Death al Dente (25 page)

“Yes. And realizing that Spezzano was a liability as you could recognize him, Rinaldo tried to get him out of the country. He brought in another ex-convict, Perruchio, to dispatch you at the restaurant.”

“Me too!” Francesca cried, not wanting to be left out of a murder attempt. “Don’t forget he was going to kill me too.”

“And you saved my life,” I reminded her.

She smiled at me warmly. “It was good shooting, wasn’t it?”

“Excellent shooting,” agreed Cataldo. “The first bullet went through his heart and the second was close to it.”

“Do you think Spezzano killed Pellegrini?” I asked him.

“No. I have no doubt that Rinaldo did that himself. He knew about your visit to Pellegrini’s cheese factory and he phoned Pellegrini at a chosen moment. He was able to get him alone in the house, and your involvement nearby in the factory offered another suspect. They may well have had an argument—possibly over business, possibly over Elena. Rinaldo had already planned Pellegrini’s death, and when the buffalo stampede failed, this was a perfect opportunity. He knocked Pellegrini unconscious and pushed him into the pool.”

He puffed another smoke cloud. “Food and passion. They account for ninety-eight percent of all the crimes in Emilia Romagna, did you know that?” he asked me.

“No, I didn’t,” I admitted. It was true. I didn’t know that particular statistic—every time I heard it, the number had changed.

“Yes, that’s so. Keeping that in mind made it easier to concentrate on factors that helped me solve the crime.”

It was his hour of triumph and I was certainly not going to deprive him of a minute of it.

“When Lansdown hears about this, he’ll want to play you in the movie.”

Cataldo bristled. “I shall play myself.” He looked at Francesca. “I was an actor, wasn’t I? Remember that RAI film at Cinecitta?”

“Yes,” she said obediently, “and you were very good too.”

I was reminded of Orson Welles’ comment when making a film in Rome. “Everybody in Italy is an actor. Fifty-five million of them and they all love to act. The only people in Italy who can’t act are in films or on the stage.” I did not think it was an appropriate time to share that observation, though, so instead I asked him, “Do you know where Tomasso Rinaldo is now?”

“Not exactly,” he said, casually blowing smoke away. He must have studied the way Marcello Mastroianni did that in
City of Women.
I wondered if he already saw himself in the role of Captain Cataldo.

“Aren’t you worried he’ll get away?”

“I instituted a six-man watch on him before we came into this room. He can’t get far. I hoped he would try, though, it emphasizes his guilt. Meanwhile, two of my investigators are interrogating Clara Rinaldo.” He gave a wolfish smile. “‘No better witness than a woman scorned’—isn’t that what your William Shakespeare said?” he asked, turning to me.

“I don’t think those were his exact words, but something along those lines.”

“What about Elena Pellegrini?” asked Francesca.

“Two other officers are taking a statement from her.”

“That’s your polite way of saying they’re grilling her, isn’t it, Carlo?”

He smiled through the smoke. “The more guilt we pile on her, the more she’ll tell us about Rinaldo.” He puffed again with satisfaction. “He may be a lawyer, but he won’t squirm out of this.”

He rose to his feet. “Now I must ask you to excuse me. There is much to do to wrap this up.” To me he said, “You may make your plans to leave anytime after tomorrow. I shall require statements from you before you go.”

“Me too?” asked Francesca hopefully.

“Of course you too.” He beamed and I got Francesca out of there before she could tell him again how wonderful he was.

I
HAD TO CHANGE
flights in Rome. It is a busy airport, like all airports in capital cities. Fortunately, it was one of those days when no weather problems occurred and no mechanical faults or human errors showed themselves.

Iberia Flight 269 took off almost on time. We lifted off the runway and turned to head west over the city, and I was able to pick out the massive circular structure of the Colosseum and mentally picture it with a hundred thousand bloodthirsty fans on their feet with excitement as a handful of men and women faced the unspeakable terror of hungry wild beasts.

Within minutes, the blue Mediterranean was spread below, thin patches of cloud and haze disappearing as we climbed. By the time the flight attendant appeared with the drinks trolley, the islands of Corsica and Sardinia were visible as brown hulking shapes.

“I’ll have a vodka and orange juice,” Francesca stated.

