Murder Most Unfortunate Read online

  Three men sat on benches at a table in the corner, hunched over their tiny glasses, their ages difficult to decipher. Their creased faces and rough hands could have been the result of a long life or a shorter one involving hard work. Their dress was no help, wool jackets and pants, tie-less shirts. Likely pensioners, Rick concluded. Pensioners were everywhere in Italy.

  Sarchetti stood at the bar watching the barman pour a dram of grappa into a crystal glass. He turned when he heard cowboy boots on the marble. From his rheumy eyes, unbuttoned collar, and loosened tie, Rick surmised that this was not the first alcohol the man had consumed this evening.

  “I would not have started without you, Riccardo.” They shook hands. “Guido here tells me that we should try this one; it has the flavor of almonds.” He picked up the glass and studied the clear liquid. “Like arsenic.”

  Rick was not a fan of grappa—to him it all tasted like something better used to heat one’s house—so he ordered a thick, dark digestivo. He was served and they tapped their glasses.

  Sarchetti displayed mock disappointment at Rick’s choice. “Grappa is one of the great inventions of man, Riccardo, prevalent in the northern climes, of course. It is a drink to be taken with reverence.” He took a taste. “And this place claims to be the oldest distillery in Italy. We are standing on sacred ground.”

  Rick sipped his amaro, its herbs spreading over his tongue and down his throat. “You seem in a good mood, Franco. If I can call you Franco.”

  “I am in a good mood even if you can’t call me Franco, but please do.” He raised his glass again. “Yes, coming here this week proved to be a trip well worth making, though I had my doubts. Who would have thought that a town like Bassano would yield such results for an art dealer like me?”

  “Buying or selling?”

  Sarchetti smiled. “Nothing firm yet. Since many of my clients prefer anonymity, I would not reveal transactions, in any case. But I’ve also made what I hope will be some excellent contacts for future business.”

  “Caterina Savona among them?”

  There was a chuckle and he took another sip of his grappa. “So you have met Caterina. You do get around.” He drained his glass. “Are you sure you won’t try some of this? It’s smoother than I expected.” When Rick declined, Sarchetti gestured to the barman to fill his glass. “This business with Fortuna. What do you make of it?”

  Rick expected the question. “I’m just as puzzled as you must be. The man was not universally loved, for certain, but who would detest him enough to do him in? It doesn’t seem possible that it was someone from the seminar—these academics don’t seem capable of such things.”

  “Not all the suspects are academics. I’m not, for example, nor are you. Nor is Porcari, the banker. And Tibaldi from the museum is more of a bureaucrat than an academic, though he wouldn’t agree with my definition.” He lowered his voice. “It’s a mixed group, Riccardo. There could be a murderer among us. And university professors have been known to kill.” The barman had gone over to the table and said something to the old men, who emitted a collective groan. “Is is possible that the place is closing? Well, he can’t throw us out yet.” He held tight to the tiny glass with sausage fingers. “And what are the police telling you? You must have developed a little rapport with them, doing the translations.”

  “Inspector Occasio is not the type to share his thoughts. It was he who questioned you, Franco, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. At the end I was trying to decide who was more antipatico, the policeman or the murder victim. I had some dealings with Fortuna recently, and the two must have gone to the same charm school.”

  “Dealings?”

  Sarchetti waved his hands as if trying to erase his comment. “Nothing of any consequence. I have contact with art specialists frequently, even ones like Fortuna. You are sure you won’t have another shot?”

  Rick had another sip, but was careful not to drain his glass. “No, I’m fine. Franco, I was curious what you thought of those exchanges in the seminar about the two missing Jacopo paintings. Do you think they’ll ever be recovered?”

  Sarchetti did not answer at first. Instead he stared with bleary eyes at Rick, as if sizing him up, a half smile on his lips. “Riccardo, my friend, I don’t think we’ll ever see those paintings. That said, there’s no one who would be happier to see them than I—assuming I could get a piece of the action, of course. But such transactions are often done under great secrecy, with both seller and buyer dealing only with a middle man, never even meeting each other. So if it happens, or if it has already happened, it may never become public.”

