Chapter 36
Bastian stared at Aunt Agata pinning Kerstin against the window, his shoulders stiff with disbelief.
“Is everybody in this town a secret vampire?” Whitby asked.
Bastian cleared his throat, found his voice. “But…her heartbeat. She has a heartbeat.”
Even now he heard it. Steady and insistent. Alive.
Kerstin grimaced and, with an irritated grunt, shoved Aunt Agata away with surprising ease. The shopkeeper staggered backward a few paces, but her grip tightened around the knitting needles as she stepped forward again, undeterred. Kerstin held up her hands in a placating gesture.
“Please, let me explain,” she said.
“Yes, let’s all explain what the hell is going on,” Whitby retorted, her gaze switching between Kerstin and Aunt Agata.
“Aunt Agata?” De Luca said, his voice tight.
Aunt Agata’s gaze didn’t leave the grove owner as she said, “Neighborhood watch, dear. There are a couple of us stationed around town because, well, we can’t always rely on the police.” She gave De Luca a brief look. “Sorry, Inspector.”
De Luca looked as stunned as Bastian felt. He must not have known about Aunt Agata’s operation, either.
“You monitor the town for vampires?” Bastian asked the shopkeeper.
“I’m not a bigot,” she said. “Everybody is welcome in Vernazza so long as they come in peace. But some bad elements creep in from time to time, and we’re primed to react accordingly. We can’t have a repeat of what happened twenty years ago.”
“Is that how you know everything that’s going on in this town before anybody else?” Whitby asked.
“We keep watch,” Aunt Agata said simply. “All these deaths are by far the worst thing to happen to Vernazza in years. If we could root out the culprit, we’d all rest easy at night.”
Deaths. Right. Bastian tried to get back on track. Tried to remember what they had been talking about before Kerstin’s fangs interrupted everything. But still he heard that insistent thump-thump coming from the grove owner’s chest.
“Your heartbeat,” he said.
Kerstin kept one hand raised as she reached into her pocket with the other. She removed her phone and held it up for him to see.
“It plays the sound of a heartbeat on a loop, quiet enough that only vampires can hear. It’s been a good smokescreen over the years.”
Bastian almost laughed at the simplicity of it.
“Why would you do that?” he asked.
“Some of us like our privacy,” Kerstin said, switching off the audio track. “And I’ve never played well with other vampires. They’re not my kind of people.”
Bastian looked at her closer. “I should still have been able to sense it. The scent of a vampire is often distinct. But you seem, well, not normal, but definitely not dead.”
“I have to admit,” Aunt Agata said, “you had me fooled, and I’m not easy to fool.”
Kerstin looked at the shattered fragments of her olive oil bottle on the ground. “I did tell you that my olive oil is capable of remarkable things. The scent infuses my cells—another smokescreen of sorts. Also, I’m an earth vampire. I suppose that could have something to do with it.”
“An earth vampire?” De Luca said.
“They tend to live underground,” Whitby explained. “They’re nature-lovers.”
Kerstin smiled. “I do love nature, but I prefer living in a house. Soil does have a habit of, well, clogging you up if you’re in it for too long.”
Bastian’s brain seemed to have fallen out of his skull. He tried to catch hold of a thought, pin it down.
“Let me get this straight. You’re a vampire, but you’re concealing it with a magical olive oil, which enables you to kill and not be discovered.”
“Kill? Oh no, I haven’t drunk blood in years, human or otherwise. My oil keeps me quite satisfied.”
“Ridiculous!” Whitby spat. “You left a dead body in our kitchen!”
“Excuse me?”
Bastian pressed, “Why did you kill the mayor?”
Kerstin’s eyes widened. “The mayor is dead?”
“There’s no point in playing innocent anymore,” Bastian said. “Her body was right there in the kitchen, surrounded by all your occult stuff.”
Kerstin took out a third bottle and gulped down a mouthful.
“The apartment was empty when I broke in,” she said. “There was no body. Certainly not the mayor’s.”
“How stupid do you think we are?” Whitby demanded. “You claimed your latest victim and you made sure Bastian took the fall.”
“I admit that I broke into your apartment, but you have to understand, I only did this to protect my own neck.”
Bastian was still lost. “Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s only a matter of time before the people of Vernazza figure out I’m a vampire, what with everyone sniffing around these days. And it’s pretty obvious that the killer is a vampire, and I’d prefer not to have them banging down my door and branding me a murderer.”
She flashed a look at Aunt Agata and her knitting needles, as if to prove her point.
“So, I created a syndabock. A scapegoat. I was pretty sure the murderer was you, anyway, and this would take care of the problem for good. But I assure you I haven’t killed anybody.
There was no body in the kitchen when I was there.
Whoever killed the mayor must have put the body there after I left. ”
Whitby yowled. “That’s preposterous!”
“Nonetheless, it’s the truth as I know it.”
“As you know it!” Whitby scoffed. “Do you believe this, Bastian?”
Bastian scratched his chin, taking in Kerstin’s appearance. She swigged on the olive oil like a hamster from a water bottle, and he sensed, just as he had with Salvador, that she wasn’t a killer. She seemed genuinely happy with the fruits of her grove.
“Actually, yes,” he said. “I believe her.”
The cat rounded on him, fur standing on end. “You can’t possibly buy this cockamamie story?!”
“I admit it’s a stretch, but look at the facts. Kerstin has no motive.”
“She’s a vampire!”
Bastian gave the cat a level stare. “Which doesn’t make her a killer.”
“Thank you,” Kerstin said.
“Shhh,” Bastian told her. “You’ll only make it worse.”
