Aaron Elkins: Dying on the Vine

And it had all panned out; for once in his life, every guess had been right. Dormiquilla—“tranquil sleep”—was made by the same company; had very much the same tongue-curling, acrid taste (with a bit more “bite”); was the same color (the labels were sharply different); and had the same ingredients, in the same proportions, except for the addition of etanolo— ethanol; pure alcohol—which accounted for twenty-five percent in volume.

So how hard would it have been for someone with murder in mind to purchase a bottle of each, empty the Giorniquilla bottle, and pour into it instead the alcohol-laden Dormiquilla version? Answer: not very. And once in Cesare’s apartment, switching it with Cesare’s current bottle could have been accomplished in an instant. Once that was done, death wouldn’t have been long in coming. Gideon himself had seen Cesare take long guzzles of the stuff twice inside ten minutes. Certainly, he’d downed a good six ounces in that time alone.

Assume he was going at it at anywhere near the same rate at home. Twenty-five percent of six was 1.5. And 1.5 ounces of pure, one-hundred percent alcohol was the equivalent of two one-ounce shots of eighty-proof whiskey; surely enough, when consumed in a short time in combination with the reckless ingestion of cocaine, to trigger a fatal cocaethylene explosion. Gideon was way out of his field here, so, to be certain, he had called his friend Dave Black, a clinical prof at Vanderbilt who was his go-to person in matters toxicological, and had been told that that much alcohol would create more than enough cocaethylene to do the trick, especially in someone whose constitution was already compromised by his drug habit. That had been good enough for Gideon.

“I don’t get it,” Rocco said. “Why get all tricky and futz around like that? Why not just shove the guy out of a window? He lived on the third floor—what you call the fourth floor. He’d have gone splat when he hit the piazza.”

“I assume it was because whoever it was figured it might raise suspicions, what with the suit and everything else.”

“And he didn’t think a doctored bottle of cough medicine would raise suspicions?”

“Well, it didn’t, did it?

“Well, no, not at the time, but—”

“And the reason it didn’t is because everything—the circumstances, his history—pointed to a simple cocaine overdose. I mean, it was practically expected , sooner or later. And since cocaine toxicity and cocaethylene toxicity kill you in exactly the same way—the heart has to strain so much to pump blood that it decompensates; it just gives up and stops working; heart failure, in other words—well, on account of all of that, there was absolutely no reason to suspect anything other than a plain cocaine overdose. No reason to test the cough medicine any more than a carton of milk he might have had in his refrigerator.”

Hearing something like a mutter from Rocco, he added: “Nobody did anything wrong here, Rocco. Not the doc, not the lab, not you. Anybody would have drawn the same conclusion: death by cocaine poisoning.”

Rocco was unmollified. “Anybody but you, of course,” he grumbled. “Nothing gets by the great Skeleton Detective, does it?”

“What can I say? What’s true is true.”

Rocco laughed, and his voice eased up. “You’re really something, you know?”

“If that’s a compliment, I accept it. What about your end of things? Anything interesting happening?”

“Nah. Well, yeah, a few things. For one, we turned up a two-page list of passwords that he had at the back of his freezer.”

“Passwords? For Web sites?”

“You got it.”

“So he did have a computer.”

“Exactly. And whoever took it didn’t know about it—more likely didn’t think about it. He’s got some kind of code for what they’re for, but the passwords are clear enough, and Tonino’s busy deciphering right now and putting in every single one. We got his e-mail address from Franco, so it’s easy enough.”

“And? Anything?”

“So far, no. Bank accounts, airlines, discount travel, that kind of thing. But he just got started, so we’ll see. I have hopes. Oh, and he’s been going over those account statements we got from Severo too—”

“You keep the guy kind of busy, don’t you?”

“Sure. Idle hands, you know? Besides, I’d have to do it if he didn’t. Anyway, one of the bills was from a private eye Pietro hired. Guess who Nola was screwing around with.”

“It’s somebody I know?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Rocco couldn’t see him, but Gideon shook his head anyway. “I can’t think of anybody.” He laughed. “Severo Quadrelli?”

“Now how the hell did you—?”

“It was Quadrelli? I was just kidding.”

“No, it was him, Don Juan Quadrelli. Pietro hired the PI to keep an eye on her while he did his hermit thing in the mountains. The guy took less than forty-eight hours to get the goods on them. Called Pietro on his cell phone on September second, one day after he got up there.”

“Huh. Are you going to inform the family?”

“Not unless there’s a reason to. I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same. We told the PI we’d keep his name out of it.”

“Sure. What purpose would it serve anyway?”

“That’s the way I see it. Oh, and we also heard from Pietro’s doc; there was a bill from him in the accounts. Now, this is interesting. Pietro had a heart condition.”

The ball had rolled Gideon’s way again, and he kicked it back, but he was processing what he’d just heard, and it wasn’t a very accurate kick this time. The players had to chase it farther than they would have had he not interfered, and he took some verbal abuse for it. “Now that is interesting,” he said. “A bad heart?”

“Yup. ‘ Patologia cardiaca coronarica ,’ it says.”

“Coronary heart disease. Hardening of the arteries.”

“Right. Pietro himself kept it quiet, no big deal, but it was serious, and it’s been serious for a while. That was why he started taking his sabbatical in early September a few years ago instead of at the end of the month. The doc wanted him away while all the craziness was going on. But, you know, Gid, this brings up a question. . . .”

“It sure does. Was it a heart attack that killed him? Did the call from the PI bring it on? September second; that would be about right for the time of death.”

“Yup, I’m thinking it went down like this: Here’s this old, sick guy with a bad heart. He gets a call from his PI telling him his wife is definitely cheating on him. He grabs his chest and falls down in a heap, and that’s it. Never moves again.”

“Could be.”

“So, pardon me repeating myself for the thousandth time, but . . . why shoot his corpse in the head and throw the body off a cliff a month later?”

TWENTY-FOUR

“WHY . . . and who?” Marti asked when Gideon had finished telling them about the call and they were done expressing their astonishment at identifying Quadrelli as the lothario in question.

He’d returned to the table after hanging up and had found them finished with their meals and drinking coffee. His own food wasn’t out yet. Julie had correctly assumed that his “Back in a minute” was more hopeful than realistic and asked them to hold his burrito until he returned.

She cut in now. “Can we forget about the who and stick with the why for a minute? I think . . .” She paused to order her thoughts. “I just wonder if it all might not go back to the will, the joint will.”

“For which Severo was the executor,” Marti said pointedly, still digesting the news about Quadrelli.

“No, forget about Severo too. I’m not thinking about Severo; I’m thinking about Pietro and Nola. Look, the will said whoever dies first, everything goes to the other one, isn’t that right? Pietro says: If I die first, everything goes to my wife. Nola says: If I die first, everything goes to my husband.”