20

Slipping one of the Alba Rosa yeast bags into my pants pocket, I shrugged into my down vest, closed and locked my door, and headed to where I believed every biped on the villa grounds was competing hard against all comers for the title of vincitore in the freestyle marinara competition. I heard the ruckus inside Pete’s olive oil production space before I even entered. Windows were open to let in the sun-warmed air, and the daylight was all the illumination the cooks needed.

Pete, who seemed to be presiding, actually looked happier than he had over the last few days, maybe because he had wrangled all the Americans—plus some Baris—into one policeable spot, so his job for these couple of hours was a whole lot easier. The rat-a-tat of dicing, mincing, and chopping filled the air, along with the sizzling harmonies in the sauté pans. The aroma, as always for me, was indescribable. The sort of smell that you want to take away with you on your deathbed. George saw me right away, and saluted.

At one end of a worktable, Rosa and Sofia were furtively manhandling fresh herbs. Apparently they had teamed up, just for the fun of it, breathed Sofia. They made the point, full of shrugs and laughs, that they can take classes anytime, anytime at all, so for them, nessun grande premio—not a big prize to shoot for—but Pierfranco had substituted a weekend trip to Paris. (If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Pete was deciding to go out of the cooking school business with a pyrotechnic bang.) With pungent herb-scented hands, they patted their chests in happy anticipation.

Chef was making the rounds, blindfolded, hands clasped behind him, inhaling as he went. Glynis showed some life, if a bit like a cafeteria lady dishing up the hash. George looked like he was trying very hard to lose. Zoe was doing mysterious things with what appeared to be rutabaga. Jenna added a couple of drops of some unknown substance into her pan then quickly stashed the small bottle.

Pete hailed me. “Staff meeting, Nell? Five p.m. in the office?”

“I’ll be there.” And that was it. We were reduced to a work relationship. We were “staff” together. Perhaps for the best, in what little time I had left. I managed to peel off Sofia from the Bari duo, with assurances to Rosa that I would return her sister the ace dicer Sofia as soon as possible. In her very late forties, Sofia, the youngest of the Bari sisters, loped along beside me in her crepe-soled, lace-up black shoes, chattering in blissful Italian what she and Rosa would do in Paris, a quarter of which I understood.

Inside the main building, I followed her to the pantry, stocked with sacks of farina 0 and 00; cans of San Marzano tomatoes; bags of vialone, carnaroli, and arborio rice, for risotto; jars of passata, basic tomato sauce; bottles of balsamic vinegar from Reggio Emilia; three-liter cans of extra virgin olive oil for needs beyond what Pete can meet; bags of spaghetti for days when homemade pasta is not an option; lines of high-quality dried herbs and spices.

And then there were cardboard boxes with the familiar Alba Rosa illustration. Only one was opened. Sofia waited patiently while I gave it a close look. According to the label, it should contain thirty (30) three-by-three-inch plastic bags of bread yeast, premeasured 2¼ teaspoons. I counted twenty-six still in the box. Not too bad. I’d have to learn from Annamaria how many loaves of bread she’d made since opening that Alba Rosa cardboard box. The correct answer would be three, leaving the fourth pinched by the killer to transport shavings of death cap mushroom and implicate Annamaria.

Sofia lifted a can of the San Marzanos off the shelf to add to their marinara, and we started back. “We take some sauce to Annamaria.”

“Quando?”

“Prima di pranzo.” She beamed, raking her fingers through her hair. Before lunch.

“Bene.”

Sofia shot me a quick look as we headed across the courtyard. “Fancy dinner tonight,” she started.

“So I hear.”

“Una lezione di Theresa?”

“A wine lesson?”

Sofia picked up the pace as we crossed the cloister walk and hit the path down to the olive oil production center, past my room, past Pete’s cottage. “Sì.” She raised her eyebrows at me with a smile. “Be very good.”

I laughed. “I suppose,” I said, then added, “Although this time maybe she won’t forget her notes.” Sofia looked puzzled, so I cobbled together a crude translation. “Maybe she won’t forget”—I tapped my temple—“i suoi appunti.” Her notes. I air scribbled on my palm.

