Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (14 page)

With the canniness of animals,
the kitten came into the room and jumped up on the bed.

“Papillon, in my pain, I forgot
about you today, please forgive me.” Mimette screamed.

“When will she return?”

The maid shook her head. “Don’t
know. In the south.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know!” She cried out.

“When did you last see her?”

No time. Baby crowning.

Serafina looked around. There
was a small desk on the other side of the room and she found a scissors and
some string.

“Now we’re all set.”

“It’s coming. I feel it.”

Serafina ran to her side.
“Breathe.” Serafina looked again. “Now push. Hard. Harder.”

Mimette gave a low, long grunt.

“Almost there, almost. Push
again. Harder. You can do it!”

It went on like this.

“One more time. Here it comes.”
Serafina caught the baby who started to wail. “You have a little girl.”

Exhausted, Mimette lay down on
the rug. “Another girl.” Smiling, she took the baby in her arms.

After Serafina tied two knots in
the string, she wrapped it around the umbilical cord, cut it, and bundled the
after birth in newspaper. She cleaned the baby and handed her to Mimette.

“Not your first.”

But Mimette was sleeping so she
lay the baby next to her and shut the door.

As she was walking toward the
ladies’ parlor she heard the front door open and slam shut.

Serafina froze. “Who is it?” she
said aloud, surprised at the tremor in her voice.

No answer. Instead, footsteps
came closer, louder, heavier. More than one person?

She heard a click. Then she
heard a loud bang, saw a flash of light, and was thrown to the ground. She felt
a searing pain, nothing more.

Chapter
16: The Lawyer Visits Loffredo

A few days after Loffredo was imprisoned, his lawyer paid
him a visit. He advised him to plead guilty. He told Loffredo that he’d made
inquiries and because of Elena’s reputation in Paris and the fact that she’d
been estranged for seven years, he’d be given a light sentence in exchange for
a guilty plea. “A crime of passion, nothing more, old chap.” He’d be released
in a few months. Loffredo refused, telling the lawyer he was innocent. He asked
for paper and wrote to Serafina while his lawyer waited, tapping his fingers on
the top of the table.

Once a day they led him to a
small courtyard where he exercised. After a week of this with no word from
anyone, he boxed with the earth, forming his hands into fists and pounding the
ground beneath his feet and then on the stone walls, but a whistle blew and
guards cuffed him and took him back to his cell. After the incident with the
stones, his shoelaces and razor were removed. Small creatures grew in his
beard. When he tried to imagine his library in Oltramari, the picture faded.
Freedom in the mind be damned
.

One morning a new guard brought
him bread and café. The café was strong, the bread warm and fresh. The guard
smiled and called him “my lord.” That afternoon he heard the key turning the
tumblers. The friendly guard opened the door. He carried shaving utensils.
Loffredo was told to ready himself for a visitor. Another guard appeared who
restrained him with ankle and wrist cuffs and the two guards led him to the
visitors’ room. The clanking of the chains on the floor reverberated on his
teeth. Rosa stood when he entered. Her eyes teared when she saw him.

Chapter
17:
L’Hôpital del la
Charité

Pinned down by clutching hands,
Serafina says something to Giulia or is it to Giorgio, they look so much alike.
Giorgio’s dead but he stands by her side. She came to Paris to search for
something and found him instead.

A new dress for you, Mama,
you’ve ruined your old one. A robe, too, and slippers from Le Bon Marché. He
told us he was dead and all along he’s been here. I found him hiding in the
Elena’s apartment. Rosa, too, she’s here but slips down. Her face falls off the
wall, fading into white. Everything in white, I must be dead.

Someone says, “Breathe into the
mask,” but the mask holds her down, gives her visions. If only Giorgio would
stay. A force pins her down.

“When she wakes, we’ll send for
you.”

What is it you found in the
apartment that fills you with so much dread? Let me be, let me shed my life.
Painting makes me see so much. She feels something pierce her, but it is a
child’s finger pressing into her shoulder, a baby’s cry, a kitten’s paw, the
voice gruff.

Footsteps, a shot. There it is,
I found it, the ghost of a plan, flee this world and what I’ve become. Fight,
she tells herself but the breath in the mask mesmerizes. It is magic.

Faces crowd into one another,
disappear. She’s flown too close to the sun. She floats above her body,
captured by the blinding light, peering down at herself on a table while men
and women move around her.

