Red Riviera by David Downie

Author:David Downie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Santa Fe Writer's Project
Published: 2021-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Daria’s phone had not stopped ringing and pinging, as calls and messages came in on both SIM cards. Saying goodbye to Clement and Gianni in as neutral a tone as she could muster, she drove west again, back to the Portofino Peninsula and the search for Joseph Gary. The scuba divers had been at work for several hours. Lieutenant Morbido had texted her urging her to hurry. They had found something interesting—extremely interesting.

Four large men, among them Osvaldo Morbido, were packed into the dark recesses of the hot, stuffy mobile TV van jointly operated by DIGOS, the Carabinieri, and the fire departments of Santa Margherita and Rapallo. It was parked halfway up the sidewalk on the highway to Portofino, worsening the monumental traffic jam caused by the holidays and fine weather. The police seemed to be looking into a crystal ball. They stared, mesmerized and slack-jawed at the live images being transmitted to the monitor by divers on the seafloor half a mile away. When Daria stepped up and coughed repeatedly, three of the four backed out of the van to make room for her. The fourth was Gigi De Filippo. He did not budge. Beckoning Daria to the side, Morbido croaked, “Amazing, it is so beautiful… and be warned, Gigi is pissed off. I think he got someone in Genoa to call his people at the Ministry of Defense in Rome and gripe about you.”

Daria entered the van silently and stood behind De Filippo. What she saw on the monitor astonished even her skeptical, tired eyes. Several divers were holding up bright underwater spotlights. They illuminated not only schools of anchovies and other tiny silver and blue fish but also a pyramid formation of what looked like mollusk-encrusted, ancient terra-cotta amphorae and the prow of a wooden ship. How could it be, she wondered? Why hadn’t it rotted away or been found before this?

“No Signor Gary in there,” De Filippo muttered, addressing Daria without turning around, the ultimate insult for a southern Italian. “Something better, maybe.”

“Roman?”

“Looks like it,” Morbido said, thrusting his head in, his anger at De Filippo rising. “It’s not the first ancient Roman ship they’ve found off Portofino, but look at how wonderfully preserved it is. And all those amphorae!”

“Maybe they still have wine in them,” Gigi De Filippo speculated with irony. “I wonder if the wine was good back then?” He swiveled and grinned maliciously with his yellow teeth at Daria. “The Romans had plenty to celebrate and be proud of. They were victorious, they were powerful, they were proud, they were just.”

“The conquerors of your ancestors, Osvaldo,” Daria said facetiously, not to De Filippo but to Morbido. “Portus Delphini was the Roman name for Portofino,” she added. “They had good taste. Not many dolphins left in Portofino, but it’s still one of the most beautiful peninsulas anywhere, don’t you think?”

“You imagine the Ligurians weren’t here before your people from Rome?” said Morbido, chuckling. “We were here way before the Romans took over. And look at the mess Rome has made of poor Italy.

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