Death In Bagheria (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (20 page)

“Do you fear what we’ll find?” Serafina asked.

In an instant, the baron sputtered with rage. “I’ve had about enough of you!” He pointed at Serafina, his face like that of a vengeful god. “You take your friend and get out now! Get out!”

“My lord …” Umbrello rose.

“My lord, nothing! And I shouldn’t have allowed a servant to take part in these deliberations.”

“Our hunt will prove her innocence,” Rosa said. “We won’t find anything, and we’ll be careful of her belongings, you have my word. And you’ve encouraged us to search all the rooms.”

Like a cornered beast, the baron squirmed, looked into Rosa’s eyes, down at the floor and muttered, “Perhaps you’re right.”

Once again, the madam had succeeded in staunching his fury.

Serafina slowed her breathing. “What time is it?”

Loffredo looked at his watch. “A few minutes to seven.”

“Dinner is at what time?”

“Nine.”

“We’ll meet back here at eight. Now we need to talk with the servants.”

The baron threw up his hands. “Why? You’ve already interviewed them.”

“You must tell them what you know about Reggio’s murder,” Serafina said.

Rosa piped up. “And if you don’t tell them about Reggio, you’ll have all talk and no work, rumors and a stampede.”

Umbrello nodded. “I agree, my lord. You must tell them about Reggio’s death, what you know about it, at least. If they find out for themselves, they’ll not feel safe in this house and will look for work elsewhere. It may be easy to find servants, but it’s difficult to keep the good ones.”

The baron went to the window and looked out. He was silent for a long time. When he turned to them, he said, “I am out of my depth here.”

Out of his depth anywhere, a broken man who’s lost his anchor.

“The last thing I want is to lose my staff. Trouble enough keeping them as it is. Now, with the danger … the fact that someone deliberately …” He looked at Loffredo.

“When someone they’ve worked with has been killed, servants need to know the truth from their employer. It’s your only option,” Loffredo said. “Some may decide to leave, but that’s their choice, and you cannot control it.”

A
M
eeting

T
hey were gathered together, sitting at long tables in the servants’ refectory, some of the younger ones standing along one side of the room, Umbrello toward the middle. Serafina, Rosa, and Loffredo stood in the front, on one side of the baron. When they were not shooting glances at their guests, the servants gazed up at their employer, a man whose dignity and standing gave them greater distinction. They worked for nobility, were conscious of the privilege, and seemed to be saying to their visitors, “He is a baron after all, not just a very wealthy man.”

“Th
e police found the body of a man they’ve identified as Reggio. Until yesterday, he was our footman.”

The room was silent. Doucette kept her eyes glued to a spot on the wall, her hands in her lap. Serafina saw Lina start at Geraldo’s announcement, eyes wide as she looked around the room for the faces of her friends. When she caught a maid sending her a puzzled expression, she hunched her shoulders and raised her palms slightly. The cook coughed, a linen pressed to her lips, her eyes flitting about the room. When Renata straggled in, Mima waved to her with a frenetic gesture. A footman, Reggio’s working twin, who had been sitting next to the cook, gave Renata his seat, then went to stand in the back, gloved hands at his side, his body stiff, his face a mask.

“You know that as of yesterday, Reggio was not in our employ. And since he was not one of our staff at the time of his death, strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with us. The police must have been convinced of that, since they told us we will not be part of their investigation.”

There was a long stretch of silence. It spilled out the door, snuffing out noises from the outside, as if the world held its breath in sympathy with what was going on inside the room.

“How did he die, if I might ask, my lord?” the footman asked.

“They haven’t told us exactly.”

There was a murmur of voices.

“Quiet down. If you must know, his body was found in a ditch. Mutilated.”

Serafina rubbed her forehead, shaking her head slightly.

Some of the maids gasped, and there was a flurry of talking.

“So it was murder?” The footman again.

“Yes.”

Serafina could not believe the baron’s lack of sensitivity, and yet it was in keeping with his nature. Not for the first time she wondered how the man could be so bereft of basic human understanding. She had to say something. “Like you, we are all of us in a state of shock. Let us be silent a moment and say a prayer for his soul and for his family.”

In unison, heads bowed, and Serafina felt as one with them.

The seconds accumulated.

“If anyone has any information that you think may be of interest to us concerning Reggio’s actions while he was employed here, even if it seems inconsequential, please bring it to my attention,” Serafina said, breaking in before the baron could dismiss them. “Are there any questions?”

The footman raised his hand. “Will Reggio be replaced, my lord? The season’s coming up and—”

“Of course he will, man.”

There was silence.

Lina raised her hand. “Are we safe? Some of us have noticed that there are people who have keys who shouldn’t have them.”

