These Dark Things (9 page)

What would she do if her superiors told her she was no longer free to pick and choose her friends?

Pino and Giulio were waiting for her at her desk.

“What?” she said.

“Brother Benito, that novice monk? Gambini’s nephew.”

“Jesus!”

“His mother’s best friend? Gina Falcone.”

“The bone cleaner.”

6

It had been years since she or Pino had stepped into a church, much less attended one. Natalia looked closely at the confessional as they passed. She had only gone to confession a dozen times, the last more than twenty years ago when she’d been thirteen. She loved the red velvet curtain, the privacy of the small dark space, and wanted to tell the priest something dramatic that would require painful penance. She thought it a grownup thing to do. Coveting her girlfriend’s boyfriend, however, barely qualified for Hail Marys, much less genuflection. Tired of the daily diet of religion and mandatory chapel attendance at her church school, she refused to attend Sunday services any more. Despite pressure from teachers and clergy, her parents respected her decision.

“How does it feel?” she said to Pino.

“Strange. But familiar at the same time.”

“Yeah, me too.”

It was dark and cool. Sunlight pressed through the stained glass. Natalia took out her notepad and pen as they made their way to the front of the nave. Jesuit Father Pacelli met them in the small side chapel and led them through toward the living quarters next door. The confessor to this small population of monks, he lived in their community. Pino had been taught by Jesuits at university and felt comfortable with them. They and the school had been a part of the city since the fifteen hundreds.

To attract converts back then, Jesuit evangelizers had adopted local devotional practices. They organized processions and pilgrimages and went out to preach in pairs, using the piazzas as their pulpits. Crowds had gathered, listened, and followed them down into the underground burial chambers of the
ossario.
Over drink and food, the Jesuits preached and the locals listened and were swayed.

Despite the rumor of concubinage and sexual misconduct, the Jesuits had always been the most decent of orders. Members took their vows of poverty seriously; witness Father Pacelli’s worn trousers and his dog-eared sweater, mended more than once at the elbows. How different from the majority of clerics, who patronized fancy tailors for their trim black outfits and elaborate robes: like the princes of the Church, they were well cared for by housekeepers and assistants. No sign of such coddling here. In the kitchen, a novitiate cooked greens for a soup. Another washed dishes. The linoleum and tablecloth were worn and stained. A faucet dripped badly above a deep sink.

Natalia said, “We appreciate your arranging for us to talk to Benito.”

“Of course,” Pacelli responded, brushing back his sandy hair. “Such a terrible thing, murder.”

Father Pacelli led them to a doorway. Pino stopped to read the inscription above it: Praise be to you my Lord with all your creatures—especially Brother Sun who is the day and through which you give light.

“A canticle of St. Francis,” Pacelli said.

“Father,” the dishwasher called after him, “I need to speak with you.”

“In a moment, Milo,” Father Pacelli said.

Pacelli opened the door leading to their private quarters. “His room is at the top of the stairs, third door on the right.”

The stairway reminded Natalia of Catholic School with its strong smell of caustic soap. Together they ascended the steep stairs to the second floor. On the landing, a sagging wooden table with reliquaries and a tray of ex-votos—a child’s hand and an adult foot. Someone interested in antiquity. Natalia sighed. Even among the Jesuits, the yearning for symbols, no matter how crude. But maybe she was being unfair. These had probably been abandoned here centuries ago and had remained ever since beneath the melancholy gaze of Jesus.

They found the monk’s door. As soon as they knocked, Benito opened it. Had Father Pacelli told him they were coming?

“Benito Gambini?”

“
Si
.”

“I’m Captain Natalia Monte. This is Sergeant Loriano. We’re Carabinieri. We need to ask you a few questions.”

The room, as expected, was spartan. A tiny window overlooked a courtyard encircled by a medieval covered walk. There was a bed, a nightstand, and a guitar. In a wardrobe niche hung two pairs of pants and a shirt. Benito sat on his bed. His eyelids, closed, were bruised half moons.

Pino said: “We believe you knew the girl recently murdered in the alley next door—Teresa Steiner.”

The monk sat down on his bed. He bowed his head and took a deep breath. “Teresa Steiner was my friend. She was doing research on the role of shrines in Neapolitan society. I helped her sometimes. She was being followed around by her professor, a creep, and appreciated the company. She’d gone out with him for a while. After she broke it off with him, he wouldn’t leave her alone, she said. Kept phoning. Waited for her everywhere. Pestered her.”

“Did he threaten her?” Natalia asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know. He said he’d block her graduate project. Teresa was sure he had stolen students’ work before and passed it off as his own. She worried that he was planning to make off with hers.”

“Did you see or hear anything suspicious the night she was murdered?” Natalia asked. She looked out the narrow window onto the roof of the meditation walk.

“I did hear something. It woke me. But I slipped back to sleep and was awoken again a little while later by commotion in the street, when I went down to see what was going on.”

“How much sight do you have, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Light and shadow. Like when you look through a mist. On a good day I can make out faces. At night I can’t see anything.”

“And you think you heard something happening in the street and it awakened you, although your room does not face the street and the walls of the monastery are ancient and thick?”

“My hearing is acute … God’s compensation for my vision, perhaps.”

“So you may have heard Teresa Steiner being assaulted?”

The monk’s face flushed. “Yes.”

“Can anyone confirm that you were here in your room the night she was killed?” Natalia asked.

“Where would I go? We have prayers in community after our evening meals and retire early.”

“Did you ever go to the crypts?”

“Yes, sometimes. To help the bone cleaner, Gina Falcone.”

“Even with your vision so poor?”

“The dark doesn’t bother me, Detective.”

“Did Teresa visit you?” Natalia asked. “Was she here the night she was killed?”

“No.”

