Suicide Italian Style (Crime Made in Italy Book 1) (18 page)

“I already sent him the ones I took.”

I frowned. He held up his phone. “Bluetooth.”

I nodded. “Uh-huh.” Phones. Shoot a Hollywood movie with a phone these days. “See you later.” I slipped the phone and the camera in a pocket, waved Joe away and walked back to the bike. “OK, Billy, let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“Anastasia didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

I frowned. The wind sweeping in from the lake was colder now. “It’s complicated. You mind if I drive?”

“No chance, Pescatore. You’ll kill us.”

I shrugged. “Have it your way.” I shook my watch from my sleeve and squinted at the dial. “I’m the world’s worst navigator. Really bad. If we’re lucky we get there next week.”

He thought about it, shrugged and climbed off. I swung a leg over and turned the key.

Billy Bob handed me a pair of gloves. I pulled them on. The bike exploded into a roar and took off.

Wind and snow ripped the flesh from my face and jabbed steel needles into my lungs and the tails of my overcoat whipped in the wind. I could still see him standing there, gaping, flat-footed.

He couldn’t be that dumb. Billy The Big Yank, outfoxed by a hack? No chance. I took another deep breath, bent my head low and opened up the throttle.

Something about roads, you drive them enough, even years later the feeling comes back— the hunger tying knots in your gut, the road rolling out and rattling your bones. The road has memories under the surface and riding along kicks them up again. That’s what it felt like. Like I knew the road and the road knew me.

Summer, four or five years gone. It started with money, with the feeling I had there would never be enough. Not for Eva. Gigi paid me well, but she wanted more and we began to fight. Got so I’d call her toward the end of the day, tell her I was working late and had to stay the night in Lugano. She complained at first, but it didn’t last long and pretty soon we were fighting a war where every kiss we gave away was a dagger plunged into the other’s heart.

We had both taken lovers. Mine would get there before me and lie in wait, the window thrown open, late sun on the meadow or just gone down, the smell of something cooking on the stove. I knew she was there, lurking in ambush, and crept through the rooms, hunting her down. Wild shrieks when she leapt into my arms and we fought our way to the bed, the couch or the floor, clawing at our clothes, diving, lunging at each other, my body plunging into hers, into the darkness and the light.

I let the memory fade and settled down to the road. It rose through snowy foothills and wound on up to a high Alpine valley. The old wooden houses were strung out along a narrow lane that followed a creek across the valley floor. The place I was heading had been a small hotel and still had the look of an ancient postcard, a long-dead message to the world below. It had survived a century of glacial winters under soaring peaks, perched above a cliff that dropped a thousand feet to granite outcrops framed in snow.

Woodsmoke in the air. I climbed off the Harley, pushed it around behind the tool shed, walked back to the house and clumped up the stairs.

The door creaked open. The color drained from her face.

“Renata.” Wrapped in a heavy, hand-knit red and white sweater.

I pushed in the door. She turned away. No shrieks of wild joy, no animal passion. Not even a hello.

I shut the door. “We need to talk.”

“You need to leave.” She was already walking away from me. I caught up with her in the kitchen. Nothing on the stove.

I pulled out a chair and sat down. “Coffee?
Corretto
, maybe?” She used to keep a good grappa around the place. I got up again, pulled off my coat and found my way to the old reception and a wooden cupboard jammed up against the wall beside the fireplace.

I opened the cupboard. No grappa. Whisky, a blend. It would have to do.

“You’re a fool, Pete.” She stood behind me, at the door. “Do you want them to burn this place, too?”

“Them? Who’s
them
, Renata?” I grabbed the bottle and a shot glass, filled it and drank.

“Who do you think? Bellomo. His people.”

I pushed past her again. “Where are the kids?”

“With my mother.”

“Sarge?”

“The police picked him up.”

“Arrested?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Just more questions.”

“About?”

We were back in the kitchen. She reached for the old coffee pot on the shelf above the stove. “The murder, suicide. Whatever it was, they used his gun.”

“They?” I tilted my head, my gaze grazing the curves of her face, remembering I had loved her once, if love you could call it. ”What happened, Renata?”

