The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case Read online

  David settled back on the ledge and waited, but these new travelers on the dirt road were moving much more slowly. It was some time before they emerged from the trees—two people on foot, making their way along the road in and out of slanting sunshine. As they came closer he saw that they were both women, or perhaps a woman and a young girl. The woman was dressed in dark colors; and the girl, who was very slender, was wearing red and had long dark hair. He watched them until they disappeared behind the courtyard wall and, a few moments later, appeared again, this time inside the gate. In the center of the courtyard they stopped and talked, the older woman gesturing with both hands and then turning to cross the yard toward the villa. David jumped down from the windowsill and started to dress. If the Stanleys were having visitors, he wanted to be in on it. He was nearly dressed when it occurred to him to look back out of the window. The pretty dark-haired girl was still waiting in the courtyard.

  When David got down to the kitchen, he found Molly and Dad speaking Italian very slowly and uncertainly to a middle-aged woman with a round, smiling face and curly, gray-streaked hair. Dad had his Italian dictionary out, and now and then he would look up a word. David didn’t understand most of it, but he did catch one word he knew—mercoledi, which he remembered meant Wednesday. “Mercoledi,” Dad was saying. “Si, mercoledi. Va bene. Va bene. Good, Good.” The woman said some more things, pointing and gesturing, and then she was starting towards the door, saying, “arrivederla” and “grazie,” when Blair and Esther came in.

  David was used to the way the twins intrigued people. The fact that they were the same height and age and so entirely different in every other way really caught people’s attention. He had to agree that Blair was beautiful; with his enormous spacy-looking blue eyes and blond curly hair, there just wasn’t any other word that seemed to fit. And Esther—Esther was round and sturdy with sleek brown hair and very red cheeks. People said Esther was cute-looking, and David guessed he agreed, except when she was being stubborn; then he sometimes thought she looked like a little bulldog. Anyway he’d seen a lot of people do a big number about how darling the twins were, and sometimes he’d wished they wouldn’t. But there was something about the way this Italian woman reacted that was—well—okay. She just stared at them, clasped her hands together, rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling and said some words that you didn’t have to understand to know she really felt enthusiastic about kids like Blair and Esther. She went over and hugged them both before she left, and the way she did it was so natural they didn’t seem to mind.

  As soon as she had gone out, Molly said, “Isn’t she great? And can you imagine, I’m going to have a housekeeper. Isn’t that marvelous?”

  “Wow,” David said. “I’ll say.” Molly hated housework a lot. All the Stanleys had heard her say, more than once, that she was a painter by profession and a housewife only accidentally. Once when somebody said, “Don’t you mean incidentally,” she’d said, “No accidentally. I accidentally fell for a man with four kids.” Anyway, at home Molly did a little of the housework, and the rest of the family did a little more, and quite a bit of it just didn’t get done. But when Dad suggested that Molly get a housekeeper, she always said she couldn’t afford it. But now things were different because the Stanleys could only stay a year in Italy and the money that Uncle Sid left was enough to live on very comfortably for a year.

  “Signore Bellucci told us about Signora Lino,” Dad said. “Her brother-in-law is the farmer who takes care of the crops for the Bartoli family. When her husband died a few years ago, she came here to live with her relatives, and she’s able to earn a little money by doing housework for the renters here at the villa. When I asked Signore Bellucci about a housekeeper, he said that no one could be better than Ghita Lino. She’s already working here at the villa a couple of days a week, for the Thatchers and the English family who live in the old haybarn, and everyone seems to be very pleased with the arrangement.”

  “I know I’m going to be pleased with the arrangement,” Molly said.

  Looking out the kitchen window, David saw Signora Lino crossing the courtyard to where the girl in the red dress was waiting. He could see the girl more clearly now. She was, he decided, probably around fifteen years old and very pretty and Italian looking—dark and glamorous. “I wonder who that is,” David said. “The girl with Signora Lino.”

  Molly looked out the window. “Probably one of her children. Signore Bellucci said she has quite a few.”

  Molly was right about the girl. On Wednesday when Signora Lino came to clean for the first time, the girl came with her again. While her mother worked in the house, she swept the courtyard and watered some planter boxes and then sat on the terrace wall reading a book. She was still there when Janie and the twins went out to play, and before long the three of them were standing around in a circle staring at her. Watching from his window, David winced. Kids were really crazy. He tried to imagine himself going right up to a strange person like that and couldn’t. If he had to go out into the courtyard while the girl was sitting there, he’d probably pretend he didn’t see her, or some dumb thing like that. After a while, when he looked again, Janie was sitting on the wall beside the girl, and it looked as if a big conversation was going on, which was pretty strange, considering the girl probably didn’t speak a word of English. When Janie finally came back in the house, he asked her about it.

  “We were talking Italian,” Janie said.

  David knew that Janie had done more of the recorded lessons than he had, but he also knew she couldn’t possibly have learned too much. “You don’t know that much Italian,” he said.

  “I do too,” Janie said. “Besides, a lot of Italian you do with your hands, and I speak sign language very well.”

