Italian Fever Read online

  Chapter 4

  MASSIMO’S NEXT STOP was a small stone house surrounded by a low wire-and-brick-fenced yard in which several chickens wandered about listlessly. He went to the door, vowing to extract the keys without involving Lucy, but the old couple and their son, who had been awaiting her arrival with a great deal on their minds, insisted that she be brought in, seated at the kitchen table with a glass of vin santo and a hard biscotto, and addressed in respectful tones on the subject of Signor Vandam’s tragic end. Massimo translated the gist of their remarks; he couldn’t be bothered with the details, so that a battery of sentences directed by the old lady at Massimo, her husband, the ceiling (Lucy took this to include an interested deity), and finally Lucy came to her through his medium simply as “expressions of sympathy.”

  She dredged out her all-purpose “Grazie, molto gentile,” to the delight of the group, who greeted it as clear evidence that she understood perfectly and began all talking at once at an escalated speed and volume. She smiled weakly, raising her hands in a gesture of self-defense, and Massimo cut in with some remark that seemed to calm the excitement. He probably told them I’m a stupid American and can’t understand a thing, Lucy thought, biting nervously at her cookie, which resisted her effort as if made of stone.

  “You must put that in the wine,” Massimo advised her, demonstrating the proper method with his own.

  “Could you tell them that I am very tired,” Lucy said, “and would like to go to the house as soon as possible?”

  “They are being gracious,” he admonished her. “This is a compliment to you. It would be impolite to seem in a hurry to leave.” Then he turned his attention to the son, whose opinion he solicited on some question, possibly, Lucy hoped, the heat in the farmhouse. The old lady proffered the cut-glass decanter, for Lucy’s glass was empty. All the others, she noticed, were still full. “Volentieri,” she said, holding out her glass. Massimo flashed her a quick frown, which she refuted by mouthing “Why not?” His disapproval relaxed into something indulgent, amused curiosity, perhaps, or simply amazement. He concluded his various conversations, for he seemed capable of keeping two or three going at once, while she tossed back the sweet wine. To her relief, the son produced a ring weighty with keys and handed them to Massimo. The old lady pressed the bottle on Lucy again. “No,” she said. “Thank you. Very kind.” Massimo rose, saying the right thing to each person, shaking hands all around. Lucy said only “Grazie,” over and over, holding out her hand as he had done and passing along behind him to the door. In a few moments, they were out in the dark yard with the chickens. She stumbled on the uneven rocky ground and Massimo caught her by the elbow, steering her to the car. He pointed to a low stone wall across the road, which ran a long way ahead of them, so far that Lucy could not see where it ended; it was swallowed up at some point by the blackness of the night. Still wielding her by the elbow, he turned her in the direction of an elaborate iron gate closed and bolted between two posts with battered statuary on top: Animals, Lucy thought, maybe lions. “Back there is the villa,” Massimo said, pointing between the twin lines of cypress. Lucy nodded, gazing at the wall with interest. The top, she noted, was lined with a pale stone that had broken off in places, leaving gaps overrun by eager vines. Massimo climbed into the car and Lucy followed. “Who lives there?” she asked.

  “The family name is Cini. This is a very old family,” he said. “The house you are going to belonged to them until a few years ago. Signor Panatella, who is a bank clerk, bought it from them. It was in bad repair. He restored it and now he rents it out to foreigners.”

  “So DV wasn’t connected to the villa in any way.”

  “No, though he may have visited there. The Cini family would naturally take an interest in the property.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “Signor Panatella found it very strange, what your friend did.”

  “You mean falling down a well? It is strange.”

  “No. Not that. We did not speak of that. He said the house is divided into two apartments. Your friend rented both of them because he didn’t wish anyone else to be near him.”

  “Except Catherine,” she said.

  “What?”

  “He was with a woman, at least he was when he first came. Her name is Catherine Bultman.”

  “No,” Massimo said. “Signor Panatella did not mention this.”