“I wasn’t there.” She turned away, spooned coffee into the filter, screwed the pot back together and set it on a burner.  “All I know is what Sarge told me.”

“Which is?” I poured myself another drink and let her think while I dug out my new phone. “How’s the reception up here?”

“This is Switzerland.”

“Right.” I punched in a number and let it ring. “Stazz, baby, how are you? Don’t answer that. Where are you?”

She was camped out in a hotel the next valley over with her ex and his pals. From me she wanted photographs.

“Joe sent them to Johnny this morning.”

“Fuzzy. All no good.”

“Not all of them. I recognized Aida.”

No answer.

“Gigi’s wife,” I said. “The widow… locked away in a clinic, must have let her out for the funeral.”

“Where is this clinic?”

“St. Moritz. She’s been there for a while. Since before Gigi died.”

Renata stood up and walked to the window. Frosted up. Shadows closing in as the day wore down.

I lowered my voice and mumbled into the phone, “You got the briefcase, baby?”

“I am on my way.”

I told her to hurry. I was busy taking a confession of sorts. Renata, I said, was unpacking her story.

“You unpack Renata.” Anastasia let a couple of cold seconds crunch by. “I understand.” She hung up.

I set the phone on the table and reached for my drink. It got as far as my lips before I turned it around. I set it back down and raised my eyes. Renata’s face had gone dark in the failing light, darker and filled with shadows. Her eyes were black pools, mirrors of the night.

The rest of her story came slowly. Gigi was killed. She had a good idea how. They took Sarge’s gun and they shot him. 

“Names, Renata. It’s time for names.”

“I don’t know their names. Sarge says they work at Bellomo’s hotel. Personal trainers. Masseurs, therapists or something. I don’t know.”

I nodded. “One’s called Freddie, the other one’s Max. You couldn’t meet two nicer guys.”

The coffee bubbled up on the stove. She poured it and sat down across from me, reached for the bottle and poured a splash of whisky into her coffee. “It’s cold up here.”

“Who else, Renata? Who was the driver? What did you see?”

“You already know.”

“I need to hear it from you.”

“Tommy O’Sullivan.”

Bingo.
“And Sarge?”

She shook her head again, raised the coffee cup to her lips, sipped. “I told you. He delivered the gun to Julia and then he left.”

“To Julia?”

She nodded, looked away from me, back, defiant.

“Interesting,” I said, studying her face. “But will the police buy it?”

She held my gaze for a moment, then broke away.

“So,” I said.  “Three men plus Gigi.”

“And Julia. She was there the whole time.”

“I hear you.” I tried to picture the scene. Julia waiting for Gigi.

Thursday night. Sarge at home in bed with Renata. The phone rings. He picks up, listens, hangs up and tells Renata he’ll be back in an hour. He leaves, takes the gun and ammunition with him, drives over to Gigi’s place. He circles around to the back gate, lets himself in and walks through the garden to the kitchen door, knocks, hands over the gun. To Julia.
He’s on his way back out through the garden when he hears a car in the road out front. He stops, slides into the shadows, watches. The car pulls up. The driver jumps out. Two more men drag a third from the car. It’s Gigi. One on either side, they haul him down the walk from the street to the door. Tommy O knocks. Julia opens up. They carry him in. Sarge drifts around back again, hears a shot, hears Julia scream. From the garden he sees them slap her around, shut her up. He watches them leave, slips away and drives home.

“You said Gigi couldn’t walk on his own. Are you sure he was alive?”

Renata frowned. “I have no idea.”

“You didn’t see anything?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Sarge told me you were.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He told me you drove him. You were parked in the street, waiting for him.”

She said nothing. Stared at the floor.

“What time was it?”

“I don’t remember. Three or four in the morning. It was dark. I was frightened.”

“How long did it take?”

“Not long. No more than ten minutes.”

“Did you hear the shot?”

“No.” She shook her head, uncertain. “I don’t think so. No.”

“The gun. Which hand?”

“I don’t understand.”

I picked up the shot glass, drank, and filled it again. “You’re telling me Gigi was maybe already dead, but that somebody shot him anyhow. Is that right?”

Hesitant. A quick nod.

