Toured to Death (17 page)

“Neither do you.”

“What're you talking about?”

“Officer Loyola.” Rawlings had had enough.

Frank slumped back into his chair. So did Amy. Like prizefighters resting between rounds.

The sergeant stood up. “Thanks for coming in. I just wanted to apprise you of our current thinking.” He turned to face the cubicle wall. “Keep in mind what I said about withholding evidence.”

Amy had been about to get up. Now she found herself glued to the spot. “Withholding . . . ?”

“Yes.” Rawlings continued to speak to the wall. “I suspect you do have a copy of Ingo's script. Whether you received it through the notoriously unreliable postal service or you acquired it some other way, I don't care. But I would appreciate if you turned it over. Evidence, you know.”

“I don't have . . .” Amy was sputtering. “What makes you think . . .”

“One of my theories. We cops aren't very good at reading people. That's why we get so many ridiculous theories.”

Frank held the door for her, which felt awkward, given his antagonism, but Amy accepted his chivalry and walked through. She felt him following her, a few steps behind, through the maze of squad-room cubicles, past the holding cells and booking rooms and finally the central command desk that dominated the lobby. Once out the main double doors, she paused and watched Frank veer off to the left. Amy turned to the right.

“Thanks, Loyola,” she said as she walked. “I'll tell everyone how you sold us out.”

“Hey!”

Amy didn't turn around but walked a little faster.

“Hey!”

She was vaguely aware of steps behind her and then a hand on her left shoulder. A second later and she was being spun around and thrown back against a brick wall. Amy might have been expecting some sort of confrontation, but not this, not a physical assault.

“Who the huey you think you are?” The patrolman had a hand on each shoulder; then, as if suddenly realizing what he'd done, he backed away.

“Huey?” She was about to make a crack about his choice of cuss-words but changed her mind. “Frank, come on. Hitting a woman?”

“I didn't hit you.” They were on the far side of a bike stand, out of the flow of foot traffic but still within view of the trickle of humanity going in and out of the station. “Don't think I wouldn't.” And with that he lunged an inch forward.

Reflexively, Amy snapped her head back, smacking it bluntly against the brick. It hurt like hell and her head spun, but she managed not to cry out.

A single snort of a chuckle escaped his lips; then he turned serious. “You shamed me in front of a detective.”

Amy was within an inch, one deep breath, of throwing up. “You'll never make Homicide, Frank,” she heard herself say. “Never.”

He lunged forward again, and again her head snapped back against the brick, not as hard this time, but more embarrassing. The nausea in her stomach grew, but she pushed it down, along with a growing sense of panic.

“I guess you're a girl, after all.” It was like he was reading her mind. “Good. A healthy fear is the best deterrent.”

“Deterrent to what?” she gasped. “I assume you're no longer an active member of the Marcus Alvarez defense fund.”

“I tell you what's gonna happen.” Frank wouldn't move. His foul breath and menacing, hovering presence kept her head spinning. She glanced sideways, desperate, thinking someone going in or out had to be watching, but no one was.

A thick finger under her chin turned her face back to his. Again, the breath and the hovering, and the finger stayed in place. “I'm gonna be Rawlings's right-hand man on this case. Paperwork already went through.”

“You're working homicide?”

“Why not? I was there. I know the people.” Frank was almost licking his lips. “We're gonna snag him, me and Rawlings. One way or the other. And it's gonna be my ticket to a gold shield.”

Amy opened her mouth, lifting the rest of her head from Frank's supporting finger.

“You understand me?” he hissed.

Amy's reply was earthy but eloquent. And a little tilt of the chin made sure the blueberries hit Frank's shoes instead of her own.

“I
assumed that information was for all the captains. Amy, I'm sorry. Again.” It was the fourth time Martha had used the phrase, and she was tired of it.

“You don't have to be sorry,” came the transatlantic reply. “I'm just telling you what happened.”

“He actually threatened you? Pious, polite Frankie?”

“Yes, but I got even.”

“You pressed charges?”

“Not exactly. Martha, I'm not blaming you. But whatever you and Burt come up with, I'd appreciate it if you didn't spread the news. That includes Frank and Jolynn and Holly.”

“Holly flew home days ago.”

“You know what I mean. I'm the only one you should trust.”

“Okay.” Martha was growing a bit miffed. “You're really getting into this.”

“No,” Amy shot back. “We just have to stay focused.”

“Fine. So that's it? No other progress?” They had last seen each other Monday. It was now Friday, early morning in New York, around noon in Italy. Amy was glad she had caught Martha with her cell phone turned on.

“I think I covered everything,” said Amy. “I've been meaning to check up on Betsy Caulfield, but things have gotten too busy. How about you? What's happening in Rome?”