After we had given our statements to Captain Cataldo at the Questura the previous day, Francesca had gone to her office to take care of requests for escorts. I went to the Ambasciatore Imperiale Hotel to phone Desmond Lansdown. I found myself hoping that she was being more successful than I was.

“Mr. Lansdown is on location,” said a cool feminine English voice after I had had desultory conversations with three Spanish voices.

“I know that,” I said patiently. “That’s why I’m calling him on this number. It’s the one he gave me so that I could call him on location.”

“Mr. Lansdown is shooting right now—”

“Then please tell him to take his finger off the trigger and come to the phone.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Can I have him call you back?”

“It took a long time to get through, so I’d rather talk to him now.”

“He gave me very strict instructions—”

“Did you give him my name?”

“What is your name?”

I sighed but persevered.

“I’ll see that he knows you are on the line,” she said in that same neutral tone. I could hear conversations in both Spanish and English then she came back on the line. “Is this an emergency?”

“It has been a matter of life and death until now,” I told her. “Now it’s getting serious. Look, you wouldn’t want to be responsible for a woman’s life, would you?”

I had been about to say “a person’s life” but at the last second, I decided to be gender-specific, making a wild guess that judging by her voice, this might get her attention. “Just a moment,” she said and after a series of clicks and pregnant pauses, there was a spatter of Spanish in another female voice then that East London drawl came through, loud and clear.

“Lansdown here. A woman’s life is at risk, you say? Not anybody I know, is it?”

“I just said that to get through to you. You’re not a prisoner in Leopold’s castle yet, are you?”

He laughed. “No, I’m still crusading against the infidels. They’re nice chaps really, Spanish army in real life. What’s so important?”

I told him. The whole story since our last conversation.

“Well done,” he said admiringly. “Jolly well done. My congratulations to Cataldo—and you too. A great job … Rinaldo, eh, the lawyer fellow … yes, congratulations indeed. Now, what about the chefs?”

“I have a full report for you. Shall I send it to your London office? Or do you want me to send it there?”

He was silent for a moment. “Tell you what,” he said finally, “bring it here.”

“Bring it? There? You mean Spain?”

“Yes. A decision this important needs careful consideration. We need to discuss it. There’ll be a lot of questions I want to ask you. When can you come?”

“But you’re still on location, aren’t you?”

“Shooting on location is mostly hanging around for several hours so as to get five minutes in the can. I can arrange for us to have plenty of time to discuss this.”

So it was that I started to make plans to fly to Madrid. I reached for the phone to talk to the travel desk at the hotel then hesitated. Instead, I phoned Francesca.

I told her what Lansdown had said, adding, “Why don’t you come too?”

“Me?”

“Why not? You deserve a vacation.”

“I do?”

“Certainly. After all this stress, being nearly killed …” It took her a full half second to agree. “You’re right.”

Full instructions were awaiting us at the car rental desk at the Madrid airport and Francesca said, “I’ll drive,” which suited me fine. It was a sunny day, warm and with a slight breeze. We headed west in the direction of Salamanca. Spanish drivers are not quite as macho as the Italian speed-merchants, but on the autopistas, Spain’s equivalent of the autobahn, they are no slouches. To Francesca, they were probably just dawdling.

After an hour and a half of driving, we turned north and climbed into the Trabancos Mountains. The temperature dropped noticeably, but the air was clear and sparkling and within fifteen minutes, we could see the location site ahead of us on the edge of a great escarpment. It looked like Tent City.

There appeared to be enough tents to accommodate an army, then I recalled Lansdown’s comment that they were using the Spanish army as extras for the battle scenes. They were a colorful array, and as we drew nearer, we could see the Spanish flag, red and yellow, fluttering over many of them. Other tents, many larger and multishaped, stood a distance away, and close to them were several marquees capable of holding a couple of hundred people each. Various types of mechanical and electrical equipment was scattered everywhere, thick cables coiled like black snakes. Parking lots contained cars and trucks of all kinds. Trailers in every size and in haphazard patterns constituted a city of their own.

