by Stuart Woods
“Who are these people?” he asked Dolce.
“Distant relatives and business acquaintances,” she replied tersely.
Stone could not see any family resemblance. “Who are these people?” he asked Dino, when he had a chance.
“I can’t prove it,” Dino said, “but my guess is you’d have a real problem placing a bet, buying a whore, or getting a fix anywhere in Italy right now.”
“Come on, Dino.”
“You’ll notice that, although there’s a band and lots of food, there’s no photographer?”
Stone looked around and couldn’t see a camera in anybody’s hands.
“My guess is, the wedding pictures will be taken Monday, at the church, and that none of these people will be there, which is okay with me. I certainly don’t want to be photographed with any of them.”
It was late afternoon before they returned to the palazzo. Stone was told to be downstairs at eight for cocktails, then he was allowed to stagger to his room, strip, and fall facedown on the bed, until he was shaken awake by a servant and told to dress. He’d had the bad dream again, but he still couldn’t remember it.
Aunt Rosaria had prepared what Stone assumed was their wedding dinner. They ate sumptuously, then adjourned early, everyone being tired from the day’s festivities.
“Sleep as late as you like,” Eduardo said to the group. “Mass is at eleven tomorrow morning.”
Each retired to his own room. Stone, having had a three-hour nap, was not yet sleepy; he changed into a sweater and decided to go for a walk.
He was almost immediately lost. There was a dearth of signs pointing to anywhere, except St. Mark’s Square, and he didn’t want to go there. Instead, he just wandered.
An hour later, he found himself approaching what he recognized from photographs as the Rialto Bridge. As he climbed its arc, a woman’s head appeared from the opposite direction, rising as she walked backward toward him, apparently talking to someone following her. Immediately, Stone knew her.
The shining hair, the slim figure, the elegant clothes, the shape of her calves. It was Arrington. His heart did strange things in his chest, and he was suddenly overcome with the unexpected thrill of seeing her. Then he remembered that she was now Mrs. Vance Calder, of Los Angeles, Malibu, and Palm Springs, that she had borne Vance’s child, and that he had sworn her off for life.
Stone was struck heavily by the fact that his reaction to seeing her was not appropriate for a man who would be married on the morrow, and he was suddenly flooded with what had been pent-up doubts about marrying Dolce. In a second, every reservation he had ever had about marriage, in general, and Dolce, in particular, swept over him, filling him with a sickening panic.
On Arrington came, still walking backward, talking and laughing with someone who was still climbing the other side of the bridge, probably Vance Calder. Stone recovered quickly enough to place himself in her path, so that she would bump into him. She would be surprised, they would laugh, Vance would greet him warmly, and they would congratulate him, on hearing of his plans.
She ran into him harder than he had anticipated, jarring them both. Then she turned, and she wasn’t Arrington. She was American, younger, not as beautiful; the man following her up the bridge was young, too, and beefy.
“I’m awfully sorry,” Stone said to her.
Her young man arrived. “You did that on purpose.”
“I apologize,” Stone said. “I thought the lady was someone I knew.”
“Yeah, sure,” the young man said, advancing toward Stone.
“Don’t,” the girl said, grabbing at his arm. “He apologized; let it go.”
The man hesitated, then turned and followed the woman down the bridge.
Stone was embarrassed, but more important, he found himself depressed that the woman had not been Arrington. He stood at the top of the bridge, leaning against the stone railing, looking down the canal, wondering if the universe had just sent him a message.
Five
STONE WAS HAVING THE UNPLEASANT DREAM AGAIN, AND in it, someone was knocking loudly on a door. Then someone was shaking him, and he woke up this time, remembering that Arrington had been in the dream.
A servant was bending over him. “Signore Bianchi asks that you come to the library at once,” the man said. “It is not necessary to dress.”
“All right,” Stone replied sleepily. He looked at his bedside clock and saw that it was shortly before eight A.M. He found a large terry robe in the wardrobe, put it on over his bedclothes, found his slippers, and, smoothing down his hair, hurried to the central hall, where the servant directed him to the library, a room he had not yet seen.
It was a large room, the walls of which were lined from top to bottom with leather-bound volumes, leaving room for only a few pictures. Stone thought he recognized a Turner oil of the Grand Canal. Eduardo, the cardinal, and Dino, all in dressing gowns or robes, stood before the fireplace.
“Good morning,” Stone said. “Is something wrong?”
None of the men seemed to want to speak first. Finally, Eduardo spoke. “We have had some bad news from the States.” He turned to his son-in-law. “Dino?”
Dino flinched as if he had been struck, then he began. “My office called a few minutes ago: Rick Grant from the LAPD called and left a message.”
Stone knew Rick Grant; he was a detective assigned to the office of the chief of police of Los Angeles, who had been helpful to him on an earlier visit to California. “What is it?”
Dino took a deep breath. “Vance Calder is dead.”
“I am very upset about this,” Eduardo said. “Vance was my friend, too.”
Stone knew that Eduardo was a stockholder, with Vance, in Centurion Studios and had been an investor in some of Vance’s films. “How?” he asked Dino.