  “Have you ever brokered that kind of secret sale?”

  “If I told you I had, it would no longer be a secret, would it?” He threw down what was left in his glass and set it roughly on the bar. “I should not have another, though I’m sure I could persuade Guido to give it to me. Our chat has been a perfect end to a very pleasant day for me, Riccardo. If the police continue to be unsuccessful in finding Fortuna’s murderer, and they keep us in Bassano, we will have to do it again. But next time you will have to try the grappa.”

  Rick reached for his wallet. “Shall we walk back to the hotel together?”

  “Keep your money in your pocket, Riccardo. It is my pleasure.” He tossed euro notes on the bar and waved off any change. “You go on back. I think I will take in some fresh air and watch the river from the bridge for a few minutes before I return.”

  ***

  Rick climbed the hill slowly and tried to remember everything that Sarchetti had said. Like any good Italian, the man had chosen his words carefully, revealing what he wanted and keeping the rest a mystery. But the grappa, on top of what must have been an ample amount of wine, had helped loosen the man’s lips. He had been anxious to brag about unspecified deals, and Rick was ready to listen. What Sarchetti did not realize was that Rick knew of his visit to the villa of Angelo Rinaldi. It would make sense that any sale he’d made in the last few days was with Beppo’s uncle, a serious art collector. But could it have been Caterina Savona? Rick looked up and realized that without thinking he’d walked into the piazza of the Innocenti gallery and apartments. He looked up at Betta’s window and saw a faint light. He put his hand on the cell phone in his pocket, but left it where it was and continued through the square, returning to his thoughts about the meeting with Sarchetti. DiMaio will be disappointed, he thought, since most of the conversation had been about the missing paintings or other subjects, like grappa, not connected with the murder. Sarchetti had mentioned unspecified dealings with the murder victim, but that must have come out when Occasio questioned the man. No, most intriguing was his mention of doing business in the little town of Bassano, of all places.

  He walked through the second piazza and started up the long, rectangular square that ran next to the church and the entrance to the museum. A young couple strolled slowly and aimlessly along in the general direction of the river, holding hands and deep in quiet conversation. Ahead, an old man, hunched over, leaned on his cane as he crossed the square and disappeared down a side street. Rick thought about calling DiMaio, but what little he had to tell him could wait until the morning. He tightened the belt around his coat and wondered if the city was in for another storm. He wasn’t familiar with weather patterns in this part of Italy but assumed that, like everywhere, they moved from west to east. Perhaps here they blew down from the mountains or up from the Po Valley.

  Rick entered the hotel lobby and walked toward the reception desk when he heard a familiar voice.

  “Rick, come join us.” In one corner of the room, near the entrance to the bar, sat Jeffrey Randolph and Erica, half-filled glasses of wine on the table between them. Reluctantly Rick detoured and moved to them as Randolph rose to greet him. “We were enjoying a nightcap after a fine meal. Why don’t you join us?” Erica’s smile signaled agreement.

  “Thank you, but nothing
for me. Where did you have dinner?” It was the most natural of questions in Italy.

  “The restaurant where you had your final banquet,” answered Erica as Rick took a seat across from them. “It was very good. I had a chance to try the famous local asparagus.”

  “But they aren’t quite in season, dear. The waiter warned you.”

  “I know, Jeffrey, I know. They were still very good.”

  Hmm. “I’ve heard about the white asparagus festival they do here every year,” Rick said. “I noticed a poster for it on the street.”

  “We will have to come back for that sometime, won’t we Erica?”

  She frowned, but mercifully, Rick’s phone sounded before she formed an answer. Who would be calling at this hour? Perhaps it was Betta. He excused himself, walked to a corner of the lobby, and pulled out the phone. A local number that looked familiar.

  “Montoya.”

  “Riccardo, you were going to call me after your meeting with Franco Sarchetti.” There was an edge of annoyance in Detective DiMaio’s voice which came through the background noise.

