Death In Bagheria (A Serafina Florio Mystery)

by Susan Russo Anderson

  They climbed the stairs again and walked around the landing to her room. Outside, Serafina stopped, pressing her ear to the door. “Do you hear anything?” she whispered.

  The madam shook her head. “Open it. Watch me rip him apart.”

  “And what if he has a weapon?”

  Rosa bit her lip.

  “Wait outside. Shout if you see someone, unless it’s the butler or Lina.” She turned the key and crept inside. Shadows from the furniture fell over the bed, but the room, it seemed, was empty, and once again, she admonished herself. Fear had made its inroads, and she must not let it hamper her movements or, worse, her thoughts. She stilled, breathing deeply, letting it pass, she thought, until the drapes sighed, and her heart leapt. Waiting for the pounding to lessen, she heard the sound of retreating footsteps in the hallway, grabbed her reticule off the back of the chair, checked its contents, and was about to bolt out of the room when this time, there was distinct movement behind one of the panels. A small bulge appeared and out popped Adriana, veiled and wearing a gown that was much too large for her small form, part of it tucked into a belt, but most of the hem trailing behind. Her lips were smeared with rouge, and she wobbled in women’s evening shoes, but as always, she wore an impish grin underneath golden curls.

  Serafina stared in disbelief. “Out, you little vixen.” The child was beginning to be a nuisance. Was she losing patience or was it age?

  “Where’s Ornetta?” Adriana asked and then pointed. Her face, which had been solemn, changed course. “There!”

  And Ornetta emerged from out of nowhere, grabbed Adriana, and disappeared round the corner with her.

  Serafina locked the door—for whatever it was worth—joined Rosa, and they descended.

  On the second floor, Serafina paused in front of the ballroom doors. “How much time do I have?”

  The madam sighed, consulted her watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Leave me. I’m safe here. No one will murder me in the ballroom. They’re conferring outside or about to take a dish of tea, and I think I’ve just seen my assailant ride off through the high grass.” She looked into Rosa’s eyes as she spoke, eyes she’d known all her life and could read so well, and saw that although the madam was not buying her story, her hooded, almost weary expression meant that her mind had already abandoned the skirmish and was no longer listening. “And I want to spend some time alone with my thoughts, or my mind will be in the ether during tea, and I know how you hate that. If I don’t appear within the quarter hour, send the servants for me. You won’t have trouble entertaining the baron, will you? Ask him to let you look through the glass, and see if you can decipher the writing on those crates.”

  Finally Rosa agreed, and Serafina watched her friend’s reluctant back disappear down the stairs.

  Amazed once again at the opulence of the ballroom, she listened to the creak of her steps across the parquet as she tried to step softly until she realized that it was once again fear that hampered her movements, so she strode across the floor, shoulders straight, head held high. Spreading the heavy drapes, she stepped onto the balcony.

  The wind bit her cheeks, but the dying light was quite lovely, violets and deep crimsons staining the sky and coloring the baron’s ship in the harbor. She heard the cry of the gulls, the mysterious lap of the tides. Looking at the scene, she noticed crates piled high on the wharf waiting to be loaded, the activity undiminished from this afternoon when she and Rosa saw the ship slowly chugging into port. Her eyes were busy trying to decipher the mysterious writing on the sides when she heard a man’s voice.

  “Fina?”

  She turned at the sound of her name, squinted, but could see nothing, the interior made dark in contrast to the light outside.

  “Is that you?” he asked.

  Was it the wind?

  Again she heard someone call her name. Could it be Loffredo’s voice? She dashed the possibility, thrusting it far from her spirit, having been duped once by a mirage, knowing it for what it was, the visitation of that same specter who haunted her yesterday afternoon. This time, though, she would not let her longing defraud her. Turning back to the harbor, she stared out and saw men binding the crates, horses tied to winches turning, lifting their load high off the ground and swinging it over the deck while workers lowered it into the hold. She felt a rush of air as someone moved toward her. Couldn’t be her roof assailant, could it? She felt a cold from within, her body tense, expecting another attack any minute. What perversity caused her to revisit the ballroom?

  All at once, she breathed in, smelled Loffredo’s cologne. Wild, this chimera, grappling for her reason. Whirling around, she stopped, watching the shadow approach, unable to move when he grabbed her.

  Grappling

  He pulled her to him.

  “I’ve missed you … so … very …”

  She felt the strength of him and squeezed with all her might lest the tears prickling her eyes spill down her cheeks.

  “How did—” But her words were swallowed by Loffredo’s lips, and she melted into the ocean of her desire, powerless to prevent its sweep.

  Presently, she murmured, “The baron will wonder where we’ve gone.”

  “To heaven.” He would not stop, but kissed her with a hunger and force she’d longed for ever since she could remember.

  “He’ll send his little men after us,” she said, unable to stop. If anything, her hunger surpassed his.

  “I know, but we have a weapon. I met Rosa on the stairs,” he murmured, burying his face between her breasts.

  “And?” She slid her hand inside his shirt, down, down.

  “Oh God. She told me where you were. She promised to entertain the baron.”

