Il Pane Della Vita (38 page)

“Mr. Neri, sitting at the far table, might disagree. He runs this
eremo
like a tight ship.”

“Actually
doing the jobs doesn’t need so much technology,” said the nun. “Brother Pozza and Brother Alonzo do very well communicating through Ignazio. Maybe they will need to hike up and down the hill a bit more, but they can handle most things.”

“Hopefully the telephone company will still help us,” said the abbot. “We do count on the telephone.”

“What about security?” asked Morena. “I know a startup out of Firenze that might be able to help you. You could hire locals as doormen. Perhaps you feel you don’t need them now.”

“Heavens, we have faith, Chief Detective, but in today’s world that might not be enough. God helps those who help themselves. I’m sure the
eremiti
would feel more comfortable if they knew someone was keeping an eye out for intruders—especially during tourist season.”

Nico approached and put his hand on hi
s wife’s shoulder. “I think Gina might have an announcement for you at this table,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m not drinking wine or beer for a reason.

Nico stood and tapped his wine glass and waited for everyone to quiet down. “Gina and I are expecting our first child in advent.”

The nun could barely hide her excitement. “
Brother Pietro would have been so pleased,” she said.

“My father was so sorry for all the problems he caused his family. But I’m here and I’m happy. I hope he knew that he didn’t
destroy my life.”

Sister Angela rose early and ventured downstairs for breakfast. She served herself
coffee as she did on the first morning there. How long ago it seemed to her now. How nervous she was that first morning eating breakfast with a room full of men, fearing she would make a faux pas and lose credibility. But she didn’t. The monks proved to be more curious than judgmental.

Seated at one of the breakfast tables, t
he monk next to her passed her the basket of rolls. There was only one left. It was up to her to get up and refill the basket from the serving table before passing it to the next monk. And she did. These were Nico’s rolls. She had already memorized the taste, the texture, the aroma when they were heated. She hoped there was something left on the table so she could wrap it up and take it with her to savor in the car.

“Sister Angela, can I help you bring your luggage down to the foyer?” asked Brother Pascal.

“Yes, let me go with you so we can do everything in one trip.”

The two mounted the stairs
, and Sister Angela pushed open the door.

“That’s my case
,” she said. “I went through the bedroom and bathroom several times already. I’ll carry the pile on the couch. I can’t believe how many little things one collects in only a few weeks.”

When they got to the bottom of the stairs, she was met by Father Rafaello, Brother Salvatore, and Ugo Belmonte, who took her bag to place in the trunk
black BMW.

“It’s a good thing you
’re making sure I leave. I was beginning to think this was my home. It gets harder to leave the longer I stay.”

The abbot took her hands. “Sister, it has been a pleasure. We would love you to stay, but Father Sergio has phone
d us daily to remind us you are expected in Montriano. They must miss you indeed.”

“Yes, I suppose so. I miss them too.”

“We’re grateful for the help you have given us. Although a miracle would have been nice, it wouldn’t be a miracle if it happened all the time.”

“I received an email just this morning, Father. Brother Bruno has confessed. He said his goal was to murder Brother Pietro for the priest’s past sins, including his treatment of Ciana and Regina. I can’t help but believe that his firing at Busto Sistemi played a good part in that too.”

“He didn’t plan to blow up the
eremita
, then.”

“I think he did, but when he saw Gina with her father, he thought he might let the hermit know why he was dying—make him suffer a bit more.
So he devised a plan to make the explosion look like some kind of ascension. It did get more attention, and it was taking a chance because a simple death by explosion could have been construed as an accident. Did Brother Bruno’s ego play a part? Probably. He seemed to be fighting for attention when he was fired by Russo. He approached Fabri himself and got another position closer to the family. He tried, though Gina seemed to minimize his advances to woo Regina Vicari when she was but seventeen and he was over forty. Most people would have moved on, but Brother Bruno, Rocco DePollo, tried to discredit Dante Russo the whole time.”

“You really did learn much more than we did during the investigation, Sister,” said Brother Salvatore. “
In the future, Father Sergio should make you be the detective for all miracles the diocese wants investigated.”

The nun laughed. “What would they call me?”

“How about the ‘demiraculizer?’”

“Wait a minute. I don’t think
His Holiness would hire me if he didn’t think I could prove a miracle. And what about you, Brother Salvatore? I have a gift for you.”

Brother Salvatore
blushed.

“I give you my red-striped bag. It is full of mystery books I found at the bookstore in Avalle.”

