“That’d be wonderful!”
The contessa leaned over the counter to kiss Horace’s cheeks as she accepted her bouquet and, after asking how he was, she waved to Gina. “Come have lunch with Ivar, Raphielli, and me. We will take a table over at Caffè Florian, eh? Ippy will call both of you with the time.”
“I’d love to.” Gina was excited to do lunch with Raphielli.
With a nod and a wave, Juliette was out the door. Horace now turned his attention to Raphielli, who said, “I’m looking for a holiday bouquet. Something good-sized.”
Alphonso’s twin pointed at the large offerings in the refrigerated case.
Horace picked up a wide urn containing crimson alstroemeria, blood-red snapdragons, and little red roses springing from between white birch branches and evergreen boughs. “What about this?”
“Ooh! Lovely!” Raphielli said.
“I’ll have it delivered this morning. Just jot down where it’s going. And I’ll add this.” He inserted a little glass sleigh ornament then reached for a roll of his new hand-painted ribbon. “And this!”
Alphonso bent over the pad of paper and began writing.
The shop bell jangled once again, and a dashing wolf of a man in an immaculately tailored suit and overcoat walked in. “Buongiorno, everyone.” His accent was Sicilian. He looked at Raphielli and said, “I was just walking by when I saw you in here. I wanted to wish you good luck at the City Permit Office.”
She looked pleased. “Grazie, but it’s just a formality. Tosca’s gotten all my renovations green lit.”
He smiled at her, and Gina noticed a little dimple to the left of his full mouth. Then he gave the rest of them a subtle nod and waved before backing out the door to rejoin a young man outside.
Horace raised his brows and looked over his half glasses at Raphielli. “Excuse me? Did the Mafia just give you a Siciliano version of “toodle-oo?” He tossed his scarf over his shoulder and threw his hand up with theatrical mock outrage. Then he refocused on tying the ribbon around Raphielli’s arrangement.
That afternoon Raphielli sat at lunch with Juliette and Gina and tried to focus on the charming Ukrainian man sitting opposite her. He spoke passionately about the special skylights he could put in the sections of her palazzo that were being renovated.
Juliette was excited by the prospect. “Ivar, you have no idea how dark and gloomy it is inside the Scortini palazzo. Raphielli wants to make the place warm and inviting for her residents. If you could bring some light in, it would change the place completely.”
Raphielli nodded, but she felt unhinged. She kept reliving the conversation she’d had with Zelph outside the flower shop this morning while Alphonso was inside talking to Horace about the delivery details. Zelph had surprised her by asking Paloma to give them some privacy. He’d kept his voice very quiet and his tone was respectful, but his words had hit right her between the eyes.
“I can’t believe you, Raphielli,” he whispered while leaning over her. “I thought you were the kind of girl who might break my cousin’s heart, but here you’re gonna get him killed!”
“What do you mean?”
“I know what I just saw,” he said through tight lips. “Don’t lie to me. You’re two-timing Al with Petrosino. What’s happened to you? When did you become so fast and loose?”
She’d wanted to slap him, but he was just speaking the truth. She couldn’t meet his eyes and stared at the ground.
“You don’t gotta admit anything to me, but Alphonso is madly in love with you so he’s not seeing what’s right in front of his face. This isn’t a game! You need to figure out a way to keep him from falling off a boat with cement boots, and fast!”
“Gio wouldn’t…”
“Wake up!” he snapped. “Your secret boyfriend is the most vicious killer in Europe, and he doesn’t share. Sure as shit not his goomah.”
“I’m not a…”
Zelph’s big brown eyes searched her face. “Nah, I can see he’s in love, and his son looks at you like you belong to his pop.”
She came back to the present moment as Juliette and Ivar were exclaiming over a new recipe Yvania had sent from wherever she was hiding with Giselle and Markus.
“The complex flavor she packs into simple dishes is astonishing!” Juliette was saying. “I am making her lentils with bay and carrots tonight and simply cannot wait to experience it. Where does she think of these things? Muddling bay leaf into brown sugar?”
