Return to Umbria by David Wagner (13 ebook reader txt) 📗

own stand, with a similarly thin keyboard. No telephone, but he guessed that any tablet worth its salt would include that function. The girl stood up, pushed the dress down slightly over her hips, and smiled.

“You must be Inspector LoGuercio and Signor Montoya. Signor Crivelli is expecting you.” She raised her arm with a ballerina-like movement, gesturing in the direction of a door that was slightly ajar at the back of the room. LoGuercio thanked her, and they walked to the door and pushed it open.

While the space would not be described as cluttered, the minimalist décor of the showroom had not been extended to Crivelli’s office. The furniture was modern and colorful, mostly plastic and metal, including four chairs that surrounded a coffee table. The art on the walls was abstract impressionist, in keeping with the style of ceramics. A few small pieces of pottery sat on a corner of the desk, perhaps anxious to get into the other room to a position of honor under the spotlights. Crivelli stood when his two visitors entered.

He was a large man with a red face crowned by thick white hair in need of a cut, or at the very least a brushing. His beard had the same color, but in contrast with the hair it was neatly trimmed, causing Rick to wonder if the man had two barbers, each for a different part of his head. The blue blazer hung well on his body, indicating it was tailored rather than off the rack. A dark tee-shirt and blue jeans completed a wardrobe intended to project the image of a successful artist. He came around the desk and extended his hand.

“Inspector, welcome to Studio Crivelli, but I imagine you are not here to look at ceramics. And this must be Signor Montoya. I don’t believe policeman usually wear cowboy boots. Please sit down.”

The boots did it again, Rick thought. And so much for trying out my police building pass.

“I hope you’ll accept a coffee. I usually have one next door at this time of day, and I took the liberty of telling Angelica to bring it when you arrived.

“A coffee would be welcome,” said LoGuercio. Rick nodded his agreement.

Crivelli settled into the chair and crossed one leg over the other, exposing a beige sock inside a dark brown loafer. “The sergeant who called didn’t tell me what this is about. If you were the Guardia di Finanza I might be worried, but since you are the regular police…”

“We are not interested in looking at your books, Signor Crivelli, we are investigating a murder which took place last night.”

It was the direct approach intended to elicit a reaction from Crivelli. What LoGuercio got was a puzzled frown.

“The murder of that American woman? I read about it in the paper this morning. Do you think she was in one of my shops? I don’t recall seeing her, though the picture in the paper looked vaguely familiar. I could have seen her in the shop, but Angelica handles most customers.”

At that point Angelica herself appeared carrying a plastic tray with three small cups and saucers, as well as a sugar bowl, all in the same bright style of the other ceramics in the shop. She placed it carefully on the table and retired, each delicate movement followed by the eyes of the two visitors.

“Signor Crivelli,” said Rick after stirring sugar into his cup, “the woman looked familiar because she was a student here many years ago when you were the pottery instructor. Her name then was Rhonda Davis.”

Crivelli put his cup back down without tasting it. “Dio mio, Rhonda? I was thinking about her just recently, wondering what became of the girl. She was one of the most talented students I had during the years I taught that course. Not that there were many with talent, but she was outstanding in both creating forms and decorating them. It would have been wonderful to see her again.” He had been staring at a painting on the wall while he spoke, but now his head jerked up. “Inspector, could she have been intending to find me?”

“We have to assume she would have wanted to seek out people she knew from that time. Professor Tansillo gave us your name. She hadn’t written to you to say she was coming, I assume?”

“No, no, of course not. I had no contact with her after she left Orvieto all those years ago. Nor with any other of my students, for that matter. So you think that the person who did this was someone she knew then?”

“We’re looking at all possibilities,” answered LoGuercio. “Tell us what you remember of Signora Van Fleet—that was her married name—when she was a student.”

Crivelli rubbed his bearded chin with the back of his hand. “She arrived late to the program, which annoyed me since I had gone through the basics with the others and had to repeat it for her. If I recall, she had been doing an internship in Milan at Richard Ginori, the porcelain makers. Something happened and so she applied for admission to our program here.”

“A problem with the internship in Milan?” Rick asked.

Crivelli shook his head. “No, it was something else. Something personal, I think, but I don’t recall what.”

“Are there other people who might still be in Orvieto who knew her when she was here?”

“Signor Montoya, I did not interact with others in the program. At that time I was struggling to get my own business started, and I took the job with the university to help make ends meet.” His white beard framed a toothy smile. “As you can see I’ve done well. But inside the program back then I had contact only with the students during my class, and with Tansillo to get my check.”

“You did no socializing with students or other professors?”

Crivelli snorted, as if Rick’s question was a joke. “Good heavens, no.” He finished his coffee and returned the cup to its saucer before looking at LoGuercio.