One of the few things Gabe appreciated about his old man was the fact that Angelo de la Torre had insisted Gabe keep speaking Italian at home. It was easy enough to do. The neighborhood in Staten Island where they’d moved was filled with first generation immigrants who brightened their drab little row houses with window boxes full of geraniums, pots of mouthwatering Bolognese sauce, and welcoming, tolerant hearts. Gabe spent countless Sunday afternoons lounging on the front stoops with neighbors in their seventies and eighties who shared stories of the old country and fed him for taking the time to listen. Despite the trouble he managed to get into before he left high school, Gabe figured those Sundays kept him from sliding any further down the slippery slope of delinquency. In the bargain he held on to his native tongue.
He was grateful for that skill now as he waited at the front desk of the precinct where his childhood friend Marco Clemente worked. Marco was Gabe’s counterpart in Verona’s state police. As in any police station, barely controlled chaos prevailed. Gabe watched as suspects—many no doubt drunks picked up the night before—were finally reunited with scolding family members who had come to bail them out. Victims of non-violent crimes waited to give their statements: some officers were sympathetic, but others seemed too jaded to hide their annoyance at having to fill out yet another form. Some things are universal, Gabe thought.
“Hey, buddy,” Marco said as he came from his office down the hall. He was a stocky, barrel-chested man with powerful arms and legs, reddish blond hair, and a ruddy complexion that had earned him the very un-PC nickname of Pellerossa, which meant “red man.” Gabe and his buddies had shortened it further to Indio. Marco greeted Gabe with the traditional two-sided air kiss. “Did you get my message about dinner tomorrow night? Gina’s going all out.”
“Uh, yeah, I did. Looking forward to it,” Gabe said. “But there’s something important I wanted to talk to you about. Is there someplace we can speak privately?”
Without hesitation, Marco grabbed his jacket from a nearby hook. “I’ll be back shortly,” he told the officer on duty. “Come on,” he said to Gabe, “let’s take a walk.”
Verona was returning to its normal buzz after the midday respite. Gabe followed as Marco set off for a specific destination. Two crossed streets and three alleyways later they came to a small trattoria. An older man came out from the shadow of the interior.
“Good afternoon,” he said formally. “Please come in.” Marco and Gabe entered the small restaurant, which had yet to pick up any afternoon customers.
“Two espressos, please,” Marco ordered. After the waiter left he asked, “What is troubling you, my friend?”
Gabe decided to get right down to it. “What do you know about Armando Forcelli’s death?”
“A fair amount,” Marco admitted. “I’m handling the paperwork locally, although it appears to be just a shitload of bad luck for the guy. Accidents happen.”
“What if I told you I had reason to believe it wasn’t an accident?”
Marco, who had been leaning back in his chair, tipped forward. “I’d say ‘tell me what you’ve got.’”
“I’m not sure I’ve got anything at this point. What I’d like to know are the particulars of what went down that night.”
Marco took out his iPhone and called up a file. He scrolled through the data to find what he was looking for. “The body was found at five a.m. approximately three hundred yards off the coast of Siracusa, in the gulf there. You know where that is, right?”
Gabe nodded. “East coast of Sicily.”
“Yeah. They host part of the Ocean Grand Prix down there—the place to be if you’re into that shit. Anyway, the tide was coming in, or he would have been long gone. The boat was a thirty-nine-foot Cigarette pleasure craft belonging to one of his racing syndicate partners. They found it a half kilometer north of the body. Apparently it just kept going until it ran out of gas.”
“How did they know he was in that boat—did they dust for prints?”
Marco searched the document. “Uh, no, they didn’t take prints, but apparently he was seen in the boat with the partner and some others that afternoon. They probably figured his prints would be all over it.” He continued to scan the report. “Ah, it says his shirt was found stuffed under one of the seats. He’d been seen wearing the same color shirt earlier in the evening.”
“Okay, so it’s established that he was in the boat at some point, you just don’t have hard evidence he was in it that night.”
