“Actually, Rachele returned to Tursenia recently. Let’s just say that she enjoyed a nice long vacation,” Gloria replied straight away. Now it was also clear to Angelo that they were poorly concealing their discomfort.
“As you know, Chase, Rachele lives in this house. We interrogated her at the police station yesterday,” Angelo said to break the awkward silence falling into the room. “She’s about to get married, so the evening her father died she was at the printers with her fiancé choosing their wedding invitations.”
The Inspector asked to meet Rachele and her husband-to-be again. Gloria immediately picked up the phone to call Rachele, then left the room again to find a quieter place where she could talk with her. Marco followed his wife outside like a loyal bloodhound. Angelo and Chase could hear Gloria chatting on the phone in the library. Her voice was soft and supportive when she spoke to Rachele, completely different from the feeling of control and authority she showed talking with her husband and with them, ham-fisted forensic scientist included.
“She’s at the funeral agency, she’ll be back in half an hour,” Gloria declared, before finally she and her husband left the villa.
As soon as their footsteps had faded away, Chase raised an eyebrow at Angelo, pointing out the glass sphere on the dresser.
“So?” Angelo mumbled.
“Have you ever seen a trinket placed like that?” Chase asked.
“I don’t get it,” Angelo replied.
Chase sighed with a smirk. “Lift it up and look at the base. Do you want to take a sample of what you find there? I believe Matteo’ll propose to you after that!”
Chapter 5
Rachele Galli was staring at the bottles of whisky in the drinks cabinet in the living room, looking almost hypnotised. The big table of the room was literally chaotic: a dozen samples of tulle, taffeta and organdie were on it, all curled up, simulating simple wedding favours. On the side was an open magazine with a number of centrepieces, candles and suggestions of ways to set the tables at the wedding reception. Opposite was a price list of wedding cakes and various types of traditional Tursenian confectionery and desserts. Everything had been left the way it was the night Piero died. No one had cleared it up. Those were just some of the details that Rachele was deciding on for her wedding day. Chase had had enough time at the villa to snoop around upstairs and had managed to look in her room, full of boxes and packages. The bird was ready to leave the nest.
Rachele’s groom-to-be was Simone Conforti, a General Practitioner living in a little town very close to Tursenia. He was staring at the window, watching Gloria picking the latest fuchsia bougainvillea, while Marco was behind the gate, waiting. A police officer gently took her arm and tried to lead her off the property. How could it be possible that Gloria was still there, after having been ushered out of the building more than thirty minutes earlier? How stubborn she was!
“Let me take the flowers, at least,” she said to the officer. “I want to give Piero’s coffin a touch of colour.” Then she grabbed the blooms and left. There was no easy way to keep that woman away from flowers and the garden, so Angelo was going to have to get firm with her.
Simone seemed to be Rachele’s exact opposite: well-dressed, smart, and sporting an impeccably ironed shirt. His work bag was placed on the fine wood chest in the hallway; a folder of documents was leaning on the bag. Simone pretended not to be concerned about the sudden call from Inspector Alunni, displaying as much self-confidence and coolness as possible. Just like his patients when they went to his surgery.
Rachele, on the other hand, was the perfect copy of her grandmother; same features and same pointy chin, as well as the graceful posture. Her slender figure made even the simple dress she was wearing appear elegant. However, her eyes and hair, in Amy Winehouse style, did not detract from her hollow face at all. Rachele Galli was an insecure and needy woman in every way. You can judge a book by its cover if you are used to sniffing out a person’s soul at first sight, like Chase always managed to do naturally.
“I hate reading about people in police reports. They always lie. Tell me something about yourselves,” Chase said to the couple, closing the thin file handed to him by Angelo. Even if it seemed weird, Chase wanted to hear what they would say about themselves. Not alibis or police stuff, just some details of their lives.