  “It’s late, Alfredo. I was going to wait until morning. And how do you know that I’m not still talking with the man and you’re interrupting us?”

  “For one thing, I’m here with him on the bridge.”

  Now it was Rick’s turn to show annoyance. “You could have waited to interrogate him until I told you how our meeting went.”

  “I may be a fairly competent policeman, Riccardo, but even I can’t interrogate a dead man.”

  Chapter Ten

  “It was kind of you to send a patrol car to get me, Alfredo.” Rick hoped the sarcasm in his voice was noticeable.

  Red and blue lights from the police vehicles bounced off the buildings around the entrance to the bridge where Rick and DiMaio stood. About halfway across the span, inside a circle of police, cameras flashed like welding torches, lighting up the underside of the roof with bursts of white. Despite the activity on the bridge, the only sound came from the engine of the crime scene truck whose wires spread out along the pavement. The men on the bridge went about their work in silence. Occasio stood back from the group around the body, his arms crossed, a scowl on his face.

  “Inspector Occasio wanted you brought here in handcuffs when he heard you were the last person to see Sarchetti alive. I convinced him that a car was sufficient.”

  “I was not the last to see Sarchetti alive, Alfredo.”

  “Of course. A slip of the tongue. I trust you are ready to answer some questions?”

  Occasio had spotted Rick and was walking toward them with quick, short steps. As he walked, he gestured roughly to a man standing near the entrance to the bar. The man came toward them and Rick recognized him as the one who had served him his amaro earlier in the evening. He wore a coat over his white shirt and black tie, and he was shivering.

  Occasio jerked a thumb toward Rick. “Is this the one who was with the dead man this evening?”

  The barman looked at Rick. “Yes, Inspector, he—”

  “That’s all I need.” Occasio turned to Rick. “Now, Mister Montoya, you will tell us what happened when you and Sarchetti left the bar?”

  Rick looked down at the inspector, glad he wore cowboy boots that added even more inches to his height advantage. A voice inside him, possibly Uncle Piero’s, told him to stay calm and not say anything foolish, despite the antipathy toward the man. “I can only tell you what I did when I left, Inspector, since Sarchetti was still inside. He told me that he wanted to spend a few moments looking down at the river from the bridge, so I departed while he was finishing his grappa and climbed the hill to the hotel. He said he needed some fresh air, which I took to mean he wanted to clear his head after the alcohol.”

  Occasio’s eyes narrowed. “You expect me to believe that you just left him? Staying at the same hotel, it would make sense to walk back together. Tell me what really happened.”

  “I just did, Inspector. Perhaps Sarchetti was going to meet someone on the bridge and didn’t want to tell me.” He was rubbing his palms on his hips, something he always found himself doing—almost unconsciously—before a fight. The intimidating talk was the guy’s modus operandi, but Rick was damned if he’d let it work on him.

  “His meeting was only with you, Montoya. And just why were you having this little encounter?”

  Rick glanced at DiMaio. “Since we haven’t been able to leave Bassano, on your orders, I’ve become interested in the story of two missing paintings by Jacopo Bassano. I wanted to ask Sarchetti about them.”

  “And everyone else in town? You’ve been up to something, Montoya, and I intend to find out what it is.” To DiMaio he said: “I’ll finish up with the crime scene crew and we’ll leave immediately to see Signor Rinaldi.” He turned and walked quickly back to where two men in white jumpsuits were examining the body.

  Rick hoped DiMaio was watching his boss and didn’t notice the look on his face when Beppo’s uncle was mentioned. “Where is it that you’re going?”

  DiMaio was deep in thought, but snapped out of it. “What? Oh, we got an anonymous call today about Sarchetti having met with a man named Angelo Rinaldi. It was what I was going to tell you this afternoon when it started to rain. It didn’t seem urgent at the time, but we didn’t know then that Sarchetti was going to get murdered, did we? So my capo and I are going to drive out to question the man.”

  “It’s almost midnight.”

