Dying For Siena (12 page)

“…not fair,” a voice was whining.

With a sigh, Faith turned from the pleasant, mild flirtation to gaze at Madeleine across the table, still complaining to Grif. Madeleine shook her head, the long, gray strands around her ears making her look like a greyhound. “I’m going to speak to Leonardo about this.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Grif’s voice was sharp, eyes sharper. “Kane’s dead, and until the administration appoints his successor, I am
pro tem
department head and I absolutely forbid you to make a fuss about this, Madeleine.”

Madeleine blinked. Grif rarely raised his voice and was rarely anything but lazily courteous. But now, Faith could almost see the glint of steel beneath his indolent southern charm.

“Well.” Madeleine stood up abruptly, jarring the table, and Faith steadied her cup before it could slosh over. “That was clear. And it’s also very clear whose side you’re on.” Shooting a look at Faith that was surprising in its venom, she turned and left.

“Wow.” Tim’s eyes blinked behind his thick glasses. Tim rarely noticed anything going on around him, but Madeleine’s temper tantrum had broken through his usual distraction. He turned to Grif. “What was that all about?”

Grif sighed. “Jealousy.”

“Of
Faith?”

Faith could have slapped Tim for the tone of utter disbelief.

“Yes. Of Faith.” Composed, Grif patted his lips with the snowy, blanket-sized napkin and smiled warmly at her. Eerily, his words echoed her thoughts. “Looks like this is
your
time now, Faith, my dear. I’m happy for you.”

Tim’s head swiveled. Grif. Faith. Then Grif again. His brow furrowed. “Huh?”

A tall, good-looking man in a uniform materialized beside her, accompanied by Leonardo Gori.

The man mouthed wonderful sounds in liquid tones at her. She frowned at Leonardo. It seemed so unfair to have a handsome man asking something—and she didn’t know what.

Leonardo bent forward. “I’m sorry, Faith,” he said unhappily. “But the
commissario
wants to talk to you again. He’s willing to wait until the day’s work is over.
Agente
Nicoletti here will wait for you and then accompany you downtown to the
Questura
.”

The good news was she had a handsome young man waiting for her.

The bad news was maybe he wanted to arrest her.

Faith was waiting in a room with an incredible view at police headquarters, with a handsome, young, English-speaking agent taking down her vital statistics, when a dirty and crazed-looking Nick walked in. It was Faith’s worst nightmare—Nick, seeing her in a vulnerable position. Sitting in a foreign station house waiting to be questioned about a murder was about as vulnerable as you could get.

Dante strolled in. “Nick.” He looked taken aback. “What are you doing here? You usually come to the August
Palio
. You’re a month early.”

Nick’s jaw muscles bunched. He had a big jaw and it was like watching cats fight under a blanket. “All I wanted to do was see if Faith was all right.” Nick pushed both hands through his disheveled hair. “I got your message and flew straight over.” He looked over at Faith. “I came to rescue you, honey. Stop glaring at me.”

Faith folded her arms under her breasts and looked out the window. “Go away, Nick. Nobody asked you to be here.”

“No, nobody asked me to be here.” Very gently, Nick put his hand on her arm and she jerked. “I wanted to be here because you were in trouble. I want to help you. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need any help, thank you very much.” Faith’s lips tightened as she pulled away. “I can get myself arrested for murder all on my own, without any help from anyone.” Her eyes lifted to Dante. “Isn’t that right, Dante?”

“Damn it, Faith.” Nick rammed his hands through his hair. “Stop that. Being arrested for murder is no joke, and—”

“Ah, excuse me,” Dante murmured, clearing his throat.

Nick rounded on his cousin. “What?”

“What?” Faith asked in alarm.

“Hey, easy.” Dante held up his hands. “All I want to say is that one thing should be made clear here. Faith is not under arrest or even a major suspect. She’s just in for questioning, since she found the body.” Dante’s voice was even as he looked back and forth between Faith Murphy and Nick. “I, ah, knew you were a friend of Lou’s, Faith. I didn’t realize you’re a…friend of Nick’s, too.”

Faith looked out the window, arms still crossed over her chest. “I’m not,” she said, just as Nick said, “Of course she is.”

