by Joseph Grady
“I’m in.”
“Very good.” Cristiano smiled, stood up, left twenty euros on the table, and put his hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “I have to go, but you’ve got my number. I’ll be in touch soon. Call me if anything comes up.”
Lucy stayed, finished her beer and the half of a beer that Cristiano had left in his glass, and then used the change to order french fries and watch the Monday morning NFL report broadcast from America.
She was sure to wander out of the pub before any of the old regulars would show up. She wound her way back up to the Palazzo, thinking of Eugenio’s furniture, Cristiano’s ideas, and his hands turned upwards in vulnerability. Her dress shoes, the pints, and the day’s adventure made her walk in a much more lackadaisical and contemplative mood than normal. Coming down the dark hallway of the servants’ quarters, the irregular click of her shoes reverberated down the corridor. The light coming out from the kitchenette faintly illuminated the old prince’s hair and smile. She hurried to open her door before anyone could see her in dress clothes. Life had been much easier when she didn’t have to lock everything. She finally managed to insert the key, but no matter how hard she pushed, it wouldn’t turn to unlock. She tried turning it the other direction and felt the bolt slide into the wall. It had already been unlocked.
“Is that Lucy?” Andrew’s voice yelled from out of the kitchen. “Lucy is that you?”
She turned the bolt back to the unlocked position and slipped into her room just as Natasha’s head poked out into the hallway. “I think it was Lucy. Hey! Lucy, you’ve received a letter. Andrew’s brought it up from the mail room for you and he’s got it here in the kitchen.”
“Alright, I’ll be down in just a second,” she yelled back, before shutting the door behind her.
She was used to her room being messy, but what she found before her as she turned around was a new low. She reached straight for the pepper spray in her suit coat pocket (which she had started to carry everywhere on her person) and checked in the wardrobe and under the bed. Nobody was there.
All of her belongings had been completely turned inside out. All of the books, all of her clothes, everything. Absolutely nothing was in the place where she had left it, including all of the furniture. Whoever had conducted the search had been incredibly thorough. She scrubbed the blonde out of her eyebrows, changed her clothes, and walked down to the kitchenette. The important thing was to pretend that nothing had happened.
“Keep it cool, girl,” she whispered to herself as she walked down the hallway. “Friends close. Enemies closer. Sun Tzu… or the godfather… something like that.”
“Guess who’s got mail!” Andrew was sitting at the table facing the door, grinning and holding aloft a padded envelope for Lucy with both hands. Natasha was at the table too with an Italian grammar workbook, a verb conjugation chart, and a dictionary open before her. Lucy had a dislike for people who insisted on doing homework in public spaces.
“Oh, thanks.” She took the envelope. “I thought you said you were going to be down in Calabria today.”
“Yeah, I came back to Rome this afternoon.”
“What’s in the envelope?” Natasha asked.
“Just some things I ordered off Amazon.” Lucy should have just left it at that, but given the contents of the envelope she felt the need to lie. “Y’know, some hair clips, and stuff like that.”
“Oh neat!” Natasha dropped her pen and sat up. “Well let’s open them up and have a look.”
“Oh… I don’t know… maybe later,” she said, and then reached for the nearest subject change at hand. “So how’s the Italian going?”
“It’s alright, I guess. It’s coming along. We’re still learning sort of basic stuff. Andrew’s trying to help, but he doesn’t know anything about grammar.”
“My parents were both born here,” Andrew defended himself. “The only Italian I ever heard growing up was at home in Little Italy in Sydney. It was way different from what she’s got written in these books. If either of you would ever like to know anything about real Italian, though, I’m always happy to explain it all. Or you should just come down south with me some time, where they speak the real thing.”
“Like I said, don’t listen to Andrew,” said Lucy. “He only speaks Calabrian dialect, and a few words in Italian. It’s enough for him to get by, but it’s always embarrassing to go out with him anywhere. Everybody thinks he’s some kind of back country redneck or something. Don’t listen too much to him, you’ll just pick up bad habits.”