A note of defensiveness crept into Marco’s response. “Well, how do you say it in the States? ‘If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck…’”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, so probably it’s a duck. So, what about the body? Any marks? Signs of trauma?”
Marco checked again. “Surprisingly few. A bruise to the forehead and a contusion at the back of the head, probably caused when he hit the water.”
“Do they know which side of him hit the water first?”
“Doesn’t say. Why?”
“Nothing, just…” Gabe paused to consider the information. “It’s strange he’d have bruises both front and back.”
“So he bounced around when he fell out.”
“Yeah, but if he fell out of the boat at a high rate of speed, wouldn’t there have been much greater impact? I mean, you slam into anything at eighty miles an hour and you’re going to do some serious damage, even if you’re only falling three or four feet.”
Marco shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe he wasn’t going fast when he took the plunge. He could have been so blitzed that when he hit a wave and went over, he couldn’t get back in and that was that.”
Gabe took a sip of his espresso. Maybe he wasn’t used to the extra jolt of caffeine, but he felt wired, his brain moving in several directions at once. “But there was no alcohol in his system, was there?”
Marco looked at Gabe sharply. “How did you know that?”
Gabe stared back at him. “If you already knew that, why did you imply alcohol might have been a factor?”
Marco tried to glare, but quickly gave it up, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve been told not to waste too much time on this, but I confess I’ve been uneasy about it ever since the toxicology report came back. They didn’t find anything in his system except a drug for migraine headaches, known to cause fatigue but not erratic behavior. And why, on a cool evening, would he have taken off his shirt?”
“I take it he wasn’t wearing a life preserver.”
“No, which doesn’t make sense if he was sober and intended to drive fast, especially at night.”
“Any witnesses nearby?”
Marco scrolled down through the notes. “Apparently nobody heard or saw anything out of the ordinary. Just the usual low throttle noise of boats maneuvering within the marina.”
“How did he get access to the boat, by the way?”
“The slips are private, accessed only by key. The boat’s owner had given Forcelli a set of keys earlier that day and told him he could take the boat out whenever he liked, but—and this is another strange aspect—”
“Let me guess. The lock on the gate was tampered with.”
Marco nodded. “And a set of keys was found in his hotel room, in the pocket of his jacket. So we’re left with the theory that he forgot he had the keys, but so badly wanted to take the boat out alone, in the middle of a cold night, after taking a medication that made him drowsy, he figured out how to jimmy the lock on both the slip and the boat. Then he headed slowly out across the water, stripped off his shirt, fell quietly into the water and drowned. Oh yes, and there’s one more thing.”
Gabe said nothing, simply looked at Marco with raised eyebrows.
“There was no water in the lungs.”
“Implying he didn’t drown,” Gabe finished.
“The coroner says that in about ten percent of cases, drowning victims do not inhale water. Still, that is one more question we have no answer for.”
Gabe and Marco sat pondering the evidence in silence; Gabe could sense that Marco was as frustrated by the conflicting details as he was.
“Look,” Marco said at last. “If this is something other than a freak accident involving an aging bad boy, I would like to know about it. But I seem to be the only one who cares. Hell, I even wondered at one point if someone had it in for him—didn’t want him to compete in the race for some reason. But neither the family nor my superiors, nor the boat owner nor the racing authorities want this to go any farther. They certainly don’t want to make this out to be some kind of foul play.”
Gabe wasn’t ready to tell Marco about Carla Rinaldi and whoever was following her just yet, so he took another tack. “I don’t know that I have anything right now except a few more questions. Such as, did anyone take into consideration the speed of the boat? If Forcelli was out joyriding, why wasn’t the throttle at full speed? If it was at full speed, why was the boat found so close to the body? If it wasn’t, why was Forcelli moving so slowly? And what could cause someone to not breathe in any water once they fell overboard? Could it be they weren’t breathing before they hit the water? And who was the last person to see Forcelli alive? Maybe they can shed some light on the circumstances.”
Marco sat up straighter. “We know that Forcelli dined with a woman earlier that evening. Several eyewitnesses have said they saw the two of them together. We have identified the woman as a Signora Carla Rinaldi, an employee of the Stella d’Italia Milano. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to locate her.”