“I’ll carry this with me in all investigations that I work on.”

“And you’ll tell me when someone approaches you t
o take part in an investigation,” said Father Rafaello. “Brother Alonzo still wants you to work in the kitchen.”

“I
also give this badge to you. I’m not the one who will be helping the police. You are, and you’ve earned this.”

“I’ll attach this
to the sleeve of my habit, if it’s not too heavy. It’ll remind everyone that they have to stay on the right path.”

Sister Angela hugged him and wished him luck with his career. Then she turned around to find all the brothers there to say goodbye.

Brother Alonzo handed her a bag of rolls. “Nico wanted you to have some stock so you can share them with the nuns at your school. I think he’s trying to expand his business.”

“I want him to expand
it to Montriano. I’ll make an effort
not
to hide them in my room.”

“Sister, are you ready?” asked Belmonte. “I have a passenger waiting for me on the other end.”

“Of course, Ugo. I don’t want to make you late.” Tears filling her eyes, she waddled down the steps of the portico. She dared not look back for fear they would see her lose control.

Belmon
te held open the back-seat door and let her get in. She blew her nose and finally turned to wave to the gathering on the step.
The miracle isn’t about a man, launching himself into heaven. It is about friendship, devotion, and creating heaven on earth.

Belmonte drove the car through the gate. “Hold on, Sister.
In just a few seconds, we’ll hit the first curve.”

Take
a quick look at the first book in the Sister Angela Mystery series:

L’Oro Verde

Struggling up the side of the hill, Bernardo glanced over his shoulder to see who shadowed him. He could almost hear the raspy pant below but still could not make out his pursuer. Gulping for air, he paused to listen again. The wheezing stopped, but it started again as soon as he began to climb. He checked his watch—nearly two in the morning. Bernardo knew he was being stalked. He needed a place to hide and away to escape. But his mind raced, and he could not think clearly. Who was after him? How much time did he have? Would the stalker kill him? The former altar boy was not afraid to die. He had a strong faith and believed he would be with God after death. He did not feel bad for or think of himself. He thought of those who loved him and regretted the pain they would endure if he did not return. The light from the three-quarter moon shimmered as the sultry heat of summer condensed over the grassy fields and curvy rows of grapevines. But Bernardo did not look up until he got to the top of the hill. Before him, his hometown of Montriano unfolded over the crest. The ancient walls that once protected it on all sides had crumbled and were replaced by flowering thickets for shade with benches so visitors could look out over rows of grapevines, splashes of olive trees, and undulating mist shrouding the farmhouses and fields.

Slowing to catch his breath, he stopped to stare at the deserted streets, slithering like snakes down the hill and disappearing into the blackness of the village. He should consider his flight, which way he planned to go. The road to the right would take him to his parents’ house where his father could protect him. The center one meandered down to his church, San Benedetto. The stocky spire of the parish church barely peeked over the nearby rooftops and was not as high as the town’s two towers. He imagined himself standing in the steeple and ringing the bell, summoning help to keep the stalker at bay. The street to the left led to the medieval towers, Polini and Grossa.

Bernardo spun around until he could see the Milky Way in the starry sky above the towers. He knew the spot well since he often went there on summer evenings to study the heavens.

One night months ago as he carefully identified the constellations, moonbeams spilled across his hand and forearm. It reminded him of a high school art lesson on Leonardo da Vinci’s use of moonlight in a famous painting. Bernardo owned a copy of it—
Leda and the Swan
. He kept it under his bed and pulled it out often to marvel at its beauty. He would run his fingers down Leda’s thigh, imagining what it would be like to feel a real woman, warm and soft. The boy never figured out what the moon and the stars had to do with the light in the painting. He never understood the lesson.

At school conferences, his teachers told his parents he was slow, assuring them, however, that his handicap was surely temporary. Most of them said he would catch up with the other students soon enough. But Bernardo was already well past twenty, and he never caught up. Would he need to go back to school to catch up? He no longer wanted to learn Da Vinci’s secret of the moonlight. He could make out the constellations and a galaxy as well from the steps of
Polini Tower. He saw it all for himself and that was enough.

A dog barking in a distant field brought Bernardo back to the chase. He must find a place to hide soon or be captured. Gazing past the Montriano skyline, he raised his hands to the heavens, brown on black. He scrutinized the darkness and wondered if he wanted to keep running. There were few lights, but the plastered brick facades of the ancient structures within the walled village held the glow of dusk. Which of the three roads should he take?