“Well, what can you tell me about the subjunctive mood?” asked Natasha.
“I don’t go near the subjunctive and the subjunctive doesn’t come near me.” Lucy backed out of the room. “Just keep talking to the residents. After a year you’ll be up to speed. You guys take it easy.”
“Ciao.”
Back in her room with the door closed, she picked up the office chair from its side, and set it back on its wheels. She sat down, opened the envelope and arranged a new set of lock picks on her desk, which, for the first time in three years, had been completely cleared off. She got out her phone and called the person who, as the alphabet would have it, had recently been moved down from the second to the third person listed in her contacts, after Brian and Cristiano.
“Fox.”
“Scott, what’s up?”
“Just keeping it real at Wisconsin night.”
“Sounds awesome.”
“Don’t you dare insult my state.”
“Hey, so what are you up to Monday morning?”
“Um… why?”
“Is there any way you can get access to the tower for me and three Italian models?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PIOMBATO
On the next Monday morning at 6:55, Lucy left the servants’ quarters with two sheets of paper in her hands. She crumpled them both up, and left one of them in the doorway between the terrace and the roof access door, and the second in the door that led from the fifth floor hallway to the servants’ staircase. The main entrance is one of those heavy doors that usually closes itself by the force of its own weight after you let it go. But if you guide it back as it closes, it’s possible to catch it and leave it barely ajar, so that the door doesn’t lock back on itself automatically.
By the established 7:00am meeting time, she was constantly looking down at her watch and tapping her foot on the sidewalk out on Via del Gianicolo, one hundred yards down the street from the main entrance to Palazzo Mortimer, right in front of the North American College — Scott’s seminary residence. Three Italian models with arms full of camera equipment towered over her, making smalltalk in the air above her, and sometimes looking down to include Lucy in the conversation. Her business jacket had been spared the trash, and she was back in formal attire, this time with less fuss. For his part, Cristiano had to do a lot of convincing to get the models to dress in normal business attire. Sometimes, he insisted, investigative journalism involves not being noticed. But they had their real names and their real La Repubblica press credentials clipped onto their suit jackets.
Their point of access to the NAC didn’t show up through the front gate until 7:15, fifteen minutes after the established meeting time.
“Hey, what’s up?” He gave Lucy a side hug. “Sorry. We had some random bishop show up for mass this morning. Whenever it’s 6:15 in the morning, they always seem to think we’re interested in listening to a drawn out homily.”
“Sounds like you guys have it rough over here, don’t you?” She pointed at the plastic bag in his hand. “You probably had to make your own sack lunch this morning, didn’t you? … Oh wait, no… You’ve got someone to do that for you.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault if they don’t let us into the kitchen. And come on, it’s not like you guys have to cook for yourselves over at the Palazzo. Don’t talk to me about privilege. What’s this?” Scott took a step closer to her — using Italian standards of personal space — and took hold of the press credentials cli
pped onto the collar of her suit jacket. Her heart rate increased, and her breathing became slightly irregular. “Marianne Medlin,” he read, “Catholic News Agency… and a picture of Lucy Fox… why does this not surprise me? What are you guys up to?”
“I’ll tell you later. We’re late, though. Let’s get going.”
She introduced Scott to the three photographers and they went into the North American College. The Italians followed Scott through the gate to the campus and Lucy turned around to look at Cristiano who was stationed at the bus stop across the street. She nodded at him. He nodded back and set off walking towards Palazzo Mortimer.
Unlike Gambetti, the NAC porter was very thorough. He wanted to know who they were and what they were doing there. Any building with “American” written on it in Rome has to be very careful to filter out thieves and operators. Scott had to vouch for them, and say they were his personal guests, conducting interviews on behalf of the Diocese of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Once inside the grounds, the first thing that strikes any visitor is the size of the NAC. Compared to the other buildings nearby, it’s big – designed by a 1950’s post fascist architect to look big. That’s not to say it’s ugly, like most other buildings of the era. It has its own strange sense of austere beauty. Cozy, no, but not ugly. It’s not home, but it’s much. Scott used his key card to let them into a heavy steel side door. The group descended a series of staircases to a basement level with lots of piping on the ceilings.