“My pocket, in my pocket, the
calendar and the kitten.”

“She’s dreaming. Let her sleep.”

* * *

Serafina opened her eyes. She
was in a strange bed. The room smelled of ether, blood and urine, the place
rivaling the stench of the embalmer’s basement in Oltramari. Smiling men in
black robes, their hands folded, stood by her bedside. Rosa and Carmela held
each other. Two peeked into the room from the doorway, Arcangelo and Teo.
Tessa, too. Catching Serafina’s eye, they straightened and smiled.

“You’ve had a nasty few hours,
but you’ll be fine, no thanks to your judgment,” Rosa said, her voice gravelly.

“It was the dessert at the
Maison Dorée,” Serafina said.

“If you ever go off on your own
again ...” Carmela paused, seemed at a loss for the right words, and choked.
“What made you go out alone? If it weren’t for Teo and Arcangelo, we never
would have found you, and you would have bled to death in Elena’s apartment.
What you did wasn’t courageous or cunning, it was idiotic. And now you’ll miss
your appointment with the French inspector.”

She tried to sit up, but the
pain was too great. “Where am I?”

“She doesn’t understand yet.
Give her a few hours,” the religious brother said.

“I’m going to be sick.” She
closed her eyes, but the room and the people kept spinning.

“Where am I?”

“
L’Hôpital del la Charité
, left bank, and I’m Frère Michel. I run
the hospital. You took a bullet in the shoulder. You were very lucky, it lodged
in the muscle, but played havoc with your clavicle. Bits chipped off.
Fractured, I’m afraid. Lucky for you, we had our best surgeon on duty. He had a
job cleaning it up, found some shards here and there which he had to remove,
and a bullet which we’ve given to the police. But the shoulder is intact. No
permanent damage. I don’t know when you’ll be able to use your arm, certainly
not in the next few months.”

“Left or right?”

“Sleep, now,” she heard Giorgio
say.

“Is the baby all right?”

“She’s delirious,” she heard
Rosa say. “She’s a midwife.”

She didn’t listen to Giorgio.
“The French don’t know what they’re talking about. I must go home. The kitten
and the baby. Find Elena.” Was that her voice?

“Do you listen to anyone?” That
was Rosa’s unmistakable gravel.

She tried levering herself up
using her good elbow and became so dizzy she had to bend to the bowl again.

“All last night’s good food
wasted on a stubborn sleuth.”

When she woke, a figure, dark
but familiar, stood against the light from the window. Was it the shadowy man
come to finish her off?

He rubbed his lapel.

She squinted up at him. “Good
morning.”

“Good evening, you mean. You’ve
slept the whole day.”

She opened one eye, her good
hand visoring the crimson rays of the sun.

“But the sun is ...”

“Setting, I’m afraid. My wife
sends you these from her garden.”

“How lovely.” Serafina had never
seen such beautiful flowers before, small and delicate stems, droopy, the
petals like the ears of elves. A nun took them from his hand. She wore a habit
the same color as the flowers. Folded wings covered her head. Serafina heard
the click of beads and listened to her footsteps recede.

She sank back into the pillow.
“The hospitals have private rooms in Paris?”

“Only for special patients,” Valois
said. “The prefect arranged it. You were shot and we feared for your life. Two
policemen have been assigned to guard you.”

“How did you know where to find
me?”

“Rosa. I owe you an apology.”

The madam smiled. “She’s
difficult, sometimes I think not worth the trouble, but we’ve been friends too
long to sever ties in Paris. One more trick like this, however ...”

The inspector continued. “The
pictures of the dead woman are still missing. I asked the photographer to make
duplicates, but he can’t find the plates, so I suspect someone did not want you
to see them, someone with a long and influential reach.”

Serafina nodded slowly as if she
understood everything he said and told him two men had been following her ever
since she was commissioned by Elena’s father to find his daughter’s murderer.

“We saw them in Oltramari and in
Marseille and here in Paris.”

“The same men?”

Carmela nodded and told him
about their encounters with the men in Marseille and Paris.

The inspector was intrigued
enough to write himself a note. “I took your two young men with me and we
searched your friend’s apartment today.”

“In Sicily, we need an order
from the courts for that, not that we always stand on ceremony,” Serafina said.

“Obviously,” Rosa said.