He decided to go right to see if his parents were still up. Edging deeper into the shadows of the walls and buildings, he scampered down the twisty road. But when he got to his parents’ house, the gate was locked. Pulling away from the building, he looked up. The windows were shuttered. When he lived with them, his father, Giuseppe, explained that parents need their sleep and that he should not wake them unless it was important. Was this important? A dog barked two yards over and lights went on in that house, but his parents’ house remained dark.

Bernardo glanced up the road and was relieved that it was still deserted. Spinning around, he followed this street until it curled to the left, leading back into the center of town and the small piazza in front of San Benedetto Church. Pausing at the main road, he waited, listened and peered intently in all directions before quickly moving on.

The thirteenth century Romanesque-style church had been written up in a brochure for tourists. Bernardo taped the picture that appeared there to the mirror in his bedroom so he could look at it every morning before he went to school. The outside of the church was unadorned; the front had a single door. It was arched but somewhat narrow, not grand like that of San Francesco Church farther down the hill. The interior, however, was beautiful. Chevron-patterned terracotta tiles decorated the floors, and dark beams crisscrossed overhead. High stained-glass windows tinted the rays of afternoon sun. Frescos graced the walls, but not so many as in San Francesco. Bernardo memorized the Biblical stories told in each one, but though famous artists painted them, he could not remember their names. Perched above the high altar, a beautiful Madonna, painted in the fifteenth century, looked down over all the parishioners. Bernardo knew she was there to protect them. He prayed to her often, asking her to care for his parents. Then he asked her to perform a miracle and heal the brain injuries that made him forget things and misunderstand them. The front door would be locked but Bernardo knew where he could get in. Veering right at the steps, he circled the building and turned left into a dark alleyway across from the rectory. Scaling a wall and dropping into the bushes behind a bench in the priest’s contemplative garden, he followed the stone walk to the sacristy and let himself in.

The sacristy was always open. Rumor had it that Father Augustus broke the lock when he came in from the wine festival one night. Bernardo smiled to himself. Father Augustus now lived in a retirement cottage in Petraggio. Last he heard, the old priest was still drinking his favorite whiskey, a habit he had picked up in seminary. No one ever bothered to fix the lock because the wall and a locked gate protected it.

In the sacristy, Bernardo sat down and fingered the phone. He could call for help, but he did not want to wake anyone. Maybe he could rest here for a while and dial someone in the morning. Sitting back, he thought about one service in particular where he saw the old priest drunk. On Via San Lorenzo, old Valentino Rinaldi was dying. At eleven the night before, his daughter, Elena, called Father Augustus at the residence asking him to come to perform last rites.

Unfortunately for the priest, it was a slow death.
Rinaldi’s lungs sputtered and wheezed as the man made a last effort to hold onto his spirit. Elena was afraid and did not want the priest to leave. She asked that he delay last rites until the end and offered Father Augustus red table wine. Chianti was not one of the priest’s favorites, and it would take more wine than whiskey to gain the effect. Father Augustus was tired though and would need strength to administer the final sacrament. He probably promised himself that he would sip small doses so it did not disturb his blessing. Old Valentino finally made his exit at four, and in the last minutes, Father Augustus offered the final sacrament—with a flourish, it was said. But it was then Sunday morning, and the priest needed to preside at the ten o’clock mass. Bernardo assisted. The priest made it through the sermon with few slurs, or so it seemed to Bernardo who rarely listened to the whole sermon anyway. But in the middle of the blessing of the Eucharist, the sanctuary and nave of San Benedetto fell silent.

Father Augustus had bowed down to place a piece of bread into his mouth and never came back up. Bernardo, his heart beating wildly and his hands still clasped tightly together, pretended to take his hushed prayers closer to the altar. The priest’s cheek was slumped against the paten, his pursed lips dotted with crumbs, his eyes closed. Bernardo’s heart sank. Aware somewhere deep down that the show must go on, Bernardo grasped the chalice of Christ’s blood, raised it high in the air, and then drank the sweet wine. When he brought the cup down with a thud against the altar, Father Augustus started. Bernardo pointed to the next prayer, and the mass continued without further interruption.

