A Death In Tuscany - Dick Rosano

Cozy Culinary Mystery Novel Set In Tuscany, Italy

A Death In Tuscany by Dick Rosano

Book excerpt

Before leaving for Castelnuovo Berardenga in search of Captain Mirelli, I decided to head down to the winery at the base of the mountain on which the Castello stood.

It was a long low building sandwiched between the macadam road on one side and a sharply sloping hill that dropped away from the other side toward the vineyards. This gave the property access on one side for trucks, tractors, and other vehicles used in delivering grapes and processing the fermentation, and a natural, gravity-fed option on the other side to allow the juice to be run from fermenters on the ground floor to finishing vats and storage vessels on lower levels. With less mechanical pumping, it was believed that finer wine would result.

I watched the trucks loaded with newly harvested white grapes arrive at the winery to my left. The little old man who appeared in the doorway of the winery was Vito Basiglio, the winemaker of Castello dei Trantini. I remembered with fondness the years I spent watching that lively old man skitter about the vats and presses, calling out orders to his apprentices, always moving and always directing the activities of the ten or twelve lesser employees of my grandfather's proud domain. Vito acted with such a feverish intensity that one tended to forget the patience that was necessary for the time-consuming production of fine wine. But he possessed the required patience also, as when I would ask for a taste of the wine when I was a little, wide-eyed apprentice myself.

"Why do you want to drink this grape juice when it still smells of the crusher?" Vito would say, referring to the sweet, musty taste of newly crushed grapes. "Be patient. We'll wait till it is wine," and his eyes sparkled at the mention of the word, "then we shall taste it."

Even now, as I watched him from the roadway, Vito darted here and there supervising the delivery of the new grapes, a man as old as my grandfather, but kept young by this annual ritual of rebirth. It was the process of creating wine that gave Vito his energy. He always looked so alive during the harvest, even though this time of year also brought the longest days and most strenuous work.

At one point, he looked in my direction and studied me carefully for a moment. Then, suddenly recognizing me, he waved with a broad smile across his face. Suddenly, his exuberant wave halted slightly, and the smile faded as he seemed to remember my cheerless reason for being here, and his arm fell to his side. With one last glance in my direction, he resumed his duties, disappearing inside the winery to usher the grapes along their path.

I went to the garage at the end of a short lane behind the main building and found Santo there talking to a young man in work clothes. After telling him I intended to speak with Franco Mirelli, Santo gave me the keys to Nonno Filippo's Fiat, and I went to find it. Parked next to the Fiat in the garage was a new Maserati Quattroporte, one of Italy’s most elegant sedans.

As I admired its clean lines and stylish interior, Riccardo came out of a room in the back with a small bundle of short wires in his hand. Riccardo was hired a few years back to work in the winery with Vito, but his interest always drew him to the cars in my grandfather's garage. After offering to fix occasional automotive failures, Riccardo was made the regular mechanic for the establishment and took care of the farm and fermentation equipment in the winery as well as the cars of the estate.

"Buon giorno, Signor Filippo." Everyone at the winery had assumed Vito's label for me, the polite "signor" attached to my first name, and even Riccardo who was younger than I still called me Filippo.

"Buon giorno, Riccardo. Is the Fiat running well? I’m going to see Captain Mirelli."

"Oh, well, in that case," he said with respect, "you should take the Maserati. It's a fine machine, and you would command more attention if you drive such an automobile." Even though many Italians looked down on the polizia, posturing for people in authority was a part of the national charade.

"I hope that I won't have to pose to gain their attention, but if it is ready to run, I will take it. Thank you." The joy at driving such a car allayed my concerns about using something other than what Santo had suggested. He was so preoccupied with the affairs of the vineyard that I assumed he just hadn't thought of it.

I took the new set of keys from Riccardo and settled into the leather seat on the driver’s side. Instinctively, I reached for the safety belt, as all Americans do, and noticed Riccardo eyeing me with curiosity. Italians drive like maniacs — well-trained maniacs it’s true — but maniacs. In spite of this, and their penchant for speeding around blind curves and through crowded intersections, most Italians don’t naturally buckle up the way we do in the States. Perhaps they think it robs them of some of the excitement of driving, but I decided to remain true to my American lifestyle and I fastened the seatbelt across my lap.

As I turned the key and felt the gentle roar of the engine starting, the odometer showed that the car had barely been driven.

"Riccardo, this car is brand new! Nonno Filippo has only put thirty-one miles on it."

