Fragolino Fuchsia Read online

  Forget throwing the gavel at Veronica, I wanted that judge to charge her with contempt—of colleague and best friend. “Never mind the men. Something happened to those boys, and the proof is that they missed their flights.”

  “They’re college kids.” She separated her breasts and spritzed them with Prada Candy perfume. “Maybe they went off with some other spring breakers and forgot to change their tickets.”

  “But Mr. Savoie told Veronica that they’re not answering their phones, email, or social media messages, which is a violation of everything tech geeks believe in, i.e., technology.”

  “Don’t you fret, Miss Franki. We’re going to sniff them out like truffle-hunting trollops.” She leaned across the armrest. “I packed a few extras for you to make sure of it.”

  The plane went into a free fall.

  No, wait. That was my stomach. I had all kinds of ideas about what she’d meant by “extras,” and I didn’t want to explore any of them. “Please tell me you’re talking about investigative devices.”

  She rolled her eyes like I was the outrageous one. “I was talkin’ about sleuthin’ suits.”

  I flashed back to the stripper Sherlock Holmes number she’d put together when Veronica paid her to consult with me on a strip club murder case. And that memory was so vivid I pulled down my sleep mask.

  Glenda squeezed my hand. “Isn’t it marvelous, sugar? We’ll be in Italy dressed up like twins.”

  Talk about foul play.

  3

  We are happy to welcome you to the hotel after so many years.” Elio Guida, the forty-year-old manager, handed me a tiny plastic cup of espresso from a coffee vending machine. “Did you have a nice trip?”

  I marveled at his English. Since tourism was Italy’s main industry, many Italians were fairly skilled in the language, but Elio spoke it better than I did. “Except for the cab ride.”

  His mustache twitched, and a laugh escaped his lips. He leaned against the reception counter in front of the office. “Yes, well, in Rome we are famous for our traffic.”

  Traffic hadn’t been the issue—Glenda had. She’d struck up a conversation with our tassista, but mainly in body language. Throughout the half-hour ride, she’d waved her glitter flag in the rearview mirror, and he’d pledged allegiance with his eyes. At one point I had to grab the wheel—from the backseat. “I kind of like the chaos.” Unless it had to do with my uninvited travel companion. “I just wish I was here for a better reason.”

  The laughter left his upturned brown eyes. “We are very worried about your colleague and his friend. Have you had any news?”

  “Nothing.” I sunk onto a black leather couch. “Is this a good time to talk about that?”

  “Certo.” He sat in a chair beside me. “But I will have to answer the phone until Silvana returns with Miss O’Brien.”

  “Totally fine.” Actually, it was more than fine. Silvana Spaccino, a long-time employee, was giving Glenda a tour of the hotel, which meant she was too busy to unpack those sleuthing suits. “Do you know what time the boys left the hotel on Saturday?”

  “Enrico was working the reception, and he said it was eight o’clock. He contacted the police on Sunday morning after a maid brought their breakfast and discovered they had not slept in their room.”

  I stirred my coffee with a tiny plastic stick. “Did they tell Enrico where they were going?”

  Elio looked at the floor and rested his forearms on his knees. “He feels very sorry about this because he was on the phone with a client.”

  So the boys hadn’t asked him to call them a cab, which meant they’d taken the bus or metro to their destination. “Did they ask you or anyone for sight-seeing suggestions?”

  He shook his head. “I think maybe they had a list of ancient Roman sites already prepared.”

  I’d suspected as much given David’s penchant for research. “What about their parents? Have they arrived yet?”

  “They are staying near the police station, and their fathers came to inspect their room with a commissario this morning.”

  “Look what Silvana gave me, sugar.” Glenda strutted into the lobby dressed like a leopard had bred with a bird.

  I drained my espresso in a gulp, wishing Elio had made me a caffè corretto with grappa, instead.

  She struck a Mae West pose with her cigarette holder in a full-length leopard coat that sprouted fuchsia feathers. “A guest left it.”

