Arcadia Awakens (37 page)

“
Only
snakes and panthers?”

Dallamano nodded. “After our dive, my brother was elated. He obviously knew more about those figures than he ever told me. He packed up some of the pictures, twenty or thirty photos, and took them with him when he went to see the Carnevares. For some reason he assumed they’d be interested in our find.” He snorted bitterly. “They came the next day. Killed the family and kidnapped Iole.”

“All the family except you.”

“I was out at sea on one of our ships. Ruggero sent me a message. He gave me Judge Quattrini’s name and said I was to get in touch with her—and he wouldn’t have done that if the whole affair hadn’t been deadly serious. I never went back to Sicily; I actually tried to disappear from the face of the earth. But I soon found out what had happened. I went to Quattrini and turned state’s evidence for her. It was only when I was in remand prison that I heard about Iole’s survival. They sent me pictures of her in chains and told me she would die if I either testified against the Carnevares or said anything about the photos. They also wanted to know the precise coordinates of the site we found on the sea floor. So I withdrew my evidence against the Carnevares, but I stuck to what I’d said about all the other accused.”

“What about the coordinates?”

“I didn’t tell them. To keep Iole and myself safe.”

“How about the crew of the ship? The one you and your brother were on when you made your dive? Didn’t the Carnevares go after them?”

“It was too late by then.”

“Too late?”

“That was the first thing my brother dealt with after we were back on land.”

“You mean he … his own people?”

Dallamano shrugged his shoulders. “He sent some of his bodyguards to the ship that same evening. The crew members were still on board. And that’s where they stayed.”

After a moment, Rosa said, “Then no one but you knows precisely where you made that find? That was how you managed to save Iole’s life.”

“Even if that were so—do you imagine I’d tell you the place? You and that Carnevare up there?”

“But you said you knew where—”

“No. I only made sure that the Carnevares thought I did. The truth is that only my brother knew the exact coordinates.”

“Then it was all just bluff?” she exclaimed.

“Almost all.”

She quirked her head to one side.

“We had a civil engineering contract at the time,” he said. “The biggest we’d ever been given. For a very long time there had been plans to build a bridge between Sicily and the mainland. Several miles long, a suspension bridge on gigantic piers, about three hundred feet above the water. We got the contract and started by investigating the sea floor. It was on one of those trips that our geologists’ instruments showed distinctive features. Ruggero and I went down with a couple of our divers and took a look around.”

“Is the sea shallow enough there for divers in ordinary scuba gear to reach the bottom?”

Dallamano laughed softly. “Where everyone else planned to build the bridge, between Messina on the Sicilian side and Villa San Giovanni on the mainland, the water is a thousand feet deep—only a submarine can reach the bottom there. But Ruggero had a different plan: He was going to build the bridge in a shallower part of the sea. It would have to be almost twice as long, but because the water isn’t so deep it would be much easier to construct. So at that point we were looking for a place farther south. There’s an underwater ridge of rock there above which the water is just one hundred thirty feet deep. An experienced and reasonably skilled amateur diver can do that.”

“You really don’t know the coordinates?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. And without them you could spend decades searching the bottom of the sea for a few unusual stone formations. The Strait of Messina has steep rocky ravines running through it. The sea floor has many fissures, so there are extreme variations of height and depth. Without the precise coordinates, no one will find anything there. Except by chance—as we did.”

“So that’s why you’ve never tried to make a deal with the Carnevares. Without that data you had nothing of value to offer them.” She cursed. “Then all this has been for nothing. They’ll kill Iole, and my family, to….”

“You’re really going to try it, am I right?”

She looked at him even more suspiciously than before.

“You’d make a deal with a man like Cesare? To make sure that nothing happens to Iole?”

She nodded, hoping he could see it in spite of the darkness.

He said quietly, “There could be a way of getting those coordinates. Maybe—and I mean maybe—my brother’s documents still exist.”

“Cesare would have found them,” she objected. But then she also remembered her conversation with Alessandro during the flight, and the question she had asked herself. How had Iole been able to take the photo without letting Cesare discover all the other pictures on Ruggero Dallamano’s desk?

And suddenly she realized what she really should have asked. Where, for heaven’s sake, was that desk now? Somewhere in the Dallamanos’ house that Cesare still didn’t know about? Iole must have been there right before she was kidnapped.

At that moment there was only one person who could answer the question.

“Do you think the documents are still there?” she whispered. “In your brother’s villa?”

“Yes. But I can never go back there. I’d be found and killed almost immediately. Otherwise don’t you think I would have returned to look long ago?”

“I could go,” she managed to say. “I could look for your brother’s papers. And for the coordinates.”

“Yes,” he said, after a long silence. “Yes, it’s just possible that you could.”

O
N THE FLIGHT BACK
they had to stop over in Rome again, only to find that their connection to Catania was canceled. The pilots’ strike was still on, and there was no way of getting back to Sicily that night.

When dawn came, Rosa woke up in the airport lounge. Voices over the loudspeakers roused her from confused dreams. She was lying across two chairs with her knees drawn up, her head resting on Alessandro’s thigh. He had slept sitting up, and he was already awake, smiling down at her, dark rings under his eyes. Then he kissed her hair gently and murmured something unromantic about disposable toothbrushes available from vending machines over by the toilets.

