Death al Dente

by Peter King

  Francesca put her glass down. “I don’t understand,” she said, chin at a determined angle. “Just when you had decided that the buffalo stampede was an attack on Signor Pellegrini— pam!—you are attacked in the duomo. So now it is you that someone wants to kill. Then Signor Pellegrini is found dead— pam!—it is not you!”

  Her eyes glowed with a passionate intensity. It was almost enough to make me wish I was still in danger.

  “Perhaps Pellegrini’s death was an accident,” I reminded her. “Maybe he had a heart attack or a stroke.”

  “The buffalo and the duomo?” she questioned.

  “Then both must have been attacks on me.”

  She regarded me gravely. “No connection?”

  “None.”

  “Hm,” she pondered. “No, I don’t like coincidence.”

  This was getting to be a tough trade-off, be a target for a killer so I could get Francesca’s sympathy. “The question why is the same, though,” I pointed out. “Who would want to kill me because I’m seeking a chef?”

  She finished the peppers and looked impatiently towards the kitchen for the main course. Her gaze switched back to me. “Are you?”

  “Of course I am. Even the chefs know it.”

  “Perhaps there is something else?”

  “Certainly not…”

  There was a glitter in those beautiful almond-shaped eyes that made my disclaimer fade away. “Someone thinks I am here for some other reason, is that what you mean?”

  She nodded. “Doesn’t it sound reasonable?”

  “First of all, let me tell you that there is no other reason. I did use the cover story of collecting information for an eating guide, that’s true. But my mission here—the job that Desmond sent me to do—really is to advise which of the three chefs he should choose for his new restaurant in London.”

  She looked deep into my eyes. “I believe you.” She took the last bread roll and bit into it. “But someone else may suspect more.”

  Mama came in from the kitchen with two heaping plates of beef in Barolo. The red wine of Barolo, deep and strong in color, flavor, and aroma is the perfect medium for the long cooking of the cubes of shin of beef. We might have gone along with the conventional advice that says when a dish is cooked with wine, that same wine should be drunk with the meal but Mama had already told us they had used the last of the Barolo in the stew.

  Food is almost always good in Italy and this was no exception. Foods look, smell, and taste as they should. All of them are honest, there is no subterfuge. Everything is eaten fresh—frozen and canned goods are rarely used in restaurants. It is true that the best French meal is better than the best Italian meal but in that rarified culinary atmosphere, the comparison is largely academic. Italy offers more good meals at any other level.

  When we stopped eating to drink Chianti, I said, “You may be right. It makes sense. The problem is I can’t imagine who suspects and what it is.”

  “Nor can I,” Francesca said, returning hungrily to the stew. “We’ll see what Carlo has to say tomorrow. He will have some ideas. He is a very clever policeman.”

  “Have you known him long?”

  She nodded. “Yes, many years.” She took another large mouthful of stew and added, “My cousin is married to his sister.”

  In Italy, everyone seems to be related to everyone else. Families are large and especially in villages and small towns— for Italy is dominantly rural—family connections through marriage spread endlessly.

  “When do we see him tomorrow?”

  “Ten o’clock at the Questura.”

  “This is my first contact with Italian police. You said there are five police forces. Which branch is Cataldo with?”

  She called for more bread as she answered my question. “The Carabiniere deal with serious crimes and are attached to the armed forces. The Vigili Urbani handle minor crimes and take care of traffic control. The Polizia Ferroviaria take care of crime on the railways and the Polizia Straddle are the highway police. Carlo belongs to the Questurini, the Pubblica Sicurezza—you would call it national security, I suppose. They investigate crimes.”

  “I’m impressed. How do you know so much about the police?”

  “It is necessary in the escort business.”

  “You have to know who to bribe, you mean?”

  Her eyes danced. “Corruzione! Corruption! What a terrible thing to suggest!”

  “I thought you were kidding when you told me you were with the escort service.”

  “Oh, no. We really do supply escorts. It’s all very high class, of course.”

  “Of course,” I agreed solemnly.

  “This beef in Barolo is very good, isn’t it?” she asked demurely.

  That redirection of the conversation kept us off that topic, although I made one attempt to return to it. She was a strong-willed girl though, and once she had made up her mind not to discuss the escort business, she held to it.

  A pear soaked in wine was Francesca’s choice for dessert and I opted for some fresh strawberries. Cappuccino completed the meal, and as we walked out into the warm night air, Francesca said suddenly, “I believe you—about only being here to find a chef, I mean.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you believe me?” she asked innocently.

  “About your escort agency being high class? Yes, I do.”

  She giggled. Almost any other response would have told me something.

  Police stations in most countries tend to be very much the same. I don’t want to sound as if I have been in a lot of them but the ones I have do not show much variance. The Questura, headquarters of the Questurini, was a prominent four-story building with crenellated stone trim above all the windows, several large flags, and a pair of smartly uniformed police on guard duty in front. Not as smart as Captain Cataldo, but that would be a real feat, as well as not being a recommended route to advancement. We were conducted through passages and corridors lit by barely adequate bulbs. Men and women in uniform were hurrying to and fro, computer screens glowed proudly as they presented thousands of statistics, and the phone bill must have been horrendous. Cataldo’s office, as I might have expected, was almost plush. If anyone in the building had a better office, he was the general or its police equivalent.

