Intermission

This week we're going to have a brief intermission in the investigation. Trust us, there are so many more twists and turns to come. But first, we want to share a little snippet of the book that's inspired by this story. It's a novel. It's fiction. Jo made it all up.

Snag your copy of  THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE, the novel! 

Like what you hear? Follow us @kscope_nyc on Twitter and Instagram. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, it's Joe. This week, we're going to have
a brief intermission in the investigation. But trust me, there
are so many more twists and turns to come. And
I am reporting on this every single day and night,
both here and with the help of our stringers in Sicily.
But first I want to give you a little snippet

(00:21):
of the book that's inspired by this story. It's a novel,
it's fiction. I made it all up. We talk a
lot here about how my aunts and uncles and family
members are myth makers and storytellers sometimes liars. Well, so
am I, my friends. I am a novelist. I make
things up. And so I wrote the novel The Sicilian Inheritance.

(00:45):
In the midst of the pandemic. We were all locked
away in our houses with our families, and we all
wanted to escape, and so I wrote a delicious adventure
and a murder mystery inspired by Lorenzo's story as my
own escape. I wanted to transport both myself and my
readers to the gorgeous, beautiful, and often broken island of Sicily.

(01:10):
I do want to tell you there's no spoilers here.
People are asking me if they can listen to the
podcast and read the book at the same time. And
the answer is yes, yes, yes, one is fiction, one
is real, and they're both designed just to give you
a little more Sicily. For the book The Sicilian Inheritance,
I did imagine an American woman returning to Sicily to

(01:32):
solve her family member's murder, and I did imagine exactly
what that murder may have looked like in a police report.
We thought it might be interesting to share with you
the fictional version that I imagined of this murder. And
as we keep reporting here and as you keep listening,
we will see if my twisted brain matches up with

(01:54):
the truth. Okay, I'm just going to set the scene
for a second. Right now, our modern day woman, Sarah
is in the village of Caltibalessa. As you can probably
figure out, this is the fictional version of Caltabalota. Just
changed a couple letters, and she's about to go to
dinner at a delicious restaurant that may or may not

(02:16):
be very similar to the one we just went to
in our episode. She's with a local woman named Juicy,
who is ultimately going to help her figure out how
to solve this crime. We wove through the labyrinthian alleys

(02:37):
and archways so low they touched the top of my head.
The difference in town after siesta was striking. Even the
stone walls vibrated with a newly awakened energy. A trio
of little girls chased after us with sparkly fairy wands
as we emerged into a raucous square filled with tables
and chairs, all of them crowded with smartly dressed people

(02:58):
eating and drinking. Each door and window overlooking the piazza
was flung open. Waiters in crisp white shirts and black
ties scurried around with trays of orange cocktails and maroon wine.
This can't be real, I murmured, It isn't juicy, scoffed.
They set it all up because they knew you were coming.

(03:19):
Ha ha come. In the middle of the piazza, a
large fountain gurgled around a statue of a woman holding
a child. We took a left on the other side
of the piazza and finally stopped in front of a
rough wooden door with a bold brass knocker in the
shape of a dragon's head. An Italian tricolored flag shuddered

(03:40):
in the breeze from a pole above the door, but
a much larger Sicilian flag eclipsed it. I gazed up
at the billowing yellow fabric. Juicy smirked, I love that
the head of Medusa is on our flag. Don't you
She was a monster? I replied, Is she, Jucy said?

(04:02):
Or was she a brilliant woman with the ability to
turn men to stone when they abused her or tried
to take everything from her? I had never thought about
it like that. Juicy placed both her palms flat on
the door and pushed the host to the server just
waited beyond the entryway. He was so handsome. I stumbled
a little as I followed him through the crowded room

(04:25):
to the one empty table. Jucy caught me and pinched
my hip. I get it, it's hard to look at him,
she whispered. He's a beautiful sexy man. You think he'd
leave this town already. But he has a sick mama
and a slutty sister, and nieces and nephews with no papas,
and they need the money and a man to stay
with them. The beautiful sexy man pulled out both of

(04:47):
our chairs and whisked away the centerpiece, a bowl holding
absurdly large plastic fruit. There is no menu. He'll bring things,
Juicy explained, and placed her elbows on the in front
of her so she could lean closer to me. Juicy
was the town gossip and travel guide you always wanted
to meet on a trip but never did. With her,

(05:09):
everything was either insanely beautiful or a terrible disaster. Cecily's
beaches were the most gorgeous in the world, but two
crowded with fat tourists and trash washing down from the
filthy mainland. They also had the most magnificent beach clubs,
if you didn't mind dancing with a bunch of coked
up Brits. I absolutely had to visit the cursed village

(05:32):
just ten miles to the north. A priest had recently
performed an exorcism by helicopter to save all ten thousand
souls who lived there from their utter depravity. As Juicy promised,
the food began to just appear. No one asked if
we had preferences, or nut allergies or gluten free diets.

