Chapter 4
FOUR
Presley burst in, her carefully crafted appearance now a mess: hair wild, lipstick smeared into a bruise across her mouth. An officer hurried after her.
“Sorry,” the deputy said. “She insisted she speak with you.”
“That’s okay.” Charlie angled himself between Brett’s body and his girlfriend. “You have information for us?”
Presley came forward, trying to peer around the sheriff before catching a glimpse of Brett’s body and bursting into tears, which she dried with the corner of her knuckle.
Perhaps unfairly, I was struck by how well grief suited her.
Even with the tousled hair and tarnished makeup, she was not an “ugly crier.” Her flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes made her almost sparkle.
“Brett and I traveled to Sardinia to meet my extended family a few weeks ago. He was…” Presley sniffled twice. “He was planning to propose, so he was doing a sort of ‘meet the family’ tour. He thought it would be good for his upcoming show, but while we were there… it didn’t go well.”
I couldn’t help but notice her language: He was planning, he was doing, he thought, his show. Brett seemed to be the only one calling the shots in their supposed relationship.
“How would it affect the show?” I asked.
“We brought the camera crew, thinking that viewers would like to see us traveling. We ate cannoli and granita. We walked along the Cala Brandinchi. The first day was perfect until…” She took a steadying breath.
“After the second day we couldn’t use much of the footage, mainly because of my bisnonna—my great-grandmother.
” Presley swallowed. “She took us to her spiritual adviser, a fortune teller, who gave us a terrible reading and then took my bisnonna aside to say God knows what.”
Like Mina had said, if Presley believed in psychics and curses, her great-grandmother’s warning could have poisoned their relationship before they could get engaged.
“After that my bisnonna despised Brett, said he was a stronzo—an asshole—and he would break my heart. She went on and on about seeing him with another woman even though that would’ve been literally impossible.
At first, I assumed she hated him because he isn’t Catholic, but then after we spoke for a while, all in Italian and all off-camera, of course, I realized it was because she’d seen Small Town, Big Romance.
She’d watched him closely all season long and said she knew that he was no good.
She was angry that he’d brought cameras to her island home, and she thought that he was corrupting me. ”
Presley herself had become a household name from the very same show and, from what I could tell, was very Americanized. As Momma would say, this sounded like the pot calling the kettle black if ever there was one.
Presley glanced down now, not meeting our eyes for a moment, but when she spoke again, I realized she was thinking the same thing.
“Apparently, she watched the show and knew we were together, but no one had told her about the tape that was released a few months after it ended. My bisnonna doesn’t go online. ”
I knew that she was referring to the infamous sex tape, which was not actually a tape but rather a streamed five-minute clip of her – completely nude and in the starring role. I’d always assumed Presley had been the one to release it, since it had apparently secured her ongoing stardom.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Lombardi, for your loss,” Charlie said, clearing his throat. “But I do need to understand one thing: What impact would your great-grandmother have had on the events of this evening?”
She glanced between the two of us as if the answer was already sitting right in front of us. “She cursed Brett, of course.” Presley pulled a tissue from her cleavage and let out a soft cry.
“She cursed him?” I repeated.
Presley looked from me to the sheriff as she stuffed the tissue back into a pocket, as if she was confused by exactly what part of all of this we didn’t understand.
A moment later, she covered the distance, took both of my hands in her own, and gazed into my eyes, trying to communicate some deep-seated fear.
What she was telling us was not mere superstition to her.
No, this was real, applicable in the day-to-day.
Like how some Southerners paint porch ceilings “haint blue” to keep the ghosts away or cover mirrors during a wake to keep the spirits from getting trapped.
Such cultural practices were silly to me, a person more drawn to science and strategic intervention, but I couldn’t deny that they were very real to some people.
As I stared into Presley’s unblinking eyes, I could almost feel the fear radiating from her. I tried to calm her with logic. “You said that your family is Catholic, right? I was raised as a part-time Baptist, but from what I understand, they don’t exactly believe in magic.”
“It’s not magic. It’s spiritualism,” Presley countered, as if I should be able to easily parse out the difference.
“And my family in Sardinia certainly believes. They call it the malocchio, the evil eye. Perhaps you would call our beliefs a combination of folklore and Catholicism, but to them, to me, it is very real.”
Charlie and I glanced at one another. He was certainly doing a better job at keeping his face unreadable.
“My bisnonna gave Brett the malocchio the few weeks we were in Italy. He’d been suffering from headaches and stomach pains ever since.”
“Was he taking any kind of medication for the symptoms?” I asked, knowing the coroner would be able to tell us but that wouldn’t be until tomorrow at the earliest.
“No,” she hesitated, her eyes flickering. “But he had actually taken up a new diet regimen.”
