He had also found family tragedies in both the Scortini and Verona households. Ships lost carrying branches of one or the other, plane crashes, boat accidents. Then there was the recent strange case of Salvio’s parents, Gelsonima and Salvatore. While on their way back from a festival this past summer, a power line near an old bridge collapsed into their gondola, electrocuting them instantly. Hiero used a magnifying glass to examine the photo of a well-dressed couple laying sideways in a gondola festooned with flowers and ribbons, their gondolier bobbing face down in the water next to a bridge so covered with moss it glowed an outrageous emerald color, a verdant pastoral backdrop to the death amidst masses of flowers.
The couple appeared to have dressed for their own funeral. Salvatore was in a smart black suit with a yellow flower in his lapel, and Gelsonima was in full-length crinolines looking like a stout ballerina who’d collapsed in her black tutu. She was holding a bouquet with one hand and Salvatore’s hand with the other. Visible on his hand was a big gold ring which Hiero knew to be the Scortini family symbols, a horse and boat. While other Venetian family crests had boats, none had horses. Hiero reasoned it was because the beasts were too wide to move easily through the narrow calles alongside pedestrians, and the danger of the horse slipping off a slick fondamenta into the drink would be constant.
He closed the file and Salvio’s dead parents disappeared. Their deaths last summer had left the Venetian builders in turmoil because Salvatore had been their powerful benefactor and generous de facto ruler. He was the glue that held the Venetian builders together in a trial against the most ruthless Mafioso out of Sicily, don Giancarlo Petrosino. Then just after the jury was empaneled, Salvatore was dead and Salvio was the sole surviving Scortini until someone shot him. Bang, end of the family line. Hiero surmised Salvio had been rejected by the brotherhood of builders because he was a greedy, pompous asshole. The pope had certainly never considered putting him in charge of the Vatican’s sweeping re-gentrification of Verdu Mer, and instead had tapped Count Gabrieli Verona to helm the project.
Hiero opened a file on the Verona family. Juliette was their weak link. After repeated miscarriages late in pregnancy and a stillborn son, Vincenzo survived a grueling labor and was the last living Verona until he’d gotten his wife, Giselle, pregnant. Intelligence reports had no idea of her current location. Recently her traveling companion was Markus Shevchenko, a Ukrainian national, and she’d frequently been seen with an old couple, Ivar and Yvania Czerney. Ivar had just been in Rome for Gabrieli’s funeral, but Yvania’s whereabouts were unknown. She’d been celebrated earlier in the fall after conking Salvio on the head during his first rampage. Papers had uncovered her background as Chechen. Interesting.
CHAPTER
4
Raphielli woke to the rumble of thunder. The storms that had been rolling through Venice for over a month showed no sign of letting up. She was tucked against Alphonso, his arm cradling her head. He lay on his back, as serene as the men she’d seen sunbathing on travel posters for the Italian Riviera. Last night had ended with him making passionate love to her. It was a release that left her relaxed and happy until she started comparing her two lovers. In the weeks since Salvio’s funeral, she’d been in Gio’s bed more than a few times, and he was masterful. Alphonso still only knew the one trick that Markus had taught him. She had dropped off to sleep feeling guilty
Now she pressed herself against Alphonso’s body and kissed his shoulder. His eyes opened and he looked out at her from beneath his black lashes. Feeling amorous, she slid a leg over his thigh. Her pulse quickened as he lifted her onto his hips then felt under her nightgown, seeking out her breasts and slowly stroking his thumbs across her nipples as he stiffened beneath her and whispered, “Ah, mia bella Raphielli.”
By the time they had come back to their senses, she was running late and had to hurry through her morning routine, with her elderly maid Rosa doing her best to keep up.
“There is no need to hurry. You are a great woman of a great palazzo. You are expected to keep people waiting.”
