"And the parcel you sent me?" I said.
"What parcel?" he said.
"You didn't send me a parcel?"
"No," he replied. "Now, can you come this evening to celebrate with us?"
"I don't think so," I said. "There are a couple of things I still have to take care of here." That was an understatement. His excitement sounded so genuine, I didn't know what to think.
"Then tomorrow," he said. "Promise you'll come."
I picked up the hydria carefully and just held it for a few minutes, feeling its heft, the balance, the smooth surface. I placed it on top of the bureau in my hotel room and just looked at it for a long, long time.
Then I picked up my list of possible suspects. Pick one, I told myself. They can't all be guilty. I made three columns, and tried to assign the people on the list to at least one of them.
The first group I called the charade, those people whom I knew or at least suspected to be part of the false Lake scenario: Romano, first and foremost, as the Lake impersonator; Antonio; Boucher; Palladini; Anna Karagiannis or Anna the maid; Eugenia Ponte, whose agency both Antonio and Romano had come from; and Dottie, because she knew Eugenia, or at least Eugenia's agency.
The second list I called Lake's enemies: Rosati, despite what he said; Gino Mauro; Gianni Veri; and perhaps most of all, Brandy Lake; and Anna again, because of Brandy's fiance and Anna's nephew, Taso; and Maire, Brandy's helper. Because Dottie could well have known Mauro—I was almost certain he was the mystery man in the Piazza Navona—she made the list, too. Leclerc, assuming Ryan's story about Leclerc getting fired by Mondragon after trying to deal direct with Lake was true, I also placed in that column.
The third list I called the hydria, those who could be associated in any way with the object, either through their work or simply because they had seen it: Dottie; Leclerc, despite the fact he was no longer with us; Godard, of course; Antonio and Romano, both of whom had known I had it; and Nicola Marzolini and Rosati, both on the list because of their occupations. I also put Alfred Mondragon on the list for that reason, and because he knew Lake.
I eliminated dead people, and others like Maire, who just seemed unlikely suspects. There was only one person on all three lists: Dottie Beach. I looked back at the hydria. Three groups, like the three heads of the chimera. All by itself, the hydria had changed everything.
FIFTEEN. ORVIETO
DOTTIE BEACH STOOD OUTSIDE THE Hassler, her arm through that of her mystery man, who I had decided, based on nothing more than his performance in the Piazza Navona, was Gino the Supremo, Gino Mauro. I'd thought Dottie was lying about staying at the Hassler, but she hadn't been. She had neglected to mention that she was staying in a room reserved in Gino Mauro's name, that's all. A few minutes after they came outside, a Jaguar pulled up beside them, Eugenia Ponte at the wheel and Vittorio Palladini in the passenger seat. Gino and Dottie got in, and they took off. I pulled in behind them.
Eugenia took the Autostrada del Sole at a leisurely pace before turning off at the exit for Orvieto. Rather than taking the road to the town, she skirted the hill on which Orvieto is perched, crossed the valley, and started up the slope on the other side. Cypress trees, caught in the late afternoon sun, cast long, shadowy fingers across the fields. The road climbed progressively higher through a series of switchbacks, with several side roads leading off the main one, and I was afraid I might lose them, but about five miles out of town, she turned off the road and through large, wrought-iron gates.
I waited a few minutes, then drove through the gates and up a long driveway, finding myself at a rather attractive stone home set in a grove of cypress trees and handsomely landscaped. There was a large parking area, where the Jaguar, now empty, sat, along with a Mercedes or two, a Jetta, a couple of Opels, a rented Fiat, and a red Lamborghini with a bright yellow umbrella visible through the back window, the sight of which took me back to Nice and Volterra.
I took the box out of the trunk of my car and walked up to the main door. I rang, then knocked, but there was no answer. I walked around the house and up a slight slope and found myself in a lovely back garden. To one side, at the top of a slight incline, there was a swimming pool, and across the valley, Orvieto sat on its lofty plateau, sunlight shimmering on the cathedral dome. There was absolutely no one there, despite all the cars in the parking area. Dottie and Gino, Eugenia and Vittorio had vanished into thin air.
I knocked on a back door. There was no answer there, either, but a long buffet table had been set up in the loggia. It was covered with a linen tablecloth; plates, napkins, and cutlery were artfully laid out at one end; there was a lovely flower arrangement in the middle; and several candles, unlit.
I peered in the windows: again, no sign of life. I scanned the back garden and saw a piece of red cloth tied to the branch of a tree at the far end of the property. It marked the start of a path into the woods that angled down at first, then back up through the trees. At the end of it was a long, stone-lined passageway, open to the air, cut into the side of a hill, which ended in a wooden door, propped open, which appeared to lead straight into the hill.
It was rather dark inside, and there was an acrid smell like rotting leaves and mold. I was at the top of a very old and broken stone staircase that led into the gloom. There was a dim glow at the bottom. I picked my way slowly and carefully down the steps, trying not to dislodge any pieces of stone that would reveal my presence. I reached the last step, took a deep breath, and stepped into the light.
I don't know what they saw in me, other than a woman in black loafers and pants and a white shirt, holding a large cardboard box. A nuisance that had to be disposed of? A teacher who'd found them doing something naughty in the schoolyard? Or even an avenging angel of some kind?
I know what I saw: twelve people, all of whom I recognized, some wary, some embarrassed and frightened, still others merely curious. But I saw something else, too. Perhaps because I was so frightened, the urge to flee almost unbearable, I had a sense of being able to penetrate the civilized veneer to the monster that lay beneath. It was a writhing mass of evil, created partly by a carelessness caused by oblivion to consequences and partly through calculated malice.
"I believe this is yours," I said, extending my arms with the box in them toward the group.
Dottie Beach burst into tears. "I didn't kill Robert Godard," she sobbed. "No matter what you've been told."
As she spoke, Nicola Marzolini stepped forward, took the box, lifted its precious contents, and set the hydria on a stone bench. We all stared at it for a moment. It looked perfectly at home, which it should have, given that most of these ceramics were made for the dead. We were in an Etruscan tomb, something I could thank Robert Godard for knowing.
I was in the entranceway to a chamber about twenty feet long and almost as wide, with a gabled roof painted red. Stone benches, on which pillows had been heaped, lined all four walls, breaking only at the entranceway where I stood, and at another door, to my right, that led to some darkness beyond. The wall paintings were almost gone, faded to the point where only a few details could be made out, pale blue and yellow swallows flitting across one wall, the shadow of a feast of some kind on another. There was a false door painted into the far wall, and over the door, faint but still distinguishable, was a chimera, drawn and painted by some ancient hand.
A table had been set up in front of the false door, covered in a cloth that matched the ceiling, and on it was set up a bar. Wine chilled in a large bucket of ice, a blue glass bottle of grappa stood open, there were bowls of olives and a cheese platter, and several candles on the table and scattered about the room provided the light, casting large shadows against the walls.