Susan Anderson - Death of a Serpent

“Except for Arcangelo. I want him in his own clothes. Nothing must hamper his movements. But Concetta? — she’s a nun.”

“So sharp, so theatrical. She and Nanna worked together at a theater in Palermo. That’s how they met, didn’t you know?”

“My mother? Acting? She’d never stoop so low,” Serafina said. “Would she?”

“Believe it. And when Concetta needs money from the archbishop, she dresses some of the orphans in torn clothes saved for such occasions, puts a little makeup on their faces to make them look forlorn, and takes them with her.”

“I’ll write to her this morning-”

“No need. I’ll ask when I see her today.” Carmela rose from her chair. “Better get ready. Haven’t much time.”

“Sit. There’s more,” Serafina said. “I’ve no idea if our plan to draw out the monk will be successful and, if so, where you’ll meet him. If what we know is accurate and if his pattern holds, it will be the Madonna’s Chapel, but wherever the meeting is, we’ll be as close to you as possible. Arcangelo will get word to us of any changes. It bothers me that you will be-”

“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.”

Monday afternoon, November 5, 1866

Serafina 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.”