Death in the Dolomites (7 page)

“It's the basic consular function, helping American citizens far from home who are in trouble,” Rick explained. “My father did it for many years before he moved up in the ranks. It's mostly with Americans who've lost passports or been victims of pickpockets, but it can be more serious, like this case.”

“Do we have that for Italians, Flavio?”

“I suppose if I'd gotten into trouble in Albuquerque I could have asked the Italian consul to bail me out. The nearest one was in Los Angeles.”

“Flavio,” said Rick, “you know very well who would have saved your ass if you'd gotten into legal trouble in the States, and it wouldn't have been the Italian consul.”

Luca turned to Flavio and waited for his answer. He was enjoying getting his mind off the case, even for a moment.

“I never got into any trouble, Rick, as you well know. If I remember correctly, it was
you
who—”

Rick held up his hand. “Luca isn't interested in frivolous stories of American university life.”

“Well,” muttered Luca, “in truth, I wouldn't mind—”

“See, Flavio? So, Luca, when is this American consul arriving in Campiglio?”

“Not sure. Probably early tomorrow morning. If I could ask you another favor, Riccardo?”

“If he's a consular officer, Luca, he'll speak Italian. You don't need—”

“No, no, it's not that. The problem is that tomorrow I have to write and fax a report to the prosecuting attorney, now that it's a homicide At least she hasn't insisted on coming up here to get in my hair. But also I have to deal with some reporters tomorrow morning, two from Milano and one from Trento.”

“Who from Trento?” asked Flavio. “Not Sandri, I hope.”

“I'm afraid so.” He picked up his coffee cup, saw that there was not even a drop left, and set it back in the saucer. The two Italians shook their heads sadly.

Rick was tempted to ask about this Sandri, but his mind was on Cat Taylor. “I'll be glad to deal with the vice consul for you tomorrow, Luca.”

***

“I was so hoping that…” Cat's voice trailed off.

She sat with her hands clasped and stared at Rick without seeing his face. Once again she treated the policeman as if he were invisible, even though Luca had carefully stated the facts for her. As Rick translated he marveled at how Luca was dealing with the situation. There was a combination of patience and empathy in the policeman's words which Rick tried to convey when he put them into English.

“I'll start making a list of things to be done. Perhaps it's best to immerse myself in details, to keep my mind off the reality of his death.” Her eyes moved to the wood beams on the ceiling and back to Rick. “That doesn't make sense, does it?”

“Whatever works for you, Cat.”

Her hair was not brushed, and she was without makeup. A heavy, wine-colored robe covered most of her body, but below it and at the neck he could see flannel pajamas decorated with tiny brown bears. On her feet were furry slippers that covered her ankles. It was sleepwear a twelve-year-old would wear, Rick thought, but perhaps it gave her comfort. It was also likely that she was not expecting to see Lotti this evening. And she'd hoped not to have this visit.

Luca tapped Rick on the shoulder. “I think I've done what I've had to,” he whispered. “Perhaps it would be easier for her if I left. I know you can do better at comforting than I.”

Rick nodded. “Sure, Luca. You've done well. I'll do what I can.” They rose to their feet. “Cat, the inspector has to get back to the station. I'll stay for a while if you'd like.”

“I would, Rick.” She got to her feet and thanked the policeman. Luca shook her hand and made hand gestures to indicate that he could see himself out. When the door shut quietly, Rick and Cat took seats opposite each other.

“I called home, and Maria reminded me that my parents are on their annual cruise in the Caribbean. I forgot it was this week.” She took a sip from a glass next to the sofa. It looked like Scotch, but since he hadn't been offered anything, it was only a guess. Rick also guessed that Maria was someone on the Taylor homestead staff, but he didn't ask for clarification. “They won't be back in port for a week,” she continued. “And it's not worth getting them off the ship. What can they do at this point?”

Rick wondered how he would have reacted to the news that his sister had been murdered. Both sides of his family, New Mexican and Italian, would be vying with the other to give him support and share his sadness. In that way, his two cultures were not all that different. “Do you have any other family you should be in touch with, Cat? Aunts? Uncles?”