Three hours later they landed in Catania and didn’t even look for the Carnevare car in the multistory garage. They set out at once in a rental car.

The drive down the coast to Syracuse lasted just under an hour, and after dozens of attempts, she finally reached Zoe on the phone.

Her sister sounded terrible. Her voice was only a whisper, and for a moment Rosa was afraid that she, too, had been dragged away by Cesare’s men.

“Are you okay?” asked Zoe. “What happened?”

“I’m okay.”

“Is Alessandro Carnevare with you?”

She saw no point in lying. “Yes.”

“Lilia is dead.”

Rosa clenched her fists. She couldn’t get a sound past her lips.

Memories of another time, another place. Then, too, they had spoken by phone. Zoe had called Rosa after she left the hospital. She’d said how terribly sorry she was, but she assured Rosa she’d soon forget the pain and the grief. Everything would be all right again.

But nothing had been all right. Rosa had hated her sister for her superficial consolations, the way she’d hated everyone who offered her good advice. Sympathy. Pity. It all had such a stale taste that, ever since, she had wanted to spare other people such remarks.

“They’re claiming that you shot Tano Carnevare,” said Zoe.

“No. Lilia shot him. For me. That’s why Cesare killed her.” A long silence at the other end.

“Zoe?”

Her sister began to cry.

“Lilia told me all about it,” said Rosa gently. “I know everything.” She listened to her sister’s sobs and cursed herself for being unable to comfort her. She felt Alessandro’s fingers on the back of her hand, and reached blindly for them.

Florinda’s voice could be heard in the background, low and alarmingly harsh. With an effort, Zoe pulled herself together. “Florinda wants to speak to you,” she said, then hesitated for a moment before adding, “You mustn’t come home. The tribunal of the dynasties will—” She broke off, and there was a loud rustling noise, then Florinda’s voice.

“Rosa, are you all right?”

“Yes. Lovely weather.”

“Zoe says she told you everything. But the fact is, she did
not
. Not quite everything. There’s still something you have to know.”

“TABULA,” said Rosa huskily. “Am I right?”

“I know what Cesare says,” Florinda replied, after a moment’s silence. “He’s been making the same accusations for years. His dislikes are so incredibly unimaginative.”

“Is it true?”

“Cesare tells lies the moment he opens his mouth. He makes a great many wild claims—for example, he says you shot his son.”

“I would have killed him, if I’d been holding the gun instead of Lilia.”

“Where are you now?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“
Where
, Rosa?”

“In a car. There’s still something I have to do before I come home.”

“You trust Alessandro Carnevare more than you trust me?”

Rosa sighed. “How often have we really talked, Florinda? Three times, four times? I know the cleaning ladies in the palazzo better than I know you.” She was expecting her aunt to interrupt, but Florinda said nothing. “As for Alessandro, he’s explained something to me that I ought to have heard from you. That says a lot for him, don’t you think?”

“You wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told you everything right away. And in your state at the time—”

“I let my baby be killed. If I can cope with that, then I suppose I can face the fact that I’m likely to turn into an enormous snake at any moment.” It came out sounding less laconic than she’d had hoped.

“You could
not
cope with it. That’s why you came here to us, remember?”

Rosa closed her eyes to calm herself. Deliberately cool, she said, “There’s something I still have to do. But if this tribunal is making decisions on rules that I’m supposed to have broken, I’d better be there.”

“No,” said Florinda firmly. “We’ll do it for you. Now, listen to me, Rosa. Cesare’s influence has its limits. This is what will happen. The tribunal will declare us innocent because the concordat was broken by an outsider, not an Alcantara. Lilia is not on our payroll. Or not on any of them that I was aware of.”

Rosa clenched her hand into a fist. “You didn’t really just say that, did you?”

“Will you keep—”

“Bitch.”

Florinda took a deep breath, hissing dangerously down the line. “So we can’t be held responsible,” she went on. “Cesare doesn’t know it yet, but a couple of the men who were there will speak up in your favor.”

Rosa knew what that meant. “Pantaleone has a finger in the pie.”

“He’s still the
capo dei capi
. And a friend of the Alcantaras.”

Alessandro laid his hand on her thigh and pointed through the windshield. The car was turning onto a well-tended avenue lined with oak trees. Baroque villas came into sight behind the branches, their facades lavishly adorned with carving. His lips silently formed the words,
Almost there
. She nodded.

To Florinda, she said, “I ought to be there, all the same. If the tribunal doesn’t believe your paid witnesses—”

“Then they’re never going to believe
you
. But the two of them will be very convincing. And what’s more, we have proof that the gun belonged to Lilia.”

“What kind of proof?”

“You explain, Zoe.” Florinda handed Rosa’s sister the phone.

“Lilia had a license for the gun,” said Zoe a minute later. “She bought it legally. She never wanted anything to do with our business.” Zoe’s voice was getting unsteady again.

“You mustn’t come here for the time being,” said Florinda, joining the phone call again. “Not until this is over. The tribunal of the dynasties will meet at dawn tomorrow. Zoe and I will go and defend our family. Cesare will have to accept defeat, but the tribunal will sweeten it for him by recommending that the Carnevares elect him their new
capo
—which is what, in effect, he has been for years anyway, although neither the baron nor your friend would admit it.”