Into the Killer Sphere (11 page)

“Yes. But, Ramona is terrified of animals; Agata told us when we interviewed her. Agata also told us that Ramona can’t swim,” detailed Chase.

“
You retentive-memory devil, you’re right!” Angelo started nodding, as everything was making sense to him now.

“Therefore I deduced that Ramona usually doesn’t go near the dogs’ pen to reach the library. On the other hand, Gloria could have easily reached the library by the east French door, which is the closest door to her beloved fruit garden. She would have not been heard or noticed by everyone as the dogs would have not barked at her. They were so used to seeing her in the garden. I’m pretty sure that she always keeps a key for those doors with her.”

“That’s brilliant, Chase!” Fortarrigo exclaimed.

“Yes, he knows that. Don’t praise him too much,” joked Angelo. Fortarrigo, however, suddenly frowned. “Ah, but something’s still not clear. Where did you find the real evidence that Gloria was actually the killer?”

Chase smiled again, this time with a sparkle of satisfaction. “Fingerprints. We found them later on the tools I chanced upon on the patio, in a basket inside a hollow. There were Gloria’s fingerprints on the shears which she used to cut the chandelier down, as well as on the shards of the pot she threw from the balcony.

“Who would have ever thought of shears being well hidden somewhere in a big garden?” was Angelo’s sarcastic comment.

“Gloria was clever, but not clever enough. She didn’t use any gloves when she cut down the chandelier, only when she had to use the sphere to finish Piero off. That’s why we didn’t find any fingerprints on it. She got more careful when she realised she had to use tougher tactics. My suspicions about her became certainty when the pot felt down near Signora Agata. I was amazed by how fast Gloria appeared from nowhere carrying the broom and the dustpan. I was just thinking how surprisingly quickly she’d managed to find the tools to clean up the patio when Fortarrigo’s words flashed into my mind: ‘
Wish you were like my aunt Fiamma: she always knew where everything was! She knew the place of everything, in every house she was familiar with’.”

A big smile lit up Fortarrigo’s face. He
puffed his chest out and raised his bottle of beer to toast his personal victory in this story. In one way or another he had made his contribution
to the solution of Galli’s murder.

Chase winked at his friend, raised his beer and kept talking.

“As a matter of fact, Gloria was the real owner of the garden in the villa and was the only one who could have been able to find a broom and dustpan so quickly. Same thing for the murder weapon, the glass sphere. Only a person well familiar with the house would be able to put something back in its exact place.”

Fortarrigo grabbed his beer again, along with a bunch of crisps. He offered some of them to Chase, who didn’t refuse.

“Furthermore I noticed that there were no footprints on the floor when the police found the body, even though there had been that big storm outside. I looked at the pics Angelo sent to me the night Piero died: no traces of mud whatsoever. It was clear that someone had cleaned up before going away. Just like a reflex, it was a habit Gloria had got into every time she entered the room from the garden.” He paused to chomp some crisps.

“Why did she drop that garden urn down on the old lady? I think that was a stupid thing to do as a murderer, because you are close to revealing your identity that way, right?” questioned Fortarrigo.

“She could have
killed two birds with that one stone! Agata was Gloria’s target from the very beginning, and by killing the lady that way, she would have also focused attention onto Rachele, thus freeing herself from any suspicion,” Angelo explained. “She knew Agata was able to exercise her charisma with anybody and wanted to use it for her own benefit.”

“For example, Agata insisted that her son should be buried as soon as possible, skipping the usual Tursenian red tape,” added Chase.

“Gloria dropped that pot so that Agata would vent her suspicions about Rachele, making people think likewise, since Agata was generally supposed to be right,” Angelo continued.

Fortarrigo nodded at first, then opened his mouth, unleashing another doubt.

“And what about the chandelier? How can you guys explain that?”

Chase
straightened up on the
lawn swing where he was almost laid flat and displayed more interest than before.

“That was very tricky and complicated, mate. A real enigma, if it wasn’t for this fool next to you,” he said, pointing to Angelo, who
opened his eyes wide while sipping his beer.

“The other day, this jerk bothered me with his damned cigarette smoke without doing it on purpose. And that was the moment I twigged. Angelo and I thought that cutting the chandelier down was only a distraction, but as the investigation moved along I considered it as an attempt to kill someone else turning out bad.”

“You mean Agata, right?” Fortarrigo asked, astonished.

“
Sì
,
bello
,” nodded Angelo.

