Good Blood

TWENTY-FOUR

The marble-floored, stucco-ceilinged, gilt-encrusted Villa de Grazia wowed Julie, but the party itself was a dud. The family members were listless and apathetic, seemingly lacking the energy needed for their customary jibes, and the guests were taking their cues from their hosts. Aside from Julie and Gideon, there were only about a dozen guests altogether, most whom seemed to be local dignitaries who had come to celebrate Achille’s safe return (or more likely, Phil suggested, his imminent departure).

The predinner reception was being held in the aptly named salone grande, the largest, grandest chamber in the house, and no doubt the immensity of the room-it must have once been the ballroom, Gideon thought-had something to do with the weight that seemed to hang over the small group of people, almost all of whom were bunched together at one end of the room, near the bar, as if for mutual protection. Only Cosimo and Achille sat apart, side by side and stiffly erect in two of the French Regency chairs lined up along one mirrored wall, occasionally greeting well-wishers. Bacco lay between them, snoring and snuffling in his sleep, with his head under Cosimo’s chair and his rear end under Achille’s.

There had been some laughter and a little applause earlier, when the family had presented Achille with his going-away presents-a hand-illustrated set of Dante’s works from Cosimo, a laptop computer from Bella and Basilio, a membership in Bern’s toniest country club (so he wouldn’t forget his riding and his golf) from Francesca and Dante-but things had gone downhill after that, and now people had fallen into small groups with those they knew best, where they milled awkwardly about, balancing their drinks and hors d’oeuvres and surreptitiously checking their watches and waiting for the call to dinner.

Gideon, Julie, and Phil had moved off to one side, where they were talking about the ramifications of Phil’s new family tree, or rather the lack thereof.

“But how do you feel about it?” Julie asked.

“Happy as a pig in clover. Wouldn’t you be?”

Julie eyes lingered on the princely surroundings. “Well…”

“Have you told Lea?” Gideon asked.

“No, I’ve got a call in to her. She’s down in Naples on one of her consulting gigs. She actually left me all alone with these people. I’ll tell her when she gets back.”

“How’s she going to feel about it?”

“Are you kidding? She’ll love it, same as me. I feel like a new man!” He sipped jubilantly from a glass of red wine. “I just wish I knew who,” he said, and grinned happily.

Clemente, in white dinner jacket and black tie, entered the room and made his stately way toward Vincenzo, who was talking to Francesca and a couple of the dignitaries’ wives, a few feet behind Julie. Despite a bowed spine, he was a tall man and had to bend to speak into his master’s ear.

Vincenzo pulled back his head and looked incredulously at him. “He’s here now? Caravale?”

Gideon had earlier told Julie and Phil about Caravale’s “closing of the net,” and now the three of them exchanged eloquent glances. “Uh-oh,” Phil said.

“With two men,” Clemente informed Vincenzo.

“What?” Vincenzo exclaimed. “Tell Cesare-”

“Too late,” Clemente said with a shake of his head. “They’re on their way.”

“On their way? What the hell do they-” He interrupted himself. “Very well, Clemente, you can show them in. Offer them something to drink. Thank you, Clemente.”

What do you suppose this is about?” Julie whispered. “You don’t think-”

“Signore?” It was Clemente, back again, but this time for Gideon. “A telephone call for you. In the Medallion Room. If you’ll follow me …”

“Hey, you might miss the big scene,” Phil called after Gideon.

Gideon stopped and turned. “I don’t think so.”

My father would be proud of me.

Of all the things to be thinking at a time like this. But there it was, right at the front of his mind as Caravale strode purposefully across the pebbled courtyard and toward the great villa with Fasoli and Lombardo on either side of him. Ordinarily, when he had reached this stage of an investigation, about to make a well-conceived arrest, there would be a tingling mixture of satisfaction and anticipation, and of pride in himself and his staff. Those familiar reactions were there, all right, but they were all taking a backseat to this one unexpected, overwhelming feeling of childish self-justification.

My father would finally be proud of me. I’m about to bring down a great family.

Leaving his men at the entry of the salon, Caravale approached Vincenzo and Francesca, his uniform cap under his arm. He had primly turned down Clemente’s offer of a drink.

“Good evening, Colonel,” Vincenzo said, “is there a problem?”

“I’m afraid so, signore.”

“This is a private party,” Francesca said reprovingly. “My brother has his guests to attend to.”

“Of course.” Caravale turned to face her directly. “But as a matter of fact, it’s you that I’m here to see, signora.”

A long second and a half ticked by. “I?”

“Yes. Perhaps you would be good enough to step outside?” He gestured toward the doorway and the waiting officers.

“What the devil is this about?” Vincenzo snapped.

The two women they’d been talking with exchanged glances and began to sidle away.

“I asked a question,” Vincenzo said, but Caravale was looking at Francesca, waiting for her to respond.

She didn’t move. “Is it really so urgent?”

“It’s important,” Caravale told her. “Now, if you please…”

“I think not,” Francesca said. She walked a few steps to place her wine glass on the bar, then returned to face him. Her voice took on a metallic edge. “Whatever you have to say can be said in front of our guests.”

