Robert Barnard: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 805 & 806, September/October 2008

© 2008 by Margaret Maron

Death’s Half Acre , the 14th book in Margaret Maron’s acclaimed Deborah Knott series, will appear in bookstores around the time this issue mails to subscribers. But while Knott fans have been able to follow her in a new book almost every year for more than a decade, the same is not true for fans of the earlier Maron character Sigrid Harald. The followimg brings Sigrid to life, and centerstage, again.

“...so I ask you again, Miss Harald. Who wanted him dead?”

“And I tell you again, Inspector Giordano. I don’t know. I only met these people last evening.”

The weekend began innocuously enough when Elliott Buntrock, one of New York’s most respected art curators, shifted his chair to get out of the hot Italian sun and said, “It’ll be fun.” Seated in a sidewalk cafe a few quiet streets away from the Ponte Vecchio where tourists swarmed like mindless ants, he offered his companion a crostino thickly smeared with chopped black olives and said, “I’ll rent a car. We could be at the castle forty minutes after we check out of our hotel.”

The slender, dark-haired woman who sat across the table from him accepted the appetizer, but declined the suggestion. “I’m not a castle person, Elliott. Why can’t we stay here in Florence?”

“Florence is hot and crowded and all the real Florentines are up in the hills. It’s Tuscany, Sigrid. I bet you’ve never seen the Tuscan countryside.”

“We’re not here to look at landscapes.” She picked dubiously at the wild-boar salad he had persuaded her to order. “We came to retrieve Nauman’s paintings from that gallery.”

“And their attorneys say we can’t have them until Monday, so why not spend the weekend where it’s cool and relaxing? I promised an old friend who’s leading a tour of art enthusiasts that I’d speak to his group and he’s comping me to an apartment at the castle. It would be churlish not to go. Besides,” he said, knowing one of the reasons for her edgy impatience, “the place has its own swimming pool. A real pool, Sigrid, and Jim says it’s never crowded.”

And with good reason, Sigrid Harald thought, stroking arm over arm through the cool clear water a few hours later. More a short-term rental lodge than a hotel, the Castello di Montefugoni was built atop a steep hill and its views of trees and vineyards and more castles on distant hills were as spectacular as Elliott had promised. The self-service apartment that Dr. Jim Olson, Buntrock’s friend, had booked for them was airy and spacious: two large bedrooms and an even larger dining/sitting room with a small galley and furnishings that were comfortably shabby.

Unfortunately, there were no elevators and the pool was down three long flights of ancient stone steps. All very well to learn that Dante and Boccaccio had climbed these very same steps, it still took a fairly determined swimmer to make the trek. Despite the endless stairs, though, Sigrid would have gladly walked them twice over to get to this pool. Swimming was her one reliable stress-reliever and these last few months had pushed her almost to the breaking point.

Two years ago, she had been an NYPD homicide detective leading an uncomplicated life. Now, thanks to a hasty will written by her lover shortly before he died in a car wreck, she owned an estate worth millions. She first met Oscar Nauman when one of his colleagues was murdered, and the end of her investigation marked the beginning of their affair. She had vaguely known that he was one of the giants of the art world, but modern art left her cold. It was the man himself who had attracted her, not his reputation, and she had been devastated by his death.

Almost as devastating was the realization that she could not continue to work for the NYPD and manage Nauman’s estate, too, a decision made somewhat easier by a new boss who clearly resented her and never missed a chance to let her know it.

Professionally, she had been confident of her skills in solving tricky homicides, but she was unnerved to discover that collectors, gallery owners, and museum directors could be every bit as cutthroat as any hardened con men. Witness the Florentine gallery that had taken two of Nauman’s paintings on consignment before his death and now claimed the authority to buy them outright at the original price although they had since doubled in value.

It was Nauman’s friend Elliott Buntrock who had argued that the only way to get the pictures back was to come over and take physical possession of them herself. In this age of instant communication, she was infuriated that it should take a face-to-face meeting to handle the situation, but here in the water, her tension began to drain away. Swimming had gotten her through the worst of her grief after Nauman’s death. It would get her through settling his complicated estate and disposing of his pictures. In giving herself up to the water, she could let her mind float blankly, aware of nothing except the water itself.

When fully relaxed, she climbed from the pool and sluiced off at a shower almost hidden in a stone wall thickly covered in ivy. As she wrapped a towel around her wet body, an attractive blonde passed, gave her a friendly nod, and continued on to one of the deck chairs, where she dropped her towel and sunglasses and stood for a moment on the edge of the deep end. She appeared to be in her early forties and her well-toned body showed firm muscles.

“Is it cold?” she asked.

“Not really. Not once you’re in,” Sigrid said.

The woman executed a shallow dive that took her halfway across the pool’s width and there was a happy grin on her face when her head broke the surface. “Wonderful!”

“Hope I’m not interrupting?”

Sigrid glanced around to see a middle-aged man in red plaid swim trunks with a towel draped around his neck. His smile included both of them, but his eyes were on the woman in the water.

“I was just leaving,” Sigrid said and walked down the long grassy allée. As she neared the terrace steps, a voice called down to her.

Looking up, she saw Elliott Buntrock leaning over the balustrade of the terrace above. Interviewers often used long-legged bird images to describe his looks; and from this angle, his bony face and angular limbs did give him the appearance of a huge, if decidedly exotic, bird. He stood with his arms outstretched on either side, his hands on the ledge, so that the front of his linen jacket swung wide like stork wings.

“Do you see a grotto down there?” he asked.

Directly beneath the terrace and out of his sight was a semicircular alcove built into the wall. A chain across the front discouraged viewers from entering. Inside, the walls seemed to be made of gray mud daubed on by the trowel-load. Life-size statues of young men stood in niches around the walls and a colorful fresco brightened the domed ceiling.

“I guess you’d call it a grotto,” she said doubtfully.

“Are there frogs?”

The late-afternoon sun had cast deep shadows across the terraced gardens, but at the back of the alcove, she could make out a Grecian-looking goddess who seemed to be imploring heaven for a favor. At her feet were two young children and a figure that had the legs of a man and the body of a frog. More frog faces peered back at her from around the edges.