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

few of the masterpieces. The two by Piero should be along here somewhere. I’d ask the guard, but he’s busy keeping an eye on those kids.” They walked through a set of open doors into another chamber that was smaller but kept the vaulted ceilings. Only an occasional tall window distracted from the paintings, since the walls kept their somber white. “I think that’s the Madonna di Senigallia over there.”

They walked to the middle of the rectangular room, passing works of art that in lesser museums would have drawn crowds. Piero’s work had an audience of three when they reached it. An elderly couple studied the small painting, speaking German to each other in low voices. Next to them was a man whose nationality was not apparent, since he was dressed in clerical black and his silence could betray no accent. The priest, too, looked deeply into the eyes of the four figures in the painting, but unlike the Germans, he was more interested in the spiritual than the artistic.

Rick saw the hand of Piero immediately in the faces of all four figures. They had the drooping eyes and wide forehead, just like the painting in Sansepolcro, and they stood stiffly, as if the artist had placed them in a pose and asked them not to move. Only the angel on Mary’s right looked straight at the viewer; the other angel stared at the head of the Madonna, and the eyes of the Virgin herself were cast downward. The infant Jesus held up his hand in a gesture of blessing while looking into the distance, perhaps considering his future. Even the small piece of doorway and ceiling in the background showed Piero’s mastery of perspective, as did his subtle use of light that washed over the four from an unseen window to the left. Every detail of a Renaissance painting had a message, and Rick wished he had his book of signs and symbols to decode these. Why the piece of coral around the baby’s neck, and what was the flower he was holding? The colors on the Virgin’s dress—what did they represent? The basket on the shelf was most puzzling.

He was about to ask Betta when his concentration was broken by familiar voices coming from three paintings away. They were spoken by a man and a woman, and the language was Spanish. He leaned toward Betta’s ear. “I believe it’s Signora Somonte and Lucho Garcia, and they appear to be having some sort of disagreement. Stay here and I’ll say hello.”

“I was not expecting her meddling—you should have foreseen it,” said the widow to Garcia. The sharpness in her tone was the same as when she had met with Rick and DiMaio in the hotel, but without the nasal flatness. Her cold had abated.

“Do you think I saw it coming?” Unlike on the previous day, Garcia was less than deferential to his boss’s widow.

When the two Spaniards noticed Rick walking toward them, the conversation stopped and their faces assumed stiff smiles. Signora Somonte was dressed more sedately than yesterday, but only slightly. Today it was a dark pantsuit with low boots, and her blond hair was more in order. In contrast Garcia wore the same jacket and pants, perhaps the same shirt, but a different tie than Rick remembered.

“Señor…?” she began and stopped. Garcia whispered in her ear. She went on. “Montoya. Of course I remember you, Señor. I just did not expect to see you here.”

“Nor did I expect to see you, Señora, but it is good that you are out and about. Your cold seems to be better.”

“It is.” She was searching for something to say. “This museum was one of Manuel’s favorite places in Italy. I thought it would be right for me to visit it before returning to Spain.”

“I understand completely. When are you planning to fly home?”

“It will depend on the police. Your police.”

“It may take some time to find who killed your husband, Señora.”

“I know that, but I was hoping that the drawing would turn up. That maldito drawing that is the cause of all this.” Her voice betrayed frustration mixed with anger.

“You will take it back to Spain?”

She glanced at Garcia. “I haven’t decided. It’s mine now that Manuel is gone.”

“Of course,” said Rick. He had assumed the donation would go forward once the drawing was found, but this was not the time to discuss the commitment Somonte had made to the museum in Sansepolcro. Did her indecision—if that’s what it was—add a new twist to the murder investigation? “I know Inspector DiMaio is working hard to find it.” He could have added that finding the drawing was likely the same as finding the murderer. “I will call you immediately if he has any news, but if I can be of any assistance in the meantime, as an interpreter, you can call me. I gave Señor Garcia my hotel phone number yesterday.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice indicating that the conversation was over.

Rick took the hint, said goodbye, and returned to Betta’s side. The three other people who had been studying the painting had been replaced by two others who spoke Italian with a northern accent.

“I was watching as you talked to them. Signora Somonte doesn’t appear to have settled well into her role as the grieving widow, and I can’t help but speculate on the relationship between her and Garcia.”

“My thoughts exactly, Betta. Shall we be on our way?”

* * *

Most of the route from Urbino to Monterchi was on the road they had driven the day before. The car made the same bends and cutbacks, and the views were the same, but the difference was that now they were going downhill. Fortunately they didn’t find themselves behind a truck or other slow-moving vehicle this time. After an especially serpentine series of cutbacks they reached the Tiber River valley where the terrain became boringly flat, but Rick was not about to complain. Instead of retracing their route exactly by turning north