The Da Vinci Cook (12 page)

“We don’t need to. We’re going home. Didn’t Paavo tell you that Flora Piccoletti was murdered?”

Cat grasped her arm, stopping her. “Exactly.” Her voice was low and determined. “If you would take a moment to think, to be logical, you’d realize that means the murderer is still in San Francisco! It’s not Marcello, or Rocco. We’re perfectly safe here, and I need to talk to them about the St. Peter chain.” Her face fell. “And other things.”

“What other things?” Angie asked suspiciously.

“That’s none of your concern.”

That kind of answer had Angie seeing red. “I told Paavo we’d come home soon.”

“Go.” Cat turned back toward the Via del Corso. “I’m going to buy some things I need, and remain here until I see Marcello.”

Arms folded, Angie trudged along beside her. “Who’s following us, then?”

“I think it’s all in your head. You know what a wild imagination you’ve got.” Cat looked completely disgusted. “Between Da Vinci’s and his hotel, I’ll find Marcello today and get this all straightened out.”

“Then we’ll go home together?” Angie asked.

“Of course.”

As they retraced their steps, Angie suddenly shoved Cat into a doorway. “Look!”

At the street corner was a thin, poorly dressed goateed man, clearly searching for someone or something. “That’s him!” Angie whispered.

Cat watched a moment and in a hushed voice said, “You know, it’s getting close to lunchtime. Since Marcello wasn’t at his restaurant last night, he might be there during the day. We should go back.”

Angie eyed her. “The metro’s just past the Piazza del Popolo.”

Cat nodded. “What are you waiting for?”

To reach Da Vinci’s restaurant from the metro’s Ottaviano station, it was necessary to walk across St. Peter’s Square. As impressive and imposing as St. Peter’s Basilica was—the largest Christian church in the world—Angie enjoyed being in the piazza even more, enclosed by the curved “arms” of Bernini’s colonnade. A hundred thousand people could fit in it.

From there she could look up at the large rectangular building just beyond St. Peter’s, which housed the Pope’s living quarters, top floor, far right. She had once stood in the piazza as John Paul II came to his window and blessed the crowd.

To the left of it she could see the top of the Sistine Chapel.

Being here, she remembered her Catholic upbringing, the parochial schools she attended, some of the good-hearted nuns like Sister Mary Margaret and Sister Rachel, whom she’d come to truly love, and a few, like Sister Mary Francis, who intimidated her as only a nun could do.

Near her, a group of nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s order, in their distinctive blue and white habits, strolled by. Not far from them, a priest in a full-length black cassock hurried as if late for an appointment.

Angie loved seeing the traditional clothes of nuns and priests. She loved this aspect of the Church, the part with the mystery and miracles, the pageantry, formality, and rules. Much of that had been lost in many dioceses as they tried to become more “modern.” An inkling of the old, stricter religion seemed to be in the wind these days, struggling to come back, along with the old mass, the saints and their visions, the rules, and even the guilt when those rules were broken.

Something about the serious, almost haunted look of the priest caught her eye, and she quickly realized why. He was the one who’d been dining alone at Da Vinci’s last night. He crossed the piazza without hesitation, heading surely and directly toward the Swiss Guards who protected the entrance to the private sections of Vatican City. They allowed him to pass with a simple nod.

“We’ve still got some time before Da Vinci’s opens for lunch,” Angie said. “Let’s go inside St. Peter’s. I’d like to see it again.”

They had to go through metal detectors to enter the church, but everything that could set one off had long before been taken from them, so they proceeded with no trouble.

From the moment Angie crossed the portico to enter St. Peter’s, she was awed, as always, by the sheer size of the structure. The marble-and-gold-filled church was so massive that the people standing under its dome looked about a foot tall. The tomb of St. Peter was directly under the dome, but many other Popes and saints had been laid to rest in the basilica, both on the main floor and in grottoes below it. The body of Pope John XXIII was in a glass case for all to see. Many chapels lined the side walls, and statues were everywhere. Those placed on the walls were actually larger than the ones at ground level, to lessen the perspective of the height of the building. At the top of the walls, circling the entire church, were the words Jesus spoke to Peter, beginning
Tu es Petrus . . .
Each letter was six feet tall.

Angie didn’t walk toward the main altar, but immediately turned to the right. Before her, surrounded by a crowd and safely behind bulletproof glass ever since some madman attacked it with a knife, was Michelangelo’s
Pieta.

Although she had seen it many times, she was transfixed for a long moment by the beauty of the Virgin Mary, her face that of a young woman, her clothes heavily draped, holding the body of her dead son across her lap. Angie had heard all the criticisms—Mary was depicted as too young, her body too large—but she understood what Michelangelo was doing in creating a face of serenity, acceptance, strength, and innocence.

Yet, even as Angie stood mesmerized by the beauty before her, something felt wrong. She turned her head slightly, half expecting to see the goateed man lurking near once again. He wasn’t there, but the feeling continued.

She drew in a deep breath, and turned all the way around.

The priest jumped back into the private staircase to the basement. He was still panting from his dash through the lower chambers and up to the public church area as he watched the two women. Earlier, the expression on the younger one’s face confirmed that she’d recognized him from Da Vinci’s.

Was it an accident, or had they tracked him here? In the restaurant last night he’d heard bits and pieces of their conversation as other diners left and the two finished the bottle of wine and got a little louder. Also, they probably hadn’t realized that another American was nearby and could understand their rapid-fire speech.

He’d been shocked by their conversation. From now on he had to be more careful.

Piccoletti stepped back into the shadows when the younger woman turned. She and her sister whispered together, their big brown eyes scanning the crowd and the massive church. He didn’t move, quite sure they wouldn’t spot him behind this pillar. When Bruno called last night to tell him about the Americans asking about him, he didn’t want to believe it.

