Prologue
There should have been a sound--she knew that much--but she was also aware that not hearing anything was curious. It was as if she was watching someone else from a detached distance. Then a voice followed by an explosion of white light. Then all was darkness.
Her next awareness was of lying on her back and of the intense throbbing in her lips. She tried unsuccessfully to lift her head. The failure to lift herself refocused her awareness to the dull pain in the back of her head and how hard it was to breathe. She laid her head back and just tried to move her lip, which had the effect of doubling the pain.
“Just lie still,” a calm male voice said.
She squinted, then closed her eyes, then opened them as wide as she could in an attempt to get the face behind the voice into focus.
“You’re ok,” the voice said.
“What happened?” Nattie asked as the man’s face came into view.
“As near as I could tell you were sucker punched.” The voice was impassive, professional.
“You never saw it coming. He walked up to you, said something, and then bam. You didn’t lift your arms; you didn’t flinch; you didn’t protect yourself at all.”
Nattie noticed that he was in a blue uniform. He was a policeman.
“My partner and I saw the whole thing. We were parked right over there.”
Turning her head to look in the direction where he pointed made Nattie wince. Her neck was stiff. She labored to take a long deep breathe and began to sit up.
“Are you sure you’re ready to do that missy?” the policeman asked, but seeing that she was not to be dissuaded he put his left hand under her right arm and supported her neck with his right. “Just go slow,” he encouraged.
Once she was upright, Nattie bent her head forward and fought off dizziness. She touched her lips. She could not tell if they were swollen yet but she knew they would be. Her front teeth felt loose against her tongue.
“Do you know who hit you?”
Lifting her head Nattie gazed across the parking lot outside her office. After a prolonged consideration she slowly turned to face the officer, who was still squatting next to her. “I don’t think I do.”
“That’s okay,” he said, “we’ll know who he is soon enough. My partner caught him as he ran around the front of your building.”
“Already?”
Laughing more heartily, the officer said, “He wasn’t the brightest assailant we’ve ever had to catch. He attacked you right in front of us and then when he tried to make his escape he ran straight towards us.”
How nice for you, thought Nattie.
“Are you sure you didn’t recognize him? It looked like he said something to you just before he hit you.”
“He did.” she remembered. “He asked me my name.”
CHAPTER 1
NATTIE
“Peace and goodwill,” Nattie announced as she crested the State Street hill on Monday morning. Immediately she touched her lip. Although it had been nearly a week since she had been punched in her parking lot, pronouncing words that begin with the letter “p” still hurt.
On Wednesday she had driven to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville and on Thursday and Friday she attended a review course in preparation for a private investigation agency licensure exam on Saturday. She returned to Bristol late Saturday night and enjoyed the solitude of being home on Sunday without anyone knowing she was back.
The timing of the trip to Nashville was a blessing for her. Staying in Bristol would have required endless questions about her fat lip. Having no answers for those questions would have been embarrassing enough without the added pressure of her profession. She could picture the comments:”You say you don’t know who hit you or why?--Too bad you don’t know a private investigator.” In Nashville, if one of the other private investigators were to ask, “in the line of duty” would have been an acceptable explanation.
She was already a licensed private investigator but this license would qualify her to own and operate her own agency. Passing the agency exam had been Nattie’s main concern for the last five days; but now that she was home in Bristol, finding out who attacked her moved to the top of the To-Do list. She did not see herself as a crusader defending women against men. In spite of knowing that women are just as capable of villainy as men, she still had a slight fantasy that the inaugural case of her new agency, assuming that she passed the exam, would be to find justice for a victimized woman. I just wish it wasn’t me, she thought.
On State Street, two blocks east of the “Bristol: A Good Place to Live” sign, is a hill. Atop of that hill is a panoramic view overlooking downtown Bristol with the “knobs” in the background to the west. The knobs were not exactly mountains, but if she was squinting she could envision herself looking over the hillside surrounding Assisi, Italy, the home of Saint Francis.
