WE WOKE UP the next morning still on a mission to somehow get to Maria.
We piled into Julia’s hotel room to strategize after another quick breakfast of espresso, bread, and cheese. While the two of us were relegated to a dark box of a room, which contained little more than two beds, Julia’s room was drenched with sunlight and had views of charming red rooftops nearby. It also had a desk and several chairs, all of which made it a much more conducive space for our sleuthing.
We quickly dumped out our file folder full of the documents we’d brought along on our trip, and spread them over Julia’s queen-size bed. Looking for any last clues, we returned to the personal business filings for Maria Gamba Duval that we’d discovered shortly before leaving for France. We’d been in such a hurry during our initial review of these documents that this time we noticed a new name: Marie-Françoise Gamba.
Wondering who this woman could be (and guessing it must be a fake name or a relative of Maria’s), we turned to our laptops and were surprised to quickly find a French phone listing online. Our marathon calling sessions to date had resulted in so many dial tones that we were even more surprised when an elderly sounding, French-speaking woman picked up the phone soon after Julia punched in the number.
Julia, also startled, quickly put the woman on her speakerphone, as the two of us anxiously stood over her shoulder listening. Julia introduced herself as a journalist and asked about her connection to Maria. Upon hearing her response, Julia looked up at us with big eyes and muted the line.
It was Maria Duval’s sister, Julia whispered.
Again, and this time more than ever, we desperately wished we could understand every word this woman was saying. We did recognize a few words, though, the most important of which were “Switzerland,” “Jacques,” “letters,” and “Infogest.”
Getting more and more excited, we started shoving notes and questions in front of Julia, scribbled on the back of the very business filings that had given us this woman’s name. When we eventually returned to these filings months later, we were amused by the crumpled pages full of hastily written questions. But at the time, Julia took page after page from us, asking each question of Maria’s sister in succession.
“Do you talk to your sister often?”
“Is your sister still involved with any businesses?”
“Where did your sister get all her money?”
“Tell your sister there are still letters being sent out in her name.”
Julia, who we were quickly learning was a master multitasker, jotted down her own notes and responses as she spoke with Marie-Françoise. When she hung up the phone, we were champing at the bit for a full recap of the conversation. Maria’s sister had provided us with another small breakthrough.
She’d told Julia that she spoke with her sister almost every day, and that Maria was not in good health. She hadn’t said whether her condition was the result of some kind of sickness or simply old age. Also, she’d seemed shocked when Julia explained that the US government had filed a lawsuit against Maria alleging mail fraud. After hearing a description of the letters and the money they asked for, Maria’s sister called it an “escro” (short for escroquerie), a French word for “scam.” “There’s no way my sister created the letters,” she told Julia.
She had a possible explanation for everything that we hadn’t heard before, though: She said that many years ago, Maria had sold the rights to her name to a Swiss company, which her sister thought was likely Infogest, and that Maria didn’t have anything to do with what happened afterward. Although she didn’t remember names of specific businessmen, her sister told us that Maria “was involved with a Jacques.”
What Maria’s sister told us about this business deal seemed plausible. What seemed less believable was the idea that Maria, given the YouTube videos and media interviews in which she publicly acknowledged and defended the letters, had absolutely nothing to do with them.
Soon after our call with Maria’s sister, we called back Maria’s close friend Françoise Barre, the former mayor of Callas whom we’d spoken to weeks earlier. She still wouldn’t meet us in person but agreed to speak with us over the phone. “She had her company that took care of her,” she told us, suggesting that a business arrangement had been made to oversee the letters and the money they brought in.
When Julia told her that the letters were being used to deceive people, she actually didn’t seem surprised. “Yes it’s possible,” she said. “Yes, yes, she told me a long time ago, ‘I no longer have control over them.’ ”
On a more personal note, she again stressed to us that Maria was a good person, calling her “loyal and competent.” She was unwavering about her psychic abilities. “She has an extraordinary power for divination to predict the future,” the former mayor asserted. “She told me, ‘You will be mayor.’ ”
Now in possession of this additional evidence tying the psychic to the scam, we were even more eager to speak with Maria. Her sister, before our call ended, told us something that made it seem like it might be worth another try.
She said that, given Maria’s health, she would be very surprised if the psychic was actually in Rome. And she would know, we figured. After all, she claimed to speak with her sister almost every day.