  My euro was on a pimp or a model from the runways of Milan.

  Silvana entered with a basket of cornetti, or croissants. She was an attractive brunette who was always cheerful, and the smile she gave me when she placed the basket on a coffee table spoke volumi.

  “Grazie.” I was grateful for more than the pastries, and she knew it. After thanking her, I uttered a mental gratias ago to Jupiter, the Roman god of weather, for the unexpected cold snap.

  The office phone rang a muted trill.

  “Even the Italian phones speak the language of love.” Glenda blew a smoke heart at Elio and caressed her breastbone. “How alluring.”

  “Rispondo io.” He hurried to the office, fuchsia in the face. As a hotel manager he’d met frisky foreigners from all over the globe, but even in the land of amore, Glenda seemed like an oversexed alien.

  “Hotel Residence Magnolia.” Elio pronounced the “gn” in magnolia like the letters in lasagna.

  I scrutinized his expression, trying to tell if the call was about David and the vassal.

  “Sì, signora.” He held up the receiver and looked at me. “It is your nonna.”

  Nonna?

  My stomach was heavy, like I’d eaten the pastries and the basket. I hadn’t told my family about my Rome trip, and my Sicilian grandma was the reason. Since I’d turned sixteen, she’d been operating a get-Franki-married machine that ran as smooth as a Maserati. And with me in the motherland, Nonna was going to floor it and do donuts in the Piazza Navona.

  “Did you hear Elio, Miss Franki?” Glenda preened in a lobby mirror.

  I glanced from side to side like a caged leopard-bird. Escape was impossible. In Italy, not taking a call from your nonna was a bigger sin than refusing an audience with the pope.

  Rising on legs like spaghetti, I undulated into the office and took the phone. “Hello?”

  “You go to Italia, and I have-a to hear it from-a Veronica?”

  Not only did I hope the judge threw the gavel at my best friend and cited her for contempt, I wanted him to cart her to jail and give me the key. “Nonna, I came to find David and the vassal. They’ve gone missing.”

  “Your husband has-a gone-a missing too. Why don’t you look-a for him while you’re there?”

  I sat behind Elio’s desk and put my head in my hand. “I’ve been dating Bradley for two years, and I’m happy with the way things are.”

  She was silent, but I heard a click.

  A whooping sound started, and my chest tightened. Was it an elder care alarm system?

  Before I could speak, a woman began singing.

  And my anxiety turned to annoyance.

  The whooping was the opening to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”

  There was another click, and the music stopped.

  “Any questions?” Nonna’s tone was as dry as 00 pizza flour.

  Only one. How oversaturated was a singer’s music when an eighty-year-old Sicilian woman who never left the house owned it?

  Multiple cracks were audible, probably my nonna’s knuckles.

  “Now, you’ve got-a something Italian-a men want. Use-a this trip-a to advertise it.”

  Despite my commitment to Bradley, I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Italian men were renowned for their sex appeal and romanticism, and if I was irresistible to them, I wanted to know the reason. For my self-esteem, of course. “What is that, exactly?”

  “Citizenship.”

  My intrigue turned to irritation. Bunch of self-absorbed mamma’s boys.

  “If you like-a, I’ll make-a so
me calls—”

  “I don’t like-a, Nonna.” I had to cut her off, or the Residence would’ve been overrun with Romeos—and not the tragic-hero type from Shakespeare, just the plain tragic kind. “I’m not here to meet a man. I’m here to investigate, so I have to run. Ciao ciao.”

  Glenda entered the office. “Everything okay at home, Miss Franki?”

  “Is it ever?” I turned to Elio. “Could we see the boys’ room?”

  “Subito.” He selected a key from a wooden hook board and led us to the elevator, which was no bigger than a broom closet, and we crammed inside along with Glenda’s lit cigarette.

  “Like anchovies in a can.” Glenda shot Elio a barracuda look. “With a shark.”

  I batted away a feather and brushed ash from my shirt. This trip was not going to be a remake of Gidget Goes to Rome.

