Mozzarella Most Murderous (7 page)

 

As we entered
the room where the cocktail party was to be held, I hung back to avoid the dog. My cheek ached miserably where Charles de Gaulle slammed into it with his hard head. Avoiding the dog left me in the receiving line beside Hank and just in front of the Stackpoles. Mrs. Stackpole dithered on and on in a high voice about whether the bellman could be trusted with the uprooted plant she had been forced to leave with him. Professor Stackpole seemed to take no notice of his wife’s concerns.

First he asked me about the woman I had discovered in the pool, so I gave him a brief description of Paolina’s death. “I wonder whether the pool water killed her,” he speculated, as any chemist interested in toxins would. Jason might have said the same thing. I assured the Englishman that I did not think toxic water had been the problem.

He then looked about him with interest and obvious surprise, which I could understand. The Victor Emmanuel room was so much different from the Roman villa feel of the hotel with its tiled floors and its doors, windows, and balconies opening onto gardens and pools. In this room the walls were covered in red brocade (perhaps red for the flags of Garibaldi, who united Italy and put the King of Savoy on the throne?), and the floors were marble and littered with gilded furniture. Heavily draped windows screened out the sunshine and the grandeur of the natural world outside and lent a claustrophobic feel to the space.

But more than the room, our hosts mesmerized me. Constanza Ricci-Tassone was a tall woman with generous breasts, but otherwise starkly thin, her tanned skin stretched tightly across her bones. She had blonde hair, natural blonde but rinsed to control any darkening brought on by maturity or the encroaching white of age. I knew this because I rinse my own hair periodically for just those reasons. A blonde Sicilian. I later learned that she claimed descent from the Norman, Robert Guiscard, who marched his army north to Rome in the eleventh century to rescue Pope Gregory, looted the city, and made off with his prize, the pope himself—Guiscard and his amazonian Lombard wife, Sichelgaeta, who rode into battle with him, hair unbound and streaming from under her helmet. Was the haughty Constanza wily, like Guiscard, or warlike, as his wife had been? Or both?

Her husband, Ruggiero Ricci, owner of the chemical company hosting the meeting, was dark skinned, perhaps with the blood of the Saracens who had ruled Sicily before the Normans, with dark hair, whitened at the hairline. He was shorter than his wife, and stocky. My mind jumped back to a church in Sorrento I had visited with Paolina. It contained an altar to Saint Giuseppe Moscati, who wore, in his portrait, a pale green lab coat and round spectacles. A handsome man from the early twentieth century, he had taught in the medical school in Naples, where his chastity and his good works among the poor, to whom he gave money rather than accepting fees, and his miraculous medical cures both before and after his death earned him sainthood.

A priest in the Sorrento church had told us about him. After I said he looked like a chemist, Paolina inquired and translated the priest’s reply. She had almost laughed aloud when she saw the saint’s portrait above the candles that lit up with electric lights when one put a coin in the slot. However, she wouldn’t explain her amusement beyond saying that the saint looked like a very unsaintly friend of hers. I had taken a prayer card with his picture to show to Jason.

Now I noticed a resemblance between Giuseppe Moscati and our host, although Signor Ricci did not wear a green lab coat, but rather an expensively tailored suit, and he did not have round spectacles, which might not have been fashionable enough to suit his wife. I had only a moment to wonder if he had been Paolina’s friend. Then it was my turn to be introduced. The dog, thank goodness, the French couple, Bianca, Lorenzo, and their children, who had been petted and smiled upon by Constanza, had moved on to be served drinks.

“But where are your spouses?” Signor Ricci demanded after the introductions, as if cheated by the absence of Jason and Hank’s wife. Once Hank had explained the problem in Paris, Ricci said, shrugging expressively, “Ah, the French. Their workers have no loyalty to the bosses, unlike our good Sicilians. Well, I must wait a bit longer to meet these two scientists for whom I have such great respect. But not too much longer I hope. Signora Blue, your husband is a very lucky man.” Then, much to my astonishment, he leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Lovely, is she not, Constanza?”

“Delightful,” murmured our hostess, who then introduced us to Dottore Valentino Santoro, a fine-featured man in his thirties with sad eyes and an expertise in toxicity. “Do have drinks and antipasti,” said our hostess, and waved us in the direction of an ornate cabinet presided over by a dashing waiter. We moved on, making way for the Stackpoles.

Because I was an American, I was encouraged to drink bourbon, evidently provided specially for my husband, who was not here, and for me, although I don’t like it that much. I had to argue for wine. However, I had no argument with the antipasto and held a small plate of shrimp crostini, mushroom pate on toasts, and little fried zucchini sticks. They were lovely. Had our hostess arranged to have them brought in? Surely the plastic-duck chef had not provided them.

While I nibbled and sipped happily, I endured another round of questioning by inquisitive young Andrea Massoni. Then our host, who said he had overheard me mentioning a woman named Paolina, drew me aside. “May I ask her last name?”

“Paolina’s?” I blinked. “I was speaking of Paolina Marchetti.”

“And you know this woman?” His wife had glided up beside him with Santoro in her wake.

“I did, briefly, yes,” I replied.

“Could you tell me where she is?”

“Well, not exactly. The police took her body away this morning.”

“Her body!” Ruggiero Ricci all but glared at me. “Could you clarify that phrasing to me, Signora Blue?”

