DiMaio finally found his tongue, but barely. “So that’s why you speak Italian so well, Signora.”
“Bravo, Inspector. But please call me Pilar.” She looked at Betta and Rick. “We all seem to be about the same age here, so why don’t we dispense with the formalities?” When they agreed, she continued. “Riccardo, I detected an accent in your Spanish that is certainly not from Spain.”
“You are correct, Pilar. My father is from America, New Mexico, and I went to university there. My Spanish reflects that. And I go by Rick.”
“And Betta, you work in Rome, but are you from there originally?”
“No, Pilar. I am from Bassano del Grappa, in the Veneto.”
“Bassano. A delightful city. I love your famous covered bridge over the Mincio.”
Rick had expected that they would be the ones putting Pilar Somonte at ease, but it turned out to be just the opposite. DiMaio was enthralled.
“Alfredo, I’ll find out about you later since you must be anxious to get down to the case at hand. I should say here at the outset that I have been expecting for a while to get news of my father’s death, since he was not a well man. Naturally, I thought his illness would be the cause of his demise, so it was a shock when Lucho called to tell me he had been murdered.” She took a breath to maintain her composure before continuing.
“Driving here from the airport, I recalled something my father said to me just after he was diagnosed with the illness he thought would eventually take his life. We were sitting in his office, just the two of us.” She held the back of her hand over her mouth for a moment. “He began by telling me something I’d heard so many times before, how much Italy, and especially Tuscany, meant to him. His mother was born in Anghiari, at the eastern edge of Tuscany. It was thanks to her, he said, that he held such a deep love of Italian art. He pointed to an old photograph he always kept on his desk, of him and my grandmother, taken on a visit to Anghiari when he was a boy. As he looked at the two figures he said, ‘When it’s time, I want to die in Tuscany.’ I told him that he wasn’t going anywhere for a while, or some such platitude, and we changed the subject. But what he said that day has always stuck in my mind, and I’ve often thought that he may have been talking more to the photograph than to me.”
A difficult silence was broken by Betta. “Urbino isn’t Tuscany, but there are few places in Italy identified as strongly with art as this city. He came here often, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Yes, he did.” She waved a hand in the air, pushing away the memory, and turned her attention to DiMaio. “But I don’t want that story to give you a false impression of my relationship with my father, especially in the last few years. I must tell you that ever since my mother’s death several years ago, and his subsequent marriage to Isabella, my father and I had become somewhat estranged. It had been no secret that my mother was dying, but did that woman keep in the shadows and allow him to deal with it? No, she was shameless in her pursuit of my father, even while my mother was fading.”
She looked at a bottle of mineral water on the desk. DiMaio got the message, poured some into a cup, and passed it to her. She took a sip and set the cup down next to her.
“Thank you, Alfredo. I never hid my feelings from him about his remarrying, and especially to that woman, so, inevitably, we drifted apart. Our relationship became less father-daughter and more owner-employee, since I am chief of design at the mills.” She crossed one leg over the other and straightened her skirt over her knee. “Pardon the long explanation, but I thought you should know. Now, can you tell me how all this happened? I couldn’t get much out of Lucho when he called me early this morning.”
DiMaio carefully went over the facts of the case as he knew them, without giving too much detail about the condition of the body. He told her what information he and Rick had gotten from Signora Somonte and Lucho Garcia, and the meager results from the search of her father’s room.
“We are now at the point of interviewing others who might have seen your father before he was killed. Since the missing drawing may be the motive for the crime, Betta was sent here from Rome to assist in the case. She works in the office that investigates stolen art.”
“This is the first I’ve heard about the drawing going missing,” said Pilar. “Lucho didn’t mention that detail when he called. Do you really think my father might have been killed for a drawing?”
“It’s very valuable,” Betta volunteered. “We have had cases of murders committed or planned for artwork of lesser value.”
Pilar shook her head and turned to Rick. “Do you work here at the university?”
“No, I’m a professional interpreter based in Rome. And a friend of Betta.”
“Ah.” She smiled at Betta and turned to the policeman. “Well, Alfredo, what comes next, and is there any way I can help? Or do you just want me to stay out of your way?”
“You most certainly will not be in my way, Pilar. I was about to go to the botanical gardens to interview the director. I assume you have a rental car? You can leave it here and I can drop you at the hotel on the way. Or have you already checked in?”
She held up
