Death of a Serpent (18 page)

Her children stood aside while Serafina hugged Carmela. Her daughter felt stiff.

“Sit down, my precious,” Serafina said, wiping her eyes. I have harsh news. Someone hand your sister a towel.”

“A towel?”

They laughed.

“Handkerchief. You know what I mean.”

They laughed again.

Renata and Giulia sat on the sofa with Carmela. Vicenzu pulled up the chair for Serafina.

“Something bad?”

She held her daughter’s hands. They were callused. “About six months ago, your papa was in the shop. He collapsed.” Serafina tried to control herself, but couldn’t. “Vicenzu…tell her.”

“I was in the back of the store,” he said. “I heard a crash. Saw Papa on the floor. Held him. He tried, but couldn’t talk. Closed his eyes. A customer ran to Dr. Loffredo. Mama was delivering. Still breathing. They rushed him to hospital, but he…” Vicenzu stopped. “Died.”

Renata and Giulia held Carmela. No one spoke.

After she dried her eyes, Carmela stared at Serafina. Her daughter looked like a weeping Madonna.

“There’s more,” Serafina said, stroking Carmela’s cheek. She told her about Maddalena’s death.

Carmela’s voice was thick. “Achille went away, but left me this.” She pointed to her middle. “I feel nothing for him. Nothing. The baby is all I need.” Tears gave the lie to her words. “I’m happy here. The children need me.”

Serafina offered Carmela a clean handkerchief, touched a lock of her daughter’s hair. “Come home, Carmela.”

“Please,” Renata and Giulia said.

Carmela shook her head.

“We’ve kept your room the same, all your clothes,” Serafina said.

“Please. We need…” Again Vicenzu lost his words.

Maria bit her lip.

“Can’t you say anything, Maria?” Renata asked.

Maria held Serafina’s skirt, said nothing.

“She was only four when Carmela…” Serafina’s voice faded. “Perhaps she doesn’t remember—”

“I do.” Maria waved an arm at Totò. “He doesn’t.”

“See my steam engine?”

Carmela grabbed Maria and Totò and held them.

“I’ll fix your dresses. The waists, I mean,” Giulia said.

Carmela smiled.

“Do you live here?” Totò asked. “Can you play outside whenever you want?”

“Come home with us,” Serafina said again. “We’ve borrowed Rosa’s big carriage. We all fit, but you’ll need to hold Totò on your lap.”

Totò stuck his tongue out at Maria. “She can play with my train. You can’t.”

Carmela looked at her lap. “I need some time.”

The door opened and Ave Maria entered. She stared at Totò while she clomped over to Carmela.

“Innocenza. She screams, won’t stop. Come,” Ave said.

Carmela rose, kissed her siblings.

Serafina held her arms out, but Carmela looked at the ground and hurried away.

Falco’s Alibi

“Y
ou made it.” Serafina pulled them inside. “We were going to wait for you but the children were too hungry.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Eat with us, we haven’t finished.”

Assunta shuffled back and forth from the kitchen to the table, setting two additional places and heaping their plates with food. The others looked up from their meal and smiled. Vicenzu slapped Beppe on the back, shook hands with Arcangelo. He poured the wine.

“Finish eating while Assunta and I put the children to bed. Then tell us your story of Falco,” Serafina said, gathering Totò and Tessa. Assunta followed her. “You are excused, too, Maria. Study your score if you want, but in your room.”

• • •

“At eighteen-hundred hours on October 6, Falco Baldassare was fitting a bishop for a new set of clothes, a cassock, a cape, several shirts,” Arcangelo said.

“Which bishop?” Serafina asked. “Palermo is loaded with them.”

Beppe said, “Bishop Antonio Ricci. He lives off Piazza Sant’Andrea on the Via Roma. That’s why we’re here so late. Arcangelo said we must confirm the appointment Falco showed us in his ledger.”

Arcangelo said, “Took us a while to find the bishop’s apartment, even longer for his secretary to answer the bell, but he confirmed the appointment, all right, even opened the bishop’s calendar and showed it to us.”

“We asked how long he was there. No record, the secretary told us,” Beppe said. “But he said the fitting would have taken no more than an hour to an hour and a half, unless, of course, there were problems or other circumstances, say, if the bishop was late for the appointment, or the cape had to be reworked.”

