Last First Kiss, page 15
Sal finished his pasta and Alessia put the bowl and their wineglasses in the sink, then they locked up the café and went next door to Sal’s jewelry store.
“Da, it always smells like wet rock and old saddles back here.” Alessia dropped her bag on the old leather couch in the back room while her father clicked on the stained-glass lamps that instantly gave his office a cave-like ambiance. He settled himself on the chair across from her and started patting his pockets for a lighter.
“I can fix that for you, you know.” Alessia raised an eyebrow in her father’s direction. “I can come in and spritz everything down with some rosewater and lavender oil.”
“Don’t you dare.” Sal winked at Alessia as he poured the grappa into two floral teacups with gold trim, one missing a handle, and handed one to his daughter.
“Salute,” he said, lifting his glass and clinking it to hers.
“Salute.”
They sipped the grappa in silence. Alessia felt herself tense under the weight of having not one but two dead bodies all but in the room with them. She knew her dad well enough to know what he was thinking: One is a coincidence. Two is a plan.
She sank back into the couch, rubbing away the start of a headache from her forehead and stared at the opposite stone wall. The light from the lamps was just enough to illuminate a spiderweb in the corner where condensation clung to the spun silver strands shimmering as a fat black spider made her way across it.
“Da,” Alessia said. “Do you remember that conversation we had in the café a few weeks ago?”
“I think I know what you’re talking about,” Sal said, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. “It was right after the Anton Perelli case. He showed up at the train station in Rome and threatened to kill you because you’d just put his wife on a train.”
“That’s right. So we sat down in the café that evening and wrote down all the details we had about Anton and that other guy who threatened to hunt me down earlier, Matteo Carvasio. Both of them knew I’d helped their wives escape, and threatened to kill them and then come after me.”
She wound her hair into a quick bun and speared it with the pen she’d found in her pocket, only to have it promptly slide out and disappear into the sofa cushions. She sighed and started again.
“You wanted to see if you could find a connection between the two,” Alessia said, finally getting the pen to stay in her hair.
“And I looked for weeks. I never found anything that connected them.”
“Maybe there was nothing to find,” Alessia said, twisting the lid off her lip balm and smoothing it across her lips with her ring finger. She leaned back into the couch, closing her eyes and letting out a slow breath. “We both know it’s my fault. I’ve been so distracted since the…since Liz.”
She looked down to blink away the burn of unwelcome tears as she tucked her lip balm back in her pocket.
“We’ve been doing this together for how many years?” Alessia asked as she looked up at her father. “And in all that time, none of those men knew who I was or where to find me. Now three of them have threatened to kill me, and at least one seems intent on backing that threat up.”
Sal shook his head and started to say something, but Alessia held up her hand.
“Da, it’s okay. I know I’ve been sloppy, and with the Underground, that can get us killed. There’s no excuse for it.”
Sal looked at his daughter with warm eyes and leaned forward in his chair. “You talk like you are not human, Flower. Like you don’t have a heart that was shattered into a thousand pieces.” He reached out for her hand and squeezed it gently between both of his. “It takes time to find them all and put those back together again. To be able to focus on anything else.”
He leaned back in his chair and pulled two cigars out of the box on the end of the coffee table. “You will smoke with me, no?” He waited for her to smile then cut the ends, taking his time lighting one of them, then handing it to his daughter, who shot a playful glance at the door.
“You know Ma will kill you herself for turning me to the dark side, right?”
“What?” Sal drew on his cigar and examined the end until he was satisfied with the burn. “The Underground? She always knew you’d step in when your aunt Lucia died. We just don’t talk about it.”
“No, Da,” Alessia said, puffing out a perfect ring of velvety grey smoke that lingered above their heads like a ghost in the room. “Cigars. She knows about the Underground. I meant she’d kill you if she knew you ever taught me to smoke.”
“Ah!” Sal nodded enthusiastically and dropped his lighter on the coffee table with a clatter. “Yes, that is a certainty.”
They smoked in companionable silence until Alessia looked over at him, something just occurring to her.
“Maybe there’s not a connection between the names on that list.” She reached over and pulled the terracotta ashtray over into the center of the coffee table. “Anton saw us leaving the house and followed us to the train station, so that explains how he knew who I was. And who knows how Matteo found out? His ex-wife could have written down my name and he saw it, or someone at the hospital could have told him. It could have been anything.”
“But what do we know about this dead body in France?” Sal asked. “Do you know who it is?”
“Maybe. Do you remember that woman in Sicily who escaped after being held in a basement for weeks by her ex-husband?”
“That one stood out,” Sal said, finishing his grappa and setting the teacup down on the table. “She’s the only one that has ever contacted us herself to ask for help. You handled most of that one, though, so I never knew much about it.”
“We knew her as Mary at the time, but that was Marianna Perelli, Anton’s wife.”
Sal nodded slowly, putting the pieces together in his mind. “And how did she find out about us?”
“She wouldn’t say.” Alessia kicked off her sandals and pulled her legs underneath her on the couch. “But I think a connection in the hospital tipped her off. She was in there for days with an armed guard at her door after she escaped.”
