Dying on the Vine

SEVENTEEN

IF Rocco was right about there being a surplus of bureaucratic red tape in the Carabinieri, it certainly didn’t show in the way they handled the reopening of the Cubbiddu case. On the drive down to Figline, no more than fifteen minutes after they’d left Conforti’s office, Rocco got a call from Cosima, the captain’s secretary, telling him that the new investigation had been provisionally approved. Did the lieutenant want her to call Villa Antica and inform them that he would like them to make themselves available for a meeting shortly; at, say, two o’clock? Would he like her to contact Maresciallo Martignetti to tell him to be there as well?

The answers were yes and yes, so that when they arrived a few minutes before two, having stopped for panini at a dreary roadside café, the Cubbiddus were already waiting for them in the frescoed sitting room (decorated with faux eighteenth-century depictions of the villa and its rolling green vineyards—which hadn’t been planted until the twentieth) of Franco’s suite. They sat, singly and in pairs, on slender, elegant, flute-legged Louis XVI armchairs and settees. They all knew the meeting concerned Pietro and Nola, but none of them had any idea of what to expect, including Martignetti, who was in a corner, a little away from the others, with a pad and pen at the ready on his lap. Franco and Nico shared a settee, as did Luca and Linda. The Cubbiddu’s lawyer, Severo Quadrelli, was twiddling his thumbs, prudently seated in the only chair really suited to his heft: a so-called tub chair, a wide, substantial object built along the lines of a half barrel set atop short, thick legs. A sort of chair version of the man himself.

Antonio Martignetti was seated against a wall and partially hidden by an ornate, eighteenth-century ceramic heating stove. During the drive, Rocco had told them that Martignetti was a trusted associate, among whose many virtues were fluency in English and skill at shorthand. Rocco went directly to him and squatted on his haunches to confer briefly. Then he stepped out to the middle of the tapestry-carpeted floor and greeted the rest. He was friendly enough—he knew them all—but got quickly down to business.

“Dr. Oliver will carry the main part of this, so to make it easier for him, we’ll do it in English. Is that a problem for anyone?”

Quadrelli lifted a hand. “Well . . .”

“If there is difficulty at any time, signor Quadrelli, simply say so, and we’ll translate. Is that satisfactory?”

It was, and Rocco continued. “Let me come right to the point. Your meddlesome pal there”—he pointed at Gideon—“has convinced us that we had it all wrong. It didn’t happen the way we thought it did.” He waited a few seconds for dramatic effect. “Your father didn’t kill anyone, and certainly not your stepmother. We are therefore reopening the investigation into their deaths.”

“Great!” Luca said.

Nico pumped his fist. “Right on.”

Franco said nothing but looked pleased.

“This is terrific news, Rocco,” Nico said. “But what changed your mind? Is it what Gideon told us about yesterday—that babbo would have had to climb back up the cliff, and you didn’t think—”

“No, there’s more to it than that now. Gid, would you take it from here, please? Tell them what you found.”

He went to lean against a wall to make room for Gideon at the center (and to observe the people in attendance), but Gideon spoke from his chair, giving them a fairly thorough description of what his examination of Pietro’s remains that morning had added to the picture he’d drawn for them the day before: mainly that Pietro, having preceded Nola in death by several weeks, could hardly be guilty of her murder. There were questions, of course, and he answered them as factually as he could but refrained from getting into anything deeper than necessary, which Rocco had earlier asked him to do. Predictably, this satisfied no one.

The last question came from Luca. “Okay, one thing I don’t quite get—”

“Only one?” Nico said. “You’re way ahead of me.”

Me too, Gideon thought.

“Okay, so what was it that killed him?” Luca continued. “You said—I think you said—he was shot and thrown off the cliff weeks after he was dead, but what killed him in the first place? Did you find any, what do you call them, the causes of death on the bones?”

“Not so far, no,” Gideon answered, and explained a little more about the green-stick fractures and how they might or might not be perimortem. “But John and I will be heading back over to the funeral home to see if we can’t find something more definitive.”

“Oh, you mean I’m invited along?” John asked. “That’s great, it’s been hours since anybody told me to shut up or get the hell out of their face.”

Quadrelli, who had been growing restless, got to his feet. “If you will excuse me, lieutenant, I must make a telephone call.”

“Right now, this minute?” Rocco’s eyebrows went up. “Who to?”

Severo hadn’t expected to be impeded. He was flustered. “To . . . signora Batelli.”

“The lawyer?” Rocco, of course, had already heard about signora Batelli and Cesare’s suit from Gideon.

“Yes, I want to call her, the lawyer, to inform her of what I have just heard.” He had retreated to Italian. “I hope to put a stop to a pointless and unpleasant proceeding. I am sure she’ll see that their suit is no longer tenable.”

“Very well, signor Quadrelli,” Rocco said. “But please make yourself available to us over the weekend. We’ll want to speak with you again.”

“With me? Why?”

“With everyone. We’ll want to interview you all. If any of you have problems with that, I need to know now. Anything we should be aware of?”

“I’ll be here, I’ll be here,” Quadrelli said, and scuttled off.

“How long are these interviews going to take?” Luca asked. “I have this class I’m doing all day long Saturday.”

“Not long,” Rocco said, switching the conversation back to English. “A half hour should do it, I’d guess. An hour at most. We’ll try to accommodate your schedules as much as possible, and we do appreciate your patience. Well, thanks, everybody. I think we can wrap up for today. Anybody have any questions?”

