Death of a Serpent (3 page)

Rosa’s front lawn was packed with men pruning palms, tending to her flowers and pools and conservatories. A high-class house on the outskirts of Oltramari, Villa Rosa backed onto the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was shielded by cypress trees from its neighbors, the estates of British merchants who came to Sicily in the eighteenth century for a vacation and wound up staying for good. Inherited from her ancestors, Rosa’s business had remained untouched for centuries by war and economic blight.

Like her mother and grandmother, Rosa had an eye for the main chance. During the war she devised a scheme to remain open, charging Garibaldi’s soldiers a special fee—five minutes, five
grani
. After the war, she redecorated, hung paintings, raised fees. Velvet draped the windows. When the town installed gaslights around the train station and the promenade, Rosa had lines run into the villa and the nasty-smelling jets fastened to the walls in every room. Water ran in closets discreetly situated on all four floors. Unconventional, Rosa. She didn’t keep a full complement of servants, but she had upstairs maids, downstairs maids, a cook, a laundress, a driver, stable hands, gardeners, and now, guards.

The wheels of the trap whirred on the drive leading to the main house. Largo’s ears pricked. “Rosa’s stableboy spoils you,” Serafina said. “Apples and sea grass, is that what moves you?” When she flicked the reins this time, he trotted.

“La Signura, not down yet,” the maid told her.

“Then I’ll walk around the grounds. I haven’t seen the new conservatory she talks so much about.”

“In the back, dear lady, toward the sea. I’ll tell her you’re here.”

Serafina took the path around to the rear of the villa. The salty air prickled her skin. Fat gulls flew in the distance, circling the shore. Ahead was an octagonal glass structure filled with plants and exotic birds. Serafina opened the door, sniffed the air. Stuffy. She decided she’d had enough, shut the door, and left.

A sloping lawn led to large rocks surrounding a narrow path to the shore. As Serafina got closer to the water, the wind blew sand in her face. It whipped her skirts, and she punched them down, expelling the trapped air. She squared her shoulders and stood for a moment, her face to the gale.

Plunging ahead, she tripped, catching herself in time to avoid an ungainly fall and, looking down, noticed her laces were untied. As she bent to fix them, she saw something, a cloth object peeking out of the tall grass on one side of the wooden stairs. A nest or a purse? She reached out and grabbed it: Bella’s hat.

• • •

Rosa sat behind her mahogany desk counting her coins and writing numbers in a book. Her office was in the back of the villa, dark-paneled with a stone hearth and a domed ceiling around which frescoed cupids flew. Hanging from its center was a crystal chandelier with over a hundred candles. She knew: Serafina had counted them once, waiting for the madam to appear.

One wall was lined with bookcases holding ledgers going back at least a hundred years, all of them fat with black ink. A marble bust of the Magdalene sat on her desk, head mantled, neck S-curved, lips parted in earthly delight. And on the outer wall, lead-glass windows faced the sea. This afternoon, bright sun played on the cliffs sloping down to the shore.

Rosa pointed to a chair inviting Serafina to sit. Colonna paid her a visit yesterday, the madam told her. He asked Rosa how long Bella had worked here, when was the last time anyone saw her, that sort of thing. “Not what you’d ask.”

“How so?”

“Nasty barbs, your questions are. Make me furrow the brow, lip a reply.”

“Did he ask for a list of customers?”

“Don’t keep lists, you know that.” The madam’s face darkened.

“Bella was dressed for traveling, not for entertaining,” Serafina said. “Did he ask where she’d been?”

Rosa shook her head. “And I couldn’t tell him if he had. Different, Bella. She comes and goes as she pleases. All my girls do, come to that. Trust them, I do, or they don’t work here.”

“She came and went as she pleased, you mean,” Serafina said, regretting the words even as she spoke them. Why must she always correct?

“The inspector, he squirmed his ample behind in my chair, flung his questions at me like an absent-minded butcher slicing a pig. And I could tell he wasn’t listening to my replies. Poured him a grappa. He drank. He departed.” She wiped her palms back and forth. “He sees nothing, does nothing.”

“I found this.” Serafina held up the velvet hat, spilling sand on the madam’s desk. Same color as the trim on Bella’s suit, diamond shaped, with grosgrain ties and a feather. “Bella’s?”

Rosa nodded, wiped her eyes.

The feather had a black oval design, an oculus, near its base. There was a smugness about it, as if it saw everything on the earth, in the heavens, under the sea. Like the eye of God.