“He was shot. Last night, in his home.”
“Murdered?”
“Yes; shot once in the head.”
“Is Arrington all right?” He steeled himself for the answer.
“Yes; she’s in a local hospital.”
“Was she hurt?”
“No.”
“Who shot Vance?”
“That’s undetermined,” Dino said. “But when I got back to Rick, he told me he thinks Arrington might be a suspect.”
Stone found a sofa and sat down. “Jesus Christ,” he said, then remembered in whose company he was. “Forgive me, Your Eminence.”
The cardinal nodded soberly.
“I wouldn’t put too much stock in that theory,” Dino said. “You and I both know that, in cases like this, the spouse is always a suspect until cleared.”
Stone nodded. He was trying to think what to do next but not getting anywhere.
The cardinal came and sat down beside him. “Stone,” he said, putting a fatherly hand on his shoulder, “I am aware of your previous relationship with Arrington. Eduardo and I have discussed this at some length, and we agree that it would be extremely unwise to go forward with the wedding until this . . . situation has been, in some way, resolved.”
Stone looked at the man but said nothing.
Eduardo came and stood next to Stone. “This is very complicated,” he said. “Both Dolce and I are friends of Vance’s, and you, of course, were very close to Arrington. There will be many emotions at work for a while, so many and so confused that to proceed with the marriage at this time would be folly.”
“Does Dolce know about this?”
Eduardo shook his head. “I am going to go and wake her now and tell her; this is my duty, not yours.”
“I will come, too,” the cardinal said. “She may need me.”
Stone nodded. “All right. Tell her we’ll talk the minute she’s ready.”
Eduardo and the cardinal left the room.
“What haven’t you told me?” Stone asked Dino.
“Rick says Arrington hasn’t made any kind of statement yet. She apparently can’t remember what happened. They’ve put her under sedation in a private cli
nic, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Before she went under, she was asking for you; she said she wouldn’t talk to anybody but you.”
“I’ll have to call her,” Stone said.
“I told you, she’s under sedation, and Rick didn’t know the name of the place where they’d taken her.”
“How about Peter? Where is he?”
“The servants are taking care of him; he has a nanny. Rick said his people had spoken to Arrington’s mother, and she’s on her way out there from Virginia.”
“That’s good.”
“Did Rick say anything else at all?”
“No. He was going to make some calls, and he said he’d get back to me the minute he found out anything more.”
Stone walked to the windows and looked out into the lovely garden. “Dino,” he said, “did Arrington know that Dolce and I were being married this weekend?”
“I have no idea. Did you tell her?”
Stone shook his head. “I haven’t talked with her since last summer; Dolce and I had dinner with them in Connecticut, at their place in Roxbury. It’s only a few miles from my new place in Washington.”
“And how did that go?”
“Not well. Dolce was very catty, obviously jealous. The next morning, Arrington showed up at my cottage and, well, sort of threw herself at me.”
“And how did you handle that?” Dino asked.
“I managed to keep her pretty much at arm’s length—though, God knows, that wasn’t what I wanted. I told her I wouldn’t do anything to harm her marriage, and that was pretty much that. A couple of minutes after she left, Vance showed up—I think he must have been following her. He asked if he had anything to worry about from me, and I told him he didn’t. He thanked me and left. That was the last time I saw either of them.”
“Sounds as though you handled the situation about as well as it could be handled.”
“God, I hope so; I hope none of this has anything to do with Arrington and me.”
“I hope so, too,” Dino said, “but I’m not going to count on it.”
“Come on, Dino, you don’t really think she . . .”
“I don’t know what to think,” Dino said.
Eduardo and the cardinal returned, and Dolce was with them, her face streaked with tears. She came and put her arms around Stone.
Stone had never seen her cry, and it hurt him. “I’m sorry about all this, Dolce,” he said to her.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You didn’t have any control over her.”
“Now, let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said. “We don’t know what happened yet.”
“All right, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“You’d better get ready to go, Stone,” Eduardo said.
“Go?”
“You’re going to Los Angeles, of course,” Eduardo said. “She asked for you, and she may not have anyone else.”
“Her mother is on the way.”
“Her mother can take care of the child, of course, but this is going to be a very difficult situation, given Vance’s fame and position in the film community.”
“Go, Stone,” Dolce said. “We can’t have this hanging over us; go and do what you can, then come back to me.”
“Come with me,” Stone said, wanting her protection from Arrington as much as her company.
“No, that wouldn’t do. You’re going to have to deal with Arrington on your own.”
“My friend’s jet is not available today,” Eduardo said, “but there’s a train at nine-thirty for Milano, and a one o’clock flight from there to Los Angeles. If you miss that, the trip will become much more complicated.”
Stone held Dolce away from him and looked into her face. “You’re sure about this?”
“I’m sure,” Dolce said. “I hate it, but it’s the only thing to be done; I know that.”
He hugged her again, then left and went to his room, where he found that a servant had already packed most of his things. Half an hour later, he stood on the palazzo’s jetty with Dino, Eduardo, the cardinal, and Dolce. He shook hands with Eduardo and Bellini. The cardinal gave him a card. “If I can ever be of service to you, please call me. Of course, I’ll make myself available for a service when this situation has been sorted out.”