There were murmurs all around and a few hands shot up.

The baron closed his eyes. “Of course you’re safe. Remember that Reggio was not killed in this house. But as an added precaution, we are in the process of changing all the locks. Now, if that’s all, please go about your business.”

The baron was less than useless. Serafina heard the whispering in groups as the servants slowly filed out. The meeting had raised, not lowered their level of fear. She hurried out, wanting to catch up with Lina when she was tapped on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, ma’am. We know Reggio was a shirker and all but do you think his death has anything to do with us? Gives me the creeps just thinking about it. We could be killed in our beds before they get around to changing the locks. I know how slowly they work around here. The baron will hem and haw, find the best price. It could be a blood bath.”

“I understand, and just as soon as we can—”

“But my brother’s a locksmith. He could start right away.”

The
S
earch

U
m
brello slowly opened the door, cringing when the floorboards creaked as they tiptoed into the housekeeper’s room on the fourth floor. A trunk sat at the foot of Doucette’s single iron bed, and a bulging carpetbag slumped alongside it. The room, a cramped space with three of them bending and crowding about, smelled of harsh soap and rose water. On the nightstand was a small frame. Serafina held it to the candlelight, a fading picture of two smiling people, Doucette and an older woman, no doubt her mother.

Rosa grabbed the carpetbag, plopped herself on the bed, and began rummaging inside. Finding nothing of interest, she dumped the contents onto the bed and riffled through them, shoving a comb, small coin purse, handkerchiefs, and ticket wallet back inside.

“Can’t leave it like that. Put everything back neatly,” Serafina said. “Doucette’s smart. One thing out of place and she’ll discover someone’s been into her room.”

The madam opened her mouth, but glancing at Umbrello, she thought better of objecting. “You’re right. I was trying to hurry it along. We’ve not much time,” she said, pursing her lips at Serafina while she straightened the bag’s contents.

“Why don’t you search the dresser?” Serafina asked Umbrello, who stood immobile in the room, uncomfortable and waiting for orders.

His face a distress, he took the first drawer out of its slot and placed it on the bed. “Doesn’t feel right to me, doing this,” he said, hunched into himself, looking at the contents, which happened to be undergarments, obviously not wanting to touch them.

“Your first time?” Rosa asked.

He nodded.

“Gets better the more you do it,” she said, patting his arm.

“Let’s hope this is the last of it.”

“Not if you become our good friend, which I hope you do.” The madam paused to give him a red glance. “Fina’s got intrigue aplenty up her sleeve,” Rosa said, smiling. Then she bent over one side of the bed, wedging an arm under the pillows and felt with her hand. Shaking her head, she plumped them back again.

Serafina, who had gone over to the trunk, tried in vain to open it, so Rosa walked over to help. “Locked!” The two of them looked for the key while Umbrello took the second drawer out of its slot and placed it on the bed, carefully examining its contents, rummaging through the series of small boxes and tiny porcelain vessels before replacing them. He riffled through the other two drawers, went over to the cabinet and checked for journals. For a moment, he eyed the trunk, went over to it, and lifted one end with his hand. “Stop looking for the key,” he said. “The trunk is empty.”

Kneeling beside the bed, she stuck her arm underneath and found some boxes. They made a loud, scraping sound on the floorboards as she pulled at them. She was about to tear off the lids when she heard footsteps. Straightening ever so quietly, she put a warning finger to her lips, and they stopped what they were doing, staring at nothing, like dancers halting in mid-stride until the footfalls became faint and disappeared. Then Serafina began opening the boxes, small wooden contrivances with careful corners, foreign in bearing, reminding her of their owner. She remembered Doucette’s correct stance when they met, the woman’s wooden smile slowly becoming more lifelike as the interview wore on. The lid of the first made a sucking sound, resisting her pull. Tissue rose to meet her, and she pushed it back and felt in between two hats. “A candle, please.”

In the glow from the flame, Rosa and Umbrello peered inside and watched Serafina’s hand remove an object.

“A journal!” The blood pounded in her ears.

“The date?” Rosa asked.

Serafina turned the first page. “January 1866.” She turned the book and felt the half-broken spine. Her eyes straining, she looked first at Rosa, then at Umbrello, and said, “This is the same book we found on the landing, later taken from my pocket—I’m sure of it.”

Rosa’s eyes widened. “So the housekeeper snatched it from your desk.”

“Or someone working for her.” Serafina flipped through the pages, stopping to read an entry here and there but her heart sank. “Nothing yet.”

Their disappointment was palpable.

Serafina kept reading.

“Getting late, if you’ve found nothing …”

Serafina stopped. “Listen to this!”