“Did they leave the gun in Gigi’s right hand or his left?”

“Sarge didn’t say.”

“And you didn’t see.”

“No.”A flash of anger in her eyes. “I was in the car, Pete.”

“Playing lookout?”

“He told me to call him if I saw anything.”

“What was he afraid of?”

“He is always afraid. There is always something.”

“Or someone,” I said. I drained the glass and made another call.

Julia picked up. She was running late, worried, tense. “What’s up, Jules?”

“There’s a car behind me. It’s been there since Lugano.”

A car. Billy Bob? Cops? “Keep an eye on it and call me when you’re closer.” I hung up.

The low rumble of a car engine drew me to the window. I rubbed the window pane with a fist and peered through. Red brake lights, a harsh white halogen light on the snow. A door opened and a woman climbed out, all wrapped up in Siberian wolf and carrying a briefcase.

I ran down the hall to the door and pulled her inside. Renata stepped out from behind me and pushed the door shut. I felt her hand fall to my shoulder. Anastasia took in the scene, tossed me a wry smile, pulled off a fur mitten and thrust out a hand for Renata to shake. I made the introductions and watched as they circled each other for a while.

Anastasia slipped out of her fur, handed it to Renata and walked off down the hall with the briefcase and a black leather purse slung over her shoulder.

“To the left, Stazz,” I called after her. “We’ll sit by the fire and have some grog.”

“Vodka?” she called back over her shoulder.

“There’s vodka in the fridge,” said Renata. “Let me get it.” She hung the fur on the wall and walked off.

I found Anastasia staring into the fire, took her hand and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Good to see you.”

She settled into the couch and lifted the briefcase to her knees. I had to ask. “Did you open it?”

“It is brilliant, my solution. Absolute brilliance.”

I took that for a no.

Renata padded in with a silver tray bearing tall frozen glasses and a frosted bottle of vodka, Swiss.

Anastasia raised an eyebrow, smiled, and said, “You have everything in Switzerland. How nice for you.”

I took the bottle and poured a round. We drank and I poured another. Renata sat down beside Anastasia and dropped a hand to the briefcase. “This is the bone, I must assume, that all the dogs are fighting over?”

Anastasia gave her a quizzical stare. “In Russia we call attaché case.” With lacquered red nails she fired a quick drum roll on the leather. “Boner something else.”

Renata colored and dropped her eyes to the floor. Stazz tossed me a mischievous little smile.

“So,” I said. “What’s this about a brilliant solution?”

“Fingerprints,” she said. “I know from Big Yank he give briefcase to Gigi. So I think if we cannot have fingerprint of Gigi then we take Billy Bob. Yes? You follow?”

I nodded. She was pushing it, enjoying herself at my expense.

“So I see he leave fingerprint in my kitchen. I take them, we open the briefcase.” She slid me another smile, turned to Renata and said, “Boner.”

“Leave her alone, Stazz.”

“Yes.” She let a slim hand drop to the purse at her feet, opened it and withdrew an envelope. “Sugar,” she said. “For decoration. You scatter on cupcake, look like snow.”

“Just what we need,” I said.

“Quiet.” Anastasia reached for my hand, took a forefinger and pressed the tip into the black leather lid of the briefcase on her lap. She rolled a fingertip from one side to the other, released my finger and from the envelope lifted a small amount of fine white powder. “Sugar,” she said, dusting the leather where my finger had been. Then she blew very lightly across the surface, leaving a whorled white impression, a fingerprint.

“Terrific, Stazz.” I blew a low whistle and shook my head. “It’s never going to work.”

“Ahh, and you, you have big success, yes? Mr Pete?”

What could I say? Nothing.

“Much trouble to obtain Big Yank print. We must try.”

Renata leaned in. “There’s a chain saw in the tool shed.”

“Good to know,” I said. “But first let’s give Anastasia a chance.”

“Thank you, Peter.” 

Next out of her purse came a pair of white gloves, followed by a cylinder wrapped in white tissue paper, and a roll of scotch tape. She pulled on the gloves and unwrapped the tissue paper to reveal a water glass. A dusting of sugar from the envelope brought a scattering of smudgy white fingerprints to light.