  Whatever language they’d been speaking, Janie certainly seemed to have gotten a lot of information. One interesting thing she’d learned was that the girl, whose name was Marzia, was only thirteen, the same age as Amanda. Which was really surprising because she looked quite a bit older. It was partly the way she dressed, he guessed, in dresses or skirts instead of Levis and tee shirts; but besides that, she was shaped more like a teenager than a skinny kid, the way Amanda still was. Janie had also found out that Marzia’s father was dead and that she had four brothers and one sister and that they all lived with their uncle’s family farther up the dirt road that ran past the villa.

  The first few days at the villa were really fascinating. There were all kinds of explorations to go on and people to meet. Unfortunately there was only one other kid living on the Bartoli fattoria, a teenager, but some of the other people were fairly interesting, for adults. Actually, the teenager, Hilary Morehouse, was just about the most boring person around in David’s opinion, though not everybody agreed. He lived with his parents, who were from England, in the house that was called Il Fienile. Il Fienile means the haybarn, but actually it was one of the biggest and nicest of the rentals. Mr. Morehouse was an ex-banker who had retired to write a book. Molly said they obviously had gobs of money. Mrs. and Mrs. Morehouse were very nice and friendly, but their son was a real oddball.

  Hilary Morehouse was sixteen years old, very tall and skinny, and extremely polite and friendly in a way that made you think that if you suddenly turned into a ten-foot gorilla he’d go right on being polite and friendly without even noticing the difference. It didn’t seem to David that he was at all handsome, either. He had the kind of neat, orderly-looking face that usually goes with a very thin mustache—except, of course, Hilary wasn’t old enough to grow one. He went around saying things like “smashing” and “good show” in a very enthusiastic tone of voice that came off phony, except when he was talking about hiking in Italy. Then you could tell he really meant it. That summer, at the villa, he usually went around in hiking boots and Swiss-type leather shorts with about a half-mile of skinny legs in between. Except for hiking and math, he didn’t seem to be at all interested in anything. In fact, he seemed to be particularly uninterested in people, whic
h was obvious because of the way he never noticed about Amanda and Marzia. David was pretty sure that he would have noticed if he were sixteen and two girls had a crush on him, particularly if one of them looked like Marzia. As a matter of fact, he’d been noticing Marzia quite a bit already, and he wouldn’t be sixteen for almost four years.

  The first thing David had noticed about Marzia was her looks. But very soon afterwards he’d noticed that there didn’t seem to be any particular reason why she should always come with her mother to the villa. Once in a while she helped a little with the cleaning, particularly any part of it that could be done outdoors, but usually she just sat in the courtyard and read a book. Then Janie began talking to Marzia, and it wasn’t long before the truth came out. Marzia had a thing about Hilary Morehouse. And not long afterwards it turned out that Amanda had a crush on him, too. That wasn’t too hard to figure. Amanda always had to do everything bigger and better than anyone else, so as soon as she found out that Marzia was crazy about Old Knobby Knees, she had to be even crazier about him.

  Besides the Morehouses, the other people the Stanleys met right away were the Thatchers. They were originally from Australia, but they’d been living for several months in the small new wing of the villa. Actually, the new wing was only new by comparison—only about one hundred years old, instead of four or five hundred. It had been built for one of the Bartolis who had been an artist, and it was mainly one enormous room with lots of windows on the north side, which was great for the Thatchers because they were both sculptors. Andrew Thatcher sculpted out of marble and granite, and his wife, Olivia, modeled out of clay. They were probably about as old as Dad and Molly, but they seemed younger—more humorous and carefree—which Dad said was because they didn’t have any kids to add to the wear and tear.

  But even though the Thatchers didn’t have any kids of their own, they seemed to like them, particularly little ones. The Stanleys hadn’t been at the villa very long before Janie and the twins were running in and out of the Thatchers’ wing as if they lived there, and the Thatchers didn’t seem to mind at all. Sculpting is very interesting to watch, and Andrew and Olivia didn’t even insist that spectators keep their mouths shut, the way Molly did when she was painting.

  It wasn’t long before everyone in the family was crazy about the Thatchers, especially Molly. Molly said they were absolute darlings, and when they went so far as to offer to take care of the little kids now and then while Dad and Molly did art galleries in Florence and Siena, Molly said that other people could believe the Thatchers came from Down Under if they wanted to, but as far as she was concerned they came from Up Above—straight down from heaven. As a matter of fact there was only one thing about the Thatchers that could have been improved upon, in David’s opinion, and that was the way they were so impressed by Janie.

  Part of it was the language thing. Both of the Thatchers spoke fluent Italian, and they were absolutely fascinated by the way Janie was learning the language so quickly. Nobody really blamed them. People who’ve never had to live with a genius can’t be expected to understand how they have to be treated. But after an hour at the Thatchers, being encouraged to show off her IQ, Janie usually came home and started setting everybody straight about everything, which was a special talent of hers that really didn’t need any encouragement.