“I was taught that it’s disrespectful.” She got her arms through the sleeves while Rosa smoothed the sweater into place and zipped it. On the way to claim her shoes, she caught sight of her figure in the trifold mirror. Maybe one day she’d see what her lovers and her French friends saw, but right now all she could see was a pudgy hourglass. “Paloma will think I’ve abandoned her, and I’ve got to get some breakfast into me.”
“Paloma has been up for hours. She and Signor Zelph went up inside the fireplace rafters, if you can imagine. When Zelph came down he was a blackened mess, but that Paloma knows how to stay clean inside a chimney.”
Over the past few weeks, the little bits of information that Rosa offered about the household were increasing. Discovering Rosa's taste for informing was a welcome new side to the normally monosyllabic woman who had been her maid for two years. It made Raphielli feel less like a child being kept in the dark, and more like the woman who owned these endless dark halls and rooms. She guessed Rosa wouldn’t have dared gossip while Salvio’s parents were alive, and since their deaths there hadn’t been anything to tell. Having Paloma and workers here—and soon other women—would do her old maid good.
Rosa started toward the bathroom. “We have time to put your hair into a bun.”
Raphielli felt her curls, still damp from the shower and slippery from the product she’d used. “No, I’ll go to work like this.” She ignored her maid’s lip as it disappeared behind her teeth, as if her wild hair was a silent cry, I’m a wanton woman! “It’s okay, Rosa, I promise.”
When she arrived in the breakfast room, Zelph and Paloma stopped eating and Alphonso jumped up.
“Buongiorno. Somehow, I’m running late,” she said.
“Buongiorno,” Paloma said while giving her a sly look of admiration that communicated, I know why you’re late.
Alphonso held her chair out for her. “You have time to eat, don’t you?”
“A quick bite.” She sat down and selected a bite-sized egg salad sandwich from a tray. “How’d you get so dirty, Zelph?”
“Oh!” He threw his arms up and pointed willy-nilly at the ceiling. “You have a veritable highway in your ceilings! Paloma took me up.”
“How was that possible with fires going this morning? How did you breathe?”
“Are you kidding?” Paloma flipped her hand dismissively. “You have hundreds and hundreds of rooms. You don’t use a fraction of your fireplaces, and judging from one wing, there are maybe twelve hundred of them. You only have, like, five fires burning at any given time, and your palace has the most impressive vents—super powerful—so the smoke draws up with real oomph. It rises in perfect columns. You can walk through the airways and easily avoid walking through a column. Of course, if you had a huge fire, like to cook a cow for a dinner party, you’d want to avoid that tunnel for the heat. But your fires don’t even warm the airways up.”
“They barely heat the space down here,” Raphielli grumbled.
“Come on now,” Paloma said, standing up. “Dr. Risinger is starting a new therapy topic about stress and the holidays. I don’t want to miss it.”
Zelph stood up, too. “I’ve got to meet with Ghost and Mister Fox.”
“Ah HA! There are ghosts here!” Paloma smacked the table.
“Nah,” he replied. “My audio and visual security team. They’ve been in and out of here for about a month now. You wouldn’t notice them, they’re very discrete.”
Raphielli got up as well. “Thank them for me. I prefer not to notice the workers if they’re in this wing. I’m relieved Tosca convinced me to put the shelter in that music wing.”
“Ghost and Mister Fox are the best, and their clients never even see them while their homes are being wired for technology.”
At the shelter, Raphielli visited Benny for a while, then had a meeting with Kate and Mia on the women’s progress and status of their cases in family court. By the time the meeting con
cluded, Raphielli felt a little stir crazy. It had stopped raining, so she decided to get a breath of fresh air.
Just over the little bridge outside, her eyes fell on the spire of a church she’d never visited, and she got an idea. Pulling her big scarf up around her head nonna style, she splashed through the calles and found the entrance. She fished a bill out of her purse, stuffed it into the donation box, and pressed the button requesting a confession. When the light above the confessional blinked green, she made sure to shroud her face with the scarf and went inside. She needed spiritual counseling that wasn’t influenced by who she was.
