The Lion of Justice (4 page)

I wandered through the village, checking out the scenery. A few villagers greeted me. It appeared to be laundry day. I straightened an old lady’s bedsheet that almost fell on my head. The people of Civitella seemed cautious; any street-level window was barred or had thick wooden storm shutters. They weren’t lulled into a false sense of security in their idyllic surroundings.

At eleven I drove toward Siena. About six miles past Civitella, I turned onto a small road and continued until I reached a secluded riverbed snaking among high cliffs. I turned David’s phone off and removed the SIM card. I placed them carefully behind my Punto’s back tire and reversed over them. I tossed the broken pieces into the river and returned to the main road. After a mile I hit a crossing with signs for Montalcino, Sant’Antimo—wait a minute. David had been looking to hide in that monastery. Maybe his friend Brother Gianni could help.

The steep, meandering roads made my trips to my childhood home in Hevonpersiinsaari, at the border of Savonia and North Karelia, seem like child’s play. I’d never been one to obey speed limits, and I’d managed to accumulate a lot of tickets and almost lose my license, but this time I was driving slowly, and a line of cars formed behind me. When I pulled over to let them pass, one of the drivers who’d been stuck behind me honked, irritated. I honked back, but no one cared.

As soon as I got to Montalcino, I found a phone booth in the market square, across from one of the
enoteche
. I had heard this word for a wine store once on television when I was ten, and I thought it was a place for uncles to congregate since
eno
means uncle in Finnish. When I’d told my uncle this, he’d laughed but then admitted that he had no idea what the word meant, either. Uncle usually bought hard liquor or strong wine called Karjala from the state-run liquor store, so the pride of Montalcino, Brunello, would have been an unknown treat for him.

I was able to call the emergency line without buying a phone card. I explained in English that they’d find a man shot dead in Montemassi village, in the apartment facing east in the house that had been on the market for so long. Then I hung up. It was the carabiniere’s move now.

When I went back to my car, I was suddenly surrounded by a group of American tourists. Their New York accents sounded familiar and soothing, but spotting a familiar face in the crowd startled me. Wasn’t that my former neighbor from Morton Street? No, it couldn’t have been. I was trying to rack my brain, and then he noticed me staring and turned away. Had someone gotten this close to me already?

When I began my descent into the Sant’Antimo valley, I kept an eye on the rearview mirror. It wasn’t unusual for people to drive right behind one another. One gray Peugeot 208 kept at it all the way to the little village road that led to the monastery.

This world holds places where your mind can rest. My old home in Hevonpersiinsaari was one of them. I could find peace as easily in Bryant Park in the heart of Manhattan or in a bog in the middle of nowhere. It was rare, however, to be made so secure by a building, but as I saw Sant’Antimo’s limestone walls, they appeared to glow with an inviting and irresistible light. I parked my car and uncharacteristically fed the parking meter before I began my walk toward the church.

Its tower was accompanied by an ancient cypress, almost as tall as the tower, with Monte Amiata serving as a beautiful backdrop. I inched my way into the dim, high-ceilinged space within. Someone was chanting, and as I searched for the source, I realized it was only a recording. That dropped me back to earth. A white-bearded man wearing a robe was replacing old flowers in a vase at the altar. Although it felt like a crime to break the silence, I went over to greet him and ask if he knew where I could find Brother Gianni.

“
No parla inglese
,” he said bluntly.

“Brother Gianni?” I asked again, this time in Italian. He shook his head with a nasty frown, grabbed his flowers, and left, water droplets from the flowers trailing behind him on the stone floor.

I sat down and closed my eyes. The singing had grown louder, the sounds reflected off the ceiling. David was a Christian and believed in God. I had a hard time thinking about religion, so I avoided the subject. How could God allow such evil, like my father murdering my mother when I was only four?

I heard footsteps behind me, and someone touched my shoulder. It was the grumpy bearded fellow. I jumped to my feet.