Martha wasn't calling from Rome, but she was just angry enough not to mention it. “Good things,” she reported. “Our Signore Guziano is optimistic about the case. It seems the twenty-three of us did an admirable job of tainting the evidence.”

“You're referring to the plastic bags?”

“Things got all mislabeled and misplaced. Other pieces of evidence had smudged fingerprints, multiple fingerprints. I guess we got too excited. Even our notarized statements contain enough discrepancies to confuse a jury. Captain Boido is reportedly tearing out his neat little semicircle of hair.”

“That's fantastic.”

“Guziano is working on a dismissal. My Texas connection at the embassy is pressuring the Italian government. Any day now he'll be released.”

A moment of dead air, followed by “Oh.”

“What do you mean, oh? I would think that deserves another ‘Fantastic.'”

“It does. Sorry. But as soon as Marcus is released . . . he may be facing a murder charge here. They're saying he killed Otto Ingo.”

“Otto? Well, that's plain stupid.”

“I know. They're grasping at straws.”

“Out of the frying pan . . . Well, we've done our part, dear. You'll have to get busy and taint your own evidence.”

“That's one approach.”

“Oh, Burt just walked in. Hold on.”

Martha cupped a hand over the phone and waited until Burt Baker had maneuvered his crutches across to the bedside phone. “It's Amy,” she whispered. “Don't tell her where we are.”

The judge nodded.

“Amy, girl. How are you?”

Amy repeated her update. Burt was even more outraged by Frank's behavior than Martha.

“Don't worry about the script. They may think you have it, but they can't possibly get a search warrant. Oh, by the way, Martha and I are following up a lead.” He glanced up with a smile, only to see his partner mouthing “No” and sawing the air like a railroad crossing signal. “Uh. She doesn't want me to tell you.”

“What do you mean, she doesn't . . . You guys aren't doing anything dangerous, are you? Promise me.”

“Dangerous? We've done nothing more than make a few calls and meet a few people.”

“What are you up to? Are you still in Rome?”

“Look, if anything comes of it, you'll be the first to know. The only one. That's a promise.” Burt spent another minute reassuring her, then hung up and turned to Martha. “You're full of secrets.”

She shrugged. “I don't want her worrying about us or telling us no. She's gotten so terribly bossy.”

“We did sort of put her in charge.”

Her second shrug was a repeat of the first. “Were the local cops cooperative?”

Burt brightened. “I showed them the papers from Billy at the embassy and tried to make it sound official. They're going to help. Do you want to come along?”

“Wild horses couldn't stop me.”

Martha waited until Burt was out the door. She caught up with him in the hall, fell in beside him, then skillfully, casually looped a hand between his right brace and right hip, letting it rest gently on his forearm. She was getting good at this.

They had arrived in Elba yesterday, booking themselves into the Montecristo, one room. The manager had readily recalled them from their earlier visit and had greeted them like old friends. “Welcome back,” he'd said, his arms spread wide.

This morning Burt had taken the hotel manager with him to see the Portoferraio police, to substantiate his story about the break-in and attempted robbery. As a judge, he knew the importance of making things look legal and proper, even if they weren't.

“The police understood what you wanted?” They were in the rental car, whirling past the autumn purple of the vineyards, the silvery olive groves, and the occasional dusty donkey cart. Martha drove, fast and decisively.

Burt checked the directions the police chief had written out, half in Italian, half in English. “I told him the U.S. government is looking into the robbery, taking it very seriously.”

“There's a fork coming up.”

“Left. I told him, ‘We suspect someone on our tour of hiring a pair of local men to break into our rooms. Do you know of any local men who might do this? Men who might have a reputation for this sort of work?'”

“Good.” The car swung onto an unpaved road, and a bucket's worth of gravel leaped up to attack them. Martha shifted into a lower gear as they bounced from rock to gully. “If Amy is right and the robbery was arranged, then it's our best shot—our only shot. These guys must have had direct contact with the killer. I mean, would you agree to do such a thing without at least meeting the guy who put you up to it?”

A red Fiat was parked beside a low stone wall that had probably been in the same state of collapse for the last hundred years. The Portoferraio police chief stood propped against the Fiat's dusty flank, frowning, arms folded across his preternaturally large gut, the image of reluctant cooperation.

Burt saw Martha's expression and laughed. “You should have seen him before I showed the letter.”

The chief didn't move but waited for them to get out of the car and approach. He inclined his head toward a small cottage, the only building in sight. “The brothers Grigio, they live here with their auntie since their papa and mama they die.” His English was basic but sturdy.

Burt introduced Martha. The chief made no acknowledgment but turned and led the way toward the cottage. It was a stone dwelling with a roof of broken red crockery.
Too small,
mused Burt,
to comfortably house a bachelor, much less two men and their auntie.

“The family Grigio do many things. All of Elba, we know them for these things. But to do it for strangers? No one does anything for strangers.”