“No? Are you sure you didn’t come on to her?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re Aldo Gambini’s nephew.”

“I have been forever. Yes. And always will be. What of it?”

“Do you do work for him?”

“No. I am a servant of our Lord.”

“Did Teresa meet your uncle?”

“Yes. I asked him to help her out.”

“How?”

“A family illness had reduced her funds. She was visiting the shrines for her research and running out of money. He hired her to attend to the donation boxes there. He has a franchise from the Church to gather the donations. She oversaw them in this district and serviced some herself.”

“Were you in love with her?”

“What? That is none of your concern.”

“I regret to say that it is now.”

“Your question is inappropriate and bordering on offensive. Such things are private. Between myself and anyone for whom I may have such feelings.”

“It may soon be between you and the State’s Prosecutor.”

Benito waved off further talk.

Father Pacelli was talking to the dishwasher when they passed through the kitchen again.

“How can I prepare the dinner without the knife?”

“Something wrong?” Pino asked.

“Nothing. A missing knife. Some Japanese thing. I’ll ask if anyone has seen it after Mass. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“What do you think?” Natalia asked as they stepped back into the street. “About the knife.”

Pino looked back at the monastery. “Probably nothing. But I can follow up if you think it might be important. Odd that it’s missing. Probably a coincidence.”

“Probably.”

“But I think our Brother Benito was emotionally involved with the murder victim, whether or not it was consummated or reciprocated. He has obviously been greatly affected by her death. Whether he had anything to do with it, I’m not sure.”

“He’s a suspect,” Natalia said, “any way you look at it. The young woman’s mother was ill. She needed money fast. Benito helped. Interceded with his mob-boss uncle, aided her thesis research and shrine collections. Perhaps she showed interest in him as a man. When he realized that she was involved with others.…” Natalia turned to her partner to see how the theory played.

“A suspect,” he said, nodding. “
Certo.
”

“I’m going to check into him further.”

“Let’s look into the Japanese knife, too.”

As they entered the courtyard, water splashed them on the head. They looked up and found the culprit watering her plants, blooming with yellow flowers.

“
Mi dispiace
,” she said. I’m sorry.

“
Non ce problema, signora.
”

Pino leaned his bicycle against a wall beneath a web of vines, hoping the rusty frame would discourage anyone from taking it. Gold-tinted leaves and drying laundry extended across the courtyard. Pino and Natalia climbed to the fifth floor. The hallway was a tangle of toys. A baby cried nearby. Natalia rapped on the door.

“Not home.” A tired-looking woman with lanky ashcolored hair had come out of the door next to the bone cleaner’s apartment. She was shaking a mop. Children’s voices leaked from her apartment. Pino reached into his pocket for his ID.

“Eighty-two, my mother. Stubborn. She should be home relaxing with her grandchildren, not getting messed up in police business. Whadda you gonna do?”

“She may have some information about a murder case.”

“I knew it.” The woman pressed her palms against her eyes. “Mother of God.” There was the sound of breaking glass. She threw the mop down and slammed into her apartment.

Natalia and Pino had not heard the door open behind them. Gina Falcone stood in her doorway. Her apartment smelled like a chemistry lab.

“We didn’t think you were home,” Pino said to the bone cleaner.

“I didn’t want my daughter pestering me with her problems and her children. She thinks I have nothing better to do than chase after them. Come.”

The bone cleaner waved away Natalia’s badge and motioned them in. There was a small balcony that would provide light if the curtains hadn’t been drawn across the windows. A pile of bones sat on her table. The flat was so full of piled boxes and stacks of everything that ever passed through Gina Falcone’s hands that there was hardly a place to stand.

“Nice cat,” Natalia said. A musty old tabby was camouflaged on the bed.

“Bobo,” Gina said and made a kissing sound. A toddler in diapers and a shirt smeared with something—hopefully chocolate—stumbled in after them. “Christ! I forgot to close the door. Go! Out! Home to Mama. Nonna’s busy.”

The baby fell over, shrieking. Gina put him out and locked the door.

“We brought you something to eat,” Pino said. He removed a plastic container from a bag.

“You shouldn’t have,” she said. She carried it into the kitchen and cleared a space for it among the bones.

“
Friarielli
and sausage?” she said. “My favorite.”

She’d been washing bones in a bucket by the sink. Pino recognized a femur and a thighbone. She poured the contents of the container into an empty pan. “I can finish later.” Bobo jumped on the table, sniffing the pan. “Get!” Gina hissed, clapping her hands. Pino cut off a piece of sausage and put it on the floor. The cat rubbed against his leg, purring.

“Don’t spoil Bobo,” Gina said.

“We have a few questions,” Natalia said.

“No free lunch—is that it? Whaddya want to know?”

“Teresa Steiner’s killer?”

“Nobody was down there when I found her.”

“You knew the girl was visiting the shrines that Gambini controls.”

“Yes.”

“You know Mr. Gambini.”

“Aldo Gambini and his brother Pasquale and I grew up together. Pasquale is Benito’s father. Benito’s aunt was my deskmate in school. I’d starve if it wasn’t for a few people at the cemetery and Aldo Gambini. Aldo doesn’t forget. The government never remembers us unless we cause trouble.”

“If Aldo Gambini knew you told us about the shrines, he wouldn’t like it. If he thinks you ratted on him—”

“He wouldn’t touch a hair on this head.” She tugged a clump of hair, her finger crooked with arthritis.

“Family ties have never stopped him in the past.”

“What do you expect? He is an important man. He does what he must. God watches over me.”

“God may watch over you, but who will intercede if it goes hard for you?”

“Don’t be a smartass. You young people don’t know what hard is. When there was no work and people set fires in the streets, and when they ate all the exotic fish in the old aquarium during the War—Gambini helped me through all that. Where was the government then?”