Death of a Serpent (23 page)

Rosa shook her head. “Then it has to be someone in the house, one of the girls. Unless it’s Falco or a maid.”

“Any record of his being here? Would Scarpo or the guards know? Any of his usual women?”

Rosa bowed her head and ran a finger back and forth on the desk. “Run of the house, Falco.”

“All the more reason to speak to the women. Gioconda will tell me. Proud of being one of Falco’s favorites. But what about the guards. Could it be one of them?”

Rosa threw her hands up. “Don’t be silly. Guards don’t know the inside of the house. Never inside, the guards.”

“So it’s one of your women, Falco, Scarpo or Turi.”

“Turi, no. Scarpo, never!”

“And I’m sure Gusti knew the accomplice, perhaps even the identity of the killer. Anyway, she knew too much. She had to be killed.”

“Should have given her more time last night. Oh, if I could only take it back!”

“And Gusti fought her killer,” Serafina said. “One of her nails broke. And I found, clutched in Gusti’s hand, a strand or two of hair, probably from the scalp of her killer. While we talk to the women, we’ll look for a scar somewhere on the face or neck. Maybe behind the ear.”

“I’ll wake them one by one. Who first?”

Serafina reached for her notebook and put it on the desk. “Her friends. They’ll be able to give us the most information about her.”

Rosa’s eyes were wet. “An outsider, Gusti. And the only friend she had—” She stared at Serafina and shifted in her seat.

“I’m listening, Rosa. And the only friend she had was?”

Rosa’s slowness must be the result of shock. Either her shock or her disbelief. Why is it so hard to pull information from her? Serafina tried to be gentle, but her patience was wearing thin.

“Not here.”

“What do you mean, ‘not here?’”

Rosa’s cheeks looked like jammed mule packs. “Carmela.”

Serafina slid her cup onto the tray. It teetered with a metallic sound, like the distant clang of swords.

“Did you hear what I said?” Rosa asked.

Serafina lost her patience. She spit out words like bullets in a gunfight. In an effort to summarize, she couldn’t help running her thoughts together. “We went to Palermo, interviewed the father. He’s innocent. We know that, still need to interview Bella’s business partner, she might have information about this monk of Bella’s. That haughty countess, in Paris when we need her. Why? Then there’s Falco. Now he’s a real possibility and, come to remember, I saw a monk’s habit hanging in his workshop. But, even more damning, he stands the most to gain from Bella’s death, and he has yet to account for his whereabouts on the evening she disappeared. Oh, a little excuse of a fitting, but not to cover the whole evening, especially since I hear he has the run of the house.” Serafina glared at Rosa.

“Changing the subject, slippery like the wet skin of a snake you are. Now you listen to me. You are Carmela’s mother. Her mother. Hear me?—issued from your womb. When she hears the word ‘Mama,’ a face flashes in her mind. Your face. She can’t help it, poor girl, she’s got no choice. She may think she hates you, but she cannot. She loves you with a love deeper than all the oceans piled one on top of the other. She must.”

A silence lay between them, minatory, voracious. All of the madam’s making.

“Look at me. I said Carmela was Gusti’s only friend. Now you need to do something with that if you want to find this killer. You cannot forget, you are the mother of Carmela, no matter what she’s said to you, no matter what she’s done. You must hold her ever in your heart. Carmela, I said. Carmela. Say the name. Say it!” She slammed the top of her desk. “Say it!”

Serafina hesitated. An image overwhelmed her. She was in the nursery with her mother and the twins, Carlo, black-curled, Carmela, with her ginger hair, her skin iridescent. Maddalena, wrinkling her nose, was teaching her granddaughter how to walk while Carlo made running circles round the pair.

“Carmela,” Serafina whispered.

“Again, louder.”

“Carmela! There, I said it.”

Rosa’s face was florid. The two women’s heads moved closer together, their bodies arcing across the desk. Serafina’s memory spanned the years. Again and again she said Carmela’s name, her voice growing louder as her face drew closer to Rosa’s, choking, hoarse, feeling the engorged arteries in her neck, forgetting to swallow, saliva mixing with the tears running down her cheeks. “Carmela, Carmela, CAR-MELLL-AHHH!” She collapsed back into the chair, curling into herself, sobbing, the pent-up dam broken.

Carlo opened the door, but Rosa shooed him away.