“Look, it won't hurt to talk,” said Burt.

The cottage was divided into two rooms, each with an oak-plank door to the outside. The chief led the way through the door on the right. This seemed to be an all-purpose room with five or six pieces of humble, mismatched furniture. A thin, sullen-looking man in his early twenties sat on a stool in the room's far left corner. He was repairing a tackle block, knotting a length of twine around the cracked wooden mechanism. His work space was illuminated by a hole in the crockery roof, and the room was strong with the smell of horse glue.

“Il fratello. Dov'e?” the chief asked. “Your brother. Where is he?”

If the man was surprised to suddenly find the chief, a crippled American, and a woman with a silver bullet hairdo standing in his cottage, he showed no sign of it. “Fuori,” he answered. Then, turning his head to a shuttered window, the young man called out, “Sebastiano!”

Martha used a handkerchief to wipe a layer of dust from the seat of a high-backed chair, then settled gingerly onto the cracked wood. Burt lit on the chair next to hers. Together they waited, listening to Sebastiano's heavy footsteps as he made his way from the stone pasture, over the low stone wall, and into the stone cottage.

Less than an hour later Burt and the police chief were sitting in a seaside taverna not far from the string of resort hotels that dotted the scenic Gulf of Procchio. Martha wasn't with them. She had driven back to the hotel with a severe headache, and though Burt had been desperate to join her, he'd felt obligated to treat the chief to a glass of grappa.

“I told you,” the chief said yet again. He was in a better mood now that he'd been proven right. “We do not trust easily.”

“But we told them they were in no danger. We offered them money.” Burt stared at the pictures spread out on the old pub table, the smiling snapshots taken on the last day of the race, their edges now decorated with the brothers' grimy prints.

The conversation in the Grigio cottage had turned out to be rather one-sided. The police chief had dutifully translated Burt's and Martha's questions and assurances and offers of cash, though his attitude had bordered on the apologetic.
These crazy Americans want me to ask you this,
his eyes and shoulders and hands seemed to say.
What can I do? It's my job.

The Grigios' responses had been terse. No, they had not done a job for any American. No, they had never robbed anyone. Ever. This last statement had provided the afternoon's only moment of levity, prompting the chief to snort out loud. The Grigios had responded by coming as close to a smile as they ever would.

Burt had fought on valiantly, using his judicial skills to probe the nuances of the translated answers. He nearly had to force them to look at the photos of the smiling team captains. They looked but didn't focus, as if the nerves between their eyes and brain had been temporarily severed.

The chief slurped from his tumbler of grappa, relishing the harsh, potent remains of the season's first pressing. “I think you are wrong. No people here do work like you say. To rob tourists? So what? But this is different.” He expelled air through his lips, and a mist of grappa sprayed across the photos.

We came all this way, Burt Baker thought. For nothing. But Martha had insisted, and truth to tell, he would have felt guilty to be so close and not make the effort.

“We are an island,” said the chief. “Like Corsica, Sardinia. Smarter, yes. More handsome, a thousand times. But we do for family. Not for friends, most times. And for strangers, never.”

He accepted another refill, starting and finishing it as he rose slowly to his feet, then wiped his mouth with an edge of the tablecloth. Seconds later and he had left the taverna, not waiting for Burt's taxi and not thanking him for the drinks.

The judge ordered a bottle of mineral water to take the tannic taste out of his mouth. He'd grown dizzy from the grappa and the stuffy heat. His eyes were fuzzy. And so when he saw her face appear just a dozen feet away, he at first thought it was a hallucination. What could she possibly be doing here?

Amy had mentioned her name only this morning. And here she was, standing in the doorway, the afternoon sun illuminating her familiar profile. Well, familiar if, during the occasional break in court sessions, you occasionally returned to your chambers and caught the occasional episode of
The Roads We Choose.

Betsy Caulfield continued to teeter on the threshold. With one hand, she shielded her violet eyes, peering shamelessly into the darkened, smoky interior. Burt and half a dozen Elban fishermen peered shamelessly back. And then, just as quickly, she vanished.

Burt shook his groggy head. “Miss Caulfield!” He slapped a twenty-euro note on the table, then pushed himself up on his crutches. “Miss Caulfield!”

She was out by the road, still shielding her eyes and looking back now toward the long arm of Hotel del Golfo, the resort that cradled the inner bend of the bay, greedily claiming for itself a perfect crescent of the sandy beach. She heard her name and turned. “Do you know anyplace nearby that sells sunglasses?” she asked. “This morning my favorite Guccis disappeared right off my chaise.” She pointed vaguely toward the hotel. “The gift shop only has those cheap ones that ruin your eyes and look like shit.”

“Betsy Caulfield. What are you—”

“They have sunglasses for me on the set. But the costume Nazi and the continuity Nazi joined forces and won't let me take them. As if I would lose a costume.”