Free A Deadly Paradise by Grace Brophy

minute to find her glasses, which had slipped down between the chair and the cushion, and while Cenni was waiting, he reflected on the implications of what his grandmother had just told him. Italy’s left-leaning government was working on a number of projects with Germany’s right-leaning government. Neither would welcome revelations about their Fascist pasts. But his instincts told him that whatever game Baudler had been playing, it was on an individual level. He doubted that her murderer was a state-hired executioner. Hired hands killed with cold efficiency, and they generally disliked messes. He wouldn’t put it past any of the governments his grandmother had mentioned, Italy included, to get rid of Baudler if it was expedient, but not in this particular manner.
    “Here they are. I was sitting on them,” Hanna said. “I’ll read you the sentence: Please let our agent know if the boxes were received in good order. You can decide what that means, but it says to me that the money had already been shipped and he’s trying to find out where it is. And since the agent’s name is not mentioned, it seems likely that Count Molin knew who the agent was and had worked with him before. Possibly the money was diverted by some interested parties. Maybe Count Molin received the money and stored it for safekeeping and then the war ended. He would have had ten million British pounds, undetectable as counterfeits. There’s a whole lot one can do with money like that at the end of a war with the country in turmoil. Is this count any relation to Marcella Molin, the one who owns all those vineyards?”
    “I don’t know. Elena is researching it, probably at this very moment, so I won’t know anything until tomorrow.”
    “ Caro, you’ve picked my brain long enough. No more politics tonight. I’m rusty from watching all this reality TV. Where’s Lucia with our champagne?” She lowered her voice. “Make sure you invite her to join us. Your mother snubbed her the other day and hurt her feelings. Lucia, by the way, was the best birthday present you’ve ever given me. Renato is still trying to top it.” She smiled sweetly. “Sven wrote and told me about the birthday celebration, but please don’t tell Renato that I know.”
    11
    HIS GRANDMOTHER FED him on French country pâté, spinach ravioli with a butter and, sage sauce, and afterward, Belgian chocolates. Alex accused her, very gently, of being a traitor. Cenni Chocolates is the second largest manufacturer of chocolate in Perugia, and Hanna was one of its founders. “But Belgian chocolates are better,” she’d responded, while searching through the assortment for a champagne truffle. For all her talk of carousing to all hours of the night, he noticed that she hadn’t finished half her glass of champagne before she nodded off in her chair.
    After Hanna had gone off to bed, Alex had stayed talking to Lucia, while finishing up the champagne, until after ten. Lucia had been working as a maid in Assisi for a family involved in one of his more notorious cases and had been fired for spreading lies—or, as Lucia described her offense, “Telling it like it is.” He’d felt somewhat responsible, having encouraged her to reveal family secrets, and he liked her, despite her disposition to gossip. He had introduced her to his grandmother, who also loved to gossip, as a possible companion two years ago, and they had been together ever since. Hanna’s previous companions, all of them chosen by his mother, had been prissy women in their fifties who thought his grandmother outrageous. Lucia accompanied Hanna everywhere, and they had frequently been seen dining in Perugia’s better restaurants, until a few months ago when Hanna had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
    Cenni skirted around what was bothering him by first offering up compliments.
    “That was a delicious, Lucia. I had two helpings of ravioli. But I noticed Hanna barely touched hers, although she finished her pâté and