Death in the Dolomites David Wagner (each kindness read aloud .TXT) 📖

“Do you know if this woman is from here or only comes for holiday?”

“She’s from here, she has to be.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She’s a ski instructor, complete with the blue ski coat they all wear, with the round patch. I took some lessons last year and my instructor wore the same outfit. Her class was waiting while she and Cam made goo-goo eyes at each other.”

It took Rick a couple seconds to come up with an Italian equivalent for “goo-goo eyes,” but Luca didn’t appear to notice the delay. “So you skied again that morning. And the rest of Friday?”

“I stayed in for the afternoon, after eating lunch here, and Cam went back up. That night he had dinner with Miss Cortese.”

“You ate here in the apartment?”

“I thought you were only interested in my brother’s movements?” Rick shrugged. “Well,” Catherine continued, “I went to a restaurant with Daniele. Daniele Lotti, he owns this apartment and the one across the hall, and he arrived in town Friday afternoon. Cam knows him from Milan, which is how he came to rent this apartment.”

“So a friend from Milan. Also a banker?”

“No, he works for a drug company, Cam met him through the American Chamber of Commerce. Daniele studied in the States.”

“Notre Dame business school?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, thank goodness.”

“So you’d met him before this trip.”

“Yes, in Milan and up here. Shouldn’t we get back to talking about my brother?”

Rick and Luca noted her tone. “Certainly,” said Rick. “Did you see your brother that night?”

“Yes, I was still up when he came in. He asked me if I was going to ski the next morning and I said I would pass and see him at lunch. I needed a morning off. ”

“So he went out skiing the next morning.”

“I have to assume so. His ski clothes are gone from his closet, and his skis, boots, and poles are not in the building’s storage room in the basement. But his scuffs, which he wears down the elevator, are in his boot locker down there. So he put on his ski boots and walked out to the street carrying his skis, like we always do.”

Luca said something to Rick while she watched. He translated. “The inspector wonders why you waited until Sunday afternoon to notify the authorities.”

“I expected you to ask that,” she said, shifting in her chair. “I thought my brother had run into that woman again and they’d decided to spend the day together. And when it got late in the evening I assumed one thing had led to another.” Rick nodded and Luca kept his eyes on the small pad, filling its pages with notes. “But when I got up Sunday morning and he wasn’t here, I began to get worried. In the afternoon I called the embassy in Milan.”

“Consulate,” Rick corrected. It was a pet peeve.

“Whatever. Cam had given me their number on my first trip to Milan last year, in case I needed it in an emergency. Since it’s the weekend, I got the duty officer, and he called the police.” She glanced at Luca. “And now you are here.”

“Please tell her, Riccardo, that—” Rick held up his hand and leaned forward toward Cat, indicating that he was going to be translating in the other direction. “—tell her that we ordered a search of the mountain by the ski patrol. They had not found anyone yesterday evening on their final run, so they did another one this morning, with special care, and came up with nothing. If she can provide me a photograph of her brother, I will give it to the local policemen, who will be glad to be doing something other than issue parking citations. We will attempt to find someone who remembers seeing him yesterday morning.”

She listened to Rick’s translation and spoke. “You must find my brother,” she said with more passion than she’d shown since their arrival. Luca noticed it, but she didn’t see the faint smile on the policeman’s face, since her attention was on Rick alone. “Let me get you a photograph. I have one from my last trip here.” She jumped to her feet. “It’s perfect since he’s wearing the same ski clothes he had on yesterday morning.”

She walked quickly out of the room and Rick noticed again that her slacks were a perfect fit. He looked at Luca whose smile had widened. Rick was about to speak when Cat returned with a picture inside a cardboard frame and passed it to Rick. Luca leaned to get a look while she returned to her chair.

The photograph was taken by one of the commercial photographers who stationed themselves on the mountain at places with the most picturesque backgrounds. It showed Cat and her brother leaning on their ski poles, a whitened peak behind them. He wore black ski pants and black boots, a light-blue ski coat, and a dark-blue baseball cap with the gold letters ND on the front. Sunglasses hung from leashes, covering the top of a red sweater visible above the zipper of the coat. Around his neck a blue print bandana was tied, almost in the style of the Old West. Cat wore a one-piece puffy suit, blue with a matching belt, and white ski boots. Her goggles were pushed up to the front of a knit cap that covered most of her blond hair. The resemblance was more than clear. The siblings had the same cheekbones and nose, and they wore similar smiles, no doubt perfected by posing for countless family albums and school yearbooks.

“I can’t make out your brother’s hair,” Rick asked. “Is he blond like you?”

“His hair is darker, almost brown.”

It was Luca’s turn to ask a question. “His skis, they look silver, but is that just the snow on them?”

“They are silver,” she answered after Rick translated. “He special-ordered them from the Kolmartz factory in Austria. Those skis and the Notre Dame cap are his most prized possessions.”

“Do you have Kolmartz skis too?”

“Heavens no. I always