The Da Vinci Cook (35 page)

Reaching ground level was the problem.

Angie stood on Daniel’s shoulders to see if that helped, but she didn’t have the reach or arm strength to pull herself up. Maneuvering on his shoulders in complete darkness was one of the scariest things she had ever attempted.

Finally, they resorted to holding onto each other and crawling around. Father Daniel was in the lead, Angie held the hem of his pants’ leg, and Cat held the hem of hers. The ground sloped, and those strange holes were all over it. Daniel stayed close to the side wall, but it had rough wood on it, and when he felt around, hoping to find a way to climb up, all he got for his troubles were splinters.

Cat’s breathing was fast, and Angie knew she was scared. “In case we don’t make it, Cat,” she said softly, “I want you to know you’ve been a good sister. One I could look up to always. You were an inspiration.”

“Don’t say that, Angie. It’s not true. I’ve made many mistakes—”

“It’s true! No need to be modest. I just wanted you to know.”

“I expect Paavo has found out about my mistakes,” Cat said, crawling after Angie. “It’s going to be embarrassing seeing him again . . . if we make it.”

“You’ve done nothing to worry about.” Angie glanced back over her shoulder, but she couldn’t even see Cat’s outline.

“I wonder if my clients will think that.” Cat’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“I suspect your clients have nothing but praise for you.”

“I don’t think so,” Cat said.

“Father Dan.” Angie turned toward him, hoping to get him to stop a moment. They were going fairly slowly, but holding onto him meant she could only use one arm to crawl, and it was tiring. “Can you stop?”

“Sorry,” Daniel said. He rested a moment, as did Angie.

“Over the years,” Cat whispered, not wanting Father Dan to hear, “I’ve had several clients who really, really wanted some special piece of furniture or art object for their house. Something unique and expensive—something they’d seen in a catalogue or some architectural magazine.”

“I can imagine you get that a lot,” Angie said.

“I do.” Cat sat back on her heels, her knees aching from crawling. The time had come, she told herself, to make her confession, to tell Angie exactly what terrible, probably illegal thing she’d allowed herself to get involved in with Marcello.

She kept her voice a soft whisper, hoping Father Daniel wouldn’t overhear. “If I’d try and try and couldn’t find that special something any other way—” She had to wait a moment as her breathing was coming hard and a buzzing sound was in her head at the trauma of admitting, out loud, what she’d done. “—I’d go to Marcello, I mean Rocco, and have him use his foreign contacts to make a copy.”

She hurried on, not wanting to hear Angie’s chastisement. “Before you say anything, I didn’t sell them as originals. I never told my clients they were the real things. I’d simply say I got exactly what they wanted, the price was low, and they shouldn’t question me. They’d nod knowingly, and were happy. So was Marcello—or should I call him Rocco?—who made a hefty profit.” Angie remained quiet. “Okay, I’ll admit it, so did I. But with all that happiness around me, how could I not do it? Charles doesn’t know. No one knows but Rocco and me. Maybe I’m overreacting. If I don’t say it’s real, it’s not exactly piracy or selling knockoffs, right . . . ? Right, Angie?” She felt all around her, then shouted, “Angie where are you?”

“Calm down, Cat,” Angie called from what seemed to be a great distance. “I thought you stayed back because you were tired. There’s nothing over this way. We’re turning around.”

Cat shook her head, stunned. “Did you hear what I said?”

“No. I thought you must be praying.”

Cat thought a moment, then said, “How did you ever guess?”

Time crept by slowly.

The three had checked out the ledge as best they could. Stefano had left nothing they could use to help themselves. They were stuck. Plus tired. Scared. And irritable.

Cat stood to stretch and shake out her legs. “I can’t take much more of this.”

“Sit down.” Angie yanked her pant legs. “You’re making me nervous.”

“You have a complaint?” Cat grumbled. “I’m the one with the right to complain! How the hell did I ever let you talk me into this mess?”

“Excuse me?” Angie enunciated sharply. “Are you talking to me?”

