The Last Enemy (7 page)

“The family had either great wealth or even greater determination, to hold on to this place through greed, famine, pestilence, and taxes,” Cenni remarked idly to Piero as they waited for someone to answer the door. It was, he also noted to himself, a rare example of a medieval townhouse that had not been tortured in later centuries to conform to more elaborate architectural fads. He was curious to see the inside.

The young woman who answered the door, a servant judging from her demeanor, was dressed in street clothes rather than a uniform. A good sign, Cenni thought, that the family might not be as pompous as the questore had suggested. Cenni showed her his credentials and smiled. That appeared to fluster her for the moment, but she gathered her forces admirably and asked them to follow her.

The entrance hall to which they had been admitted cut through the center of the house, from front to back. A series of vaulted arches suggested to Cenni that the hall had been carved out of multiple smaller rooms. The walls, painted a Tuscan yellow, were hung with family portraits—some of them quite good, he thought from his quick appraisal as he walked down the hall. At the end, she opened a door into what appeared to be the family sitting room.

“The count will be with you in a moment. He asked that you make yourself at home,” the servant said, smiling faintly. She left by a different door.

Piero accepted the invitation to make himself at home by sitting on the largest, most comfortable-looking chair in the room. Cenni wondered if
Better sit than stand
was the Tonni family motto. He walked about the room slowly, using this opportunity to get to know its inhabitants before he met them in person.

It was a room he liked. It was at the back of the house and he could see a large stone terrace through the French doors that stretched across the south end of the room. The ceiling was high and vaulted, yet the room seemed intimate and informal. Various-sized oriental rugs, mainly tribal, covered the highly polished chestnut wood floors, and one prayer-sized Persian lay in front of the fireplace. Painted a warm white, the walls were covered with family photographs and a few amateurish-looking watercolors. The only important work of art in the room was an Impressionist painting hanging over the fire-place mantle, a Sisley he found upon examining the signature.

Built-in shelves on each side of the fireplace held a stereo, an old-fashioned record player, a small portable television, a VCR, and lots of books, about half of them with English titles. He smiled, noting the number of murder mysteries shoved in among the Dickens, Thackeray, and Austen novels. There were two full shelves of works on and by feminists— Italian, French, and English authors mixed together—and a number of books on the occult; surprisingly, three of them written by Aleister Crowley, the Englishman who had been expelled from Sicily in the 1920s for scandalous acts of black magic and for trafficking in heroin and cocaine. Some Sicilians had even accused Crowley of human sacrifice. Umberto Casati’s father had been a close friend of Mussolini, and as Cenni recalled from his studies of drug use in Italy, it was Mussolini’s followers who had driven Crowley from the island. He wondered if there was a connection?

The record, tape, and CD collections were diverse, suggesting an eclectic taste for rock, blues, jazz, and opera. The furniture was chintz-covered, overstuffed, and worn, and a small fire burned behind the grate. It was a room in which people could put their feet on the coffee table, he thought with envy, remembering the rigid enforcement of his mother’s rules:
Shoes off in the house, feet off the furniture
. He was examining the photo of a good-looking young man prominently displayed on a large refectory table when he heard the door opening and looked about.

The man who entered the room was in his late sixties or early seventies, tall, thin and slightly stooped, well over six feet tall, about his own height, Cenni thought. He had gray hair, cut close, and was wearing thin wire glasses. He was dressed informally but with elegance, in an English tweed jacket, opennecked dark gray knit shirt, and black wool slacks, Italian cut: all expensive. He must have been quite good looking when he was young, Cenni thought. He’s still handsome and certainly distinguished, a man who knows his own importance. The count extended his hand in greeting.

“Dottore, I was told you’d be paying us a visit. Please have a seat,” he said, motioning to a sofa adjacent to the chair that Piero had already taken. Without waiting for Cenni to comply, the count seated himself directly across from Piero, in a straight-backed wing chair. He eased himself slowly into the chair, holding on to the arms for support. “Arthritis of the back,” he said unapologetically, in response to the surprised look on Piero’s face.

“A terrible tragedy!” the count began, not waiting for Cenni to introduce himself, Piero, or the subject of their visit. “For something like this to happen on Good Friday and in Assisi, makes it that much more heinous. You can be fully assured that I will do whatever is necessary to assist the police. Assisi doesn’t need this type of publicity! A reward, perhaps,” he mused.

“And your niece, it’s certainly tragic for her as well as for Assisi. She was still a young woman, forty-five I understand,” Cenni interjected, then stopped, annoyed at himself for reacting so openly to the count’s detachment.

“Well, of course, uh . . . Inspector. That goes without saying,” the count responded dryly, demoting him for insubordination, Cenni assumed. “As I said, I’ll do all I can to help. Please tell me what that might be.”

“I’d like to know as much as possible about your niece, what she was like, who her friends were, why she was here in Italy. But before that, I understand that Dottor Russo called you this morning and that he also sent over one of his own men, Inspector Staccioli, to secure the house. I’d like to speak to Inspector Staccioli before I begin interviewing your family and your household staff, and I would also like to visit your niece’s living quarters. I asked one of my own staff, Inspector Ottaviani, to meet me here with the forensic police. Assuming they’re somewhere in the house, I’d like to speak to them as well.”

“Surely it’s not necessary to interview my family,” the count rejoined sharply, focusing on only one of Cenni’s requests. “My wife, daughter, and granddaughter are all distraught over this brutal murder. My wife is in bed under a doctor’s care. We haven’t yet told her that my niece was raped. I prefer that you not disturb my family with unnecessary and frivolous questions. Whatever you need to know about my niece, I can tell you. I discussed this very point with Dottor Russo this morning, and he understood my position perfectly.”

