Rendezvous in Rome (5 page)

Only Etruscan jewelry had been stolen, Nancy discovered, even though Signora Fiorello's friends had other valuables, too. None of the missing
necklaces matched the one Bess had. Sandro's mother then called two other acquaintances who had Etruscan jewelry and learned they were on vacation. Bess's necklace might have been stolen from one of them.

After promising to look into the thefts the next day Nancy, Bess, and George said a weary good night. As they left the Theater of Marcellus, George said, “Well, Nan, it looks like we're getting more than we bargained for on this trip!”

• • •

Nancy groaned, tugging on the outside door of the building where Pensione Antonio was located. “I forgot that they said they lock this place up at night,” she said. “Does anyone have a key?”

George pulled a ring of keys from her bag and unlocked the door. The girls entered the plain stone lobby of the building and walked up the curving staircase to the second floor. The door to the pensione was at the top of the stairs. Going quietly inside, they made their way down the hall to their room.

“Are you guys really tired?” George asked, sitting on the edge of one of the three beds.

Nancy could tell something was on her friend's mind. George had remained quiet and thoughtful for most of the evening, even before Sandro's mother had discovered her necklace was gone. Apparently Bess had noticed it, too.

“Do you want to talk?” Bess asked, dropping into the room's only chair.

Nancy sat on the bed next to George and hugged
her. “It's about Greece, isn't it?” she guessed. “You're dying to go with Sandro's friends on that trip, right?”

George nodded. “It
is
our next stop, and Daniela said I could room with her,” she said. “I could meet you guys in Athens. Unless you don't want to go there anymore,” she added quickly.

“I thought Domenico and the group were leaving tomorrow morning,” Bess said. “How are you going to get hold of them?”

George smiled sheepishly. “Domenico said if I decided to come, I could meet them at the train station in the morning. They're taking a train to the ferry.”

“Well, before I give you my permission, just tell me this,” Bess said, pretending to be stern. “Is it really the trip to Greece you're dying for, or is it Domenico?”

George rolled her eyes. “Bess, just because you have a guy in every country doesn't mean I want that,” she said with a teasing grin. “Besides,” she added, pulling a packet of letters from the front pocket of her shoulder bag, “I miss Kevin too much to think about dating other guys.”

Kevin Davis, George's boyfriend, was a sports announcer back in the States. Nancy knew how serious George was about their relationship. She definitely wasn't the type to go chasing another guy all over Europe.

Nancy sighed as she thought of the three letters she had received from her own boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. He really missed her, but so far she'd written him only one postcard, from the Italian
Riviera. She kept telling herself she'd write a long letter—tomorrow—but somehow the time was never right. She hadn't admitted it even to Bess and George, but the truth was, she thought more about Mick Devlin these days than about the boy who had been her one and only love for a long, long time.

Pushing aside her disturbing thoughts, Nancy leaned over and hugged George. “Go ahead to Greece,” she told her. “I'm sure seeing Mount Olympus will be great. And we'll fill you in on everything that happens here.”

“Sure,” Bess agreed. “We were planning to be in Athens next Saturday anyway. We can just meet at that hotel where we made reservations. In case there's any change of plans, though, why don't you call here and leave a message with the number of where you'll be staying with Daniela?”

“That's a good idea,” George said. She gave Nancy a probing look. “Are you sure you're not upset about this?” she asked. “I mean, if you need my help investigating those necklaces . . .”

“We'll be fine,” Nancy and Bess said at once.

Grinning at her friends, George said. “Thanks, guys. You're the best!”

• • •

“You have to fill me in on some of this, Nan,” Bess pleaded early the next afternoon. “I didn't understand half the words! I was going to pull out my phrase book, but I was too embarrassed.”

After seeing George off with Daniela and the others at the train station, Bess and Nancy had visited the two friends of Signora Fiorello who
had also had Etruscan jewelry stolen. Now they were sitting down to pasta at a small, family-run restaurant near the Forum.

“Well, neither of their houses looked as if it had been broken into,” Nancy said. “And both have alarm systems that weren't triggered. Neither woman had been away for any length of time, either, their vacations are scheduled for August.”

“I understood what Signora Bellini said about everybody knowing they have the jewelry, thanks to the paparazzi,” Bess put in, referring to the photographers that swarmed around the social events where the women often wore their jewelry.

Just then the waiter brought steaming plates of pasta to the table and set them down.

Bess picked up her fork with relish. “This is fantastic!” she said, smacking her lips. “I love this spicy sauce. What do they call it again?”

“Arrabbiata,” Nancy said. “Mine is great, too.”

Bess speared some of the short, tubular pasta with her fork, then popped it into her mouth. “I didn't understand what Signora Bellini said about Fabio Andreotti, though,” she said, getting back to the case. “And Signora Cresci mentioned him, too, right?”

Nancy nodded. “I asked if anyone had shown a special interest in the jewelry, and they both mentioned Andreotti,” she told Bess. “Signora Bellini said that he has offered to buy her necklace so many times that it's become a formality—part joke and part compliment.”

“Do you think he wanted their jewelry badly enough to steal it?” Bess looked doubtful. “He seemed so nice.”

“I don't know,” Nancy admitted. “Most of the people we've met think the world of him, including Sandro's mother. But I think we should find out more about him.”

• • •

“Would you believe I think I'm going to fall asleep?” Bess declared as the girls left the restaurant a short while later. “Didn't Claudia say there's an Italian tradition about napping after lunch?”

“Yesterday was a long day,” Nancy said. “And we're going dancing tonight, remember?”

