Susan Anderson: Murder On The Rue Cassette

In a while he dozed.

He was awakened from sleep and taken to a room and told to stand still. Fifteen minutes later an officer came into the room and charged him with the murder of Elena. He asked again to see her body, asked to contact a lawyer, asked to speak with someone at the Italian embassy. He was told, “In due course, my lord.”

Cuffed and led to a horse-drawn wagon, he sat on a wooden bench next to six other men, swaying to the clop of horse’s hooves. He smelled cheap wine and old sweat. As he listened to the normal sounds of the street, he heard workers calling to one another. The traffic increased.

He breathed fresh air and smelled spring blossoms. They were crossing a bridge and had stopped. He could hear distant shouting, the lapping of the Seine against the sides of a passing barge. For no apparent reason, he pictured the square in front of his window at home. “In my head I am free,” he told himself. “I am here or there, anywhere I want to be,” and he heard the blood pumping in his ears and felt a bubble caught in his throat.

When they arrived, he was led to a small room where he was stripped of his belongings and given prison garb. For the third time he asked to contact his lawyer, but the guard seemed not to understand his French. Again he was photographed, this time by a man with rheumy eyes. Then he was locked in a cell in the middle of one wing off a large circular room. From a small opening in the door he could see across the aisle to a row of cells similar to his. His cell contained a bed, a small writing desk, one gas jet, and a water closet. There was no window, but on one wall close to the ceiling there was a vent forcing in warm air.

He asked for his lawyer. In a few days he asked for books. For two days he drank the tepid coffee they offered but refused the bread. On the third day he ate. The French were excellent detectives. Soon the officer who charged him would find he was innocent. Until then he must remain calm for the sake of Serafina and her family- his new family.

When books were delivered to his cell, he read Victor Hugo and imagined that he was sitting in his library at home. He was free in his mind, he could soar above walls, be anywhere. No one could take that freedom from him. At night he dreamed of Serafina.

Sicily, April 17, 1874

Aware of the commissioner seated calmly at his desk, Serafina faced Busacca, trying to douse the coals that burned inside her. This buffoon with his cretin daughter dared to tarnish Loffredo’s name in front of Oltramari’s police chief. She felt the heat searing her face.

“I plead with you to accept. Investigate my daughter’s murder,” Busacca said. “For the sake of your friendship with her.”

The commissioner cleared his throat. “And I might add, for the sake of our reputation as a nation. We cannot let our dead rot on foreign soil, and French soil at that.”

Busacca continued. “I have my sources of information, three stores in Paris, one on the Rue de la Paix another on the Rue de Verneuil and a third in Mont-Parnasse. An army of men who work for me, all good, sound thinkers. Make use of them. They’ll help you or they’ll have me to deal with. I’m a telegram away, don’t forget. And of course, there’s my sister. Elena died a lonely, brutal death. Shot in the head, her body discarded on a deserted street in Paris. Loffredo’s nowhere to be seen. The French, such a cold people. You must find out what happened.”

“But if you have friends in Paris…”

He held up a hand to stop her. Something about him reminded Serafina of Elena. His manner grated, and yet there was something magical about him, too. He would get his way, of that she had no doubt.

Her temples pounded. “I have a family who needs me here.”

“My dear, you are the best we have,” the commissioner said. He turned away and stared out the window, frowning. “If you are unable to accept, then I… suppose we could send Inspector Colonna, but I doubt we’d discover much of the truth.” He adjusted his sash.

That idiot, Colonna! A horrid thought, simple-minded and venal in one fat package. She clamped her jaw and thought a moment.

“But surely Paris is filled with investigators. The French have the cleverest detectives on the continent. Someone within La Surete Nationale will be assigned the case and find Elena’s killer.”

Busacca shrugged. “Perhaps, but I don’t trust the French. Bad enough doing business with them. And we speak of my only child. True, she was a free spirit. Never knew what Elena was going to do next. Never did. I thought she’d grow out of her wayward habits. But of late

…” He blew his nose. “Nonetheless, she’s a dead Sicilian, and you know the French regard for us. I want her killer hung, no mercy. I want swift justice. I want an eye for an eye. In addition, you must help my sister arrange for burial, she knows nothing of the Christian rubrics. Before Elena could marry Loffredo, the old count made her convert. Elena, good at going through the motions, consented.”

Serafina shuddered at the power of his words. “So she was murdered?”

“Of course she was murdered. Who could suggest otherwise? A single shot to the head. What else could it have been?”

Serafina said nothing.

“What else could it have been, I dare you to say it!” Busacca’s face grew purple. “What they tell me of your audacity is true. But know this.” He moved closer to her and shook a fist in her face, as if God Himself condemned her thoughts. “My daughter would never, ever take her own life! Never, ever-do you hear me?”

Serafina felt the blood rush to her face. She squared her shoulders. “I keep an open mind. Take it or leave it.”

There was silence. It seemed to swell, filling the room and seeping out through invisible cracks in the walls and into the piazza below.

The old man continued. “If we do not send our own, I fear they’ll assign some poor untried bugger to the case. When the telegram from my sister arrived, I asked my friend, Notabartolo, the mayor of Palermo for help. Without hesitation, he suggested you. He said you were the best, our only hope.”

She stared at him but couldn’t argue with his words.

Busacca shifted in his chair and mopped his brow. “Because of the delicate nature of your relationship with my daughter’s husband…” He paused and his eyes met hers.

Serafina’s face burned, but she held his gaze. “Please be frank. I’m not sure I know what you mean, and this is no time for pretense.”

The commissioner looked down at his hands.

“Because of your… affair with Loffredo, I hesitated to ask, but my wife and I talked it over, and in the end, we chose you because of your reputation. You will help me, I’m sure, for the money, if not for the sake of my daughter.” His gaze was unblinking as he handed her an envelope.

She slit it open, read the letter, and stared at the amount of the retainer, steeling herself to show nothing while she waited for the blood pummeling her ears to stop. She tried to catch her breath and said a silent prayer of thanks to the Madonna who knew that her family needed these coins, might even have arranged it. For the past four years, Serafina had been their sole means of support. Ever since Giorgio’s death, their wealth seemed to shrink and now their apothecary shop was indebted to the bank in ways she did not fathom. Nearly spent, her son labored long hours at the shop and for no reward. Vicenzu was in despair most of the time. One morning his ebullience cheered her breakfast, but when he’d returned for the noon meal, he paced the room, fists stuffed into frayed pockets. They’d had to cut her youngest daughter’s piano lessons to three days a week, ate meat only on feast days, burned fires only on the coldest days in winter. She shivered. And they weren’t the only ones. All of Oltramari grew rustier, dustier as customers disappeared and the town clutched at the tail end of prosperity.