At which point Caravale’s quickly fraying patience, not in great supply in the first place, ran out. If she wanted to do this in front of everybody, he would be happy to oblige her.

“Very well, signora. I am here to arrest you for knowingly providing false information to your insurance company and to the police for the purpose of committing fraud. Also for knowingly obstructing the police in the performance-”

“That’s ridiculous!” a flushed Vincenzo interrupted. “What are you talking about?”

Francesca flung her hand up in disbelief. “Is the man serious? He has actually come here, uninvited, to a private residence, to accuse us of”-she faltered, but only for a moment-“of a few balance-sheet irregularities in the effort to recover Achille without harm coming to him-something we successfully accomplished, I need hardly remind anyone here, without the assistance of the colonel and his vaunted regiment.”

Somewhere along the way she had turned it into theater. She was speaking now for the benefit of the onlookers, most of whom had joined the two women in drifting inconspicuously backward, leaving Caravale, Vincenzo, and Francesca all alone on center stage. Theater-in-the-round.

Caravale, normally averse to public performances, went willingly along this time. “I am not referring to the peculiarities in your company’s balance sheet,” he said evenly. “That is a matter for another officer, another time. I am talking about your contracting to have your nephew kidnapped in an effort to extort money from your insurer.”

That naturally brought a round of gasps and exclamations, almost enough to drown out Francesca’s ragged, harsh “Absurd!”

“Caravale, this is outrageous!” said Vincenzo. The muscles in front of his ears were bunching and knotting under the skin. “Now you’ve gone too far. You can expect to hear from my attorney about this before the night is out.”

“Oho, he’ll hear from more than our attorney,” Francesca said hotly. “I’ll have your job for this, you stupid little man! You don’t know who you’re dealing with. To have the nerve to walk into our home with unsubstantiated-”

“In addition, signora, I am also placing you under arrest for contracting for the theft of material evidence in the form of the remains of Domenico de Grazia-”

“How dare you-”

“-and for the assault on Professor Oliver to thwart his examination of said remains so as to prevent-”

Francesca cut him off with a raucous laugh. “Unbelievable! He’s gone completely mad.” She appealed to her audience, arms outspread. “Is he now accusing us of murdering our own father?”

He could see Lombardo and Fasoli making motions from the doorway: Enough already, let’s go, let’s get out of here. They were right, of course, but that “stupid little man” rankled and his juices were flowing.

“Not ‘us,’ signora,” he said and paused, relishing the dramatic effect more than he knew he should. “You. Only you.”

Her body stiffened, and for a second he thought she might stagger or fall, like a heroine in a melodrama. Vincenzo, staring at her with his mouth open, automatically reached out to steady her. “Francesca. ..?”

She shook him off and shouted at Caravale: “What an utterly despicable accusation. Why would I do such an inconceivable thing?”

Caravale was now winding down. Besides, he had yet to come up with the answer to that question. “We can deal with that later,” he said, speaking more gruffly. “Now, I think it’s time for you come with me.”

When she again failed to move, he turned toward the doorway. “Corporal? Sergeant?” He motioned them into the room.

Vincenzo looked as if somebody had hit him over the head with a baseball bat, but Francesca was afire, jerking her hands away when instructed to hold them out for the handcuffs. She was in full fury now, not so far from hysteria, with flashing eyes and high color in her cheeks. If he didn’t know better, Caravale might have thought she was enjoying herself. Possibly, she was.

“No, I want to hear why! I want everyone to hear! Don’t you all want to know? You can’t arrest me without a reason. The law doesn’t allow it. Tell me, why did I kill my father?”

Fasoli, holding the cuffs, looked at Caravale for guidance. Caravale sighed. It had been a mistake to let it get this far, and now he was paying for it.

Gideon had appeared at the doorway a short while before, watching quietly like everyone else. Now he came up beside Caravale. “I think,” he said, “that I can give you the answer to that.”

He had spoken quietly, but in the electric silence that surrounded them, his words seemed to bounce off the walls and go rattling around the room.

“You?” Francesca threw back her head and looked down her formidable nose at him. “The skeleton man? All right, why?”

Vincenzo was trying to shut her up. “Come, Francesca, let’s go with them,” he coaxed. “I’ll come with you. There’s no reason to make a scene. We’ll easily straighten this all out later. Don’t worry,” he said, and threw a fierce, hawkeyed glance at Caravale, “there will be hell to pay.”

She pushed him away, still watching Gideon. “I’m waiting. Why?”

Gideon looked at Caravale, who shrugged and wearily waved a hand. Go ahead, why stop now?

“Because you wanted to keep your father from disinheriting Vincenzo-”

“Disinheriting Vincenzo?” Vincenzo shouted, his voice cracking. “Disinheriting…”

“-and installing the legitimate heir in his place.”

“Installing the… the…” Vincenzo swallowed and made an effort to collect his resources. “And who, who would that be?”

“That,” Gideon said, and looked along the wall until he found Phil, standing next to Julie, “would be that man right… there.”

“What?” Vincenzo said.

“What?” Caravale said.

“Whoa,” said Phil, doing his best to shrink into the Chinoiserie-tiled wall behind him.