  “We called ahead. Occasio is always deferential to prominent citizens, such as the banker Porcari, and it seems that Rinaldi is quite an important businessman.”

  “I know, Alfredo, I had dinner at his villa last night.”

  DiMaio’s eyes widened, and then a smile spread over his face. “My, my. The inspector is correct, Riccardo, you have indeed been getting around. And why would you be dining with someone who is now part of a murder investigation?”

  “Rinaldi’s nephew is a good friend from Rome. He called his uncle to tell him I was in Bassano and the man invited me for dinner. If I’d known he would be involved with the police I might have found an excuse to decline the invitation.”

  Occasio separated himself from the crime scene and walked quickly toward the waiting police vehicle. He directed a scowl at Rick and the detective.

  “I have to go,” said DiMaio. “We’ll talk tomorrow. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  Rick watched them get into the car, wishing he could be a fly on the wall when they interviewed Beppo’s uncle.

  ***

  With the hotel sitting at a high point just north of the city, there was no way for Rick to avoid a steep return climb at the end of his pre-breakfast run. After that first morning in Bassano he settled on a route that provided a good mix of grass and ancient stone, beginning with a drop down to a large park below the Viale dei Martiri. Besides offering natural surroundings to look at, the horizontal terrain allowed his muscles to warm up slowly in preparation for the rest of the run. By the time he finished weaving his way along the flat path he was ready to take on some inclines. Then he would climb up through the town and down to the bridge, crossing the river before turning back again to make the final ascent to the hotel. It was a percorso he would miss when he returned to the flat streets of Rome. But the advantages of early morning jogs near his apartment were many. Thanks to the maze of streets, the combinations of routes were endless, and nothing compared to a run through Piazza Navona just as the sun was coming up. But he’d already decided that on his first morning back in Rome he’d run down to the Tiber, cross it at Castel Sant’ Angelo, go up Via della Conciliazione, and take a turn around St. Peter’s Square before retracing the route back to his apartment.

  This morning, after the required stretching outside the hotel, he crossed at the traffic light and started down the street that led down to the park. As in so many ancient Italian towns, parking insi
de the walls was problematical if not illegal for non-residents. But unlike many other towns, Bassano had found space at the bottom of the hill for a large parcheggio to accommodate commuters and tourists. There were hundreds of spaces, and even at this hour they were beginning to fill up. A moment after passing the parking lot he was jogging along a path that wound its way through grass and trees. No doubt on any sunny Sunday afternoon the wide field would be filled with families enjoying the green, open space. At this early hour on a weekday, Rick was the only one on the path which formed a large figure eight extending from one end of the park to the other. He breathed in the smell of recently mown grass made more fragrant by the rain that fell the previous day and still sparkled among the blades.

  At a bend in the path, amid the green grass, he found himself looking up at a bulky metal figure, and today he decided to stop. On top of a stage of weathered marble stood a dark bronze statue of a soldier staring off into the distance. He gripped his rifle in one hand and held out the other as if presenting an invisible offering in its palm. A helmet protected his head, and a long cape was frozen in place by some long-ago wind. The inscription on the stone read simply: AI RAGAZZI DEL ’99.

  Rick had read about “the boys of ’99” who had the misfortune of coming of age in 1917, the year Italy entered the First World War. They had been conscripted by the tens of thousands, suffering and dying in the snowy trenches and mountain passes of northern Italy. The face on this ragazzo did not look like that of an eighteen-year-old, but combat and fatigue would have taken its toll, even on a boy, so it may well have been an accurate portrayal. Rick took a breath and started off again. Across the open grass was the return section of the path, which he would reach after running a large loop through more grass and trees. In the distance he saw a lone female figure jogging back toward the city. She was dressed in black tights and sweatshirt, a matching sweat band around her forehead keeping her dark hair from her eyes. Only her running shoes, a dark red, kept the outfit from being one color. Rick smiled, trotted across the expanse of field, and waited for her to approach. Only when she was a few yards away did she notice him.