  They had been driving along the villa wall, which curved off gracefully to the left. Just beyond, they came to a long, narrow rocky road, little more than a path, which ran up a hill and through an olive grove. The pale gray leaves of the olive trees vibrated in the breeze and seemed to shimmer in the dim moonlight. “At least there really are olive trees,” Lucy said as Massimo, grinding through the gears in search of one low enough for the challenge, turned onto the path and began an arduous ascent.

  “Why would there not be olive trees?” he asked. He pronounced olive oh leave.

  “Because DV said there were, and so far, it looks like almost everything he said was a lie.”

  “Why would he lie about such things?”

  “He lied about everything,” Lucy said sadly. “He always did. He made it all up as he went.”

  “This is not a way to have a friend.”

  “We weren’t really friends, you know,” Lucy admitted. “He was my boss.”

  Massimo cast her an interrogative look as he came to a halt in a space next to a red Ford at the end of the drive. “That must be DV’s rental car,” Lucy remarked. The house loomed up suddenly, thrown into relief by the headlights. It wasn’t a villa, Lucy thought, but it was impressive.

  “Here we are,” Massimo said, switching off the engine. “This is the house.”

  SHE AWOKE with a start, for a harsh voice had spoken her name. She lay still, looking out into the unfamiliar room, recalling where it was, why she was in it. The morning sun poured through the uncurtained window, making a golden pool on the terra-cotta floor, and another shaft of creamy light fell across the bedside table, picking out the pale embroidered roses on the pillowcase next to her cheek. She reached through the brightness for her travel clock, which she had set the night before when she climbed into the unfamiliar bed, so exhausted that she feared she might sleep through the next day, right through DV’s funeral.

  The clock reassured her. It was only ten; plenty of time. She stretched, yawned, then curled back under the quilt. Why did her joints ache so, as if she had taken too-vigorous exercise? The room was chilly; she didn’t look forward to putting her bare feet on the cold tiles. Her suitcase lay open on the floor near the door, a door, she recalled, that led to the sparkling tiled bathroom, where she had already taken an adequate though not luxurious shower; the water pressure was laughable, but the water was hot.

  Massimo had managed everything the night before. He had carried in her bags and lit the temperamental-looking gas burner. He had even talked on the phone with Jean McKay to arrange having the money wired directly to his bank in Rome. He went over the apartment with Lucy, peering into closets, opening cabinets, approving the renovation, which he described as “meticulous and in good taste.”

  “Your English is very good,” Lucy told him, receiving for her compliment his dismissive shrug.

  Best of all was the cold supper and full pitcher of red wine that they found under a cloth-covered cage on the kitchen table. This had been left for her, Massimo explained, by Signora Panatella. Lucy looked it all over hungrily; there was cheese, bread, a few thick slices of roast pork, and a dish of something green, shiny with oil and flecked with bits of toasted garlic—was it spinach? “Cicoria,” Massimo said. To her relief, he declined her invitation to share this simple meal. It was too early for him, he explained; he planned to dine with his cousin in Sansepolcro. He gave her the keys, received her thanks again and again as he shook her hand at the door. He seemed distracted, eager to get away. Lucy watched him walk briskly down the gravel driveway to his car. Then, distracted herself by the thought of roast po
rk, she locked the door and went straight to the table.

  After she had eaten and drunk a few glasses of the wine, she walked about the apartment, which was heavy on tile and open beams and low on comfortable furniture. It was designed for vacationers, everything shiny, practical, and as inexpensive as possible. But the bed was a good, old, solid piece and the mattress was hard. It was a sunny house, or would be when the sun came up. All the old windows had been replaced by new insulated casement windows with brushed brass handles and locks. On an impulse, she opened one and leaned out into the chilly, black, utterly silent night, a silence so deep and intense, it felt tangible, forbidding. Overhead, the stars glittered icily. In the distance she could see a ridge of black cypress, like tall sentries along the crest of a gray hill, and beyond that more hills, which faded in the distance like a line of black watercolor paint touched with a wet brush. Over these hills St. Francis had walked, begging and preaching from town to town, and later Giotto had come, followed by a train of his assistants, and his pots and jars of colors, winding his way to Assisi to immortalize the story of the saint. Or perhaps it wasn’t Giotto, but Cavallini; the final word on the frescoes in Assisi was not in. Lucy closed the window, chilled, elated, and went off to try the shower.