  The floor was carpeted, a glass-fronted cabinet was filled with law books, and a large framed photo of Cataldo in full dress uniform dominated one wall. He was not a shy man, but then one of the surrounding photos showed him with the Pope and another with the man who had been the last prime minister so maybe Cataldo had no reason to be shy.

  He greeted us cordially. He wore the same outfit as yesterday but the decorative hat was on a rack above the red-piped black jacket. His impeccable white shirt was his only condescension to informality, and he apologized for not being fully dressed. He moved aside a photograph of himself mounted on a magnificent black horse so that he could spread his elbows on the leather-topped desk.

  “We have much information since yesterday,” he said in a tone just short of a boast. “I will tell you of it because I think you can help.” His glance went from me to Francesca and back. “First, the examination of Signor Pellegrini shows that he died from drowning. The contusion behind his ear evidently rendered him unconscious—he could have been hit by the waterwheel. There are no other signs on the body. His heart and other organs are in normal condition. He did not suffer a heart attack or a stroke.”

  He moved his elbows closer together and raised his head to survey us.

  “Did you check the contents of his stomach?” I asked, not sure whether he was going to continue or not.

  “Yes, there was nothing in the coffee.”

  “I had thought that perhaps something he ate at the birthday party—”

  “That was the night before.”

  “Yes but some edible substances that upset the stomach can take twelve to twenty-four hours to take effect.”

  “Edible substances, you say. Can you clarify that?”
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br />   I nodded. “I can. I think you’ve already considered it, though. The plants and flowers used by Bernardo Mantegna in his cooking.”

  He took his elbows off the desk, leaned back, and beamed at Francesca.

  “You have a clever man for a client this time, cara mia. He knows about poisons—and what else, I wonder?”

  “I didn’t say he was poisoned,” I objected heatedly. “It’s an obvious suspicion, that’s all.”

  He waved a placating hand. “One of the reasons you are here is because you know about food. Oh, Signor Desmond spoke very well of you, and Scotland Yard also holds you in high regard.”

  “You’ve spoken to the Yard? Already?”

  He was almost purring with pleasure now. “Certezza! We do not grow grass under our feet here!” His mood changed. “There is one disturbing factor. When I took upon myself to tell the sad news to Signora Pellegrini of the death of her husband, I found that her doctor was with her. She is hallucinating and vomiting.”

  Francesca looked at me, her face puzzled.

  “You already told me you had a suspicion about Bernardo’s plants and flowers,” Cataldo said to me. “Is not hallucination a symptom caused by some of these?”

  “Some, yes, but I am sure that Bernardo would not be using any likely to be harmful or dangerous.”

  “I spoke to Signor Pellegrini’s lawyer and friend this morning,” said Cataldo. “Tomasso Rinaldo. He was not in his office and I had to call him at home. He was not feeling well. I am awaiting a report from his doctor.” He leaned forward to fix us with a stern look. “Did you eat anything at that party?”

  “Everything,” Francesca said promptly.

  “Yes, I remember that you always had a large appetite,” Cataldo agreed.

  “Including a lot of foods with plants and flowers in them. My English client here”—she flashed me a mischievous glance— “introduced me to some I did not know.”

  “I ate a lot of them too,” I said. “I suppose it’s possible that just one plant or flower was poisonous and was only eaten by Pellegrini, his wife, and Tomasso.”

  “You both feel well?”

  We concurred that we felt fine.

  “So how could three people get sick—and one so sick that he died?” Francesca wondered.

  Captain Cataldo sighed deeply. “I see I have a lot of work ahead of me. I will start with you two. Before this day is out, I want a list, as near as you recall it, of everything you ate that evening. I will try to match it up with the same information from everyone else. I have asked Bernardo for a list of every plant and flower he used. You all drank only prosecco, I believe?”

  “I didn’t see anyone drinking anything else,” I said and Francesca nodded.

  “And you, signor, you will write out for me your professional opinion as to the characteristics of every plant and flower used at that party.”

  “I will. I can tell you now, though, that the most common reaction to a dangerous plant or flower is hallucinations. One explanation of Signor Pellegrini’s death fits in here—perhaps he ingested something that caused him to hallucinate. He was dizzy, fell, dropped the coffee pot, knocked over the chair, broke the cup and saucer, staggered, and fell in the pool.”

  “And the waterwheel hit him behind the ear rendering him unconscious so that he drowned.” Cataldo finished the grim scenario.

  “One other thing you need to ask everyone who was at that party,” I said to Cataldo.

  He might be a peacock but he listened. “Yes?” he said alertly.

  “Ask about allergies and medication. There was an instance in the U.S.A. a couple of years ago where otherwise harmless vegetables caused death when taken with Prozac, a common antidepressant. Many people died before the Food and Drug Administration investigators were able to tie the two together.”

  Captain Cataldo blew out his cheeks. “Very well. I will remember that.”

  “We will leave,” said Francesca. “Let you get back to your work.”