“Of course I’m talking to you! Who the hell else would I mean?”

“Ladies,” Father Daniel soothed, “I think we should join together in prayer.”

“I didn’t get you into anything!” Angie exclaimed, also getting to her feet. She had just about had it with Her Royal Prissiness. “All I ever did was try to help.”

“You call this help?” Cat screeched.

“You’re the one who wanted to take matters into your own hands. Before I ever suggested a thing, you got into your car all by yourself and started to follow Rocco. Don’t blame me for that!”

“Of course I wanted to take matters into my own hands,” Cat said indignantly. “That’s when things turn out right. Unfortunately, I got involved with a crazy woman!”

“Nobody forced you. And it wasn’t so crazy. It was logical. You saw the logic in it, as I recall.” Angie jutted her chin out belligerently.

“I was in shock!”

Father Daniel also stood and tried to get between the two. He would have had better luck if he could see what was going on. “Please, you two—”

“If I’d simply gone home after finding that body,” Cat continued woefully, “called my husband, and gotten a lawyer to explain everything to the police, none of this would have happened. I’d be in my own house, my own bed.
Safe!
Not here, and definitely not waiting for some madman to kill me!”

Father Daniel tried again. “How about me hearing your confessions? This is a time to be sure your soul is free of sin—”

Disgust dripped from Angie’s voice. “Too bad you didn’t know he was a madman when you thought he was trustworthy and hot for your body!”

“Why, you—”

“What about the chain? The corpse? The witness? The handkerchief? All of them convinced you to run to that madman who you swore would help you prove your innocence.” Angie hissed like an angry feline. “You think I like spending a week with you running from strangers, wearing grubby clothes, and listening to you bitch? You think I don’t miss Paavo and wish I could be anywhere but here?”

“Let’s join hands.” Father Daniel groped and found each of their hands in the dark. As he drew the two together, Cat reached out, found Angie in the dark and grabbed her arm, her bony fingers squeezing just the way she had when they were young.

“You don’t wish it any more than I!” Cat shouted.

Angie jerked free with such force, Father Daniel barely stopped her from falling backward. She slapped Cat’s hand away. “You called me, remember?”

Father Daniel kept his voice calm. “Cat, Angie—”

“For all the good that did!” She got right in Angie’s face. “I was hoping your worthless fiancé would help me. Was I ever wrong!”

“Ladies!” Father Daniel called haplessly.

“Don’t you dare call Paavo worthless!” Angie shoved Cat. Hard. To her surprise and semidelight, it sounded as if Cat fell over and landed on her butt. “You didn’t do one thing to make this any easier. You just wanted to make sure no one mentioned your sacrosanct name in connection with murderers and thieves! You cared more about your precious reputation than anything else, and you know it.”

Angie heard Cat sputtering and fuming, and slapping at her clothes as if brushing dirt from them. “You little worm!” Suddenly, she barreled into Angie, knocking her down.

“It’s better than being a big bitch!” Angie snarled as she dragged Cat to the ground with her. She gave Cat’s hair a solid yank.

Cat screamed, pulling free and flailing at Angie. “This is all your fault! I’ve never been so miserable in my entire life!”

“How can you say that when you’ve been married to Charles for twelve years?”

“You snot!” Cat swung a right hook.

In the dark, Angie felt the breeze as Cat’s arm sailed by. Outraged, she managed to get hold of the arm.

Cat clamped onto Angie’s wrist and the two proceeded to pull and tug at each other, rolling and tussling around on the ground.

“No, no, no! Angie! Cat! Cut it out! Knock this off!” Father Daniel leaped into the melee, trying to pull them apart.

Seconds later he scurried backward holding a bloody nose.

Neither listened. Days of frustration, resentment, and every imagined childhood wrong burst out. With flailing arms and kicking legs, the two sisters continued the wrestling match, oblivious to the now increasingly angry priest.