“Here we follow the rules. We
obtained a warrant to search the apartment. When your countess friend returns,
if she’s still alive, she’ll find quite a mess, all the drawers in the
apartment emptied, the clothes searched. It looked like she left in haste. The
bed in one room was unmade.”

Serafina told him about the maid
from another apartment.

“So you had quite a busy night.”

“Are Elena’s clothes still
there?”

Valois shrugged. “Her wardrobe
seemed barren for a woman of fashion. Just a few garments hanging in a closet
in her bedroom. Heavy winter clothing, a cape, some heavy brocade evening
gowns. But either the apartment’s manager or the Busacca family will have much
to clean up, not the least of which is the amount of blood in one of the
beds—”

“The bed where the maid gave
birth,” Serafina said.

Valois smoothed his coat. “And
your blood spilled all over an Aubusson carpet in the ladies’ parlor. You know
how to leave tracks.”

“And you’ve uncovered what?”

“Nothing yet. Arcangelo and Teo
are sifting through the papers.”

“What about the kitten?”

“For now, I’ve given him a
home.”

“The maid said she had an
arrangement with Elena to take care of the kitten while she was gone,” Serafina
said.

“When was the last time she saw
her? When did she say she’d return?” Rosa asked.

“The maid was in labor,”
Serafina said. “Hard to get straight answers.” A euphemism for she didn’t
remember the maid’s answer. Last week, maybe. She’d expected to hear something
else from Valois, a stiff scolding at least, and marveled at his
transformation, at least in her mind. She told Rosa to go through the pockets
of her dress and bring her the contents.

“I’m afraid your dress is
unusable, I think the hospital disposed of it.”

Serafina tried to sit, but
couldn’t manage it. “But I stuffed papers in the pocket, Elena’s little book
filled with writing, perhaps a diary or journal, along with many addresses. It
contained information about her friends, I think—I only glanced at a few
of the pages. And I also found envelopes bearing an address in ... Arles, I believe.
Loffredo would know. Her husband has information. If she’s alive, he shouldn’t
languish in prison, surely.” She felt the madam’s pinch.

“That hurt!”

Rosa’s eyes dug into hers.
“Valois and I are taking care of Loffredo. He’s the least of your worries.”

A brother brought in some
chairs. “Ten minutes more. She needs rest.”

“She needs a good scolding,”
Carmela said. “She’s messed up this investigation.”

Valois took the brother aside
and spoke to him.

“What about Loffredo?” Serafina
asked again. “Please. He may have information we need.”

Rosa said something and Valois
nodded, but the madam spoke so softly that she had trouble hearing.

In a while Serafina awoke.
Carmela and Rosa stood by the bed.

“You’ve slept almost twenty-four
hours.”

Her tongue felt like sawdust.
With help, she sat up and ate a bowl of soup, hot and delicious. She had to
hand it to the French. Even their hospital cuisine was inventive. Her head
reeled, but she kept the broth down and in a few minutes, felt much better.

“Why did you pinch me?” Serafina
asked.

“You started mumbling about
Loffredo and weren’t yourself. I was afraid you would say too much in front of
Valois.”

Serafina nodded.

“I showed the café owner’s
statement to Valois who had trouble believing him—you know how men are
when they don’t do something themselves. But he did give me access to Loffredo.
He’s in Prison de Mazas and I saw him two days ago and told him not to worry.
He should be out soon. I told him you were up to your old tricks.” Rosa dried
her eyes with a linen. “He sends you his love.”

A nurse poked her head into the
room, and in a moment reappeared with two doctors who jabbed around doing their
doctorly thing and grunting in unintelligible French. In the end they told her
she was “
bon
.”

Giulia brought her a change of clothes,
fresh undergarments and several silk blouses created in a strange design, but
one she could wear over the bandages which held her back stiff and her left arm
in place.

“I’m leaving today?”

“Yes, but you must agree to stay
in the hotel. The care there will be much better. We’ve arranged for policemen
to guard your room so you can’t go off on your own again. This evening
Inspector Valois will return to the hotel and the investigation can resume.”

“I can’t leave looking like
this. Bad enough Valois saw me.”

“And don’t forget the two
magnificent looking men who guard your door,” Rosa said.

“My hair is a snarled nightmare.
I need someone to work miracles.”

A nun came in wagging her
cornette
. She produced a scissors and
waved it in the air. Menacing shadows crossed her face. “I’ll cut it all off,
shall I? And lend you a headdress?”