Bernardo was so deep in thought he almost did not hear the noise. There it was again—the swoosh
and crackle of bushes in the garden. Not even thinking of the phone, Bernardo moved toward the nave door. The white albs that hung along the wall glowed in the moonlight, and he fingered them tenderly. For a split second, he wondered if his was still there and had the urge to pull it over his head one more time. Perhaps the Lord would recognize him and spare him as the senior altar boy who faithfully assisted at all those masses. Until just a few years ago, he carried the processional cross up the long center aisle and sometimes swung the censer. Clouds of incense pulsed from the openings, making him want to sneeze, but he did not, recognizing how important it was to keep the censer steady. He often held the paten for Father Augustus during communion because even then the old priest’s hand shook uncontrollably.

But Bernardo had to get out of there now. What was wrong with him? Why could he not keep his mind on his task? Turning around, his hand found the knob on the nave entrance. He twisted it to the right and then quickly to the left. It had a funny catch that no one bothered to fix. The only people who used it knew you had to manipulate the knob to open the door.

Bernardo slipped into the dark church where he paused to let his eyes adjust, but he did not really need to. He knew the layout by heart. A foot to his right, his eyes settled on the offertory candles, all of which had flickered out. The smell of hot wax and incense was overpowered by the musty stones and decomposed humanity that inhabited the pews over centuries. Bernardo loved that smell—the scent of his ancestors held aloft in the damp air that mingled with the smoky prayer emanating from the candles. He lingered to inhale the memory, but hearing the squeak of the sacristy’s outer door, he did not wait there long.

“He’s coming,” he whispered to the figure on the crucifix.

Turning his back to the altar, he gazed down the long aisle, racking his slow and unreliable brain for a place to hide. Then it came to him. He remembered a small crawl space behind the vault of Giovanni Cardinal Bartoli who oversaw the diocese in the 1400s. A sleeping body, carved in granite, lay sprawled over the stone lid. When he was nine, Bernardo once watched in horror as his cousin, Tonino, and his friend, Piero, tried to pry open the lid to see if the body was still there. The cover would not budge because the top was far too heavy, but years later, Bernardo still dreamt about a shriveled corpse with yellowing teeth jumping out at him.

A marble statue of St. Francis of Assisi stood over the tomb, his arms outstretched, his fingers that once supported a bird, broken off long ago. Bernardo knew the story of the saint’s life and felt protected by him. When praying, he would often run his fingers over the smooth folds of the robe, feeling uncomfortable because he had heard a preserved piece of the saint’s vestment was actually rough and worn.

He knew he would be safe, having hidden here before. Tonino once tried to find him in the church and could not. He could see Tonino, though, observing him through a tiny hole and trying not to laugh when his cousin scratched his head. With his cheek against the floor, Bernardo could make out the sanctuary and altar as if he were a mouse peering through its front door.

It did not take long for Bernardo to hear noises in the sacristy. The pursuer must have discovered the unlocked entrance. But the footsteps did not seem to come directly into the nave, making Bernardo breathe easier as the sound faded. Perhaps it was someone who worked in the parish, someone who had left the lights on downstairs or an altar lady arriving to press the
albs. But his relief did not last. The stomp
of footsteps began again. For the first time, Bernardo noticed the gait was somewhat uneven.

Thump-ka-thump. The steps got louder until he heard the familiar right-left rattle of the knob.

Thump-ka-thump.
He watched a figure cross the floor in front of the sanctuary, pausing to cross himself at the altar.

Bernardo wanted to cross himself too but could not extricate his right hand from the narrow space beside him. His breaths were short as he waited—waited for his pursuer to turn and try to find him.

The figure finally spun to face the pews, and Bernardo realized it had no face. The cowled visage topped a long coarse robe. Was he crippled? Why did he waddle and why did he hold his side?

More labored steps, and the shadow passed out of Bernardo’s line of sight.
Thump-ka-thump
, thump-ka-thump.
The steps got louder. And suddenly, they stopped. Drawn toward the victim like a magnet, feet suddenly appeared directly in front of the young man’s peephole.

Bernardo thought his heart had stopped. Screwing up his eyes, he examined the pair of shoes not a foot away. The rough fabric of the robe draped gracefully over the highly-polished shoe tops, and when the toes turned toward him, Bernardo watched the folds sweep eerily to readjust themselves.

Relieved, the boy slithered backward out of his hiding place. “Father, please forgive me. I have no place to go,” he whispered as he struggled to his feet.

Unable to distinguish the face in the hood’s shadow, Bernardo leaned forward for only a second before the blow came. A heavy object split his skull in the middle, giving him less than an instant to identify his assailant. But Bernardo was slow and would probably never have really recognized the face anyway.