Whitby opened and closed her mouth. She must see that he was right. Aunt Agata sniffed, as if satisfied with Kerstin’s response, and retrieved her wicker basket, stowing away her knitting needles. They really did look like weapons, and Bastian had no doubt now that their tips were silver.
“I have to ask,” De Luca said, gaze trained on Kerstin. “Did you see anybody else when you left the apartment? Anybody who might have wanted to hurt the mayor?”
“I came and went via the balcony. I didn’t see a soul.” Kerstin stepped closer to Bastian. “I really am sorry about framing you, but I couldn’t bear the thought of being forced to leave my grove. It took me the longest time to find somewhere that felt like home. I’d do anything to keep it.”
Bastian looked at Whitby.
“I understand,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t okay,” Aunt Agata muttered, considering Bastian with troubled eyes. “I would say that nothing has been okay in this town lately. Aunt Agata knows everything and everyone, but even I’m having trouble figuring out what’s going on with people.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Bastian said, and the shopkeeper gave him a scornful glance.
“I don’t! I blame them.” She gestured at the street; she must mean the town. Her gaze dropped to the flowers laid in tribute outside the cat café. “If you ask me, it all started when Luna and Matteo broke up.”
“You know about that?” Whitby asked.
“Oh yes. They were together for a couple of months, started seeing each other right after she began working at Micio Micio.”
“Do you know why they broke up?” Bastian asked.
“No, but I saw it happen. They were closing up shop one evening, and I saw them arguing in this very window.” She gestured at the cat café.
“I suppose that’s when Luna told him it was over, because he damn near broke the window throwing a chair.
He stormed right past my shop looking like he wanted to punch somebody. ”
“That sounds like Matteo,” Whitby said.
“After that, he bought flowers from me on three different occasions,” Aunt Agata continued. “The kind of flowers you buy for somebody you’re sweet on. But he stopped doing that when Luna started dating Emilio.”
Bastian felt like he’d stumbled and hit his head. “Emilio?!”
“Luna was with Emilio?” De Luca asked.
Aunt Agata nodded. “They were all over each other the past few weeks. Totally in love. Matteo didn’t like that.”
Bastian stared at Aunt Agata in disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell us any of this before?”
She shrugged. “I thought you knew.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled up Bastian’s throat. “Yes, I suppose that makes sense.”
“Matteo was jealous of Luna and Emilio,” Whitby mused. “And they both turned up dead. That’s one heck of a coincidence.”
“Which means it probably wasn’t,” De Luca said.
“Matteo has an alibi, though,” Bastian reminded them. “The bartender at Pinocchio’s told De Luca he was there all evening.”
Aunt Agata frowned. “But that’s not possible. I saw Matteo that night; he went into Micio Micio after Emilio had closed up. I thought it was odd, but I assumed he just had work to do.”
“You saw Matteo go into Micio Micio the night Luna was killed?” Bastian asked.
Aunt Agata nodded. “It was early evening. I was knitting outside and I had just finished my latest cowl when I saw him unlock the shop and go inside. The sun hadn’t set yet, and he stayed in there for hours.”
Bastian shared a look with De Luca, knowing he must be thinking the same thing.
“Did you see which direction he came from?” De Luca asked. “When he arrived at Micio Micio?”
“It seemed he came from the piazzetta.”
And the piazzetta was right next to the beach, where Luna was found.
Bastian’s ears rang as he absorbed the information. Aunt Agata’s revelation turned everything on its head.
“The bartender covered for Matteo,” he said. “Why?”
“I sense the commissario’s involvement there,” Whitby said. “Maybe he was paid off.”
“Damn!” Bastian cried, suddenly fired up.
“Matteo could have come from the beach. He could have killed Luna and then hidden at Micio Micio. It’s been staring us in the face this whole time!
Matteo is the one pinning the murders on me, not the commissario.
” He frowned. “But how do the mayor and Salvador figure into this?”
“The mayor was Emilio’s buddy,” De Luca said.
“Maybe Matteo worried that Emilio suspected he killed Luna, and that he’d shared his suspicions with the mayor,” Whitby said.
Bastian tapped his chin. “Or Matteo was just looking for an excuse to get rid of the mayor, adorable little vampire hater that he is.”
“And Salvador told you himself that he knew who the killer was, right before he died,” Whitby added.
“Wait,” Bastian said, a new thought occurring to him. “What if Matteo took Enzo?”
De Luca frowned. Whitby’s eyes flashed as she said, “Why would he do that?”
“They were friends, weren’t they?” Bastian said, recalling the picture of them in Enzo’s bedroom as he looked at De Luca. “Matteo and Enzo?”
The muscle in De Luca’s jaw twitched. “They were best friends. Growing up, they shared everything with each other. I remember Enzo being there for Matteo when Matteo’s mother died. Matteo really leaned on Enzo.”
“What if he felt like he needed Enzo again?” Bastian said. “Guilt tends to weigh on a person. Perhaps he’s feeling lonely, the way killers often do.”
De Luca’s jaw firmed. “We have to find them,” he said.
As one, they turned a questioning look at Aunt Agata.
“Matteo? Oh, he took a boat out an hour ago,” the shopkeeper said, brushing crumbs from her dress.
“A boat?” De Luca asked.
“I saw him down by the harbor, unmooring a rowboat. I suppose he fancied an evening of reflection under the stars.”
The light in her eyes told them she was joking about that last part.
Bastian pursed his lips. Why would Matteo be taking out a boat? He looked at De Luca suddenly, a thought occurring to him.
“The caves,” they said in unison.