“Bless me, padre, for I have sinned.”
“What have you to confess?”
“I need advice on an annulment.”
“Annulment? Have you discussed your marital problems with your priest?”
“I’d like to know what you tell your parishioners when the subject comes up.”
“Well, a decree of nullity must be entered into with grave forethought and should only be considered if you believe the marriage was invalidly contracted or that ordination was invalidly conferred.”
“What if it was an arranged marriage? Against my will?”
He cleared his throat but said nothing.
“Padre?”
“That is a grave matter. Who forced you into the marriage?”
“My mama and nonna.”
He sighed, and she saw the silhouette behind the screen drop his head, hands holding his rosary raised to heaven in a gesture of supplication. “My dearest child…your immortal soul is at stake. You should request an annulment and purge that unholy contract from your life once and for all. You must reject that evil bastardization of God’s holy marriage sacrament. Atone, ask forgiveness, and perform a perfect act of contrition to be restored to grace.”
“Grazie, padre.”
She stood up, and as she left the booth she heard him say, “Che Dio ti guidi in questa faccenda.”
She left the church feeling that she was restless because she’d fallen away from her faith. It started to rain again, and she hurried back to the shelter where she buried herself in paperwork.
Hours later, her phone rang. Seeing that it was Carolette made her smile. “Pronto.”
“Elli! I’ve got Fauve on the line with us.”
“B’jour, Elli! What’s new with you?”
“I’m in a funk.”
“Out with it.”
“Let’s have it.”
She knew that no subject was taboo with them, so she blurted out everything. Sex with don Giancarlo Petrosino, Alphonso suffocating her, and her father confessor being pushy and not granting her an annulment. When she was done, she heard them let loose a torrent of French, but with their heavy northeastern accents and local jargon, she didn’t catch it all.
Carolette said, “Yum! You’re having it off with a Sicilian Mafioso? Hooo!”
“Tais-toi, Carolette!” Fauve snapped.
“Don’t tell me to shut up.”
“I mean it! Are you fucking kidding me?” Fauve sounded horrified. “Elli Scortini! Get your head out of that shapely ass of yours!”
Raphielli almost dropped the phone. “What the…”
“Listen to me, girl! You can’t get into bed with the Mafia, they’re vicious killers who steal money from hard-working people! They’re parasites! As for Alphonso, you should be ashamed of yourself. He was your only friend. He and Zelph have stood by you, done their best to protect you, and he’s madly in love with you!”
Carolette added, “And he’s a gorgeous stud.”
“Zip it, Coco! I’m not done!” Fauve continued, “Elli, you sound completely unstable. You go from a convent girl to…”
“It was an abbey…” Carolette corrected.
“I don’t care if it was an ashram! You’ve gone from being virtuous to being don Petrosino’s moll. Get away from him! And as for an annulment, you can’t do that! You went through unmitigated hell as Salvio’s wife. Now you’re the last Scortini and all that money and property are legally yours. If you go erasing that marriage contract, you can kiss it all goodbye. Forget making shelters for abused women, you’ll be hoping to get a job copying musty old books or whatever you said you did when you were at school!”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“That’s why you have us, you slutty bunny. Petrosino’ll lure you in, he’ll take over your life, take what’s yours, and then he’ll discard you!” Fauve’s tone became softer. “Honestly, I don’t mean to yell at you, but suddenly I’m scared shitless for you. I was under the false impression that Alphonso was acting as a bodyguard and that Detective Lampani was shadowing you, keeping those hit men that Salvio hired at bay. Now you tell me you’ve been sneaking off to have trysts with the head of the Sicilian Mafia. Honey, can’t you just disappear for a while? Like Gigi?”
“I can’t just tell Gio it’s over…he killed Salvio for me.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, and then she heard a shaken Carolette breathe, “Oh, this is really, really bad.”
Fauve’s voice quavered, “Where’s that cognac? I need a drink.”