Raphielli rejoined the conversation. “I hear assurances from Giselle’s…well, now, my friends, Fauve and Carolette, that Giselle’s safe, but they won’t tell me anything. How are she and Markus doing? And Yvania, of course.”
Juliette reached over and patted her hand. “They are quite safe. Enjoying a holiday with a dear old friend.”
“But the attempts on her life have been such close calls, and Detective Lampani believes the French police should be trying to catch more hit men in France. How can you feel so confident?”
“Oh,” Ivar said with a little smile, “my wife is uniquely capable of guarding her, her unborn child, and even Markus if it comes to that.”
CHAPTER
7
On Christmas Eve, Luigi woke up and reached for his wife, but her side of the bed was empty. He searched for his phone on the nightstand, and it was missing as well.
“Gladys?” he called.
Momentarily she appeared in the bedroom doorway wearing a slip, one of his old cardigans as a robe, and holding a mascara wand in her hand. “I was trying to help you sleep in. I even took that damned phone of yours.”
“You shouldn’t do that. What if Laszlo called me in?”
She put her hand in the sweater pocket and produced his phone. “I’d have jumped on that bed and bounced you to your feet.”
“Come here and try it,” he laughed. Their mattress was old and the springs were out of control. He kept meaning to buy them a new one, but the prices were outrageous.
She joined him in bed for a quasi-dangerous quickie. It was like having sex on a trampoline.
Afterward, Gladys looked sated as she said, “How about I make you breakfast, and then we go buy each other presents? I’ve got my eye on something pretty.”
“Something tells me we’re going to Tommasi’s over on Murano.”
“Such a good detective,” she said with a laugh.
He didn’t want her to cook. He wanted his usual espresso and biscotti from the corner cafe. What he really longed for was a handful of Pocket Coffees. But come to think of it, he might find Pocket Coffees on the glass island, so he said, “Come on, I’ll take you to breakfast on our way to Murano.”
“No, let’s not go out for breakfast. We’re going out to dinner. I made reservations at Osteria Trefanti.”
“We can do both. Hey, how about this afternoon I take you to meet Benedetta.”
Her face lit up. “I’d like that! You talk about her so much, it’s like I know her. We can get her a Christmas present, too. Oh! I can change the reservation!” Then she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Right. Sorry, I keep forgetting she’s the missing girl.” She made air quotes with her fingers.
“Don’t forget.”
“You haven’t told me anything about her case, just that she’s missing from everyone but you and Raphielli Scortini. Ooh! Can I meet Raphielli, too?”
“You can if she’s at the shelter.”
His wife hummed happily as she spent the next half hour getting ready.
Venice looked like a white wonderland as they walked to the pier for vaporetto number 4.1. On the ride to the glass island, they sat close together keeping each other warm. Arriving on Murano, they bypassed tourist stores and went straight to Tommasi’s where the glass artist who owns the store knew Gladys by name. He helped them choose a heart-shaped pendant for Benedetta and a necklace made of multicolored beads for Gladys that she practically drooled over. She asked for them to be gift-wrapped so she could open her present over dinner at the restaurant
tonight. Luigi never could figure out her numerous silly quirks, and these constant little discoveries about his wife kept him deeply in love with her.
They’d just come out of the store and Gladys was in the mood for a snack, so she started in the direction of the little osteria that had the best bacalao crostini. Luigi was about to follow her when he saw Mateo and his shining bald head go past in a boat. Mateo didn’t see him—he was focused on the boat traffic—and had a little old lady with him.
Luigi snagged Gladys by the arm. “We have to follow that boat! Come on!”
He was grateful the sun had melted the recent ice as they sprinted to the transportation pier. He waved to the first acqua taxi in line and they jumped aboard. “Police! Follow that boat!” he yelled, pointing at Mateo. “The green cruiser with the white canopy! Don’t let him see us!”
