Death of a Serpent (31 page)

“That I will be the star?”

“You know what I mean.”

Silence.

“Still willing?” Serafina asked.

Carmela’s eyes sparkled. “This gets better and better!”

Serafina shook her head. “Tessa and I will bring Rosa back here to stay with us. Not easy to pry the madam away from her precious house, but it’s no longer safe for her there, even with all her guards, not until we catch the monk and do something with his accomplice.”

“Rosa visits an aunt in Trabia,” Carmela said.

“Good, that’s where we’ll say she’s going. We must also request help from Colonna, if only to see him squirm.”

“Can’t I help with your plan?” Renata asked, walking into the kitchen.

“Where are the children?” Carmela asked.

“Outside with the goat.”

“Of course I need your help. With Papa gone, absolutely you must stay here. You are the one with the cool head, my precious. I need you to watch the children, and I’ll see if Rosa can spare a guard. He can sleep in the stable. My greatest fear is that the monk, sensing danger, will use Totò and Tessa as his pawns. No telling what he’ll do, so they must be ever in your sight. And we’ll have extra mouths to feed until this business is over. You’ll need to make sure everyone eats well, but you always do. Carmela returns to the orphanage, just for one day. Vicenzu will help you when he’s not at the store. Rosa, Scarpo, and I will keep Beppe and Arcangelo very busy.”

A Gift of Torrone

Monday afternoon, November 5, 1866

S
erafina and Tessa approached the piazza. Bells clanged the end of Mass. The Duomo’s copper doors opened, discharging the stillness of white-haired women, bent, in black, squinting into the light. Outside they found voice, cackling with one another or calling to their men who wait for them underneath the ancient eucalyptus. Gesticulating hands punctured the air.

Serafina looked around. The usual knot of Don Tigro’s thugs blighted the far side of the piazza. Near the fountain in the middle, a flower seller parked her cart crammed with ivy and wild scrub. On the other side of the kneeling statue, a peasant leaned on his dilapidated cart, legs crossed, a straw dangling from his mouth, his cap pulled over his eyes. Familiar, his shape. Serafina’s stomach was in knots.

“Let’s walk another way. We’ll buy that present for your mother,” she said to Tessa. They turned away from the piazza and walked down a side street, stopping at the sweet shop.

“Take a deep breath. Smell the cocoa, the almonds, the orange. Delicious, don’t you think?”

Tessa slipped her eyes around the counter, walking back and forth to survey the display, at home in a world she understood, of marzipans in all shapes and sizes, saints and ghosts, fruits and vegetables and red-shirted soldiers, trapeze artists and circus bears, bars of
torrone
, dark brown, creamy, white, sugar-coated chocolate bites and large bars of deep chocolate. Serafina watched her finger pointing to each one until she decided. “That one.” She pressed her hand to the glass, indicating a bar of
torrone
.

“Your favorite?” the clerk asked.

She shook her head. “My mother’s.”

Serafina bought several, asking the clerk to cut two small pieces and wrap the rest.

On the way Tessa sucked the samples, one in each cheek. She ran up the steps and into the office.

Although she was at her sacred ledger, Rosa picked up her daughter, hugging her. “What a loud voice, Tessa, my girl, like an army.” The madam reached into her front and pulled out a linen.

Serafina handed her the package. “Tessa picked it out.”

“For you, Mama.”

“A delicious treat, my darling girl.” She put her nose close to one of the bars, inhaled, closed her eyes, and with steeple-fingered hands, gestured toward Tessa. “She knows her mama’s favorite. Let’s have cook cut one of the bars into pieces, shall we? Take the
torrone
to her. We’ll have it after dinner. Now, off you go, my beauty, while Fina and I talk.”

After Tessa left, Rosa said, “She loves your family.”

“Wonderful place for her to be, with children her age, thinking of school—”

“Enough of your scheming.” Rosa went back to counting her money. “Not right,” she said, more to herself than to Serafina. Her spectacles slipped down her nose. “This whole week we’ve been busy, except for that
festa
. The take should be bigger.” She pointed a finger at the pile of notes, the stacks of coins separated into gold and silver. She muttered to herself.

“Can I help?” Serafina asked.

“Numbers and you don’t mix. Besides, it’s nothing. An oversight. Happened before,” she said, pulling the cord. “Someone forgot to give Scarpo her tips, that’s all…maybe.”

