Murder On Piccola

“This…is…life,” said Stefano, taking a swig of beer and surveying the pebbly beach in front of him. He laid back in his chair, letting the Mediterranean sun beat down on his tan chest. He turned his face toward Antonio who was laying in the chair beside him, “What do you think of the island?”

Antonio laughed, “Man, your family has more money than you know what to do with!” He crossed his bronzed arms and leaned back, squinting out at the crystal sea, “I’m just lucky to be here.”

“Nah, man. You earned this! You always had the best grades in high school and graduated in the top of our graduating class at Harvard. You were always going to be successful…except you should probably learn some Spanish, dude. You’re Mexican and you can barely say ‘gracias’,” Stefano chuckled.

Antonio splashed Stefano with his beer, “Hey! It’s not my fault I grew up around you white folks!”

Antonio’s father was the caretaker for Stefano’s family estate back in the US. The twenty-acre property in upstate New York needed someone to manage it, as Stefano’s father, Giovanni DiAngelo, was busy running his multi-million-dollar company, DiAngelo Enterprises. Antonio came to live at the estate when he was just four, after his father got the caretaker job. Since then, he and Stefano had been best friends, attending the same schools and even going to Harvard together. Giovanni always made sure that Antonio had the same opportunities as his son, paying for the best education out of his own pocket.

“Anyway,” Antonio started, “I owe my success to your dad. God knows my old man wouldn’t be able to afford the education he gave me."

"Yea...you’re lucky my dad likes you,” joked Stefano, “You were like the son he actually wanted.”

“Aye!” a shout came from behind them in the villa. “There’s no more beer in the fridge! Please tell me we brought more!”

“We’ve only been here for a few hours, Gavin!” Stefano shouted back.

Gavin walked out onto the sand, swaying a bit. The sun bounced off his white skin like a mirror.

“Dude, I hope you’re wearing sunscreen! Gingers weren’t made for southern Italy!” joked Stefano.

“Bro, I’ve been drinking all day because if I stay outside for more than five minutes I’d turn into a lobster! What else am I supposed to do? Read like Felix?” argued Gavin, eying the beers in their hands. “So…we got more of those? It’s your island ain’t it, Steffy?” Gavin asked, aggressively rustling Stefano’s slicked back, brown hair.

“Damnit, Gavin! Yes! There’s a whole walk-in refrigerator in the basement full of beer. Have at it!” Stefano retorted, shooing Gavin away.

“I knew I liked Isopa Picowa…,” Gavin muttered as he trudged back inside.

“It’s Isola Piccola, you uncultured…ugh, never mind,” shrugged Stefano, “Remind me why we’re friends with Gavin again?”

“Because he was our bartender through college and served us even though we were underage,” replied Antonio with a grin.

“Oh, yea…now we’re serving him drinks,” Stefano grunted, leaning forward to brush the sand off his swim trunks, “I’m heading inside, the sun is setting anyway. Better see what Felix and Jay are up to.” Stefano and Antonio rolled up their towels and grabbed their beers before heading back toward the enormous, venetian-style villa.

“We’re so damn lucky your dad owns this island, bro,” said Antonio, lightly punching Stefano on the arm.

When the two men walked through the large, brass doors into the villa, they found Felix and Jay sitting at the kitchen table enthralled in an intense game of chess. They were also Harvard classmates of theirs, and fellow fraternity brothers. Felix had started working for DiAngelo Enterprises as an accountant a few months back and Jay had just passed his board exams to practice law in New York.

“Are you serious, guys? I bring you to Italy, to a private island, and you hangout inside playing chess?!” scolded Stefano, throwing his hands up in defeat.

“You can take the guys out of Harvard, but you can’t take the Harvard out of the guys,” Antonio sighed.

Felix looked over at them from behind his wide-brimmed glasses, “Would you rather us be like Gavin?” A loud crash could be heard from the basement.

“I’m OK!” shouted Gavin.

“Fair,” Stefano replied, “But it’s getting dark and that means nerd time is over. Wrap up the match and get ready for dinner. I’m making steaks!”

“Dude, you know I’m a vegetarian!” wined Jay, looking up from the chess board.

“When I first met you, you could house an entire rack of ribs, what happened?” Stefano asked, grabbing Jay’s broad shoulders, and shaking him. “Don’t worry, man, I got some vegetables and crap too.”

“Great…vegetables and crap…sounds good,” replied Jay, rolling his eyes.

