“Strange talk coming from a bona fide representative of the gentry,” Gideon said. “You sound like your buddy, Dante Galasso.”
“Representative of the gentry, where do you get that from? Bite your tongue, man.”
“You are, though, Phil. You’re a member in good standing of the de Grazia clan. I’ve seen you at their consiglio with my own eyes. You might as well face it.”
“Might as well own up to it,” Julie said. “No point in denying it. What’s true is true.”
“I,” said Phil, squaring his shoulders, “am an Ungaretti and damn well proud of it. As far as I’m concerned, you can take that whole bunch of patronizing, condescending, self-satisfied… well, except for my grandfather… you can take them and… hell…” He subsided, muttering, into his Beck’s.
“If you feel that way about it,” Julie said, “why are you staying on with them at the island for our last few days? Why not keep your room at the Primavera?”
“Yeah, well.” He wiped foam from his upper lip with the back of his forefinger. “My grandfather, you know… if I didn’t spend a couple of nights there, Cosimo’d really be hurt.”
“Uh-huh, I see,” Gideon said, letting a moment go by while he took a flinty, freezing sip of his martini and set down the stemmed glass. He’d ordered it straight up instead of on the rocks for once because it seemed like the right drink for the Grand Hotel. “Oh, by the way. .. will your cousin Lea still be there? Just wondering.”
“Well, what the hell-”
“Inquiring minds wish to know,” said Julie.
“Jesus,” Phil said, looking around the room with a sigh. “What do you say we pick on someone else for a while now, or is that too much to ask?”
“Phil,” Julie said, “seriously-are you sure it’s such a good idea to be there? I mean, one of them could be a murderer, a kidnapper.. .”
She looked at Gideon, who had told them earlier about the extraordinary string of events in the forty-eight hours or so since he’d last seen them: the abortive theft of the bones, the attack on him, the identification of Big Paolo (both as a kidnapper of Achille and as Gideon’s assailant), and the death of Dr. Luzzatto.
“One of them almost certainly is a murderer and a kidnapper,” Gideon said. “Big Paolo ties Achille’s kidnapping and Domenico’s death together, and the de Grazias are the only ones who knew about finding Domenico’s bones. And they’re sure as hell the only ones who heard Luzzatto say he knew what was bothering Domenico. Counting Achille’s driver, that’s three murders we’re talking about. That’s some family you have there.”
“Shee,” said Phil.
“Oh, and you’re a suspect too. Caravale’s going to be talking to you. I thought you’d want to know.”
“I’m a suspect?”
“Because you were there with them when the news came about Domenico. And you heard what Luzzatto said too. I tried to tell Caravale that you probably weren’t guilty, but of course I couldn’t say for sure.”
Phil grumbled something and swilled the last two inches of his beer. “Boy, I’m sure glad I came out with you guys. This is turning into a swell evening.”
The waiter glided over, whispered that their table was ready, and pointed the way down an arched corridor lined on either side with gilded mirrors that alternated with nineteenth-century paintings.
“Who has any appetite anymore?” Phil grumbled.
But once they’d taken their seats in the quiet, softly lit dining room, he found his appetite again, and all three of them ordered the fixed-price, multicourse menu of the day, choosing to see what the chef came up with.
“For sixty-five bucks this better be good,” Phil said.
It was. They worked steadily through the antipasto, the seafood crepes, and the port-laced consomme, and started on the main course of poached Lake Maggiore whitefish stuffed with prawns and olives before the talk veered away from the food.
“I’m telling you, I just can’t believe it,” Phil said, putting down his fork. “One of those people murdered my uncle Domenico? It’s been going round and round in my mind. I mean, yeah, they had some grudges, like any family-you saw the way they are, Gideon-but kill him? I don’t think so.”
“I wouldn’t quite say like any family,” Gideon said. “What do you mean, ‘grudges’?”
“Well, like… you were talking about Dante before.” He paused. “Dante’s married to Francesca,” he explained to Julie. “Francesca is-”
“Vincenzo’s sister,” Julie said. “I know. Gideon explained your family tree to me.”
“As far as I can figure it out,” Gideon said.
“Okay, well, the thing is, Domenico couldn’t stomach Dante. You have to understand, at the time Dante Galasso was this wild-eyed radical professor. You name it, he was for it: armed revolt, aristocrats to the wall, the elimination of private property and differential incomes, the whole schmear. It was really hard on Domenico, because Francesca’d always been his favorite, even more than Vincenzo. Everybody knew it. You know, firstborn and all that.”
He paused to extract a stray bit of crayfish shell from his teeth. “Francesca was nuts about Dante-I know, it’s hard to believe now, but she was-but Domenico put his foot down and told her he wouldn’t have the guy as a son-in-law. He’d disown her if she married him. So she did and he did. But then she got on his good side again, even though he wouldn’t let Dante in the house. Wouldn’t even allow her to say his name when she came over. Seriously. She was welcome, but Dante had to stay home in this dinky apartment they had in Modena.” Another longer, more meditative pause as he chewed.
“And?” prompted Julie.
“And then Domenico dies, and, like, two months later they move in. Free room and board for the rest of their lives, and Francesca has a whole household staff to boss around. But Jesus, be serious, that’s no motive for murder…”
The three of them looked at each other.
“… is it?” Phil finished weakly. And then: “Yeah, I guess maybe, in a cop’s mind, it would be.”
“No, in a cop’s mind, it would be two motives,” Gideon said. “One for Dante, one for Francesca. You need to tell Caravale about this, Phil.”
“But won’t he just think I’m trying to cast doubt on others to disguise my own dastardly motives?”
“Seriously. You need to tell him. And you said ‘grudges.’ Is there something else?”
Phil shook his head. “Aw, this is ridiculous. I mean-”
Julie put her hand on his arm. “Phil, it’s not ridiculous. We’re not playing some kind of gossip game. One of those people is a murderer. If there’s something else you know-”
“Well, there’s Basilio-I can’t believe I’m saying this-but I guess if you’re going out of your way to dig up stuff, you could say Basilio had a reason to kill him too.”
Basilio Barbero, it seemed, had gotten himself into a mess not long after a payroll supervision position had been found for him at Aurora Costruzioni. Whether it involved embezzlement or incompetence had never been firmly established (although Phil, knowing Basilio, leaned toward the latter), but it was common knowledge that the angry Domenico was thinking of firing him, expelling him from the nest at Isola de Grazia, and possibly even prosecuting him.
And then-as with Dante’s case-Domenico had conveniently died, and the situation had blown over. Vincenzo, the new man in charge, had kept him on, and even made him the chairman of the morale committee.
“I guess you’d have to call that a motive, wouldn’t you?” Phil said disconsolately.
“Two motives again,” Julie said. “Don’t forget his wife. Bella.”
“Actually, Bella makes more sense. I can’t see Basilio killing anybody.”
“Either way, you have to tell Caravale about it,” Gideon said. “Anything else?”
“You want more motives yet?” Phil, never a big eater, pushed away his half-finished plate and thought about it. “That’s it, I’m afraid. Nobody else would have any reason to do away with Domenico. Not that I know about, anyway.”
“Sure, you do,” Gideon said. “Vincenzo.”
“Vincenzo? What are you talking about? All right, the guy’s an asshole-sorry, Julie-but why would he kill his own-oh. The inheritance, you mean.”