Suspects and Jugglers

T
he two women learned nothing more from interviewing the prostitutes.

“A special customer last night. Occupied all my time, he did. Voracious, the appetites of some men,” Gioconda said.

“And you didn’t see Falco in the parlor?”

She shook her head.

Lola’s story was different. Shivering, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief and clutching her robe around her, she claimed at first not to have seen Falco, then changed her mind. “Now that you mention his name, well, earlier in the evening I might have done. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did, but you understand, mine was a fleeting glance. Busy last night so I whisked through the parlors. We’re supposed to show up, you know, if just to parade through. But Falco, he was not here to see me. These days I’m booked in advance. Last night among others I entertained—”

She stopped when she saw the madam’s glower.

No one else heard anything unusual, no shouting, no strange noises.

Neither Serafina nor Rosa noticed any sores or bruising on the women’s faces, no neck scratches, nothing behind the ears or at the base of the scalp, except for Lola, nursing her hand because of a spider bite, Rosa having tended the wound herself the other day. And Rosalia, too, had a scratch on her neck, from an unruly customer, she claimed. But she shook during the interview like a frightened goat. Serafina ruled her out. She offered nothing, except an observation that, if anything, Gusti had been more secretive of late.

• • •

The three of them—Carlo, Serafina and Scarpo—were seated in front of Rosa in her office. Carlo, his long legs crossed, glanced at his watch. Serafina ran a hand through her hair, searching for something in her notebook.

“Another log for the fire before we begin,” Rosa said, pulling the cord.

When the domestic entered, she said, “Caffè and some hot milk, Gesuzza. We are four. And tell the laundress to fetch the sheets in Gusti’s room.”

Scarpo returned with the log. When he bent to throw it on the fire, shards of light from the flames bounced from his knife handle straight into Serafina’s eyes. He sat back down on the edge of his chair.

“So,” Serafina began, squinting, “Not much time, and we must go over what we know about Gusti’s death, discuss any evidence that may shed light on the other murders. And we must review our list of suspects, and—”

Rosa said, “Not so fast. Forgetting your request for information from Scarpo about Eugenia and the smith, remember?”

“Just getting to that. Scarpo?”

“What’s this about?” Carlo asked.

“I asked Scarpo to find out two things: the whereabouts of Eugenia and, from the blacksmith, whether anyone had rented mules or carts from him beginning in early August through early October.”

“Eugenia?” Carlo asked.

“A woman who worked here for a time. Others in the house accused her of stealing. She left.”

“Kicked her out, I did,” Rosa said.

Scarpo snapped his braces. “Hard to find, Eugenia, but yesterday, success. La Secunda told me, or at least—”

“She knows everything, La Secunda. Good man, Scarpo,” Rosa said.

“La Secunda?” Carlo asked.

“My name for her. Runs a house in Palermo. Second in glory to mine.”

Serafina said, “Let him finish without interruption, please.”

“Sorry, Empress, for speaking out of turn.”

Serafina nodded. “Continue, Scarpo.” Remembering the introspective turn Rosa’s grieving took after Bella’s body was found, she was glad for the madam’s spikes today. Best to ignore them or it would take all day.

“La Secunda told me the story of Eugenia, and there was another in the room, a woman, beautiful, tall, with large—”

“The daughter,” Rosa said.

“Let him finish!”

Rosa pursed her lips.

“The daughter and La Secunda both said Eugenia was working in an unsavory house.”

“Unsavory?”

“Secunda’s word—a house in a rough area, outskirts of Palermo. You know the kind?” Scarpo asked.

Carlo nodded.

Rosa said, “Continue, Scarpo.”

“Eugenia shared a bed with a
puttana
who worked days, and she, Eugenia, worked nights until some weeks ago, they said, when…” He paused.

“When what?”

Scarpo looked at the floor. “When they found Eugenia’s body.”

“Where?” Serafina asked.

“Hanging from the rafters.”

Rosa reached for her handkerchief.

Serafina asked, “Was there a letter or note? A piece of paper written in Eugenia’s hand?”

Scarpo shook his head. “No note, and all her belongings, it was as if they were stirred with a stick—blouses, undergarments, skirts, mixed into the bed clothes and thrown into a heap on top of the mattress. A mess. Closed that house of filth, Secunda told me.”

“Good. Houses like that give us a bad name.”