She read aloud in a thready voice.

This morning I saw the maid bring in the tray, and a figure, dark, a shadowy form, stood at the foot of my bed, peering down at me. I turned away, the vision too disturbing. When I opened my eyes, he was gone. I whispered what I saw to Doucette, clutching her thin hand in mine. She said, ‘Nothing, it is nothing, you had the cauchemar, it is so natural, you dream that is all, don’t give it another thought.’ She must take me for a fool: she changed her story, I know she did. ‘Ah, of course, I understand what you talk about—it was the priest you must have seen. He brought you the wafer this morning after Maria brought your tray, but you were sleeping so I sent him away.’ The phantom haunts me still.

“
Dinner in two minutes,” Umbrello reminded them. “We’re missing a footman, remember, and I’ve got to be on time to see to the wine.”

Rosa looked at Umbrello. “Was there a priest who visited the baroness?”

“Not every day, but the curate came from time to time to bring her the Host,” he said. “Perhaps he was the ‘shadowy form’?’”

“Can you describe him?”

Umbrello shrugged. “A slight man. Saw him once or twice. I’m not at church that much. Used to go with my wife, but no more …”

“Would he have used the main stairs?”

“Of course,” Umbrello said. “And the footman would have accompanied him.”

Serafina turned the page and began to read again while Rosa and Umbrello looked through the other two boxes, finishing what they could, combing through the nightstand, lifting the rug, the cushions of the stuffed chair in the corner, but finding nothing more.

Serafina sat in the chair, Rosa and Umbrello by her side. “The time?” she asked, thumbing through the book.

“We must go,” Rosa said, extending a helping hand and waving her fingers close to Serafina’s nose. “Everything the way we found it?” she asked, reaching for Serafina’s arm and attempting to pull her out of the chair.

“Wait!” Serafina said.

“No time!”

“I’ve just thought of something.”

Rosa smacked her forehead and looked at Umbrello. “She’s like this.”

“Why would the housekeeper lock the trunk if she hadn’t packed it?”

Umbrello nodded, smiling at Rosa. “She has a point.”

“Turn it on its end,” Serafina said.

“No time, Fina,” Rosa said.

“Not if you keep interrupting.”

Umbrello grabbed the handle at one end, standing the trunk upright. Serafina peered at the bottom, felt it with her hand, shrugged. “I can feel nothing. Put it down.” She flashed a look at Rosa. “I mean,
please
put it down.”

Serafina knelt beside the trunk and felt the front of it, the sides. Nothing.

Umbrello straightened. “Let’s go before we’re late. I have an idea, I’ll tell you on the way.”

Dinner with the
B
aron

A
s they descended, Umbrello told them that he’d have the footman fetch the trunk from Doucette early the next day before she left her room; they’d carry it down to the kitchen, and prior to loading it in the rumble, they’d pick the lock and have a good look around. “Whatever she’s hiding will be tucked inside the lining.”

“Why not tell Geraldo tonight about what we’ve found in her room?” Rosa asked. “He’ll make sure we search her trunk tonight.”

Serafina shook her head. “Because I’ve had enough of his tantrums. They make him too difficult to handle, and we’re running out of time. Remember how he reacted to a search of Doucette’s room?”

Rosa nodded. “He’s unwilling to hear ill of the housekeeper. But, I suppose, he remembers her loyalty to the baroness.”

They stopped in the atrium while Serafina considered a moment. “Before you leave us, a question,” Serafina said to Umbrello. “Who takes Doucette to Prizzi tomorrow?”

“The baron’s driver. Knows the way by heart.”

“I have enough to question her tonight,” Serafina said. “I can’t wait for whatever we find in her trunk tomorrow.”

Serafina paused again before opening the door. “When does she leave for France?”

“Next Saturday, she takes a boat from Palermo bound for Marseille. Her brother meets her there.”

“But won’t the killer get rid of her before then, the same way he did the footman?” Rosa asked. “And if she tells him what you know, won’t he try to kill you, too?”

“He already has,” Serafina said, rubbing her hands which had become quite cold. “He’ll try again, and since you are with me, he’ll try to kill you, too.”

Dinner was a desultory affair of steamed fish, spinach, and urchins of the sea, the abstinence from meat unbroken because the baroness, when she was alive, would not hear of it. “Too close to holy week for her,” the baron had said.

Three maids served the meal. Umbrello helped the footman with the wine. The baron was most gracious to the housekeeper. In fact, Serafina thought he might have overplayed it a bit, kissing Doucette’s hand and searching her eyes before helping her to her seat.