Nattie’s affection for Saint Francis was not born from a Catholic upbringing. Her parents went to a Lutheran church on those occasions when they went to church at all. It was her mother, Ingrid, who had first been enamored with the founder of the Franciscan order. Ingrid had a small plastic statue of Saint Francis on her dashboard and was fond of telling stories about him to her children. When Nattie was eleven, Ingrid married Lionel O’Brien, who considered Ingrid’s plastic statue to be a form of “idol worship,” so she threw the statue, a DVD of “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” and two biographies of Saint Francis away. Nattie retrieved it all and the very first thing Nattie did when she bought her first car was to place that same plastic Saint Francis statue in the middle of her dashboard.
If traffic on State Street was thin, as it often was early in the morning, she could lean over to the middle of her front seat and include the statue in view of the city and hillside. She could then imitate Francis himself welcoming the Sun to a new day in the hills of Assisi, “peace and goodwill.”
The scene observed from behind Saint Francis was her favorite view of the city. She did not have this visual experience as often as she would have liked because it needed daylight and sparse traffic, which meant early in the morning. When she started her morning this way she knew it would be a good day.
Natalie “Nattie” Miriam Moreland slid into her usual parking spot in the lot outside her office. As usual she was the first car there. Not a big surprise for seven thirty on a Monday morning. Her Private Investigator office had a side entrance leading directly to the parking lot which allowed her clients to enter with some anonymity. The front entrance facing State Street would have been better advertising, but it would not have allowed much privacy.
She had been gone nearly a week and could see already that the sign painter had worked on her door. Good, Nattie thought, slinging her bag over her left shoulder. She transferred her keys to her right hand and headed for the door. But something she noticed stopped her in mid-stride. The key to her office door froze in time just six inches from its home. She could not believe what she was looking at on the glass door to her office.
Nattie almost knew that she would eventually find this very funny. Almost, but not quite. What she did know was that someone got her name wrong. Her name, the name she had written on a work order exactly as she wanted it painted on her door. The name she had written on the work order her receptionist had downloaded from the Ace Sign Company. The name on the check that the Ace “policy” required before they would start to work. The name she had pointed at and said aloud to her receptionist before she left town six days ago. The name she wanted on her door was her name, Natalie Moreland.
Her eyes blinked then opened wider as she lowered her right hand and let the key dangle. She realized that it really could be Ace’s fault, but a screw-up like this had Kevin’s fingerprints all over it.
“Why Natasha?” she asked out loud without expecting an answer. Then her eyes narrowed and her breathing became very deep and very slow. In spite of knowing that it was 7:30 in the morning and that Kevin, her receptionist, her little brother, had never come to work before lunch on Mondays, she still looked for him in the parking lot. When they were kids and Kevin knew he had done something that would tick her off, he would always hide somewhere to gauge her first reaction from a safe distance. She was sure he was watching from somewhere now.
“Are you Ms McMorales?” shouted a man from across the intersection.
The shout startled her. Maybe it was because this was the first time she had returned to the scene where she was attacked. Nattie was surprised by how much the shout startled her. She just looked at the shouter, a man she did not recognize. If you don’t know the rules of the game it’s not wise to roll the dice. So she stood there, non-committal about her name, and watched the shouter wait for traffic to thin enough to cross the street.
He was bald, middle-aged, maybe a healthy 50 or a 40 with some hard miles. He was dressed in spotless white painter’s pants, a white tee-shirt, also spotless, and a blue sports coat. He carried two cups of coffee from Java J’s as he tip-toed through traffic towards her.
“You are Natasha McMorales” the shouter stated, “I just knew it when I saw you.” His smile was big, too big for Bristol, Tennessee, where the standard operating procedure for smiling was to show the upper teeth and occasionally the upper and lower teeth on one side of the mouth or the other. But this tip-toeing middle-aged man wearing a sport-jacket and painter pants was showing every tooth he had.
He held out a cup of coffee in his right hand, “Your office manager told me you drink decaf with splenda.” Then he nodded as if to say, “Go ahead; take it.”
“Do you mean Kevin?” Nattie asked as she pointed her thumb back over her shoulder toward the door behind her while thinking, My idiot brother?
“Si, Kevin.” Mister Tip-toe frowned, retracting the coffee cup. “Did he play a joke on me?”