“Brother Gianni,” he said and pointed. When I was small I’d seen a movie about Robin Hood, and I thought all monks looked like Friar Tuck or our own representative at the European parliamentary, Father Mitro: round, red-faced, and jolly. Brother Gianni was nothing like that. He was about my age and height, his thin figure and slender bones reflecting an ascetic lifestyle. His curly blond hair fell to cover his ears, and he wore round John Lennon–inspired glasses. He took my hand and said to me in Finnish, but with a noticeable Estonian accent, “
Tere
,
Hilja. I’ve been expecting you.”

4

I wasn’t able to hide my confusion, which made Brother Gianni laugh and squeeze my hands harder.

“David never told you that in my former life, I was Jaan Rand, his classmate back in Tartu?”

“No.” I tried pulling my hands away, but Brother Gianni held on.

“I’m so glad we have this shared secret language. Forgive me if I forget some words. I studied Finnish at the University of Tartu, but that was twenty years ago, and I haven’t had much use for it since. Whenever I was with David, we spoke Estonian. That’s spoken by even fewer people than Finnish, and oh, man, how the Russians were annoyed when they couldn’t understand us. How’s David?”

I shook my head. Brother Gianni was a complete loon. I finally managed to pull my hands away, my palms throbbing. He certainly wasn’t a weakling.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s missing.” On my way to the monastery, I had tried to recall everything David had told me about Brother Gianni, but all I could remember was that they went way back. Monasteries offered safe haven for refugees and the oppressed, so I hadn’t been surprised about this friendship. Even the Finnish Lutheran church had recently provided a hiding place for deported people.

“Missing?” Brother Gianni’s eyes flickered behind his glasses.

Another monk had moved a few steps away from us, realizing he didn’t understand our conversation. “
Miserere nostri
,
domine
,” the invisible monks cried from the church’s loudspeakers, with swallows outside rivaling the noise.

“Let’s take a walk,” Brother Gianni suggested. “Unfortunately, I can’t take you to the monastery garden, but follow me along this little path.”

Brother Gianni took off toward the door, almost colliding with a group of tourists that had just entered the church. I followed him carefully, not wanting to draw attention. We walked on a wide gravel path surrounded by white and purple lilies. I had a hard time keeping up with his frantic pace. We climbed quickly to the monastery roof level, then past it.

“You can never be too careful, not even when we have a secret language,” Brother Gianni said and slowed down enough for me to catch up. Although the road was wide, it was covered in puddles from the rain. We had to walk on the edge of the path so close to each other that our sleeves kept touching. My classmate from the academy had told me stories about a Catholic boarding school he’d attended in New Jersey; relationships between the sexes were prohibited, and sexuality was a taboo that made little boys feel like they were sinners. I doubted Brother Gianni’s mental health, too. Why had he become a monk? There weren’t a lot of Catholics in Estonia or Finland. And in Sant’Antimo, monks would encounter the forbidden fruit daily: female tourists. As for me, I had been open to taking different lovers in New York and didn’t understand why I should pine for a single person or demand loyalty, but David had made me change my mind. When I thought of him, I didn’t have room in my head for anyone else, and David hadn’t tried pressuring me into monogamy.

“Why have you been waiting for me?” I asked Brother Gianni as soon as we’d walked a few hundred yards from the church and were hidden in the shade of old oaks and laurel trees.

“David told me you were going to visit him. You are his lover.”

His
lover
. I was furious at hearing that word. What sort of a lover disappears without a word, leaving the other to deal with a dead man?

“What else has David told you? Do you know who he was hiding from in the monastery?”

Brother Gianni stopped walking and touched my arm.

“Oh, Hilja, you can’t ask me that. If someone is in need, we provide shelter. Even when David didn’t return to Tartu before Estonia became independent, we both understood that dangers lurked everywhere. When we were young, we got tangled in all sorts of things, and once I even made a grave mistake . . . well, maybe David has already told you. There are other reasons for me being a monk.” Brother Gianni hung his head.

