Free Liar Moon by Ben Pastor
Authors: Ben Pastor
scandal?”
Bora glanced over. “You assume it was Lisi who was blackmailed. What if it was his second wife? Inability or unwillingness to keep paying after Lisi’s death might have precipitated the revelation. One thing is certain, by now Lisi’s will is a legal nightmare.”
“Yet Claretta told us he’d never been married before.”
“If you can trust her.” Expertly Bora switched gears, and slightly slowed down. “The private road is half a mile ahead, right? It’s a good thing I convinced De Rosa to give me the keys to the gate and the front door.”
“According to reports, the garden gate was never locked when the master was at home, so virtually anyone could drive in and out at will.”
“Yes, including Clara Lisi.” Bora said the last words without looking Guidi in the face, suddenly engrossed in the road as if driving carefully had become more interesting to him than what took place inside the car.
Was he just being hostile toward Claretta? It was more than his looking away. Time and again over the past few days Guidi had noticed and resented Bora’s tendency to withdraw from the matter at hand, a sudden, introverted abstraction with the excuse of looking outside, elsewhere, refusing to continue the conversation.
Nothing more was said until the private road branched off the highway with a surprisingly sharp curve, which Bora took at excessive speed but managed without losing control. After the first hundred or so yards of blacktopped tarmac, the road turned to dirt. It remained dirt for a mile, becoming gravel at last, where two lines of squat mulberry trees kept watch near the gate.
The gate was painted parrot-green. Guidi and Bora stared at it, brash and solid between two pillars of yellow bricks, each of these surmounted by a truncated pyramid of grey granite and a flowering pot. The gate’s bars, reinforced by sturdy horizontal belts, ended up in fearfully acute arrow points. A padlocked steel chain bound the lock in a forbidding clasp.
Bora left the army car. “I’d rather not drive in. There must be enough tyre tracks as it is.”
He approached the gate. From his seat, Guidi watched him pry padlock and steel chain loose, and then try, one
after the other, all the keys De Rosa had supplied. “What is it, Major?” he called. “It doesn’t come open?”
Bora was disappointedly shaking the gate. “De Rosa must have forgotten the gate key, or else they changed the lock. None of these fits.”
Guidi joined him. “It’s hardly possible to scale the wall. Look at the broken glass cemented on top.”
“Speak for yourself, Guidi.” Bora took off his cap and tunic, which he slid past the bars. “ I am climbing the gate.”
Guidi tried to stop him. “All right, all right. Let me do it. Give me the keys, I’ll try to get inside the house and look for another gate key.”
But Bora had already placed his spur-clad boot on the first horizontal belt, as if he were mounting on horseback. He heaved himself up with his right hand, nimbly straddling the acuminate arrowheads of the top. “When I need help, I’ll ask you for it.”
Once they were both inside the gate, they saw how the evidence had been disturbed by the arrival of other cars: perhaps the ambulance, perhaps the police. Luckily no snow had fallen here. Guidi pointed out the interrupted, snaking double trail of the wheelchair in the gravel, and a few traces of dried blood. He uncovered a square piece of tarpaulin, held down by four pebbles, protecting the letter Lisi had traced before dying.
“It’s identical to the photograph at headquarters in Verona,” Bora commented. “It really looks like a ‘C’. I can’t see what else you can make of it.”
Without touching it, Guidi followed the outline of the letter. “Not even a ‘G’, it’s true. And look, look where the point of impact is, compared to this spot. Lisi must
have been thrown ten yards. And there are no traces of braking, none. To gather this kind of
Bora glanced over. “You assume it was Lisi who was blackmailed. What if it was his second wife? Inability or unwillingness to keep paying after Lisi’s death might have precipitated the revelation. One thing is certain, by now Lisi’s will is a legal nightmare.”
“Yet Claretta told us he’d never been married before.”
“If you can trust her.” Expertly Bora switched gears, and slightly slowed down. “The private road is half a mile ahead, right? It’s a good thing I convinced De Rosa to give me the keys to the gate and the front door.”
“According to reports, the garden gate was never locked when the master was at home, so virtually anyone could drive in and out at will.”
“Yes, including Clara Lisi.” Bora said the last words without looking Guidi in the face, suddenly engrossed in the road as if driving carefully had become more interesting to him than what took place inside the car.
Was he just being hostile toward Claretta? It was more than his looking away. Time and again over the past few days Guidi had noticed and resented Bora’s tendency to withdraw from the matter at hand, a sudden, introverted abstraction with the excuse of looking outside, elsewhere, refusing to continue the conversation.
Nothing more was said until the private road branched off the highway with a surprisingly sharp curve, which Bora took at excessive speed but managed without losing control. After the first hundred or so yards of blacktopped tarmac, the road turned to dirt. It remained dirt for a mile, becoming gravel at last, where two lines of squat mulberry trees kept watch near the gate.
The gate was painted parrot-green. Guidi and Bora stared at it, brash and solid between two pillars of yellow bricks, each of these surmounted by a truncated pyramid of grey granite and a flowering pot. The gate’s bars, reinforced by sturdy horizontal belts, ended up in fearfully acute arrow points. A padlocked steel chain bound the lock in a forbidding clasp.
Bora left the army car. “I’d rather not drive in. There must be enough tyre tracks as it is.”
He approached the gate. From his seat, Guidi watched him pry padlock and steel chain loose, and then try, one
after the other, all the keys De Rosa had supplied. “What is it, Major?” he called. “It doesn’t come open?”
Bora was disappointedly shaking the gate. “De Rosa must have forgotten the gate key, or else they changed the lock. None of these fits.”
Guidi joined him. “It’s hardly possible to scale the wall. Look at the broken glass cemented on top.”
“Speak for yourself, Guidi.” Bora took off his cap and tunic, which he slid past the bars. “ I am climbing the gate.”
Guidi tried to stop him. “All right, all right. Let me do it. Give me the keys, I’ll try to get inside the house and look for another gate key.”
But Bora had already placed his spur-clad boot on the first horizontal belt, as if he were mounting on horseback. He heaved himself up with his right hand, nimbly straddling the acuminate arrowheads of the top. “When I need help, I’ll ask you for it.”
Once they were both inside the gate, they saw how the evidence had been disturbed by the arrival of other cars: perhaps the ambulance, perhaps the police. Luckily no snow had fallen here. Guidi pointed out the interrupted, snaking double trail of the wheelchair in the gravel, and a few traces of dried blood. He uncovered a square piece of tarpaulin, held down by four pebbles, protecting the letter Lisi had traced before dying.
“It’s identical to the photograph at headquarters in Verona,” Bora commented. “It really looks like a ‘C’. I can’t see what else you can make of it.”
Without touching it, Guidi followed the outline of the letter. “Not even a ‘G’, it’s true. And look, look where the point of impact is, compared to this spot. Lisi must
have been thrown ten yards. And there are no traces of braking, none. To gather this kind of