Susan Anderson - Death of a Serpent

“Misjudged the thickness of the cloth,” Scarpo said.

“And this,” Beppe said. He fumbled under his scapula and pulled out a thick pouch. “I heard Donna Fina say he never misses, the monk. So I tied this around my chest.”

Serafina undid the pouch and retrieved a book. “ Natural History, Volume Two, Pliny the Elder . But Beppe, you can’t possibly read this. Where did you get it?”

“Giulia,” he said, sitting up. “You said, ‘Ask Giulia about the polar star.’ So I did. She gave me this book to read. Her father’s book, she said, about the heavens.”

The monk began to stir. With a yank, Arcangelo and Scarpo grabbed his arms, stood him up. Beppe removed his hood.

Serafina heard silk rubbing against hair, a soft sucking sound, as golden locks lifted up, broke free, and tumbled about the monk’s shoulders.

For a moment no one moved. They were without words, a tableau.

“Lola!” Rosa said.

Serafina unwound the rope she had tied around her waist earlier.

“You think of everything!” Scarpo said, flashing a smile and taking the rope from her. He tied Lola’s hands and feet. Lola stood in stillness, gazing at something beyond.

While Scarpo, Beppe, and the guards took Lola to the Municipal Building, Arcangelo walked back to town with Rosa and Serafina.

Before they separated, Serafina told Scarpo, “Renata prepared a late supper. Come to our home afterward.”

“Famished I am. No food for days.”

“At least not since the noon meal.” Serafina looked at Carmela. “We’ll grab a bite, before tending to Rosalia.”

As they crossed the piazza, she spotted the ragpicker’s mule and cart tied to a post near the fountain.

“Poor mule,” Arcangelo said. “Who would leave an animal tied up like that?”

“After we eat, you and Beppe see to him.”

“If he’s still here,” Arcangelo said.

“He’ll be here. Take him to our barn. We’ll need to search the cart.”

“The wizard speaks in riddles,” Rosa said, slow in her gait. The weight of the evening was taking its toll.

“Lola’s the ragpicker.”

“I still can’t believe it. Lola, the killer? Why?” Carmela asked.

“You can’t believe it. What about me?” Rosa asked. “Took her in, I did. The best of my girls. Trusted her.”

“So full of life, Lola. Bossy, conniving, two-faced, but not a killer,” Carmela said.

Serafina said, “Lola should be locked up. Mad. Suffered as a child, poor lost soul.”

“Poor lost soul? Killed my girls, she did,” Rosa said. “Took my coins. Would have taken my house, if it weren’t for you. That’s how poor and lost she is.”

“That’s her mule and cart, her means of transporting bodies and costumes from the monk’s lair to your house to the Duomo,” Serafina said. “And the reason rigor mortis was broken? — Lola killed her victims, went back to work, entertaining her customers, then returned to retrieve the body, using the cart to transport it to your stoop,” Serafina said, opening her front gate. “What’s more, Lola was the ruffled mourner at Gemma’s wake.”

Rosa stopped. “How do you know that?”

Serafina gestured to her temple with a forefinger. “Couldn’t sleep one night. Conjured the truth from the facts, the many times I’d run into the ragpicker and his cart when he tried to shoot me or had an altercation in town or wounded my son on the road.”

Rosa and Carmela looked at each other and shook their heads.

Serafina said, “Lola, the actress. She costumed herself as a monk, as a mourner, as a ragpicker, shifting her shape to suit her situation.”

Serafina saw Arcangelo untying the mule. “All right, Arcangelo, we can’t stand to see the beast suffer any longer, either. Take him now to our stable.”

• • •

By the time Serafina and the madam reached Villa Rosa, it was after midnight. Mist rose from the sea.

“Not in her room, Rosalia,” Rosa said. They checked with the laundress and the cook, the upstairs maids, the downstairs maids.

They spoke with the other prostitutes, those who were free.

“Haven’t seen her all evening,” one of the women said.

In Scarpo’s absence, Rosa and Serafina went outside to speak with one of the guards. No sound, except for the waves and the wind.

“And you say she just disappeared?” Serafina asked.

A torch lit his face. He nodded. “Late morning it was. Out the front door she goes, the girl, all dressed up. Takes a side path, doubles back along the grass and down to the rocks. We follow, Orazio and I, sneaking so she doesn’t see. Scrambles down the rocks, she does. Walks on the shore a ways and, presto , disappears into a hole between two big rocks. So we wait for her to come out.”

“And you didn’t follow her inside?”

“Never. We don’t go inside nowheres. Work only the outside. Orders. So we wait. Hasn’t come out, the girl. Take turns, we do, keeping a safe watch. Orazio, he’s there now.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

The guard shook his head. “Only a beggar with his mule tripping on the rocks near the old house sitting high overhead. Late this afternoon it was.”

“A beggar?” Serafina asked.

The guard said, “Cart worn, mule, too.”

Serafina turned to the madam. “We can’t navigate those rocks tonight. Tomorrow morning’s soon enough, after I search the rooms of the two prostitutes. In the meantime, the guards should continue watching the cove.”

• • •

Wednesday, November 7, 1866

So peaceful here, as if nothing had happened, Serafina thought, riding up the next day through the length of Rosa’s park. The sun streamed through palm fronds. Men cut and raked and readied the earth for the winter. Beppe took Largo’s reins, helped Serafina down.

• • •

“I’d like to see Lola’s room,” Serafina said.

Serafina followed the madam to the second level. Rosa unlocked the first door to the right of the staircase.

“Stuffy in here,” Rosa said, lifting the sash and opening the shutters. Sunlight and a sea breeze flooded the room.

Serafina prowled around the room, large and rococo, similar to Bella’s, but without the sewing machine. Decorated in blues and greens, somehow soft but at the same time opulent, not what she expected to see. “So neat.”

“Surprised?” Rosa asked.

“Everything about Lola surprises me.”

Serafina lifted the spread. No bedding. She felt the cold grip her stomach.

Serafina walked around, opening desk drawers. Empty. One was stuck.

She opened the closets. They were filled with dresses, neatly arranged, matching shoes and bags underneath. In the bureau drawers her personal linen was folded and well-ordered.

Lifting the chair cushion, Serafina felt with her hands for anything, a scrap of paper, a note or letter. Nothing.

Returning to the desk, she pried the stuck drawer. Wedged in the back between the desk and the wall, was a leather-bound book. Serafina riffled the blank pages until she came to one with writing-scribbles, really. The hand was small and cramped, the pages scrawled with words that made no sense. Like Lola.

While the madam sat fanning herself with a linen and staring into space, Serafina lifted the bedspread, peered underneath the bed, and saw a box. She tried to pull it toward her, but it wouldn’t move. “Help me with this will you?”

They pulled together, she and the madam. At first it wouldn’t move. The box seemed to be packed with iron.

But slowly the box began to move. They slid it out from under the bed.

Rosa opened the box. “Gold!” She began to count, but shrugged.

“We’ll carry it to your desk,” Serafina said.