The Villa Read online

  "No, I… Yes." Sophia lifted a hand, pressed a fingertip against her temple as if to loosen the thought. "My father. I gave him a key not long after I moved in. He was having some decorating work done on his place, and I was going to be out of the country. I offered to let him use my place while I was gone. I don't think I ever got the key back. I never thought of it again."

  "Did he often use your place?"

  "No. He didn't use it when I offered, but stayed at a hotel." Or said he had, she thought. Had he used her apartment then, and since? Hadn't there been times she'd come back from a trip and felt someone had been there in her absence?

  Little things out of place.

  No, that was stupid. It would have been the cleaning service. Her father would have had no reason to use her apartment. He'd had his own, with Rene.

  He cheated on your mother, a voice murmured in her brain. He cheated on Rene.

  "Ms. Giambelli?"

  "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

  "You want some water? Something?" Tyler interrupted, to give her a moment to tune back.

  "No, no thanks. I'm sorry, Detective. I keep losing the thread."

  "It's all right. I asked when was the last time you had contact with your father."

  "Saturday night. There was a party at our vineyard. It's an annual event. My father was there."

  "What time did he leave?"

  "I couldn't say. There were a great many people. He didn't say goodbye to me."

  "Did he attend alone?"

  "No, his wife was with him. Rene."

  "Your father is married?"

  "Yes, he was married the day of the party. Rene Foxx. Hasn't she been contacted?"

  "I was unaware of her. Can I reach her at your father's address?"

  "Yes, I… Yes," she said again, biting back what had nearly tumbled off her tongue.

  "Do you own a gun, Ms. Giambelli?"

  "No."

  "You had no handgun in your apartment?"

  "No. I don't like guns."

  "Did your father own a gun?"

  "I don't know. Not to my knowledge."

  "When was the last time you were in your apartment?"

  "Over a week ago. As I told you, I'm staying primarily in Napa for the next several months. I came here today, after Mr. MacMillan and I left the offices downtown, to pick up a few more things."

  "What was your relationship with your father?"

  She toughened up. Sitting beside her, Tyler felt it. "He was my father, Detective. Why don't I save you the trouble of asking me if I killed him. No, I didn't. Nor do I know who killed him, or why."

  Claremont's voice remained steady. "Did your father have any enemies?"

  "Obviously."

  "That were known to you," he added without skipping a beat.

  "No. I don't know of anyone who would have killed him."

  Claremont looked down at his pad, appeared to study some notes.

  "How long have your parents been divorced?"

  "They've been legally separated over seven years."

  "Separated?"

  "Yes. They haven't lived together, in any real sense, since I was a child."

  "Would this Rene Foxx be your father's second wife?"

  "That's correct."

  "Just married a couple days ago."

  "So I was informed."

  "When were your parents divorced, Ms. Giambelli?"

  There was a cold ball in her belly now. She wouldn't let him see the nerves. "I believe the decree was final the day before my father married Rene. It was only a legality, Detective."

  Though her knees shook, she got to her feet. "I'm sorry, I have to go to my family. I don't want them to hear about this on the evening news, or from a stranger. I need to go home. Can you tell me… what happens with my father now? What arrangements need to be made?"

  "We'll continue our investigation. My partner is working across the hall with the crime-scene unit. I'll discuss arrangements with next of kin."

  "I'm my father's only child."

  "His wife is his legal next of kin, Ms. Giambelli."

  Her mouth opened, closed. When her hand fluttered up, Tyler simply took it in his and held it. "I see. Of course. I have to go home. Ty."

  "We're going."

  "Mr. MacMillan, I have some questions for you."

  "I gave you my address." Tyler shot a look over his shoulder as he led Sophia to the door. "You know where to find me."

  "Yeah." Claremont tapped his pad as the door closed. "That I do." He had a feeling he and his partner were going to take a ride into the country, very soon.

  He walked to the bedroom door, sure if he opened it, the neighbor would tumble out, ear first. Instead he knocked. Might as well keep things friendly while he asked more questions.

  Alexander Claremont liked French wine, Italian shoes and American blues. He'd grown up in San Francisco, the middle son of solidly middle-class parents who'd worked hard to ensure a good life and good educations for their three boys.

