Murphy's Law (6 page)

Both men were extremely good-looking. The chef smiled and said, “
Sì, signorina
.” He immediately put a moka maker on the gas stove.

“
Grazie
.” She was getting the hang of Italian. Having so many attractive males around was certainly an incentive. Any more thousand-watt smiles from dark, gorgeous faces and she’d be babbling.

A few minutes later, the waiter walked out with a little tray and an
espresso
cup. Faith’s stomach growled in appreciation.

A whiff of a cologne she didn’t recognize but probably cost more than she spent on underwear in a year, a flutter of an incredibly fine linen shirt, and Griffin Ball was sitting beside her, graciously accepting
her
coffee with a flirtatious smile at the handsome waiter.

With a movement of his elegant hand he pointed at the cup, held up two fingers. “
Un altro caffè, per favore
.”

Trust him to speak Italian.

He opened the small packet of sugar on the saucer, carefully poured about a third of it into his cup and stirred. Slim and elegant, he made sure he stayed that way. He leaned his perfectly coiffed head forward. “Is it true, Faith? The staff here is talking but it seems so—so
unreal.
Kane dead sounds…”

“Too good to be true?”

Grif hid his smile behind a genteel cough. He was from the south and had impeccable manners. He also had a wicked sense of humor, making his witty comments in a deep southern drawl. He was sharp, elegant and urbane. He was the ideal of a mathematician, except he had no talent. All of that had gone to Kane, who had been an animal.

“So.” He leaned forward. “
Is
it true, what they’re saying? Is he dead?”

“Well,” she said, considering. “The last time I saw him he had a knife in his heart and he wasn’t breathing. Looked pretty dead to me.”

Besides Tim Gresham, Grif was her only friend in the math department. Moreover, he understood her perfectly, always. Their eyes met and they looked away, both a second from grinning.

In Faith’s case, it would have been a nervous tic of a grin, born of stress and fatigue.

In Grif’s case, it would probably have been a grin of vindication. Kane had made Grif’s life miserable, too, though Grif wasn’t as powerless as she was. He came from a rich, well-connected southern family, and his partner, Carl, came from a rich, well-connected northern family.

Carl’
s
father had donated enough to Southbury to ensure that Griffin Ball, of the South Carolina Balls, be hired for a vacancy in the math faculty. Grif had little math talent, but was a superb administrator and personnel manager, human skills Roland Kane totally lacked. Kane had made Grif’s life miserable because that was his nature. But deep in the convoluted recesses of Kane’s mind there must have been some recognition of how much he relied on Grif’s people skills, because Grif’s job was secure, notwithstanding his second-rate skills as a mathematician.

Actually, Faith thought in surprise, Grif was, as of now,
de facto
department head, something he always wanted. The administration had made no bones about the fact that it preferred dealing with him rather than Kane. Admin would undoubtedly confirm the posting as soon as they got home.

Unless, of course, it was Grif who’d offed Kane in the first place.

Could be.

She watched him sipping his coffee—
her
coffee. He looked the way he always looked. Cool and elegant and together. From the top of his well-cut hair to the tips of his expensive loafers he looked like a successful academic, a man at the peak of his powers. But was that…
glee
she could see in his eyes?

Kane’s death solved all of his problems. The academic council would appoint him head of the department, and Grif’s life would return to the smooth progression he had been born to. He’d be a good department head, too. Fair and just.

Had he murdered Kane to become department head?

“What are you thinking, Faith?” he asked, putting his cup down on the saucer without a whisper of sound. You had to be born rich to know how to do that. “Your thought processes scare me sometimes.”

Me, too,
she thought. “I was thinking about Kane.”

“Listen, you don’t suppose…he’ll come back, do you?” Grif gave a little half laugh.

Faith pursed her lips. “From the dead?” If anyone could do it, Roland Kane could. He’d make a great undead. “I don’t think so, Griffin. He looked like he was in a pretty permanent state of death.”

Grif smiled. “Well…good.”

Faith’s snicker was lost in a clatter of dishes from the kitchen and the sound of the door to the hallway opening and then slamming shut.

