Susan Anderson - Death of a Serpent

Rosa helped herself. “Mmmm, Renata made these? Divine.” Helped herself to another. “Best cannoli I’ve ever eaten. The shell is paper thin, crackles like Christmas candy, melts in the mouth. The taste of the filling: heaven.”

She ate another, closed her eyes, rolled her hands back and forth. “Even the nuns in Palermo do no better.” She bit into a fourth. “You know,” she said, with a full mouth, “we need to celebrate. I could borrow Renata just to show Formusa the recipe and-”

“No one borrows Renata. Better to be married to that dunce of an inspector than to lend out Renata.”

Rosa wiped her face with her handkerchief. At the edge of vision Serafina saw an oblong with a mustache standing in the doorway, fedora in hand. He carried a large envelope.

Colonna nodded to Serafina. “Your domestic said I’d find you here. Good day to you both, dear ladies.”

“ Cannolo , Inspector?” Rosa asked.

He shook his head. “Thanks, but my wife, you know, she watches my stomach.”

“Something to drink then? Please, sit down.” Rosa pulled the cord.

When Gesuzza arrived, Rosa said, “Caffè.”

Colonna began, “Some distressing news first. They found Lola’s body this morning hanging from the rafters of her cell. How she obtained the rope she used, who knows?” He played with one end of his mustache. His eyes were without glimmer.

Rosa bowed her head, drummed her fist on her chest.

Serafina’s eyes swam. “How did she tie the rope to the rafters?” she asked. “The ceiling in her cell is what, almost five meters from the floor! Couldn’t have reached the rafters.”

It was Colonna’s turn to be surprised. Surprised, because a woman had knowledge enough to ask such a question. Surprised because a woman had the nerve to ask such a question. And surprised because Serafina knew the structure of their keep. In reply, he held up both palms to the ceiling and shrugged.

Rosa’s eyes darted between Serafina and Colonna.

Serafina asked, “Did she leave a note?”

Colonna shook his head. “We told her family.”

“What family?” Rosa asked.

Silence while Gesuzza entered, carrying a tray with glasses of espresso.

Colonna drank his espresso in one gulp and eyed Rosa’s bottle of grappa. “From her identity card and the ministry’s records, we located an uncle or some such living in the province of Enna. They said one day Lola vanished. Never contacted them again. Didn’t know what had happened to her until my men showed up. We sent her remains to Sperlinga this morning.”

Serafina wondered how Colonna had unlimited help from police all of a sudden. “The other day I visited her. What a horrible dungeon you have. Even the visitor’s room is dank-lizards crawling up the walls, spiders creeping on the ground-you must be ashamed of it, no? My clothes were soaked. I had to change them when I came home.”

She continued. “Quite mad, Lola. A lost soul. Wearing the same dress she wore underneath her monk’s costume. Hadn’t been washed or given a comb for her hair. Not even prisoner’s garb.”

Rosa wiped her eyes.

The inspector shrugged and handed Serafina an envelope. “This came by messenger from the prefect’s office yesterday. Addressed to you.”

Serafina put down her espresso, looked at the envelope penned in formal script, and broke the wax seal. As she read the contents, she jerked a hand to her heart.

“Typical,” Rosa said. “She keeps us in suspense until we stand it no longer. Tell us!”

Serafina summarized its contents. “For my invaluable help in apprehending the Ambrosi murderer, I am awarded one hundred lire.” Serafina brushed back curls. She pushed the vellum to Rosa.

“And he doubles your stipend? Bah. Nothing times two is still nothing. Had you been a man, he would have awarded you the Civilian Medal of Risorgimento .”

Colonna played with his mustache.

“A pittance. She deserves much more.” Following the line of words with painted nails, Rosa moved her lips while she read. When finished, she looked at Colonna. “I’ll go at once to Palermo and tell the prefect myself. Perhaps you’ll go with me, Pirricù?” She poured him a grappa. “But why does he refer to the ‘Ambrosi murderer,’ not that I’d want him to mention my house.”

Serafina said, “No doubt an editor at Giornale di Sicilia crafted the epithet.”

Colonna drank. He said, “Me, I don’t understand its meaning, but the phrase has been taken up by the people.”

Serafina told them what she knew about the Ambrosian rite practiced in Milan and their use of serpent-like imagery. “In her disturbed way, Lola was fascinated with everything that the brazen serpent represents-the concepts of grace and power, of death and new life, of expiation and redemption. She took them and the trappings of the rite and bent them to suit her mad ends, dwelling too much on the sting of the serpent and not enough on forgiveness and redemption.”

Rosa said, “Dwelling too much on my coins, you mean. But tell me one thing, oh wizard. You weren’t surprised when her disguise slipped away and Lola stood unmasked before us?”

Serafina shook her head. “Either Falco or Lola. Since yesterday, I was convinced the monk was someone in your house. Had to be Lola.”

“How did you know?” Rosa asked.

Serafina said, “She had the means. She had the motive. She had the opportunity.”

Colonna was having trouble following the conversation and Rosa looked bored.

“Stop sounding like a tax collector,” Rosa said. “Just tell us, but don’t use too many words.”

Serafina said, “First the means. You told me last month she carved your sign.”

Rosa nodded.

“So Lola knew how to handle a knife and we knew that the ragpicker sharpened knives in the rough neighborhood. Scarpo told us, remember?”

Rosa nodded. “But how did your mind jump from Lola to the ragpicker?”

Serafina said, “This ragpicker, he gnawed at my head. Ran into him everywhere. Kept seeing him in the piazza. I saw him in an altercation with the rope seller and again in a collision with the mattress maker. Other times I saw him in and around the piazza, staring at the Duomo; even on the road between Oltramari and the Madonie when we returned Sunday afternoon from Elisabetta’s home. He was the one who shot Vicenzu.”

“An altercation with the rope seller, you say?” Rosa asked.

“He has a shop on the piazza across from the shoemaker. You know the one I mean.”

“Why would I?”

Serafina continued. “No matter. The rope seller dealt the picker a handy blow or two, drew blood from his nose, and that was the end. Hadn’t a clue how to fight, the ragpicker. What man doesn’t know how to fight, I asked myself.”

Rosa chuckled. “They learn how in the womb.” She poured Colonna another grappa. “But how did you know that the ragpicker was Lola?”

“I didn’t at first. But my mind leapt.”

“We know, like a gazelle,” Rosa said.

Serafina rubbed her forehead. “Well, Lola was fascinated by artifice.”

“Wily, that one.”

“And a shapeshifter, inventing, reinventing,” Serafina said. “Poor, lost Lola.”

“Better get to the motive part before we put Colonna to sleep.” Rosa poured the inspector another grappa.

He quaffed. He smiled.

“Motive. That’s a bit tricky. Mad, Lola.”

“Tricky? Stole my coins, the strega . What’s so tricky about that?”

The two women were silent. Colonna’s eyelids were heavy.

“Never went to church as far as I knew. Well, except disguised as a monk. She’ll always be a mystery to me. Too happy, too sad, our Lola, and all at once.”

“She should have been put away, not imprisoned,” Serafina said.