Chapter 18
Bastian smelled the olive grove before he saw it.
They had walked north of the town, up a steep hill into the surrounding countryside, and the sudden greenery was a shock after the bustle of Vernazza.
A breeze stirred the trees, but the sun radiated an intense heat.
Bastian felt his skin humming with warmth, and it made him lightheaded, even though he had applied more sun cream after he fell in the sea.
He caught Whitby giving him a searching look, as if she knew the sun was affecting him.
Her concerned gaze went between Bastian and De Luca, and it seemed she could tell Bastian was struggling with his attraction to the poliziotto, too.
That his rejection hurt. He winked at her in reassurance.
He was fine. Even if he wasn’t, he couldn’t rest yet.
De Luca had unfastened the top two buttons of his polo shirt—it really was hot out—and little curls of dark hair poked through the fabric.
Don’t look, Bastian told himself. He had to respect De Luca’s boundaries, even though the memory of the kiss was still fresh on his lips. If De Luca wanted to keep this purely professional, then so be it.
You can stop looking at his ass, too.
Whitby trotted ahead of them down a little lane.
They reached a house with a terracotta roof, and beside it, the olive grove climbed the hilly landscape.
Two dozen large, twisted trees stood in neat rows, their thin, bladed leaves hissing, the aroma of wood and bark intermingling with the greasy scent of olives.
Similar to olive oil but purer. More intense.
“Nice place,” Bastian mused. “Doesn’t exactly scream murderer.”
“Evil wears many masks,” Whitby said.
“I’ll try the house,” De Luca said, but then a woman stepped out from behind one of the trees.
She wore gardening gloves and a cream-colored sun hat, her tightly curled black hair framing a round, pleasant face. The sun gleamed against her dark skin. A gathering basket full of green olives hung at her front, the straps looped around her shoulders.
“Hello, Inspector.” Kerstin Gronberg had a light Swedish accent, and her tone was jovial, almost motherly. “What brings you to this little part of the world? And who is your friend?”
“I would’ve thought you’d recognize me,” Bastian said, “seeing as you apparently watched me murder Emilio Valentini.”
Kerstin’s eyes flashed over him and her smile drooped. Even though they stood a few feet apart, Bastian smelled her, an earthy, fusty aroma that must be the result of days spent digging around in her grove.
“Oh dear,” the woman said, raising a green bottle to her lips and sipping through a metal straw. The label on the bottle read olio d’oliva. Bastian suppressed an appalled shudder. The woman was drinking olive oil, neat.
“I hope I haven’t caused a problem,” Kerstin said, clutching the bottle in gloved hands, “but I did see you at the harbor looking sort of, well, vampire-y. And there was a body.”
“But you didn’t actually see him kill Emilio?” De Luca said.
“Well, no, I didn’t see the act itself. Isn’t that in my statement?”
“Your statement says you saw Bastian kill Emilio.”
Kerstin took another long sip of the olive oil. Bastian grimaced. How could she drink the stuff like that?
“No, Inspector,” Kerstin said, “I merely saw him at the harbor and reported it to—”
“The commissario,” Bastian guessed, pursing his lips. “Commissario Zappa took your statement, didn’t he?”
The woman nodded and Bastian exchanged a glance with the inspector, who frowned, as if he was thinking the same thing as Bastian, but the thought didn’t make sense.
Commissario Zappa playing fast and loose with a witness statement was bizarre.
A flagrant abuse of his power. Was he really so desperate to pin the deaths on Bastian?
If it were in service of protecting the people of Vernazza, Bastian might understand, but he doubted Zappa’s intentions were so noble.
“That oaf needs a scratch in both eyes!” Whitby cried.
“Herregud!” Kerstin raised her gloved hands. “You’re the first cat I’ve heard speak since I left Sweden!”
“How wonderful for you,” Whitby said through gritted teeth.
Kerstin blinked and returned her gaze to Bastian. “Look, I’m not against vampires. I have met plenty of them over the years. I’ve helped them.”
