A Deadly Paradise (20 page)

Renato grabbed his twin and wrapped him in a bearhug. “Find her, Alex. If I ever saw two people who belonged together, it’s you and Chiara. And like it or not, you are a stubborn bastard.” He moved quickly to avoid getting hit. “Just telling it like it is,
figlio mio!
”

They had dinner later that night in the residency, or what Renato referred to as the
icebox.
The food was the worst Alex had ever eaten, and he found himself pushing away most of it after a few bites. “I thought you looked thinner, and now I know why. The pasta was overcooked, the chicken was raw, and I have no clue what this is,” Alex said, referring to the dish the housekeeper had just set before him. “Is this supposed to be some type of sweet? It looks like melted ice cream!” He pushed it away.

“Shush! She’ll hear you. It is ice cream; it’s all she ever serves. We switch off every other night. Vanilla or strawberry.”

“You hate vanilla. And speaking of stubborn bastards, the only flavor you’d ever touch at home was chocolate. Here we are, all of us thinking you live in the lap of luxury.
Fratello,
this place is a dump. Considering the state of this ice cream, this room is probably colder than the inside of your refrigerator, and this is June! Hard to believe you took up wearing dresses for this.”

“Give it up, Alex. I’ve accepted the choices you’ve made in life, and I expect the same of you. I’m a man of God, so stop the dress jokes and stop being an ass!”

“Sorry, Renato. No more dress jokes, I promise. But if this is the way you eat every night, you’ll be dead in a year, from starvation or trichinosis. Can’t you fire her and hire someone who can cook?”

“The woman does her best. She’s mildly retarded and without family, and if she weren’t working here, she’d be in a home somewhere.”

“So hire yourself a cook and have this one clean the floors, or maybe even dust the furniture. I could write my name on that mirror behind you.”

“How do I do that and not hurt her feelings?”

Alex was momentarily speechless in admiration of his brother’s innate kindness. Renato was the twin with the soft heart. When they were children, he’d carry home every stray animal he found in the streets. Most of them were sent off to his grandparents’ farm in Bevagna. It wasn’t until he started bringing home people that his parents finally said
stop.
He’s too good for the Church, Alex reflected.

“Give her a new title and tell her that cooking is beneath her. And if your bosses object to paying two salaries, remind them of all the money you’ll be coming into when Hanna dies. Or better yet, have Hanna remind them. Even a man of God deserves a decent meal.” Alex was the twin with an answer to everything.

IT WAS CLOSE to eleven when Alex put his key into the ignition to begin the return drive. The brothers had talked about everything, just like old times: Hanna’s health, Alex’s search for Chiara, his current case, Prodi’s government. The only thing they didn’t talk about was Renato. It wasn’t until he was halfway home that Alex acknowledged that it was exactly like old times, mostly about him, with Renato doing the listening. He just assumed that his brother was happy, but decided that the next time he’d at least ask.

At any other time, he would have driven well over the speed limit. He loved to test his car on the open road, and the superstrada was empty of traffic. There was even a three-quarter moon and a sky full of stars to light the way, but tonight he had too much to think about to concentrate on driving. Renato was right; he should continue his search for Chiara. He knew that even before he’d spoken to his brother, but he’d wanted confirmation. Renato was also right that he should stay with the police. He had access to all the national databases. It would be much easier to track Chiara down now, as he had Puglia as a focus. Chiara had always preferred cities with their libraries and museums, so he’d begin with Lecce and work his way up along the heel to Bari. He’d find her.

He had to solve the Baudler case first, and aspects of it were beginning to irritate him. It wasn’t a particularly difficult case, as cases go. Access to Baudler’s house was limited. He had a clearly identified set of suspects, and he was sure that one of them had murdered the German. The political considerations didn’t bother him. In Italy, there were always political considerations, and he’d always worked through them. It was the surrounding set of circumstances that was keeping him awake at nights. Even with an outright confession from one of the suspects, he’d never rest until he tied it all together. Who killed the mother and child in 1978? What happened to Count Molin: was it murder or suicide? What happened to the counterfeit banknotes? And now there was a further twist: the priest and the uncle had both died from eating bad mushrooms. Way too much of a coincidence!

