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Death in the Dolomites
A Rick Montoya Italian Mystery
By David P. Wagner Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright © 2014 David P. Wagner
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4642-0270-4
CHAPTER 1
It had snowed most of the day, but a new and stronger system had begun blowing over the mountain from the north, diving into the valley. Snow was always welcome in a ski town, especially the clumped flakes that now cast ever-larger shadows on the ground under the streetlamps. The cement of the sidewalk and the parking lot, barely visible an hour before, was now covered. Bad news for Campiglio's street crews but not for the skiers who had left Milan the previous afternoon to climb into the Dolomites, skis snapped to racks on the roofs of their cars. They had been rewarded with an excellent day of skiing, and with this snow, tomorrow would be even better. If it kept up through the night, the base could last for weeks. The local merchants were likely standing outside their shops right now, letting the flakes fall on their grinning faces.
At this moment the man's interest was not in tourists, but in the stained canvas duffel at his feet. He pulled his wool cap down over his ears and adjusted a small backpack before looking once more around the large lot. It was deserted save for a few cars of the remaining employees at the far side. His eyes moved to the bulky building and the thick cables that ran out of one side toward the mountain. On its top, the last weak rays of late afternoon sun, long gone from the valley below, outlined the station at the high end of the cable line.
It was time.
With a grunt he wrapped the strap of the duffel around his gloved hand and began to drag it toward the building. His burden slid easily through the accumulating snow and occasional patches of ice, like an injured skier on a ski-patrol sled. The last few meters would be inside on the loading platform, but the snow sticking to the bag would help it slide. This would be even easier than he'd planned. Halfway he stopped to catch his breath, pulling up his jacket sleeve to check his watch. Perfect, he thought. There would be one more run of the gondola before its cables stopped for the night, and he would be on it.
On the mountain the cleaning crew was finishing its duties. Given the number of skiers who had passed through the snack bar on their way to the piste during the day, the workload was heavy. The floor was now clean of slush and mud, and four black garbage bags, almost as tall as the women who handled them, had been loaded into the waiting gondola. It would be the same story the next night, especially with the snow now falling. One of the workers—a woman who had been doing the late afternoon shift for more years than she would admit—put down her mop, walked to the window, and peered out at the falling snow. She shook her head and returned to her job. A few moments later the crew stood in a silent clump near the door while the supervisor made a final check of the room. The woman closest to the door slid it open, letting in a light gust of wind and snow. The others, now in parkas and wool coats, instinctively pulled them around their necks in anticipation of the cold. The supervisor finally nodded and the group began to file onto the platform to the waiting gondola, snow already covering its roof and the windows on one side. When they were all inside, the supervisor closed the latch on the door and took a silent head count before picking up the black phone hanging near the door.
"Guido, siamo pronti," she said.
Below, the man in the control room hung up his phone while keeping his eyes on the last sentences of a story in Gazzetta dello Sport. Guido knew it was not going to be a good year for his team, and again wondered why last season's star player had been sold. To make it worse, the bastard would now play for their biggest rival. He folded the paper in disgust and pulled the long wooden lever, never glancing at the platform below. The huge dynamo came slowly to life and the cable above the long window shuddered and began to move.
The man was crouched on the floor of the gondola, well below its ski-scratched windows, when it swung slowly and lurched upward. Neither he nor the sack were visible from above, even if Guido had taken his eyes off the newspaper and looked down from his seat in the control room. As the huge metal box was dragged from the dim light of the lower station into the darkness, the man inside it heard the snow slapping softly against the glass windows above his head. He slowly got to his feet and looked down at the base station, now fading quickly as the cable picked up speed. In a few minutes its lights would be hard to distinguish from those of the other buildings at the northern edge of Campiglio.
The route was a steep shot straight to the top of the mountain, suspended over a forest of tall pines. The only breaks in the thick covering of trees were the clearings around the pylons or a few spots where the stone core of the mountain had pushed itself through the dirt. The ski trails, in contrast, returned to Campiglio over a tamer terrain. They took their time to work through the softer hills of the mountain's other side, carrying skiers to a choice of bases along the east side of town.
He walked to the other end of the gondola cabin and looked upward. In the swirling wind and snow he could not make out his gondola's twin, but he knew it was rushing toward him and would be passing soon. He dragged the duffel toward the door and checked to see that the latch had not slipped closed. It had not. According to his calculations the best time would be after passing the second pylon, and just at that moment the cable carrying his gondola slipped over the first one. He flexed his knees as the floor bounced slowly while continuing its climb. Suddenly the other gondola appeared out of the storm and the man dropped to his knees to get out of sight. Through the howling wind he heard a laugh from one of the workers as the two gondolas passed each other. Seconds later the only sound was once more the hum of the cable and the increasing patter of the snow. He reached over and slowly slid the door open with his right hand. As the snow swirled inside he sat back on the floor, the sack between him and the opening.