“Doesn’t anyone think that by itself is strange?”
Marco shrugged. “Like I said, nobody wants to dig any deeper. Bad for the public image.”
Throughout the conversation, Gabe had been jotting down details and ideas in his notebook. He tapped his pencil on the table, trying to make sense of the disconnected facts. Still, even more important questions remained; he decided to lob one at his friend. “So, Indio, what can you tell me about human trafficking in your neck of the woods?”
Marco went still. “What does that have to do with any of this?”
Gabe leaned forward in his chair. “What if Forcelli’s death wasn’t an accident? What if he knew something and someone wanted to shut him up?”
“All right. You know something, Gabriele. I can feel it. You must tell me what kind of fantastical connection you are making here.”
“Okay. Look, I’ve heard something. I’ll not say who it is, but I will say the source is credible. And the source says there might be something unsavory happening within the Stella d’Italia hotel company related to their back-of-the-house employees. That’s all I know. I swear.”
Gabe felt Marco’s piercing look. It’s a good thing I play poker well. He was not going to take this farther until he did some digging on his own.
“Stella d’Italia is a relatively small hotel company run by the iron hand of Santo Forcelli with the help of his nephew Dante Trevisan.” Marco shook his head. “There is no way such an illicit operation could exist without at least one of them knowing about it. Are you absolutely certain about what you’ve heard?”
Gabe nodded, and as he did so, Marco’s words sunk in. Dante. Santo. If what Carla said was true, one of those two men had to be involved. Dani had seen her uncle just a few hours ago, and maybe he or even Dante had ordered someone to follow Gabe. Suddenly he felt the need to make sure she was all right.
“I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly. “If I hear anything more, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’d try to keep the Forcelli drowning case open as long as I could. Where’s the boat, by the way?”
“Still in police custody, but they’re going to release it tomorrow.”
“If it were me, I’d dust for prints. Something may turn up. If it’s a hit job, chances are they wore gloves, but you might try the cleats. Sometimes you need finger dexterity to untie a tight rope.” Gabe tapped his pencil again. “It’s probably way too late, but I’d dust the security gate, too. Picking locks is also hard to do with gloves.”
“Damn it, you’re right.” Marco scrolled his notes again. “Looks like we could also follow up on who else booked the hotel that night. Maybe there’s a connection that’s not related to the boat race.”
Gabe got up and beckoned the waiter before turning to his friend. “Let me know if you find anything, okay? If Forcelli’s death turns out to be a homicide, it could be just the tip of the iceberg.”
The waiter waved Gabe off. “Arturo likes to have a cop come by once in a while,” Marco said. “Hey, what’s your motto? ‘To protect and to serve’?”
“Yeah, but mainly to get at the truth. Thanks for the information, Marco. I owe you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Marco nodded. “Until then.”
Gabe jogged back to the main street and tried to flag down a taxi. Inwardly he cursed the fact that he hadn’t lined up a local phone card so that he and Dani could stay in touch. He put that at the top of his to-do list, along with sitting her down and explaining everything that was going on. Well, almost everything. Did he really need to get into his arrangement with Santo over the past year or so? He’d only talked to the guy a few times, and each call had lasted ten minutes, if that. Gabe hadn’t told Santo anything the old man couldn’t have found out by other means. Still, as they say, the “optics” weren’t good. Santo had asked Gabe not to mention the calls, and Gabe, feeling beholden, had agreed. It looked sneaky, and it was. What if Santo told her before Gabe could explain himself? Hell, what did that matter at this point? That was nothing compared to the sewage Carla Rinaldi was digging up.
“Come on. Come on,” he muttered, checking up and down the street. “Where’s a cab when you need it?” Frustration warred with a niggling sense of fear, and he couldn’t shake the thought that Dani might be in some kind of danger. But Santo wouldn’t do anything to her, would he? She was his niece, after all. Yeah, but Mando had been his brother. He shook his head. Okay, wait. Just because Carla Rinaldi suspects foul play doesn’t mean Santo’s at the heart of it. Yet after his confrontation that morning, Gabe knew it wasn’t a stretch to think that Santo could pull something like that off. “Asshole” didn’t begin to describe the man.