“Helped them?” De Luca asked.
She shook the green bottle before them. “The properties in my olive oil can cure a myriad of ailments. I have helped many people in town since moving here. The mayor herself is an avid supporter of my work.”
“The mayor?” Bastian echoed.
“I make my own creams from the oil—people use them for their wonderful antiaging properties,” Kerstin explained, taking another sip of her oil. “And, when used correctly, my oil can help vampires overcome their thirst. It can prevent them from killing. She knows the value of that.”
“I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous,” Whitby said, her tail swatting the air.
Bastian looked between the bottle and Kerstin. She had been gulping the oil ever since they arrived. Because she had her own ailments in need of treatment? He turned his ear toward her, listening, wondering if he would find a conspicuous silence in the place of a pulse.
But no, there it was, the soft patter of a heartbeat.
She wasn’t a vampire. Just weird.
“Are you saying you’ve met vampires in Vernazza?” he asked, trying to understand.
Kerstin swallowed. “I couldn’t say without compromising my clients.”
“But there are vampires here.”
She gave a small shrug, saying nothing, and her silence made Bastian uneasy. He and Whitby had come to Vernazza to avoid vampires, but now they faced the very real possibility that a vampire was responsible for the deaths.
Bastian didn’t hate what he was. He had made peace with his vampirism and, in the long run, it had helped him to embrace his truth. To live authentically. But other vampires could be savage. Ruthless. The definition of monstrous. He had been like that for a while, before Whitby.
Noting the pensive expression on the cat’s face, he wondered if she was thinking the same thing as him: that they had stumbled upon another link to the mayor.
De Luca wanted concrete evidence if they were going to accuse her of the deaths.
Did her association with the grove owner implicate her somehow?
“You said your oil can help a vampire overcome their thirst,” Bastian said, eyeing the bottle in the woman’s hands. He was sure he had seen one very much like it recently, but it hadn’t been in the mayor’s office. He couldn’t think where.
Kerstin nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes. Did you know that olive trees are remarkably resilient and enduring? At least two of the trees in my grove have been here for over two hundred years. That means they were here in the days of Charles Darwin and Jane Austen. Isn’t that remarkable?”
Bastian found himself scanning the grove, searching for the ancient trees, but he couldn’t let his focus be split. Something was niggling at him.
“Both victims had their throats torn out,” he said, thinking out loud. “It was messy, as if their attacker was in the grip of a terrible rage. What if the killer is a vampire who is struggling against their nature? Trying to quit and failing?”
He could relate. The agony of giving up human blood nearly killed him.
“It’s a stretch,” De Luca said, rubbing his neck.
“The killer could be a vampire Kerstin has treated,” Bastian continued. He gave her an entreating look. “Please, you must tell us who you’ve met with.”
The woman raised her hands in a pacifying gesture. “I’m sorry, but I swore a sacred oath to protect those I treat. Would you want me spilling all your secrets to the first attractive vampire who showed up on my doorstep?”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“All the same,” Kerstin said.
Bastian’s hands clenched and released. He could be carted off by the council any moment, crushed to death for crimes he didn’t commit, and the only thing standing between him and the killer was the Hippocratic oath.
He paced in frustration, the smell of the grove filling his nostrils. The scent was so familiar, he knew he had encountered something like it recently. Not only like it, but identical. If only he could place where.
Suddenly, it hit him. The gelateria. The bottle Whitby had knocked over.
Arianna.
“Of course!” He leaned closer to Kerstin. “Have you treated Arianna? The gelateria owner? Is she a vampire?”
The woman’s nostrils flared. “As I said, I’m not at liberty to—”
“De Luca,” Bastian said, spinning to face him, “you know Arianna. Is it possible she’s a vampire?”
The inspector looked startled by the idea, staring at him with those crystalline blue eyes.
Finally, he said, “Non lo so.” I don’t know.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Bastian said, feeling amped up by the possibility of a fresh lead. “We have to go back to the gelateria.”