  “It lifts … the burden … she’s felt since …”

  Afterward, she pointed to the harbor. The dusk was deepening, lit by hundreds of torches as the work of loading cargo continued. As Loffredo stood behind her, his arms around her, their bodies tight together, she told him about the strange-looking crates. “I have a feeling it has something to do with the baroness’s death. I asked the baron what they contained, but he seemed not to know what I was talking about.”

  “Of course not.” He kissed the top of her head. “He sees nothing.”

  “But I’ve got Arcangelo snooping around.” She saw the alarm in his face. “Not to worry, he’s very smart, fast, and cautious.”

  On their way downstairs, she told him about what she’d found and lost, the important players. Glossing over her fear, she recounted her brush with an assailant, her conclusions concerning the stolen journals.

  “Have you given your final report to the baron?”

  “Not yet. I plan to do so now. The time? My watch pin was ruined in the fracas on the roof.”

  “We have five minutes,” he said. “But what you say to him won’t matter. He hears only what he wants to hear, and make no mistake, his conclusions will be his own, and most assuredly faulty. In the end, isn’t that the real reason the baroness died?”

  She marveled at his insight into the man and the reason for the baroness’s death; by admission, he hardly knew the family, yet his summary, on its deepest level, if bereft of detail, was flawless. “He’s the real danger in this house,” she said softly.

  “I shouldn’t have let you come here alone, and I won’t leave without you.”

  “That lets you off the hook: we depart tomorrow. It took you long enough to get here.” For a second she stood and breathed in and out, feeling the last of her fear escape.

  They walked together down the stairs and toward the baron’s study, so close that their thighs brushed, and Serafina felt the heat sear up her face.

  In the atrium, they stopped, and she pulled his sleeve and asked, “And how did you contrive your visit?”

  “When I realized Prizzi would
not please you,” he said, smiling and touching her cheek, “I paid a visit to Noce myself and asked him about Baroness Caterina’s illness. I told him that the daughter believed she was poisoned, that this resulted in an investigation, and that we needed to hear his summary of the case—Lady Caterina’s illness and cause of death—as soon as possible. He took a long time to reply. The doctor is a spent force, Fina. He reproached himself for his handling of the baroness’s illness. His inability to persuade the baron to consult the opinion of others haunts him to this day, he told me, but he begged helplessness in the face of the man’s obstinate denial of his wife’s misery and her history, he claimed, of dyspepsia. In the end, he admitted to the strong possibility that Lady Caterina’s symptoms, especially at the outset, may well have been caused by the ingestion of a toxic substance.”

  “Then why doesn’t he come here in person and tell the baron himself?”

  “Begging an overload of work due to an outbreak of typhoid in the area, he refused to accompany me.”

  “Coward.”

  “He’s written a summary report instead.”

  “But I thought you couldn’t get away for another week.”

  “One day without you seemed a year, and I rearranged my schedule.”

  Her heart leapt at his words, but her happiness was soon followed by a cold dose of reality. “And what will happen when Elena returns?”

  He made no reply, his face bleak as he opened the door to the baron’s study.

  Tea with the Baron

  The hall clock chimed as they entered the baron’s study, Serafina on Loffredo’s arm. Rosa smiled from a chair next to the tea service and close to the baron’s desk where she had been holding court. One manservant was turning up the gas jets on the far wall while another stoked the fire, its warmth ridding the room of its early evening chill.

  Frowning, the baron stepped away from the window where he had been surveying the loading of his ship, faced Serafina, legs apart, body stiff. He drew out his watch. “On time for tea, although I’ve spent half my afternoon waiting for you. I cannot understand why you disregarded my summons.” He folded his arms and straightened his shoulders, his face red.

  If he waited for her apology, it was in vain. She regarded him with studied calculation, making no reply.

  “Well, what have you to say for yourself? Don’t stand there like a stupid cow.”

  Loffredo straightened.

  Serafina motioned to him, made no reply.

  “You work for this family, you know, not the other way round. But I must admit, in your absence, I’ve been entertained by Count Loffredo, glad for the opportunity to be reacquainted, what say you to that, old fellow?”

  Loffredo nodded.

  “He tells me his wife vacations in France, has done for quite some time, so his knowledge of the country is first rate, first rate, and I’ve been more than compensated for your crass disregard of my summons.”

  She wondered what he and Loffredo spoke about, secure in their male camaraderie, with their port and tobacco. Oh, right, she could almost smell the maleness in the room while she labored on this case, drenched to the bone on the baron’s precious roof, almost strangled and thrown over the side as if she, spent and flattened by the ordeal with a wild creature, was worth nothing more than food for blow flies. She looked at Rosa, who signaled circumspection, the gesture as delicate and slight as she’d ever seen emanating from the fingers of the madam; saw Loffredo’s brow furrow. She tasted bile, felt the pain of throbbing temples, saw, on the edge of her vision, increasingly desperate signals from Rosa counseling calm.