  We arrived on the third floor, and Elio led us to the room Veronica and I had shared years before.

  He unlocked the door, and I walked through the living area, kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom, alternating between remembering old times and taking stock of the boys’ things. My heart half broke when I saw one of the boy’s retainers and a Tex Willer comic book.

  Glenda stretched out on a futon couch in her feathered fur coat and kicked up her “Fly Me” shoes. “See anything odd, Miss Franki?”

  She was talking about the room. But still.

  I ran my hand along the buffet. “There’s almost nothing here.” David and the vassal were gadget guys, but apart from some travel adapters I didn’t see a single device. “Did Enrico happen to notice whether they were carrying laptops when they left?”

  Elio rested his hand on the dining table. “The maid said their computers were here when she brought breakfast, so it is possible that the police confiscated them this morning.”

  Because I’d been a cop, I knew it was standard procedure in missing persons cases to search computer hard drives for clues. “The police didn’t tell you what they took?”

  “Under Italian law, hotel staff is not allowed to know what police remove from a guest’s room.” He put his hands into his pockets. “But the maid mentioned another item that I do not see.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A narrow cloth bag about sixty centimeters long.” He gestured a length of about two feet.

  Fortunately, Italians used their hands when they spoke, or I would’ve had no idea how long the bag was. “Like a tripod, or something?”

  “I cannot know.” He hesitated. “But she said it looked like a weapon.”

  There was an empty feeling in my abdomen as though my stomach had been confiscated. David and the vassal wouldn’t have had a weapon. But if the police had taken the bag, it was evidence.

  But of what?

  A crime that had been committed against them?

  4

  You sure you not under arrest-a?” The thirty-something officer at the Questura Centrale asked Glenda and me for the third time while a squadron of policemen gawked on.

  I stared at the stuccoed ceiling seeking inner calm. I’d already explained the reason for our visit in perfect Italian, but as local men were wont to do, he insisted on showing off his English.

  “Like I said,” I practically growled, “we have committed no crime.” I held up my PI license. “I’m a private investigator from the United States.” I pointed at Glenda. “And she’s my associate. We’re here for information about missing American college students.”

  He sized me up, shifted his gaze to Glenda, and looked her down and up again.

  Never one to disappoint an audience, my esteemed associate held out her cigarette holder and opened her coat, revealing a sexified Southern Italian peasant outfit that seemed tailor-made for dancing the strip tarantella.

  I collapsed onto a bench to wait out the consequences, which included (but were not limited to) a collective gasp followed by exclamations of “Madonna” and “Mamma Mia,” whistles, gestures aimed at the heavens, a few wipes of the brow, and a hat toss.

  And I thought I’d been so clever when I’d talked her out of the sleuthing suits by arguing that she didn’t want to misrepresent her profession at a police station.

  The questioning officer, whose white gun belt had gone askew in the ensuing chaos, shifted his stance and looked at me. “She no work-a for you?”

  A realization struck me like a police baton. He thought Glenda was a prostituta—and I was her madama. And given that she had thirty-five or so years on me, I resented the assumption. Moltissimo. “Officer Mongelluzzo, I need to speak with your supervisor.”

  He put his hand on his hat and recoiled as though I’d slapped him for indecency. “You wan’ to speak-a with Commissario Boccadifuoco?”

  After I’d heard the inspector’s surname, I wasn’t so sure. Boccadifuoco meant “mouth of fire,” and I was in no mood for any more lip. But this wasn’t about me, it was about the boys, so I womaned up. “This instant.”

  He made a tch sound with his tongue and the roof of his mouth, which in Italy was a definitive “no.”

  My blood boiled hotter than a pasta pot, and while I was trying to keep a lid on it, a buxom woman who looked to be around forty burst from an office in a chic police pencil skirt and a cloud of musk perfume.

  “Oh!” She pressed her hands together. “Ma che è ‘sto casino?”

  Based on the rather heated way she’d inquired about the noise, I ID’d her on the spot. “Commissario Boccadifuoco?”

