Death in the Dolomites by David Wagner (feel good books .TXT) 📕

tapped on the table next to the bottle, thinking. “A bottle is not the kind of weapon someone would normally bring to a crime scene if he intends to commit murder. Unless there is some strange statement that our criminal wants to make, it is more likely that the bottle was a weapon of opportunity.”

“But,” said Rick, “there had to have been a reason to bring the bottle there in the first place. And it had to have been the murderer, since Taylor was heading out to ski and not likely to be carrying a bottle of prosecco. So it was to celebrate something, or at least to give Taylor the impression they were driving up there to celebrate. So two possibilities: They were there because of the land or it was just a coincidence that the murderer and victim were on that plot of land.” He looked at the faces of the other two men. “I can see that you agree with me that it’s not a coincidence.” He paused while the waitress cleared their soup bowls and replaced them with clean plates. “That would point to Melograno, since Taylor was dealing with him on the loan.”

Luca repositioned the plate in front of him. “There were other people who knew about the loan. They could have gotten Taylor up there on some other pretense, to make it look like Melograno did it. How about Lotti from across the hall? The sister could have told him.”

“The sister could have told anybody,” said Flavio.

“Exactly,” answered Luca. “And then there’s Muller. He met Taylor once at his hotel, he admitted that. He may have had more contact with the man than he claims.”

Rick shook his head. “But why would Muller be in that field with Taylor and a bottle of prosecco?”

“My American friend, Taylor was the key to Melograno getting the land. But the other side of the same coin is that Taylor was the key to Melograno not getting the land.”

“I need to think about that one a bit, Luca.”

“And the arrival of our secondo gives you that opportunity.” The waitress was approaching the table with a serving platter in one hand, spoon and fork in the other. “Flavio, your lady friend has appeared.”

Flavio’s head turned to see Lori wave before sitting down at her table. He waved back. “Got to go. But you’ll find this interesting, Riccardo. Lori called the consulate as we were going out and told them to put down the morning as vacation on her time card since she wasn’t helping Cat. Can you believe that?”

“Yes I can. What is surprising is that you find such honesty remarkable. But I suppose you are still smarting from the employee who embezzled your money. By the way, you didn’t tell us how you spent the morning.” He glanced at Luca who, as expected, was enjoying another exchange between the two friends.

Flavio got to his feet. “Skating.”

“Did you say skating? Ice skating?”

“Yes, Riccardo. Lori wanted to skate.”

“Did she wear one of those little skirts?”

“I’ll see you two tonight.” He turned and walked across the room to Lori’s table.

The main course was stracotto di manzo, pot roast, with mashed potatoes. The waitress deftly transferred the meat slices to their plates, using the fork and spoon as if they were attached to each other like tongs. It was the perfect secondo to follow what had been a tasty but rather light primo, with enough thick, dark, sugo from the meat to drizzle over the mashed potatoes. As with any good stracotto, only a fork was needed to cut it.

“What you were saying, Luca, if I understand correctly, is that by eliminating Taylor, Muller eliminates Melograno’s way to finance the sale.” Rick put a piece of beef in his mouth. “But why would Taylor have gone up there with Muller?”

“To seal the deal with a bottle of bubbly. There would have been something in it for Taylor.”

“Taylor was being bribed by Muller? But he was such a straight arrow in his business ethics.”

The policeman sipped his wine and flashed a wry smile. “That’s according to his sister. There may have been a darker side to our Signor Taylor that his sister was unaware of, or didn’t want to admit. If you were completely Italian, instead of half, that would have occurred to you.”

Rick put some mashed potatoes on his fork and ignored the jab. “Am I mistaken, Luca, or have we narrowed the field of suspects in this murder down to two?” Rick noticed that, without realizing it, he had said “we” instead of “you.” Luca did not appear concerned by it.

“Well, two primary suspects because of possible motives and their connection to the crime scene. There could be others, such as Lotti or Grandi, and the main suspects could have been helped by someone else, like the electrician, or the mayor. In fact, since there were two key parts of this crime, the murder itself and later dropping the body from the gondola, and everyone has an alibi for one or the other, or neither, it appears very possible that there was an accomplice. The body could well have been handed off to someone.” He took a piece of bread to get some stray meat sauce. “Which returns us to the issue of transporting the body. Everyone has a vehicle that could have done it: Muller has his Grand Cherokee, the mayor his city-provided Land Rover, even Gina Cortese, the ski instructor, has a small SUV, the sergeant told me.”

“And Lotti has his car with snow chains and almost certainly a trunk large enough to hold a body. All but Melograno, whose Mercedes is in the shop.”

“Which is something I have to check on tomorrow.”

“What’s on your schedule for the afternoon?”

Luca had left a small clump of mashed potatoes on his plate, perhaps so he could tell his wife that he was not overeating. “I have to talk with the public prosecutor, and another reporter has appeared to dig into the story.