***
LEAVING his men at the entry of the salon, Caravale approached Vincenzo and Francesca, his uniform cap under his arm. He had primly turned down Clemente’s offer of a drink.
“Good evening, Colonel,” Vincenzo said, “is there a problem?”
“I’m afraid so, signore.”
“This is a private party,” Francesca said reprovingly. “My brother has his guests to attend to.”
“Of course.” Caravale turned to face her directly. “But as a matter of fact, it’s you that I’m here to see, signora.”
A long second and a half ticked by. “I?”
“Yes. Perhaps you would be good enough to step outside?” He gestured toward the doorway and the waiting officers.
“What the devil is this about?” Vincenzo snapped.
The two women they’d been talking with exchanged glances and began to sidle away.
“I asked a question,” Vincenzo said, but Caravale was looking at Francesca, waiting for her to respond.
She didn’t move. “Is it really so urgent?”
“It’s important,” Caravale told her. “Now, if you please...”
“I think not,” Francesca said. She walked a few steps to place her wine glass on the bar, then returned to face him. Her voice took on a metallic edge. “Whatever you have to say can be said in front of our guests.”
At which point Caravale’s quickly fraying patience, not in great supply in the first place, ran out. If she wanted to do this in front of everybody, he would be happy to oblige her.
“Very well, signora. I am here to arrest you for knowingly providing false information to your insurance company and to the police for the purpose of committing fraud. Also for knowingly obstructing the police in the performance —”
“That’s ridiculous!” a flushed Vincenzo interrupted. “What are you talking about?”
Francesca flung her hand up in disbelief. “Is the man serious? He has actually come here, uninvited, to a private residence, to accuse us of”—she faltered, but only for a moment—“of a few balance-sheet irregularities in the effort to recover Achille without harm coming to him— something we successfully accomplished, I need hardly remind anyone here, without the assistance of the colonel and his vaunted regiment.”
Somewhere along the way she had turned it into theater. She was speaking now for the benefit of the onlookers, most of whom had joined the two women in drifting inconspicuously backward, leaving Caravale, Vincenzo, and Francesca all alone on center stage. Theater-in-the-round.
Caravale, normally averse to public performances, went willingly along this time. “I am not referring to the peculiarities in your company’s balance sheet,” he said evenly. “That is a matter for another officer, another time. I am talking about your contracting to have your nephew kidnapped in an effort to extort money from your insurer.”
That naturally brought a round of gasps and exclamations, almost enough to drown out Francesca’s ragged, harsh “Absurd!”
“Caravale, this is outrageous!” said Vincenzo. The muscles in front of his ears were bunching and knotting under the skin. “Now you’ve gone too far. You can expect to hear from my attorney about this before the night is out.”
“Oho, he’ll hear from more than our attorney,” Francesca said hotly. “I’ll have your job for this, you stupid little man! You don’t know who you’re dealing with. To have the nerve to walk into our home with unsubstantiated —”
“In addition, signora, I am also placing you under arrest for contracting for the theft of material evidence in the
form of the remains of Domenico de Grazia—”
“How dare you—”
“—and for the assault on Professor Oliver to thwart his examination of said remains so as to prevent—”
Francesca cut him off with a raucous laugh. “Unbelievable! He’s gone completely mad.” She appealed to her audience, arms outspread. “Is he now accusing us of murdering our own father?”
He could see Lombardo and Fasoli making motions from the doorway:
“Not ‘us,’ signora,” he said and paused, relishing the dramatic effect more than he knew he should. “You. Only you.”
Her body stiffened, and for a second he thought she might stagger or fall, like a heroine in a melodrama. Vincenzo, staring at her with his mouth open, automatically reached out to steady her. “Francesca...?”
She shook him off and shouted at Caravale: “What an utterly despicable accusation. Why would I do such an inconceivable thing?”
Caravale was now winding down. Besides, he had yet to come up with the answer to that question. “We can deal with that later,” he said, speaking more gruffly. “Now, I think it’s time for you come with me.”
When she again failed to move, he turned toward the doorway. “Corporal? Sergeant?” He motioned them into the room.
