Victoria Thompson - Murder On Waverly Place

“Yes, it would,” Serafina echoed, and Sarah knew she was thinking of Nicola.

But if Nicola was dead, none of this would matter, because protecting Nicola was the only reason they had for finding the real killer.

WHEN THE CARRIAGE STOPPED IN FRONT OF THE MORGUE, Serafina looked out the carriage window with dread. “What will I have to do?” she asked Malloy.

“I’ll take you down to where the… where the boy is. He’ll be covered with a sheet. You won’t have to look at his face if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t,” she assured him apprehensively.

“Did he have any birthmarks?”

“I do not know what that is,” Serafina said, looking to Sarah for help.

“Any marks on his body that you would recognize,” Sarah explained.

“I would know his hands,” Serafina said. “And his feet.”

“Then Mr. Malloy will show you the hands and the feet,” Sarah promised.

Malloy frowned, but he got out of the carriage and helped them down. Sarah put her arm around the girl as they entered the building and found she was trembling again. This must be terrifying for her, Sarah thought. When they were inside, Malloy spoke to someone sitting at a desk in a voice too low for them to hear. Then a young man in a cheap suit that was stained with things Sarah didn’t want to identify came out and led them down a flight of stairs to a large room furnished with several metal tables and lots of strange-looking equipment. She had seen autopsies at the hospital during her training, but she’d never been to a morgue. The smell brought the gorge up in her throat, and she swallowed it down hard, refusing to be sick.

Something shaped like a human body lay on one of the tables, covered by a sheet.

“I don’t want to see the face,” Serafina reminded him anxiously, her eyes wild with fright.

“You don’t have to,” Malloy said. He spoke to the young man again, and he carefully lifted the sheet on the side of the table nearest them. They could see a bare arm.

Serafina moved closer and looked down at the hand. The knuckles were badly skinned and the nails broken. He had fought for his life. She stared at the hand for a long moment. “Can I see his feet?” she asked. She sounded amazingly calm. She was probably in shock.

The young man covered the arm again and moved to the end of the table and lifted the sheet to reveal the bare feet. The toenails were long and unkempt. The body had been washed, but dirt was still embedded in the nails. Blisters reddened the small toes of both feet.

“Could you… Could I see his back,” she asked so softly they could hardly hear her.

The young man looked annoyed, but a glance at Malloy convinced him not to object. “Can you give me a hand, Mr. Malloy?” he asked instead.

Sarah and Serafina turned away while the two men struggled to lift the body. She thought she heard the young man say, “He’s stiff.”

“All right,” Malloy said after another moment, and when they looked, they saw the dead man’s bare back. The sheet had been draped to cover the buttocks. Malloy and the young man were holding the body balanced on its side. Rigor mor tis was still present, and the body seemed carved of stone. Sarah could clearly see a large, brown birthmark on the left shoulder blade.

The girl made a whimpering sound.

“Serafina?” Sarah asked anxiously.

Serafina sounded for a moment as if she couldn’t breathe, and then the awful choking noises collapsed upon themselves into wracking sobs that convulsed her young body.

“Is it Nicola?” Malloy asked, shouting to be heard.

“Yes, yes!” she cried, and ran from the room.

Sarah hurried after her and found her slumped on the stairs, sobbing.

“Come upstairs,” Sarah coaxed her. “We’ll find someplace quiet and-”

“No, no, take me out of this place!” she begged, lurching to her feet. “Please, I cannot stay here.”

“Of course,” Sarah said and helped her up the stairs and out into the street, where the Decker carriage waited in silent splendor. The driver jumped down and helped them inside. Although he’d been trained not to show emotion, even he seemed moved by the girl’s anguished grief.

“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said, wrapping her arms around the girl’s slender body and pulling her close. She held her while she wept out her pain, and by the time Malloy had finished his business inside and rejoined them, she was exhausted and drained and lay limp in Sarah’s arms.

Malloy instructed the driver to return them to Sarah’s house. The trip back was conducted in near silence, but when they were almost there, Serafina pulled away from Sarah and sat upright, her spine suddenly rigid.

“Nicola did not kill Mrs. Gittings,” she told them both.

“We know he didn’t,” Sarah assured her, earning a black look from Malloy.

When Malloy didn’t confirm her sentiments, Serafina turned her marvelous eyes on him. “But you will stop looking for the killer now, will you not?”

“I told you before, I can only question those people once.

Cunningham and Sharpe didn’t confess, and Mrs. Burke fainted. The Professor is the only other person there, and he wasn’t in the room. There isn’t much more I can do.”

“Nicola is not a killer. I will not let people think he is.” Sarah knew that few people would think about Nicola DiLoreto at all, but she didn’t want to upset Serafina again by saying so. She would broach the subject later, when the girl was calmer. “We know he was innocent,” she tried. “That’s what’s important.”

“No, finding the real killer is important,” Serafina said.

“Do you know who it is?” Malloy asked with great interest.

“I will find out,” Serafina said with perfect confidence. “The spirits will tell me.”

Malloy ran a hand over his face to hide his exasperation. “When they do,” he said when he’d recovered his composure, “let me know.”

And just as if he’d made a perfectly logical request, she said, “I will.”

BACK AT SARAH’S HOUSE, MRS. DECKER AND MAEVE WERE saddened to learn that the dead man really was Nicola. Even Catherine offered her sympathies by climbing into Serafina’s lap and wrapping her small arms around the girl’s neck.

Maeve made tea for everyone and set out cookies that she and Catherine had made while they were gone, but Malloy declined the offer and took his leave. Sarah saw him to the door, and when they were alone, he said, “I’m sorry you had to go to that place.”

“I didn’t mind. I couldn’t let her face that alone.”

“I was hoping it wasn’t him,” he confessed. “At least part of me was. The other part hoped it was, because I’m still convinced he was the one who killed Mrs. Gittings.”

“So this is the end of the investigation, I suppose.”

“Unless something turns up to change my mind,” he told her with an apologetic shrug.

“At least Serafina won’t have to see Nicola tried for murder.”

“Or executed,” Malloy added grimly.

Someone knocked on Sarah’s front door. “Oh, dear, I hope it isn’t a delivery,” she muttered. “After the day I’ve had, I’m not in any condition to do one right now.”

Malloy stood back so she could open the door, and they were both surprised to see John Sharpe standing on her doorstep.

“Mrs. Brandt, please forgive me for intruding,” Sharpe said while he was pushing his way into the house, belying his apology even as he was making it. “I was told… What are you doing here?” he demanded when he saw Malloy.

“I could ask you the same question,” Malloy said mildly.

“I have some business with Madame Serafina,” he informed them both. “I was told she is here.”