16

I was stewing.

No, I was brooding. With stewing, something gets done. A stew. And that morning, as I aimlessly wandered the villa property, I felt trapped in a smoky room inside my head. Tramping close to Vincenzo’s land, I ambled among a field of beautiful yellow crocuses in full autumn bloom. Was it Glynis? Or Jenna? Who would be leaving with Joe Batta? And . . . how much time did I have? I felt sad for what could only be the fate of the cooking school at the Villa Orlandini.

Chef and Pete had spent a lot of money to pay me to develop this school with a free hand, and now not only wouldn’t they profit from it, I couldn’t see how they’d recoup what had swirled right on down the drain. Nell Valenti could just go on home, maybe get a restaurant job, maybe join the Dr. Val empire after all. But Chef and Pete were home. And the villa would resume its slow crumble into decrepitude, and Chef would return to bocce and obscurity, and Pete would press some delicious Moraiolo olives that would never make it into a bigger market. But I would get to go home.

My shoes were wet through from the meadow walk after a rain shower. But I found myself jogging back to the Orlandinis’, skidding now and then through the grass and a sudden clarity of mind. I needed more information from the Americans. I had taken them two days too long at face value. Who were these people? One thing I knew for sure: I couldn’t imagine why Glynis Gramm would bring her ill-fated husband all the way to Tuscany just to kill him.

She could have done that back in Naples, Florida, back in an environment where the odious guy had a whole warehouse of enemies. Not here, not in a place he had never been, among people he had never known. No, I had to believe a homicidal Glynis would have brought her business talents to bear on the problem of eliminating Bob. Where was the best and biggest market? Home. Where he had built a business with periods of greater and lesser success, lopping off who knew how many heads in the process, cheating how many customers, smearing how many competitors.

As I reached the courtyard, registering the sight of Rosa and Sofia in a two-woman huddle near the dormitory, I thought no, Glynis Gramm would never put herself through anything more dire than a messy divorce. She might leave herself open to alimony, but not to a murder charge. Still, I had to know for sure. Rounding the corner of Pete’s cottage, I pulled up short at the outbuilding that two hundred years ago had been built as the convent’s guesthouse.

One of the double doors stood open, and I slipped inside. I always loved the high windows and ceiling in this space that was Pete’s small-batch oil production facility, built onto the side of his cottage. The stone walls were whitewashed, and the woodwork was left natural. At eight hundred pounds, his olive press—which could process sixty-five pounds of olives an hour—wasn’t pushed off into a corner to accommodate the makeshift kitchen.

Shouts of “Nell!” came at me, but it was only Pete who came over, leaving the others clustered around one of the worktables Zoe and George had moved from the common room, where Chef was being oratorical about marinara alla pescatore—the “original” marinara sauce, generally attributed to sailors. I gave the transformed space a quick once-over. Pasta pots were steaming away on George’s camp stoves lined up on the worktable. Glynis didn’t seem dazed, but she did seem flat. Annamaria stood dressed in her best apron, her black toque, her hands folded mildly in front of her, her head turned away from the action. Zoe was sampling the sauce simmering in one of the large sauté pans, and George was stirring his way into everyone’s heart, pinkie finger extended, as he said the other day, “for balance.” I could never tell when this private dick was joking.

As Pete drew up alongside me, his look was more one of curiosity. “Come to join in the fun?” I guess I couldn’t tell when he was joking, either.

“How’s it going?”

“See for yourself. It’s a hit.”

I pressed my lips together. “Well,” I told him quietly, “it’s about to get bad.”

We stepped aside, closer to the entrance, and away from the class. “It’s already bad,” he said, looking off into a corner where his bushels of olives stood.

“You just said it was a hit.”

“It’s a hit. And it’s bad. They’re not mutually exclusive things, Nell.”

“What’s the matter?”

He flashed me a quick look. “It doesn’t matter,” said Pete, his expression closed; and then he added, “enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t the time.”