Giselle was in an excellent mood as she climbed the hill from the barns. She’d spoken to Vincenzo and Juliette, and both were holding up well. V had done his baby-making duties, and when she cautioned that Gina would fall in love with him, he’d chuckled and replied, “No, it’s you she wants.”
Giselle was just putting her phone back in her pocket, recalling that Gina had in fact always blushed in her presence, when she received a text.
SPRATMAN DRIVING FAST IN DAMOUZY
ALMOST HIT AUGUSTE ON HIS BIKE!
DRIVING SAME RENTAL CAR!
Laetitia and her twin brothers, Robert and Auguste, lived in Damouzy. Spratman must be the most frustrated stalker in history.
Yvania presented lunch, which smelled like browned cheese and something dark green, like kale. Daniel said a blessing over the food. Then Yvania said proudly, “Thees is somethink I am working on for the cookbook. Is cod braised in butter, then I covered with a gratin of sour cabbage, bitter greens, and the cheese and cream are from Monkey.”
“How have I missed that enclosure?” Markus squinted at the food on his plate. “Surely you did not milk a monkey.”
Daniel laughed. “Monkey is the name of one of our female goats. She likes to climb trees.”
Giselle dipped her fork into the layers and blew on it so she wouldn’t scald her tongue. The fish tasted like browned butter mashed potatoes, and the other layers were a wonderful contrast of flavors and textures. They all ate enthusiastically and reached for extra slices of Yvania’s bread. The light flakiness of the crust speckled with a dusting of sea salt gave way to the bouncy texture of the best bread Giselle had ever eaten.
She said, “Spratman’s still hunting me.”
“I know, I saw the text your friend sent,” Daniel said. “You’re protected here within the keep.”
“Wait, I…the keep? I thought it was an abbey.”
“Oui, the abbey is the next building over. We’re sitting in an ancient keep. A secret fortress.”
“With dungeons?” Yvania asked.
“Of course. What good is capturing a bad guy if you have no secure place to hold him?”
“This gives me ideas,” she said softly to herself.
Giselle saw Daniel give Markus a questioning look and he said, “Markus, should I be worried about her?”
Markus shrugged. “You have no idea. Best not to ask.”
Mateo was glued to his computer, watching a live feed of a tabloid show where Benedetta’s parents were begging for news of their daughter. He had to consciously unclench his hands as the couple started speculating that in the four weeks since her disappearance she may have been taken to Rome, that they had reason to believe she could have been taken somewhere near the Vatican, and asking people near or working in the Vatican to keep their eyes open for her. They were practically accusing the pope of k
idnapping her!
Mateo’s phone buzzed and he was relieved to see it was Benjamin. He lowered the volume on his computer.
“Prego.”
“I’ve driven every country road in this part of France and can’t get a bead on Giselle’s location.”
“Could she be holed up in that big place of hers in Gernelle?”
“I can’t get onto the property, she has guard dogs on constant patrol. I bought a telescope and did surveillance from the other side of the fence. Two women, one older and one younger, come and go but they appear to be tenants or caretakers. I’ve been sticking around the area keeping my eyes peeled and my ears open, waiting for somebody to say something about her. They’re wary of outsiders, but I’m careful not to tip my hand.”
“No one’s given you anything to go on?”
“I got someone to give me Giselle’s art agent’s number.”
“How’d that go?”
“My hopes were high when Fiamina answered her own phone. She was even nice when she thought I wanted to spend millions on one of Giselle’s sculptures. But I couldn’t get her to say one word about Giselle herself or her current whereabouts.”
“Millions? Plural?” Mateo couldn’t imagine someone spending that much on modern art.
“Apparently her prices keep climbing the more dangerous and bizarre her works are. They’ll go into the stratosphere when we kill her.”
“Unbelievable. I could get banned from a museum for showering patrons with broken glass—or whatever her piece did in that London museum—and I wouldn’t get rich, I’d get a rap sheet for assault. Forget whatever substance she studded that piece with that Miguel ran into on her property.”
Surviving Venice Page 11