A Villa in Sicily: Capers and a Calamity

by Fiona Grace

  “Doctor Smart. Yes?”

  “I’m Officer Lorenzo. Uh. Hello.”

  “Hi.”

  “Bear with me, I’m—uh—this is obviously a new thing for us. You’re the American who found the body?” she asked, paging through a notebook for a blank page. “Are you here on vacation?”

  Audrey shook her head. “I’m here for work. I was called in by the town council to work on the stray problem. I’m a veterinarian. Same as Dr. Mauro.”

  The woman’s eyes lit up. “Ah. That’s not good, huh?”

  Audrey shrugged. “It’s not?”

  The woman smiled. “Not today, I don’t think. So you knew the deceased? You were friends? Coworkers?”

  “No, we weren’t friends. We weren’t even coworkers. I only got to the island a day ago. I’d heard about him, of course. And I’d only met him once, earlier today.”

  “And why were you here at the vet center? After it was closed?”

  Audrey yawned. “I just came by to . . .” Audrey stopped when she saw what the officer was holding, in a plastic evidence bag. “What is that?”

  Officer Lorenzo held it up into the light of the streetlight. “Perhaps you can tell us. You didn’t notice it near the body when you found it?”

  She shook her head and looked closer. In addition to a syringe, there was also an empty bottle of pentobarbital.

  It was a substance she knew very well, because it was used in the euthanasia of pets. She gulped.

  The stone planter under her bottom suddenly felt uncomfortable. Audrey shifted.

  “You do know what this is?” the officer prodded.

  There was no use lying. Any veterinarian knew pentobarbital. “Of course. Are you saying that . . . he was injected with that?”

  She nodded. “Appears so. What is it?”

  “It’s lethal, to animals, and to humans, in the right dose. It’s used to put down animals. I don’t understand. Was it a suicide?”

  “Possibly. Or murder,” she said, eyeing Audrey very closely. “We haven’t ruled that out. We don’t get murders at all in this town. Not at all. It’s strange; you’ve only been here a few days and already you’ve found the first murder in Lipari in over fifty years.”

  “Or . . . suicide,” she added. “Right?”

  The officer ignored her. “No sign of struggle, so we think that it’s someone who he knew.”

  “He knows himself,” Audrey offered.

  Ignoring her again, the officer said, “Not to mention that whoever murdered him clearly knew how to use pentobarbital, the correct dosage, where to administer it . . .”

  “Well, I’m sure Dr. Mauro knows all that information fairly well . . .” she said weakly, knowing exactly what she was getting at. Again, she shifted, the familiar feelings settling over her as she avoided the officer’s damning gaze.

  Audrey was a suspect. Maybe their main suspect.

  For a place that hadn’t had a murder in fifty years, they were awfully quick to classify this as a homicide.

  Officer Lorenzo went through her notes, looking a little confused. “Could you tell me . . . you said you met the doctor before?”

  She nodded, wincing a little when she thought of what had happened between them. But there was no sense in trying to hide it. They’d had a full audience. It would come out eventually.

  “Well, we’d had a bit of an altercation earlier in the day,” she explained, only realizing when the words were out how bad it was. Maybe with her fighting words, she’d driven him to suicide? She didn’t murder him, that much she knew. But he was an arrogant jerk. He probably had tons of enemies. “But I came here to offer an olive branch and see if there was some way we could clear the air.”

  “You did, hmm,” the woman said, sitting down beside her, as if she was ready to pounce and pin her quarry. “What was your altercation about?”

  Of course she’d narrow in on that. Like I’d be so upset at him calling me a “little girl” that I’d murder him. Ridiculous.

  “It was all a misunderstanding, you see. I think he thought I was looking to cut in on his business, which wasn’t the case,” Audrey explained. “Like I said, the council hired me to work on the stray problem. I’m only here temporarily to get that under control. I was hoping to work with him, offer him recommendations, but he didn’t want to hear them. I came back here, hoping to get him to listen to reason.”