“I sure do,” Luca said. “Who do you think did kill them? Do you have any leads? Do you have a motive? Why would anyone kill them?”

“Give us a chance to get going, Luca,” Rocco said, smiling. “We haven’t even—”

“Faida,” Franco murmured darkly. “The marriage.”

“That’s always possible,” Rocco said. “We’ll be looking into that angle.”

“Oh, but do you really, honestly think that was it, Franco?” Linda asked skeptically. It was her first contribution of the afternoon. “It was so long ago.”

“There’s no statute of limitation on faida, Linda, no sell-by date. It never ends. Now think about it. Someone might have wanted to kill babbo for one reason or another. That’s certainly possible. And, conceivably, someone might have wanted to kill Nola, although I can’t think of any reason why. But can you come up with any possible reason, other than the old vendetta, that someone might want to kill both of them?” He shook his head. “No, you cannot. They have a very long memory in Barbagia.”

Nico snorted. “Give us a break, Franco. “This is 2011, not 1911.”

“Well, then why? Who?”

Rocco waited a few seconds to see if anybody would respond. When no one did, he said: “As long as you’ve raised the question, though, Franco, let’s give it a little thought. Who do you think might have killed your father?”

“I just told you. The families back in Barbagia—”

“No, I’m not asking you who might have killed them both, just your father.”

“Just my father?” Franco seemed confused by the question. “I have no idea. Why ask me?”

“Because you said you did have an idea.”

“No, I explicitly said I didn’t have any idea. Other than faida.”

“No, you said you had no idea who might have killed Nola.”

“No—”

From his chair near the wall, Martignetti interrupted, reading from his shorthand notes. “‘Someone might have wanted to kill babbo for one reason or another. That’s certainly possible. And, conceivably, someone might have wanted to kill Nola, although I can’t think of any reason why.’”

“‘Certainly possible,’” said Rocco. “It seems to me that suggests—”

“It was just a figure of speech, for God’s sake. Oh, I suppose I might have been thinking of various feuds babbo had over the years. With other vintners, distributors, some of our own people . . . He could be a difficult man to get along with.”

“I see,” Rocco said, unimpressed.

“I can give you some names, if you want, although, really, I doubt—”

“Let’s be honest for once in our lives,” Nico said. “If you’re looking for people with motives, Lieutenant, you’re sitting in a room full of them.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Franco exclaimed angrily “Us? We had motives to kill babbo? That’s a hell of a thing to say. I can’t believe—”

“Whoa, calm down, buddy,” Nico said, putting a placating hand on Franco’s shoulders as if to keep him from exploding off the settee they shared. “I’m not saying anybody here killed him, God forbid. I’m just saying the motive was there. It was, Franco. He’s gonna find that out anyway, and I just figured we might as well tell him about it now.”

“What motive? Are you crazy? I don’t—”

“Humboldt-Schlager,” Nico said quietly, which shut Franco down in mid-sentence.

“Humboldt-Schlager,” Luca said musingly. “Yeah, the kid’s got a point, Franco.”

“I think,” Rocco said pleasantly, “it would be really nice if somebody told me what you’re talking about.”

Gideon and John shared a mildly amused glance. Rocco had said it in all innocence, just as if Gideon hadn’t told him all about the Humboldt-Schlager affair not even three hours earlier.

“Go ahead, kid,” Luca said to Nico. “You started this.”

“Okay. In a nutshell, Humboldt-Schlager—you know, the brewing company—wanted to buy the winery, and babbo was gonna sell it.”

Franco had his arms folded. “We don’t know that for a fact.”

“Yeah, we do,” Nico said. “Get real, Franco. Of course he was; it was written all over him. Am I right, Luca?”

“You’re right, Nico.”

Franco shrugged.

“And none of you wanted him to do it?” Rocco asked.

The three brothers looked at each other for a second before Franco replied. “We did not. We felt the terms were inimical to the interests of the family.”

Luca hooted with laughter. “Translation: they were gonna boot us out on our asses. The minute the contract was signed.”

“And Linda, how did you feel about it?”

“I felt the way Luca did.”

“I see,” Rocco said. “Okay, guys, telling me about it was the right thing to do. We’ll be following up with you on this.”

“May I point out that Nola was also murdered?” Franco said. “And Nola had nothing to do with it, so how is it relevant?”

But Rocco was tiring. He’d had enough. “I think we can wrap this up for now. Thank you all for your cooperation. Franco, I’m gonna want to confer with the maresciallo here for a minute. Okay if we just stay here?”

“Actually, I think the small conference room might be better suited, Lieutenant. You remember where it is?”

“Sure, fine, whatever,” Rocco said, annoyed. “Any chance of having some coffee sent over there for us? I’m flagging.”

“That might be problematic. I’m afraid Maria is tied up in the refectory kitchen with Luca’s—”

“I’ll take care of it, Franco, don’t sweat it,” Linda said, getting up, and then under her breath: “Sheesh.”

As people filed thoughtfully out, Luca caught Gideon and John. “Tonight the group is on its own for dinner. How about you and the girls join Linda and me for something special? I want to take you to the best restaurant in Tuscany.”

“You’re too late,” John said. “We already found it. I had pizza carnivora. Fantastico, tremendoso!”

Luca responded with a hearty, appreciative laugh. “I think maybe we’re talking about different places. Eight thirty okay? We’ll be driving to Arezzo.”