  Now, recalling that beautiful view, she gave up trying to sleep, threw back the covers, and sat up on the side of the bed. There was bread left in the kitchen and she had seen a coffeepot; surely there was some coffee, as well. As her feet touched the cold tile, she gave a soft cry of surprise. Then she remembered the voice she had heard, harsh, angry, close to her ear, saying her name. It had waked her in terror and she heard it again in her memory, for she had known at once who was calling her, impatiently, out of her dreams.

  It was DV.

  Chapter 5

  THE PHONE RANG four times before Lucy discovered it mounted inconveniently between the refrigerator and the doorjamb in the kitchen. A familiar deep voice answered her hesitant “Hello.”

  “Signora Stark,” Massimo said. “This is Massimo calling.”

  “Good morning,” she said. “How are you?”

  He was very well. However, he was calling to tell her that the funeral was being pushed ahead to allow for the arrival of Stanton Cutler, DV’s editor, who had left New York last night and was flying to Florence. He had requested that the service, such as it was, be delayed for him. DV’s editor at the publishing house in Milan had also decided to drive down and would be joining them in Ugolino. Unless there were further complications, which was certainly possible, Massimo would arrive at the farmhouse at four. He hoped she had slept well and would be ready at that time.

  “Very well,” she said. “I’ll be ready.”

  Stanton Cutler, she thought as she hung up—or Cotler, as Massimo had pronounced it. It would be something to see him towering over the locals in Ugolino. He and the police would all be wearing Armani jackets, but apart from that, they would have little in common. Cutler was a New Yorker to his toenails, accustomed to going first class, at top speed, without obstructions or regrets. He was a powerful, much-sought-after figure in the hectic world of publishing, reputed to possess a refined and cultivated sensibility coupled with a sure instinct for just how much intelligence the masses would tolerate. Tall, affable, charming, well-educated, and well-heeled, he fascinated Lucy because she could not understand how a man of such clear superiority could have committed so much of his time, energy, and intelligence to the interminable, tiresome productions of a writer as overmastered by his own language as DV. Cutler had made, for his company and himself, quite a fortune out of that peculiar willingness and was the person in the world best situated to feel a sincere pang of sadness at the thought that there would be no future additions to the Vandam canon. It was right that he should make the effort to stand at DV’s graveside and say something respectful and encouraging to the assembled mourners, no matter how few and how disinterested they might be. Lucy went off to examine her wardrobe. With Stanton Cutler at the scene, it would be a real funeral, not the poor travesty she had envisioned. How badly wrinkled was her black silk suit? Was there such a thing as an iron in the farmhouse?

  By one o’clock, she was unpacked and the suit was relaxing in the steam-filled bathroom, where she had enjoyed a second hot shower. She put on her most comfortable clothes and wandered through the rooms, toweling her hair. She could hear birds twittering in the trees outside; otherwise, it was quiet, the air still and bright. The famous light, she thought, examining her hand in a shaft of it that outlined a table’s edge in the sitting room. There were a few magazines in the stand next to an uncomfortable plastic chair, two in German, three in Italian. Presumably, the Panatella family had straightened up after DV’s death. There was little evidence that anyone had been living here. Where, for example, were DV’s clothes?

  Then it occurred to her that this was not the apartment DV had used. There were two, and this one, made up of the sitting room, bedroom, and kitchen, was probably the smaller. She dropped the towel off in the bathroom and went to the kitchen, where Massimo had left the keys. There were six on the ring, some new, others old, worn smooth and dark with years of service. Surely no one would object to her sorting through DV’s possessions; sooner or later, it was a task that must fall to her.