Quick, tense footsteps and Madeleine Kobbel was frowning down at her. She was breathless, as if she’d been running. “Faith, I heard Roland is dead. Is that true?
What’s going on?”

Her voice was tense. Her stance was tense. Everything about Madeleine Kobbel was tense. She even managed to have tense clothes—a stiff, unattractive dress in an unflattering deep blood red. Madeleine took a seat near Faith just as the waiter started to put another cup of coffee down. She took it from the waiter’s hand and looked up with a tense smile. “
Mille grazie
,” she said, blew on the creamy surface, and then gulped it down.

“Actually,” Faith began, “that was
my
—”

“I needed that,” Madeleine said.

Not this morning, you don’t
, Faith thought.

Madeleine was usually silent and retiring, but this morning she looked over-caffeinated and…wild.

Her long, gray hair seemed to lift in electrostatic waves around her face instead of hanging down in lank clumps as it usually did. An undertone of ruddiness underlay her usually sallow complexion. Madeleine had always given Faith the creeps, so it wasn’t surprising death seemed to be Madeleine’s G-spot.

“Someone said that you found him, Faith.” Madeleine fairly vibrated in her chair. “Is that true? Is he really dead?”

Everyone seemed worried that Kane would come back from the dead, which Faith understood completely. “Yes, Madeleine. I found him and yes, he’s really dead. He won’t be coming back any time soon.”

She primmed her lips. “I didn’t mean it
that
way. I meant—I meant
how
. He was perfectly all right yesterday. We all traveled together. How did he die?”

“Oddly enough, not by alcohol poisoning.” A miracle, considering the amount of alcohol Kane had soaked up crossing the Atlantic. “He died by a sharp object through the heart.”

Madeleine was looking at her strangely, her long, narrow, gray head cocked as if Faith had been speaking some ancient, mysterious language.
Sharp? Object? Heart?

“Someone stabbed him,” Faith said, just to make it clear.

Madeleine’s gasp sounded loud in the room. “He was—he was
murdered?”

“That’s right.” Why Madeleine should sound shocked was beyond Faith. If there was ever a man who asked for a knife through the heart every day of his life, it was Roland Kane. “He was murdered and the police want to talk to you.”

“Who?” Grif straightened suddenly.

“Me?” Madeleine said at the same time. “Whatever for?”

Faith looked at both of them. She’d worked with them for a year, but she suddenly felt as if she’d never seen them before.

“The police want to talk to both of you. And as to why, well, I imagine if Kane was murdered, it follows that someone did it.
Q.E.D.
And—I’m just guessing here, I might be wrong—but they might actually want to know who did it.”

“There’s no call to be sarcastic, Faith.” Madeleine’s blade-like features took on a disapproving cast. “It’s just that—it’s just that there’s a lot to do still, and the participants will be arriving soon and—”

“And this will interfere with the organization of the conference. I understand. God forbid that murder interfere with our seminar.” Faith ignored the narrow-eyed glare Madeleine threw her way and perked up at the sound of the waiter coming back in. “Still, I’m afraid the policeman insisted. His name is Dante Rossi and he’s Lorenzo Rossi’s nephew.”

“Lorenzo Rossi from the economics department?” Grif asked.

“Yes. Dante Rossi. He’s the police officer in charge and he speaks perfect English. And he wants to talk to you.”

They stared.

The waiter placed another cup on the table. Faith pulled the saucer toward her and placed a protective arm around it. She looked up. “You might want to start getting your alibis ready. I think they have extradition laws in this country.”

Dante Rossi yearned.

The drawing that would assign horses to the
contradas
for the Palio was about to begin.

Most of Siena was now in the central square, the
Piazza del Campo
, watching the horses race around the track, ten at a time, in a trial heat. The Snail’s jockey, Nerbo, would be watching the legs of the horses for form and the eyes of the other jockeys for bribeability.

The trial runs would be just about over and everyone in the
piazza
would have an opinion about the best horse, the toughest jockey and would be arguing at top volume with anyone within earshot.

Dante wanted to be there with every fiber of his being. Instead, he was watching his Crime Scene Unit troop in. Corrado was already blocking off the door with the red-and-white crime scene tape Dante secretly thought was so much more elegant than the American yellow-and-black.