“We met in San Patrignano, a community near Rimini, in Romagna, which takes care of drug addicts for free,” Doctor Conforti commenced. “I helped Rachele out during her recovery, and afterwards I realised that she was the love of my life. It was hard for her to accept that she had a serious drug problem at the beginning. I really admire her. I decided to change my life for her, just as she did with her previous life. Then I came back to Tursenia to take over my father’s practice, which is nearby. We’d be really happy if it were not for Piero’s tragic death.”
Conforti lowered his head, looking restrainedly dejected and sad.
“Thanks to Simone I overcame my addiction,” Rachele quietly confessed, her hands resting on her lap. “I wasted so many years chasing after Dexedrine and what I thought was… feeling alive. I was left without money and dignity, but I moved on. Grandma and my poor father have never forgiven me for my mistakes. It’s been tough living with the constant criticism of my close relatives. Once I’d recovered I decided to accept Simone’s marriage proposal right away.” She exhaled, as if she had thrown a heavy weight from her shoulders.
“What a beautiful fairy tale,” Chase thought. The story of a weak girl rescued by a Prince Charming who gives up his brilliant medical career to start a new life with her in the place they both come from. Too easy, especially if Weak Girl has such a conflicting relationship with her closest family members and Prince Charming has a profitable kingdom to rule over, built by his father. A wonderful legacy to manage, and apparently not the only one, as Agata’s inheritance sounded to be quite large.
Chase was sitting down on a chair when he moved his leg and felt like he was squashing something.
“That is where the sugared almonds have gone! Apologies for your trousers.” Rachele came over to Chase, inspected his chair and collected two chocolate sugared almond samples stuck to his trousers. Chase smiled and told her that really, it was ok, as she looked quite embarrassed about it. He blessed the moment he’d decided to not wear his favourite trousers today and went on with his questions.
“And you, Signorina, do you bear a grudge against your family, since they’re not very nice to you?” Chase’s eyes were fastened on that withered face, certainly not one of a happy bride. Rachele reached her seat again and looked really astonished by Chase’s question.
“Oh, I’d never do that! I made them suffer too much in the past. I’ve simply reaped what I have sown. I used to fight with my father a lot because he saw me not only as a drunk junkie, but also as a conspirator.”
“A conspirator?” Angelo said with surprise. Rachele raised her eyebrows, like she was seeking the understanding of her audience.
“Yes. I always defended Grandma when Dad lobbied her; he wanted her to allocate my share of her inheritance to him to build a shelter for stray dogs. He didn’t care that I wasn’t a minor anymore, he claimed he needed to manage my inheritance since I was irresponsible. When he realised that Grandma was going to put everything in Ramona’s name, he went berserk and took it out on me. He said that I’d known about this from the beginning and that I agreed with it, but it’s not true, I swear, I didn’t know anything.”
“She's such a broken record,” Angelo whispered to Chase. “She keeps repeating these phrases as if she’s learnt them off by heart.”
While Rachele was speaking, Simone began to fidget where he was standing at the window, looking really annoyed at that story.
“And you, Signor Conforti, do you have anything to add?” Angelo said.
“What might I add, sir? I’ve never approved the way Piero and Agata coped with Rachele’s issues. People make mistakes, but can also redeem themselves and change prof
oundly. Anyway, I feel upset and shocked by the death of my future father-in-law.”
Simone came closer to Rachele and took her hand. His glance to her was full of sympathy.
“Agata never stops saying that there’s a murderer among us, and I'm pretty sure she’ll be continuing her crazy crusade against Rachele, like she’s a demon. I tell you, Inspector, I’m not going to stand that anymore. We have an alibi; we were at the printers, as you know.”
It seemed to Chase that every word Doctor Conforti said was well considered and measured.
“What do you mean by her crazy crusade?” Chase asked.
Conforti took a seat at the table as well and stacked some of the things scattered on it to one side.
“I mean that ever since I met Rachele in San Patrignano, she’s told me about the hatred her grandmother harbours towards her. Agata thinks that Rachele’s drug addiction killed her mother first and then has driven her father mad. That is silly and illogical, as I’m sure you can understand.”
Simone didn’t reveal any sign of uncertainty. Indeed, his body language showed his deep, instinctive protectiveness of the fragile girl sitting next to him.