  His older brother was a pediatrician, his younger a professor at Berkeley. Alex Claremont had planned to be a lawyer.

  He'd been born to be a cop.

  The law was a different entity in the hands of a cop than it was in the hands of a lawyer. For a lawyer it was there to be bent, twisted, manipulated and tailored to fit a client's needs.

  He understood that and, on a very basic level, respected that.

  To a cop it was the line.

  It was the line Claremont worshiped.

  Now, barely two hours after walking onto the crime scene, he was thinking about the line.

  "What do you think of the daughter?"

  He didn't answer at first, but his partner was used to that. She was driving because she'd gotten to the car first.

  "Rich," he said at length. "Classy. Tough shell. Didn't say anything she didn't want to say. Thought it, lots of thinking going on, but she watches her words."

  "Big, important family. Big, juicy scandal." Maureen Maguire braked at a light. Tapped her fingers on the wheel.

  She and Claremont were polar opposites, which was, in her opinion, why they'd found their rhythm after the initial bumps three years back, and worked well together.

  She was as white as a white woman could be. Irish and freckled and strawberry-blond with soft blue eyes and a dimple in her left cheek. At thirty-six, she was four years Claremont's senior, comfortably married where he was radically single, cozily suburban where he was uptown urban.

  "Nobody sees the guy go in. No vehicle. We're running the cab companies to see if they had a drop-off here. From the looks of the body, he'd been dead at least thirty-six hours. Key to the place was in his pocket, along with three hundred and change in cash and plenty of plastic. He had a gold Rolex, gold cuff links with pretty little diamonds in them. The apartment had plenty of easily transported items. No robbery."

  He shot her a look. "No kidding."

  "Just crossing off the list. Two glasses of wine, one full, one half-full. Only one with prints—his prints. He got plugged where he sat. No tussle, no signs of struggle. From the angle of the shots, the killer was sitting on the sofa. Nice little wine-and-cheese party and oh, excuse me, bam, bam, bam. You're dead."

  "Guy was divorced and remarried within a day. Romantic interlude gone bad?"

  "Maybe." Maguire pursed her lips. "Hard to say from the scene. Three shots, twenty-five-caliber, I'd say, and close range. Not much of a pop, but it's surprising nobody heard anything in a snazzy building like that."

  She parked, glanced up at the next snazzy building. "Funny, huh, how a new husband doesn't come home and the new bride doesn't report him missing."

  "Let's find out why."

  Rene had just gotten in from a three-hour session at her salon. Nothing smoothed her feathers better than a long bout of pampering. Unless it was shopping. But she'd taken care of that as well with a quick foray into Neiman's, where she'd treated herself lavishly.

  Tony, she thought, as she
poured herself a small vermouth, was going to pay and pay dearly for this little bout of the sulks.

  He'd gone off like this before, a couple of days at a time, when she'd pressured him over some matter. The good part was, he always came back, always with some very attractive trinket in hand, and naturally agreed to do whatever she'd demanded he do in the first place.

  She didn't mind so much, as it gave her a little time to herself. Besides, now it was all legal and tidy. She lifted her left hand, studied the glitter of her rings. She was Mrs. Anthony Avano, and intended to stay that way.

  Or scalp him bald in a divorce.

  When the bell rang, she smiled. It would be Tony, come crawling back. He knew better than to use his key when he'd been gone. The last time he'd done so, she'd pulled a gun on him.

  One thing about her Tony, he learned fast.

  She opened the door, prepared to make him beg, then frowned at the couple holding up badges.

  "Mrs. Avano?"

  "Yes. What's this about?"

  "Detective Claremont, and my partner, Detective Maguire, San Francisco PD. May we come in?"

  "Why?"

  "Please, Mrs. Avano, may we come in?"

  "Is Tony in jail?" she hissed through her teeth as she stepped back. "What the hell did he do?"

  "No, ma'am, he's not in jail." Maguire moved in. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Avano. Your husband is dead."

  "Dead?" Rene let out an annoyed huff of breath. "That's ridiculous. You've made a mistake."