  The kitchen door led out to a small stone terrace. She had hardly noticed it the night before. There were big pots of trailing geraniums all around and a wrought-iron table with two matching chairs stacked under the eave of the house. To one side, stone steps led down to the drive. Lucy followed these to the open space where Massimo had parked the car. From there, she could see the whole house.

  It was a beautiful old building in a picturesque setting, tucked into the slope of a low hill amid scattered cypress and stands of pine trees. The stone was ocher-colored and the shutters were black; there was a trellis over the main entrance, laden with crimson bougainvillea. The delicate flowers quivered in the light breeze as if they were breathing. The apartments were cleverly designed to have separate entrances; each had its own terrace. The one she had slept in occupied the part of the house that jutted out over a rise in the land, which gave more privacy, for there was no way to get to it save up the stone steps.

  Jangling her keys as she walked, she went to the trellised door. It had two locks, one new, one old, and after a few tries, she succeeded in turning them both. She stepped into a long whitewashed room. There was one exposed beam—a tree trunk, really—that ran the length of the room. The furniture was spare: a couch with a checked cloth slipcover, two chairs exactly like those in her sitting room, a portable butler’s table. These were gathered around a big fireplace strewn with ashes and bits of burned wood. A pair of iron fire tongs and a poker lay half in the soot, half on the brick hearth. The room was divided by a wide stone staircase with an iron rail that appeared to hang in the air unsupported. Lucy stood just inside the door, thinking of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She would look around, but not long enough to break anything. She crossed the room quickly and hurried up the stairs.

  Three doors faced the upper landing. One stood open, revealing a lavish bathroom covered floor to ceiling with startling emerald green tile. Lucy tried the closed door nearest her and looked inside. Then she opened it all the way and went in, for she had found what she was looking for. Against the far wall was a wide pine bookcase crammed with books, the contents of the thirty boxes DV had shipped at enormous expense, and next to it, pushed up flush to a window, was a long trestle table on which various notebooks and papers were arranged in orderly stacks. At one end was DV’s old manual Royal typewriter. Beneath a second window, there stood a narrow iron bed and a nightstand, on which she noticed two folded pieces of paper. She examined these first. One was a page of numbers; the other was a grocery list written in DV’s spidery handwriting. Even composing a list had posed a challenge to DV, Lucy observed. He had scratched out the word milk, then written milk in again next to it.

  She went to the table and opened th
e leather calendar book, which she recognized at once; it was the one DV had always carried with him. He had made no entries in the six months he had been in Italy. “Busy social schedule,” Lucy said as she flipped through the empty pages. She turned to various stacks of paper. One was the original of the manuscript DV had sent her. Another appeared to be the continuation of that manuscript. Ghosts was scrawled across the top page. She read the first sentence. Malcolm steered the powerful Porsche expertly through the sinuous curves of the winding Tuscan road. There were also empty notebooks; folders crammed with credit-card receipts, insurance papers, and miscellaneous mail; unopened packs of typing paper; a drinking glass full of pens and pencils—all very orderly, which was unlike DV. She looked around the room for some other evidence, but there was nothing, so she went out to try the other room.

  This was a bedroom, neatly made up, with the furniture in a line against one wall: a wardrobe, a nightstand, a double bed, all of the same yellowish wood and decorated with the same design of carved fruit. Beneath the wardrobe was a row of expensive shoes she recognized as DV’s. She opened the double doors, startling herself momentarily with her own reflection in the mirror affixed to the inside. The wardrobe was full of DV’s clothes. Sweaters, coats, and pants hung on one side; socks, T-shirts, and underwear were folded carefully on the shelves running down the other side. The sight of his folded underwear struck her as unaccountably sad. She had never, she realized, wondered what sort of underwear DV wore. Now she knew: He preferred briefs to boxers; he liked pastel colors.

  She was about to close the wardrobe when her eye caught something partially covered by the suit coats hanging above it. It was a drawing pad, the inexpensive newsprint kind artists use for pencil sketching. Lucy eased it out carefully and opened the pasteboard cover.