Renato had given him a few ideas, one in particular about the counterfeit notes. “Why is the German government trying to suppress information?” he’d asked. “The world knows Germany produced counterfeit money during the war. I disagree with Hanna that the motive is to stop further talk about the money. It’s been the subject of dozens of documentaries, films, even a TV series. A few years back, the English made a tongue-in-cheek series with Ian Richardson playing an evil SS officer. There’s no way the Germans can suppress this information. To kill someone to keep quiet what’s been known for fifty years! Way too Machiavellian. Hanna is beginning to see spies under her bed.”

“What, then?”

“That money went somewhere. I’d start wondering if Germany used the money
after
the war. Now, that
would
cause a scandal. The British would demand restitution, and probably for a lot more than the few paltry pounds involved in this particular case. Nobody talks millions these days. Today, it’s always billions.”

“Where do you suggest I go looking?”

“Focus on the German’s job. She was the cultural attaché in Rome and, from what you tell me, an expert on Renaissance art. I’d start there. One of my former teachers is still complaining that the Germans purchased a number of Leonardo’s drawings and papers for the German Institute in Rome, outbidding the Vatican Library, and this was in the decade after the war when everyone was supposed to be broke. He’s still wondering where the Germans found that kind of money for culture. You might want to contact him. But if you do, lay off the priest jokes. He’s a dear friend.”

“It sounds as though we should trade jobs,” Alex responded, surprised at how much sense Renato made.

“I might be able to do your job,” Renato responded. “You’d definitely screw up mine and instigate the next Reformation, no doubt.”

His brother also had some suggestions about finding surviving members of the Resistance in the Veneto. He gave him the name of an elderly priest. “He was with the
partigiani
in Umbria, but these old guys have a wide network. He might have the names of men who were active in the Resistance in Venice.”

As he approached Gubbio, the road narrowed and twisted and he had to concentrate on his driving. He could see the lights of an approaching car in the rearview mirror. The driver of the other car flashed his lights six times, warning him to move over. “Aggressive ass,” he muttered as he pulled to the right. The car went speeding past—a Citroën 2CV had just thumbed its nose at a 2002 Alpine BMW. “Not in this lifetime,” Alex said, pressing down hard on the accelerator.

4

AT A SURPRISINGLY early hour the next morning, Cenni was at the Foligno station catching the train to Rome. He’d been tempted to text Elena with some instructions before leaving, but decided to honor her request for phone calls only. He had three things he wanted to do in Rome, and two of them had come up during his conversation with Renato the previous evening. The priest who had objected to Germany’s purchase of Leonardo’s drawings was also up early, thanks to Cenni’s phone call. They agreed to meet at the Vatican Library at nine thirty. The partisan priest who might lead Cenni to information about the Resistance in Venice during the war had been luckier. He had a housekeeper, and she refused to wake him at “this ungodly hour.” That she was speaking to a future vice-questore made not a particle of difference. “When you’re ninety, you’ll want a sleep-in too,” she’d snapped before hanging up.

His main reason for traveling to Rome, though, was to visit the German Embassy and question some of the people who had worked with Baudler before she retired, and also to see Dieter Reimann. Reimann had been too anxious to keep him away from Rome, so Cenni decided to pay him an unannounced visit at the embassy when he finished at the Vatican Library. His train arrived in Roma Termini exactly on time, so he stopped for a quick coffee before grabbing a taxi outside the station.

Ettore Hyppolito was a priest of the scholarly Jesuit variety and had been a Latin teacher when Renato was training for the priesthood. He was a shy, elderly man in his late seventies, with a thatch of thick white hair that stood straight up from its roots. He had the habit of grabbing at his hair and pulling on it as he talked, which might have accounted for his decidedly youthful hairstyle. His only duty, besides prayer and fasting, was study—and in particular, study of the Vatican Apostolic Library’s Renaissance manuscripts. Before Cenni could ask any questions, Ettore, as he insisted on being called—the commissario was, after all, the bishop’s brother—gave him a brief description of the Library and its holdings. It seemed he also served as a tour guide for visiting dignitaries.

