Dying on the Vine

“Absolutely.”

• • •

WHEN Gideon went to the high-ceilinged, flagstone-paved old refectory a few minutes later hunting for breakfast, he found it deserted but with plenty still on the buffet table from the Vino e Cucina send-off meal, a bigger, more varied one than usual. He helped himself from platters of cheese and ham sliced so thin you could see through them, and cut a couple of chunks from a loaf of cakey, flour-dusted Italian bread to go along with them.

The buffet also held an anachronistically modern, science-fictiony self-service coffee machine with about twenty different buttons one could press for espresso, cappuccino, macchiato, and just about every adaptation of coffee ever invented. Having had enough coffee to last him for a while, he hit the button labeled cioccolata calda and watched as a sludgy but wonderful-smelling liquid flowed steaming into his cup like brown lava. Next to this apparatus was a similar but smaller machine (only twelve buttons), with TUTTAFRUTA on the front and pictures of various fruit juices. Gideon tried the buttons for pineapple juice and grapefruit juice while the chocolate was going into his cup but with no luck, and he settled for orange juice.

He took everything to a table beside a swung-open casement window that looked out on the garden, and ate, drank, and dreamed a few minutes away enjoyably. But after a time, after he’d gone back to the buffet table and returned with another hot chocolate and a slice of almond sponge cake, he began to replay his recent conversations with Rocco, especially the one at Il Cernacchino, where Rocco had told him about Cesare and shown him the crime photos.

And a little later he lifted his eyes, and softly said, “I wonder . . .”

• • •

HALF an hour later, having followed directions from Nico, whom he’d run into in a hallway, he had found a farmacia on the town’s main street, which, as in half the towns in Italy, was Corso Vittorio Veneto. There he made two purchases, which he brought back unopened to Villa Antica. He got two glasses from the tasting room, went out to the back terrace with them, and sat down at one of the tables. He removed from the paper bag two half-liter bottles that held purple liquid. One them had Giorniquilla on a bright red background; this was the same cough medicine he’d seen Cesare guzzling. The other, identical except that its label was moss green, said Dormiquilla. He undid both screw caps and poured some from each into separate glasses. He sipped from one, then the other. Thought a minute. With his eyes closed, he switched the bottles themselves around enough times to turn it into a blind tasting. Sipped directly from the first bottle that came to hand, then from the other. Opened his eyes. Thought again.

He got on his cell phone to call Rocco, but got a secretary instead: The lieutenant was out of the office. Could she take a message?

“Would Maresciallo Martignetti be available? My name is Gideon Oliver.”

Martignetti was available. “Hello, Dr. Oliver, what can I do for you?”

“Make it Gideon, will you? I was calling Rocco to suggest that he have the lab run another couple of tests. Can I leave it with you?”

“Let me get a pad. Okay, shoot.”

“First, have them do an analysis on the cough medicine that was on Cesare’s nightstand.”

“Okey-doke.”

“Second, and more important, I’m assuming that Cesare’s toxicological screening didn’t include testing for cocaethylene, would that be right?”

“I don’t know. Far as I know, they did the usual routine screening, the regular tox panel.”

“Then they probably didn’t include it,” Gideon said. “They usually don’t in the States. So would you see if you can get them to test specifically for it?”

“For what again?”

“Cocaethylene.”

“Co . . . You wouldn’t happen to know how to say that in Italian, would you?”

Gideon laughed. “Hell, I can barely say it in English, Tonino. But they’ll know what I’m talking about. It’ll be spelled something like c-o-c-a-e-t-h—”

“Gideon, hold on a minute, will you? The switchboard’s trying to get me.” He was back after a few seconds. “I’m sorry, there’s another call coming in that I need to take. Is there anything else?”

“No, that’s it. You’ll let Rocco know? Sooner the better.”

“I’ll take care of it for you myself.”

“You can do that?”

“Not really, but I’ll sign Rocco’s name to the requisition; no problem. Appreciate the help, Gideon.”

• • •

“OKAY, Pino,” Martignetti said in Italian once Gideon had disconnected, “I’ll take that call.”

On the line, the carabiniere at the switchboard had told him, was a man who identified himself as Philario Tognetti, representing Scacco Matto Investigazioni—Checkmate Investigations.

The private-eye firm and the man were both familiar to Martignetti. Philario didn’t “represent” Scocco Matto; he was Scocco Matto: a one-man operation a few blocks south of the Arno, in the Oltrarno District. Philario was an ex-carabiniere, an old friend, never close, but a friend. They had gotten to know each other as rookies attending the Cadet Training School in Rome in 1992. But Philario wasn’t made for the work. He’d scraped through the academy by the skin of his teeth, then lasted only a year in the corps before resigning at the suggestion of superiors that he might be better suited to another line of work. There wasn’t anything dishonorable or particularly bad in his record; he just wasn’t up to the job. Mentally. Not to put too fine a point on it, his sewing machine, as the old saying went, was a little short of thread.

He’d started Scacco Matto after trying a few other things that hadn’t worked out for him, and, as far as Martignetti knew, he’d made a go of it; he’d found his niche.

“Hey, Philario, thanks for calling back.”

“So what can I do for the mighty Carabinieri? Are you in need of the services of a good private investigator? I can give you a special rate.”

Martignetti produced the required chuckle. “Actually, I just need a little information from you. I’ve been working on the Cubbiddu case, Philario”—he sensed a sudden wariness on the other end of the line—“and your name has come up.”

“In what way?”

“I got their financial records from their executor, and on them is a bill from you for twelve hundred euros that was received in October of last year, not long after their deaths. All it says is ‘for services rendered.’ You want to tell me what that was for, please?”

“Ah . . . I’d like to help, but I don’t think I can do that, Tonino. It’s a matter of professional ethics. Whatever passed between signor Cubbiddu and me is privileged information. You know that.”

“Of course. But Cubbiddu was your client?”

“Ah . . . yes.”

“And can you tell me what he engaged you to do?”

“As I just said—”

“I wouldn’t ask you to tell me what was said in confidence, but can’t you at least give me an idea of the work you were doing for him? This is a murder investigation, Philario, a double murder investigation. Any help you can give us would be very much appreciated.”

He expected more hedging, but Philario came through. “He suspected his wife of cheating on him. I was engaged to find out if this was true.”

“And was it?”

“It was. It only took me two days to establish it.”

“Did you get to tell Cubbiddu that before he died?”

“I did. Called him on September second—maybe the third. And that’s it, Tonino, really. That’s all I can tell you. I shouldn’t have said that much.”

“I only have one more question, Philario.”

“Philario, I remind you again that your client is dead and it is his murder we are investigating. And his wife’s