On a hilltop across from the escarpment was perched a castle, an icon from another world. Flags in dazzling colors flew from the battlements and it was possible to espy sentries with long pikes but they were stationary, and I supposed they were dummies. Other figures moved, though, and the sun glinted off metal now and then. Massive towers looked impregnable, although I learned later that one of them was fiberglass.

Francesca’s eyes were bright as she surveyed the scene. “Just like the old days for you?” I asked. “On location?”

She nodded. “I haven’t seen many as large as this, though.”

The recently leveled road was hard-packed sand, and we swirled dust as we drove to a guard gate to receive directions. Colored marker posts identified the various areas and we followed the yellow ones to a large square tent. We could hear voices inside.

“How do you knock on the flap of a tent?” I wondered but Francesca just grinned, pulled the flap aside, and called out, “Desmond, are you decent?”

He came out, clearly puzzled by the voice, then he smiled broadly and gave her a big hug. He released her to shake my hand. “Didn’t I tell you she was a great guide, assistant, and helper?” he asked me.

“Crack shot and saver of lives too,” I assured him.

He was wearing what looked like a leather harness, bulky and padded with big shoulder guards. His pants were of leather, too or a plastic that looked just like it. They were tucked into massive boots, and it was then that I realized he was towering over me.

He chuckled. “It’s the boots. Give me about five inches extra height. Now I’m almost as tall as Richard. This way, you don’t have to shoot me standing on an orange crate, do you, Bob?”

The latter was addressed to the thin, partly gray-haired man who had emerged from the tent. He had a strong face and a firm hand grip as Lansdown introduced him, and I recognized his name at once. Robert Stewart was considered one of the most experienced directors in the film business, renowned for his historical epics.

“If you were wearing authentic armor, you’d need a reinforced steel platform,” said Stewart with a slight smile.

“Hope we’re not interrupting,” said Francesca breezily.

Stewart shrugged. “It’s okay. We were just going over the shooting schedule for the next few days. Some rain is forecast and we have to finish this sequence before it gets here. In any case, I have to go and talk to the military unit. Armies today fight differently than they did a thousand years ago.” He gave us a half wave and left.

“So,” said Lansdown, “come on in and sit down.” He pulled the tent flap aside. “I suspect that remark about Francesca’s crack shooting has more to it. Tell me all about it.”

Inside the tent, a large trestle table was covered with drawings and pages of script with colored overlays presumably showing changes. Canvas-backed chairs were scattered around. A radio receiver and transmitter was on a stand—it looked large enough for worldwide communication.

Telephones were on a rack on the wall with wooden partitions between them, and some opened wooden shipping crates were piled high with Styrofoam bubbles. An air conditioner was an accouterment I had not seen in a tent before.

We told him everything, filling in all the details between our phone conversations. Francesca interrupted me to add points, and when she described shooting the ex-convict, Perruchio, in the Ristorante Regina, I completed her account. “She shot him right through the bottom of her handbag! First shot in the heart, the second close to it.”

“Incredible! Bloody amazing!” He looked from one to the other of us. “I want you to know I had no idea that this would turn out to be such a dangerous job. All I wanted to do was pick a chef—and here you get involved with murderous monks, assassins who are ex-cons, buffalo stampedes, dangerous gas sprayed on you from a crop-spraying plane. It’s all too much.” He paused. “That last episode—it sounds familiar somehow.”

“It did to me too,” I admitted. “I still can’t think why.”

“Well, anyway, I’m jolly glad you’re safe and sound. And that Nigel—who’d have thought it? Poor old Pellegrini. I liked him. The captain’s a great character, though, isn’t he?”

We agreed.

He asked more questions. He asked about buffalo, about the belltower on top of the duomo in Modena, about the rice fields, and finally shook his head in admiration. “Extraordinary! I’ve got to hand it to you two. I’m interested in all kinds of details—always have been. Nearly everything fascinates me.”

A cell phone buzzed and I looked at Francesca. “It’s not me,” she said indignantly, and Lansdown said, “It’s mine. I leave it on the table here. Don’t want it to go off while I’m riding a horse into Jerusalem in the twelfth century.” He talked briefly and said to us, “I have to get the rest of my makeup on. Then we’re shooting a scene with the castle in the background. Why don’t you come with me, we’ll have a spot of lunch, I’ll be clear for a few hours, and we can get down to business.”