  “And he wouldn’t, and so you . . .”

  “No!” she burst out. Holy cow, are they ever going to stop? “I never even talked to him! The last time I saw him alive was in that field across the street. When I found him in his office, he was already dead. It looked like he’d been dead a few hours.”

  “A few hours?” Now the officer tilted her head. “How did you know that?”

  Audrey said, “Well, I am a doctor, Officer. And the mortises were already well on their way.”

  The officer hesitated. “The mortises?”

  Audrey counted on her finger. “One, the body was cold. Yes, I touched it, to confirm he was dead. Two, rigor mortis had set in. I couldn’t close his eyelids. I didn’t look for livor mortis but those two facts alone signal he’d been dead more than two hours. You don’t need a coroner for that.”

  The woman stared at her, dumbfounded. Yes, these people have never worked a murder before.

  Finally, Officer Lorenzo said, “Nevertheless, the coroner is on his way.”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it,” Audrey said, hugging herself. As the night wore on, it’d begun to get cold. “But I’ll have you know that I spent the last three hours up at the animal shelter, and I have two witnesses who were with me the whole time, who can corroborate that fact.”

  Lorenzo wrote something down. “I’ll need their information.”

  “Sure. It’s Vito and Sabina. They’re at the shelter at the top of the hill—I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s the biggest one in the town.”

  “Hmm. And before then?”

  “Before then? I was—” She stopped. She’d gone out after lunch to get some air, and ended up spending a few hours tracking down cats. “I was collecting strays, out near the beach.”

  “Can anyone confirm that?”

  “No . . .” she said, a familiar feeling gripping her throat. She hadn’t seen a soul. She looked down at her scratched hands and added weakly, “But I got these scratches from one of them. I caught four of them. I can show you?”

  The officer held up a hand. “And you’re staying where?”

  “At the Hotel Lipari.”

  “You’ll have to stay here, Miss Smart, in case we need you for anything else. You understand, right?”

  She didn’t feel like correcting her to Doctor again, so she nodded.

  Officer Lorenzo gave her a business card. “If you think of anything, please give me a call. All right?”

  “Sure.” She’d been through this drill before. Four victims. This was the fourth dead body she’d found in Italy, in as many months. Had to be some kind of record. Or the result of really bad luck. “Of course. If there is anything you need, I am happy to help.”

  The officer nodded and headed back inside. Audrey forgot to ask if she was dismissed. And she so desperately wanted to go back to her hotel, take a bath, and rest. The two other officers were excitedly nudging one another and giggling. Audrey couldn’t shake the feeling that they were watching this more like it was an episode of CSI than an actual murder investigation.

  She shivered as the EMTs came out with the stretcher, the body covered in a white sheet. Even that sight didn’t strike the officers with the appropriate amount of somberness. They watched the body as it was loaded into the back of the ambulance, then one whispered something to the other, and they both burst out laughing.

  Wait . . . were they flirting? A man had just been murdered, and they were falling in love?

  Great. Inexperienced officers who weren’t totally focused on the case. How many ways could they screw this inv
estigation up?

  She didn’t want to find out. She stood up. “Excuse me, Officer. Am I excused to leave?”

  He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. Even though he was the first one on the scene. Even though she’d been the one to show him the body. He wrinkled his nose and said, “Chi sei?” Who are you?

  Audrey rolled her eyes. This was going to be bad. If she had to wait for them to solve this, she might never get back to her clinic in Mussomeli.

  She’d have to start looking for answers herself.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Audrey was absolutely numb by the time she got back to the Hotel Lipari at nearly eleven in the evening. It was utterly dark on the street, but the red and blue lights from the police cars seemed to reflect off every surface in the neighborhood, and several people were standing outside their homes, trying to see what had happened.

  She trudged through the door and climbed the stairs, trying to avoid anyone who might have seen her at the scene and would ask her what had happened. Right then, she didn’t even want a bath. She was too tired to think of anything but bed.