Sofia still looked puzzled, but hurried, pumping the tomato can like a free weight. Over her shoulder, she said, “Theresa aveva i suoi appunti.” Ahead of us stood Rosa jiggling from foot to foot, watching us approach.

“What?” I grabbed at Sofia’s arm. “Theresa had her notes?”

“Li ho visti. Rosa!” She waved.

“Sofia!” I made her stop. “Theresa had them? You saw them?”

Eager to please, she gestured at an invisible bag with her San Marzanos. “Sì. Nella sua borsa.” In her tote. “Proprio in alto!”

Right on top.

I could picture it.

At the end of the lesson on wine pairings, it was Sofia who had hurried out to the courtyard with the straw tote Theresa had left behind.

Just then Zoe bounded up to me and asked if I’d judge the marinaras when the time came—maybe in an hour or so? “You,” she went on, “were the unanimous choice.”

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I said, “I have a reputation inside the entire Cucinavan.”

She laughed and squeezed my arm, like there I was, being silly again. “Oh, and it’ll be a blind judging.”

I nodded, utterly distracted, and turned away. “Just come get me,” I told her, and walked on wobbly legs to the Abbess’s room. There I opened the windows but kept the shades drawn, and I sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress hardly noticed. Theresa had lied to us that night. It felt remarkable and troubling to me all at the same time. Closing my eyes, I tried hard to remember just what had led up to that moment. Our five American students were seated at the dining table in the chapel, all set to hear Theresa Franchi of Franchi Estate Winery deliver a lesson on Tuscan wines, the Franchi vineyards, and the selection she had brought to suggest pairings with that evening’s meal.

I had known Theresa ever since I arrived at the villa a month ago, and all I knew about her were the friendship basics: an American, she arrived in Cortona about three years earlier, met and married the lovely, older Leo Franchi, from a long line of vintners. She learned the business quickly, but she proved better at the public side of things—tours, tastings—and from what I could put together, less good on the financial management, although she was handling it. Leo himself was all about the grapes. Growing, harvesting, pressing, aging, bottling.

Along the way in her life, Theresa hadn’t had any kids, or even enough of a single career to carry forward. There was one mention of high-end real estate in the South, but I hadn’t asked which South—Italy’s or ours? She liked cars, hiking, good food and wine, and everything about Tuscany. Two years ago, times got hard was what she told me once, casually. She thought the vintage wasn’t up to snuff. Mother Nature’s fault. One year ago, times got harder. She thought Leo was banking too much on what she called eccentric, boutique varietals. So, Leo’s fault. She muttered reasons for difficulties like she was flinging chicken feed. Trying them out for size, gauging their believability from our responses. Pete nodded—yet one more Tuscan businessman trying to navigate good and bad times. I just listened, it was all so unfamiliar to me.

So, at dinner that first night in the chapel, Theresa and I had been making small talk while the meal got organized, and then I watched as she lifted her head and looked over her audience, just taking them in at first glance. A quick survey. I do it myself. Who’s eager, who’s bored, who’s skeptical, who’s on your side. And then, I remembered, it happened. A look of horror altered her face. I asked her what was wrong. And Theresa Franchi said she had forgotten her notes.

I asked if they were in her car. If so, easy fix. But no, Theresa said she had forgotten them at home. Ah, just a little too far to go for them, so going for them would put undue stress on the timing of the meal and the rest of the plans for the evening. So Pete and I stepped up, reassuring her that we could cover, and she should just pipe up whenever she liked. Instead, she seemed to step back a bit into the shadows, just out of the brightest landings of light.

But Theresa hadn’t forgotten her notes at home. At all.

It was just a cover. A quick and credible excuse for her intense reaction at that moment.

To what?

Something remembered? Like what? And why just at that moment?

