“It was originally for three months. Until Nonna, the grandmother, could move here. Then—er—then she was able to move sooner. So I was actually going to leave tomorrow.”
Falcone’s gaze locked onto Cassie. This could be a crucial piece of information. Clearly, there had been a reason for the grandmother’s earlier arrival. The question was whether this was related to the events that had played out tonight. Falcone suspected that it was.
“What happened earlier today and how did this occur? Please describe the events from your point of view.”
“Well, Nonna arrived after lunch. I’d just—” Here, Ms. Vale hesitated as if choosing her words carefully. “I’d just been out. I got back before she arrived, which was at about two p.m., and the children came back from school about half an hour later. I was packing the whole afternoon. The housemaids moved the table upstairs during that time. Then I came through to the dining room at six, where we were all having supper.”
Falcone couldn’t understand this version of events. The au pair was consumed by anxiety. She was stammering, fidgeting, speaking in a wobbly voice. But what confused Falcone the most was why she hadn’t spent the afternoon with the children.
What luggage did an au pair have? One or two suitcases? That meant an hour’s packing. Why had it taken the whole afternoon and why had she not been supervising the children—playing with them, helping with homework, or doing any other of the myriad chores that she had surely been paid to do?
Falcone felt a heaviness settle inside her. Something was amiss here. Either Ms. Vale had deliberately chosen not to spend the afternoon with the children, or else she had been instructed by her employer not to. And that raised many more questions, which could unfortunately not be answered by Ms. Rossi.
Falcone hoped that the children would speak out. She knew she would need to be sensitive when questioning them. This might take time, and require patience. She might not obtain all the information she needed tonight, especially if they were traumatized.
“You had supper. What then?”
“The children were going to have tiramisu with Ms. Rossi and her mother. I went back to my room. I finished my packing and had a shower.”
Yet more packing? Falcone struggled to conceal her disbelief at the Herculean nature of this task.
The au pair continued in a low, trembling voice.
“After my shower, when I was in the bedroom—no, I was still in the bathroom. Soon after I stepped out of the shower, I heard the children calling me. Nina was screaming my name, and it sounded as if something was wrong, so I dressed, and ran to them as quickly as I could. That was when I saw it. I saw her.”
Cupping her face in her hands, Cassie Vale burst into deep, wrenching sobs.
Falcone waited. She didn’t offer sympathy, although she couldn’t help but feel it, looking at the woman’s evident misery. She simply sat quietly until she had regained control, and then continued.
“How did the children seem?”
“Shocked. They were definitely shocked.”
The au pair nodded as if she was confirming this fact with herself.
“Where were they?”
“Where were they?” She repeated Falcone’s question in a high, panicked tone. Then she paused before continuing. “At the top of the stairs. Near the top. To be honest with you, I didn’t notice. I—the minute I saw that body lying there, it was like I couldn’t see anything else.”
She looked at Falcone, who picked up mute appeal in her tear-stained blue eyes.
“Did you ask them what happened?” Falcone continued.
She nodded.
“They said she fell. I think it might have been caused by her shoe breaking, but the children weren’t sure.”
“Had she been on her way up, or was she going down the stairs?”
“I—I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Perhaps on her way down. Maybe she was going to fetch the tiramisu.”
Falcone remembered that empty bottle of wine.
“Had she been drinking with supper?”
Now Cassie Vale nodded emphatically.
“Yes. She opened the bottle before dinner. I guess it was to celebrate her mother arriving. She poured Nonna a small glass and I think she had the rest.”
Wine, plus those killer heels, plus a steep staircase. It all made sense, but yet, it didn’t.
Falcone stared directly at Cassie.
“I notice you have a cut on your face. Please could you explain how and when that happened?”
The young au pair’s hand flew to her face and she looked distraught.
“A cut?”
Falcone thought her surprise was as fake as the cover-up of her bruise.
“You received it how?” she pressed.
“I—gosh, I hadn’t even noticed it.”
That was an outright lie, Falcone was sure. The cut was deep enough to be clearly visible. There was no way she could have missed it, as it would have been obvious from even a quick glance into a mirror. And however she had received that cut, it would have been painful.
“It might have been while I was playing hide-and-seek with the girls yesterday,” Ms. Vale then ventured. “I crawled under a thorny branch and noticed my clothing was torn.”
Falcone had to allow for the fact that out in the freezing cold, and in the excitement of a game, her face might have been numb enough not to feel it, but that didn’t explain why she hadn’t seen it.
Reflexively, she didn’t trust the young woman’s testimony at all. She was visibly worried, and she didn’t seem certain of her story. It might be that her state of anxiety was making it difficult for her to remember. Falcone had interviewed many witnesses who reacted similarly, and battled with recall, after a stressful event.
However, Ms. Vale wouldn’t have been stressed while playing hide-and-seek the previous day. If she was to be believed, everything had been perfectly normal right up until the children had called her while she was in the bedroom. Or in the bathroom, as she’d corrected herself. Only
