17. Lorenzo #2
“I warned her before the gala.” My mother turns toward the closed door. “I told her Livia had loved you since she was a girl. Then I left her to deal with it. I should have stood beside her when she needed someone to speak.”
“You spoke yesterday.” I remember my mother staying at Chiara’s shoulder while the women at the feast tried to retreat.
“Yesterday doesn’t excuse the days before it.” She folds the top of the bag over my sandwich. “I have things to put right too.”
The door to Chiara’s room opens and Rosalia steps out. She closes it carefully behind her.
“She’s sleeping. The nurse says that’s good. Her body needs rest.”
I stand because sitting feels wrong now. “I should go give my statement. The police will want it before Livia’s transfer.”
“Lorenzo.” My mother rises as well. “Before you go, there’s something I need to say.”
I wait.
“Your father could call almost anything loyalty if it kept him from admitting he’d trusted the wrong person.” She steps closer, her hand finding my arm. “He regretted some of those choices. You don’t have to keep making them because he did.”
“I know.” I’ve had this argument with myself in his cottage, in my study, beside the gardens I let Chiara tend alone. Knowing didn’t stop me from hurting her. “I gave the order. Not him.”
My mother keeps her hand on my arm until I look at her. “Then own it. And when you’ve finished, come back to your wife without asking her to make you feel better about it.”
“The officer is waiting in the administrative wing,” she says. “Rosalia can stay with Chiara.”
I leave my chair facing Chiara’s door. I’ll be back as soon as I’m finished.
***
The room they’ve given the police is small and functional: a table, three chairs, a window looking out onto the hospital parking lot. The officer waiting for me is a woman in her forties with tired eyes and a notebook that’s already half full.
“Don Marchetti.” She stands when I enter. “Thank you for making time. I know it’s been a difficult evening.”
“It’s been a difficult year.” I take the chair across from her. “But tonight is what you need to know about.”
“Let’s start with what you witnessed at the lake.” She opens to a fresh page. “Walk me through it from the moment you arrived.”
I tell her about Rosalia’s call. About realizing the note was a forgery.
About driving to the lake and finding my wife in the water with Livia’s hands on her head.
I describe pulling Chiara to shore, the guards restraining Livia, the words Livia screamed as they dragged her away.
I keep my voice steady because falling apart won’t help anyone.
I tell her where to find the note in Chiara’s car. She writes it down, then asks about the wine sabotage.
This is the part I’ve been dreading.
“I need to tell you about an order I gave in the early days of the investigation.” I fold my hands on the table to keep them still.
“When the first evidence emerged about the wine sabotage, I instructed our investigators to exclude Livia from active inquiry. I told them she was a trusted family employee and that any suspicion of her involvement was misplaced.”
The officer’s pen stops moving. “You protected her.”
“Yes.” I let her write that down without trying to soften it.
“I was wrong. I lifted the exclusion order less than a week ago and provided documentation of both decisions to my wife’s lawyer and to the independent investigator we hired.
But until then, my instructions kept her out of the active inquiry. ”
“Why did you change your mind?” The officer leaves her pen on the page where she recorded my answer.
“Because my wife kept asking questions I couldn’t answer.
” I remember bringing the supplier’s new account to Chiara at the rented cottage, knowing she had already asked me to investigate the woman I was protecting.
“Because evidence kept accumulating that pointed in Livia’s direction.
Because I realized I was protecting someone who was hurting the woman I married. ”
The officer writes something in her notebook. “What evidence specifically?”
“The supplier’s receipt and his account of Livia asking him to change it. Rosalia overheard a call before the gala, too.” I give her Ferro’s number. “He has the records, including both my instructions about Livia.”
The officer nods and makes another note. “What about tonight specifically? Did your wife tell you what happened on the dock before you arrived?”
“She told me Livia confessed to everything. The wine sabotage, the forged note, the resentment behind it.” I remember Chiara’s voice in the hospital room, rough from the water but steady.
“Livia told my wife she did it because she believed she deserved a place in the family. Because she thought my father’s mentorship entitled her to something more. ”
“Did Livia say anything to you directly?” She draws a line beneath the account I’ve repeated from Chiara, separating it from what I witnessed.
“Only at the end.” I can still hear her voice, desperate and defiant. “She said she did this for us. When the guards were taking her away.”
The officer writes for a long moment, then closes her notebook.
“She’s been arrested over tonight’s attack.” The officer meets my eyes. “We’ll follow up on the earlier incidents with your investigator.”
“Whatever you need.” I stand. “I’ll cooperate fully. Chiara can give you her account when she’s able. I won’t answer for her.”
I leave the room and turn back toward Chiara’s ward. Rosalia is with her, and I said I’d return as soon as I was finished.
I’m almost to the stairwell when a door opens farther along the corridor.
“Lorenzo.” Livia stops between the two officers escorting her toward the exit, forcing them to stop with her.
I turn at the sound of my name. She’s in hospital scrubs still, her wrists cuffed in front of her, her face pale under the fluorescent lights.
I remember her beside my father at harvest festivals, telling me I would make him proud.
Then I see her hands on Chiara’s head again, holding her under.
“Please.” She takes a step toward me before the officer on her left stops her with a hand on her arm. “Just let me explain. Everything I did, I did because I love you. I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old. I thought if I worked hard enough, if I proved myself…”
“You proved yourself.” I keep my distance, the uniformed officer a barrier between us. “You proved you would hurt an innocent woman to get what you wanted.”
“I could have been everything she isn’t,” Livia says. “I know you. I know what you need.”
“You knew I liked feeling useful. That wasn’t a promise to leave my wife.”
“I gave everything to this family.” She lifts her cuffed hands toward me, then lets them fall when the officer moves between us. “All those years. My whole life. Your father said I had a place here.”