“That's right! I can't possibly fall asleep at the disco. I'd die of embarrassment.”

“All right.” Nancy laughed. “A siesta it is.” The girls chugged down the streets on their Vespas to their pensione. After locking the Vespas they entered the building. The lobby felt cool and slightly damp as they walked in. Their footsteps echoed as they went up the stairs.

When they reached the second floor the family that ran the pensione was nowhere in sight. The front desk of the hotel was empty.

“Maybe we could check out Fabio Andreotti later this afternoon,” Nancy suggested as they walked down the hall to their room.

“Sure,” Bess said, putting her key in the lock and pushing open the door. She stepped forward and stopped, staring inside.

“Nancy?” she asked in a small voice.

“Hmm?” Nancy looked over Bess's shoulder—and gasped.

Bess's bed was overturned. Clothes and belongings were strewn across the floor and furniture. The room had been ransacked!

I
T'S THE NECKLACE
,” Bess whispered in a horrified voice. “The thief is after us!”

“Maybe not,” Nancy said, although she suspected Bess was right. “See if you can find out what's missing, but don't move anything. I'll get help.”

Nancy ran down the hall to the front desk and rang the bell. A few minutes later the young woman who managed the pensione poked her head sleepily from behind a curtained door. She had curly, dark hair and a round face. Seeing Nancy, she stepped out to the desk.

“Signora Verona,” Nancy said, remembering the woman's name from when the girls checked in. Quickly she explained what had happened and led Signora Verona back to the room.

“I don't think anything was stolen,” Bess said, straightening up. “But the room's a mess.”

Nancy nodded, then turned to Signora Verona. “Did anyone come in looking for us?” she asked, speaking in Italian. “Did you see anyone acting suspiciously?”

The woman shook her head. “No. Only our guests. I didn't see anyone else.”

“But you weren't at the desk when we came in,” Nancy pointed out gently. “Maybe someone got in without your seeing them.”

“The front door is locked at night and when we aren't on duty,” Signora Verona replied. “Every guest has a key, so I don't always look out when I hear the door.”

Nancy frowned. The outside door had been ajar when she and Bess had come in just now, she remembered. It could have been that way all afternoon. If not, anyone with a key to the pensione door could have broken into Bess's room.

“Could someone have seen our room number?” Nancy asked.

The woman shook her head vigorously. “My rooming list is in the back with me,” she said. “No one came in there. I'd better call the police,” she continued.

Nancy remembered how unhelpful the police had been. “Would you mind if we talked to some of the other guests ourselves instead?” she asked. She would probably get more information that way.

The young woman pressed her lips together. “I will talk to the guests,” she finally decided. “But if any other rooms were disturbed, I will have to call the police.”

After Signora Verona left, Nancy helped Bess get her mattress back on the bed frame. “Who knows our room number?” Nancy asked, thinking out loud. “Did you tell Massimo or Claudia?”

Bess shook her head. “I didn't tell anyone. I barely know what the room number is myself!”

“Well, if other rooms were hit, we'll know soon enough,” Nancy said. “If not, it looks as if the necklace really
was
the target.”

“So someone knows I have this real Etruscan necklace,” Bess said anxiously. “And whoever it is must be a criminal to tear our room up like this to try to get it.” Nodding toward her knapsack, she added, “Carrying this necklace around is really making me nervous, Nan.”

This case was definitely starting to heat up, Nancy had to agree. “I'll keep it in my shoulder bag from now on, if you like,” she offered. “Meanwhile, let's go ask Signora Verona if anyone saw anything.”

The girls found the pensione manager at the front desk. The other guests were mostly young students on vacation, Signora Verona told Nancy. None of them remembered seeing or hearing anything suspicious, and none of the other rooms in the pensione had been disturbed.

After Signora Verona retreated into the back room, Bess flopped down onto a chair next to the lobby desk. “Now what?” she asked Nancy. “I mean, that proves that the break-in is directly tied to the necklace, right?”

“I'd like to talk to Paola Rinzini, the owner of
Preziosi,” Nancy said. “Maybe she knows where the real necklace came from.”

“But Claudia told us the store's closed today,” Bess said, frowning.

Nancy walked over to the pay phone next to the pensione door. She took some Italian coins out of her pocket. “Oh, I forgot!” she exclaimed. “This phone only takes those special coins,
gettóni.”
When they had called Claudia on Friday night, Signora Verona had sold them one of the phone tokens. “I'd better buy a few of them,” Nancy said. “We're probably going to need them.”

The girls called out to Signora Verona again, and she sold them some
gettóni.
Then they called Claudia and got Paola Rinzini's home telephone number.

“Paola's not home,” Nancy said, hanging up the phone after trying the woman's number. “We'll have to wait until tomorrow, I guess.” There was a determined glint in her eyes as she added, “But I'm going to keep my eye on Massimo while we're dancing tonight.”

• • •

Nancy and Bess had arranged to meet Claudia, Sandro, and Massimo at a club in Trastevere, a neighborhood filled with colorful nightspots. As the pounding beat of the music bounced off the ceiling and came down around them, Nancy tried to spot their friends through the whirling crowd on the dance floor.

“I don't see them,” she said, leading the way to the bar. “Let's get some sodas.”

Bess grimaced as she spotted a familiar face at one of the tables. “It's Karine,” she moaned. “I hope Massimo didn't ask her to come here, too.”

Just then the crowd surged around them, and Massimo stepped out of it. “You both look fantastic!” he said loudly, fighting to be heard over the music. “Are you ready to dance for your necklace?” he asked Bess.