(05:52):
I loved it. The beautiful sexy man brought platters of
anything he wanted from inside the kitchen. Eggplanned prepared seven
different ways stuffed cuttlefish and anchovy's fried and crispy breadcrumbs.
By the third caraffe of house wine, Juicy began to
reveal secrets to me. Just then, a platter of what

(06:13):
looked like a deconstructed cannoli, a pyramid of cannoli shells,
separated by thin layers of amaretto cream and smothered in
dark chocolate sauce, grased our table. A new guest pushed
his way through the beaded entryway. He had to duck
as he entered and shift his body sideways because his
torso was as wide as two men. This man didn't

(06:37):
just fill the doorway, he filled the entire room. The
waiter led him to a table in the corner. Now
that's who you need to talk to, Juicy nodded in
the man's direction. What about what? He's the detective in
charge of the local police. Her words startled me. I
glanced nervously over at him. Why would I need to

(06:59):
talk to police? Non so care la fronte stringere iltuo
bucco doculo. Don't furrow your brow, Juicy said, you'll clench
your asshole, and no one wants to walk around with
a clenched asshole. I'd had too much wine and it
was scrambling my thoughts. But when Jucy looked at me,

(07:20):
her gaze was sharp, like something inside her brain had
just decided to wake up, and I grasped that I
was much much drunker than my host. I was a
woman alone in a strange country, without a full grip
on my faculties. I cursed myself for making such bad decisions,
for always making bad decisions. Juicy kept talking. You go

(07:42):
over there and talk to that man. I don't understand
what you're telling me. When she spoke again, I realized
Juicy knew much more about me and why I'd come
to Sicily than she'd previously let on. She stared me
dead in the eye. Who else are you going to
ask about Sarah's murder? Now we're going to skip ahead

(08:03):
a little bit, just a little bit. This is me,
This is Joe editorializing. Now the two women are able
to obtain the police report, and here it is. It
was a photocopy of something that looked like a police report,
all scribbled in Italian official looking type, marched across the top.

(08:24):
Polizia di Menisipale, Commune dicotoballesa, thick lines, redacted entire sections.
The words swam in front of my eyes. Eighteen Lulio,
nineteen twenty five, am Chidio murder. I sucked in deep breaths,
trying to calm the intense emotions welling up inside of me.

(08:48):
Do you want me to translate it, she asked, I
can do it. I focused harder on the page and
translated in my head. I didn't want to hear the
words out loud. I read about an unnamed witness who
discovered the female victim approximately a half a mile from town.
A hand drawn map had an actual X marking the spot.

(09:12):
According to the witness, the woman's body was tied by
the neck to a stake outside the entrance of a
small cave. Come oncapra japertato al masacro like a goat,
led to slaughter. I couldn't stop until I reached the end.
As my aunt Rosie used to say to me, when

(09:34):
you've stepped in the shit, you've got no choice but
to keep walking until you get home to clean yourself up.
I kept reading. The victim was naked from the waist down.
Her left ankle was shattered with something heavy, possibly a rock.
There were slash marks from a dull knife up the

(09:54):
insides of both of her thighs. Her midsection was partially
sliced through. There were purple bruises on her neck, a
smashed windpipe stranglomento question mark strangulation. Whoever blacked out the
document did a terrible job. The name of the victim

(10:15):
was missing from the top of the page, but not
the bottom. Victim Age thirty two. Name Sarah Fina, my
great grandmother. And that's it. That is how I imagined this happened.
We are finding out new details every day about what

(10:37):
actually happened to Lorenza, who when I created a fictional
version of her story, I named her Sara Fina. I
think all of you will love this book. It is
a murder mystery, It is an adventure. It is filled
with delicious food and delicious wine, and most of all,
it is going to make you want a book a
trip to Sicily. The New York Times actually said that

(10:58):
in their book review. They said, it will make you
want to fly to Sicily. Maybe we're all going to
go together. Maybe that is our plan. So please stay
tuned to this podcast. Like I said, we have so
many more episodes, with twists and turns and brand new
details emerging every single day. I love that you're joining
us on this adventure, my adventure. Stay subscribed for the

(11:20):
next installment.