Death In Bagheria (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (22 page)

Angel of Mercy

“I
’
m hungry,” Rosa announced as they walked back toward the kitchen. “Do you suppose there is some leftover
dolci
? Whatever happened to the box of pastry Renata brought with her?”

“Gon
e within minutes,” Umbrello said, smiling. “Sweets disappear fast around here. We could use a visit from Renata more often.”

“Probably not going to happen for some time,” Serafina said. “Renata’s had her fill of me and this villa, and I don’t blame her.”

“She’ll be fine by tomorrow,” Rosa said. “Children heal quickly.”

“She’s not a child.”

“In some respects you’ve kept her one,” Rosa said, narrowing her eyes.

Serafina opened her mouth but thought better of it.

“Fina’s had her hands full,” Loffredo said. “Don’t forget, Renata grew into her womanhood about the time Giorgio died and the household was in a turmoil. Serafina had to scramble to feed her family, and don’t think I didn’t realize it.”

Serafina’s face colored. How had he known this? She looked at Rosa, who was nodding and at Umbrello, who was looking at his hands. She wondered why Loffredo, who was, after all, part of the nobility and therefore more conscious than most of the rules of civility, had spoken of such a taboo subject in mixed company. But she loved him all the more for throwing rules away. The evening, with its shock and near tragedy, was drawing the four of them closer. Rosa realized it immediately and was comfortable with the conversation, but then Rosa would be; it took him a moment longer, but Umbrello looked up and smiled.

“Just so, poor girl,” he said. “Let me go and see if I can find us something that passes for dessert, and we’ll take it to the gazebo. Wait for me here.”

Serafina shook her head, bouncing from one foot to another in the evening chill. “You and Rosa go ahead. Loffredo and I need to find Arcangelo.”

Hearing the hoot of an owl, she wondered if it was the same one who called to its mate last night when she’d gone in search of the blue lady. She thought of everything that had happened since then, her mind filled with the image of Naldo’s rouged face, his graceful body frocked in flowing silks, repelled by his tragedy yet attracted by his need and the mystery of it. Loffredo turned to her and smiled. She hadn’t told him about the baron’s son, and now was not the time. She glanced at the moonlight falling on his shoulder like a gossamer veil as they followed Arcangelo through the high grass to their destination.

Carrying a lantern, Arcangelo looked back at them. “Only a few more meters,” he said, leading them around one side of the chapel, a small round building of stone with a dome in the same style as the one on the villa.

“Charming,” Loffredo said. “Reminds me of a chapel I saw once in the kingdom of Bavaria.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Visiting friends.”

“Lady Notobene had this one built,” Serafina said. “Doucette told me the baroness had a special devotion to the Madonna.”

Handing his lantern to Loffredo, Arcangelo led them to a door in the back of the chapel and took out his pocket knife. Wedging it between the plate and the door, he sprung the lock, and the three entered. They walked up a few steps. Serafina smelled incense, beeswax, and the heavy perfume of gardenias, the almost cloying scent she was beginning to associate with Villa Caterina. In the sacristy, Arcangelo went over to a small altar and pulled back the fabric covering the tabernacle.

Loffredo’s eyes widened. “In there? That’s a holy place!”

Arcangelo shook his head. “To one side of it. I noticed a bulge in the curtain, right here,” he said, pointing to a swelling of the gauzy drapery, “and that’s how I discovered it.”

They moved closer, watched as he grabbed a small tin container sitting to the left of the tabernacle and gave it to Loffredo. “This is what I told you about.”

Carefully he opened the tight-fitting lid. Serafina and Loffredo peered inside. “A salt of some sort. Could be an arsenic, but I’ll have to examine it in my office before I can say for sure.” He replaced the lid.

“Whatever it is, it should not be in this spot. Only priests and the like are supposed to be near the holy of holies,” Serafina said, signing herself. Turning to Arcangelo, she asked, “What made you look in here?”

Arcangelo shrugged. “A guess. I’d searched everywhere else, just like you told me—through all the soapy stuff in the laundry, in all the stables and carriage house. Old man almost caught me going through his garden shed. That was a close one.” He pulled at his sleeves “I’d come up empty-handed. In here, I went through the choir loft, the organ, all the cabinets filled with candles and sheets of music, priestly clothes. Couldn’t understand how everything could be so neat. No lizards or spiders or cobwebs anywhere.”