  When she opened the door, her phone buzzed with a message. It was from Brina, asking how her trip was going and showing her a picture of a new dish she’d made for dinner. Audrey hadn’t eaten much all day, but right then, she didn’t think she had the energy to get her mouth to chew.

  She climbed into bed, still wearing that day’s clothes, and pulled the covers up to her chin, expecting that sleep would grab her the second her head hit the pillow.

  The air conditioning thrummed, filling the room with cool, pleasant air. Outside, the distant horns of ships in the harbor sounded. After about ten minutes of lying there, she opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling.

  She was wide awake.

  Of course.

  Dr. Mauro was dead. And once again, she’d found the body. Once again, she was a suspect. How did she always get herself into these things?

  But now, things were different. Now, she felt like she had more experience than the officers in charge of handling the case. Officer Lorenzo seemed nice enough, but she didn’t have the know-how. And those two lovebirds weren’t going to be any help.

  They should check with his past clients. He has a lot of misdiagnoses, she thought. Probably a lot of unhappy customers.

  They should. But would they?

  That was the question. They’d think of that, right? Maybe. Hopefully, they would, instead of focusing all their efforts on Audrey.

  She sat up in bed and turned on the light. She grabbed her purse from the night table and found the business card. She dialed the number, waiting for an answer. A sleepy voice suddenly answered. “Lorenzo.”

  “Hi. This is Audrey Smart, the doctor who found Dr. Mauro’s body. I’m sorry to bother you so late but I had an idea I wanted to run past you.”

  “Miss Smart, go on.”

  “Well, a couple of animals I saw had recently been seen by Dr. Mauro. And there is talk that he may have accidentally misdiagnosed some of them. So I was thinking—”

  “Yes, yes. We’re already doing that.”

  Audrey paused. “Are you? Because—”

  “We appreciate your help, but please let us do the investigating. The last thing we need is a suspect muddling up the investigation, and—”

  “But I’m trying to tell you that—”

  “I know very well what you’re up to. You’re trying to clear your name.”

  “No. I—”

  “Why can’t you sleep? Do you have a guilty conscience?”

  Audrey’s jaw dropped. The nerve of this lady. “No! Of course no. I’m just trying to—”

  “Miss Smart. Do you have any additional evidence or something else you remembered from the scene?”

  “No, I was just—”

  “Then I thank you for your time. But we’ll be in touch if we need you.”

  Click.

  Okay, that was rather rude. Audrey sat up in bed, listening to the dead air. Did they really have it under control? Audrey didn’t want to doubt. Dr. Mauro had doubted her abilities, based solely on her appearance. She didn’t want to cast the same doubt on this police force for theirs.

  But she couldn’t help it. Especially knowing that the longer they took, the longer she’d be stuck on the island. If she couldn’t get back, would she lose her clinic?

  The bottom line was, she didn’t trust the police force to pull out all the stops to find the killer as quickly as possible. Only Audrey would be able to do that.

  *

  That morning, Audrey felt like the dead.

  If only she’d slept like it.

  Instead, as exhausted as she’d been, she hadn’t slept at all. Now she was going on two nights with barely any sleep.

  She crawled out of bed and took a shower, hoping it would help revive her. Then she ran the coffee maker and got dressed, hoping coffee would do the trick. But by the time she was ready to set out, she was still so tired, she could barely see.

  She’d promised Vito and Sabina she’d be at the shelter early that morning, but the murder hung too heavily on her mind. She knew she’d never be able to get the day’s work done with the strays unless she did a little bit of digging into Dr. Mauro’s murder first.

  And that meant checking in with some of Dr. Mauro’s past patients.

  Short of breaking into his center, which she really didn’t want to do, she decided her best bet was to talk to Fabio the Mastiff’s owner, Marco. He’d mentioned something about Dr. Mauro not being the greatest of vets. Maybe he had some ideas.

  She met Nick outside, where he’d likely been curled up in an alley somewhere. He looked well-rested, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. If only she could say the same for herself. “Hi, bub.” She yawned again.