After Scarpo joined them, Serafina told him that Carmela was home and was helping her plan.

Scarpo turned to Serafina. “You asked me to find out more about the ragpicker. Had one of my guards follow him. Spent most of his time in the rough neighborhoods sharpening knives, just like the smith said.”

“Did he get a good look at the fellow?” Serafina asked.

Scarpo said, “Disappeared like a snake down a hole.”

“You mean the guard lost him?”

Scarpo nodded.

Rosa shrugged. “Running out of time. Carlo was right—a false turn, the picker.”

Serafina scratched her nose. She told them about finding the killer’s lair, filled them in on what Carmela learned from Gusti’s letters—that all of the murdered women had appointments to meet the monk at the Madonna’s Chapel.”

“The spider crawls up my neck. Why didn’t we hear about this sooner?” Rosa asked.

Serafina said, “Some of us keep our secrets buried deep.”

“Speak for yourself,” Rosa said.

She let the barb drop. Instead, she detailed everyone’s role in the plan she and Carmela devised to unmask the killer. “And I want two guards posted near the monk’s cave.”

Scarpo nodded. “Where is it?”

She gave him the directions to the cave. “But they should conceal themselves behind the tall grass. Ask them not to wear their red shirts.”

“Very close to catching the mad monk, we are.” Rosa squirmed in her chair. “Feel it, I do.”

Serafina said, “I’m not finished. Beginning tonight, you and Tessa stay with us until this business is over.” Before the madam could reply, Serafina added, “It wasn’t a bandit who attacked us yesterday.”

“You mean the killer of my girls?” the madam asked.

“He feels our breath close upon him.” She watched Rosa’s eyes narrow. “You’re not safe here. Scarpo knows it.”

He nodded.

“Come home with me. Bring Gesuzza. You and Tessa can stay on the third floor in Mama’s old room, Gesuzza in Papa’s study. You’ll have plenty of privacy.”

“But who will be hostess in my house tonight?”

“What about Gioconda? Has a certain flair.”

“Bah, wouldn’t do.”

“All right, stay here. I’ll cry over your corpse in the morning.”

Rosa rubbed a spot off her sleeve. “Business is slow on a Monday. Gioconda acts as hostess tonight.”

“The excuse for your leaving?—you visit an aunt in Trabia. Let it be known that I go with you.”

“Long dead, my aunt, but it will do.”

Serafina turned to Scarpo. “Expect a visit from Carmela tomorrow. She’ll be costumed as a desolate one. Not to worry, she’s an actress.”

“Knew that, we did,” Scarpo said.

Serafina continued. “She’ll ask to see the accomplice.”

Rosa asked, “Who is…?”

“Rosalia.”

A Meeting

Monday evening, November 5, 1866

R
osalia sat in the parlor, her arm around Carmela. “I felt the same as you before I was saved by the monk. Soon I’ll return to my family and begin a life devoted to prayer and to helping others.”

Hair matted, face smudged with dirt, Carmela hunched into herself, scrubbed at her eyes with fingerless gloves. “When will you know? I must see him as soon as possible, before my child is born. This morning I felt a powerful cramping.”

The thief picked at a spot on her chin. “Difficult to say. There’s one, a ragpicker, the monk’s friend, who tells me his whereabouts. Haven’t seen him in recent weeks. I need to find him, so he can summon the monk.”

Carmela began. “Please. My mother has abandoned me. The old nun beats me. I can barely stand to dress myself before waking the children in the cold, in the dark.” Carmela shivered. “So hungry, not enough food. My back aches from bathing and feeding the orphans. I’m sick, tired, and I have a thirst that comes from I know not where. Help me.”

Rosalia shrugged.

Carmela swiped a hand through matted hair, hugged her stomach. “The fetus kicks! Don’t you see? I can’t return to this life of sin. My child must be born from a pure vessel.”

Carmela opened her purse.

Rosalia’s eyes sparked.

“And if I die in childbirth, I won’t be—”

The accomplice held up a palm. “Because we’re friends, I’ll see what I can do. But you must tell no one you’ve come here. Permanent absolution is reserved for a select few. If word spreads, there will be a stampede looking for the monk.”

“No one will know.” Carmela crossed herself.

Rosalia said, “And the cost, five hundred lire.”

“Not to worry,” Carmela said.

“In that case, give me a few coins to cover expenses. Two hundred lire will do for now.”