“Okay, so pay attention,” said Scott. “You wanna get from here to the top of the tower. Right now we’re in the negative two level. You’re gonna walk about a hundred yards down this hallway, then take a right. Just before that hallway ends you’ll see an elevator on your left. Don’t take it. Keep going until you see a hallway with a flight of steps. Go up the steps to the negative one level, where you’ll see two elevators. You want to take the elevator on the right, because the one on the left doesn’t go to the seventh floor. So take the one on the right up to the top. Then take two rights once you’re out of the elevator to another steel door to get onto the old roof terrace. Walk to the end, and take the steel staircase up to the terrace of the tower, and another spiral staircase to get up to the roof. You got it?”
“Got it.”
“Alright, good luck. I got to get some eggs at the Palazzo before class. If anyone asks you what you’re doing here, just say you’re with CNA or the Diocese of Oshkosh or something like that.”
Scott said his goodbyes and left them to navigate the basement, the staircases, the elevators, and terraces without his help. Whenever Lucy had been a guest at the NAC – Thanksgiving and other occasions – Scott or other people had always been there to show her around the main levels. The deep basement hallways full of machinery and storage, lined with tubes carrying in American air conditioning and pipes carrying out clerical waste water, and the terraced rooftops with dizzying views were a whole different story without any help from a resident guide. The group was immediately lost. It took them a good twenty minutes to reach the top of the tower.
Climbing up one of the last set of steps, walking slowly because of a difficult tripod, one of the models asked her, “Allora, Lucy, ci spieghi che cos’è che facciamo qua sopra? Cristiano non ci ha detto niente.”133
“Eh ... sì ... guarda, il concetto è abbastanza semplice. Noi, da qui sopra, possiam vedere la terrazza di Palazzo Mortimer là sotto.”134
“Okay”135
“Abbiamo ragioni per credere che l’assassino è una che lì ci abita.”136
“Ma non ci abiti lì anche tu?”137
“Sì.”138
“Allora, che cosa facciamo qui?”139
“Cristiano è l’unico che sta in giro ad investigare l’omicidio, ed è stato l’unico che sta pubblicando qualche articolo su ciò che è successo a Eugenio tre settimane fa. Tendenzialmente, assumiamo che l’assassina seguirà gli articoli pubblicati da Cristiano. Allora, Cristiano si metterà a sedere sulla terrazza di Palazzo Mortimer. L’assassina saprà chi è Cristiano. E allora, noi possiamo essere sicuro che colui ... anzi colei ... che lo riconosce è l’assassina. Capito?”140
“Sì ... e noi, che fammo?”141
“Noi ci mettiamo qua sopra a filmare l’incontro fra Cristiano e l’assassina. Vogliamo vedere le reazioni di ognuno degli studenti quando escono dalla caserma degli studenti alla terrazza e vedono Cristiano là seduto. Lui avrà con sé un registratore di audio, quindi, dopo, possiamo mettere insieme l’audio con le nostre riprese videografici. La persona che ha una reazione quando vede Cristiano è anche l’assassina. Capito?”142
“Eh ... sì ... ma non sarà pericoloso?”143
“Io ho detto la stessa cosa a Cristiano l’altro giorno quando abbiamo parlato del piano, ma lui ha insistito. E alla fine ... dai ... se l’assassina è colei che pensiamo ... non penso che ci sarà tanto pericolo per lui.”144
All four of them were out of breath by the time they summited the tower, and were greeted by an unprecedentedly beautiful view of Rome from above – even better than Palazzo Mortimer’s terrace. They say that the NAC has the second best view of Rome, after the viewing deck on top of the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica. However, there are then some who claim that the NAC has the best view, because you can’t see St. Peter’s basilica from the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica. Then of course, there are further still who say, therefore, that the NAC’s view is inferior to St. Peter’s, because from the NAC you can’t see the NAC, but from St. Peter’s you can.