“Listen you—” she said, just as he said, “Don’t be stupid—”

“Children, children.” Dante held up his hands as two pairs of eyes, one dark blue, one golden brown, flashed daggers at him. “Behave yourselves.”

Faith opened her mouth again to put Dante straight, but he waved at a chair. “Please, sit down, Faith. I’m afraid we’re going to have to go over the terrain once again. I realize how annoying this must be for you, but it’s a pure formality.”

Nick took her elbow and Faith shot him a venomous glance. She looked down pointedly at his hand on her arm, as he tried to steer her chivalrously to the chair.

Ha!
Faith thought.
Chivalry. The rat didn’t have a chivalrous bone in his body.

Then she looked again at his hand—large, long-fingered, elegantly masculine. She had a sudden vision of his strong, deeply-tanned hands moving over her pale skin, touching her breasts, breaching her body, and she went hot then cold at the memory.

She looked up and saw Nick was thinking the same thing. His deep blue eyes were focused intensely on her and she could feel a blush rising.

Hard on the heels of that was the memory of her humiliation.

She had practically thrown herself at him, when he’d been so drunk a female
goat
would have done.

Nick hadn’t even been aware he had been making love to
her
, Faith Murphy, as opposed to any other female fan. He had them falling into his bed in droves and the fact she’d been just as easy as any of the other over-endowed bimbettes who followed the Hunters players around burned her pride.

She pulled away again from Nick’s hand with a hiss and sat down, turning her head away from him. She folded her hands in her lap and tried to compose herself. She drew a deep breath. “I’m ready when you are, Dante.”

“Yes.” Dante was trying not to smile as she glared at him.

Nick pulled up a chair next to her and she picked up her own chair and turned it so her back was to Nick.

“As I was saying, I realize this is ground we’ve already covered—”

“That’s okay.” Faith tried very hard not to think of Nick sitting next to her. Not to notice that he seemed to take up an inordinate amount of space in the interrogation room and that she could feel his body heat against her back. “I read murder mysteries. You’re going to interrogate us all, over and over again, until you catch one of us up in a lie and that person confesses and you’ve solved your case. Fire away.”

“Don’t I wish it were always that easy,” Dante murmured. “So—let’s run through this once more. You arrived at the
Certosa
around 9:00 p.m. last night? With your group?” Dante frowned down at the notes he had on the table in front of him as if he could barely decipher the rudimentary markings in Assyrian. “Would you like to go over that with me again?”

Neatly done
, Faith thought. She had no doubt whatsoever that
Commissario
Dante Rossi knew all about her, and the rest of the St. Vincent’s group, and knew all about their movements.

“All right,” she said on a sigh, rubbing her neck. It had been a long day. Very satisfying—until now—but long. She’d slept some last night, but she’d spent two sleepless nights before. On top of another sleepless night in bed with… Faith didn’t look behind her. She could feel Nick’s presence without having to see him.

All in all, it was no wonder she was stressed out. “Okay.” She looked down in her lap and watched her fingers intertwine then separate as she gathered her thoughts.

Dante nodded and picked up a printed program. “All right. Here it says that the conference, the Seventh International Quantitative Methods Seminar,” he read slowly from the program, “wasn’t scheduled to start until today. So why did your group come early?”

“Because, traditionally, the University of Siena and St. Vincent’s College run the seminar. It takes a lot of planning. The University of Siena takes care of most of the physical details like hospitality and catering, and both the universities are responsible for the running of the program. That’s why we come over a day early. Or so I was told.”

“Mmm-hm.” Dante pursed his lips as he looked at the program as if he’d just noticed something. He frowned as he flipped through his notes. “I don’t see your name on the program, Faith. And your name wasn’t on the list of guests up at the
Certosa
.”

Faith’s heart started to pound. She could almost feel Nick’s intense gaze behind her. She cleared her throat. “That’s true. Ordinarily, I’m not part of the QM seminar.”
Though I should’ve been
, she thought resentfully. The thought still rankled.

“The seminar has been run for seven years now by Professor Kane with the help of Madeleine Kobbel, Griffin Ball and Tim Gresham. But Tim Gresham came down with a bad case of flu and I—” Faith shrugged casually, “I was at loose ends. So they asked me if I could come to replace Tim. And I said sure.”

