Susan Anderson - Murder On The Rue Cassette

He shook his head. “The four men-Beniamino, the photographer, the guard, and Gaston-are held without bail in Prison de Mazas, accused of conspiring to murder. For now Sophie’s in Prison Saint-Lazare.”

“And Busacca knows all this?”

“Perhaps not everything. He knows his sister awaits trial for her part in the murder and attempted fraud. But our case is weak. We are certain she knew about the murder of the woman, but she hasn’t admitted it. She has a large cell separated from the rest of the inmates for which she pays seven or eight francs a month. The nuns take good care of her and listen to her sobbing tale, but there she is.”

“I must visit her,” Serafina said.

“I hoped you’d say that. Permission has been granted.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “I’ll be interested to hear what you find out.”

She heard Maria’s piano wafting down from above and wrinkled her brow. “It’s not Scarlatti.”

“Saint-Saens, perhaps,” Loffredo said. “A French composer, anyway.”

They were interrupted by the butler carrying a silver tray followed by Renata and two maids carrying the cafe, profiteroles, and cannoli.

“Upstairs all of you, or you’ll miss the glace au four!” Renata said.

Serafina paid the driver and looked up at Prison Saint-Lazare, a mammoth gothic structure converted to a women’s prison in the beginning of the century. She walked up to the front door and rang the bell, feeling her stomach do somersaults, coming to rest on her bones. After presenting her papers to the porter, Serafina was ushered into a small waiting room. She looked at the drab walls and the plain furniture, the shutters on the window, the crucifix on the wall, and decided Sophie was in a warm place in the prison, well cared for by the sisters of Marie-Joseph.

“Why are you here?” Sophie asked after she was guided into the room and helped to her seat by a nun. The old lady’s sight had diminished in the few short weeks since Serafina first met her.

“Because I have questions and you’re the only one who has the courage to answer them.”

Sophie scoffed, but for the first time looked at Serafina.

“The first time I met you, you spoke of your oldest son, Beniamino.”

Sophie looked away.

There was silence. It filled the room, the corners, the crevices in the worn floorboards and stretched beyond the prison’s gates to the world outside where all street noise for the moment seemed to stop. Serafina’s heart thudded against the walls of her chest. She must not fail, she must find the truth, and she believed this woman was the key.

“Do you know where Beniamino is? Last time we spoke of him, you mentioned the south of France.”

Sophie worked her mouth back and forth, but made no reply.

“Why did you encourage Elena to feign her death?”

Sophie straightened. She opened her mouth, but closed it again, moved her jaw from side to side. She said nothing.

Again Serafina remained still, aware of the how the sun oozed from behind the window shade and made pools of light on the walls and floor. She stared at Sophie, letting silence do its work.

“She was my niece and she needed help, asked for it. We gave it.”

“We?”

Sophie said nothing.

“We’ve had a cool spring, at least compared to Oltramari.”

Sophie’s laugh was a bark. “Sweltered most days in Oltramari. I was a girl and had servants to fan me then. Here, you see, the temperature is milder, but wait until the winter. You’ll freeze.”

“The nuns take good care of you.”

She nodded.

“You were the brains behind it, weren’t you? I see your brilliance upon this whole affair.”

Silence. Serafina looked at her watch. She was allotted twenty minutes and had used five and was nowhere near the core of what Sophie knew.

“Why?”

“Because Beniamino has no inkling, not the faintest idea of how to run a business or how to grasp what he does not have.”

“None of your business,” Sophie said.

“When you were a girl in Oltramari, did you ever dream you’d land in Paris with a husband and three sons?”

“Are you here to chat?”

“Chatting, passing the time-that’s what you’re doing with me. You played them all for fools, but you can’t fool me. And finding the brains behind the disappearance of Elena Loffredo is my business,” Serafina said. “Anything concerning Elena is my business. She’s caused me endless trouble. She’s been a thorn in my side for over thirty years. So now I want to understand how you decided to help her fake her death.”

Serafina watched Sophie’s hands grasp each other and twist.

“When she came to you, distraught and with child, she wanted Beniamino’s address in the south of France, didn’t she? She wanted to get away from Paris, from the voices that haunted her, but you gave her something more. Your mind went to work.”

Sophie raised her head, said nothing, but she was listening, Serafina could feel the iron of the old woman’s mind galvanizing to attention.

“You were the one who suggested she disappear, that she fake her death, weren’t you?”

Again Sophie was silent, but for an instant, Serafina thought she saw the gleam of a smile.

“You found Beniamino in the south of France, hauled him home, told him how much in debt you were and unless he helped, he’d be doomed to a life of poverty. You pulled him, prodded him until he told you about a friend he had, a guard at the very prison we sit in who could help. Your brains, Sophie, and Beniamino’s friend. And if that wouldn’t work, you had other ideas, other places, perhaps more dangerous, to procure a fallen woman, a dupe.”

“I’m the one with ideas. The stupid cow hadn’t an inkling of what to do. My sons sit there, hopeless, waiting for me to think. Ricci, a coward, refused to help; David, a fearful sod, huddled away from the light begged me not to involve him. Only Beniamino had the courage.”

“When you’d thought it through, you sent for Elena, presented your plan, gave her your terms.”

She nodded, a crooked smile on her face, her eyes without light. “I told her she needed to disappear. Paris was too great a distraction. Slovenly trollop. I had to get her out of Paris-she was giving our family a bad name, don’t you see? ‘The sun will cure you,’ I told her, ‘you need to paint, create your legacy for the world.’”

“And she listened.”

“Oh, she listened, of course she did. I flattered her, just like you tried to do with me because you think I’m a fool. But I’m the one with the brains. I know how to achieve. The three Busacca stores will crumble without me. I give them a year. Yes, I presented my plan to her. She thought it was wonderful.” Sophie rubbed her hands. “I’d found the perfect dupe. My plan was a superb feat.”

“You had it all thought out, didn’t you? Including a fee up front, a quick burial before I or anyone who’d recognize the truth had the chance to see the dead woman’s body. You had her change her beneficiaries with a few strokes of the pen.”

“What kind of harm did we cause? The woman who took her place was a harlot, diseased. She was going to die anyway. And Elena was no better. Levi should have seen, but he’s blind. He threw money at her and went back to Sicily where he didn’t have to face what his daughter had become.” Sophie flicked her hand back and forth as if by doing so she could get rid of whatever was in her way. “But I needed the money, our money, the family’s money, and I had to live in Paris where the gossips are frightful. I took back what was rightfully ours and got rid of the tarnish to our name, that’s all.”