Something elemental filled him as he watched Caterina Amalfi Swenson make her way from the church. His breathing quickened and he almost followed, but then stopped to cautiously eye the people around him. He had to be careful. He’d worked too hard for this, and far too long.

His mind raged against all that was happening. Against all that had gone wrong. He had to fix it. He would fix it, and no one was going to stand in his way.

His hands clenched in fury. “Why the hell are you here, Cat?”

Chapter 15

“Who’d kill an old lady like that?” Inspector Toshiro Yoshiwara put his morning coffee on his desk, hung his suit jacket over the back of his chair, and rolled up his sleeves. “Who’d they think she was going to hurt? They could have threatened her, sent her off somewhere, even knocked her into a coma. They didn’t have to kill her, for cryin’ out loud.”

Paavo had arrived at Homicide before dawn, unable to sleep well after his conversations with Angie and Cat. Angie said she’d return home soon, and he only hoped she didn’t change her mind—or Cat didn’t change it for her. He’d used the quiet time to search online databases for information about Marcello Piccoletti, believing he was the key to both murders. “Whoever did it didn’t even try to make it look like a robbery. It was murder, plain and simple.”

The two had spent the previous day and night on Flora Piccoletti’s murder, checking the premises, talking to neighbors working with CSI, and trying to find any clues as to the perpetrators. Nothing of substance had turned up. Paavo found lots of names and addresses. It looked like Flora had kept every card she’d ever received. Some were from Rocco, Marcello, and Josie. None led anywhere.

The only time Paavo took away from the case was his bizarre foray into government with Frannie. After she’d ripped up the form packet and tried to set fire to a forms cabinet, all the while muttering, “Out, out, damned bureaucracy,” he practically carried her from the building, announcing that he was a cop so no one needed to call one. The lone security guard took one look at the raving Frannie and backed far, far away.

Paavo only hoped he’d seen the last of her for a long time.

He again tried to reach Marcello in Italy. If nothing else, he needed to tell the man about his mother’s death. Marcello wasn’t in his room at the hotel, and the person he spoke with at Da Vinci’s suddenly lost his ability to speak or understand English when Paavo identified himself as a policeman. He left messages for Marcello to phone him as soon as possible, emphasizing the urgency.

Paavo’s gut reaction told him that the easiest way to solve Flora’s murder was to find out what had happened at the Sea Cliff house. Using Marcello Piccoletti’s bank, credit, and telephone records, Paavo attempted to trace Marcello’s movements on the weekend and Monday, the day he supposedly left the Bay Area for Italy—the day before the murder. Marcello apparently worked at his furniture store all day Saturday, then had a first-time date with a woman who barely knew him on Saturday night. The date didn’t go well, and ended soon after dinner. The woman complained that Marcello seemed distracted and scarcely paid any attention to her.

Paavo could find nothing for Sunday or Monday. He called Transportation Security and asked them to find out exactly when Marcello traveled to Rome.

He obtained records from the furniture store to see if he could tell what was going on there financially. Most of the sales were for stock items at low prices and high discounts. A few items, however, jumped out. Several lamps, occasional tables, chests, and porcelain objects sold for what appeared to be bizarrely expensive prices.

And all of it had been purchased by Caterina Swenson.

His thoughts turned to Marcello Piccoletti’s relationship with Cat. Client and realtor? Childhood friends? Could there have been more? He didn’t like where his thoughts were leading. He made two mental notes: one to question Charles Swenson, and the next to talk to Angie, two people who could shed some light on the state of the Swenson marriage.

He turned his attention back to Marcello.

Eventually, the picture that emerged was of a man who was overextended as far as cash flow. Piccoletti wasn’t poor by any means, but most of his net worth was tied up in propertyhis home, his business, and his inventory, rather than in cash. Da Vinci’s restaurant and the furniture store both paid for themselves, but barely. Piccoletti’s problem was lifestyle: it was beyond his means.

In fact, he’d sold nearly all of his stocks and bonds over the past five years, when his standard of living took a big jump upward.

Paavo’s attempts to come up with any information about Rocco met with even less results than with Marcello. He found no address, no phone number, no one who even knew the man. Only people who lived on the edge took care that there was no way to trace them or their movements. To find nothing about Rocco Piccoletti made Paavo more suspicious, not less.

He stood up to work the kinks out of his back and shoulders from the morning’s paperwork. “I finally talked to Angie and Caterina,” he told Yosh, and relayed the conversation he’d had. “I can’t help but think there’s a connection between the priest a couple of neighbors saw near Piccoletti’s house and the St. Peter’s chain that was stolen.”

“That makes sense.” Yosh powered up his computer. “I’ve had no luck finding out anything special about Marcello Piccoletti. The man kept his life quite a secret.”

“I agree.” Paavo rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s not much online either. His furniture store does a steady business, but it’s low-grade furniture. The margin is small, the competition tough.”

“I want to know where Piccoletti’s money came from.” Yosh tapped a key. His computer didn’t seem to be cooperating.

“Good question. Furniture crates are quite large. They can carry a multitude of sins,” Paavo suggested.

“You think what? Smuggled goods? Drugs? I see no evidence so far.”

“True, but we’ll find out.” Paavo’s voice carried cold determination.

Giving up on the computer, Yosh went and got his mail. Snail mail, at least, was always available. “Any word back on the vic’s ID?”

“No fingerprints yet. It’s gone to IAFIS. Backed up, as usual.” The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System was supposed to help speed things up in getting fingerprint results, but since all requests were funneled through it, it created its own bottleneck. “Something should turn up,” Paavo added. “A high profile case like this, we should have people calling with all kinds of information.”