  Besides the Morehouses and the Thatchers, the other foreign renters were: a nice old Swiss couple who lived in what used to be the carriage house; some Swedish students in the cowbarn; and a Canadian bachelor in the stable. All of the foreign renters spoke at least some English and were friendly and fun to talk to. The only really uninteresting couple lived in a very fancy cottage that had once been the pig shed. No one seemed to know much about them except that the man was from France and the woman was from America, and they obviously weren’t at all interested in being friendly except to each other.

  Besides the foreign renters, there were usually some Italians around the villa, too. The owners dropped by every once in a while to be sure everything was all right, and Marzia’s uncle and some of his hired men were often working around the courtyard, because a few of the outbuildings were still being used to store wine and olive oil. Then, of course, there was Ghita, who came to the villa several days a week, and Marzia, who came almost as often. So it wasn’t very long before the Stanleys had gotten to know a lot of new people, and probably an even larger number of people had at least heard about the Stanleys.

  five

  As soon as Janie and the twins got acquainted with Marzia, they started going out to talk to her every time they saw her in the courtyard, and now and then, when he had nothing better to do, David watched from a window. The more he watched, the more he thought that she looked like an interesting person. Interesting and friendly, too, at least to little kids. Several times he seriously considered going out to meet her himself, but he never quite got around to it. Part of the reason was the language thing, of course. Even in English he’d never been exactly great at striking up a conversation with a stranger, and to try it in a language he couldn’t even speak seemed like just asking for a chance at the dumb-guy award of the year.

  Amanda didn’t go out to meet Marzia either. David wasn’t sure why, because Amanda certainly wasn’t what you would call a shy person; it probably had something to do with the fact that Molly kept encouraging her to do it. Molly kept saying that Marzia was just Amanda’s age, and they’d probably enjoy getting to know each other very much, and that the best way to learn a language was just to pitch in and try. Amanda didn’t say anything, but she didn’t go out to talk to Marzia.

  Then one day both David and Amanda went down to the village with Molly when she went to do some shopping. Shopping in Valle was different from shopping at home. In Valle you had to go to several little stores to get the things you were used to buying in one big supermarket. You shopped in one place for fresh vegetables, another for milk and cheese, and so forth. Most of the shops overflowed out onto the sidewalks under the arcade during the day—racks and tables in front of clothing stores, and even carcasses of animals hanging in front of the butcher shops. Molly had learned quite a few shopping words, but there was still a lot of pointing and gesturing and acting out going on, and the whole thing was a lot more fun to watch than shopping in an American supermarket.

  When they got back to the villa that day, Molly let Amanda and David out of the car with the groceries before she drove on down to the parking place on the lower terrace. They were halfway across the yard when they heard Janie calling, “Hey Amanda. Come here a minute.” Janie was sitting on the terrace wall with Marzia.

  “Come on, David,” Amanda said. “We might as well go on over and see what she wants.”

  “She called you, not me,” David said.

  “If you don’t go, I won’t,” Amanda said, so David went, too.

  When they got near the wall, Janie asked Amanda to tell Marzia how old she was. Amanda said, “I’m thirteen,” and when Marzia looked blank and shook her head, she held up ten fingers and then three more.

  “Oh sì” Marzia said. “Anch’io. Tredici.”

  “She says she is, too,” Janie said. “Now tell her how old I am. She won’t believe me.”

  “Janie is seven,” David said and held up seven fingers.

  Marzia said some surprised-sounding things. She looked at Janie and did a surprised bit by making her eyes bigger and her mouth into a circle, and they all laughed. After that they went on talking, or at least communicating, for a while about things like ages that you could do with fingers or things that were easy to act out. David had noticed that Italians were good at acting, and Marzia seemed to be especially good. She even managed to talk about the weather by acting out how hot it was. Watching her, it wasn’t hard to understand how Janie had been able to get so much information in spite of having so little Italian.

  They were still standing there talking to Marzia when the motorcycles went by again on the road just below the terrace wall, drowning out their
voices completely with their earsplitting roar. Janie, who was crazy about motorcycles in spite of all the bad things Dad was always saying about them, jumped up on the wall to watch them go by. There were three of them this time, three guys in flashy-looking outfits, bending low over the handle bars of their shiny machines. They swept by in a split instant and disappeared up the road, leaving behind diminishing waves of sound and a swirling cloud of dust.

  “Va-room. Va-room,” Janie yelled, jumping up and down on the wall. When things were quiet again, she asked Marzia something in Italian, and Marzia made a face and waved her hand in a kind of disgusted gesture, as if she didn’t think much of motorcycles.

  Just then Molly came out looking for her groceries, so Janie introduced her, too, and Molly asked Marzia to come in for milk and cookies. From then on Marzia began to spend quite a bit of time with the Stanleys, and before long she began to ask them to go on expeditions to see interesting things in the area around the villa.

  Actually, it was probably Molly who arranged the first expedition with Marzia. It happened on a very hot day when Molly was trying to paint under a tree on the front terrace, and the little kids had been interrupting her every few minutes. When noon came and Molly went into the kitchen to make lunch, Marzia was there talking to Janie, and somehow it all got arranged very quickly. It seemed that Marzia was telling Janie about a place where people had been having picnics for hundreds of years, and Molly thought it would be a great idea for her to take all the kids there for a picnic—a nice long one.