Aaron Elkins - Dying on the Vine

“Pretty short for a will disposing of an estate like that,” said John.

“No kidding. And they didn’t even have that until Severo practically forced them into it, kicking and screaming.”

The Cubbiddus, it seemed, like many of their brethren in Barbagia at that time, didn’t believe in written wills. When a man died, his possessions passed to his eldest son, and that was that. Attorneys? Probate? The courts? No need for them, not in those mountain villages. Everyone knew the way it worked, and no one would think of contesting it when it happened. For one thing, nobody had anything worth fighting over, but even more important was the fear of what they called malocchio , the evil eye that was always on the lookout for you to make some slip, leave some opening that would let the spirits of misfortune and calamity into your life. And one way to do that, sure to bring laughter to those malevolent entities, was to “make plans” for your own death or that of someone you loved, or to talk about it, or even to think about it. So . . . no wills. And the authorities couldn’t be bothered with doing anything about it, not if it took going into those primitive, bandit-ridden mountain villages.

Luca paused, remembering. “I know this sounds like something from the Middle Ages, but, you know, I was born there, and I lived there, in Nuragugme—population forty-two, including us—until I was fifteen and babbo got married and moved us all here. Believe me, that’s the way it was, and that’s the way the two of them were. And the way they stayed. You’d think a guy with so much on the ball, all that business sense, couldn’t possibly be that superstitious—”

“No, I wouldn’t think that at all,” said Gideon. “Smart people can be pretty dumb when they venture outside of their own ballparks.”

Luca smiled. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Anyway, for years they refused to consider having wills at all. It drove Severo nuts, and then finally—this was, like, no more than five years ago—”

“Four years,” Linda said. “They did it just after I got here.”

“Four years ago,” said Luca, “he finally convinced them things were different here, and if they didn’t have a will, there’d be hell to pay when they died. I think they agreed to sign the thing just to make him stop talking about dying.”

“Well, what did it say, Luca?” Julie asked.

“It didn’t leave everything to Franco; they left everything to each other.”

“Each other?” John said. “So how did Franco wind up with the winery?”

“Here’s the way it worked: The first sentence says that they leave everything to each other. The second one says something like ‘If my spouse should predecease me, then I leave everything to my beloved son Franco,’ with those stipends to the others.”

“To Franco? Nothing about Cesare? I’m surprised Nola would have gone along with that,” Gideon said. “I only met her a few times, but she struck me as being pretty strong-minded. I’d have thought she’d have fought for more than that for him.”

“She probably did,” Luca said. “I wouldn’t be surprised. You’re right about her being strong-minded, and she sure as hell didn’t hesitate to speak her mind.”

“I’ll say,” Linda said with a chuckly laugh. “If you think it was tough being her stepson, you should’ve tried being her daughter-in-law.”

“Yeah, but when it came to final decisions, she was just as old-school as he was. It’s the husband, the papà , who decides, and he does it on his own. He doesn’t take a vote.”

“That’s true,” Linda said, “and there’s something else. I don’t know about you, Luca, but I’m not really positive that Nola understood what was in that will. For one thing, she never did learn to read that well. For another—and Severo told me this—she seemed to think that if she didn’t look at it when she signed it, it might get around that evil eye she was worried about. So she kept her eyes closed. Severo had to guide her hand to the right place.”

“Hadn’t heard that,” Luca said. “Sounds right, though.”

“What did the third sentence say?” Gideon said.

Luca had to think for a moment. “Oh, yeah, that was the short one. It names Severo as executor. That’s it.”

“I don’t get it,” Marti said. “If I understand you right, it says that Franco gets it all, whoever predeceases whoever, right? So what’s Cesare’s grievance? What’s the lawyer expect to get for him?”

“That I can’t tell you. I’m already confused enough. Maybe she’s going to say Nola could have fought to change the will, if she’d lived. Severo thinks it’s just that she wants to get it hauled into court. Once that happens, all bets are off.”

“Just like in the States,” Marti said.

“Not only that,” said Linda, “but the way things work here, once the lawyers really get their teeth into it, it’ll be tied up for, like, the next ten years, and everything around here would be in limbo.”

“Just like in the States,” Marti said again, and hoisted her glass in toast. “Here’s to Shakespeare’s finest quote—”

“ Henry VI !” someone said

And then, amidst general laughter spontaneous enough to turn heads: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

TWENTY

THEfollowing morning Gideon was on his own. Julie and Marti were learning how to make zabaglione , and John had turned down his invitation to join him at the Museo Galileo, formerly the Museo di Storia della Scienze, in Florence. Having the morning to himself suited him fine. The museum, which he also had pretty much to himself, was housed in yet another gorgeous sixteenth-century palazzo (yawn) on the Arno. The building directly abutted the Uffizi, but while the line to enter that celebrated museum already wound around the corner at nine thirty in the morning, getting into the Galileo was simply a matter of walking through the human-size entry cut into the great wooden portal and paying one’s eight euros at the desk.

Once having paid, he paused in the anteroom to call Rocco and suggest lunch if the tenente was available. Rocco was all for it and recommended a little mom-and-pop place he liked on Via della Condotta, a block or so from the Piazza Signoria. “Good food, and we can be in and out in half an hour.”

Gideon wasn’t ordinarily a quick eater, but after last night’s three-hour marathon, “in and out in half an hour” sounded wonderful, and they agreed to meet at one.

“There are a couple of quick things I should probably tell you now, though,” Gideon said. “I don’t really know how important they are. Do you know about the will Pietro and Nola had? What was in it, I mean?”

“It might be in the file somewhere, or maybe Martignetti knows about it, but, no, I don’t think I’m familiar with it. So tell me. But make it short.”

Gideon explained about what he’d heard at Nonna Natalia the previous night. He could hear Rocco’s pen or pencil scratching away intermittently.

“Oh, and the situation with Cesare’s suit has changed since you heard about it too. Now he’s contesting the entire will. Says it’s invalid because Pietro was killed first.”

“That doesn’t make sense to me. Same will, what’s the difference?”

“I know. Severo thinks his lawyer just figures if you open up a can of worms, something good’s bound to come out of it.”

“Out of a can of worms?”

“Bad metaphor.”

“Hold on,” Rocco said. “I got a call coming in from Martignetti.”

The call must have been on a different telephone because Gideon heard what was said, or rather the start of what was said.