“Bastardi seminaristi” Lucy whispered under her breath to herself, looking out over Rome. (Although, if you ask me, Lucy’s dislike of the place had little to do with jealousy of the physical conditions and more to do with the fact that most of the guys who lived there, at any given moment, seemed to be happier than her. But that’s another story.)
It was a beautiful and crisp fall morning. She was chilly with just a skirt, suit jacket and a scarf, but stimulated nonetheless about the prospects of doing real investigative journalism with a professional. They all stopped and admired the view in fresh morning silence for a few minutes, and then quickly got to work, setting up the tripods, and camera equipment and zooming into the Palazzo’s terrace.
“E quand’è che ci dovrebb’essere Cristiano sulla terrazza?” one of the models asked.145
“Ci dovrebbe essere già lì,” responded Lucy.146
“Non ci vedo nessuno.”147
Lucy looked into the camera, which was zoomed in and focused on the terrace of Palazzo Mortimer. She saw only me, standing at the railing, looking down at Andrew, who was hanging onto the side of the building at a fifth floor window sill. Below him, on the ground five floors further down, lay the body of Cristiano Ludovici.
I had been woken up in the storage room of the servants quarters a few minutes earlier by something that sounded like someone screaming outside. I rolled over and tried to ignore it, but eventually curiosity got the better of me. I came out into the hallways and heard just the normal morning banter of Brian, Scott, and Natasha coming from the kitchenette. Walking outside, there was no one there, but I heard the voices of people yelling from down below. So I walked to the railing of the terrace and looked down to see Andrew flailing to get himself into the open window, and Cristiano’s body with a few bystanders and doctors from the hospital all gathered around. They were all yelling and gesturing at each other in Italian, arguing about what to do with the body and with Andrew’s legs still hanging from the window.
The door to the servants’ quarters opened behind me, and all of the other students – Natasha, Scott, Brian, and even Fr. Damien – came out onto the terrace. Gambetti or somebody must have called from downstairs to tell them what had happened. Natasha glanced over the railing, then backed away, covered her mouth, turned pale, and stood there shivering. Brian stood at the railing with his mouth open, shaking his head, and looking out over the horizon. Scott started swearing to himself and pacing back and forth with his spatula still in hand. Fr. Da
mien signed himself with the cross, and went downstairs to bless the body. Andrew’s legs finally slipped into a fifth floor apartment.
I set out to sniff everything thoroughly. I should have done so before everyone else got there. The terrace had everyone’s smells on it. One chair smelled strongly of Cristiano, which must have been where he had taken a seat. I examined all the railings, and saw that they were all normal, except for the ground in front of the spot where Cristiano must have gone over. There were a few fresh black scuff marks on the floor from the bottoms of somebody’s shoes. There must have been some sort of confrontation before he went over the edge – or rather, before he was thrown over the edge.
Up on the tower it took them a little longer to piece together what had happened. From their angle through the cameras, they couldn’t see the place where the body was. They only saw Andrew climbing into the window and all of the student residents filing out onto the terrace, looking frightened at the ground, and then sirens as police cars rushed to the scene. Lucy got out her phone, called Brian, and looked at him through the zoom viewfinder of the models’ camera.
Brian had started to pace back and forth with Scott on the other side of the terrace. He took his phone out of his pocket, and answered, “Lucy, where are you?”
“Turn around.”
He turned around. “Okay?”
“Now look up at the new tower, over at the NAC.”
She waved.
“Are you that speck of a person way up there waving your arm?”
“Yep.”
“What are you doing up there?”
“Um ... I don’t know ... I guess you could call it investigative journalism.”
“Lucy, what the hell is going on?” his voice was very severe.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m calling you. What’s going on?”
“Can you see the ground in front of the Palazzo from up there?”