It was very early in Southbury, but there was no avoiding it. He pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed Lou’s number. He’d wake her up, but she’d skin him alive if he didn’t let her know that her friend Faith had gotten herself mixed up in a murder.

Lou’s cell was off. He called her apartment and let the phone ring for two minutes, but she wasn’t home. She was probably away on a business trip. He hesitated for a moment before calling Nick. It was just after dawn there after all, and knowing Nick, he’d had a hard night. Either playing on the ice or playing in bed. Or maybe he hadn’t even been to bed yet. It was off-season, when Nick trained hard and played hard.

To hell with it.
But Nick’s cell was off too. Was this some kind of new trend? He pressed Nick’s home number and got the answering machine on the third ring.

“Nick, tell Lou I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is her friend Faith is, indeed, very cute. The bad news is that she’s got herself mixed up in a murder.”

He left a long message explaining everything, ending the call just as a loud voice boomed, “Commissario, permission to enter the room,
sir!”

Dante rolled his eyes then turned around. “Permission granted, Loiacono.” His latest recruit, Inspector Carmine Loiacono, stiffened, snapping off a sharp salute. Dante suppressed a sigh.

Carmine Loiacono had been shipped here by disgruntled city officials from Catania, Sicily, where he’d been a little too zealous in uncovering corruption in the local health district. The man was painfully eager to prove his mettle and to show that, notwithstanding local prejudices, southerners knew how to work.

Loiacono was a thorn in Dante’s side because he was humorless and because he mangled the beautiful language of Tuscany. On the other hand, he did the work of four men.

“Let’s start working the scene, Loiacono,” Dante said and waited patiently for the bellowed
Sir!

“
Sir!
” Loiacono shouted and Dante managed not to wince. Loiacono straightened to his one meter sixty-five-and-a-half centimeters—he had insisted the half centimeter be included in his file—and saluted.

“Okay, let’s—” Dante’s cell phone rang. He looked at the number on the display. It was his brother Mike. The results of the
tratta
–the drawing--were starting to come in and his heart beat a little faster.

Loiacono, however, would never understand this. He had no conception of what Siena was about and would consider it dereliction of duty to worry about the Palio when there was a murder—
a murder!
—to investigate. He was already marching up and down the room, cheeks ruddy with excitement, tossing instructions as Carducci and Falugi trooped in.

“Inspector.” Dante beckoned Loiacono over.

“
Sir
!”

Dante put a finger to his lips and Loiacono moved his head closer and whispered, “Sir.”

Dante laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. Southerners were used to the heavy hand of authority, it was in their DNA. “I have to move into the corridor for a moment for an important phone call, inspector.” Dante pointed his thumb heavenward toward the Center of All Things for a bureaucrat. “Rome,” he whispered. “The Ministry.”

Loiacono stood to attention so stiffly he quivered.

“Can you cover for me on such an important case, inspector? Can I count on you?”

The cords in Loiacono’s neck stood out. “Absolutely, commissario. We’ll work the scene. Dr. Guzzanti should be here soon, too. Have no fear, commissario, everything will be done according to protocol!”

Dante had no doubt.

“Very good, inspector,” he said, making his voice deep. He turned and marched out of the room in almost military cadence in case Loiacono was watching and allowed himself to slump against the wall only when he’d turned the corner.

He called Mike.

“
Pronto
.” Dante could hardly hear his brother with thousands of people shouting in the background.

He closed his eyes briefly and imagined it—the
campo
filled to the brim with excited Sienese who had just watched thirty or forty of the finest horses on the face of the Earth race in packs of ten.

The drawing was a solemn ceremony, a blindfolded young boy in medieval dress extracting the names of the
contradas
one by one, each
contrada
assigned a horse.

As each horse was assigned, the inhabitants of that
contrada
would surround it and lead it off to the special stables that had been prepared.

There would be cries of exultation from the
contrada
assigned a brilliant horse, moans and even tears from the
contrada
that had drawn a poor horse. The
contrada’s
rivals would then yell out baa-ing sounds, rubbing it in that the
contrada
had drawn a sheep instead of a horse.