When the next pylon passed he waited until the swinging stopped and firmly pushed the sack out the door with both feet. As he got up to slide the door closed he heard the crack of a tree branch and then the soft thump as the sack hit the snow below. The sound meant that it had sunk in, and with the new snow it would be well covered. Once the door was closed he slipped the latch into place. Safety first.
A few minutes later the other gondola bumped slowly into its berth at the edge of the town, where it would stay until it took the morning crew up on the first run of the day. The workers pushed out, waving at Guido in the control room while they pulled the plastic garbage bags behind them. Guido nodded to the group leader but kept his eyes on the young body of one of the newer members of the crew. When they had all shuffled through the door below him, he switched off the motors and gathered his belongings—the newspaper and a thermos. He was always sure to straighten up so the morning shift would have no complaints. He turned out the lights and locked the door behind him. As he walked down the stairs to the streets he wondered what his wife would be serving for dinner. She had not made lasagna in a while, perhaps this was the night. After pulling on a wide-brimmed hat, Guido buttoned his leather coat and walked into the storm.
High above, the man stepped out of the gondola and slid the door shut. On the platform the footprints of the cleaning crew were already covered, as his own would be in a matter of minutes. He turned and looked down at the valley, its lights blending together through the prisms of the falling flakes. After a moment of reflection he adjusted his backpack and walked on the deck that ran along the outside of the building. Its tables and chairs had been stacked and pushed against the windows under the overhanging eaves, but the protection was not enough. The morning work crew would need their shovels. Two steps led from the deck down to where the wide trail began, a relatively benign incline for the skiers to start their runs, but still often littered with fallen beginners. He could barely make out the trail, but it didn't really matter, he could get down the mountain blindfolded.
He cleared away a patch of snow at the edge of the deck with his foot and put down his backpack before stepping off and walking around to the far side of building to a small storage shed. After bending over, he used his gloved hands to scrape away the snow under the shed's door, revealing a small opening from which he pulled a pair of dark skis and poles. Even though the falling snow would do the job for him, he carefully brushed the snow back with his foot before hoisting the equipment over his shoulder and returning to where he had left the backpack. From it he took out a pair of ski boots whose dark plastic matched the skis. After the usual grunts he had the ski boots on his feet and the snow boots secured in the pack. He also had a pair of ski goggles over his cap. It took him only a few seconds to snap into the skis and strap the poles around his wrists. It was snowing even more heavily now. The clear yellow plastic brightened the view slightly as he pulled the goggles down over his eyes and squeezed the rubber grips of the poles. He straightened up, pulling back the sleeve of his parka to check his watch again in the little light that was left in the day. Yes, the ski patrol would already be at the bottom after their final run to catch any stragglers. He pushed off slowly and began to work his way left and right through the fresh powder, his boots always touching as he flexed his knees for each turn. The flakes swirled around his bare cheeks, but he did not feel the cold. He knew that by the time he reached the valley, his tracks, as well as everything else on the mountain, would be shrouded in snow.
CHAPTER 2
Rick Montoya came to a stop on a small ledge, leaned on his ski poles, and surveyed Campiglio. Rays of midday sunlight cut diagonally through the falling snow, reflecting off chalet roofs for a few seconds before disappearing under more waves of white flakes. Like so many towns in the Dolomites, Campiglio could thank the post-war economic boom and the growth of skiing for its prosperity. It had once been an isolated mountain village whose economy was based on sheep and goats. Today it swarmed with flatlanders from both sides of the border, eager to spend their euros in the thin Alpine air. And when the skiers left, the locals barely had time to enjoy a glass of wine before the hikers rolled in. Business was good, though that never kept them from complaining.
The town nestled in a narrow valley surrounded on three sides by the Dolomites. Each side had its own sets of cabled machinery to transport the skiers from the town to the trails; only at the southern end did the mountains open. That was the only direction that Campiglio could grow, wedged in as it was by the peaks which gave it its livelihood. It was to the south, along the road to Trento, where the newest of the chalets and apartments were being built. The center that Rick surveyed had maintained its small-town feel. He looked down on an irregular carpet of roofs, some broken by chimneys emitting wisps of smoke. It was completely different from many of the resorts he'd skied in the Rockies, where high-rise hotels came right up to the trail bases. Above all, it was the quiet here that was most relaxing. The occasional call of one skier to another, or the scrape of a ski, was quickly muffled by an all-consuming silence.