Arcangelo said, “So Falco Baldassare’s whereabouts are accounted for.”

“The best we can hope for, from that slippery eel,” Serafina said. “We rode here from Palermo, Rosa and I, in less than two hours? He could have left in a carriage after the fitting, arrived in Oltramari by what, eight o’clock? Dined with his niece then did her in. Just like him. Not ruled out, Falco Baldassare, not by a long shot. He’d still have plenty of time to do the deed and return to Palermo.”

“And the others, did he kill them, too?” Vicenzu asked. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“Agreed, unless… Her eyes glazed. Her voice trailed off.

“Unless what?” Renata asked.

She shook herself. “Unless he and the monk are in some sort of league.”

“More wine?” Vicenzu asked.

Arcangelo declined. “Time for me to go home. School tomorrow.” He tugged a sleeve.

An Altercation

Thursday, October 25, 1866

S
erafina opened her bedroom window. She shielded her eyes against a tepid sun. Streets surrounding the piazza were filled with people on foot or with carts pulled by mules, heading home for the noon meal. The smell of roasting pork wafted from a plume of smoke. Her stomach growled.

Mingled in with children’s laughter were shouts coming from somewhere down the street. Leaning out, she saw the rope seller yelling into a stranger’s face, a peddler with a worn mule harnessed to a weathered cart. Had Serafina seen him before? She thought not. A few men stopped and pointed.

The argument became physical when the peddler shoved the rope seller. More men gathered. The rope seller delivered blows to the neck and face of the stranger, who, poor man, mustn’t have been taught to defend himself. He bled from the nose. The crowd thickened. Two men stepped in and tried to stop the fight. The rope seller swung at one of them. He missed. The peddler struck the rope seller, but it was the punch of a weakling, the effect, comic to some in the crowd who laughed.

Serafina blinked. The fighting spread like fire in a summer wind. Soon she couldn’t tell who did what, but saw a fist hit a face, a spray of blood, a kicking shoe, a cloud of roiling dust.

Bells clanged. Swords flashed. Pistols fired in the air. Carabinieri charged into view. As fast as it formed, the crowd vanished. No more dust. No more peddler. No more cart or mule.

Peace restored, the rope seller limped back to his customary corner and, grunting, sat.

Serafina stared a moment longer before turning her attention inside.

The Rope Seller

F
rom his seat on a pile of hemp, the roper worked a piece of twine like swift fingers braiding hair. He was wiry, the rope seller, with a patch over his eye. He had the odor of straw, hemp, and old newspaper. She wondered how old he was. Probably over sixty, ancient, but young enough to protect himself from the fists of the stranger with the weathered cart.

“Donna Fina, some twine? Got rope, all kinds, all sizes, thick as your arm for mooring ships, or scented, for tying up delicates.”

“Out my window today I saw a fight.” She watched the crowd of emotions march across his face—fear, resentment, disbelief, male pride, humor.

“Stole my hemp, he did.”

“Today?”

He nodded. “Another time, too. See, when my cat talks to me, I know there’s trouble. Today, for what reason I don’t know, the creature gets up from his morning nap, stretches, looks me in the face and talks. Like Beelzebub, he sounds.”

As if on cue, a thick, gray shorthair appeared and began a stream of plaintive meows like the speech of a rackety geezer.

“See? Say hello to Donna Fina,” he said to the cat.

The mouser sat, folded his front paws underneath his massive chest and blinked his moon eyes.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” he asked.

The cat was silent.

“So I go outside. And what do I spy? I find a man dressed in rags, he was, peering at some anchor line, feeling the netting, holding a roll of three-strand twisted in his hands. He thinks I’m not wise to him, see, so he asks me questions, how much for this reel, for that twine, the cost for a small piece of hawser, of solid braid. I growl the prices, and all the time Bumma, he meows. When he drives away, I glimpse a piece of rope snaking down the back of his cart. My rope. I know my rope. Today, see, my Bumma again he stretches, talks. So I go out, sit in the corner, cap over my eye, wary, feigning sleep. I see the same one leaving with the rope in his hands, and I teach him a lesson.”

“The color of his hair?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Dunno.”

“You didn’t notice or he had no hair or he wore a cap?” she asked.

“You saw him fighting,” he said.

