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

the other side stood a group of men dressed incongruously in the elegant clothing of the fifteenth century. John tipped water from a shell over the head of a praying Jesus, and high above was the Almighty, flanked by angels, looking down on it all.

Rick sat down next to Garcia, and they studied the scene for several minutes before the Spaniard broke the silence.

“I would bet my salary that the men on the right were the ones paying the artist. Didn’t they used to do that a lot, Ricardo?”

The use of the first name was surprising, but why not? The informality might help to open the guy up. “The patron of the work was often painted into the picture, Lucho, usually in a pious pose.”

“Nothing has changed. Money still talks in the art world.”

“I hope that wasn’t all you had to tell me, because I knew that already.”

He turned his head toward Rick and grunted. “No, that wasn’t it. I wanted to talk about what is happening, from my point of view. I don’t have anyone I can talk to about it, even if I spoke Italian. And if you share it with the inspector, that’s fine with me…maybe it will help him in the investigation. I don’t have anything to lose or gain at this point.”

He pushed the fingers of his right hand through his long hair before rubbing the back of his neck. “As you can imagine, the death of Manuel Somonte has put me in a somewhat precarious position, if I might understate. When he took me on six years ago it was as a favor to my father, since our families were from the same village outside Oviedo. But he made it clear from the beginning, both to me and to my father, that I would have to earn the right to be kept on the payroll. I didn’t want to let my father down, and I worked hard, so hard that Somonte brought me into the front office. This was not another favor to my father; I deserved it. In return, he taught me the ins and outs of the business but also schooled me in the things he loved outside the office, like his favorite artists and the plants. You could say that he treated me like the son he never had. Everything was going so well.”

He took a slow breath and looked at the baptism on the wall. Rick thought it would be better to let him talk, so he stared with him in silence.

“Now it’s all turned upside down. Pilar will be running the mill, and she doesn’t want to keep me on, even though I have helped her in the past.”

“How did you help her?”

Garcia’s hand returned to the back of his neck, massaging away the stress that showed in his voice. “It was probably a mistake, but when I became her father’s assistant she asked me to…well…keep her informed. She didn’t get along well with him, hadn’t for years, so she wanted someone in the front office to tell her what was going on, what decisions were about to be made, that kind of thing. She knew that he had come to trust me, telling me things that no one else knew. At the time I thought I was just being helpful, so that she didn’t have to deal with her father. Mind you, it’s not that they didn’t ever talk. She was in the weekly meetings of the section heads, but he treated her like one of them. I also justified what I was doing by thinking it was helping the company, but really I was just being a spy. Somonte never knew, of course. When we got the news that he was dead, the only positive thought I had was relief that he would never find out I was spying on him. And that I would not have to do it anymore.” He looked at Rick for the first time. “What a terrible thought, don’t you think? After all the man had done for me, and I felt relief.”

A gray-haired couple entered the chapel and walked to the right side, careful not to block the view of the frescoes for Rick and Garcia. They spoke a Scandinavian language, but Rick didn’t know which. German, he could identify, but anything north of that sounded the same to him.

“I would have thought that helping Pilar would serve you well now, since she will be taking over from her father.”

Garcia chuckled. “Yes, you certainly would think that, but it isn’t turning out that way. Yesterday she tried to change the game, and I refused.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, Ricardo, as you can imagine, her relationship with Isabella, Somonte’s wife, was even more strained than it was with her father. The two women don’t speak to each other, period. And what does Pilar want me to do, now that her father is gone, since she knows that I get along well with Isabella?” He didn’t wait for Rick to answer. “She wants me to tell her what Isabella is doing.”

“But if Pilar inherits the business, what does she care what the widow does?”

“That’s the way Pilar is. I wouldn’t be surprised if she contests the will to get more of the inheritance, just out of spite for Isabella.”

Rick found it curious that Garcia kept using the widow’s first name. Had he called her Isabella when talking to his boss? Very unlikely. What was more curious was the picture he was painting of a scheming Pilar Somonte.

“It also wouldn’t surprise me if she tried to cozy up to the police inspector. It’s the way she operates. She has certainly spent a lot of time in this country, so she knows how to be devious in both cultures.”

The comment piqued Rick’s curiosity. “She comes here often?”

“Two, three times a year. Supposedly on business to make contacts in the fashion world, but who knows what she does. The last time was just after the announcement of the