Just then he spotted a taxi and whistled for it, waving for good measure. “La Tana della Pantera,” he told the driver, and jumped in the back.
Marco kept his distance as he watched his old friend enter a taxi. Once it sped off he dialed his cell phone.
“Direttore,” he said. “I have some interesting information to share.”
As he had each week for the past several months, Dante Trevisan stood outside the door to classroom two seventeen in the health sciences building at the University of Verona. He was waiting for Holistic Health Practices 110 to finish for the evening. After so many classes, the students were used to seeing him in the hallway. The students emptied out and he returned with half smiles the coy flirtations of several cute coeds as they passed by. With a well-placed look, he could have had any one of them, but the one he truly wanted was always the last to leave. Dante had taken it upon himself to escort her home.
“I think you’re right to advocate for botanicals, Giuseppi,” Agnese Lombardi said to an earnest young sycophant as she locked the classroom door. “But much of the problem I feel lies with the public’s impatience. Holistic healing processes typically need more time to work than modern pharmaceuticals. Andrographis paniculata, for example, is quite adept at breaking up bacterial aggregations, and has been used for thousands of years for the treatment of upper respiratory infections. Yet what is overwhelmingly prescribed?”
“Modern antibiotics!” The boy squeaked like a seal barking for a sardine.
“Precisely, which of course has led to their decreased potency through overuse. It’s a growing problem.” She looked over and saw Dante. He smiled and was gifted one in return. “At any rate, I think it will make an excellent term paper. I’ll see you next week.”
The young man gave Dante a sullen look and headed reluctantly down the hall.
“You need me,” Dante said. “Desperately.” He took her laptop case as they walked toward the exit.
Agnese barely contained a grin. “Oh is that right, Signor Trevisan? How so?”
“To protect you from the likes of lovesick puppies like Giuseppi there. Last week it was Giorgio what’s-his-name, and the week before that—”
“Oh, stop. It’s not that bad.”
“Yes it is, but I don’t mind pulling bodyguard duty. It saved me from a far worse fate.”
“Really? What?” Agnese sounded genuinely concerned.
“Why, having to sit through a semester’s worth of herbal remedies and admonitions to cut sugar, wheat, milk, and meat out of my diet.” Dante patted his stomach, which he was pleased to admit was in still in pretty good shape. “I do love my pasta and cannoli.”
Agnese responded with mock seriousness. “I am glad to have saved you from such a dire circumstance. Taking one of my classes could indeed be a fate worse than death.” They left the building and began walking toward the convent.
“By the way, I’ll have you know I make delicious homemade pasta,” she added, a touch of defensiveness in her tone. “And my Bolognese sauce is pretty good, too.”
It came out before he could stop it. “I’d love to try it sometime.”
Agnese said nothing, leaving them in awkward silence.
When am I going to learn? Dante wracked his brain for a safer topic and remembered seeing Dani. “I’m sorry you missed the memorial service,” he said. “My cousin was there with your cousin, and Gabriele looked quite happy to be with her.” He smiled and turned to her. “If they got together, I hope that wouldn’t make us too closely related.”
Agnese stopped, the radiance gone from her face. “It wouldn’t matter.” After a moment she added, “You don’t really have to walk me home each week. I can fend for myself.”
“I know.” The truth was painful, but he said it anyway. “We both know it’s more for me than for you.” The look of sweet agony she gave him nearly broke his heart. He kept his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her and felt the weight of the gift he’d brought. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He pulled out a small wrapped package and handed it to her.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
“You are always bringing me things. It’s not necessary.”
“And that’s the best time to give a gift, wouldn’t you agree?”
Agnese nodded. “I suppose.” She opened the package to find three six-inch long test tubes that had been wrapped with decorative copper wire, one end of which formed a hook.