She appeared to find the question strange. “I have an uncle,” she said finally, “but he's old and lives in a nursing home in Florida. I haven't seen him in years. He wasn't even invited to my wedding. There's nobody else, really.”

Rick silently thanked his good fortune of being born into a large, extended family.

“Inspector Albani told me that someone from the consulate will be here tomorrow to help you. I'll bring him over when he arrives.” She nodded mechanically. “There's something else, Cat. As the inspector said, tomorrow morning you'll have to identify your brother's body. It's a formality that has to be done. I'll go with you if you'd like.”

Her blank look made him wonder if she was understanding anything he'd said. After nodding her head slowly she responded. “Of course. I understand. It's kind of you to go with me.” She looked down at the glass as if it had just appeared on the table, picked it up, and took a long pull. Rick was now sure it was some kind of whiskey.

He rose to his feet. “Cat, I'd better go. Try to get some sleep. I'll call you in the morning.”

She made no attempt to get up, but looked at him with a weak smile. “Thank you, Rick.”

“You have my cell phone number, if you need anything before that.”

“Yes. Thank you. I'll be okay.”

Her eyes turned toward the window where the lights of the town gave the darkness a faintly yellow glow. She pulled up her knees, held them together with her arms, and rocked slowly in the chair. Rick silently let himself out.

***

Heavy snow swirled into the hallway when Rick opened the door to step out on the sidewalk in front of Cat's building. He tightened his hat and pulled up the collar of his coat. It covered only the bottom half of his ears, but was better than leaving them completely exposed. The snow and the hour had pushed people into the warmth of the buildings. Only an occasional car made its way tentatively along the street, its headlights carving a wedge of speckled, moving light through the darkness. Rick kept his head down, watching his cowboy boots scuff through the accumulating snow.

Doubts ran through his mind. Could he have done something more to comfort her? Should he have stayed longer? It was not a situation he had experienced before, giving that kind of news to someone. Even though it was Luca who had delivered the words officially, Rick felt responsible. She had heard it from him. The girl is alone in a foreign country, he thought, and all I did was give her the terrible news, say a few kind words, and leave. He shook his head, stopped and looked back up at the windows of Cat's apartment, its faint light just visible through the snow. After a few moments of thought he started back toward the door. After taking two steps he heard a muffled cry behind him.

He turned and squinted through the swirling flakes, barely making out two figures. One lay on the sidewalk, the other stood defiantly above him before landing a sharp kick and running in the opposite direction, disappearing almost instantly into the storm. Rick's first thought was that the two men had taken a bar argument outside to settle, something he was all too familiar with from his time in Albuquerque. Forgetting about Cat, he jogged toward the fallen man and reached him within seconds.

If this was a bar fight, it was a nasty one.

The man lay on his back in the snow, eyes half closed, his head bent to one side. A dark stain of blood spread steadily from a wound on the neck and his arms twitched slightly. The snow was starting to cover the hat which had landed top-down on the sidewalk next to him. Rick looked around for help and saw that a car had come to a stop, its driver out and running up to him. Rick knelt down and pressed a gloved hand against the victim's neck in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

“Call an ambulance,” Rick said, but then looked up to see the man staring, his face frozen. “
Subito
!” The driver pulled out his cell phone and began frantically punching in numbers. Rick took out his own phone with his free hand and scrolled down to the number he wanted. Pressing the neck seemed to slow the bleeding, but there was more blood than he'd ever seen.

“Luca? I'm on the street outside the apartment. Some guy's been stabbed. What? No, I'm okay. You'd better get over here.” He got a curt reply and snapped his phone closed.