  "There's no mistake, Mrs. Avano," Claremont said. "Could we sit down?"

  Rene felt a little jerk in her stomach, stepped back. "You expect me to believe Tony's dead. Just dead?"

  "We're very sorry, ma'am. Why don't we sit down?" Maguire started to take her arm, but Rene yanked away.

  She'd lost some of the color in her face, but her eyes were alive. And angry. "Was there an accident?"

  "No, ma'am. Could you tell us the last time you saw your husband, or had contact with him?"

  Rene stared hard at Claremont. "Saturday night, early Sunday morning, I guess. What happened to Tony?"

  "You weren't concerned when you didn't hear from him?"

  "We had an argument," she snapped. "Tony often goes off on little sulks afterward. I'm not his mother."

  "No, ma'am." Maguire nodded. "His wife. You were married recently, weren't you?"

  "That's right. What happened to him? I have a right to know what happened."

  "Anthony Avano was shot and killed."

  Her head jerked back, but almost immediately the color rushed back into her face. "I knew it! I warned him she'd do something crazy, but he wouldn't listen. She was harassing us, wasn't she? Those quiet types, you can't trust them."

  "Who is that, Mrs. Avano?"

  "His wife." She sucked in a breath, turned and stalked over to pick up her drink. "His ex-wife. Pilar Giambelli. The bitch killed him. If she didn't, his little tramp of a daughter did."

  He didn't know what to do for her. She sat in the passenger seat, her eyes closed. But he knew she wasn't sleeping. Her composure was a thin and tensile veneer, and he wasn't certain what he'd find if he managed to crack it.

  So he gave her silence on the long drive north.

  The energy, the vitality Sophia owned like breath was gone. That concerned him most. It was like having a doll sitting beside him. Maybe it was a kind of bubble, a void between the shock and the next stage of grief. He didn't know about such things. He'd never lost anyone important to him. Certainly never lost anyone so brutally and suddenly.

  When he turned into the drive, she opened her eyes. As if she sensed home. In her lap her fingers linked together.

  The bubble's burst, Ty thought, watching her knuckles go white.

  "I'll come in with you."

  She started to refuse, that knee-jerk I-can-do-it-myself response. It was hard to admit she wasn't sure she could do anything herself just yet. And he was family. She needed family.

  "Thanks. My mother." She had to swallow as he stopped the four-wheel at the base of the steps. "It's going to be very hard for my mother."

  "Sophia." He laid his hand over hers, tightening his grip when she would have shifted away. "Sophia," he said again until she looked at him. "People always think they have to be strong. They don't."

  "Giambellis do. I'm numb, Ty. And I'm afraid of what's going to happen inside me when I'm not. I'm afraid to start thinking. I'm afraid to start feeling. All I can do is the next thing."

  "Then we'll do the next thing."

  He got out of the car, came around to her side. And in a gesture that made her throat burn, took her hand.

  The house was warm, and fragrant with her mother's flowers. Sophia looked around the grand foyer like a stranger. Nothing had changed. How could it be that nothing had changed?

  She watched Maria come down the hall. Everything moves like a dream, Sophia thought. Even footsteps echo like a dream.

  "Maria, where is my mother?"

  "Upstairs. She's working in your office. Miss Sophia?"

  "And La Signora?"

  Uneasy, Maria looked toward Tyler. "She is in the fields, with Mr. Mac."

  "Would you send someone for them, please. Send someone out for my grandparents?"

  "Yes, right away."

  She went quickly, while Sophia turned toward the stairs. Her hand tightened on Tyler's. She could hear music coming from her office. Something light and frothy. When she stepped into the doorway, she saw her mother, her hair scooped back, bent over the keyboard of the computer.

  "What do you mean I've committed an illegal function? Damn it, I hate you."

  Another time the baffled frustration would have amused Sophia. Now it, and everything, made her want to weep.

  "Mama?"

  "Oh, thank God! Sophia, I've done something. I don't know what. I've been practicing for an hour and still I'm useless on this thing."

  She pushed back from the desk, glanced up—and froze.

  "What is it? What's wrong?" She knew every line, every curve, every expression of her daughter's face. Her stomach twisted