The man’s head turned slightly to one side but his eyes stayed on Rick. “So you know that the loan was approved.”
“Well, I thought—”
“You see, Elio? He has been pushing his nose into my business.” The mayor listened in silence “What kind of a town is Campiglio when some foreigner can snoop into the private affairs of one of its most prominent citizens? And one of your strongest supporters, Elio. Who knows what this so-called investigation could turn up?”
Rick looked at the mayor, whose face showed annoyance but also confusion. Was Grandi wondering which side to take?
Rick asked, “Does Mayor Grandi know what Taylor discovered when he was researching your loan, Signor Melograno?”
Grandi kept his perplexed look, but Melograno’s face turned to rage.
“I knew it. I was right not to trust you Americans. Taylor told everything to his sister and now she has told you. Just as I feared.” The wind whipped his unkempt hair as he backed up to the open door and reached inside. “You will not stop me now. And Elio does not want to risk his office because of the lies turned up by some nosy investigator.”
“Umberto,” said Grandi, his voice almost drowned out by the wind. “What does this mean?”
“It means, my friend, that I will have to finish what Bruno could not.” He ducked into the backseat again, but this time his hands did not grasp a mailing tube. Instead he held a long, double-barreled shotgun, which he pointed directly at Rick’s chest. Rick’s eyes ran down the barrel to the top of the wooden stock as his mind flashed back to the three pheasants mounted in Melograno’s office. “A lovely firearm, is it not, Signor Montoya? Its stock was lovingly carved and finished by our mayor here, a true artist in wood. I enjoy showing it to people, as Elio knows.”
Rick kept his focus on the shotgun, but he could hear the mayor moving at his side.
“Unfortunately,” Melograno continued, “it has a tendency to fire by accident. Elio will be able to confirm that too, should it happen now when I am showing it to you. Isn’t that right, Elio?”
He glanced at Grandi while Rick’s eyes darted between the gun and the man’s face. Suddenly Melograno’s eyes widened. As Rick’s head turned instinctively toward the mayor, a large dark object flashed through the falling snow.
The wooden bear caught Melograno above the right eye with a sickening thud. The blow caused him to drop the shotgun, which disappeared into the snow with a dry thump. In an instant Rick was on his knees, pulling it from the white powder. He looked up to see the huge reeling body of Melograno, his face slowly changing from disbelief to anger. Rick didn’t hesitate. He shoved the muzzle of the gun into the man’s gut, getting the hoped-for effect. Melograno was doubled over in pain when the carved wooden stock crashed over the back of his head. His expression froze and he crumpled face-first into the snow.
Grandi crunched his way to the body. He stared down at the head wound, its dark blood mixing with the white snow starting to cover it. “Why didn’t you shoot him? He was ready to kill you.”
“I don’t know much about shotguns. I could have hit one of us by accident.” Rick noticed for the first time that his breath was forming small clouds of vapor before disappearing into the wind. He took his eyes off the man on the ground and looked at Grandi. “Melograno seemed quite sure you were going to back him when he aimed the gun at me.”
The mayor took a heavy breath and let it out slowly. “Any politician needs supporters, Signor Montoya. Usually support comes with some strings attached, that’s part of politics anywhere, including America.” He kept his eyes on the body of Melograno. “But I would not go that far.”
So, Rick thought, you’re a sleazy politician, but just not that sleazy. Thank goodness for that. For the first time he loosened his grip on the shotgun. “And where did you learn such accuracy, Signor Sindaco? You were right on target with that bear.”
“Years ago there was an ice football league in the region, if you can believe that. I played for the Campiglio team. Quarterback.”
“You still have one hell of an arm.”
Two police cars plowed to a stop behind them.
***
“So we both came to the same conclusion, but using slightly different evidence, am I right, Riccardo?”
Rick and Luca sat at opposite ends of the long table in the meeting room that had been the policeman’s temporary office since arriving in Campiglio. Luca was again in his shirtsleeves, and had loosened his tie. A pencil turned in the fingers of one of his hands, but his eyes were on Rick.
“That appears to be the case, Luca.” He leaned forward and tried to rub the fatigue from his eyes. “You heard from his employee that Melograno had put one of the choice apartments in the building back on the market and concluded that it had been held for Taylor. You decided that the bank would not have allowed Taylor to have a personal interest in the loan, so something must be amiss.”
“Exactly. He was getting the apartment at a lower price, in exchange for approving the loan.”
“And now that Taylor was dead, he could sell it at full price.”
The policeman shuffled his papers and held up a page from the local newspaper. “Which would be about a quarter million euros.”
“Lots of money, but it wouldn’t make sense, because if there was a bribe to get the loan, it would have been paid before the loan went