I recalled how her body tightened up defensively, a cringe. At something, or someone, she saw. No, not a pleasurable meeting. Not an expected meeting. Nothing she could share with a philosophical whisper. Whatever the truth was, Theresa was keeping it to herself, and covering her horror with a quick and easy lie. Forgotten notes, too far to retrieve.

One more image surfaced. Bob Gramm talking to Theresa out in the courtyard as she loaded up her car with her tote, her handouts, her unopened bottles of Franchi Estate Winery wine. Bob Gramm, that way he had of strutting even when he wasn’t moving, that was him that evening, with a riveted sneer. Not a pickup scenario, for sure. And even though they weren’t being overheard—Sofia had left, no one else was nearby—he was doing almost all of the talking. It came back to me then, what a mean look that man had.

Theresa Franchi knew Bob Gramm. He was old bad news. There was nothing I saw on her tense face that indicated she was dealing with an annoying stranger, someone she’d have to handle nimbly because the winery and the villa did business together. And were friends. Suddenly galvanized, I sprang to the table by the window and booted up my Mac. What was she doing—and where was she—before coming to Cortona and marrying Leo Franchi? First I tried to find anything at all published on Theresa’s wedding to Leo, and came up short. I’d have to go into Cortona—assuming they got married there—and check the register from three years ago, somehow narrowing it down. What I wanted was her last name before she became a Franchi.

Could I spare the kind of time it would take to go in person?

Not unless I had no other way into this possible story.

I tried it another way. I Googled Bob Gramm and waited to see if anything interesting turned up. Bob Gramm in a Naples tennis league about five years ago. Bob Gramm in a photo of a Rotary Club dinner in Naples about six years ago. Bob and Glynis Gramm in front of a new home after Hurricane Irma hit Naples four years ago. Bob Gramm of Gramm’s Lams at his Try-a-Palooza sales event just one week after the annual Cars on Fifth show four years ago. The subheader read: Go on the Lam with your new luxury car!

Then the copy: Want to test-drive a Lamborghini? See Bob Gramm at his Try-a-Palooza sales event, where the first six prospective buyers get to “test” their favorite Lam for a full forty-eight hours. Take your honey to a swank restaurant . . . in your Lam! Impress your kid’s college roommate when you bring Junior back from break . . . in your Lam! Show up at Rover’s vet appointment . . . in your Lam! Drive through the package store . . . in your Lam! Pick up your Viagra Rx . . . in your Lam!

A second hit in my Google search brought up a photo of the result of Bob Gramm’s Try-a-Palooza. Pictured with Sales Maestro Bob “the Glam” Gramm are the six winners of Lam Owner for a Weekend. On the hood of a sleek red Lamborghini was the Glam himself, dressed for some reason in tennis whites, surrounded by a clutch of Lucky Lam winners. I scanned the group quickly, not expecting anything, but there she was, third from the left. My heart lurched. I zoomed in and read the names.

(L. to R., Bonnie Duke, Clete Barnes, Terry Dolan . . .)

Terry Dolan. Four years ago she had a pixie haircut with fire engine red highlights, but the smile hadn’t changed, or the taste in business casual clothes. Terry Dolan, snapped by the Naples Daily News at Bob “the Glam” Gramm’s Try-a-Palooza sales event. She was one of six winners, all right, I thought as I studied the picture, but what else had happened? The date of the Try-a-Palooza was October 20, 2017, a Friday. So the six winners got to tool around in their swank cars for that weekend.

I unfolded the spreadsheet Bob Gramm had used to record dates and figures. The infusion of $60,000 a year for three and a half years began on November 1, 2017. Not quite two weeks after the weekend of the Try-a-Palooza. Was Terry Dolan, Theresa Franchi, paying off the Lam she had tried, loved, and possibly bought? Had Bob Gramm counted on making a sale to at least one or two of the six “winners”? But wouldn’t those deals be aboveboard and recorded in the dealership sales records? Certainly not handwritten in a notebook that seemed more for his eyes only.