“And something else—a carving on Eugenia’s face, Secunda said. Officials told her it looked like the sign of Charybdis.”

Serafina and Rosa exchanged glances. Carlo regarded the cupids dancing in the ceiling’s dome. No one spoke.

Serafina broke the silence. “So, possibly Eugenia’s killer was the same one who kills our women.”

“My women, you mean.”

“Sorry, of course. I should have said: Rosa’s women.” Serafina rubbed her forehead. “So we know that Eugenia, who may or may not have been involved in the murders of Rosa’s women, is dead. We also know she could not have killed Gusti or had a part in her death, because she herself was dead. But we don’t know, really, if she was the one who stole items from
your
women,” Serafina said, looking at Rosa. “So our killer is alive and may very well kill again soon.”

Rosa looked like she’d seen a ghost.

Serafina finished writing. “And what did the smith say about space or carts for hire?”

Scarpo summarized his conversation with the blacksmith: he had no free stall for hire, because they were all taken by regular customers. Hadn’t had an empty pen for years.

Carlo wound his watch.

“But one thing,” Scarpo said, “I saw an old cart sitting in the corner. I asked the blacksmith whether it might be for rent. He said, no, belongs to a man, a poor one. The man collects from the rich, sells in the rough areas. That’s his cart, he told me. And that’s his stall.”

“A ragpicker,” Serafina said.

“That’s what the smith, he called him,” Scarpo said. “And I said, that’s not a stall. And the smith said, big enough for the ragpicker. Couldn’t rent it otherwise.”

“What does he collect?” Serafina asked.

“Old clothes, broken furniture, rope, nets, such like that. His cart, always full, the blacksmith said. He sells goods in the rough neighborhoods. And he sharpens knives there.”

“I’ve seen him. I know I have,” Serafina said. She told them about the commotion she’d seen when driving with Minerva. “Her hearing makes up for lack of sight. She heard the altercation long before I did.”

“Well, she would,” Carlo said. “Minerva’s a sightless musician. Of course. I’d love to have her gift of hearing. But I thought the smith did that, sharpen knives, I mean.”

While they were talking about the blacksmith’s knives, Serafina was half-listening. Her mind was wrapped around the swaybacked mule and the weather-beaten cart, remembering the number of times she’d seen the forlorn pair.

Scarpo was saying, “Yes, I asked, too. The smith told me the ragpicker, he only sharpens knives in the rough neighborhoods, where the smith doesn’t care to go.”

“Doctor Loffredo confirmed what I thought caused Gusti’s death. Asphyxiation. Strangled by the scarf she wore. He’s sure she was killed elsewhere, found some bruising on her back indicating her body was dragged to the spot where Rosa found it. Wants to perform an autopsy, but he’s busy at the moment. Other autopsies come before Gusti’s, and he has his practice. He wants to do it Monday morning and he asked me to assist.”

Serafina filled Scarpo in on what they’d discovered this morning in Gusti’s room, the scuffle and marks on the back stairs, the earrings, the box of jewels, the documents. “We believe Gusti was killed inside, probably in her room. Saw evidence of a struggle, bedclothes all knotted, coming off the mattress. Then her body was dragged down the back stairs where we found an earring. It matched what we found outside near her body. And we also know that Gusti struggled with her killer. We found a strand of hair in one of her fingernails.”

Rosa said, “The girls are frightened. No help to us when we interviewed them. Huddled about the kitchen table now, Formusa feeds them
biancumanciari
and toasted bread. And where’s our caffè?” She pulled the cord several times.

“Gusti’s and Eugenia’s deaths are related to the other three, but different,” Serafina said. “The killer is cleaning up after himself, removing obstacles.”

“Cleaning up? Obstacles? There you go again, not making sense,” Rosa said.

“The killer gets rid of threats to himself. Gusti knew too much, perhaps Eugenia, too.”

Scarpo shrugged. Carlo squirmed in his seat, looked at the door.

Serafina said, “The more we know, the more I realize we are in danger.”

There was a moment of hushed silence.

Rosa told Scarpo about her last conversation with Gusti who thought she knew something about the killer and wanted to speak with Serafina.

“We don’t know much about Gusti, nothing about her family or where she was born.”

“The smart customers all went for her,” Rosa said.

“So she may have discovered the killer’s accomplice,” Serafina said. “We know that she kept to herself, except of course for her customers and her friends. We know one of her friends was Carmela.”