  He tilted his head as if to say, And now what is wrong with you?

  “So much,” she muttered, shivering as the early morning cool breeze off the sea hit her arms. “Why is it that you don’t ever stop me from putting my foot in it, huh, Nick?”

  He simply scampered ahead of her.

  It was a good thing that Marco’s house was right down the street, because Audrey was so tired, her feet felt like cinderblocks as she lifted them, plodding along toward his place. When she got to the front stoop, she leaned against the side of the building and knocked lethargically.

  No answer.

  Audrey’s shoulders slumped. She looked back at the hotel, which seemed to be a million miles away, even though it was right on the corner. Everything around her looked like a suitable bed. Funny how when she’d had the opportunity to, she hadn’t been able to sleep a wink. Now, her eyelids sagged. She just wanted to lie down and take a little nap . . .

  HONK!

  She was startled upright by the sound of Vito’s car, pulling up to the curb beside her. He rolled down the window and grinned at her. “Doing a follow-up?”

  “No, I uh—”

  “I’ve got news for you,” he said, smiling smugly. “You will not believe it.”

  She only hesitated a second. It wasn’t a bed, but it was close enough, and a better option than collapsing on the sidewalk, which was very possible, with the way she was feeling. I’ve got news, too, she thought as she sunk into the seat. Even though the vinyl was warm and sticky, it felt good. She yawned and closed her eyes, and sleep nearly took her right then.

  Vito took off, nearly giving her whiplash. “So, how was your night? You didn’t sleep good?”

  She yawned again. It was like every time she opened her mouth, a yawn came out. She couldn’t control it. “I have had better nights. You said you had news.”

  “Yeah, I do. Get this. You know Dr. Mauro?”

  She turned to look at him, now more alert. News certainly traveled fast in small towns. Did everyone know? “Let me guess. He’s dead.”

  Vito’s mouth hung open. “So you heard?”

  “I was there.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?” He wiped his hair fro
m his eyes and looked at her. His expression was more like awe than fear. “You’re like a witness? How’d that happen?”

  “I’m not a witness. I just found the body.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Remember that altercation I had with him? Well, after you dropped me off at the hotel, I decided to go to his office and clear the air with him. And I found him in the exam room. Dead.”

  Now Vito looked like he’d won the lottery. “No kidding. Holy cow. What happened? Was there a lot of blood? I heard they think there was foul play involved.”

  “The police do, yes. And maybe there is. I suggested suicide, because no, there wasn’t a lot of blood. He was injected with pentobarbital.”

  “You mean the euthanasia medication?”

  She nodded. “Which he obviously had on hand. But for some reason, the police don’t believe that. Even though they told me there’s never been another murder here in fifty years, they seem to think it’s a murder.”

  “Holy freaking cow,” he said again. “No wonder you didn’t sleep.”

  “Right. So I’m sorry if I’m not thinking too much about the clinic right now,” she said. “The police seem a little uneducated about these things, and they’re actually thinking I might have committed the murder.”

  “You? No way! Besides, you were with me yesterday.”

  Audrey appreciated the vote of confidence, but she didn’t think his opinion would carry weight with the police. She said, “They seem to think I could’ve done it while I was off collecting strays after lunch. Remember? I was alone.”

  “Still. You? How could they think that?”

  “And I have a little experience in amateur sleuthing, so—”

  “You do?” He gave her a doubtful look.

  “Yeah, I actually . . . solved a couple of murders in Mussomeli.” When he started to look impressed, she added, “It was really no big deal.”

  “On top of saving strays, one animal at a time? What other superpowers do you have?”

  Audrey shook her head. “Like I said. It was not a big deal. But I’m afraid the police aren’t listening to me. I tried to tell them that for possible suspects, they should be looking into the misdiagnoses that I’d heard about, but they pretty much stonewalled me and told me they didn’t want my help. Guess it makes sense that they wouldn’t want my help, since they think I’m some dastardly murderer.” She ended the sentence with a foreboding voice and wiggled her fingers together like an evil genius.