The driver’s face came alight. “No worries.” He clamped his cigarette between yellow teeth as he reached for the rope tethering them to the pier. He gave it a flick like a lion tamer’s whip, making it soar through the air and snap back to form a pile in the back of the boat. Simultaneously, he throttled the boat’s engine into a moderate belching and they slid out into traffic.
They followed at a safe distance to Marco Polo Airport on the mainland and paused, bobbing behind a tour boat, while they watched Mateo dock and then help the old woman out of the boat. She was dressed in black, so she looked like every other conservative older Italian woman, and she was clutching an old-fashioned carpetbag.
“Driver, let me out at this pier and wait for me.” He turned to Gladys. “Stay here. This shouldn’t take long.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Nothing dangerous. I just have to see what he’s doing.”
“It looks like he’s taking his mother to the airport.”
“Maybe. We’ll see. I shook him up recently, and now he may be leaving the country.”
“That guy don’t got no luggage,” the driver interjected, obviously interested in their conversation as he tethered them to the pier. Luigi climbed out of the boat and trailed Mateo and the woman inside. He hid behind tourists and watched the pair go to the Alitalia counter. Luigi readied his phone, and when the woman turned around to check the clock, and he snapped a few full-frontal images of her.
Once the two moved off to the security checkpoint, Luigi approached the ticket agent and held up his badge. “The two people you just assisted, they’re persons of interest. What flight are they on?”
“It’s just the woman. She’s on the next flight to JFK number 1467, New York, then a connection on United to Portland, Maine flight 209.”
“What’s her name?”
The agent gave him a dubious look. “You don’t know your person of interest’s name?”
“That man is sneaking her out of the city, and I need to know why.”
“They didn’t talk in front of me. I can’t help you there.”
“What’s her name?”
“Nejla Brindoli.”
“Grazie, now how do I find out if she gets on the plane?”
She motioned for the next agent to take care of the people in line who were becoming impatient and turned her full attention to Lampani. “Her New York flight is boarding now, so I can call the gate to verify.”
“Okay.”
She picked up the phone and talked and talked. Finally, she hung up. “She boarded the plane.”
He hurried back to his waiting driver and Gladys. “Police headquarters at San Marco.”
Gladys glowered at him.
“It’ll only take me an hour. I need to do some quick computer work and upload some photos. How about you go get some lunch.”
She crossed her arms and jutted her chin.
“This is important.”
“So am I.”
“Right.”
“You’re supposed to be taking some Christmas time with me.”
“I am. How about you see if you can get your hair styled while you wait for me?”
She brightened. “Hey, that’ll be nice for our dinner tonight, and I might be meeting Raphielli Scortini.” She whipped out her phone to call her hairdresser.
Once at his desk, he uploaded the photos of Nejla Brindoli and went through the machinations of getting in touch with the TSA in New York and Portland. He sent them her picture and flight numbers and asked that an agent be assigned to verify that she got off those planes. Both entities sounded intrigued and promised to be at the gate of both disembarkations and call him with the particulars.
He printed out a map of the greater Portland area and looked at it. He wasn’t familiar with that part of the world, but there were so many islands it looked like il Veneto. Detectives walking past his desk glanced at what he was doing, so he slipped everything into his Salvio folder and turned his efforts to learning more about Nejla but came up with nothing.
Feeling restless, he pushed back from his computer, locked the Scortini and Benedetta files away in his drawer, and went to claim Gladys. Her hair looked so lovely she refused to wear her hat even though the temperature was dropping. She was swinging a new bag.
“What’s in there?”
“The softest stuffed cat for Benedetta. It’s sooo soft and squishy, I think she’ll like sleeping with it.”
When they arrived at Porto delle Donne, he greeted Azure, the lone-surviving original guard at the shelter. “Ciao, I’ve come to see my friend. This is my wife, Gladys.”
“Ciao, Luigi, Gladys. I’ll buzz Kate.”
A moment later, Kate poked her head out the front door. “The ladies are decorating the tree here up front. I’ll meet you around back at the kitchen door.”
On their way around the little pastel-colored building, he explained to Gladys that all of the resident women had been battered by men, and whenever possible they kept to a no-men-allowed policy.
