“Oh, hornswoggled.Lovethat,” he said, puckering his lips and scrunching his shoulders.
“Well, you hornswoggled sweet twinkle-toed Elena.”
His shoulders sank. “Then Antonio hornswoggled me. Once we’d sold everything, he disappeared. I was stuck in Florence, penniless. I’d spent everything on my tuition. Alas, those dusty professors couldn’t understand my artistic vision.”
Sterling had seen his portraits. Hisvisionlooked like he painted with his eyes closed.
“How’d you end up marriedagain?”
“While there, I became a fan of opera and learned of this music history program in Vienna.”
By which Sterling knew he meant he fell for some tenor.
He continued. “Around then I met Daniela, an art history student with a trust fund. She attributed my flamboyance to my artistic soul.”
“So you married bachelorette number two?”
“I did. Her parents paid for everything. Even her engagement ring. Who knew a nice guy was such a hot commodity? I took it and started my life in Vienna. No one knew until a few months ago, when Nightingale found out.”
“How?”
“After New Year’s, I was at the men’s sauna engaging in the noble pursuit of scientific knowledge via self-experimentation, as one does.”
By which he meant testing whatever drug concoction he’d whipped up.
“As one does,” she agreed.
“Unfortunately, I’d erred while calculating my newest formulation, and it loosened my lips more than my muscles.I. Couldn’t. Shut. Up.This guy who reminded me of Antonio walked in. Before I knew it, I’d confessed what I’d done. Someone from Nightingale must have overheard.”
“So you know who they are?”
“No. I didn’t have my glasses on. Everything was a blur. I remember glimpses, enough to recall what I said but not to whom. Then, a month ago, I was at Café Hawelka. When I returned from the men’s room, I found a note from Nightingale under my coffee cup. It said they knew my secret and would tell my wives where I was unless I delivered a package for them, which they left under the seat.”
“Hawelka? That’s Nightingale’s third gastronomy connection. Harry found those sugar cubes. Verena was approached at Café Schwarzenberg but told to go to Café Bräunerhof. Are they a mysterious cabal run by baristas? What happened with the package?”
“My orders were to deliver it on January twelfth at two ten a.m. to the stairway beneath the bridge. I was to secure it behind a loose brick and wait until I saw someone retrieve it, and forbidden to look inside,” he said.
“Great, now we’ll never know what it was.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I sliced the wax seal off the second I got home.”
“What was inside?”
“Sugar cubes. I took inconspicuous samples and had a friend at my old lab analyze them.”
“Drugs?” she asked.
“Nothing but sucrose and standard impurities from sugar manufacturing. I resealed it and delivered it as ordered on the twelfth. I waited where I could just see the lower steps of the underpass. A bit before three a.m., the Professor’s date, Luisa, walked by. Soon after, a man descended the stairs and took the package. I only saw his legs and the bottom of his red shirt, so he was tall.”
“Given the timing, it could’ve been the Third Man. He wore white, but Rita saw someone by the church wearing red. Maybe he changed outfits?” said Sterling.
“Maybe. The package was a meaningless ploy to keep me outside while Nightingale killed David and Hedy. I feel so foolish.”
“You are, but you’re a damn cute fool. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There’s more. You remember when we first met?”
“Of course, our meet-cute on the Bim.”