“No,” I said quietly, “I think it is the time. Listen”—I took in a big breath—“I know things feel kind of out of control—”

Pete moved closer to me. I’d never seen him look so intense. “Not things, Nell. You.”

“Me?”

It would have been easier if he had exploded in some grand Italian operatic way—easier to dismiss, at any rate—but I watched a change come over him. When he spoke, I heard a depth of feeling that confused me. “You haven’t been playing by your own rules, Nell. You’ve been”—he shot a quick look around the room—“fraternizing.”

“‘Fraternizing’?” I looked at him wide-eyed. At first I nearly laughed, but then I suddenly felt stricken. “Exactly what are you accusing me of, Pete?” The wronged female.

“Do I have to spell it out?” The wronged male.

I gave him a long look. We were doing Jane Austen on a bad day. Tugging at his arm, I pulled Pete outside. “If this is about George,” I said, as the door slammed behind us, “I understand completely. It’s okay if I fraternize with you, but not with him.”

He gasped. “That’s not what I—”

“It is. And by the way, Pete,” I told him through my teeth, “your conversation used to be a whole lot better.”

He rallied. “I could say the same about your professionalism.”

I gasped. “Thin ice, mister.”

“You’re on it, too,” he blustered.

I waved my arms around. “The ice?”

“Yes, the ice.”

“We’re on the same thin ice, is that what you mean?”

After a moment, he blurted, “I guess.”

We stood silent for about a minute, in a shared huff on thin ice, apparently. Finally, Pete looked past me. “I think you’re right. I think my conversation used to be better.” He leaned against the door to his oil production center.

I scuffed at a stone. “Mine, too,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

In that moment something really good could have happened. A hug that felt new, more exploratory, different from the kind you give a beloved friend. A kiss that felt slow and surprised. But as we stood just inches apart, our eyes on each other, all I could see was fatigue. So I crossed my arms and managed to crawl off the thin ice. “Pete,” I said, “Joe Batta’s about to make an arrest.”

His breath came out in a soft whistle. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing Glynis or Jenna.” I looked over at them. “Toss-up.”

“Well . . .” was all he could say. Then: “The whole villa—” he said softly.

“—Is on thin ice. I don’t have much time, Pete, and I’ve got to talk with them.”

He nodded quickly. “I’ll send them out.”

“Thanks,” I said, and we gave each other a small smile as he ducked back inside.

What had happened to us?

There’s a moment when a sauce goes sour. It’s so subtle, so nearly imperceptible, that you can’t avoid it and you can’t fix it and for sure you can’t go right ahead and enjoy it. It tastes like acid, and burn, and inexperience. And maybe that was me, too. Acid and burn and inexperience.

“Nell?” It was Jenna.

When Glynis drew up, the slick of my lipstick just a memory on her lips, we left.

---

*   *   *

There was no ideal place for the Talk. Any indoor place I considered had either vomit in a bucket (whose job was that?) or Joe Batta. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Anywhere in the main building was too open to interruption. Anywhere in town was too far away. So in we went, as a last resort, to the Abbess’s room, and I was happy I had made up my bed. They stood uncertainly just over the threshold, totally in the way when I drew the door shut. I elbowed both women farther into the room and pulled over the two lightweight café chairs, part of the set I had found in a secondhand shop off the main piazza in Cortona when I decided I needed a small table near the window.

I sat on the trunk at the foot of the bed. We looked at each other for a minute, Jenna flushed with new purpose as Stella’s day-care provider, Glynis gaunt with some cross between despair and crazy-headed resolve. As for me, I picked at my cuticles. I thought we looked like the day not too many people showed up for the Traveler’s Aid support group. My meeting, my agenda, so I began, cleared my throat, and began again. “Joe Batta is about to make an arrest.” When neither of them asked the obvious question, I blundered along. “Let’s clear the air.”