“Thank you, Your Eminence,” Stone said. He turned to Dolce and kissed her silently, then motioned Dino into the launch. “Ride with me,” he said.
“Have you heard any more from Rick?” Stone asked as the launch pulled away from the jetty.
“No, but it’s the middle of the night in L.A. Where will you be staying?”
“At the Bel-Air Hotel. Oh, will you call and book me a room?”
“I’ll let Eduardo handle it; you’ll get a better room.”
A few minutes later they docked at the steps to the Venice train station. Eduardo’s butler met them there with Stone’s train and airplane tickets and took his bags. Dino walked him to the train.
“I wish you could come with me and help make some sense of this.”
Dino shook his head. “I’m due back in the office first thing Wednesday. Call me when you’ve got your feet on the ground, and I’ll help, if I can.”
The train was beginning to move, and Stone jumped on. He and Dino managed a handshake before the train pulled out of the station.
Stone found his compartment and sat down. Stress often made him drowsy, and he dozed off almost immediately.
Six
EVEN A FIRST-CLASS TRANSATLANTIC AIRLINE SEAT seemed oddly spartan after the pleasures of the Boeing Business Jet, but Stone managed to make himself comfortable. A flight attendant came around with papers; none of the English-language papers had the story yet, but he caught Vance’s name in the headlines of an Italian journal.
He managed to sleep some more and had a decent dinner, which, for him, was lunch, then the lights dimmed, and Vance Calder’s face appeared on the cabin’s movie screen. It was a report from CNN International and mentioned no more than the bare bones of the story, which Stone already knew. He’d have to wait until LAX for more news.
He thought about another flight, how if Arrington hadn’t missed it, things would have been very different. They had planned a winter sailing holiday on the island of St. Mark’s, in the Caribbean, and he had planned, once at sea, to ask her to marry him. She had called him at the airport as the flight was boarding and said she had just gotten out of an editorial meeting at The New Yorker, for which she sometimes wrote pieces. There was no way for her to make the plane, but she would be on the same flight the following day. The airplane had taken off in the first flurries of what would become a major blizzard in New York, and there was no flight the next day, or the day after that. Then he had a fax from her, saying The New Yorker wanted a profile of Vance Calder, who hadn’t given a magazine interview in twenty years. It was a huge opportunity for her, and she had begged to be allowed to miss their holiday. He had grudgingly agreed and had put the newly purchased engagement ring back into his suitcase, to await a return to New York.
Then he had been caught up in an extraordinary situation in St. Mark’s, had become involved in a murder trial, and by the time he was ready to return to the city, there was a fax from Arrington saying that, after a whirl-wind romance, she had married Vance Calder.
After that had come news of her pregnancy and her uncertainty about the identity of the father. The paternity test had come back in Vance’s favor, and that was that. Now Vance was dead, and Arrington had turned Stone’s life upside down once again.
Stone looked up at the cabin screen again. A film was starting, and it was Vance Calder’s latest and last. Stone watched it through, once again amazed at how the actor’s presence on screen held an audience, even himself, even now.
The time change was in Stone’s favor, and they reached LAX in the early evening. Stone stepped off the airplane and found Rick Grant waiting for him. The LAPD detective was in his fifties, graying, but trim-looki
ng. They greeted each other warmly.
“Give me your baggage claim checks,” Rick said, and Stone complied. He handed them to another man. “The Bel-Air?” he asked Stone.
“Yes.”
Rick guided Stone through a doorway, down a flight of stairs, and out onto the tarmac, where an unmarked police car was waiting. Rick drove. “You all right?” he asked.
“Well, it’s three o’clock in the morning where I just came from, but after some sleep I’ll be okay. How about you? How’s the job?”
“I made captain; that’s about it.”
“How’s Barbara?” Stone had introduced Rick to Barbara Tierney, who was now his wife.
“Extremely well; in fact, she’s pregnant.”
“At your age? You dog.”
“How about that? I thought I was all through with child rearing.”
“Bring me up to date on what happened, Rick, and don’t leave anything out.”
“The Brentwood station caught the case on Saturday evening, about seven P.M. Calder’s Filipino butler called it in. There was a patrol car there in three minutes, and the detectives were there two minutes after that. Calder’s body was lying in the central hallway of the house, facedown. He’d taken one bullet here,” he tapped his own head at the right rear, “from about three feet. He was still breathing when the patrol car got there, but dead when the detectives arrived.”
“The gun?”
“Nine-millimeter automatic; Calder owned one, and it hasn’t turned up, in spite of a very thorough search.”
“Where was Arrington when it happened?”
“In the bathtub, apparently. They were going out to dinner later. The butler heard the shot and sent the maid to find her. She was still in a robe when the detectives arrived. They noted the strong smell of perfume; there was a large bottle of Chanel No. 5 on her dressing table.”
“And that made them suspicious, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
“But how would Arrington know that perfume can remove the residue from the hands of someone who’s fired a gun?”