Sal paused, puzzled. “But we placed her in Finland, not France. How does she connect to this?”
“We did send her to Finland with a new passport and papers, but Anton showed up at her door there three weeks later. Fortunately, someone else was in the house and called the police, so no one got hurt.”
“And where was I?” Sal asked, finally producing his lighter from his jacket pocket with a flourish. “I don’t remember any of this.”
“You were in Napa Valley with Ma when it happened.” Alessia refilled her father’s glass with a short pour of grappa. “Remember, that trip I got you for Christmas?”
“Ah…I do remember that. Excellent chardonnay.” He locked his eyes onto Alessia’s. “But what I don’t remember is my daughter telling me anything about it.”
“I didn’t need to ruin your holiday, Da. I handled it. I got in touch with Mirelle, our French connection, and we placed Marianna in a new safehouse.”
“Oh, no,” Sal said, reaching for the bottle of grappa and holding it aloft as the thought formed in his head. “You said we have a body in France…”
“It wasn’t Marianna. She’s thriving, and wants to be part of the Underground someday, apparently. I called Mirelle this morning to make sure she’s still safe.” She paused. “The body is Anton Perelli, but no names have been released yet. It looks like they’re keeping this one pretty quiet.”
“So how do you know this?” Sal rubbed his head, standing his wiry hair on end. “Did someone tell you it’s Anton?”
Alessia ran her hand through her hair. “Parker told me about the murder.”
Sal held Alessia’s gaze, then tapped his cigar ash into the ashtray. “But not the identity of the victim?”
“She can’t.” Alessia pulled her legs underneath her on the couch. “They don’t know yet.”
Sal paused, gaze fixed on his daughter, then took another sip of his grappa and went to his desk and shuffled through the top drawer.
“I’m still not sure what Anton and Matteo have in common besides the obvious. But there has to be something. And if I’m remembering right,” he said, ducking to look toward the back of the drawer and yanking out a handful of stuck-together Post-It notes. “There were three men on the list, and that’s just two.” He looked up, rumpled Post-Its fluttering down into a pile at his feet. “Who was the third?”
“John Haley, the one that got shot at the airport. I had you add him the first night Parker came for dinner out on the patio. Ma had me meet Parker at the café door downstairs and I called you while I was waiting for her. You were still here at the jewelry store.”
Sal nodded, still digging into the drawer with one hand while trying to fling a stubborn lime-green Post-It off his other palm.
“I hadn’t gone to Greece yet. We were just starting to work the case, but I had a bad feeling about him.”
Sal stood up slowly, clutching a fistful of papers. “And now he’s dead.”
Alessia nodded, tossing her grappa back in one shot and setting her cup back down on the table.
“Yes,” she said. “It seems he has that in common with Anton.”
“Doesn’t Mirelle’s brother work with law enforcement there in Paris?”
“Yes, but all he could tell her is that the victim had the address of Marianna’s new safehouse in his shirt pocket, and he was one block from it with a loaded gun in his lap when he was killed.”
“So,” Sal said, giving up and wedging the drawer shut with papers still hanging out of it. “Three men on that list threatened to kill their partners, then come after you. And if that’s Anton, two of them are now dead.”
“So the question is,” said Alessia, locking eyes with her father. “Where is Matteo?”
Parker pulled up to the entrance of Toscana Vineyards at sunset, shoving a small notebook in her uniform jacket and scanning the endless rows of trellises. Alessia had called her back late in the afternoon and asked Parker to meet her at the vineyard, but had hung up before Parker could ask where to find her when she got there. She walked toward the sun that hung low and heavy over the mountains, glazing the fruit with a copper shimmer. The air was still except for the warm wind that moved through the vines, shifting the leaves and picking up the scent of the lush coral roses planted at the end of every row.
As she locked the car, she caught a glimpse of Alessia halfway down a row of trellises. She was on her knees, her face dipped close to the ground. Parker started down the row, trailing her fingers across the green, luminous grapes dripping from the vines. They were still warm from the sun and glided like suede across her fingertips.
“Don’t come any closer,” Alessia said, still kneeling with her face to the ground. “Your scent will mix into the air and alter what I’m getting from the soil.”
Parker stopped where she was, a smile forming against her will at the sight of Alessia on her hands and knees, ass in the air, her hair falling onto the ground around her face like a pool of brown silk. “Don’t come any closer” was not typically what women said when they were in that position in front of her, but Alessia was far from typical.
She sat up after a few moments, twisting her hair at the nape of her neck, then dipped her hands into a zinc bucket of water under the low-hanging grapes. She dried them on the hem of her simple white linen dress, her brows knit together in thought.
“Permission to approach?”
Parker waited until Alessia looked up and smiled before she walked down the row. When she got to her, Parker slid her hand around the back of her neck, as soft as thought. Alessia closed her eyes and leaned slowly into Parker’s chest.
Parker smiled and held her close. “If I didn’t know you were a super tough outlaw, I’d almost think you’re happy to see me.”
Alessia smiled up at Parker. “Don’t get excited, I am a super tough outlaw.” She glanced down at Parker’s hand. “And watch the thigh harness.”