That night continued with a large steak dinner, ample boos, and reminiscing about old times. The five men were to spend an entire weekend there before heading back to the mainland. After a hard year of work, an Italian getaway was exactly what they needed. There was no WIFI or reliable cell service on the island, as the villa was built just a few months prior, so there were no ties to the outside world except for a landline phone in the kitchen. The only way off the island was the small boat that brought them there, which wouldn’t be back until Monday morning to retrieve them.

After hours of drinking, talking, and Gavin begging someone to arm wrestle him, the five men decided it was time to call it a night. “How is it 2am?” Antonio gasped, looking at his wristwatch.

“Yea, I haven’t stayed up this late since studying for my board exam,” added Jay, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“We get it dude, you’re a lawyer!” barked Gavin, laying in a heap on the ground with a beer still in hand.

“Maybe tomorrow morning we can finish that chess game?” asked Felix, glancing over at Jay.

“You haven’t drunk a thing all night, Felix. You’re gonna be sober and I’m going to be severely hungover. The odds of me winning are like zero, so no, we will not be playing chess in the morning,” replied Jay, getting up to go to bed.

Felix chuckled, “Was worth a try.”

“Should someone help Gavin get to his room?” Asked Antonio, pointing at Gavin’s drunken body.

“Nah, leave him. He’s used to sleeping on the floor,” Stefano replied bluntly.

“See you boys in the morning! Ciao!” Jay said as he headed for the stairs. Felix left shortly after, and Gavin lay snoring on the living room floor.

“I’m going to bed too, goodnight, man. Thanks for setting this whole thing up,” Antonio said graciously.

Stefano stood up as well, “You sure you don’t wanna break into that tequila bottle my dad sent me? It’s up in my room. I was hiding it from Gavin. Wanna take a shot or two before bed?” asked Stefano, nudging Antonio with his elbow.

“Nah man, your dad would kill me if he knew you shared that stuff with anyone. Tequila has always been your thing. Plus, I’m exhausted. I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight!” replied Antonio, slapping Stefano gently on the shoulder.

Stefano laughed quietly, “Night, bro.”

Antonio was awoken the next morning by the golden rays of sun seeping in through his bedroom window. The curtains fluttered in the morning breeze, and he could hear birds tweeting in the distance. He yawned, stretched, and lazily rolled out of bed. He threw on a t-shirt and swim trunks, brushed his teeth, and combed his jet-black hair. He looked down at his wristwatch, which read 9:30am. Antonio headed down to the kitchen, where he expected Stefano to be cooking breakfast and brewing some of his favorite Italian espresso, just like he always did back home, but when he got to the kitchen, it was empty.

“That’s weird. Stef’s always the first one up,” thought Antonio. He walked over to the counter and plugged in the espresso machine. His head was pounding from all the alcohol the night before, and coffee was the only thing he could concentrate on.

A few minutes later, Gavin stumbled down the steps, wearing the same clothes as the night before, “Hey, man!” he said with a yawn.

“Hey, glad you made it upstairs after all,” laughed Antonio, sipping his espresso.

“Bro, I need some food, bad! Where the hell is Stefano?” groaned Gavin, pressing his palms into his freckled face.

“He must be sleeping in after last night,” Antonio replied, taking another sip, “There are some pastries on the table if you need something to tie you over.” Gavin plopped down across the table from Antonio and dug into the tray of pastries, taking a huge bite of a croissant, “You know, for as much money as Stef has, you’d think he would’ve hired a chef or something.”

Antonio watched as Gavin crammed another croissant down his throat, “Yea, well…you know Stefano. He’s always liked cooking.”

A few minutes later, Felix came down the steps in his buttoned-up pajamas and slippers. He pushed his glasses up into place, “Buongiorno!”

“Bon porno to you too!” Gavin chuckled, crumbs falling from his lips.

“What you got there, Felix?” Antonio asked, pointing to a book he held.

Felix looked down at the book, “Oh, this. It’s just a book on investment. Figured it would be a good read.”

“I’ll never understand you accountants,” sighed Antonio.

Just then, a loud cry splintered the air, causing Antonio to spill the remainder of his espresso on the table.

“What the hell was that?!” shouted Gavin, jumping up from the table, pastries flying everywhere.

“Someone, help!” They heard.

“That’s Jay!” Felix exclaimed, turning toward the steps. The three ran up the stair toward the sound of the cries. Once they reached the top level, they found Jay, breathing heavily, and standing in the doorway to Stefano’s room.

His eyes were wide and fearful, “He-he’s dead! Stefano is dead!” shouted Jay. Beads of sweat ran down his dark skin and his lips quivered as he spoke.