A few hundred meters below Rick was the end of the trail, open and treeless, where ski classes formed up in the morning and families found each other at the end of a run. He could hear the clanking of the chairlifts as they swung around before silently following the cable back up the hill. It was lunch time, so the lift would not be getting much business until later in the afternoon. Two skiers shushed past him on the way to the bottom where they would slip out of their skis and clomp into town for the best meal of the day.
Rick knew that a steaming bowl of pasta tastes even better, if that's possible, after a morning of skiing. And he had known all morning what he was about to be treated to in the hotel dining room: fettuccine with a mushroom cream sauce. Both he and Flavio had chosen it over the bowl of broth when the girl had appeared at their breakfast table to get their lunch preferences. A bowl of broth after a morning on the slopes? Not on your life.
From his vantage point he could see the roof of their hotel and managed to convince himself that he could smell the mushrooms simmering in the sauce. Flavio's choice of a hotel had been a good one, but that would be expected from someone who grew up in the town. In addition to the food, the bonus was location, tucked quietly above the more congested parts of Campiglio, yet a short walk down to the action. And the family that owned it was so relaxed and informal they would have fit in perfectly in Rick's native New Mexico. Well, perhaps native wasn't the right word, since he was born in Rome, but Rick Montoya's family roots were planted deeply on both sides of the Atlantic. He looked over the housetops of Campiglio and was reminded again how far he was from the American Southwest—in more ways than distance. Too many deep thoughts, he decided; this is a vacation. And it is lunch time.
* * *
After stowing his ski equipment in the storage room Rick climbed the stairs to the lobby in his loafers, found no messages, and walked into the wood-paneled dining room. There were about thirty tables, a few more than the number of rooms, a third of them now filled with hotel guests in ski pants and sweaters. Flavio was already at his place at their assigned table along the windows at the far side of the room. The table location was one of the advantages of knowing the owners, as Flavio had pointed out when they took their first meal. Rick was surprised to see another man sitting with him. The surprise was not that there was someone with Flavio, since his friend seemed to know half the people in Campiglio. It was the way the man was dressed. In contrast with Flavio's ski outfit, the stranger wore a dark suit with a white shirt and striped tie—the first suit Rick had seen since driving into the ski resort three days earlier. The man looked as out of place here as Rick would have looked wearing ski clothes in a restaurant near his apartment in Rome.
A few years older than Rick and Flavio, probably in his late thirties, the man had a round face and a smile guaranteed to put anyone at ease. Rick remembered the game he played with his Uncle Piero, the policeman, when they had their weekly lunches in Rome. Each would guess the profession of someone at a neighboring table, stating the reasons. His uncle used his years of experience dealing with criminals and the general public, as well as a few detective techniques, to make his guesses. Rick used intuition and studied body language. Rick now guessed this man was either an insurance salesman or a mortician. Flavio looked up and waved Rick to the table with a characteristic scooping motion of the hand.
"Rick," he said, "a good friend fromTrento has just appeared and will be staying in our hotel. Meet Luca Albani. Luca, this is my American-Roman friend Riccardo Montoya." The two shook hands and Rick took a seat.
"Luca, I hope you're not planning on skiing in that suit," said Rick, as Flavio poured him some red wine.
The man smiled, but his face was anything but carefree. "Unfortunately, my new American friend, I am here on business. And I have never worn skis in my life. Is that how you say it, Flavio, 'wear skis'?"
"Close enough."
Rick remembered his guessing game. "And what business brings you to Campiglio?"
"An unfortunate situation. A visitor to the town has been reported missing. Because the sub-station here is small, I have been sent to investigate." He noticed Rick's perplexed look. "You see, Riccardo, I am a policeman." The smile returned.
So much for guessing professions, thought Rick. He would not mention this to Uncle Piero.
"Luca is fighting a losing battle against crime in the region," said Flavio before taking a drink of his wine. "Despite his efforts we will eventually be overrun with criminal elements like the rest of Italy."
It was classic Flavio. Rick looked at the policeman and noted his grin. "You appear to know Flavio as well as I do, Luca. At the university he was known as Glass Half-Empty Flavio." This got a smile even from Flavio. "But you are not from Trento," Rick continued. "You sound more Roman. How long have you been up here in the north?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Death in the Dolomites by David P. Wagner. Copyright © 2014 David P. Wagner. Excerpted by permission of Poisoned Pen Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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