“She’s dead,” I explained. He was making me nervous. “Drowned in the swimming pool. I pulled her out, but it was too late. I think she’d been dead for some time. Did—did you know her?”

My host had paled, but more astoundingly, the chemist who worked for him exclaimed, “Paolina is dead?” and began to weep.

Constanza, who didn’t seem the sympathetic type, tried to comfort him while saying to me, “This is quite a shock. Most unfortunate.” She patted their weeping employee on the shoulder. “You must excuse Valentino’s emotional outburst,” and she handed him a handkerchief from her own beaded handbag. “Do control yourself, Valentino,” and to me, “I fear that our young friend suffered an unrequited love for Paolina, who was my husband’s secretary.”

I was dumbfounded. If she worked for the company that invited Jason to this meeting, why hadn’t Paolina mentioned it to me? Her week’s reservation here was now explained, but not her failure to mention that she was the secretary of the man I had speculated about in her presence, the man who looked just like the saint, who had been described by her as resembling an unsaintly friend. Had Signor Ricci been more than a friend, more than an employer to Paolina? And what about the grief-stricken Valentino Santoro? Would his unrequited love or jealousy of the lover she had come here to meet have caused him to arrive early and kill her?

“You say she was here in Sorrento yesterday?” Constanza asked.

I nodded, wondering if Signor Ricci might be the lover who told Paolina he couldn’t meet her.

“How strange that she came a day early. You didn’t mention that, Ruggiero,” said his wife.

“She was making arrangements for the meeting,” he muttered.

“She told me that she expected to meet a—er—friend here last night,” I said, watching them both closely for their reactions, especially Signor Ricci’s. “But he cancelled.”

“By friend do you mean lover? How disappointing for her,” said Constanza. “Perhaps she committed suicide.”

Perhaps your husband came after all and killed her
, I thought. He looked more stunned than guilty, but that could be an act.

“In Paolina’s unfortunate absence, I think we must call Gracia to take up her duties.”

“We don’t need Gracia,” said the husband sharply.

“I can’t believe she’s dead,” mourned the devastated Valentino, and blew his nose into the dainty handkerchief provided by Signora Ricci-Tassone.

I slipped away to whisper the news to Bianca, who said she’d be sure to sit next to our host and see what she could find out. I had to agree that she might be a better interrogator than I since she spoke Italian. On the other hand, I’d had more experience in the investigation of murder, if this was a case of murder. I didn’t say that to Bianca, as it’s rather embarrassing to admit that my path has been strewn with corpses since I started traveling with Jason. So many murders. Obviously I’d led a sheltered life until recently.

 

I managed to
station myself right beside Signor Ricci and mention how comfortable the seat looked to a woman as close to childbirth as I. Naturally he pulled out the chair for me, looking down the neckline of my dress as he helped me into my seat. This happened before his wife could tell people where to sit at the round table in the round dining room whose walls were covered with murals depicting the Roman era on the Bay of Naples. Very decadent—Roman ladies in gossamer gowns reclining on couches with soldierly men in short robes and boots, all drinking and sharing grapes. I wouldn’t have objected to a nice couch to recline on while the distinguished Signor Ricci fed me whatever was on the menu. Once I was down, everyone else took seats. There are rewards to pregnancy in Italy. Even if our birthrate is startlingly low, we still pay lip service to the virtues of motherhood.

I directed my darlings to seats beside me, and Lorenzo took the other end of our family to keep them in line. Our blonde Sicilian hostess sat beside her husband with the red-eyed Valentino to her left and the Frenchies beyond him. I could have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t been so snobbish and so obviously irritated that I had usurped her right to arrange the seating at her own table. If it was so important to her, she should have used place cards, not that it would have stopped me from sitting next to her husband and questioning him about the dead girl.

Beyond Lorenzo and my children sat Carolyn. She was chatting sweetly with Andrea, which, of course, softened my heart toward Carolyn, but not my brain. I’m sure there are many murderesses who love children. Her companion, Signor Girol, was talking across the table to Professor Stackpole about the disposal of toxic materials in England, and Mrs. Stackpole, who was seated by the professor from France, was asking him questions about his dog, particularly whether the dog gave them trouble by eating plants in their garden, to which Adrien Guillot replied that they owned a very delightful apartment in the old section of Lyon but no garden, and that their dog, whose ancestors were hunting dogs, naturally preferred meat to greens. Where was the dangerous Charles de Gaulle? I wondered. Under the table sniffing out Carolyn for another foray? Between the Stackpoles and Girol were two empty seats awaiting the missing chemists.

The primi piatta,
pasta alla Norma
, a delicacy from Catania according to our hostess, was served, and I asked Ruggiero, as he suggested I address him, if he had any idea who might have been the lover of his late secretary.

“If only it had been I,” exclaimed Valentino bitterly.

“No more crying,” our hostess cautioned. Then she tasted her pasta and summoned the headwaiter. “Too much garlic,” she snapped. “We are neither Sicilian peasants, nor Romans.”

“My apologies, Signora Ricci-Tassone,” he stammered. “I will inform the chef.”

“Very tasty,” I murmured to the poor man, catching his sleeve as he passed by. “But then, I’m Roman, not Sicilian.”

“What was that?” demanded Constanza.

“I was asking your husband about Paolina Marchetti. Her death caused quite a stir in the hotel.”