Piero had followed their exchange as a disinterested observer might watch a tennis rally, waiting patiently for one of the players to hit the ball over the line. He finally had his patience rewarded. Now he’s done it! he thought.

“I do understand your position, Signor Casati, perhaps even better than Dottor Russo,” Cenni responded, his tone dangerously deferential. “I must point out to you, however, that this is a police investigation into, as you yourself stated very precisely, a brutal murder. No one who knew the victim or saw her on the day of her death is exempt from questioning. That includes all the members of your household: your wife, daughter, and granddaughter. If you prefer we can question your wife in her room with her doctor present.” He checked his wrist-watch. “I would like to meet with the household in thirty minutes— in this room, or in another if you prefer. And now, with your permission, I would like to speak to officers Staccioli and Ottaviani.”

10

The kitchen was the kind of room Piero liked. He loved to eat and the Casati kitchen was just the place in which to do it. It was located immediately below the family room but was at least twice its size. When the house was originally built, it had probably served as both kitchen and storerooms for root vegetables, barrels of wine, flour, salt, and other provisions the family would have needed to get through the cold Umbrian winters. The ceilings were at least fifteen feet high, and supported by massive oak beams blackened with the smoke of centuries. A large alcove on the east wall, carved out of stone, was now used to cure meats and age cheeses. It was also lined with wine and port barrels, although he doubted that a count would drink wine from a barrel. Probably for the servants, he thought. He counted four large oak presses, similar to the one that his
nonna
had in her kitchen when he was growing up. She’d kept biscotti in a jar on the top shelf. He remembered climbing up to the top by pulling out the bottom drawers and using them as steps. He still had a scar on his elbow from one of his falls. He had no regrets, though. That day she had let him finish the whole jar.

There was a huge fireplace on the west wall, large enough for a grown man to enter without stooping. It reminded him of a fireplace he’d once seen in Toledo the year that he and his mother had visited Spain. It had stone benches inside, covered on top with tiles. The guide had told them that the family would sit inside the fireplace in the winter to stay warm. At some point the Casati family had installed a modern gas stove, stainless steel sink, and large refrigerator in the back of the kitchen, but the original stone sink and wood-burning stove were still the centerpieces of the cooking area. In the center of the room stood a large refectory table, at least twelve feet long. One side held baskets of fresh vegetables, two large loaves of bread—just out of the oven he surmised from the warm smell of yeast that filled the air—and what looked to be the beginnings of a
torta di pasqua.
At the other side were four police officers, all comfortably ensconced drinking coffee and eating biscotti.
Fasten your seatbelts
, Piero said to himself when he spied Elena among them.

The commissario was close to the boiling point. From what he had observed since entering the house, it appeared that nothing had been done to secure it or Rita Minelli’s living quarters. If Staccioli was not able to produce the only existing key to Rita Minelli’s room, it meant that any member of the family or their servants had had plenty of time to search her room and remove anything that might embarrass or incriminate them, he reflected. He acknowledged to himself that the murderer, if actually living in the Casati house, would have had ample opportunity the previous night to search Minelli’s room before the body was discovered. But the real irritant was that one of his own officers was relaxing with Russo’s lazy bastard!

Elena looked uncomfortable when the commissario entered the kitchen. She put her cup down and jumped up, a slight flush rising on her checks. The two forensic technicians also stood, but Staccioli, an older man of high complexion and inordinate bulk, remained quite at ease. He nodded to Cenni but made no effort to acknowledge that a senior officer had entered the room.

The commissario was the first to break the silence:

“Inspector Staccioli, I understand from Dottor Russo that you were sent here to secure the house and the murder victim’s living quarters. I would like you to show me her rooms, but first may I have the key?” he said, extending his hand, palm upward.

The confused look on Staccioli’s face confirmed what Cenni had already guessed, that he didn’t have the key, had probably not asked for it, and in all likelihood had not even visited Minelli’s rooms since entering the house. The count intervened before Staccioli could respond.

“There are only two keys to my niece’s rooms. One she had. I assume that she carried it on her. The second is with the other household keys in the library, which also serves as my office. One of the conditions of my insurance policy is that I keep the library locked when I’m not using it. It contains some very valuable manuscripts; three are
inconabula
. The library is also equipped with a highly sophisticated alarm system,” he added self-importantly. He paused for a moment and then continued, anticipating Cenni’s next question. “The key is still there.”

“Grazie a Lei,”
Cenni responded, his tone warmer than it had been in the sitting room. “I would like to talk to you further about your household arrangements. But before that, I wonder if you’d give me a few minutes alone with my staff. I need to review some aspects of the investigation with them. After that, I would like Inspector Ottaviani and our lab technicians to visit your niece’s rooms, let’s say in five minutes.”

As soon as the count had exited the kitchen, closing the large oak door that separated it from the hall, Cenni upbraided Staccioli, his controlled anger evident to both Elena and Piero, but apparently not to Staccioli, who not only remained seated but also began immediately to make excuses.

Cenni interrupted him after the second excuse, which, although rambling, had something to do with counts being different from regular people.

“Inspector, you were sent here to secure the rooms of the murder victim, not to enjoy coffee and biscotti at the expense of Signor Casati. And please, stand when I address you!”

Staccioli shuffled slowly to his feet and brushed the crumbs from the front of his jacket with studied nonchalance. Cenni observed this dissension in the ranks with mild amusement. Due for his pension soon . . . knows he’d have to murder a senior officer, at the very least a vice questore, before he’d lose it. Still, for the sake of the children, . . . he thought, looking at Elena.