“They cleaned up the place before we came,” Rosa said.

Arcangelo nodded. “To be sure, I hesitated before touching anything on the altar, but a voice urged me on. Only strange substance I found, except for in the hold of the ship.” He shrugged off his backpack.

Serafina held up a hand. “Let’s close up before someone sees us. You can show us your other treasure outside.”

After locking the chapel door, they walked a few paces and stood next to a grotto surrounded by almond trees. Arcangelo handed his lantern to Loffredo, opened his backpack, and produced a small dark bottle. Handing it to Serafina, he said, “They have these wrapped up in crates hidden in one of the holds. Cold in there. Other boxes are packed with cakes of something, some powder, I think, and there appear to be tiny bottles of some sort and needles, but when I was about to take some samples, I heard footsteps, had to get out of sight, so I hid behind crates of oranges and waited. Took me a long time getting out, and I told myself I’d go back for it. As it was, I heard the horn and had to make a dash for it, jumping from the hold and hiding behind some crates that didn’t make it on board.”

“How do you know?”

“The ship left, bound for New York someone told me, and the crates are still on the dock. But not to worry. They have guards all over the place. Some of them I’ve seen in Oltramari—Don Tigro’s men, I think—easy to fool.” He winked. “When I saw who they were, I stood up and walked off the pier, right past them.”

Serafina’s stomach lurched when she heard this news. So that’s why Don Tigro was here yesterday—protecting the baron’s ships. Was that the extent of his involvement with Lord Notobene and his son? She remembered a conversation she’d had with him several years ago when she’d confronted him because she thought he was behind the killing of Rosa’s women. He told her that he wasn’t interested in controlling brothels in Sicily, that he had his eyes set on the new world. Well, tomorrow when she paid a visit to Betta, she would ask him if his interest in the baron’s ships extended to protection of the docks across the seas. If so, then Notobene was his toehold to the Americas, and if the don thought the baroness was in his way, he wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate her.

Her throat tightened. “Did you see anyone wearing a black bandana?”

Arcangelo shook his head.

She handed the bottle to Loffredo. Turning to Arcangelo, she said, “So many gifts you have for us this evening. Good job.”

He grinned.

Loffredo uncorked the bottle and smelled. “Laudanum, I think. No label. Seems like the baron’s smuggling opium and its derivatives in various forms.”

“It’s a common enough medicine. Doubtless Vicenzu sells it in our shop. Why smuggle it?” Serafina asked.

“The smuggler avoids tariffs and can sell the stuff to whomever he wants at whatever price he chooses. More important, there’s no official record of his involvement. When opium is smuggled, who knows what the buyers do with it or what they cut into it before they, in turn, sell it for an even greater profit, probably not for medical purposes but to further addiction.”

She could tell Arcangelo was listening with rapt attention. He stood silent and wide-eyed.

Loffredo continued. “For hundreds of years, vast amounts of money flow from the import and export of opium. Family fortunes have been made from trafficking in it, but now there is a growing public concern about its misuse.”

Serafina, who had been silent, narrowed her eyes. “Now that you mention it, Vicenzu was saying something about that recently, but I wasn’t paying too much attention, something about an investigation into the death of a child from the medicine his mother gave him for a cold.”

Loffredo nodded. “Thousands of children have died from an overdose after their mothers gave them what they thought was a harmless patent medicine. The baron would never want his name besmirched by revealing that he is a trafficker in the stuff.”

“Does he know that he’s smuggling?” Serafina asked. “When I asked him about some crates on the wharf with strange writing on the outside, he claimed they were filled with citrus.”

Loffredo shrugged. “He has to know. I mean, how stupid can he be?”

“He told me that all he does is keep the books, that Naldo handles the rest of the business.”

“And you believe him?”

“I don’t know,” Serafina said, shaking her head. “I’m sure the baroness suspected that something wasn’t right. I think they found out about her knowledge, or perhaps she confronted them—her husband and son—and perhaps they were the ones who had her poisoned.”

“But the baron grieves for her.”

Still shaking her head, as if to rid her mind of the conundrum, she said, “That’s why I think he must be innocent and the son or someone else close to the baron—someone with much to gain with her out of the way—arranged to have her poisoned. But I’m talking in circles, and the son wasn’t even in the country when she became ill. Right now, I can prove nothing. I reach out to grab the truth, the source of the evil, and, like mist, it encircles, entices, and disappears.”