  It was not the way an interrogation usually ended. In my limited experience, the detective reluctantly allowed the suspects to go, but I suppose that when your cousin is married to the detective’s sister, you can change the rules.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HOW DID DESMOND TAKE the news? I forgot to ask you yesterday.”

  Francesca and I were having an early lunch after leaving Cataldo’s office, and she asked the question as the waitress was bringing us two plates of spaghetti.

  “He told me of his role as Sherlock Holmes and gave me some tips as to how to solve the crime.”

  She gave a short laugh and said, “That sounds like Desmond. Did he appoint me as your Dr. Watson?”

  “No, but I’m sure he would have if he had thought of it.”

  The spaghetti was perfectly al dente and we were having it the simplest way: alia prestianara, seasoned only with garlic and olive oil. The restaurant was O Forno, a place with a good reputation for reliable local cooking. “If it is good, you can put it in your eating guide,” Francesca said.

  She was expertly wrapping spaghetti strands round her fork while keeping it vertical and spinning it on the way to her mouth. In my business, I meet a lot of women with hearty appetites but Francesca was up near the top of the list. “You know the secret of eating spaghetti?” she asked me.

  “No, what is it?”

  “It was told to me by Sophia Loren on the set once. You have to imagine you’re a vacuum cleaner, she said.”

  We were near Ravenna and close enough to the coast that the catches of the day were among the offerings. We both chose for the main course the sorpresa di mare, the surprise of the sea which today contained clams, langoustines, sole, scallops, octopus, and monkfish sprinkled with pine nuts, almonds, parsley, garlic, white wine, and olive oil. This was baked under a pastry crust then upturned on to the plate with the pastry crisp and golden brown. Pinot Grigio is another Italian wine that has become so popular that some of the vineyards producing it have let their standards slip in increasing their volume. The bottle we were sharing carried the Burti label and was one of the more dependable products.

  “It was nice of Carlo to say we could help with his investigation, wasn’t it?” said Francesca between mouthfuls of food and appreciative oohs and ahs.

  “I don’t think he put it quite like that.”

  “Well, that’s what he meant,” she said in that definitive, feminine way that bars all further debate.

  “Okay,” I said. “You know him better than I do. Meanwhile, let’s work on our lists. As soon as you’ve finished that spaghetti,” I added. Three more spins of the fork and she had finished. I took a little longer, then we compiled our lists, able to remind one another of plants or flowers that the other had forgotten. As we looked them over, she nodded. “That’s all I can remember. I’ll see Carlo gets them.”

  “So what do we do next?” she demanded. “Who do we— what’s that lovely English word? I know—harass!” She gave it the American pronunciation with a firm emphasis on the second syllable. It sounds much more virile and disturbing that way.

  “One thing I want to do,” I said, disregarding her flawed approach to investigation, “is visit some rice fields.”

  She put down her fork—a sure sign that I had her attention. “Rice?”

  “Pellegrini told me that he wanted to buy some rice fields. It sounded as if the owners were resisting him. That could be a motive. Besides, I’ve wanted to see an Italian rice field ever since that Anna Magnani movie.”

  “You may be disappointed. She doesn’t work there any more.” She resumed eating but during the next break, she asked, “Do you think any of the chefs are involved?”

  “I wondered about that. Didn’t someone tell me that all three of our chefs have financial interests outside their restaurants?”

  “I am sure they do. Why?’

  “I wonder if Pellegrini was involved with them in any of those?”

  “Want me to find out?”

  �
�Can you do that?” I asked in surprise.

  “No e problema,” she said dismissively. “My cousin is married to an accountant. He works for all the big banks.”

  We finished the fish and agreed on its excellence. The waiter had brought us another bottle of Pinot Grigio, and as we drank that, Francesca said, “Carlo wants us to come to Signor Pellegrini’s funeral.”

  “He does? Both of us? I didn’t really know him that well—”

  “The Anglo-Saxon attitude to funerals is different. You are so serious, so somber about them. Here, they are an occasion for people to get together, eat and drink—and mourn their friend too, of course. But many come who are perhaps not his friend. They come nevertheless. Everyone talks about the dead person. Some say good things, some say bad. Everyone has a wonderful time.”

  “Like the Irish.”

  “The Irish?” said Francesca. “They do this? Like us?”

  “Yes. It’s called a wake. They all enjoy it, get drunk …”

  “The proper way to mourn.”

  “So why does the captain want us to come?” I persisted.

  “I think he has a motive,” she said in a lowered voice, enjoying the flavor of conspiracy. “All the people involved will be there. Maybe he expects one of them to get drunk enough to say something incriminating.”

  “Funny place to solve a crime,” I mused. “Still, you’re right, we might learn something. We’ll accept his invitation.”

  “I don’t think that’s what it is,” she said, emptying her glass. “It’s more like an order.”

  Francesca had an appointment with a woman who wanted to engage the services of her escort bureau at a coming convention in Cremona. Francesca did not offer any details of the services and I didn’t ask. She was reluctant to have me go alone when I told her that I was going to Bernardo’s restaurant, but I told her to keep her appointment and assured her that she could not help me anyway as she had no gun yet. She giggled and gave me a peck on the cheek.