“Where was it?” Rosa asked, then answered her own question. “Outside somewhere. What does it matter?” Water spilled from her lids.

Not dressed yet, the madam. Attired in her black negligee and robe, the one with the crimson silk tassels and matching slippers. She didn’t deserve to lose her business like that, one woman at a time.

Serafina rubbed the plush of the hat and held it to her nose. She smelled the sea. “Must have dropped when the killer carried the body up the stairs to the back stoop. I’m sure Colonna has his men combing the shore, scouring the coves for her reticule and other belongings. And whatever else it is that the police do to ferret out killers. They’ve been investigating these murders since when? Gemma was killed in July, no?”

Rosa nodded. “That’s why I asked you for your help yesterday.”

“Go to the commissioner. Ask for a full report. A customer, isn’t he? Surely he’ll—”

“Not your business, my customers.” Rosa frowned.

Sometimes the madam’s words masked her loving spirit. But she, Serafina, welcomed the barb as the harbinger of her friend’s return from the isle of grief. It was too soon, she knew, for the initial shock of Bella’s death to end. It took Serafina over a month of sitting in her room after her mother’s death for a restoration of her spirit to begin, and she knew she’d never get over losing Giorgio.

Rosa stared at the coins on her desk. “Sorry. Not myself today,” she said and began counting a stack of gold lire, whispering the numbers to herself like a nun at her beads.

Serafina hugged Rosa. “Have Gesuzza draw your bath. You’ll feel better after you’ve dressed. And I’ll go with you to visit the commissioner. Tomorrow good for you?”

She shook her head. “The wake’s tomorrow. The funeral, Wednesday. But Thursday?”

Serafina nodded.

“Will you come with me?”

“To the mourning, of course. But won’t it be here?”

“Think before you speak. How could I hold it here? In the parlor adjacent to the embalmer’s office. His parlor. Used rarely, but my only choice. Cannot have my girls forgotten.” She sniffed.

“I need to see if I can get away for the funeral.”

“Then you’ll help me find the murderer?” Rosa asked.

“I can’t promise that. When the babies start coming, I must deliver. And my children come first. But they’re in school today, everyone except Totò and today Renata takes him to the public gardens. If he only had children his age around us. Lonely, I think. But while I’m here, I might take a look in Bella’s room.”

She must not, must not become entangled in Rosa’s web. She must consider her children. Her temples pounded.

The madam’s eyes sparkled. “A wizard you are.”

“I’m a midwife, not a detective.”

“With the mind of a marvel,” Rosa said.

Serafina shook her head and was silent.

“When we were young, you solved a riddle faster than a tuna flips its tail. Who solved the mystery of Scarpo’s missing sheep?” Rosa asked.

“I did.” Her temples pounded.

Rosa peered up at her. “And who caught that flashy accountant skimming my profits?”

“Handsome crook, that one. I remember you saying, breathless, simpering, ‘Come into the office and feast your eyes, he looks like a Greek god.’ So struck were you, you hated to see him leave.”

“Kicked him out with relish, I did, the minute you discovered he was the one snatching my coins. I still don’t know how you did it—you’re so bad with numbers.”

“Opened my eyes. Opened my mind. Spoke with Scarpo, your gardeners, the other servants. Kept detailed notes. Asked my mother’s opinion. Had Beppe follow him and, of course, watched his clothes turn from shabby to silken, and the shadows lengthen on his face.”

“Too many words as usual, and your mother was dead at the time.” Rosa shut her ledger, scooped up the coins, and threw them in the box. “But you’re as good at birthing as your mama was, and if you can make a stubborn baby slip out of its womb, appear as if by magic, corner a wolf, uncover a thief, then you can do the same with the killer of my girls.”

“Make truth slip out from wailing lungs for all to hear?” She chewed her cheek. “Truth never slips out, not for me, not whole and breathing.”

Rosa pulled the cord. “If it’s clues you’re after, Bella spent time in the new conservatory. Loved it, she did.”

“Gloomy in there, I’d say. Just poking my head inside was enough to frizz my curls.”

Rosa smiled. It was the first real smile Serafina had seen on her friend’s face since the killings began.

Tessa appeared, ran to Rosa, and put her arms around her. She stopped, walked over to Serafina who hugged the child, felt the blades of her shoulders through the fabric of her dress.

“Grown, my girl, since you last saw her,” Rosa said.

For an instant the corners of Tessa’s mouth moved upward.