While she ate, Serafina reached into her pocket several times and traced the outlines of the journal with her fingertips—not the discovery she’d hoped it would be, not yet, at any rate, but enough to confront the housekeeper tonight. Although she tried to engage in the banter around the table, her mind fixed on the shadowy figure described by the baroness. Did this murky cleric exist or was he merely the fantasy of an ailing woman? Undoubtedly, Lady Caterina was persuaded, sick as she was and therefore easy to mold, into seeing life as Doucette would have it, since the housekeeper, then her lady’s maid, was the center of her universe. The entry was Serafina’s first glimmer that the baroness suspected someone was trying to harm her, and the twice-stolen journal, found in the housekeeper’s possession, was the proof Serafina needed that Doucette had a large role to play in the baroness’s death. Were there more journals hidden in her trunk and did they hold information that would shed real light on Lady Caterina’s killer? She stared at the woman sitting across from her, a French fortress, wishing she, Serafina, had the skills of a master burglar with the ability to pick the lock of the housekeeper’s mind just by looking at her, ferreting around inside her head, plucking out objects, and holding them up as evidence of her complicity in murder.

While she and Rosa concentrated on getting through the meal, Loffredo and the baron did most of the talking, plying the housekeeper with questions about Paris, asking her what she thought of the Emperor’s feud with the Kaiser, issues in which neither she nor Rosa were interested but which intrigued and flattered the housekeeper. Indeed, Doucette’s cheeks were flushed, no doubt from all the attention, and she seemed more animated than Serafina remembered, but perhaps it was the wine.

The conversation sidestepped Naldo, who ate without entering into the discussion or looking at the others seated at the table. Earlier, when introduced to Loffredo, he shook hands with him briefly, did not once engage him or his other guests in conversation, other than to gaze with his flat eyes at Serafina a few times, looking through rather than at her. As soon as she returned his attention, he looked away. For the duration of the meal, Naldo seemed preoccupied and kept his head down, cutting his food into small pieces like a child. When Loffredo asked him about his travels, Paris in particular, he said, “I’ve not been,” and continued placing tiny squares of food into his mouth. The moment was an awkward one, and Loffredo risked a look at Serafina. For his part, the baron, seated at the opposite end of the table, took no notice of his son’s behavior.

“It is the painting and the culture, the learning, the vibrancy of the city that interest me,” Loffredo was saying. “Many of my surgeon friends studied there, and my wife is mesmerized by the city. She will never return, I fear.”

There was a silence after his announcement. Even the baron knew enough not to ask a question.

Doucette said, “Baron Haussmann’s renovation was good for France, of course, a Paris made more beautiful, but it was carried out on the backs of the people. Some of us, you see, paid a steep price. We lost our home.”

Loffredo set down his fork and knife. “Yes, I read of such horrors. How terrible for you!”

“Your house had been in your family for generations, I believe you told me,” Serafina said.

“A terrible loss for you,” Rosa said. She pressed a linen to her mouth.

“Oh, we were promised a pittance, but it has been more than ten years and still we have not seen compensation. It broke my mother’s heart, and she died shortly afterward. Her death was why I agreed to return here with Lady Caterina.”

The baron shoved a large forkful of food into his mouth, his eyes twinkling in Doucette’s direction. “Well, I for one, hope there is a war,” he said, chewing. “That will force the French to withdraw their troops protecting the papal states, and we’ll just see what Garibaldi does with that.”

Another revealing moment. The baron had no expression of sympathy for Doucette, her loss eluding him. But perhaps it was because she was, after all, only a housekeeper, given the special privilege of dining with them on this, her last evening in his employ, but not accorded the fullness of humanity by acknowledging her right to feel, to have opinions, to suffer. And forget expecting a response from the son who sat out the meal playing with his food. Whatever, the question still remained in Serafina’s mind: were father and son successful in business in spite of or because of their lack of sentiment? Or were they playing a complicated, deadly game of charades?

Serafina sipped her wine, declining to join in the rest of the conversation. Instead, she held her emotions in check, concentrating on all that had to happen before they could depart tomorrow, from time to time watching Rosa, who kept her eyes fixed on her plate, taking disinterested stabs at the steamed fish.

When the meal finished with coffee but without the customary dessert or port, Rosa frowned.

On their way out of the dining room, Lina motioned to Serafina.

“I just want to thank you, ma’am,” she whispered. “The butler sent for my brother, and they’re changing the locks this evening. He said they couldn’t do the whole job, but they’d finish the servants’ quarters and the guest rooms tonight, definitely they would. Makes us feel so much safer.”

Serafina smiled. “If you hear anything that you think we ought to know, no matter how trivial, please tell me.”

Rosa interrupted, catching hold of Serafina’s sleeve. “We’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”