  She sized me up much like her male counterparts. “Sì?”

  “Sono Francesca Amato, investigatore privato. Potrei parlarle di un caso?” After I’d introduced myself and asked to speak to her about a case, I thought I saw recognition in her gaze.

  “Follow me, please.”

  Her English reply was ice water in my boiling pot. No matter how well I spoke the language, Italians could always sniff my American out.

  She reentered her office, and when I turned to close the door to Officer Mongelluzzo’s worried eyes, my eyes took on a worried look of their own.

  A barista from a nearby bar had entered with caffè on a tray, and an older officer took one of the cups, bowed with a flourish, and offered it to my open-coated associate.

  The last thing I needed was Glenda all jacked up in a puny peasant outfit with a roomful of policemen as a captive audience. “Go easy on the caffeine, okay?” I gave her a pointed look. “And close your coat.”

  She sat on a desk and kicked up her legs, and another officer lit her a cigarette. “I know how to be professional, Miss Franki.”

  Right. A professional stripper.

  I left the door ajar.

  The inspector gestured to a chair facing her desk, and when I sat before her, I got the impression I was about to be sentenced by a judge.

  “You are a private investigator?” Her tone was skeptical, like her eyes.

  I leaned back in the chair. Male officers sometimes gave me that kind of attitude, but I hadn’t expected it from a woman. “From New Orleans. One of the two American students who went missing on Saturday, David Savoie, is an employee at my firm.”

  She took a candy from a dish and removed the wrapper. “It surprises me that you would work in law after your swim in the Fontana di Trevi.”

  The ice water went straight to my veins, and the memory of my drunken fountain dip flooded back. “You . . . know about that?”

  Her full lips thinned but remained impressively plump. “Your picture appeared on a poster advising tourists to respect our monuments.”

  I froze like I’d been caught frolicking in the fountain again. Evidently, the fact that the charges were dropped didn’t disqualify me from having my face splashed all over anti-crime ad campaigns.

  “That was the night I discovered limoncello.” I gave a sheepish grin. “And something about the refreshing flavor and the pure grain alcohol inspired me to reenact the Mastroianni-Ekberg scene.”

  She popped the candy and wadded up the wrapper. “See that you do not
get such an inspiration again. That fountain dates to 1732, and we intend to preserve it for many more centuries.”

  I could feel my pot getting hot again. Who did this dragon think she was dredging up my youthful transgression? “Not to be rude, but I didn’t fly to Rome to relive my college days. I came to find out if you have any leads on my colleague and his friend.”

  Boccadifuoco studied me and crunched the candy. “What we know is that they attempted to buy a gladio from the third century.”

  “What’s that?”

  “In Latin, gladius, which is an ancient Roman sword.”

  I thought about the gladiator battle the boys had in the office. Had they bought a gladius? If so, that could have been the weapon the police had confiscated from their hotel room. But I knew better than to ask the inspector. She was being unusually forthcoming for a fire-breather, and I didn’t want to douse her flame. “Is it illegal to buy one?”

  “Not if it is purchased from a reputable arms shop, but they used their computer to research and email an illegal dealer.”

  The revelation took me aback. The boys wouldn’t have broken the law on purpose. “Have you spoken to the dealer?”

  “He has been questioned, but he claims he did not meet them.”

  “What if he’s lying?”

  She sighed. “He has been in Milan for one week, so it is not likely.”

  If that were true, he would have been out of town when the boys went missing. “What about their cell phones? Have you tracked the signals?”

  “There are not any.”

  Something was wrong. David and the vassal wouldn’t have turned off their phones, but it was possible their batteries had died. Or—and I hated to think it—that the phones had been disposed of, and maybe by an accomplice of the arms guy. “So what happens now? Are you looking into whether the dealer sent someone else to meet them?”

  Her black eyes blackened. “We have appealed to the public, and we will investigate all information we receive.”

  I lurched forward. “That’s it? You’re just going to sit back and wait?”