Chase changed target and turned to Rachele.
“Signorina Rachele, I had reason to believe that only your father was aware of the impending change of your grandmother’s will. How come that you know about it too?”
If she was really a weak woman, she would soon show it. It would took just a little pressure on her, and Chase knew what he was about.
“I… I overheard. I heard them arguing one day, so I began listening to them,” Rachele admitted, betraying a hint of embarrassment and looking up at the ceiling.
“Arguing about what?” Chase went on.
“About my grandmother changing her will. My father was out of his mind. He started saying to her that nobody deserved that money, especially not the maid, Ramona. He yelled that Ramona was just a gatta morta, so instead of giving money to her, it would be better to give it to Tursenian dogs.”
Chase frowned at Angelo, who promptly enlightened his friend.
“Gatta morta is like playing dumb.”
“It’s when a woman is apparently calm, quiet and very shy but in fact she ends up having things arranged exactly as she wants,” Doctor Conforti added.
“Gatta is the feminine of cat, that’s my father’s pun. But he was serious, to be honest,” Rachele ended.
“Oh, I get it now,” apologised Chase. It seemed that he was helped with his Italian by all the present company, murder suspects included. He tried not to suffer from wounded pride and went on with his next question to Rachele.
“You’re not worried about the fate of your inheritance?”
Rachele smiled at her fiancé, revealing the girl she was before becoming addicted to drugs.
“I don’t care about the money. Money can’t ever buy the sort of happiness I have now with Simone.”
“And what about your aunt, uncle and cousins? You never mentioned them,” Angelo wondered.
“Because they’ve nothing to do with it,” she immediately replied. “I owe everything to them. They’ve always stood up for me and believed in me. Aunt Gloria played my mother’s role when she passed away, while Uncle Marco took me to San Patrignano when Dad and Grandma thought my destiny would be to take an overdose and drown in the bath, sooner or later. I haven’t been a good example for my cousins, but they’ve always shown me love and forgiveness. They live ten minutes’ drive from here, luckily. I don’t know how I’d have ever got through without them.”
Simone’s horse-like muzzle twisted slightly, but he forced himself to just nod to her, nothing more.
Chapter 6
“So you’ve found the murder weapon, ragazzi? You’re such an unbeatable team,” Fortarrigo Lorenzetti said, handing another beer to Angelo and Chase.
They couldn’t say no to Fortarrigo; Chase’s neighbour could be a pain in the neck sometimes, but he was a good man after all. He truly liked Chase, and he often treated him with a fraternal sense of protection, as if Chase would easily fall prey to the scams and fraud typical of the “Italian spirit”, to quote Fortarrigo himself.
Fortarrigo was a man of medium height, sturdy enough to hide his love handles and belly fat, and with a pronounced forehead and tight and inexpressive eyes. He was a spontaneous and silly guy, generous and affectionate at the same time.
Fortarrigo had spotted Chase and Angelo exchanging a few words of greeting near his home that afternoon. He didn’t waste time and dragged them to his house for a drink.
Outside in his tiny garden with the comfy lawn swing (it was cold, but not enough to keep a Londoner and a smoker indoors), Angelo and Chase perhaps let themselves give away too much confidential information about the Galli case. Fortarrigo was the kind of fellow who used to tell tall tales, but luckily he was not a gossipmonger. What he was told would remain between the leaves of the oleanders planted by his new bride. Chase was pretty sure that the ‘private and confidential’ message had registered in Fortarrigo’s little forty-year-old brain, still stuck at the adolescent stage.
“You said it, bello. We found the murder weapon,” Angelo confirmed.
For once in a lifetime, the clumsiness of the police had proved valuable. A piece of wood was missing from the base of the glass sphere, and the wood type matched the sample found in Piero’s hair.
The sphere must have been used to strike Galli; the blood had been cleaned from it before it was put back in its place.
“The question is, who used that sphere to kill him? It must have been on impulse,” Chase said.
“Well, Cangi was telling me that he’s working on something, and he says ‘you will never believe it’,” Angelo added, fumbling with his brand new smartphone, the latest model released in the market.
