To Die in Tuscany by David Wagner (novels for teenagers .txt) 📕

Garcia turned to Rick. “Please tell the inspector that Señora Somonte is not herself because of her illness and of course the loss of her husband. I’m sure anything you needed to know from her I can tell you, since I was Señor Somonte’s special assistant.” He spoke with the thick Castilian lisp that would have raised eyebrows among Rick’s Chicano friends in New Mexico.

“Tell him we will have to talk to her eventually.” DiMaio was not happy.

Rick told him, and then repeated the question asked of the widow. What followed was Rick’s normal consecutive interpretation routine, moving between Garcia and the policeman.

“Señor Somonte has been to Urbino many times, and knows several people, most of them connected to his love of Italian art. We arrived in Urbino the day before yesterday, in the afternoon, in the rental car we picked up at the airport. After checking in here, he struck out on his own while the señora went to the room and rested. The cabin pressure had made her cold worse. I stayed here and made business phone calls that he had requested.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

Garcia leaned back in his chair. “Not directly, but a few days before I had put calls through for him to two of his acquaintances here in Urbino, so he could have gone to see them. One was Ettore Bruzzone, an art dealer, the man who sold him the Piero della Francesca drawing that was to be donated to the museum in Sansepolcro. The other was a man named Cosimo Morelli, a local businessman. I don’t know when Señor Somonte got back to the hotel, but he wanted an early dinner here so I could tell him about the phone calls I’d made. It was just the two of us; Señora Somonte had food sent up to her room. I assume he turned in after dinner; it had been a long day for a man of his age.”

“What about yesterday?”

“The only time I saw him was when the three of us had lunch. It was here in the hotel again, because of the señora’s cold. But at least she was able to come to the dining room.”

“What had he been doing that morning?”

The question made Garcia shake his head. “He didn’t say. The conversation was mostly about business, the files I had been working on before lunch. His wife spent the meal looking at her cell phone. One thing he did mention, outside of work, was that he was looking forward to seeing the exhibit that is opening tomorrow night. In fact this whole trip, including the donation of the drawing, was planned around that opening. He had received a special invitation to attend from the museum director.”

“We will have to talk to the museum director,” said DiMaio after Rick translated. “I’d like to know more about our new widow. Please see what you can get out of him.”

“Why not?” answered Rick before turning back to Garcia. “Had the Somontes been married very long?”

Garcia gave a weak cough before answering. “He married her soon after the passing of his first wife, three years ago.” He looked from one face to the other. “She had worked as a secretary in one of his wool mills.”

The Spaniard shrugged, as if nothing more needed to be said, and it occurred to Rick that if Betta had been along, the man wouldn’t have said even that much. He asked DiMaio what else he should ask.

“Ask him if Somonte had a cell phone. We didn’t find one on the body. Also, could he have any papers or documents in his room that might be helpful? I don’t want to ask Signora Somonte, but we will if we have to.”

Rick translated the question for Garcia.

“He always carried a cell phone. Dios mio, could he have been killed for a cell phone? As far as papers, there was his notebook. You should find it in his room.”

“But we don’t want to disturb—”

“No, no, Señor Montoya. He had his own room. Because of his wife’s cold, of course.”

* * *

Betta had climbed the steep street, glad that she was wearing comfortable, thick-soled shoes. The afternoon shoppers were beginning to appear, along with tourists who wandered about holding tight to their guide books and maps. Before reaching the corner, she passed a wine bar, a sign on the door indicating that it would open at six, and she thought it might be a good place for them to go before dinner. Often such places had good samplings of antipasto, so it might even be perfect as an alternative to a full meal. She passed a tiny gelateria and came to the Piazza della Repubblica where the main arteries of Urbino intersected. To the right, Via Vittorio Veneto climbed to the Palazzo Ducale, the most famous building in the city. She turned left up the steep Via Raffaello, passing the facade of the San Francesco church, suppressing the desire to take a quick peek inside. Cultural tourism would have to wait for another day.

Galleria Bruzzone, at number 12, was smaller than she had expected. Her frame of reference for commercial art galleries began with her father’s business in Bassano del Grappa. That was a large, well-lit room with sufficient space to hang a dozen paintings easily, whereas Bruzzone’s shop was small, narrow, and dark. The few paintings she saw as she entered were miniatures in ornate frames, displayed in a case like rings in a jewelry store. She looked through the glass and decided they were nineteenth century and not Italian. The dates and Germanic name on the title cards confirmed both suppositions, but it was not an artist she had ever heard of. Her office had enough missing Italian masterpieces to deal with; they didn’t need to be looking for lost foreign art.

She had heard a bell sound somewhere in the back of the gallery when she came in, and now a door in the