Page 18 of Palazzo
He convinced Cosima to stop working for long enough to go to the trattoria with him for a quick lunch, and then he went to the police station with her. They made her wait for half an hour, and then eventually called her in to the chief detective’s office. They were polite but not pleasant, and Olivier was surprised by how little compassion they showed her. Her home had been badly damaged, and Olivier could guess that she was in shock, and the discovery that it was arson was traumatic, although she was calm and polite when addressing the police. They asked for their full names, Olivier’s as well, and to see their identification. They made note of it and asked her if she was the sole owner of the house. She said she wasn’t. She owned it with her brother and sister. She said the house was currently rented to Americans, and they were away, back in the States for the summer, and they had taken their employees with them. The chief detective then asked the whereabouts of her brother and sister.
“My sister is in Sardinia, at a house we rented for two weeks, and I have no idea where my brother is. He travels in the summer.” The officers wrote down that information too, along with Allegra’s and Luca’s names and cellphone numbers so the police could reach them if necessary.
“Were you aware that the house was unoccupied and the renters were away?”
“Yes, of course. I’m in regular contact with them.”
“Why were you in Venice if you rented a house in Sardinia?”
“I came when the manager of my store here called me on Friday night to tell me about the fire. I flew in yesterday morning.”
“What flight did you come in on?” the detective asked her, and she told him and glanced at Olivier. The questions seemed odd to her, and he didn’t comment. “Is the house insured? And the contents?”
“Yes.” She gave the police the name of her insurance company.
“For what amount are the house and contents insured?”
“Five million for the contents, and ten for the house itself.” The detective nodded and wrote it down, and then asked Olivier why he was there. Olivier said that he was a friend and had come to help her.
“From Paris?”
“Yes, I have business in Florence next week. I have factories there.” He gave the detective his business card then, which showed that he was the CEO of the company. Cosima didn’t have her business cards with her.
“And you own a store here?” the detective asked Cosima. Her name had apparently not rung any bells for him.
“Yes. And one in Rome.” He nodded and made a note.
“Can you think of any reason why someone would have wanted to set fire to your palazzo?”
“None at all. It must be the work of vandals, who just wanted to damage my property,” she said quietly.
The chief detective went on questioning her for an hour, and then informed her that she had to stay in Venice while the police continued their investigation. He asked if there had been any similar incidents at her store, and she said there hadn’t been. Two hours later, she and Olivier were free to leave the police station, but not the city,in her case. Olivier appeared to be of no interest to the police. They went to a café after that for a cup of coffee.
“Why do you think they asked all those questions? Do you think they suspect me of starting the fire?” The idea was insane, but people committed insurance fraud all the time for the money.
“They probably want to rule out insurance fraud, which won’t be an issue in your case. He obviously isn’t a customer at Saverio, but when they check it out, they’ll know you’re respectable.” She nodded. It made sense, although it wasn’t flattering to be treated as a potential criminal.
“I should probably call Luca and tell him what’s happening and find out where he is. He might even be in Venice, for all I know. Hopefully not at the casino. He doesn’t usually like being here in summer. It’s too crowded with all the tourists.” She took out her cellphone and called him and was surprised when he answered. He usually let it go to voicemail when she called him, unless he wanted money from her.
“Why are you calling me?” he said bluntly.
“Because I wanted to know where you are. There was a fire at the palazzo on Friday night. It’s badly damaged, the police have said it was arson, and they want to talk to all three of us. Where are you?”
“In Saint-Tropez. I just got here. I’m staying with friends,” he said casually, as though a fire in the palazzo wasn’t his problem. “Can’t you handle it?”
“They want to talk to you too.”
“Why would I know anything about it?”
“I don’t know. They asked a lot of questions about our insurance, and how much coverage we have on the house.”
“How much do we have?” Luca assumed Cosima insured thepalazzo for a great deal of money, but he didn’t know the exact amount. Cosima was careful about those things. Their stores were insured for a fortune.
“Ten on the house, and five million on the contents.”
“Fifteen million?” He sounded pleased. “Good for you. So we’ll get fifteen million?”
“Not unless we lost everything, which we haven’t, thank God. The insurance people will send out appraisers to assess the damage. I’d say it will cost one or two million to repair the damage and replace what we lost.”
