Read Dying on the Vine for Free Online
Authors: Aaron Elkins
offices of the Public Prosecutor. “This tragic incident took place in September of last year. Since prosecution is obviously impossible, we do not feel that the situation warrants a continuing investigation. Thank you.”
When questioning followed, additional details came to light. The deceased had each sustained a single gunshot wound to the head. The shootings occurred on a mountainside trail. The bodies then fell some sixty meters to a rocky area below. The weapon involved was a Beretta M1935 semiautomatic pistol, using .32 ACP ammunition. This pistol, which was originally produced for the military, had been in signor Cubbiddu’s possession for many years, and was found under his remains. Signora Cubbiddu, who was also born in Sardinia, had been Cubbiddu’s second wife. They had been married for twenty-five years.
The Cubbiddu family declined to be interviewed but issued the following joint statement through their Arezzo attorney, Severo Quadrelli: “We appreciate the professionalism shown by the
Carabinieri
and the public prosecutor in their investigation, and find no fault with their efforts. However, we maintain the unshakable conviction that our beloved father, Pietro Cubbiddu, did not commit these horrible acts.” Cesare Baccaredda Cubbiddu, Nola’s son from her prior marriage, had no comment.
Motive for the tragedy remained in doubt.
Well, yes, but in Rocco’s opinion, not a whole lot of doubt. Interviews with the family had made it clear that Pietro suspected Nola of having an affair. For an old-school Roman Catholic Sard like Pietro, what further motive was needed? Being cuckolded would have been unendurable; the most humiliating fate imaginable. And divorce was out of the question. Thus . . .
But where was the good in pursuing it now, or even making it known? With the killer dead, what difference could it make? Where could it lead, except to more anguish for the family? It was Deputy Prosecutor Migliorini’s decision to bury these details, and for once Rocco agreed with him.
FOUR
The following week, Tuesday, September 6, 2011
THE church of Santa Maria Novella is one of the great treasures of Florence. Built in the fourteenth century, this immense basilica boasts tranquil Romanesque cloisters, venerable statuary, and works of art by Renaissance masters like Vasari, Giotto, and Masaccio. No travel guide to Italy fails to rave about it, and it is an obligatory stop for even the most sore-footed, art-weary tourist.
But there is one wing of the church—a monumental wing, half the complex, in fact—that tourists do not see and that guide books either ignore altogether, or sidle by with no more than a curt “Closed to visitors.” This is the aptly named Great Cloister, the most ancient and historic part of the church. For two centuries now, in one of history’s more peculiar marriages of church and state (courtesy of Napoleon Bonaparte), this tranquil quadrangle, along with the four low buildings that enclose it with their gracefully arched and frescoed porticos, has been the property of Italy’s national gendarmerie, the
Arma dei Carabinieri
. For the last two decades it has been their Warrant Officer and Brigadier Training School.
During this particular September, it was more or less on loan, serving as the venue for the Fourteenth International Symposium on Science and Detection, a week of seminars for mid-level law-enforcement personnel from all over the world: Indian sub-inspectors, Russian
militsiya
majors, Japanese NPA
keishi-sei
, Romanian commissars. In the vaulted, richly frescoed “Pope’s Room” a lecture was currently in progress that would have singed the ears of the fifteenth-century Pope Eugenius IV when he administered the papacy from this very space. (No doubt the lecturer would have found himself more thoroughly singed soon afterward.)
The subject was human evolution, and the lecturer was Gideon Oliver, known throughout the world of forensic science as the Skeleton
When questioning followed, additional details came to light. The deceased had each sustained a single gunshot wound to the head. The shootings occurred on a mountainside trail. The bodies then fell some sixty meters to a rocky area below. The weapon involved was a Beretta M1935 semiautomatic pistol, using .32 ACP ammunition. This pistol, which was originally produced for the military, had been in signor Cubbiddu’s possession for many years, and was found under his remains. Signora Cubbiddu, who was also born in Sardinia, had been Cubbiddu’s second wife. They had been married for twenty-five years.
The Cubbiddu family declined to be interviewed but issued the following joint statement through their Arezzo attorney, Severo Quadrelli: “We appreciate the professionalism shown by the
Carabinieri
and the public prosecutor in their investigation, and find no fault with their efforts. However, we maintain the unshakable conviction that our beloved father, Pietro Cubbiddu, did not commit these horrible acts.” Cesare Baccaredda Cubbiddu, Nola’s son from her prior marriage, had no comment.
Motive for the tragedy remained in doubt.
Well, yes, but in Rocco’s opinion, not a whole lot of doubt. Interviews with the family had made it clear that Pietro suspected Nola of having an affair. For an old-school Roman Catholic Sard like Pietro, what further motive was needed? Being cuckolded would have been unendurable; the most humiliating fate imaginable. And divorce was out of the question. Thus . . .
But where was the good in pursuing it now, or even making it known? With the killer dead, what difference could it make? Where could it lead, except to more anguish for the family? It was Deputy Prosecutor Migliorini’s decision to bury these details, and for once Rocco agreed with him.
FOUR
The following week, Tuesday, September 6, 2011
THE church of Santa Maria Novella is one of the great treasures of Florence. Built in the fourteenth century, this immense basilica boasts tranquil Romanesque cloisters, venerable statuary, and works of art by Renaissance masters like Vasari, Giotto, and Masaccio. No travel guide to Italy fails to rave about it, and it is an obligatory stop for even the most sore-footed, art-weary tourist.
But there is one wing of the church—a monumental wing, half the complex, in fact—that tourists do not see and that guide books either ignore altogether, or sidle by with no more than a curt “Closed to visitors.” This is the aptly named Great Cloister, the most ancient and historic part of the church. For two centuries now, in one of history’s more peculiar marriages of church and state (courtesy of Napoleon Bonaparte), this tranquil quadrangle, along with the four low buildings that enclose it with their gracefully arched and frescoed porticos, has been the property of Italy’s national gendarmerie, the
Arma dei Carabinieri
. For the last two decades it has been their Warrant Officer and Brigadier Training School.
During this particular September, it was more or less on loan, serving as the venue for the Fourteenth International Symposium on Science and Detection, a week of seminars for mid-level law-enforcement personnel from all over the world: Indian sub-inspectors, Russian
militsiya
majors, Japanese NPA
keishi-sei
, Romanian commissars. In the vaulted, richly frescoed “Pope’s Room” a lecture was currently in progress that would have singed the ears of the fifteenth-century Pope Eugenius IV when he administered the papacy from this very space. (No doubt the lecturer would have found himself more thoroughly singed soon afterward.)
The subject was human evolution, and the lecturer was Gideon Oliver, known throughout the world of forensic science as the Skeleton
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