I turned first to the widow. “Glynis, they know about the argument you and Bob had that first night.” I steeled myself, prepared to elaborate that although Rosa and I had been passing by the barn room at the time, our chance passing (leave out the ten minutes we stood still to eavesdrop effectively) certainly did not preclude (use of big word lends credibility to the story) the possibility of others’ overhearing as well; after all, it was nighttime. I didn’t want to point the finger at Rosa, but since I knew I hadn’t told Joe Batta about the fight yet, that left her. Rosa had scooped me.

“I know,” said Glynis matter-of-factly. “I told him.”

“You—”

She shrugged, but Sofia’s clothing was just enough too big for her that Glynis’s shoulders bumped up against the inside of the dress’s fabric. “Believe it or not, I didn’t kill my husband.” Her gaze narrowed in the direction of the empty Victorian birdcage. “I kind of liked the bum, you know. His sins were all so petty.” She let out a short, soft laugh. “Lying, cheating. Such small-time dreams in such fancy designer shoes.” I noticed Jenna was breathing faster and the flush of happy dog care was getting bleached clean out of her.

But Glynis went on, “Or . . . maybe he just found small-time ways of soothing himself about the big-time dreams that never went anywhere.” Suddenly, she looked directly at me. “No, I didn’t have to kill him. I didn’t even have to leave him.” Her voice went soft as it caught in her throat. “Even so,” she said philosophically, “I’ll understand if that cop arrests me. I’m probably the best candidate. Wronged wife, and all that. It’s just so easy. Not to worry, Nell, not to worry. I don’t hold you or the Orlandinis responsible. The cops will figure it out.”

Glynis Gramm: not a Jersey girl.

I gaped at her, not at all sure that if they could make a case against the widow they’d keep right on digging just to see what else turned up. I had a sudden question. “Why did he come with you, Glynis? Why this time? Sounds like you’d tried before, but these travel cooking adventures weren’t Bob’s thing.”

She nodded, running her tongue along her teeth. “Not at all. No, this time was different. Everything came together so quickly I just took him at face value and signed us both up. Over the past three or four years he’s been on a kind of upswing, like the business was picking up and he was feeling good about things. The poor sap always felt competitive with me, so I never asked for any details. Especially now, when luxury cars seemed to be doing well and Bob had some dough to spread around, and he liked being a man of mystery about his daily operations. All he ever wanted me to see were the dazzling results. Sleight of hand, no hard work, no scrambling with the nitty-gritty, win some, lose some.”

In the short silence, my own mind went to the key question that Glynis had overlooked: So, what had changed for Bob Gramm in the last three years? “What’s your guess, Glynis? Why now, why here?”

She made a face. “From past experience? I’d say he had an angle he wanted to work. Lamborghini HQ’s in Bologna. How far is that from here?”

I squinted, trying to visualize the map. “Two hours, maybe.”

“I’m guessing he was going to make time for a side trip there and pitch something to the top brass. Not that they’d listen. Not that he’d get past Reception.”

Nodding, I pulled a folded piece of paper from my pocket. As I unfolded it, I said, “This was tucked into Bob’s money belt, Glynis. Do you have any idea what it is?”

She took it from me, with not so much as a question about how I got my mitts on it. With a puzzled look, she checked out what had seemed to me to be a spreadsheet. “It’s Bob’s writing, a kind of log, I’d say.”

“Something from Gramm’s Lams?”

She winced thoughtfully. “Nah, he’s got a bookkeeping service for the business, and they use QuickBooks. I use the same people for the boutique, that’s how I know.”

“So, something off the books,” I ventured.

“And he brought it with him on this trip.”

“Could he have been taking it to show someone at HQ in Bologna?”

“Maybe.” She handed it back to me. “I just don’t know.”

I tried, “Let’s say he had a line on something. Some malfeasance?”

“And this was his record of it? His proof?”

“Record, maybe. Not enough for proof. Just dates and figures.”