Nattie stepped forward and reached for the decaf coffee, “I’m sorry for acting so rude. I don’t usually think of Kevin as my office manager.” She shrugged. “He’s my brother.”
Mister Tip-toe’s gigantic smile returned as he released his gift into her hand.
“Thank you,” she said, as she took a sip through the plastic lid. It burned her over-sensitive upper lip, but she added, “This is perfect.”
Placing all five fingertips of his right hand on the middle of his chest, the man announced, “I am Oliver Ruggaliano”; and after bowing slightly, he added, “Please call me Ollie.”
“Hello, Ollie,” she said as she shifted the keys to her left pinky finger and offered her right hand to shake, “I’m Nattie.”
Ollie moved his coffee to his left hand, then after drying his right hand on his right butt cheek he shook her hand enthusiastically. “Nattie! It is a good name, a good American name.” His teeth disappeared and he knitted his brow, “Natasha is a beautiful name, though, a dignified name, important.”
“Why is the name Natasha important?”
“I need to hire a detective who has--” He paused. “--European sensitivity.”
“European sensitivity?”
“I must explain,” Ollie said, “but it is a long story and you have just gotten here. I will come back later when we both have time.”
She was tempted to tell him that “Nattie” is American for “Natalie,” not “Natasha,” but with the “European sensitivity”’ comment the game just got more confusing. “Let me go inside and check my calendar.
Ollie held her coffee while she slid the key into the lock of the door. “I was gone all last week,” she explained.
His “I know” froze her for the second time that morning. She lifted her head and made eye contact with her own reflection in the glass door. Did you hear what I heard? she asked herself silently.
It was not fear that Nattie felt, although she was aware that several alarms had rung in the last few minutes. Then again, maybe the awareness of alarms being rung was how she felt fear. Setting the questions of emotional intelligence aside she decided to keep Ollie in front of her and with his hands full until she was within easy reach of one of the guns she kept in her office. The gun she normally kept holstered at the small of her back was still locked in the glove compartment of her Subaru. Pulling the door open with her left hand she ushered him in with her right hand.
“After you,” Ollie said politely.
“I appreciate that, Ollie,” she said pleasantly, “but I have the door and you have your hands full so please, go ahead.”
He tried giving the coffee to her, but she said, “You hold the coffee and I’ll get the lights.”
Ollie half-bowed again and then stepped through the door into the unlit waiting room. Nattie followed him through the door and flipped on the light switch which was to her left. With the lights on she turned towards Ollie only to watch him set off another alarm in her head.
The waiting room had a large frumpy couch, upholstered with a heavy dark green fabric that reminded many folks of an L.L.Bean dog blanket. The couch was along the short wall to the right of the door, which made the wall crowded enough to offend even marginally sensitive tastes. But aesthetics was not why Nattie wanted the couch there. Her real reason was because she wanted the end table to be just inside the door.
It was a plain end table and it usually held a disorganized pile of odd and unrelated magazines; People, Gold Digest, Southern Living, and Sojourners. But the real importance of the plain end table was the spring loaded hidden drawer that held one of the two guns she kept in her office.
What was alarming Nattie at the moment was that Ollie was now standing next to and facing the end-table. After he put her coffee on top of an old People magazine proclaiming Mel Gibson as the sexiest man alive, he slide his hand under the lip of the top and sprung the secret drawer open, which immediately thudded against the wall.
Nothing about this scene was acceptable to Nattie. Ollie knew way too much about her for her comfort, which was par for the course when Kevin was involved. Also, Ollie had a very European name and an interest in “European sensitivity,” whatever that was, but his accent sounded more like he was from New England than Italy. And the secret hidden drawer, which normally missed hitting the wall by half an inch, was not where it had been last week. And worse yet, it was most certainly not a secret hidden from this oddly dressed tip-toeing man who now smiled warmly gesturing at the gun in the drawer with a hand motion that would have made Vanna White proud.