Five years ago Rosa sent for Serafina: ‘Bleeding, no baby, come at once.’ Serafina slapped the reins. Largo galloped. The trap careened around corners, nearly tipping onto Via Marsala. Too late. The mother died, a messy, sad business, but Serafina saved the infant. Health officials ordered Rosa to bring the baby to the orphanage. She refused. Money changed hands. Tessa remained with Rosa.

Serafina opened her bag. “I brought you some marzipan candies.” She handed them to Tessa, kissed her on both cheeks. Embracing her friend, she said, “We’ll concentrate on Bella’s life, the last one killed. She’s left more for us to discover. I’d like to spend some time alone in her room.”

“Tessa will show you the way, won’t you, my girl?”

Bella’s Room

S
erafina smelled stale air and lye. Tessa led her to what looked like a ghostly presence under one of the windows. She removed the muslin draped over the object and saw a machine attached to an oak table.

“Bella used this to make our dresses,” Tessa said. Her hand stroked the arm of the machine. “’My magic machine,’ she called it. She showed me how to turn the wheel and make stitches.” Tessa opened the table’s middle drawer, pulled out a piece of dark cloth with crude white stitching. “See? Bella was going to teach me how to thread the needle, too, but she died.”

“My daughter, Giulia, has one of these. She tried to teach me once, but gave up. She said I haven’t the patience. Run along, now, Tessa. Tell Rosa I’ll return soon with the key.”

Serafina touched the wheel and shut her eyes, trying to feel Bella’s presence through the instrument that in life was her silent companion. Nothing happened. She roused herself: dawdled long enough. She’d head for home soon, but first she’d search the room carefully. She owed that much to her friend. She walked to the hearth swept clean of ashes and began to examine each object in the room, picking up a figurine on a nearby shelf, swiping the dust from a book cover.

She saw movement in the far corner, swung around, discovered that the deception was caused by her own reflection distorted in a spotted mirror.

Even though the prostitute had been dead only a day, a film of dust lay over the room, on the mirror’s gilt frame, on the chair below it, on the red silk bedcovers and pillowcases. Little wonder: someone had neglected to close a window. Serafina walked over and secured the shutters that banged against the house. She felt grit on the brocade draperies and on the windowsill, heard it grind underneath her boots.

She looked down at the edge of land. Foam and wind seemed to stir up the beasts of the deep. Bracing herself against the sill she let the elements blow full-throated against her face. For a while she stood like this, listening to the incessant work of the sea. Why was a woman with such talent a prostitute? Doubtless money was a factor. Prostitutes, at least at Rosa’s, earned far more than seamstresses. Did she have enemies? Where did she go two nights ago on the evening of her death? Whom did she meet? Who were her regular customers? Her customers on the night she was killed? No doubt Rosa had a list of who was with whom and for how long, but, at least for now, the madam’s mouth was a sealed tomb.

Serafina closed the shutters, pulled down the sash, and turned away.

Two large cabinets stood on the far wall, both of them unlocked. One held Bella’s personal wardrobe, each item covered in muslin. Serafina leafed through these, one or two day dresses, several gowns, many a little too revealing. She smiled to herself, remembering how her children described her taste—what was the word Renata used?—’
burgisi
,’ that was it. She held out a dress, examined the stitching. Although not a seamstress herself, Serafina knew expert finishing when she saw it. Again she pulled out a frock, looked at it. She examined another and another. She began to recognize Bella’s strong gift, a sense of costume, a unique flair. And then she felt Bella’s presence. The dead woman hung between her frocks, a specter not yet departed.

Below the garments in neat rows were pairs of shoes crafted in fine leather, polished, buffed, and arranged below the matching garment. Serafina made a mental note to visit the shoemaker. Bella may have been his customer, a frequent one, unless she had them fitted in Palermo. Perhaps he saw her recently. Merchants often knew a lot about their customers, when they were flush and when not, the company they kept.

In the second cabinet she found a shelf holding hats, a few of them wide-brimmed with feathers and pins, some straw hats, wool hats, no doubt all made by Bella, one or two like the brown velvet she found on the beach; shelves with bolts of fabric, watered silks in all shades, a few garish colors, wools in gabardine, bombazine, cloth in a variety of textures, some finely woven, others thick, nubby, boiled. The bottom shelf held a basket stuffed with spools of thread, needles, jars of beads. Next to it was a stack of
Godey’s Lady’s Books
. She knew this name:
Godey’s
. Giulia waited for it each month, disappointed when publication stopped during the war in America.