Glynis shook her head sadly. “In another age, my husband would have been wearing shiny checkered coats and smoking cheap cigars.” She jutted her chin at the paper I still held. “He wouldn’t know big trouble if it was sprinkling poisonous mushrooms on his pasta.” I bit my lip. Then: “While he sat there watching.”

“I get it. If it”—I waved the paper—“was something big, he couldn’t pull it off.”

Glynis raised a hand. “But he wouldn’t know he couldn’t pull it off.”

Which struck me as the kind of shortsightedness that could get you killed.

She pressed her lips together in a tight, sad smile. “I knew Bob so very long. All I felt was . . . sorry for him.”

Jenna erupted. “Well, I didn’t. He killed my father.”

And it was going so nicely. Where was a really good therapist when you needed one?

Glynis reared back and jerked around to face her. “What?”

“Take it from me, not all his sins were petty, Glynis.” Hunching over, all Jenna could do was rock back and forth. I waited for her to explain, but she seemed overwhelmed at her own outburst. Personally, I would have prescribed more frequent outbursts, twice daily until symptoms subside, but then the girl started keening. Alarmed, Glynis tried patting her on the back, but poor wretched Jenna twitched her off.

So I told my story about searching Jenna’s room for clues when, two nights ago, she went missing. That opening salvo was met with tearful indignation. “You searched my room?” Jenna shouted. You would think I had just confessed I’d taken Stella to the pound.

I was done handling. “Oh, grow up,” was the best I could do. “You . . . were . . . missing. Within reason, we have a responsibility to our guests. You don’t know the area at all”—at that, she shrank back—“and in not telling anyone here of your plans to go off and sulk, you behaved immaturely. So, yes.” I scooted my trunk closer to her. “I searched your room.” She clamped her arms around herself and stared moodily at her shoes. No protests. I went on to describe the two key things I found. “First . . .” I held up a finger, careful in my choice of which. “The five-inch utility knife you stole the day of the mushroom”—I circled my hand, trying to catch the right word—“field trip.”

Jenna gasped.

Glynis gasped. “You?”

Since I was way past gasping, or so I thought, I hurtled on. “Second . . .” I toned it down because I was nearing the heart of things for the Baltimore barista. “All the material about your dad’s death.” I could tell from her stony expression that she had just seen me, Nell Valenti, for what I really was: a desecrator of shrines. For some odd reason, this new understanding of a Jersey girl posing as a cooking school designer made her actually, for the first time, look her age. “Tony Bondi.” I uttered the name, let it sit there in the air for a moment. “Tony Bondi was your dad.”

Glynis peered at her. “Tony Bondi? I remember Tony. Bob’s partner, the guy he . . .” her voice slowed as she realized the possibilities. Then her face lit up. “You’re Tony’s kid?” Jenna muttered something that Glynis wheeled right over. “I remember you,” she said happily, snapping her fingers as an aid to name retrieval. “Little—little—Jennifer. You used to drag around a Scooby-Doo purse.” Dogs, I thought, sharp sleuth that I am, even then.

“Bob Gramm fired my dad—”

Glynis corrected her with a manicured hand on little Jennifer’s arm. “No, no, honey,” she said in a way she probably thought would make everything all right, “Bob forced him out.” All cleared up, so much better. “They were partners. Fifty-fifty. But then came the crash of—what?— ’08, and it was a nail biter for Bob, I can tell you.”

“For us, too.” Jenna made the point.

“One day Tony Bondi was just, fft, gone. Tony and little Jennifer.”

“We went to Baltimore,” was all Jenna breathed. “My grandma was there.”

Glynis went skeptical. “All Bob ever told me was that he bought Tony out.” She snorted. “But, bought him out with what? He didn’t have the dough to cover Tony’s half. I figured Bob had to have finagled something, something to make Tony look bad, ruin his rep in the luxury car business. Fudging EPA records on Tony’s inventory. Something. Then all Bob had to do to force Tony out was to pay him off just enough to get him to sign over his half of the works and promise to go away.”

