Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,91

busy but I need speak wit him pronto."

"He was here a little while ago. Do you want me to try and find him for you?"

"Si. You find him, you have him call me. You no find him, you tell guests we question dem eight o'clock tomorrow morning at you hotel. All guests. In lobby."

Unh-oh. "Um -- eight o'clock could be a problem. We have a memorial service scheduled for eight o'clock tomorrow morning at the Duomo. Could you possibly come at say, nine-thirty?"

Silence. "We come eight o'clock, Signorina Andrew. You tell guests."

"But...wait a minute! Why do you need to question the guests? I thought you'd ruled Sylvia Root's death an accident."

"Not Sylvia Root's det we question. Philip Blackmore. We no tink he die from accident. He have high level alcool in blood. We tink someone do dis him."

"Al -- what?"

"How you say. Alcohol."

"That's right. I told you earlier, I watched Philip Blackmore knock back three glasses of Merlot at a wine bar this afternoon. We all saw him get drunk. I feel badly that none of us was brave enough to stop him, but you don't tell people like Philip Blackmore that he's over his limit. I mean, can you imagine what --"

"No vino! Alcool! The alcohol. It poison him."

I breathed heavily into the phone. "He drank too much Merlot. You just said that!" I wondered if I'd be better off escorting tours in say, the Mid-Atlantic states.

"Alcohol! Other alcohol --"

I waited for him to continue. "Hello?" Dead air space. "Officer Piccione?" I waited some more. "Hello?"

Silence.

I suspected this was the reason Italians drank so much. Not as an alternative to bad water, but to help them forget the frustration of their lousy phone system.

I set my phone on the bed and stared at it. Philip Blackmore died from alcohol poisoning? How did a two-hundred-pound man suffer alcohol poisoning from three glasses of wine? I'd seen how three quick drinks had impaired his judgment, but poison him? That didn't seem possible. Unless --

I jackknifed upward. Unless the wine had been some dangerously potent brand. I'd heard an Italian drink called grappa could knock you off your feet in no time flat, but Philip hadn't been drinking grappa. He'd been drinking Merlot.

Or had he?

I pinched my eyes shut and reconstructed the scene at the wine bar. Philip had chugged one glass of red wine, then trundled off to buy himself another. He'd downed that one in short order, then asked Duncan to get him a refill. The glasses had looked like Merlot, but could they have been something else? Had he been drinking this other alcohol that Piccione had mentioned? Or could someone have introduced it into the wine without Philip's knowledge?

My eyes flew open.

Oh, my God. Someone could have tampered with Philip's drink. But the only person who had the opportunity was...Duncan.

I sat very still for a heartbeat, disbelieving that Duncan Lazarus was capable of murder. No! I refused to accept that. Not only was Duncan not the murdering type, what possible reason would he have to kill Philip Blackmore? The publishing mogul and the tour guide? There was no connection there. I inhaled a calming breath.

Was there?

I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. NO! I wasn't going to do this again! I was too suspicious for my own good. There was no evidence to support the accusation that Duncan had killed Philip. Buying a man a drink did not earn him killer status.

Except that Piccione had said someone had poisoned Philip. And that meant I'd seen an accident that had been no accident at all.

I'd seen an accident that had been a murder.

Oh, God! I sprang to my feet, worrying my bottom lip as I paced alongside the bed. What if there was a link between the two men? But what could it be? Something personal? Something business-related? Something family-related?

That thought gave me pause.

Duncan's sister?

But it was so far-fetched! What connection could Philip Blackmore possibly have to a young woman who may have died in a mountain-climbing accident? I mean, I suspected the closest Philip Blackmore had ever come to hiking up a mountain was publishing a book about it!

I stopped in my tracks as a recent memory jogged loose in my brain. Oh, my God!

In the next instant I was riffling through my tour papers, throwing aside itineraries, medical forms and Landmark brochures, until I found what I was looking for -- a paperbound booklet giving a complete and illustrated history of Hightower Books, from