Parker assumed she was kidding until she ran her hand up the outside of Alessia’s thigh and encountered the handgun, cold and heavy against her palm.
“Jesus,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re serious.”
“I’m always serious.” Alessia leaned down to pick up the zinc bucket and wine bottle waiting under the vines. Parker took them from her and emptied the water, tucking them both under her arm as they started walking back down the row.
“What were you doing back there?”
“I was studying the scent of the soil,” Alessia said, stopping to pick a handful of grapes and hold them up to Parker. “Tell me what you smell.”
Parker leaned in. “I don’t want you to be intimidated by my skills here, but I smell…warm grapes?”
“That’s good,” Alessia said. “But is it a clean smell? Or do you smell something else, like mold or rot?”
“No, it actually smells great.”
“Very good,” Alessia said with a smile, starting to walk again. “But for the owner of the vineyard, Christian, that’s confusing, since his estimated yield this year looks to be about half of what it was last year, and that doesn’t happen for no reason. If we can identify the problem and fix it in the next three days or so, the grapes that are lagging behind will still have time to mature before harvest.”
“Is that why he called you in?”
“Yes, but he called everyone else first. I was his last resort.”
“And why was that?” Parker said, glancing over at Alessia, who had paused to lay the picked grapes carefully at the base of the vines. “Word has it you’re the best in the business. And by ‘word,’ I mean Google.”
Alessia laughed, her warm brown eyes sparkling in the last of the sunlight. “You Googled me?”
“Maybe. And it seems you are the wine industry’s answer to just about everything. Vintner Magazine called you ‘The Grape Whisperer.’”
“I don’t know about that,” Alessia said, taking a turn into another row. “I think I just smell things that other people might not. And from that, I usually know what they need to add to fortify their soil or how to fix an issue with the actual product, like I was doing today.”
“So why would he not call you first?” Parker asked. “He must know your reputation.”
“It’s been a hard couple of years for Christian.” Alessia leaned down and untangled a knot of new vine shoots at the base of the row. “He’s more of an academic than a vintner. His brother was into actually crafting the wine hands-on, but Christian has been a judge with the Court of Master Sommeliers for ten years—the organization that awards the title of Master Sommelier.” They reached the end of a row and Alessia guided them into the next. “He was also the only person that voted against me when I took the exam in Austria.”
The sun sank behind the mountain, turning the light into a soft violet haze, and the owls were just beginning to call within the trees surrounding the vineyard. The air suddenly felt cool. Parker shrugged off her uniform jacket and put it around Alessia’s shoulders.
“Why would he do that?”
Alessia looked up and smiled, waiting until she saw the answer flash across Parker’s mind.
“Seriously? Because you’re a woman?”
Alessia nodded. “I had a nearly perfect score on all three sections of the test, and it was the first time I’d sat for it. Some people take years to pass even one of the sections, and the candidates are almost always men. He just instantly disliked me.”
“But they awarded it to you anyway?”
“Right.” Alessia smiled at the memory. “And that didn’t go over well with him either. I knew when he called me for advice on this problem with his grapes that I had to be his last resort. Like, last-last.” Alessia pulled her arms through the sleeves of Parker’s jacket and held it around her as she walked. “His brother died unexpectedly and left him the vineyard last year, so he’s had to learn on his feet. He’s actually in Rome now at a training seminar and asked me to stop in and see what I could find.”
Parker stopped and squinted at what looked like a small building about a hundred yards ahead of them. “What’s that?”
“That’s a wine house.” A breeze blew a dark wisp of hair into Alessia’s eyes and she tucked it behind her ear. “There’s usually at least one in most European vineyards, and it’s usually just more of one open room than a house. Before harvesting got as sophisticated as it is now, it served as a shelter for anyone who needed to spend the night in the vineyard to keep an eye on the grapes at harvest.”
“So most are abandoned now?”
“Most aren’t used for the original purpose now, but I’ve seen several set up like open-air bars in the summer, where the vintner’s friends and family can sit and drink surrounded by the vines.”
She took Parker’s hand and led her through the rows until they came into the clearing for the wine house. It was made of greyed cedar shiplap boards, and the window openings had shutters that were held back by iron clasps, but there was no glass in the frames, allowing the wind to sweep lazily through the house, lofting the edges of the bleached muslin curtains. A simple wood deck spanned the front of the house, adorned only with a square yellow table and two white iron chairs.
“I love this,” Parker said, trailing her fingers over the hammered copper hinges on the door, streaked with green and pale turquoise from the rain. “Do you think anyone ever comes in here?”
“Let’s find out.”
Alessia turned the door handle and swung open the door that protested with a loud creak. The inside was darker than the light still falling over the vineyards, but Parker could still see an old farm table with peeling sky-blue paint to one side of the single room, as well as the raw wood floors. Across from the table there were several square leather ottomans on rollers. They were pushed together to form an expansive square big enough for several people, topped by dozens of huge down pillows covered in in varying textures of linen and cotton, and all in shades of the ocean: sand, sky, and water.
“Whoever decorated this needs to come to the NATO base and take a shot at the barracks.” Alessia smiled as Parker examined the burnished copper oil lamps mounted on the walls. “Is this the only light source?”