“But you come and go all the time.”
“Kate makes sure the women are busy in other rooms, and Benedetta stays in a room behind the kitchen that they used to use for the nurse. The new nurse doesn’t sleep here.”
They entered through the kitchen where the cook was simmering an enormous pot of white bean and kale soup that smelled delicious. Kate shook Gladys’ hand and then went back to her office.
Luigi knocked on the door at the end of the hallway and it was opened immediately. Benedetta was glad to see them, took an instant liking to Gladys, and was delighted by her gifts. Lifting her curtain of hair to expose the delicate nape of her neck, she sat petting the stuffed cat as Gladys put the heart pendant on her. She was so young.
If she were his daughter, she’d be going to go see the Nutcracker or something magical tonight with him and Gladys instead of hiding in a shelter for battered women.
Gladys asked, “Will you be getting out to attend a midnight mass?”
Luigi watched a micro-expression flash across Benedetta’s face. It was a sneer. He leaped at the chance to exploit the calming effect his wife was having on this critical witness.
“Benny?” he said softly. “You don’t like Catholics, do you?”
“What? That’s silly. I’m Catholic.”
“But your parents don’t attend church.”
“Of course they did…we…do.”
“Not within forty kilometers of here, you don’t.”
“You checked?”
“I did, because Benny, honey, I think you’re caught up in a conspiracy of silence and…” He felt a clap of pain in his head and pressed his palm above his eye. “…it could be dangerous,” he said through gritted teeth.
Normally, the pain bloomed at the bridge of his nose, but this felt like a spike had been slammed through his skull over his eye with a sledgehammer. He swooned and panted trying to catch his breath for a scary couple of seconds.
Gladys was at his side in an instant. “Ah, Luigi, this job is killing you. No! This case is killing you!”
“I’m close, I don’t care if it kills me,” he sa
id with grim humor. Which could be soon if I’m having a massive stroke. “Before I go, I’m gonna solve the mystery of the Veronas.”
Again, he saw a micro-sneer on Benny’s face. “Why don’t you like the Veronas?”
“What?” She did a poor job of feigning ignorance. “I don’t even know them.”
He had a flash of brilliance and asked, “Do you know anyone named Nejla Brindoli? Or why she’d go to Maine?”
The girl retreated behind feigned boredom.
“I’m not mad at you, I really care about you, Benny. I need you to take a deep breath and give me your secret. Okay? Do it quick.” He leaned in.
“I missed my period.”
“What?” He forgot the pain in his head. “You were tested when they admitted you.”
“The test musta been wrong, and I don’t know why I didn’t tell anyone about my missed period a few weeks ago. I pretended I was using feminine napkins…I kept wrapping them up and putting them in the trash can.”
“You and your secrets!” He was horrified that Salvio had impregnated her. “Are you kidding me?” He kept a palm pressed to his head as he jumped up and lunged for the door, almost knocking Raphielli over as she came in.
“Oof! Luigi, Buon Natale.” She looked at the gift boxes and wrapping on the side table.
“Raphielli, I brought my wife to meet Benny,” he said. “This is Gladys. Gladys, Raphielli Scortini.”
His wife reached for both of Raphielli’s hands. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”
He cut in, “Benny’s pregnant.”
“What?” Raphielli’s eyes went wide and then she called over her shoulder down the hall. “Kate? If you have a Mentos in your mouth, please chew it up and swallow it.”
“What are you going to tell me that would make me choke?” came Kate’s reply.
“Have Constanza administer another pregnancy test on Benny.”
The four of them heard muttered curses and the sound of Kate’s heels clacking down the hall.
On Christmas Eve, Giselle spent all day in the workshop finishing the solar panels for the abbey. Everyone was busy today, Markus inside the church installing his gifts—delicate glass stars—around the altar, and Yvania in the kitchen preparing a special feast. At breakfast, she’d been so excited about this dinner that Markus said something in Ukrainian to her in a cautioning tone, and then Daniel had made a vague excuse before leading her from the room.
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