On a whim, I went to the Naples Daily News website and searched the archives for October 20, 21, and 22. No car theft (of a Lamborghini) reported on any of those dates. No Lams sighted in the commission of a robbery on any of those dates—although I would truly have had a laugh if a crook in a Lamborghini knocked over a convenience store. No reported assaults, drug deals, or solicitation, nothing that involved one of these high-end cars. Over the weekend that the winners got to play pretend with these status symbols on wheels, the wheels themselves were well behaved.

At least . . .

I thought it through. At least no Lamborghinis were involved in any known crimes.

But what if at least one of them had been involved in an unreported crime? Or, if a crime was reported, no Lamborghini was spotted. It opened up a whole new line for me. And I was just about to search other news from those three dates when the knock came at my door. Just my luck. Time to judge marinaras and declare one of the participants the winner of a free cooking class at the Villa Orlandini Cooking School, which might end up being as much of a pretend prize as having the use of one of the Glam’s fancy cars for a couple of days. I jerked open the door.

Standing there, smiling weakly, was Glynis, wearing her bib apron. “I think we’re—”

Nodding a bit like I’d broken a spring in my neck, I pulled her just inside the room. “Glynis, I’m on to something. It’s about Bob.”

“Bob?”

“The murder. I need to see his business records for the weekend of the Try-a-Palooza back in October of 2017. It’s important.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

I thought she’d head for my Mac, but instead she pulled her phone out of her pants pocket, tapped a couple of times, put us on speaker, and got the voice mail of someone declaring herself Patsy O’Toole, please leave a message. Glynis looked at me. “Bob’s only employee,” she told me. “Considering it’s five a.m. in Naples, she’s sound asleep.” Then Glynis left Patsy the message that she needed Patsy to go into work as soon as she got this message and go into AlertMiner back to—Glynis stopped and raised her eyebrows at me, and I gave her the dates—October 20, 21, and 22 of 2017—“and send those pages immediately to me as a file at this email address—” I rattled off mine, which Glynis repeated into the phone. “Thanks, Patsy. Give me a call back sometime today. I’ve got some news.” At that, Glynis widened her eyes. “Ciao for now.”

When she repocketed her phone, she said, “Soonest could be in an hour. She gets up early and she’s a dutiful sort of gal who deserved a better boss than Bob, but”—she managed a little laugh—“that seems to be a common theme. Maybe I’ll hire her in the boutique. Ready?”

I walked alongside Glynis to the olive oil production center. “Did Bob mention anything unusual in the week, say, after the Try-a-Palooza?”

“Not that I recall, Nell, but look at me. I’m not cooking on all burners. I’m hardly cooking on a camp stove.”

Inside Pete’s beautiful space that was now functioning as the villa’s temporary kitchen, everyone was lined up in their chef’s aprons facing the door like they were getting ready to film a segment of Top Chef. Only Chef himself stood apart, shifting from foot to foot, exercising his ankles in deft little bocce kicks. Glynis joined the line and as I approached the largest worktable, where numbered platters of competing marinara over spaghetti awaited my decision, everyone clapped. Including Pete. With a swift glance at George, I thought he was acknowledging something altogether different from my mere arrival as the judge of their morning sauce production. It was an effort, but I managed to bite the inside of my cheek until I controlled a smile, and stepped up to the platters gravely.

Choosing was easy. Entry #3 was delicious, and since I had noticed in my month at the villa that Rosa Bari had a very free hand with crushed red pepper flakes, I announced this spicy entry as the winner. When the group hushed, I praised the sauce for its exquisite blend of young garlic, red pepper, and Moraiolo olive oil, with a snap of flavor without bitter aftertaste—I was making it all up as I went along—due to the brief company of a peeled potato during the last twenty minutes of cooking. Gasps went up. Rosa and Sofia hugged and wept. Everyone else seemed pleased the cooking nuns were getting a weekend in Paris, and, except for a general cleanup, the morning was over. As I started to leave, Zoe called, with a bright smile, “Are you joining us on our class picnic?”

“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” I replied, taking in the crestfallen faces, “but I’ll try. We’ll see.”