One thing Serafina was beginning to realize—contraband and the fortunes it made were at the heart of the murder at Villa Caterina. Had Genoveffa suspected it?

They were silent a while, Serafina lost in thought. “Opium is a killer of pain, Carlo tells me.”

Loffredo nodded. “Opium and its derivatives have saved millions from excruciating suffering. My surgeon friends tell me it is the one drug that stops the pain of severed limbs, an angel of mercy to men dying on battlefields here and across the seas. It is the blessing of broken soldiers who take days to die in hospital from mortal wounds. But it must be controlled; otherwise it will be a monster eating more and more lives.”

“No wonder the baron knows nothing,” Serafina said.

She thanked Arcangelo again for his help and reminded him of their plans to depart early tomorrow morning.

R
enata

“G
o away.”

“I just want to make sure you’re all right and tell you that the man will be here soon to change your lock,” Serafina said through the keyhole. No response, but Serafina knew Renata was listening. She waited for several minutes, thinking that her daughter would never speak to her again, at least not on this trip, and she felt her toes grow clammy. She looked around to make sure no one was in the hall, then jumped up and down, trying to restore some warmth into her feet and, by mistake, landed too hard on both soles, slamming her ankles and making a loud cracking sound. Served her right. She doubled over, glad for the pain. What were the other children going through that she had no time to help them with, and what was a mother’s love for, anyway? She saw the disgust in her dead mother’s face, heard her whisper, “A mother’s disregard is a sorry excuse. The girl should have known better.” How like the old ghost to take the other side—contrary even in death.

She started to walk back to her room when she heard the tumble of the lock and saw the door open a crack.

Renata stood before her, hair disheveled, make-up streaked and nose red, face swollen.

Serafina couldn’t help it. She grabbed her daughter and held her until Renata began to sob and talk. “I wouldn’t have gone with him had I known what he was like. You must believe that.”

Choked, Serafina could not respond. She tightened her grip.

“I didn’t think,” Renata sobbed. “How do you know what to do? I wouldn’t think of walking out with him, not ever. He’s much older than I, and he repulses me, but I couldn’t tell him no, he seemed so eager to please. I feel such a fool.”

Serafina bit her lip. “I know. Of course I know, my precious. My fault. You and I and Carmela will have a talk when we’re home. Carmela’s so good with this.”

“But Carmela’s good with men.”

“A little too good.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Like you,” Renata said.

“That’s true. Sometimes I make … sometimes I’ve made mistakes. We all do.”

“I told him, no, I didn’t want him to kiss me. I wanted to see the view from Solunto, that’s all. I hate him!”

“Of course, dear.”

“But even though I said no, he tried to kiss me again. What would have happened, do you think, if you hadn’t stopped him?”

“Don’t think about that now.” She held her a moment longer. “And besides, I need you now, so dry your eyes. You’ve played a vital role in this investigation, and you must join us while we talk about it—you, me, Dr. Loffredo, Rosa, and Umbrello. I’ll wait for you to freshen yourself, and we’ll head to my room.”

“I couldn’t face them. Not tonight. Never.”

“Nonsense, let’s go sit in your room for a bit.”

The locksmith and his contingent came, including Lina and a manservant. Hammering and swearing, he snapped out the old lock and replaced it with a new one in less than a quarter hour. Handing Renata the keys, he said. “They all fit. Try them, just to make sure.”

“And can they be duplicated?”

“Anything can be duplicated, but they’ll need expensive machinery and a lot of skill to do it.” He winked.

Renata blushed.

Lina smiled at Renata. “Before you leave tomorrow, give your keys to me, and I’ll take care of them. And I hope you don’t mind my asking, but could I have the recipe for the cassata you made for tea yesterday?”

Serafina turned to Lina. “You’re the acting housekeeper?”

“Just until the Prizzi housekeeper arrives, thank goodness.” Lina gave her a bleak smile. “She’s due on Sunday. The sooner I find another job, the better. Most of us feel the same, too, ma’am.”

“I know someone who needs a new maid, but he lives in Oltramari.”

“Really? My parents and some of my sisters live nearby. That would be lovely.”