Antonio rushed ahead, throwing Jay aside to get to Stefano’s bedside. Sure enough, Stefano was laying there, still, and cold. His eyes were open and bloodshot, and his lips were purple. Antonio frantically checked for a pulse but was unsuccessful. “What happened!” he shouted at Jay.

“I-I don’t know! I came in here to ask if he had any toothpaste and I found him like this, I swear!” stuttered Jay.

“He-he’s really dead?” Felix asked in shock.

Antonio sunk to the ground, still holding tightly to Stefano’s limp wrist, “God, no!” he sobbed. He didn’t even realize that he had cut his other hand on a broken shot glass that had been shattered on the tile floor. Felix rushed to his side, “Ant, Ant! You’re bleeding, come on!” he said, pulling him away from the body. Antonio resisted at first, trying to get back to his best friend, but when he saw the blood pouring out of his palm, he reluctantly let Felix guide him to the bathroom.

Antonio sat in a state of shock as Felix bandaged his hand. “Oh man…this is bad…this is so bad,” Felix whispered as he wrapped. Gavin stood in the doorway to the bathroom, eyes wide and glossy, “What do we do? We gotta call the police!”

“No. Not yet! We don’t even know how it happened! What if they think it was one of us?” Jay shouted, nervously.

“It wasn’t us! You found him like that, right? It must’ve been from the drinking or something!” Gavin insisted.

“N-no…” Antonio managed to say, “he wasn’t that drunk. I’ve seen him way worse. There’s no way that was the reason.”

“We need to check his body,” Felix said, solemnly.

The four men slowly filed into the bedroom, around Stefano’s bed. Antonio used his good hand to shut Stefano’s lifeless eyes. The others pulled back the bed sheets and examined the corpse for any signs of injury. There was nothing.

“Maybe he had heart failure?” asked Gavin, shaking his head in confusion.

“Wait! The tequila glass Antonio cut his hand on…he could’ve drunk something!” pointed Jay.

Felix bent down and examined the shards of glass, which were now spattered with Antonio’s blood. He held up a clean shard and stared at it intensely.

“Well, what do you think?” Gavin probed.

Felix held the glass to his nose and smelled it, “It smells like almond…there’s some sort of residue…not from the tequila, but…something else,” Felix reported, analyzing it.

“Does that mean that…” Antonio started.

“The glass was poisoned. Most-likely Cyanide. It has an almond-like odor. Someone poisoned his shot of tequila,” replied Felix, placing the shard of glass back on the ground, “Someone here poisoned Stefano last night.”

Antonio took the bed sheets and lay them across Stefano’s body and face, covering the gruesome scene, “We aren’t calling the cops until we find out who. No one leaves.”

The four men sat at the kitchen table, staring at one another intensely. “I didn’t do this, this is crazy!” Gavin shouted, banging his fists on the table, “He was my one rich friend!”

“You were pretty drunk last night, or at least you seemed to be. You weren’t where we left you in the morning, either. Did you go to drink more with Stefano after we all went to bed?” Antonio asked, carefully watching Gavin’s every move. “Ok, I don’t remember much from last night, but I was so drunk I could barely walk, let alone poison someone’s drink without them noticing!” Gavin persisted.

“He’s right…,” Jay interrupted, “The guy was plastered. I watched him drink all day. That wasn’t an act.”

“So, then what about you, Jay? You were the first one to go upstairs last night. You could’ve gotten the poison, poured a few shots with Stef, put the cyanide in when he wasn’t looking, and then head back to bed like nothing happened,” suggested Antonio.

“And what motive would I have, Ant? Seriously? You know me!” pleaded Jay.

“I know you’re trying to get in with the big-league lawyers of New York City…what better way than to take on a high-stake case like the death of Stefano DiAngelo?” Antonio speculated.

“That’s ridiculous!” Jay retorted, outraged.

“Or, what about you, Felix? You seem to be thinking a lot about investments while on vacation. Maybe taking out Stefano, a key player in the DiAngelo company’s fortune, would give you a direct line of contact to the man in charge, Giovanni DiAngelo. Maybe Giovanni, so riddled with grief, would be an easy man to influence, giving you the investment power in the company,” Antonio suggested.

Felix calmly pushed his glasses up into place and leaned forward, “While you make a good story, Ant, you’re wrong. I didn’t want to tell you guys this on vacation, but I’m leaving the company. I was offered a better position and I took it. As of next month, I’m done with the financial matters of DiAngelo Enterprises.”

“You were gonna leave?” Antonio asked in disbelief.