“David hasn’t told me anything about what the two of you were up to.” I was too proud to pry, although I did want to know everything about David. He’d often told me stories about his childhood in Tammisaari and his sailing trips, about his parents, siblings, and the mixed marriages across nationalities in his family, but he’d kept quiet about his years in Tartu. The only reason he had told me about his time at the Swedish police academy was because he found out that Chief Inspector Laitio had already told me most of it. Someone had arranged a place for him at the academy, which otherwise should have been difficult since he wasn’t a Swedish citizen, although he had somehow gotten a Swedish passport. Identities and nationalities could be changed easily, just as long as you knew the right people and had money. Brother Gianni had been a Tartu resident, and now he was here, praying in a dead language, and I had no idea where I was going to spend my nights or where to find my next gig. Nothing was permanent in this world. The hymn we sang at my mother’s funeral echoed in my head.

“David claims he believes in God. Pretty curious for a killer, isn’t it? He’s also managed to violate the sixth commandment with me. Who’s going to forgive him for all these sins? You?” I asked.

“Man does not provide forgiveness. It comes from God. You seem upset with David. Do you know where he went or what happened?”

I tripped on a loose rock on the path. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him. Hadn’t the Catholic Church been in cahoots for ages with all sorts of mobsters and evil doers in high places? Whoever donated the most was blessed by God. If Brother Gianni had arranged for David to rent the apartment, he may have lured him into a trap, which would mean he already knew David had been framed.

I told Brother Gianni how David had left early in the morning without a note. I also told him about how I had traced him back to the restaurant in Paganico and how a waiter had spotted him with a mean Russian. I told him about the barefoot body, but I didn’t tell him I’d found David’s phone in the dead man’s pocket. I also kept the contents of the hutch a secret. I just wanted to see Brother Gianni’s reaction, to test how reliable he was. He remained silent for a long time. We’d reached an open area where we could see the valley and the village rising above it. The neat rows of vineyards and olive trees were guarded by towering cypress trees. The pastoral view was shattered by the painful bawl of a donkey.

“I think David assumed he had more time. That they wouldn’t strike yet,” Brother Gianni said. “They certainly didn’t wait long.”

“Who are they?”

“We don’t know. We only have a hunch.”

That
we
really hurt, especially because David had not told me anything.

“The Europol operation David was a part of in the Gulf of Finland was extremely controversial. An international police force cannot go around slaughtering people, not even if they’re super criminals. Europol is not supposed to be an antiterrorism organization. So now David has no one to protect him, and he’s left alone to fend for himself. The Belarusian businessman, Gezolian, the one who sold the dirty bomb, never received his money. Some middleman took it, and Gezolian is vengeful. Although Vasiliev, who bought the bomb, and his trusted men all died in the explosion, someone who knew about all this survived. David. Some people at Europol don’t like that he knows so much. Threat is everywhere.”

“But even the Finnish government knows about it. The former prime minister, the minister of the interior, and—”

“Do you really think they care about the life of a Europol agent? It wouldn’t bring more votes in the next election.” All sweetness had drained out of Brother Gianni’s voice. “Hilja, David is a killer, but it doesn’t mean he wants innocent people to get hurt. If he’s taken off, he’s done it for a reason. You have to believe me. The monastery has a fresco on its wall depicting Daniel in the lions’ den. Maybe David—Daniel Lanotte—had to do just that.”

“Do you know who the Russian at the restaurant was?” I asked.

“I have my suspicions. And he’s not Russian. He’s Belarusian. That man is bad news for everyone.” Brother Gianni brought his hand to his throat, as if recalling something.

“What’s his name?”

“No use in making guesses,” he said and shrugged. “It may not even be the man I’m thinking of. Or at least I hope not.”

The monastery bells began ringing down below, and Brother Gianni turned around with a start.

“Is it already that time? I should be at the church. They’ll notice I’m gone, and I’ll have to come up with excuses again.” He took off down the path, lifting his white robe so he could jump over puddles and rocks. I spotted gray sweat pants under his robe before he disappeared around the bend.