“Supplements?” Maybe that would explain his death. I thought of a sweet cocker spaniel I’d treated whose owner had unsuspectingly overdosed the dog on iron supplements. Thankfully, the pup had recovered, but it had been a long road back. Perhaps I could convince Presley that there was no curse.
I was about to start in about the dangers of unregulated supplements when Presley shook her head. “Twenty-hour fasting. He would eat from ten o’clock in the morning until two in the afternoon, and then nothing again until the next morning.”
Hmm… okay. Back to possible murder, then. I thought of the drink he’d held in his hand. That had not been water inside the glass.
“Did he drink while fasting?” I asked. “What about alcohol?”
She titled her head. “He couldn’t give up liquor. He would decide to lay off for a day or two, but most evenings he had a drink… or two or three.”
“What was he drinking this evening?” I asked.
“And how much?” Charlie followed up.
“He had three beers at the game, and when we arrived, he ordered a cocktail from the bar and then drank most of my glass of wine. I’d just brought him a cup of bourbon before he…” Soft crying began again, and she looked at both of us as if imploring us not to judge Brett—or her—too harshly.
His stomach pains and headaches sounded much more like the effects of alcohol, a lack of food, or even a medical condition, not a supernatural curse, but I didn’t think now—with her dead almost-fiancé lying before us—was the time to argue.
Charlie stepped forward. “Ms. Lombardi, we understand, and we appreciate, your input.” He ushered Presley away from the body and closer to the stage curtains that would lead her back into the ballroom.
“You should sit tight while we make a few notes, and I’ll find you soon if I need to ask further questions. ”
Presley’s eyes traveled to the gurney one last time before she bowed her head and stepped through to the other side of the red velvet.
Charlie came back to my side and gestured for the medics to enter and finish loading up the body.
“So,” I started. “Should we fly in her great-grandmother for questioning?”
Charlie ignored my quip.
“Sorry,” I quickly corrected. When a situation was harrowing, the things jumping around in my head became more erratic, but that was part of how I processed things. “You handled that well.”
“Thanks.” Charlie gave me a curt nod. “Even that kind of testimony can actually help an investigation. It gives us context, if not of the victim then of the people closest to them.”
That was a reasonable explanation, I supposed, but his tone was so frozen that I couldn’t help but wonder if, besides my stupid joke, I’d done something really wrong in the past half hour.
Charlie stared at the floor and began to pace. “On first appearances, it looks pretty straightforward, like the victim choked on something. But he was presumably fasting. He was grabbing at his throat, and there was a trickle of blood in his mouth caused by…” His words trailed, uncertain.
“He could’ve bitten his tongue before I started compressions,” I suggested before reconsidering. “But surely I would’ve noticed. I mean…” I cringed. “At one point my hands were in his mouth.”
Charlie nodded as he processed this. “Maybe the blood is evidence of internal bleeding?”
“But what could’ve caused that?”
“No idea.” Charlie sighed. “But it sounds like we need to single out those who were either in contact with his drinks or anywhere in his vicinity when the victim became distressed.”
“Makes sense,” I said, beginning to feel more like we were on the same wavelength again – even if it was only because we were talking about potential murder.
Charlie began to pace once more. “Run through it with me: Who did you see interact with him right before he died?”
“Joe was on bar, and Presley—as she said—had just gotten him a bourbon and brought it to him. Brett and Lacy were dancing and Anton—”
Charlie took out a notebook and began recording names.
I thought of the appalled—and worse, sad—face Lacy would make if she knew that I’d thrown her or her boyfriend into the spotlight of an investigation. I tried to course correct. “I don’t think they had anything to do with—”
“It’s just a list of names, Dakota. Doesn’t mean anyone is guilty.” Charlie huffed out a breath. “Who else did you notice hanging around him this evening?”
I hesitated, feeling like I was somehow betraying these people, but willing myself to trust Charlie’s method. “His camera crew was filming most of the night. Brett was dancing with Lacy when he…” I paused, my cheeks heating. “Do not write down Lacy’s name.”
Charlie looked at me, his eyebrows raised as if trying to figure out how serious I was. “I told you, this doesn’t mean anyone is guilty. Think of it as a list of witnesses, not suspects.”
That didn’t make me feel better. “Fine. Then add my name to the list since I was at a table only five yards or so from the dance floor.”
He huffed out a long breath. “Fine.”
I swallowed hard, trying to reframe my thinking and lower my blood pressure. I trusted Charlie. I did. He was a good sheriff, and he’d worked to solve Mr. Finch’s murder as well as the case of the missing 2001 pageant queen only a few months earlier.
We could do this. Together. Again.
We just needed to somehow keep from irritating each other to death, which was perhaps a poor choice of phrasing in this moment.
Charlie studied me, and then without another word he turned and walked to the edge of the curtain and poked his head out, likely consulting with his gorgeous deputy.
Fine. I have things to do too, I reminded myself. Things like finding Lacy and asking her exactly what she’d been searching for in Brett’s pockets.