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

said Betta, “the murder has to be connected to the drawing. It must be that whoever tried to shoot Bruzzone knows where it is. When we find the murderer, we will find the drawing.”

DiMaio stared at her with tired eyes. “I know you want to find the drawing, Betta; we all do. But you have to face the possibility that Somonte’s murder and the attempt on Bruzzone have nothing to do with the drawing.”

They stood in silence until Rick spoke. “Something else occurs to me. To state the obvious, the person who killed Somonte was the same one who came in here and shot at Bruzzone.”

“That’s correct,” said DiMaio, “unless two people are involved in the crime and they took turns shooting at people. They would want us to think there was only one shooter. But I interrupted you, Riccardo. Go on.”

“I was going to say that anybody who can prove they were somewhere else this morning when Bruzzone was attacked should be off the hook, even if their alibi for the night of the murder was weak. But if we have two accomplices, it won’t matter.”

DiMaio considered the observation. “Well, I didn’t get much out of people when I asked them where they were the night of the murder, so I have my doubts that asking where everyone was this morning will help. But then I’m a confirmed pessimist and the lack of sleep is making it worse.” He rubbed his eyes. “But, yes, let’s find out where everyone was an hour ago. Betta, you can ask Vitellozzi, and I’ll call Florio and Morelli. Rick, if you could call Garcia, that will cover him and Signora Somonte, though I doubt if they’re involved.”

Rick noticed that DiMaio left out one name. “We didn’t see Pilar at breakfast this morning, Alfredo. Did you keep her out late?”

“No, I took her back to the hotel just after you left us last night at the wall. Well, not quite just after, but not very much later.” He shrugged. “Perhaps she had breakfast with her stepmother.”

Ten minutes later Rick and Betta walked into the Hotel Botticelli and asked for the room key. The desk clerk passed it to them along with a message asking Rick to call Signor Garcia, with his number. Rick took out his cell phone. “He may want to confess to the murder.”

“Just so he gives me the drawing when he does.” Betta held the paper so Rick could use both hands to enter the number into his phone. A very short conversation in Spanish followed, and Rick put the phone back in his pocket.

“Well, this is curious. He said he needs to talk to me. We’re going to meet in an hour, so I hope the Spanish consul doesn’t take too long.”

* * *

When Rick got to the police station the officer on duty told him to wait, that the inspector would be down shortly. It puzzled him as to why DiMaio wouldn’t have him come to his office, but he shrugged and looked around the large waiting room, deserted except for three other people. A woman was with a young man in his early twenties, whom he guessed to be her son. She stared straight ahead; he kept his eyes on his phone, a wire running from it to his earbuds. Playing his uncle Piero’s favorite game, Rick tried to guess why the two were waiting in the commissariato. The first possibility was a mundane one: the son needed some document that only the police issue, like proof of no criminal record, to be presented to another bureaucrat, in another government office, in order to get some public benefit. That was the most logical guess, but not very interesting. Better would be if they were there to report the disappearance of their husband and father, who had gone out the night before to bring home a pizza, and neither he nor the pizza had returned. He was straying from Piero’s game, which was intended to sharpen powers of observation, and instead creating fiction.

Rick sized up the man in the corner, who was dressed in a dark suit with a starched white shirt and striped tie. In the few seconds that Rick was watching him, the man had looked at his watch twice. Who still wore a watch? Rick hadn’t owned one in years, relying on his cell phone for the time, as well as for the news, GPS, sports scores, the weather, photographs, a dictionary, and notes to himself. He also made the occasional phone call on it. The man wasn’t that old, but everything about him indicated he wanted to be seen as being older than he was. Rick the translator came up with a few appropriate words: Prim? Yes. Punctilious? Maybe. Pedantic? Perhaps. He was scrolling through his mental thesaurus when DiMaio appeared, looked around the room, and walked quickly to him.

“Thanks for coming, Riccardo. That’s the consul sitting over there, and I’d rather not bring him up to my office or it could take forever. If you could start things off by making some excuse for me, that will help.”

“Ci penso io,” said Rick, using the Italian equivalent of “leave it to me.”

The man watched them approach, his eyes lingering a moment on Rick’s cowboy boots, and then got up when it appeared they were heading for him and not the woman with her son. Rick shook his hand firmly and spoke in Spanish, trying, but mostly not succeeding, to add a Castilian lisp.

“Señor Consul, I am Rick Montoya, the interpreter for Inspector DiMaio. He is mortified that he cannot receive you properly in his office, but he has been interrogating a prisoner there, and it is in—shall we say—some disorder. He hopes you will forgive him.”

The consul’s eyes widened and he looked at DiMaio, who, not understanding a word, smiled and bowed his head slightly before shaking the man’s hand.

“But…but…I don’t need a translator.” The words were stammered in Spanish. “I mean…” He continued, but