“I’m so curious, guys!” Fortarrigo exclaimed, then started explaining his point of view about the case. He felt like a detective himself from being in their company.
“I truly believe the culprit is one of the six persons you’ve questioned,” he proclaimed. Angelo nodded at Captain Obvious.
“It seems that the murderer is quite familiar with the house, and Galli trusted him. It remains to be seen if the chandelier was a red herring or if it’s something we have not yet taken into consideration properly.”
As the talked, Carlotta, Fortarrigo’s wife, came down to the garden. She looked pretty nervous and moved jerkily, making her long, light brown hair swing here and there. Chase did not understand how a guy like Fortarrigo, who was always cheerful and generous, could have married someone like Carlotta, who was deeply selfish and never satisfied. Her morbid jealousy had separated many friends from Fortarrigo; last but not least even Giulia, the girl who lived one floor above Chase’s place. Even though she was a good friend of Fortarrigo, Giulia would definitely have never fallen in love with him. However, Carlotta was so jealous of Giulia and Fortarrigo’s friendship that she forbade her husband to have anything more to do with her.
Carlotta burst into the garden and started inspecting the few pieces of furniture, her aquiline nose turned up, apparently seeking something.
“Amore, do you know where my oil paintbrushes are? I can’t find them anywhere, I bet you’ve hidden them somewhere!” she said, annoyed.
“Tesoro, they’re where they’ve always been, in the grey cupboard along the corridor,” Fortarrigo quietly replied.
A few moments later, her voice thundered out from the corridor, “But I cannot find them!”
Fortarrigo disappeared and Angelo and Chase heard only the noise of an opening cupboard door. Then he came back in the garden, showing them an ironic sneer.
“Wish you were like my aunt Fiamma, mia cara: she always knew where everything was, in every house she was familiar with. Even in mine. I bet aunt Fiamma would have known about your paintbrushes,” Fortarrigo called to his wife.
Carlotta whined something in the distance, probably because she did not like being compared t
o zia Fiamma.
Fortarrigo got back to talking about Galli’s murder again, as if no one had ever interrupted them.
“Do you think the murderer is a male? You said that Piero could trust him, not her,” he said to Angelo, who had only just realised what he had said.
“It’s a possibility. I mean, that sphere is quite heavy. Marco Galli seems like a decent person, while Doctor Conforti doesn’t seem to tolerate his fiancé’s family too well, maybe because of her father and grandmother’s harsh behaviour toward her,” Angelo replied after a sip of beer.
“In defence of Doctor Conforti, let’s say that he’s a man of science. If he wanted to kill Mr Galli he could have used poison or an injection of something. Potassium for example. Nothing too dramatic, you know,” Chase added.
However, while saying it he was not sure at all: Conforti’s nervousness could have hidden something. Maybe he was covering up for Rachele or the sympathetic Gloria. Even the maid, Ramona, was a tricky unknown. She had many reasons for shutting Piero’s rude mouth and pocketing Signora Galli’s money.
“I don’t think the murderer is a man,” Fortarrigo declared self-importantly while opening three more beers. “It’s a complicated crime and women are expert at making things complicated. They’re not very rational.”
He inclined his head towards the inside of the house, where Carlotta was still muttering.
Back home, Chase didn’t stop thinking about the investigation, probably just like Angelo. Doing something physical often helped him to relax and let his thoughts flow. Torn between yoga and strength-training exercises, he decided that he would follow his mood. He laid out the mat and the dumbbells.
Fortarrigo could have been right in his candid attempt to be accepted into ‘The Sherlock Holmes Club’. Since the tool used to cut off the chandelier had still not been found (and it could be anywhere), the murderer knew exactly where things were placed in the house. The killer had thrown the sphere at Piero Galli first, then had removed the traces of blood and put the glass ball back in its place, making sure that the side of the base, where the splinter of wood was missing, was turned to the wall to hide it. The photos shot at the crime scene were proof of that.
Into the Killer Sphere Page 4