The Library, he informed Cenni, was built by Pope Nicholas V,
“pro communi doctorum virorum commodo.
” Sorry, he said, when he noticed the puzzled look on Alex’s face. “Renato was my finest Latin scholar, and you two look so much alike. For the common convenience of the learned,” he translated before continuing his talk. “The Library houses a collection of over 1.6 million books, 8,300 incun-abile, and 75,000 manuscripts, over 100,000 engravings, and 300,000 coins and medals. The
Codex Vaticanus
is the most famous manuscript in our possession and is generally believed to date from the fourth century. It’s the oldest nearly complete copy of the Greek Bible in existence. Of course, it lacks the Book of Genesis, Hebrews 9:14 to the end, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Book of Revelation, but we make do,” he said, and smiled shyly at his own witticism. “The architect Domenico Fontana was commissioned by Pope Sixtus V to design this building in 1587, and we’ve been here ever since.” It was at this point that he stopped and grabbed Alex’s arm. “You’re here just in time to see the building before it’s closed to the public. In July, we begin extensive renovations. The Vatican architects say it has to be done, that there are serious structural weaknesses in this part of the building, but I’ll confess to you, Alex, I’m very afraid it’s all about modernizing, and in the end it will ruin us. Imagine the Vatican Library with air conditioning and elevators. Your generation is very spoiled, Alex.”

“Jarvinia Baudler,” the priest exclaimed when they finally got around to the reason for the commissario’s visit. “I knew Jarvinia very well. She was an excellent scholar of Renaissance art, with a first-rate mind. You say she was murdered. I didn’t know that, but then I rarely read the papers and I never watch TV. Very upsetting. I wish I didn’t know,” he added truthfully. “I prefer not to know about the wickedness in this world.”

He informed Cenni that he’d met Jarvinia about twelve years earlier, when she was doing research on certain drawings and writings of Leonardo that were part of the holdings of the German Cultural Institute in Rome. “She was reviewing the Institute’s collection with the thought of mounting an exhibit at the embassy and was curious as to how the Institute came to own Leonardo’s drawings, which had been held privately for some hundreds of years by a Roman family. The Vatican librarian sent her to see me. She asked why we let the drawings go. ‘This is where they rightfully belong,’ she said. A very intelligent woman!” the priest repeated.

“Why didn’t the Vatican bid on them?” Cenni asked.

“But we did, a very generous offer. Unfortunately, the bidding was closed, but we never had any doubts that we would win. None of the other museums in Rome had that kind of money, and even if they did, it was unlikely that they’d bid against the Vatican. There were only two requirements of bidders, that the drawings remain in Rome and that they be made available to scholars for research. So where else would they go but to the Vatican Library?”

“Where did the German Institute get the money, and how much did they bid?” Cenni asked.

“It was very suspicious to me, which is what I told Jarvinia. We never did learn the exact price, but I know it was well more than a million English pounds higher than our bid. That was another requirement: that payment be made in either English pounds or U.S. dollars. The lire was somewhat unstable back then.”

Cenni finished with the priest close to eleven and tactfully refused an invitation to lunch “at a delightful little trattoria in Trastevere. Nothing too good for a brother of the bishop,” the Jesuit said in issuing his invitation. “You know, Alex, your brother had the makings of a true scholar, but he preferred the pastoral role. Well, I suppose in the end we’ll be glad he did. Your mother will be enormously proud on the day he’s invested as Pope. It’s where he’s headed, Alex, and it will atone for all that wickedness perpetrated by your ancestors.”

Cenni decided to walk to the embassy. It would give him time to review what the priest had told him about Jarvinia and her research on Leonardo’s drawings. One thing he was sure of: Jarvinia was not doing scholarly research when she’d contacted the Vatican librarian. She’d been on to something, and so was he. He now had ammunition for his talk with Reimann. He also enjoyed a private laugh at his mother’s expense: she was a direct descendant of Gian-paolo Baglioni and inordinately proud of her family name, and somehow she managed to ignore its infamous history of torture and rape of friend and foe alike. She would have been dismayed to learn that her favorite son’s teacher considered the noble Gianpaolo Baglioni of Perugia the equivalent of Saddam Hussein of Iraq. That the priest was predicting his brother’s future as the Bishop of Rome was more than Alex was prepared to consider, and he pushed it to the back of his mind.