Looking down at his feet, Riccardo responded, "No. Signor Trantino put no miles on it. Those miles were driven by me when I picked the car up at the factory and drove it here. Your grandfather looked forward to buying that car for two years, and when I delivered it to him, he stared proudly at it for a long time. It was evening, and at his age he couldn't see well in the fading light, so he decided to wait till the next morning to try out his new automobile. The next day he was quickly occupied with matters at the winery, then distracted by business at the Castello. It was that afternoon that he fell from the window."

Tears welled up in his eyes, and I could see how his love for my grandfather mingled with his love of cars, and I knew he felt that both Nonno Filippo and the Maserati had somehow missed out on something by not knowing each other.

"I was told that Anita found him. Is this true, Riccardo?"

"Yes. She came out of the door onto the veranda, the doors just beside the residence in the Castello. When she looked to the left, she saw him there crumpled up on the stone steps."

"Weren't the workers reporting to the fields yet? Didn't any of them see him?"

"There were workers in the field, but not many. And besides, the veranda is high above the vineyard, and unless they came up into the Castello and around the back to the veranda, they wouldn’t have seen Signor Trantino. In any case, most of them reported directly to the winery that day to help with the white grape harvest."

"And what about Vito, the winemaker? He lives in the villa down the hill from the winery and supervises the pickers at the harvest. Wouldn't he have come to the Castello at some point?"

"Usually, but not that afternoon. After the harvest has begun and he is sure of the quality of the grapes coming in, he often leaves for Radda, making arrangements to sell the white wine from the Terra e Cielo vineyard.”

Thinking once again of Anita, I frowned.

"That must have been hard on Anita, finding Nonno Filippo like that."

"Yes, it was very hard on her. She loved Signor Trantino very much." He blushed at the mention of love between those two, and retreated, "I only meant that they were very close. She was the only employee in the house, and they spent a lot of time together. They argued often, but it was the arguing between two people who have been together for many years…and loved each other." He shrugged mournfully at this description, as if trying to explain with his body language what he meant.

I didn't want to respond, to try to add anything to his description, but we looked at each other and understood.

Nonno Filippo was loved by everyone, his family and employees alike, and I couldn't begin to think who might have had reason to kill him. Then the words of my cousins came back to me, and I had to admit that the circumstances of my grandfather's death were suspicious. The police might not have thought so, but they didn't know him.

I returned my attention to the Maserati and listened to the sweet purr of a finely crafted engine. Riccardo couldn’t miss the pleased smile that crept across my face and he responded in kind. He knew cars better than I did, at least as a mechanic knows them. But I knew cars as an Italian driver would know them. There was something seductive about such a fine machine, mixing refined elegance with come-hither sexiness and dominating power. A car such as the Maserati was meant to be wooed, not just driven, and could transform a simple Sunday errand into a memorable experience.

“Signor Filippo!” called Riccardo over the roar of the engine as I tested the accelerator. “Captain Mirelli’s office is in Salina, just outside of Castelnuovo Berardenga. That is where the investigations unit of the polizia work. You can look for him at the Piazza di San Marco.”

I put the Maserati in gear and, with a wave to Riccardo, sped out of the garage and down the road toward town. The car’s low center of gravity made me feel like I was glued to the asphalt as it took the cutbacks and crazy curves through the hills and between the vineyards. The soft leather cushions and perfect spacing of gear shift, steering wheel, and accelerator pedal made it more comfortable than my favorite chair at home, and the exhilaration of driving such a finely crafted automobile had an unmistakable effect on my mood. Whereas I had felt a bit melancholy over the whole business of this trip, driving this car brought me back home to the Italy and the Tuscany I loved. There’s very little more exciting than a fast car on a tough driving course through some of the world’s most beautiful countryside. Of course, an Italian man would want to complete the picture with a beautiful woman beside him — and I did too — but that was a detail that I hoped I might one day fill in, too.

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: Dick Rosano

BOOK TITLE: A Death in Tuscan

GENRE: Crime & Mystery

PAGE COUNT: 205

IN THE BLOG: Books Set In Italy, New Mystery Ebooks, Best Standalone Mystery Novels

“Flowing, descriptive, and emotionally evocative... Charmingly handled”

— Readers' Favorite

“As much a crime novel as an authoritative travelogue and wine tutorial, an enjoyable read for Tuscany aficionados in particular”

— Ambassador Magazine

“From wine and cheese to sports cars and beautiful landscapes, A Death in Tuscany transports you to the region famous for producing Chianti... In Rosano’s hands, the novel is sculpted by a writer with an expertise in wine...””

— Italian-American Magazine [Book Club Selection]