The police car carrying Luca arrived almost simultaneously with the ambulance. The flashing lights and sirens of the two vehicles assured that the small group of people already gathered around the body would grow to a large crowd. Other eyes came from the buildings on the street—shutters began banging open one by one, allowing faces behind the windows to take in the drama below. The two uniformed policemen with Luca had sprung from the car to push back the gawkers, making room for the emergency crew who now knelt by the victim. Rick rose to his feet and stood back, removing the bloody glove. He glanced at Luca who was looking down at the body while talking with one of the other cops. Luca caught Rick's eyes and walked over to him.

“Tell me what happened, Riccardo.”

“I had just come out of the apartment, and heard a cry. When I looked up I could see this guy on the ground. A man was standing above him. He gave him a kick and ran off.” He pointed. “In that direction. But I lost sight of him almost immediately in the snow.” They both looked at the sky. Rick realized that Luca was wearing his new hat, and had to admit to himself that it was perfect for the present conditions, even with the flaps still tied at the top. “I didn't even think of chasing the guy.”

“And a good thing.” He turned back to the man on the ground, almost hidden by the team working on him. “You may have kept him from bleeding to death. Could you see the weapon? I doubt if he did this kind of damage with his bare hands.”

“No, didn't see any weapon. And I didn't even see the violence, except for the kick, and that seemed like more of an afterthought.”

Luca called over two policeman who had just arrived on the scene and pointed in the direction the assailant had fled. He ordered them to look for any footprints, find anyone who might have seen something or someone, and look for a discarded weapon. “I don't hold out much hope of finding a weapon, but you never know,” he said to Rick as the men hurried off. “And the late hour, as well as this snow, won't work in favor of finding any witnesses.”

They both watched as the man was placed on a stretcher. His leather coat had been removed, replaced by a blanket covering him up to the now-bandaged neck. Standing above the stretcher, one of the team held a plastic sack attached to a tube that ran under the blanket to some part of the body. On a signal the stretcher was heaved up and carried to the open ambulance. Someone picked up the hat, brushed off the snow, and took it with the coat to the ambulance. Within seconds of the doors slamming, it drove off under the looping wail of its siren.

“I wonder who the guy is,” said Rick after the ambulance disappeared in the distance.

“The sergeant just told me. Name's Guido Pittini. He works for the corporation that runs the ski lifts and trails. Has a reputation as a womanizer.”

“So the attack was from a jealous husband?”

“That's a possibility, I suppose. He was also active in the mayor's re-election campaign, the main organizer for Grandi inside the ski-lift workers union.” Luca noticed Rick's face and nodded. “Your mind is working quickly, Riccardo, despite just witnessing a violent crime. Yes, I suppose it could be political. But I'd rather start with his day job. The sergeant tells me that Pittini is one of the gondola operators.”

Rick had been staring at the dark blotch in the snow, now almost covered with white. His face snapped up. “He was running the gondola when Taylor's body was dropped?”

“We'll find that out soon, but there couldn't be that many shifts.” He looked at Rick's hand, which still clung to the bloody glove. “That's ruined. You'll have to get yourself another pair.”

Rick nodded and noticed a trash can a few feet away. He walked over and threw the glove away, turned to walk back, then pulled off the other and tossed it in too. He stuffed his bare hands in the pockets of his shearling coat and came back to Luca. “Let's assume that this man was in on the dumping of the body. He could have been part of the murder itself, but let's only assume he was merely abetting the crime.”

“Go ahead, Riccardo.”

“You show up, Luca. Then the body is found, something the murderer didn't expect. And now there's someone who knows about the drop who could go to the police. This poor guy might not have even known that it was a body being dumped. He even could have thought someone was just getting a ride on the gondola so he could ski down without paying.”

“Could be.”

“And now that everyone knows what really happened, the murderer needs to eliminate a key witness.”

“But he may not have succeeded. Pittini is still alive, thanks to your quick action. Let's hope he pulls through and can tell me something that will explain the attack.” Luca noticed Rick looking up at Cat's window. “Are you going back up to see her?”

Rick shook his head. “Not now. She should be asleep, if the sirens didn't keep her up. And I don't want to tell her about this. She's upset enough. I'll just go back to the hotel.”