Carmela handed her the coins.

“At first light by the old eucalyptus you will see a man with an unpainted cart. Don’t look into his face. Do not speak to him. Take the note he gives you. Leave.”

The Reward

Monday night, November 5, 1866

“D
esperate she is for the brazen serpent,” Rosalia said, handing him the money. “She has abundant coins. I impressed on her the need for secrecy. She must have your absolution tomorrow, she told me.”

“The time is perfect,” the monk said.

“La Signura visits her aunt in Trabia. The snoop has gone with her.”

“Even better. You quoted her a price?”

“Five hundred lire.”

“For you, a great reward in heaven, my child.”

“I’ve done your bidding, but I can help you no longer.”

“Understood.”

“My family goes hungry. I don’t ask for much, but one hundred lire will feed them and keep them together.”

The monk hesitated. “Come here tomorrow after the angelus has rung. Your small wish will be granted.”

As Rosalia turned to leave, the knife hit its mark.

Strength

Tuesday morning, November 6, 1866

M
orning mist had not yet disappeared as Carmela, clad in black, hunched on a stone bench underneath the old eucalyptus. She appeared not to notice the approaching cart and driver, but quickly snatched the note he dropped at her feet and read, “Tonight. Madonna’s Chapel. Eighteen hundred hours, you meet the monk. Permanent absolution will be yours.” When she lifted her eyes, the cart and driver had vanished.

Carmela ranged through narrow passageways, casting about with anxious eyes. No one. She glanced over her shoulder at intervals, stopping only when she saw a figure on one knee, tying his boot. In the half-light she hugged the wall of a dilapidated building. When she saw a niche big enough for both of them, she motioned him forward. “Take this to Donna Fina. Wait for her reply.”

• • •

Serafina folded Carmela’s message, turned to Arcangelo. “Rosa needs to read this and open her coffers, but she’s not yet awake. Some breakfast while you wait?”

He shook his head.

“Nonsense. You’ll need your strength today. Tonight, too. Renata—some
biancumanciari
, omelet, pork, brioche, ricotta, caffè. Pile his plate: a full meal for this young man. Assunta, ask Rosa to come down here right now. Tell her we have news from Carmela. And, Arcangelo, take your time. You know how slow the madam can be in the morning. It’s long before her usual waking hour.” She winked.

“Long before yours, too,” Renata said, setting a large breakfast in front of Arcangelo.

While he ate, Serafina said, “Better when the whole family is here and the house shakes.”

“Totò and Tessa are outside with Octavia and the guard. Vicenzu’s at the shop, Maria and Giulia at school, Carlo studying, we hope. And Carmela—”

“I know, my precious,” Serafina said and gave Renata a hug.

A thousand thoughts raced through her brain, all jumbled. For something to do, she fetched pen and paper, but half a minute later, too excited to sit, she glided to the window and looked out at Totò and Tessa feeding the goat.

When she heard the first tremor on the stairs, she rushed into the hall and saw Rosa descending, scarlet slippered, purple robed.

Serafina handed her Carmela’s note.

The madam donned her spectacles. Her lips pushed out as she read. “That
strega
, she’ll not get more coins from me!”

“Carmela’s life is at stake,” Serafina said.

“Where is Arcangelo? Don’t just stand there, hand me that quill and vellum.” Rosa scratched out some words and signed with a flourish.

Arcangelo appeared, cheeks stuffed.

“Run to your father. Give him this.” Rosa handed him her note. “Tell him to take five hundred lire from the safe. Then bring the coins to Carmela. She waits for you where?”

He swallowed. “The orphanage.”

Serafina said, “And tell Scarpo to meet us here at five o’clock this afternoon.”

“Why?” Rosa asked.

“Because at six o’clock Carmela meets the monk in front of the Madonna’s Chapel.”

“Out of what hole did you dredge that number?”

“Didn’t you read her message?”

“Just now I did, reading it with severe faintness from lack of sleeping in my own bed, reading it without a chair to sit upon, without a sip of caffè or a morsel of bread to break my fast, reading it with the shock of having to sign away five hundred lire—ten years worth of wages for a cook, a devastation.”

“But you didn’t read everything, did you? You missed something.” Serafina handed her Carmela’s message.

Rosa read it again, a red line of color ascending her neck. “Under my nose, and I didn’t see it.”