“When I saw the garden gloves and the scratched shears on the patio, and later the ladders in the fruit garden, I immediately thought of Gloria. Like everyone in her family, she has her routines too, like using the French door to enter the library, as I’ve already said. And, of course, she knows the others’ daily habits too. So she brewed up a brilliant way to kill Signora Agata. Up on the library ladder, all she had to do was wait for Agata in the darkness of the room at the exact time she usually went to choose her book for the next day. Once she was in the library, Gloria would have dropped the chandelier on her head, staging a tragic accident. Ramona’s inability at doing housework would have justified the lack of attention on the chandelier’s maintenance. It was simply an unlucky coincidence that the same night that Gloria chose to perpetrate her crime, her brother-in-law decided to bring forward his dogs’ dinnertime due to the bad weather,” explained Chase.

“So Piero entered the library before the old lady, and when Gloria cut the cables of the chandelier, she was astonished that her mother-in-law had remarkably quick reflexes and was able to avoid it,” Angelo added between a cigarette and a fistful of crisps.

“Gloria told the rest of the story herself after her arrest. As soon as she discovered Piero lying on the ground, she panicked and took advantage of his dizziness. He was dazed after falling during his lunge to escape the falling chandelier. She got down from the ladder, put on her work gloves, grabbed the closest heavy object and threw it at Piero - who in the meantime had stood up - two or three times with all the strength she had. Signora Agata barely heard the crash of the chandelier because it came from the inside of the house. Afterwards Gloria took all her tools outside, hid them well, then went back home again undisturbed. She took just a couple of minutes by car. The roar of the storm with the wind and thunder meant no one heard her car’s engine. And no one in her family noticed either,” Chase concluded.

“It’s weird that Gloria’s family didn’t notice anything, or her absence from home, don’t you think? Not even her husband.” Fortarrigo doubtfully underlined Chase’s ‘no one noticed’ thing.

“
Bello
, are you doubting us?” laughed Angelo.

“Marco Galli believed Gloria was in the kitchen arranging their son’s eighteenth birthday special supper. The kids were upstairs not bothering about their parents as the dinner was supposed to be a surprise. Actually, they don’t seem to care about anything apart from themselves, especially the girls. So nobody noticed when she slipped out and came back later. That’s why her alibi stood up.” Chase argued.

“At the end, why go to the trouble to kill an old lady
and
a man who was there by accident?” Fortarrigo muttered.

“Money, big boy. The oldest reason in the world, along with love. Agata was going to change her will in Ramona’s favour, and Gloria was not so happy about it. She would do anything for her children, apart from give up her comfortable lifestyle. Killing her mother-in-law would preserve the inheritance that would have allowed her to pay for her kids’ studies without needing to make any sacrifices herself. She was like a mother for Rachele, so Rachele confided in her about her worries over the continuous fights between her grandmother and her father over the inheritance. And that’s how Gloria found out about Agata’s plans to change her will. Piero died because Gloria couldn’t afford to leave a living witness,” Angelo ended.

“Impressive,” nodded Fortarrigo jumping onto the lawn swing, next to Chase. “So Piero Galli was murdered by mistake, right?”

“In a nutshell, yes,” sighed Angelo.

“At this point, I guess you owe an apology to that careless forensic who accidentally found the murder weapon,” Chase laughed at Angelo.

“Oh,
bello
, don’t overdo it! Clumsiness must never be rewarded. A slap on the back will be enough,” he replied drily.

Crossing the street to go back home, Chase checked outside the Etruscan Walls, just to be sure that his car was parked properly: he had become a little obsessive since he was fined. And once again he found Signor Buongiorno peering at the parked cars.

As soon as he spotted Chase, Signor Buongiorno greeted him, waving his hand. That behaviour was weird. Usually he always waited to be greeted first by people he met and Chase had always thought it must be a polite Italian rule towards aged people. Nevertheless, this time Signor Buongiorno looked a little upset by Chase’s presence.

Chase came close to the old snitch, who was walking in the direction of Chase’s car, and smiled at him. He remembered what Signora Paoletta Testi told him about the existence of a spy who specialised in blabbing to the Municipal Police, and did the maths.

“How long have we been neighbours, Signor Buongiorno?” Chase began. “Eight months roughly, right? And yet I still haven’t shown you my car.”

Chase lightly touched the closest external mirror of his blue Opel car. Signor Buongiorno looked at him with wide eyes, speechless. “So, this is your car, right? I didn’t know that.” He looked embarrassed, probably because he knew Chase had got him. His face was clearly betraying his thoughts: “
How does that guy know I am the Municipal Police whisperer
?”

Mr Buongiorno pulled down his hat brim and stuttered.

“I thought the car belonged to who’d come here to steal our parking spots. It’s good that it’s yours.” Then he quickened his pace, leaving Chase alone.

Chase’s brand new insurance sticker appeared on the front windscreen of his car, not yet yellowed by the sun. Chase was sure that Signor Buongiorno had already noticed it, and that the next time he would not inspect its expiration date.

After all, it was just a matter of good neighbourliness.

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