“I found them near the Piazza Duomo,” he said. “I thought you could hang them up in the lab. You know, put herbs in them or something. They’re little vases. I know how much you love flowers, and…”
Agnese looked up at him. “Thank you. They’ll come in very handy.”
“Good. Good.” They were almost at the convent. The walk was always too short, but he’d learned long ago not to ask her to linger for even a coffee. “Well, you’re back, safe and sound once again. No drooling little teenage boys to fight off this time, but you never know.”
Agnese had pulled her key out to open the gate but paused a moment before inserting it. She didn’t face him as she said, “It’s hopeless, you know.”
Dante reached out to turn her gently toward him. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Just tell me how I can change and I’ll change. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
She looked up at him with tears pooling in her eyes. “There’s nothing to change,” she said. “It’s simply who we are.” She took her laptop case from him, opened the gate, and went inside.
“I’ll be there next week,” Dante called to her retreating figure. “And the week after that. And one day you’ll let me in.”
She faced away from him but waved her hand behind her. “Thank you again for the vases. I will treasure them.” He could hear a hitch in her voice.
“And I will treasure you. Always,” he murmured as he turned and walked back up the street.
“Okay, so here is she?” Gabe asked his aunt after searching all over La Tana. “It’s after six o’clock. She ought to be back by now!”
“It is not necessary to take that tone with me, Gabriele.” Fausta’s tone was as frigid as her demeanor. “She refused to go with the driver that Signor Forcelli had sent for her. She took a cab instead. I assume she met him for lunch. Perhaps they had much to discuss.”
“So Santo isn’t home either? Can you call and ask him when they’re due back?”
“Signor Forcelli doesn’t clear his schedule with me,” she said. “His time is his own.”
As if to prove that point, Santo himself walked through the door. Gabe had to force himself not to pounce on the man, but couldn’t help demanding, “Where is Dani?”
Santo looked at Gabe as if he were a servant who had mistakenly called at the front entrance instead of the back door of the estate. He calmly handed his jacket and briefcase to Fausta, taking time to check his appearance in the foyer’s elegantly carved mirror before answering. “I thought she was with you,” he replied. He smiled cynically at Gabe. “Have you lost your lover, Signor de la Torre?”
Don’t take the bait, Gabe cautioned himself. “Just—are you saying you haven’t seen her this afternoon?”
“I’m saying that after lunch she said that she was meeting you. Now if you will excuse me.”
Gabe watched as the man turned and walked down the hallway. Fausta looked at Gabe, eyes blazing, as she followed her employer.
Okay, she’s probably out seeing the sights. Nothing to worry about. She’ll be fine. Gabe kept up the mental pep talk as he stalked to the suite, determined not to lose it as his blood began to boil.
Four hours of pouring through the accounting summaries for Stella d’Italia had led Dani to one conclusion: whoever was doctoring the books, if they were doctoring the books, was doing an excellent job of it. She’d uncovered some irregularities, not in the account reconciliation, but in the unusually predictable fluctuation of certain expenses within the human resources budgets, as well as accounts receivable. She would have to check prior years to be sure, but it seemed that housekeeping employees in particular were flowing in and out of the hotel system at an oddly regular rate. It also seemed as though large payments from different companies showed up routinely on the books of every hotel, albeit a different location every month, and the amounts were surprisingly uniform. Few people would notice unless they compared the numbers of every profit center over time.
Dani could feel a building tension in her neck, so she put the spreadsheets away and rooted in her purse for her usual headache medicine. Stella had excused herself an hour earlier to take a nap and now that it was time to leave, Dani decided not to wake her. She wrote a quick note saying she’d be in touch and left the penthouse, hoping some fresh air would help clear her head.
The Stella d’Italia Verona was a glorious hotel perfectly situated in the heart of the city. Dating from the Renaissance, the building catered to businessmen with unlimited expense accounts as well as well-heeled tourists who didn’t mind staying in ancient landmarks as long as their accommodations were the latest in comfort and style. Dani smiled as she pictured the Havenwood Inn back home. It too was considered an architectural treasure, but in northern California, age was measured in decades, not centuries. Still, the idea of hospitality was pretty much the same the world over and throughout time. It was a worthwhile profession to provide food and shelter for weary travelers.