Chagrined, she admitted she didn’t notice his hair. “Wore a cap, he must have. A stranger, haven’t seen him before,” she said. She must be more focused. She may have seen a significant bit of information, but, instead, part of her mind was elsewhere.

“Me neither. Except for the other day when Bumma announced him. Not from around here, I think not. His mule, broken down, like his cart. A bandit, or a deserter. Up to no good, see.”

The Shoemaker

“S
hoes fit for walking on clouds? Leather from Florence?”

She smiled. “No shoes today.”

“Caffè?”

She shook her head.

The shoemaker, who spoke more with his hands than with his mouth, was dressed in a shirt and tie, striped pants, green apron. His shoes shone like the glass on his storefront. As her eyes swept the shop, Serafina saw rows of men’s boots arranged along one wall. Closer to the front stood women’s and children’s shoes in various colors and styles, all finely crafted. Rodolfo must have contacts throughout Italy. His family dealt in leather for centuries.

“I’m looking for information.”

He guided her to a chair.

Serafina told him that she was investigating the deaths of Rosa’s prostitutes and that the other night she’d spent some time in the room of one of the deceased. “I saw many shoes in her cabinet, of such high quality, saw your stamp on them. Her name was Bella.”

He nodded, thought a moment before speaking. “Good customer. Had to have the very best. Particular. Came in with a piece of fabric, pointed to a color, said ‘Match this.’ When I told her I’d have to buy the leather, have it tanned, possibly make a trip to Palermo, even to Naples, she said she didn’t mind the time or the cost.”

“How often did she shop here?”

“Not sure—every month? Could look through my receipts if it’s important. Coming here for years, Bella.”

“Alone?”

“At first. Dressed like a
puttana
, but expensive, you know.” He drew large curves in the air. “Said shoes mirrored the soul. Paid cash. Lots. I’ll miss her. And brought me a new customer, too, from Palermo. Last year or two, they came in together. Another one with means. Sorry Bella died. A woman, I do not ask questions where she gets her money, where anyone gets the money. Better not to know.” He cupped his chin and was silent for a moment. “Hard to feed a family these days, I don’t need to tell you.”

“The other customer. Can you give me his name and address?”

“
Her
name. Sour, that one. Nose in the air. Thinks she’s a queen. When I first measured her feet, she told me I was wrong, but I insisted. In the end I had to show her: I squeezed her into the size she wanted. That convinced her. Wanted everything made, delivered to a Palermo address.”

“May I have it?”

He walked over to the counter, opened a green ledger, and riffled through the pages, scratching one bushy eyebrow.

While she waited, Serafina looked out the window and saw clotted traffic in the piazza. Two carts had collided, their back wheels interlocked. Feathers spun in the air and a jumble of garments—capes, wigs, bits of clothes—had fallen onto the cobbles. The driver shoved them back into his wagon, all the while yelling and gesturing. A crowd watched, growing until two tight-pantalooned soldiers appeared.
Presto
, everyone scattered. As she looked at the cart commotion, a black carriage drawn by a matched pair whisked directly in front of the window, its red wheels purring.

“Ah, yes, I have it here. A moment while I write it for you.”

An Old Friend

S
erafina stuffed the address into her handbag, stepped outside. Hugging her cape, she visored her eyes, peered toward the piazza, and saw the same carriage return. It circled the statue, its wheels spinning, the horses straining. Pedestrians scurried out of its way.

When it halted in front of her, bits of straw, clods of earth flew into her face. She glimpsed a blur of silk sitting inside. Brushing dust from the folds of her dress, Serafina muttered something about the vulgarity of the nobility.

The driver opened the door, and Serafina watched a foot emerge sheathed in calfskin, saw a slice of white silk stocking and a few layers of petticoat peek out from under a skirt of watered silk. The woman was clothed in the latest fashion at this early hour. Must be bone-breaking work for the maid.

A familiar voice called her name. Serafina squinted into the light as the woman approached, reeking of Roget & Gallet, wearing a day dress with an indefinite waist. And that hairdo—she must have a French maid.

“Serafina? What luck,” the woman said. “First, my deep sorrow for your loss.”

“Elisabetta! I didn’t recognize you. Sun in my eyes, you know.” They embraced. “I never saw it coming, Giorgio’s death. How could I be so blind?” Serafina asked. Her eyes swam.

The two women discussed Giorgio, his illness, her family’s sudden loss.