“Between you and me, Ant, Stef was gonna run that company into the ground. He didn’t have what it takes. I decided to jump ship before it sank,” Felix explained, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes.

“What if…no, he couldn’t know,” Jay muttered.

“What if what?” pried Antonio, leaning in closer, “What do you know, Jay?”

Jay tilted his head back and took a deep breath, “What if…you knew about…”

“Spit it out!” demanded Antonio.

“Listen, I’ve done some digging, and…well, I discovered some things that make you a suspect with a motive,” Jay replied, avoiding eye contact with Antonio. “What do you mean? He was my best friend!” shouted Antonio defensively.

Jay sighed and looked Antonio dead in the eyes with a fierce intensity, “He was more than that. He was your half-brother.”

Antonio let a chuckle escape from his throat, “You’re lying. My dad started working for their family when I was a kid! You’re just trying to cover your ass!”

“I swear, man! I investigated public records a few years ago when I became close with the DiAngelo family. I wondered why an employee’s son like you would get special treatment from someone like Giovanni DiAngelo. There was a maid that started working at the estate thirty years ago, long story short, she got pregnant, had you, and died in childbirth. The man who raised you isn’t your dad, he was her cousin. He took you in after you were born, and made sure Giovanni knew that he had a bastard kid out there. Either through guilt or black mail, he managed to get you into Giovanni’s home and live just like his legitimate son, Stefano. If you found all that out, too, what’s stopping you from taking out Stefano and claiming the DiAngelo fortune as the only surviving heir?”

Antonio sat there, dumbfounded. He tried to think of something to disprove the allegations Jay has spewed, but he couldn’t. He had no other family and knew very little about his father’s past. All he could get out was, “I-I didn’t kill him…he-he was my best friend.” The tears welled up in his eyes and trickled down his sun kissed cheeks before he could stop them.

Jay’s expression softened and he put his hand on Antonio’s shoulder, “If you did it, you can tell me, man. We can figure this out, OK? Just tell us what happened.”

“N-No,” Antonio shook his head, “I didn’t. I didn’t!”

“There’s no other explanation bro! You were the last two to go to bed, you’re the closest one to him, it had to be you!” declared Gavin.

Antonio put his head in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think and fight the feeling of loss that was slowly eating him from within. “Who here would want Stefano dead? Who? Who?!” That’s when it hit him. “Hold on!” he shouted, slamming his hands down on the table. “This whole time we’ve been trying to figure out who put cyanide in his shot glass, but what if no one here poisoned the glass? What if the poison was already in the tequila before it was poured?”

“What are you implying?” asked Felix.

“The tequila he brought to Isola Piccola, it was already poisoned!” cried Antonio, jumping up from the table and running for the steps.

“What are you doing?” called Jay.

“Just follow me! I’ll prove it!” yelled Antonio.

The others followed him up the stairs and into Stefano’s bedroom where his corpse still lay on the bed. Antonio ran over to the nightstand where the tequila bottle sat and popped opened the lid. He took a big whiff and nodded, “Felix, smell it.”

Felix took the bottle in both hands and held it to his nose, inhaling deeply, “Almond.”

“And it couldn’t have been one of us because if the entire bottle was poisoned. Whoever drank with him would’ve been killed too. That’s why there was only the one glass. He drank it alone,” Jay speculated.

“But…then who did this?” asked Gavin, still pondering.

“Before he went to bed, Stefano said that it was a gift from his dad…” recounted Antonio, “But he wouldn’t…it’s his son! His only s-.” He went quiet before he could finish his sentence.

“He wasn’t his only son, though, was he?” asked Felix, looking over at Antonio.

Jay thought for a moment and then looked up with bright eyes, “Antonio, growing up, you said that Giovanni welcomed you in and treated you just like he did Stefano, right? You went to the same schools, had all the same opportunities, did everything the same?”

“Yea, but why does that matter?” asked Antonio.

“Don’t you see?” insisted Jay, “He was grooming both of you to see who the best son would be to take over the company. You’ve been in a fight to the death your entire life and you didn’t even know it! It was never out of the goodness of his heart or his fatherly duties. He gave you those opportunities so he could see which of you was the cream of the crop.”

“He was going to run the company into the ground. Stefano, I mean,” said Felix, quietly. “You’re the one he wanted to take over.”

The four men looked at each other in a silent recognition as the weight of the truth sank down around them. Antonio shifted his head and gazed down at Stefano’s body under the sheet. A teardrop rolled down as he said a silent goodbye to his friend and brother. He then looked back at the group, took a deep breath, and said, “Ok, so how are we going to bring Giovanni down?”