  The obscenity of her attacker’s eyes shot across her inner vision but instead of tacking against the wind, she blazed over to where the baron stood, her nostrils flared and her body arched. “I had work to do for you so that I could deliver a detailed, thorough report to you today. And what I have to say to you now, together with the doctor’s report which Dr. Loffredo has given you, is damning, both to your inability to come to terms with the evil strutting about before your very nose and to the house you think is run so well.”

  The baron’s face purpled. “Get out!”

  “Not until you’ve heard what I have to say.” Her waving finger was close to his nose.

  He strode to the desk and rang the bell. “Damn you!”

  “Sir, I beg you—” Loffredo took a step toward them.

  The baron cut him off. “Then I’ll have you escorted to your room. I’d like you gone within the hour, the three of you.”

  “No, wait!” Rosa said.

  Loffredo cut in. “You hired Serafina to do a job, perhaps to prove your daughter wrong, but nonetheless you owe it to the memory of your sainted wife to listen to what she has to say. She’s the best sleuth in Sicily, be in no doubt of that, and you will treat her with the warmth and courtesy you are famous for extending to all your guests.”

  To Serafina’s surprise, the baron looked up at the portrait of his wife and back at Loffredo. He grunted and looked at his shoes.

  Grateful for Loffredo’s remarks and Rosa’s abiding support, Serafina let the silence in the room stretch outside to the hallway where a pendulum kept time. Somewhere on the grounds, a horse neighed, and in the distance, workers shouted to one another.

  After a long moment, the baron spoke, his tone subdued, his voice barely audible. “Go on.”

  Serafina continued. “I have no doubt that your wife, who left the world scores of her journals, was murdered here, her memory defaced by the long arm of her killers who have stolen her journals from my room—not once, but twice. You have failed in your attempt to find these diaries as you promised me you would, and yet you accuse me of not doing your bidding.”

  He furrowed his brows and rubbed his forehead.

  She glanced at Rosa, whose body resembled that of a bull stopped in mid-charge, at Loffredo, who stood straight and commanding, bathed in his admiration of her. She went on, this time in a more subdued voice. “I am very close to knowing who is behind your wife’s death, but I need more evidence in order to be certain beyond any doubt.”

  In the vacuum that followed, Rosa’s voice rang out. “We’re all forgetting something. Might I make a suggestion?”

  The baron, who seemed relieved at her interruption, smiled at the madam. “Of course, my dear. Please do.”

  Loffredo looked at Serafina, smiling and wiping his brow with a linen.

  “Let’s have the tea before it freezes and the cassata loses its flavor.”

  “Excellent idea,” he said, rubbing his palms together and moving with the affability of a practiced host, his anger forgotten. He invited them to sit in the love seat and chairs grouped around the hearth. Loffredo moved the tray in front of Rosa, who poured and cut the cassata, then sat next to Serafina after he passed around the cups.

  The tea was hot and strong. Biting into the cassata, Serafina realized how hungry she was, especially for Renata’s cuisine. For a long while, the group enjoyed their tea, the baron declaring that the cassata was one of the best he’d eaten, and Rosa added her praise.

  Serafina drank the last of her tea, declined another cup. “If I might, there are a few more things I’d like to say.

  The baron urged her to continue. “And please accept my apology for my earlier remarks.”

  She smiled. “Well, then, you won’t want to hear this; nonetheless, I must tell you. Rosa and I were caught in the storm, stranded on your roof when the doors to both staircases were locked behind us. Worse, there was a madman loose on your roof today, someone who tried to do me great harm.”

  The baron put down his cup and stared at her.

  “Had he been stronger and more cunning, he would have tossed me over the rail.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Short, wiry, clothed in black. He wore a bandana and on
e large gold earring.”

  The baron frowned. “One of della Trabia’s men, I believe. I know I’ve seen him on the grounds, but what the devil was he doing on my roof? His men are not allowed inside!”

  “But it was della Trabia who opened the door to the roof and rescued us.”

  The baron looked puzzled. “But what was della Trabia doing above the first floor?”

  “He said you asked him to look for us.”

  The baron paled and stared at the portrait of his wife. “Not true.” He seemed confused. Edging forward on the seat, he rested his chin in his hands and seemed lost in an inner landscape.

  Rosa glanced at Serafina, who fished out her notebook and wrote something. “And speaking of security, any of the servants may obtain keys to any of the rooms in this house. A change of locks and strict accounting of the keys would easily fix that.”

  He looked up at her, crossed his legs, and ran two fingers down the crease. “I’ll have my butler see to it at once. And may I add something that perhaps goes without saying—I am eternally grateful to you. May I call you Serafina?”

  “Only if I may call you Geraldo.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “The woman is nothing if not bold,” Rosa said and beamed at him.

  “And we should tell Umbrello about the attack on the roof.”

  “In fact, we should have invited him to tea,” Rosa said.

  Geraldo straightened his sash. “Not done here, my dear. A servant does not take tea with us.”

  “But he is so loyal and very bright, and we need his help.”

  Serafina and Loffredo nodded.

  “Lost his wife two years ago, poor man,” the baron said, shaking his head.” He hesitated. “Very well.” He got up to ring the bell. “And my son should know as well.”