickly to the door. Rick got the eye of the barista and pointed to the empty cup and glass, getting a head shake in return. Apparently the mayor ran a tab.
***
“Remind me again what the mayor looks like,” said Betta. “He was only at our table for a minute, and I was looking up at him.”
“Heavy set, a little goatee that makes him look a bit satanic, thinning hair.” Rick was applying butter to a crusty roll in preparation for a thick layer of jelly. He was always hungry after his run, but today his appetite was larger than normal. She watched him over the top of her coffee cup.
Despite the chill Rick had experienced on his run, the hotel had not moved breakfast inside. The clients didn’t seem to mind, given the view of the rooftops and cathedral, but they were more bundled up than the previous morning. Half the tables were occupied, and as usual he tried to guess the nationalities of the people at them. About half Italian, he thought. Two tables of Germans, the rest Brits and Gringos.
“If the long range weather forecast I saw on TV when you were dealing with the mayor was correct, this terrace may soon be closed for the season.” She poured more coffee into her cup and added hot milk.
“There could always be…“ Rick tried to remember the term in Italian for “Indian summer.” He knew there was one, but it wasn’t coming to him.
“L’estate di San Martino,” Betta said, stirring sugar into the cup.
“Yes, that’s it. Why couldn’t I think of it?”
The smile showed her perfect white teeth. “Clearly you’re losing your touch. You’d better quit your translator job and become a policeman, as your uncle is always telling you.”
He grunted through a mouthful of roll. After swallowing, he said: “I should probably get paid, I’m working so much for the cops. But today, Cara, I will push the murder case out of my mind and leave it in the capable hands of LoGuercio. After I spent so much time with Paolo yesterday, today you and I will be together and do interesting things that have nothing to do with murder.”
“Until something comes up.”
“Of course, until something comes up.” He watched as she carefully cut the rind off an orange and pull the pieces apart on her plate. His hand darted out and grabbed one. “I thought we might see another part of Umbria this morning and drive over to Todi. Does that sound like fun?”
“It does, Rick. I’ve never been there.”
“Then Todi it is. Far from the murder case.”
“And far from falling flower pots.”
When they’d finished their coffee, Rick pulled back Betta’s chair as she got to her feet and they walked to the glass doors. The British couple that had been in the sitting room the previous night was being seated at a table near by. Rick smiled at them and nodded.
“Mornin’, folks.”
All the flustered
woman could come up with was “Good day.” The man just stared.
***
Betta won the coin toss and chose to be the driver on the andata to Todi, so that Rick would get the ritorno. That way each would be able to give their full attention to the scenery in one direction. It was only a few minutes into the drive, as the dark blue Lancia was barreling around a traffic circle, when Rick mentioned her speed.
“Piano, Betta. This isn’t your brother’s motorcycle. We’re in no rush.”
She said nothing and downshifted into third to slow their speed without the use of the brake. The engine voiced a disappointed whine. They followed the distinctive green A1 autostrada signs to drive away from Orvieto Scalo and on south. The road passed the entrance and toll booths, staying on the two-lane pavement alongside the highway. Rick watched the cars heading south on the autostrada and could not help noticing that Betta was keeping up with them. He kept silent.
A few minutes after passing the toll booths, their road bent left and in quick succession they passed over the Tiber and the highway. Then the road began to climb steeply, going through an area that would not be considered the most scenic part of Umbria. For most world travelers, central Italy was vineyards, art and Renaissance buildings. But the less picturesque infrastructure had to be put somewhere, and their car passed it now. Stacks of rusting metal and yellowed plastic pipe rose behind a menacing row of barbed-wire fencing. Old cars and trucks that had long ceased to run tried unsuccessfully to form a neat line. The fading letters on the building between them indicated a construction firm, but Rick doubted it had put up any structures recently. Farther up the road was another low building, but at least this one showed human activity, and its coat of paint was recent. They were past it before he could decipher the type of business.
The highway passed through scrubby bushes before opening a view of a dam which held back the Tiber to form the Lago di Corbara. Their road now ran along the lake, crossing one arm of it on a causeway before climbing into hills covered with low trees. Below them the water squeezed back to river-width as they drove over hills that looked down on its meandering course. A bridge took them to the other side just before the gorge softened into a river valley for the final kilometers to Todi. Betta slowed, turned off what had become almost a highway, and crossed back over the river to the town of Pontecuti. Here the climb began in earnest. The road sliced through the tiny town and started a series of turns through groves of olive trees, cutting back and forth to the delight of the driver. Rick could sense her disappointment when the hill leveled out and she had to turn onto a side road to reach the tourist parking area. They found a space at the end of a row and she turned off the engine. Rick happily unlatched his seat belt and stepped out of the car.
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