Blood of the Lamb (39 page)

“Not yet. He set the guy up. He’s pretty good, Raffaele. He’s wasted over there.” They’d reached the top floor, where the ceilings and the rents were lower than for the other dumps in this exhausted building. The door at the end of the hall was open. An officer standing at it waved Giulio and Raffaele in.

Dingy, rank-smelling, its chipped tile floor sticky under their shoes, Ocampo’s one room was more of a mess than even Carabinieri executing a search warrant could have made. Giulio grinned to himself as the dapper Raffaele wrinkled his nose.

“What do you have?” he asked the officer in charge.

“Over here, sir.”

Over there, indeed. Giulio would have spotted it himself as soon as he turned around. A wall of photos, a vase of fresh flowers on the shelf below. A silk scarf under the vase. The scarf, the flowers, and the blond girl in the photos were all of them far too high-class for a man who lived in a room like this.

“Who is she?”

“Her name’s Anna. That’s all we know so far.” The officer tapped one of the photos, where the margin was carefully labeled
Anna en la playa
.

“We’d better find her. She might be in danger. This guy just went from thief to serious nutcase.”

“Or not,” Raffaele said. “Look. The guy—Ocampo—he’s in half these pictures with her.”

Giulio looked again. It was true. Smiling, sometimes with their arms around each other, Ocampo and this Anna looked out at them from a café, from someone’s living room, from a tree-lined street. The girl seemed perfectly happy, even smug, while Ocampo himself had a grateful, puppy-dog air. Giulio’s thinking started down an entirely different path. “You know what? Find her anyway.”

73

The notebook leaf from the toe-bone reliquary cracked along one of its folds as Livia smoothed it out on the altarpiece. The art historian in her winced and wanted to fold it up again and get it to a conservator as fast as possible. She pushed that thought aside and read along with Thomas.

Er pollarolo co’ la frebre se scopre e prega. Lei fa miracoli.

S’appiccia ’na cannula, se fanno cappelle e cori

de marmo barocco. Li giardinieri, i vinajjoli,

li mercanti, ricopreno ’sto paradiso d’ori.

Ma cqui, non tutti l’alati spiccano voli.

The fevered farmer uncloaks, prays. She cures.

A lamp is lit and tended, chapels built,

baroque and marble. Vintners, gardeners,

and merchants gild this Eden to the hilt.

But here, not all the winged creatures soar.

Below, the five block letters:

T N A M A

“Amante,”
Thomas said. “If you add that other
e
. If it were Italian it would be ‘lover.’ . . .”

“But the rest makes no sense if it’s Italian.” Livia concentrated on the page. “In Latin it’s ‘loving,’ or depending on what comes next, ‘being loved.’ The
eam
would imply there’s a feminine object in the sentence somewhere.” She thought for a moment, then took her cell phone out.

“Livia,” came Spencer’s dry voice. “A joy to hear from you. How are you progressing?”

“Damiani’s poems are leading us from church to church,” Livia told him. “We’re in San Francesco a Ripa now.” That Jonah had also been here, and that she’d made no move to try to stop him from leaving, she didn’t add.

“Ah, Mario.”

“And there’s another thing. Each poem we’ve found has five penciled letters on it. They seem to form some sort of puzzle, maybe an acrostic, reading back to front and bottom to top. In Latin.”

Spencer laughed. “I don’t mind admitting to you that he was, occasionally, a trial to live with.”

“I can believe it. The words we have so far are
amante eam aedificavit.
Do you have any idea what that means?”

‘Loving it, built’ . . . Feminine form . . . Nothing comes to mind, no.”

“Or, stretching, ‘being loved, built.’ Did you ever build anything together? Or did you build something for him?”

“Livia, I rarely built him a sandwich. And though I’d readily agree I’m no Neanderthal, I’m hardly a woman. I suppose it might refer to an earlier lover, but I don’t know who that might have been. If he was ever inclined toward your fair sex, I’m unaware of it.”

“All right, it was a long shot. There’s at least one more church to go. Maybe we’ll figure it out there.”

“Call me if you need me. What’s the next church?”

“We don’t know yet. These poems aren’t easy to translate.”

“I imagine not. Livia, take care. I’ve just had a visit from an adorable Gendarme, the same gentleman whose acquaintance you made earlier today. Apparently the narrative of an international art-theft ring has developed a galloping momentum among the forces of the law, and you and your priest have been elevated to leadership positions in this criminal circle. There’s some possibility this fascinating theory can be turned to your advantage, but for now I’d recommend looking over your shoulder at all times.”

Livia thanked Spencer for his warning and pocketed the phone.

“He’s no help?” Thomas asked.

“No. But while we were talking I had a thought.” She pointed to the poem. “‘Vintners, gardeners, and merchants.’ If you were heading from here to the river, one way to go would take you by Santa Maria dell’Orto. It was a guild church—an
Arciconfraternita
that incorporated guilds of small-holding farmers, livestock breeders, and wine sellers. Could that—?”

“Yes!” Thomas interrupted with a shout. With a guilty look he dropped his voice. “‘She cures’! That church—it was founded on the site of a miracle. The Blessed Virgin appeared and cured a dying farmer.”

“All right.” Livia folded the poem back into her bag. “Come on, let’s get out of here before someone wants to know what we’re up to in Saint Francis’s cell.”

Pretending she hadn’t seen him blush, Livia started down the stone steps. Thomas followed.

“The winged creatures,” he whispered as they made their way to the back of the church. “The ones that don’t soar. More bees?”

