Return to
Umbria
A Rick Montoya Italian Mystery
David P. Wagner
www.DavidWagnerAuthor.com
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by David P. Wagner
First E-book Edition 2016
ISBN: 9781464206122 ebook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.
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Contents
Return to Umbria
Copyright
Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Author’s Note
More from this Author
Contact Us
Dedication
For my brother, Bill—this sibling thing is great;
let’s keep it going.
Chapter One
Rick Montoya took a deep breath, held it, and weighed the cold steel of the Beretta in his outstretched hands, pointing both thumbs forward. Fifty meters ahead a dark figure, purposely obscured by weak lighting, faced him directly. Rick squinted down the gun barrel, stiffened his grip, and slowly squeezed the trigger, just as he had practiced. The pistol barked loudly and jumped back in his hand. Heart beat steady, he let out the breath and dropped his arms. The distinctive metallic smell drifted up to his nostrils as he noticed heat now spreading through his grip. Lights popped on, bouncing off the low ceiling of the previously darkened room. A voice behind him was just a murmur.
“Not your best.”
Rick took one hand off the pistol and pulled the ear protectors down around his neck. “What was that, Uncle?”
“I said not your best,” repeated Commissario Piero Fontana. “You give me second thoughts about trying to convince you to join the police force.” He put down the binoculars and pushed a button to make the paper target rumble back toward them along a wire. The silhouette had a ring of holes in the center of the figure. When the target reached them, the policeman pointed to one just to the left of the waist. “That one’s yours. He would still be coming at you if he were armed, and you’d have to hope he was a worse marksman than you are.”
Rick checked the weapon to be sure it was not still loaded and placed it on the table behind them. “Did it occur to you that I missed him on purpose so that you’d drop the subject of me becoming a cop?”
Piero smiled. “I had not thought of that.”
A few minutes later they stood at a bar across from Rome’s police headquarters where the commissario had his office. Coffee available inside the questura was so notorious that policemen joked it should be on the most wanted list, so this place was crowded with uniforms at all hours of the day and night. Rick and his uncle took their small cups and walked to a tall table near the window where they added sugar from a large bowl. Commissario Fontana had shed the leather jacket he’d used at the shooting range and returned to the coat which was perfectly coordinated with his light wool slacks and silk tie. The temperature on the street outside had not required an overcoat, and Rick wore only a light sweater over a sport shirt with no tie. Well-ironed jeans covered the tops of his cowboy boots.
“Riccardo, there is something I want to talk to you about, in addition to your need for more shooting practice.”
Rick sipped his coffee. “I got that impression, Zio, when you called me yesterday.”
His uncle smiled. “You know me too well.”
“As well as you know me.”
They both considered that for a moment before Piero spoke. “Your family needs you, Riccardo.”
Rick was more curious than concerned. He knew from the way Uncle Piero spoke that his parents were fine, and in fact he’d spoken to his mother—Piero’s sister—from Brazil on Skype the previous evening. His Italian family was not very large in comparison with his father’s side, whose relatives could be found in most corners of northern New Mexico. His mother had one sister and a brother, Piero, but because Aunt Marta Dozzi lived in Perugia, Rick seldom saw her and her husband. The Italian grandparents had passed on when Rick was in high school in Rome, both in the same year, a difficult one for the three Fontana offspring. There was also a cousin, Aunt Marta’s only son, but Rick hadn’t seen Fabrizio Dozzi since high school, when Fabrizio was a little boy. Perhaps Fabrizio wanted to go to the States to study and needed some advice from his half-American cousin.
“It’s Fabrizio.”
“I suspected that, Uncle. How old is he now? Must be about twenty?”
“He’s twenty-one.” Piero studied his nephew before continuing. “Fabrizio has always looked up to you, Riccardo. Never had a big brother, of course, so you, the older cousin, have been special for him.”
“I never saw him more that a dozen times, and he was just a little kid. He’s not in trouble, is he? His policeman uncle would be the one to intervene if that were the case.”
Piero waved off the idea with an uplifted palm. “He’s not breaking the law, if that’s what you mean, or I certainly would get involved. No, it’s his behavior that is very upsetting to his mother, and when my sister gets upset enough, she calls me.”
Rick, a professional translator, tried to think of an equivalent phrase in Italian for “cut to the chase,” but nothing jumped into his mind. “Zio, what’s going on with Fabrizio?”
The policeman took another sip of coffee. “You’ll remember that Fabrizio was studying at the university in Perugia after he graduated from the liceo. I’m not sure what courses he was taking, but it could have been literature since he’s now decided to become a writer. A few months ago he met a woman in a nightclub and they hit it off. She lives in Orvieto, and was sightseeing in Perugia
