To Die in Tuscany, David Wagner [best novel books to read .TXT] 📗

There was a buyer from Milan, but he dropped out early.” He paused for more thought. “Of course the museum here was very interested when they found out about it, but they couldn’t afford the price. Vitellozzi, the director, asked me to hold off while he looked for some donor to cover it, but I couldn’t wait. Both Morelli and Somonte were pressuring me to make a decision.”

DiMaio had a pen in his hand that he tapped on the desk. “Did you see Somonte before he was killed?”

“I did. He came by my shop in the morning. He had the drawing with him in a leather case he’d had made for it. He said he was showing it to people for the last time before it went into the museum in Sansepolcro, which I thought was a bit of bruta figura. ‘Look how generous I am,’ he was saying.” Bruzzone frowned and shook his head.

DiMaio recalled what Morelli had told him about their meeting for coffee, when Somonte had brought out the drawing to remind his adversary who had won the bidding war. Apparently, he did something similarly petty with Bruzzone. The image DiMaio was forming of the murdered man was less than positive. It was not mentioned in the interview room earlier, but perhaps Morelli didn’t think it important. Or the drawing was so much of a sore point that he didn’t want to bring up again.

“You didn’t see Somonte again?”

“I did not. That evening I was at home since my wife was not feeling well.”

A contrast with Morelli the bachelor, thought DiMaio. And unlike Morelli, Bruzzone had answered the inevitable question about his whereabouts at the time of the murder without being asked. Like everyone else in Italy, Bruzzone must watch too many TV crime shows. At least he wasn’t obsessed with crime novels.

Chapter Six

The term Renaissance Man may well have been coined to describe the most renowned former resident of Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Federico, Duke of Montefeltro, practiced the ruthless art of mercenary warfare, building a fortune by fighting for whichever city-state would pay him the most. Yet he wanted history to remember him not as a warrior but as an intellectual who brought the most famous artists of the day to his court and built a library rivaled only by that of the pope. A famous portrait showed a seated Federico in full armor, his infant son, Guidobaldo, leaning on his father’s knee. The duke’s sword remained sheathed on his belt, allowing him to use both his hands to hold a book that he read intently while the boy stared into the future. It was appropriate, then, that in later centuries when city-states joined into a single modern Italy, Federico’s palace would again be a center for culture. The Galleria Nazionale delle Marche was not just the finest museum in the region but one of the most distinguished in Italy.

Viewed from the street outside, the Palazzo Ducale was not impressive. Austere was the word that came to Rick’s mind when he looked at the facade, part of which looked out on the small square between it and the cathedral. Except for some lightly decorative stone between the doors, and stonework around the windows of the second floor, the building displayed its original brick. A frieze that began at the corner of the building ran for only a few yards, adding to the sense that the palace was a yet unfinished work of medieval architecture.

They were expected. The guard at the entrance handed them a floor plan and indicated on it where to find Vitellozzi on the secondo piano. Betta thanked her and they walked inside.

“Aren’t the stairs that way?”

“They are, Rick, but let’s take a quick look at the courtyard; it’s one of the finest in Italy.”

She was right. Open to the sky and the size of a basketball court, it was surrounded by Corinthian columns and looping arches, creating a continuous portico on all four sides. Above the columns Latin inscriptions ran below and above the windows of the piano nobile, the second-floor apartments and reception rooms.

“I can picture Federico receiving distinguished visitors here, and knowing that they were duly impressed.”

“That was the idea,” said Betta. “But he also used this courtyard to stage concerts and theater for invited guests. They still do concerts here in the summer, but now you have to buy a ticket.” She touched his arm. “Let’s go find Vitellozzi.”

After climbing an elegant flight of low stairs, they found themselves in the rooms of the museum, and using the floor plan, they made their way to the spot where Vitellozzi was said to be found. Like the walls in the other rooms they passed through, this room’s walls were white and plain, making the colors of their paintings more vivid by contrast. The art was spaced at wide intervals, but with so much space there was no need to crowd. A fireplace centered in one wall was large enough that Rick could have stood up inside it. He concluded that if that was the only heating in the chamber, even with a roaring fire, the duke would have needed his long underwear on a winter night. A uniformed guard sat in a folding chair near the door, and two people who were clearly tourists stood before one of the paintings. No sign of anyone who might be Vitellozzi.

Betta walked quickly to the guard, who looked like he was nodding off. “We were told to find Dottor Vitellozzi here.”

He looked up, startled. “What? Oh, yes, Vitellozzi. He was expecting someone. Through that door.” The guard pointed to the far end of the room where a sign reading “Closed to the Public” guarded the tall wood door. The heels of Rick’s cowboy boots clicked on the floor as they crossed the room to reach it.

The room on the other side of the door was the same size as the one they’d just left and had a similar massive fireplace, but in contrast