I started to walk back as well, listening to the calming sound of the bells that had been echoing in the valley for centuries. People had been born and died, and they’d keep on doing the same thing. Someone, right at this moment, was missing the dead barefoot man. Maybe news of his death had already reached his beloved, and they’d light a candle in his memory at the six o’clock mass.

I saw Brother Gianni rushing into the monastery yard, and he came to a halt right before he ran into a line of monks making their way to the church. At least Brother Gianni had made it to vespers in time. The bells were replaced by singing, and although it came from behind a stone wall, it was oddly powerful, even if I couldn’t understand Latin. I wondered whether monks were chosen to join the Sant’Antimo monastery based on their singing chops.

By the time I reached the churchyard, vespers were in full swing. The monastery was closed to the public, so the only cars in the parking lot were my Punto and a rusty gray van. I waited for Brother Gianni, although I had no idea how long the mass would take.

At the Queens security academy, we had taken part in various religious services—large events that could be targets for attacks. I remembered how Mike Virtue looked desperate and shook his head at the nonexistent evacuation exits at an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn. Mike had wanted us to realize there were no safe places, no place so holy or innocent that it couldn’t be attacked. Our practice had once included creating a safety plan for a nearby foster home, and unfortunately we’d had to put it to good use when some religious fanatic attacked the home, thinking orphans with HIV were spawns of the devil. The staff had called the academy before reaching out to the police, and one of the students, Rudy from California, had been shot through the hand by a stray bullet from a police gun. The fanatic received a bullet between his eyes. I still remember the little girl I tried to soothe afterward. She cried and drooled on me, and my first thought had been about whether I could get HIV from saliva. I can’t believe I thought that; I was still embarrassed to recall it. I’d taken an HIV test twice, and it came back negative both times. Mike Virtue had been right; you’re not safe anywhere.

I thought about how everyone would react if I just waltzed into the church. Would the church become impure from my presence? The Catholic way of thinking wasn’t familiar to me. Maybe they locked the church door just in case.

I sat on the stones in the churchyard and made myself as comfortable as possible. I could hear the monks singing again. When I closed my eyes, the sounds seemed timeless: singing in a church, the chattering of swallows, the wind rustling in the grass. Then a motorcycle revved above in the village, drowning all other sounds.

I dozed off to a state between awake and dreaming, where David’s face and the dead man’s bare feet kept changing places. I fell asleep and didn’t stir until the church bells started ringing again. As I opened my eyes, I saw a group of monks walking out of the church door as an unorganized horde. A sharp pain shot across my lower back when I got up. It had been a bad idea to lie down on the hard stones.

Either Brother Gianni didn’t see me or the monks had a vow of silence to observe after the service. I managed to catch him as he was leaving the monastery yard, and I grabbed the back of his robe. The other monks stopped, curious.

“Brother Gianni, we weren’t finished!” I yelled.

Gianni turned around with wide eyes.

“Sister Hilja, we were finished. I told you what I was supposed to. There’s no further business for you here. Go back to Finland. That’s for the best. That’s what David would have wanted.”

“How do you know?”

“I know that he wished you all the best.” His gaze grew softer, and Brother Gianni lifted his hand to bless me. “Go safely, Hilja. Go back home. It’s the best place for you. Believe me.” He disappeared through the gate, behind the fence that mere mortals could not pass. Not that a two-foot fence would have held me back, but the stone wall was higher and more uninviting.

On my way to the car, I noticed the church door had been left open, so I walked inside. The church was completely quiet, and my steps echoed. I paid for a small candle, lit it, and bowed while I placed it on a candlestick below an image of a saint. “Please let David be alive,” I requested, but I did not know from who. Maybe from the god David believed in.

I found the fresco Brother Gianni had mentioned. It was painted on one of the columns in the large hall. Daniel had a strong nose, and the supposedly ferocious lion did not look all that intimidating to me. The lion of justice. Why did that phrase pop into my head? Then I remembered that Chief Constable Teppo Laitio had once signed a letter to me with those words in it.