“Angelina, Caterina!” Father Daniel blared. “Come to your senses! Stop it! Stop it now!” One hand protectively covering his nose, he moved forward cautiously in the dark to try again to separate them. He couldn’t actually see the two women, but their grunts and yelps gave away their location.

Without warning, there was a terrified scream.

Father Daniel nearly jumped out of his skin. He squinted in the dark, petrified. Where were the women? One moment they were right in front of him, the next . . .

Realization hit him. He forgot all about his bloody nose. “The pit!” he shrieked. “For God’s sake!”

To his horror, there was only silence.

Heart pounding in his throat, he dropped to his knees and inched forward cautiously. “Angie! Caterina! Where are you?” he shouted even as he frantically prayed to every saint that they hadn’t fallen off the ledge. He reached forward with a shaky hand and touched bare sloping ground. “Cat? Angie?”

What was he going to do if they fell in? He had no light. He couldn’t go get help. Then something nudged him.

A shrill howl escaped his lips.

“It’s me,” came Cat’s strangled voice. “I can’t let go! Thank God you found us.”

“You can’t let go?” He gulped.
If only he could see!
“What are you talking about? Where’s Angie?”

“I’m holding her foot.”

“Foot? Her foot? What do you mean her foot?” Father Daniel shouted. He could hear the hysteria rising in his voice, and gave himself a mental smack.

A disembodied voice floated up from the darkness. “I’m upside down! Hurry! Get me out of here!”

With visions of Angie sliding head first into the pit swirling in his head, Daniel wrapped both arms around Cat’s waist and pulled while she somehow managed to keep her grip on Angie’s foot.

In a bizarre human chain, the three pulled and dragged themselves off the slope. It felt like hours. Then they sprawled, panting and moaning, on the ground. Sweating, nose bleeding, breathless, and absolutely furious, Daniel was about to deliver a homily of the fire and brimstone kind when Angie rolled over and sat up.

In an incredibly chirpy voice, she said, “You’ll never guess what I found!”

Chapter 41

Vice Questore Paolo Napolitano of the Commissariato di Polizia had smoked too many cigarettes and drunk too much coffee. All he wanted was to get home to his wife and children and the dinner he knew had turned cold hours earlier. It had been a long day, but he had to finish up a little more paperwork before leaving the office. That was the problem with a police system as unwieldy as Italy’s. Everyone needed reports to protect their turf, to look important. And busy.

Napolitano was part of the Polizia di Stato, the civil state police, which operated out of stations in cities throughout Italy. The Polizia di Stato were under the Director General of Public Security, who was under the Public Order and Security Committee, which was under the Ministry of the Interior. The Carabinieri, of the fancy uniforms with white sashes across their chests, under the Minister of Defense, were also in cities, but were the primary force keeping order in the countryside. There was also a Guardia di Finanza, or financial police, a special antimafia patrol, an antiterrorist unit, and other branches of the police system. And they all stepped on each other’s toes or danced away from problems, leaving a gaping hole for the problems to fall through.

In the quiet of the office tucked in the back of the Questura Centrale, Rome’s main police station, Napolitano heard footsteps and voices approaching. He didn’t want to deal with any problems tonight. He was ready to leave.

There was a knock, and the door opened. Two unhappy officers entered with two men. The first was tall and fit, mid-thirties, with dark brown hair. Napolitano could hardly pull his gaze from the blue-eyed intensity of the man to scrutinize his companion. Portly. Thinning hair. Somewhere in his forties or fifties. American. Definitely American.

Napolitano stood. “What’s going on?”

“I’m Inspector Paavo Smith of the San Francisco Police Department.” He held out his badge.

Immediately, the
vice questore’s
phone began to ring.

A breathless aide came in wide-eyed. “Excuse me, sir, the call is from the minister himself.”

The blue-eyed foreigner glanced at his companion, and then to Napolitano. “I believe that call will save us both a lot of time.”

“It’s working,” Paavo said to Charles as they sat waiting for the call to end.

Charles nodded, but looked confused and wary.