Nattie did not know whether to leave the gun be or put it in the holster and clip it on her belt at the small of her back. Ollie made the decision for her by stepping backwards to the middle of the room and giving her the “go ahead; take it” nod again. As Ollie turned her back to Nattie to look at a framed poster replica of “The Birth of Venus,” Nattie put the gun in the right pocket of her jacket and closed the drawer.
“I love this,” Ollie said, pointing at the poster. “Who was the artist again?”
“Botticelli,” Nattie said as she looked for her calendar on Kevin’s desk. Her calendar/appointment book should have been locked in the middle drawer of his desk, but it was not there. She finally found it left open in the middle of his desk. All it took to find it was to remove the stack of Sudoku puzzles Kevin had left half finished. Apparently this was part of his work week while she was gone.
“I think this painting is in Venice.” Ollie said from the chest high counter on the other side of Kevin’s desk.
“Actually, it’s in Florence,” Nattie said apologetically. She did not want to sound arrogant or make Ollie feel bad for being wrong but she did feel some satisfaction in knowing where the Botticelli hung. She knew the name of the museum in Florence too, the Uffizi. It felt good to know the name of the museum. It would not have felt good to say it.
“Ah yes, Florence,” Ollie smiled, “They say that the ‘Birth of Venus’ kicked off the Renaissance. Do you think that’s true--Nattie?”
Nattie had been stooping over the desk but stood up and looked at Ollie square in the face. As a private investigator she had trained herself to avoid making hasty judgments. When confronted with a situation in which she did not know the rules, her strategy was to slow down the rolling of the dice. With people she used a different metaphor. She envisioned gathering puzzle pieces, and her strategy was to slow down picturing the finished puzzle until enough puzzle pieces had been gathered. Slowing down was the common denominator in both metaphors.
The puzzle pieces Nattie had already gathered about Ollie so far were the oddest collection of personal facts she had ever encountered. And her collection was only fifteen minutes old.
“I don’t know if it started the Renaissance or not, but the art history teacher I went to Florence with said it was.” Nattie pointed back at him with her chin and asked, “Are you interested in art history?”
“A little,” Ollie replied, “My mother’s family is from Tuscany. She loved everything Tuscan and passed that on to me.”
“Have you been to Toscana, Ollie?”
“Toscana!” Ollie repeated, “You say Tuscany like an Italian--Toscana”
“That brings me to another question Ollie. What do you mean by the term ‘European sensitivity?’” asked Nattie.
“I don’t really know what it means either. I told the man who was here last week that I need a detective who knew about Italy and Italians. He told me that you were famous for your European sensitivity.” Ollie showed all his teeth again and pointed at the appointment book Nattie held. “But that is a long story for anther time.” Then he looked out the window and added, “I am a bit late for work so if you would not mind checking your schedule I’ll be on my way.”
“Of course.” She opened the calendar and placed it on the desk. She ran her finger across the Monday column out of habit as her schedule was completely free all day. The puzzle pieces she collected so far confused her a bit and piqued her curiosity. What she knew, from what she observed so far, was that there was not much she knew. At least she knew she was no longer afraid, but she did not quite know why.
What Nattie did know for sure was that before she would talk to Ollie again she was going to talk to her brother. She wanted a piece of Kevin’s hide. “How about one o’clock today?” she said to Ollie, “Right after lunch.”
Ollie squinted and clinched his teeth, “I’m afraid I cannot come so close to lunchtime.” He pointed out the window, “I am the chef at Michelangelo’s across the street.”
Michelangelo’s was a fairly new restaurant to Bristol. She ate there for lunch almost every week and almost always ordered their Tomato Florentine soup and a Greek salad. Ollie had not been there two weeks ago.
“How about three o’clock then?”
“Three o’clock is perfect. Thanks,” he said and started for the door.
“One question before you go, please,” she blurted out.
Both Ollie’s hands were poised to push the door open but he stopped and turned his head towards her.
The question Nattie most wanted answered was how he came to know about the secret drawer and the hidden gun. But she wanted to talk to Kevin before she asked Ollie about that. So she asked her second question instead. “How did you know that I was gone last week?”
Ollie smiled that big smile again and said, “I knew you were gone last week because I’m the one who painted your door last week.”