Jenna lunged kind of ineffectively. “Then why didn’t you—”

Glynis widened her eyes at both of us. “I’m just guessing, Jenna. Like I say, at the time all Bob told me was Tony and the kid wanted to move north, so he bought him out.”

Jenna’s voice was cold. “That’s not quite what happened.”

Glynis cast around to say the right thing. “How’s your dad?”

“He killed himself.”

“Over Gramm’s Lams?” She was incredulous.

It was Jenna’s turn to make corrections. “Gramm’s Lams was his life. It may not have been yours. Or even your husband’s. But it was his. He got a job at Home Depot in Baltimore, selling sinks and toilets.” Until, she wound down finally, he couldn’t. Without lifting her eyes, Jenna described what it felt like just three weeks ago when she had driven down to Englewood, Florida, to visit her grandma now living in a trailer just three blocks from the beach, and a commercial came on TV. It was Bob “the Glam” Gramm crowing about his end-of-year sale on current models, and how he and his beautiful wife were heading off to sunny Italy to increase their culinary skills at the villa of Chef Claudio Orlandini.

There he was, getting to be middle-aged and well dressed and heading off to Italy with a beautiful wife to take cooking classes. “And I knew two things,” ended Jenna. “My dad, sweet and gentle Tony Bondi, killed himself without ever having any of those things. That was one.” She shot a quick half smile. “And the second thing was that I was going to kill that man. I sold my car and borrowed some money from my gram, who was so pleased I was furthering my education with some cooking classes.” Jenna laughed the kind of laugh that’s hard to tell apart from a sob.

I put in, “So you stole the knife.”

“And wrapped it and kept it safe. I told myself I wanted to choose my own time.”

“And somebody beat you to it.” That was Glynis.

But Jenna shook her head and seemed to buck up. “Oh, no. No, even after the first day, I didn’t think I could do it. Hiding the knife gave me options. Gave me a way to make it all right. In a way, seeing him in person day in and day out, hearing how stupid and cruel he was, made me realize I couldn’t do it.” She slid Glynis an apologetic look. “Bob Gramm just wasn’t worth it.”

“Not at all,” agreed the widow. They had found something in common.

Jenna stood up, shaking her head. “Here I spent all that damn money to get up close and personal with the monster who had destroyed my father, and I couldn’t do it.” She smiled. “He has no friends.”

Glynis seemed almost merry. “None at all.”

“Or a dog,” added Jenna hopefully.

“No dog. No, sirree.”

“All right”—Jenna had to accept a point—“he had some cars—”

“Status symbols way over his head.” Glynis brushed it all away.

“—and I sold my old beater.”

“So you did.”

“But right now . . .” She took a deep breath just as the pounding on my door began. “Right now I’d say I’ve got my money’s worth.” Even without her shot at homicide. The three of us looked at each other. Maybe the Traveler’s Aid support group had managed a stellar meeting. “Even,” added Jenna, straightening her shoulders, “if I get arrested.”

More pounding.

“Coming!” I made it to the door and wrenched it open.

There stood Rosa and Sofia, wringing their hands, crying in Italian so headlong I had no chance of understanding them. They clawed at me, pulling me outside, until I stumbled and that became grist for more tears and chagrin. Lifting my head, I caught sight of the cars in the driveway. I could account for the Orlandinis’ two, the Ape and the ’55 ocean green T-Bird. After the early deliveries from the camping and kitchen supply stores, all that was left were the dark blue official wheels of the carabinieri.

Standing at the open rear door of the SUV turned to face the bottom of the driveway, its engine running, was Detective Joe Batta. I got my footing and was pulled along with Rosa and Sofia, who were wailing. Being helped into the back seat by a black-uninformed cop in a black beret, was Annamaria Bari. For me, standing there gaping, the worst had finally happened. The cops had wrenched the cornerstone out of the villa’s foundation and were driving it away with no concern for the soft rumbling I swear I could hear behind me.