From the shadows just inside the door Livia peered out onto the piazza. No Carabinieri. She gestured to Thomas and trotted down the steps, quick-walking away down the street to the right. “Not more bees,” she said as he hurried to catch up with her. “A turkey.”

74

Thomas stood beside Livia in a recessed doorway on Via Anicia. Across the street the deepening afternoon had already cast the Baroque façade of Santa Maria dell’Orto into shadow, silhouetting the pyramidal obelisks on its roofline against an intense blue sky. The pace they’d maintained on the way here had been fast, Thomas too intent on breathing to speak; but now that they were staring across at this façade, he said to her, “The turkey’s a New World bird. You don’t have those in Italy.”

“We do. In there. It’s enormous. Condor-size. The guilds that made up the
Arciconfraternita
used to compete to make the most impressive donations. The poultry guild trumped everyone when it presented a robing cabinet for the sacristy with a giant turkey on it, to commemorate the arrival in Italy of the first pairs of turkeys for breeding purposes.” She added, “They didn’t catch on.”

“You know,” Thomas said, gazing across the street, “you sound just like me.”

She grinned. “That’s not a good thing, I take it?”

“No. You’ve seen this turkey?”

“My first area of specialization was representations of the New World in European art.”

So,
thought Thomas
. I was in Boston studying your world while you were here, studying mine.
But no, not “while”: Livia’s studies had been decades earlier. And he might have been studying Italy, but in no way had he been studying her world.

He realized she was waiting for him to speak. “The turkey’s on the robing cabinet?” he managed.

“‘The fevered farmer uncloaks.’ That’s bound to be it.”

“All right, I’m convinced. So, how will we get in? Can you pick a lock that big?”

“As a matter of fact, no. I’d need heftier tools. I’m impressed you know that.”

“I had a cousin,” Thomas said.

“I’d like to hear about him.”

“Her.”

“Even more. But as for getting in, it shouldn’t be a problem. It’s open until six.”

“Open? Santa Maria dell’Orto? It’s been closed to the public for years. I’ve never been inside, any of the times I’ve been in Rome.”

“It’s not only open now, it’s in use. It was restored a few years ago. Saved by the Japanese.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Japanese Catholic expats. They’ve made it their home church. They—” She stopped as the church doors swung wide. A portly priest with wavy white hair came to stand in the doorway, dressed in his vestments for Mass, ready to greet and chat with worshippers as they filed out. About two dozen did, all of them Asian.

“Well, thank you, Japan,” Thomas said, then froze at the unexpected echo of Lorenzo’s voice.
The future of the Church lies in Africa. In Latin America. In Asia! Do you know why? Because they believe.

“Thomas? Are you all right?”

“I— What? Yes, I’m fine.” Thomas shook off the picture in his mind, Lorenzo’s sharp, determined face, his ornate office, his hand gesturing with the ever-present cigar.

“I’m fine. But look—we may have a problem.”

He pointed across the street, where the priest stood on the pavement chatting with the last of the parishioners.

“What’s that?”

“They’ve just finished Mass. As soon as everyone’s gone the priest will be heading back to the sacristy. He’ll disrobe. Maybe there’s even a sacristan, in which case they’ll probably chat. Unless he’s in a hurry to get somewhere, it could take a while before the sacristy’s empty.”

Livia said nothing, but he felt her eyes on him. He looked over at her. “What?”

“Nothing. I was giving you space. You look like a man with a plan.”

Slowly, he nodded. “Do you know where the sacristy is?”

“Left of the altar.”

“All right,” Thomas said. They watched as the priest took the hand of an old woman, the last of the worshippers to leave the church. “I’ll distract him. You wander around as though you’re looking at the church while you wait for me, then head back there. I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

“What are you—” Livia began, but the old woman started down the street and the priest turned to head back into Santa Maria dell’Orto.

“Let’s go,” Thomas said, and stepped from the doorway into the street. “Father?” he called in soft Italian as he approached.

The priest turned, his round face open, waiting.

“
Buonasera
, Father. I’m Thomas—O’Brien. Father Thomas O’Brien, SJ. From Boston.”

The two men shook hands as the white-haired priest said, “Well, all the way from Boston? A pleasure, Father O’Brien. Marcello Franconi. I was in Boston, oh, ten years ago now. For a conference. A beautiful city.”

“It is, but nothing compares to Rome.”

Father Franconi smiled almost ruefully, as a kind parent would who can’t deny that his child is the most extraordinary in town but doesn’t want to embarrass the parents of lesser children.

“This is my friend,” Thomas went on. “Ellen Bird. She’s a painter.”

“
Signora
Bird.”

“Father.” Livia shook the priest’s hand. In Italian more American-accented than Thomas’s, she said, “I’m from New York, but I’ve been living in Rome for many years.”

“I came over to see her,” Thomas said. “To visit. Father, I—I’m glad I saw you here. I want you to hear my confession.”

Father Franconi’s face registered mild surprise. He looked from Thomas to Livia, and in his eyes a new light dawned. “Of course, my son.”

“Thank you. A priest’s work is never done, is it?”

“Until we’ve all attained the Kingdom of Heaven, I suppose it never will be. Please, come this way.” They entered the church, Thomas and Father Franconi making use of the holy water font. Father Franconi closed the doors behind them. “
Signora
Bird, make yourself comfortable while you wait. You’re a painter? You’re welcome to view the church. You might find a few things of interest. We have some fine Zuccari frescoes. Father O’Brien, please come this way.”