“They?” Dante frowned.

“He.” Faith sighed. “Professor Kane. And he wasn’t gracious about it either. He let me know in no uncertain terms that I was a peon, not fit to tie the shoelaces of the Mensans.”

“Mensans?”

“Members of Mensa. It’s an organization that requires a genius IQ to join. Which I don’t have. All I am is smart.”

“I see.” Dante pursed his lips. “So—you were allowed to tag along.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Faith grimaced. “Professor Kane made that clear. Basically, he said I would be making coffee and running the photocopy machine. And if I was very, very lucky, a paper of mine could be added as a footnote to the proceedings.” She shrugged. “But in academia, you grab your chances where you find them.”

“Indeed. So, the four of you—Professor Kane, Madeleine Kobbel, Griffin Ball and yourself—leave for Siena via—” He looked up.

“Boston, Rome, Florence.”

“Boston, Rome, Florence. From Logan Airport. All right. Did anything unusual happen on the flight?”

“Well…” Faith frowned. “Unusual. It depends on what you mean by unusual. Professor Kane got drunk and made a heavy pass at a pretty flight attendant. That’s fairly unusual by my book, but apparently not for him. Madeleine—Professor Kobbel—said that he often made scenes like that.”

Dante was writing in his notebook. “So he insulted a flight attendant. Did you happen to get her name?”

“Yes. I talked to her later. I thought I would calm her down. But she was calm enough. She said there was one every flight.”

“One what?”

“Bastard. Her name was Karen Lewis and she couldn’t have killed Professor Kane. She said she was due to fly back out of Rome two hours after we landed. You might want to check that.”

“I might.” Dante’s mouth lifted in a half smile and he made a brief notation. “Did anything else happen on the flight?”

“No, that was about it on the flight itself, except that Professor Kane drank six of those small bottles of wine and ten-mini bottles of brandy. He had some trouble with customs at Fiumicino Airport. He’d brought four bottles of whiskey, and apparently that was over the allowance.

“Professor Kane threw a real fuss about paying extra duty. Showed his letter of invitation from the University of Siena. Told the customs official he knew the President of the Italian Republic. Told him he was a close friend of George Bush.

“He really pulled out all the stops.” Faith winced. “He could be heard from the baggage claim area. And all for a savings of a grand total of twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents in excise tax.”

“Hmm. Roland Kane seems to have had a knack for making enemies,” Dante said. “Any other problems en route?”

“No. Alcohol and jet lag seemed to catch up with Professor Kane after that. He slept on the flight to Florence and dozed in the minivan. It was almost dark when we reached the
Certosa
. We were all assigned cells and we were given fifteen minutes to unpack because supper was being served in the refectory.

“All the meals at the
Certosa
are delicious. As was the snack I was served here today. Thank you, by the way.” Faith shook her head in amazement. “If monks and prisoners eat like that, I hardly dare think what ordinary civilians get to eat.”

“Doubtless you’ll find out soon enough.” Dante looked behind her. “When Faith has finished here, you might want to take her to Tullio’s for a bite,” he said to Nick. “She’s had a hard day.”

“Right.”

Faith whirled around at the sound of Nick’s deep voice and Nick raised his hands in self-defense at the heat he saw in her eyes.

Faith turned back, gripping the arms of her hardback chair. “I’m quite capable of feeding myself, Dante. There’s no need whatsoever—”

“Nonsense.” Without raising his voice, Dante managed to stop her, mid-tirade. “I’m taking off my policeman’s hat here for just a moment. You’re a friend of my cousin, Lou, and I see you’re a friend of Nick’s as well.” He politely ignored Faith’s unladylike snort. “You’re a foreigner in my country and you’ve been subjected to the utmost stress. It would be unthinkable of me to allow you to be left to your own devices.”

He smiled suddenly and Faith was bowled over by the charm of that smile. It disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Now,” he said, his voice all business again, “let’s go back to the night before last. You had dinner at the
Certosa
. Who was there?”

“Let’s see.” Faith tried to concentrate. It was all beginning to catch up with her—the lack of sleep, the shock of finding a dead man, the excitement of chairing a meeting of some of the greatest mathematical minds on the planet.