Dani thought about returning to La Tana, but the estate was so stark and cold; no wonder her grandmother had fled to town. Besides, the idea of being there, waiting, when Gabe returned from his tryst—and that’s what it was in her mind, a tryst—was beyond unappealing. She decided to explore the city a bit instead. After all, it is my hometown.
Most Americans, if they’d even heard of Verona, pegged it to Romeo and Juliet, since Shakespeare’s most famous play was standard fare for high school English classes. But for Dani, Verona was much more complex than that. It had been a major crossroads city during Roman times and its amphitheater was one of the most well-known of the Roman ruins anywhere in the world. Dani remembered the city walks she took with her father as he told her of the many warlords who had ruled the city and its people over time.
“But the spirit of its people remained unchanged, no matter who was in power,” he told her once. “You must never lose your spirit, topolina.” Dani remembered pouting and telling her father that she wasn’t a “little mouse,” and him laughing and tousling her curls and asking her why, if she wasn’t a mouse, did she like so much cheese on her spaghetti? But she had to wonder now. Had she lost her spirit?
From what she remembered, her childhood had been good. She had been happy. What attention she lacked from her traveling parents was made up by the rest of her family: her grandparents, her uncles—even Fausta and her daughter Agnese. Dani had no cause for complaint. But whatever happened to her at the age of fifteen had taken something from her. Something that no therapist or hypnotist or well-meaning mom or school counselor had ever been able to give back. Heck, they hadn’t even been able to tell her what she was missing. Over the last twelve years that hole, that void, had kept her from becoming a woman in the truest sense.
But ever since she’d met Gabe de la Torre, the desire to fill that hole had warred with her fear of it, and the need to know what kept her broken grew along with the feeling that maybe, like all the professionals kept telling her, her brokenness was only in her head…and that was the scariest thought of all.
She rounded the corner and found herself on Via Capello, at the site of the Casa di Giulietta. Juliet’s House. Oh great, she thought, that’s all I need, to be inundated with love.
She walked into the courtyard with the other tourists and gazed up at the balcony which was supposedly the inspiration for the famous scene in the play. Amidst the group of visitors, a teenage couple stood next to her, dressed in matching torn jeans, arm tattoos, and lip rings. They must have been inspired by the sight because they began “sucking face” as she and Agnese used to say. Dani smirked. What if their rings got tangled? Would they have to call in the fire department? The teenagers were oblivious to passersby, and Dani realized the joke was on her. They certainly hadn’t lost their spirit. For however long it lasted, they were in love and weren’t afraid to show it. Good for you, she thought, and walked on.
After stopping for a small plate of pasta, Dani decided she really should head back to La Tana. Her headache had faded, replaced by a fatigue that seemed to reach down into her very bones. She began her usual litany: So what if Gabe wasn’t there? So what if he spent the night elsewhere? They were just friends, right? She had no claim on him, nor he on her.
Oh shut up, she scolded herself. You’re full of it. And it dawned on her what her father meant so long ago. If you can’t be honest with yourself, if you can’t be true to who you really are, no matter what anybody thinks you ought to be, then you really have lost your spirit. The truth was, she was crazy about Gabe, but she had driven him away out of fear, and she didn’t even know why.
It was approaching nine o’clock when the taxi dropped her off at the mansion. Fausta let her in with a reproving look.
“You are late,” the housekeeper said. “You should have alerted someone as to your schedule.”
“You’re right,” Dani said wearily. “I apologize.”
“I am not the one you should apologize to. Your uncle—”
“I’m here now,” Dani interrupted, her ire returning in a flash. “Good night.”
She made her way up the stairs to the suite, more tired than she’d been since arriving in Italy. A warm bath, her Kindle, and she’d be one happy—
Just then the door swung open and Gabe stood there, towering over her, eyes blazing, looking every inch the irate father. He reached out, grabbed her arm, pulled her in the room and shut the door. In rough, harsh tones, he took her to task. “Just where the hell have you been?!”