by Jessica King
“Father Dominick,” Chief Vitali said, approaching a man in the traditional black and white robes.
“These are your American detectives?” he asked.
“Detectives Hart and Benson,” Chief Vitali said. “They have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with, as I understand it, many Kingsmen in California.” Father Dominick turned his eyes to Ivy and Vince. His eyes were wide like maybe he was in a constant state of surprise. She could nearly see white all the way around his irises.
“Yes,” Ivy said. “We’ll be able to determine for sure if it was a Kingsmen if we could see the card you found next to the young woman who was killed?”
Father Dominick nodded. “Of course.” He nodded them toward a nearby hallway, greeting a man in a security uniform, who unhooked a thick velvet rope from the shining stanchion. He looked nearly ghostly in his robes. His white hair was unmoving despite the heavy flow of air through the hallway. “Father Nicholas?” Father Dominick knocked on the door. A muffled noise came from behind the door, and Father Dominick pushed open the heavy wooden door, and it swished against the carpet.
He ushered Ivy, Vince, and Chief Vitali into the office. “Father Nicholas,” Chief Vitali said, inclining his head.
Father Nicholas stood from his chair and came to greet them, hugging each of them. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “You can imagine we’ve had quite a scare from it all.” He smiled with closed lips.
“Who found the woman’s body?” Ivy asked.
“Father Simon,” said Father Dominick. “I will, eh, fetch him for us.” Ivy rolled her shoulders. The back offices were warm, and the plush armchairs looked far too comfortable after their long flights. Vince yawned next to her, and Ivy locked her jaw, trying not to copy him.
“He was quite shaken by it all,” Father Nicholas said. Despite his age, his hair was still black, not speckled at all with gray or white. Did priests dye their hair if they wanted to? “If it’s anything we can help with so that we can spare him from having to relive it further…” he said. “This place has been a safer space to him than to anyone I’ve ever known, so I’d like to preserve that as much as—”
“Detectives.” Father Simon went with the clasping-hand technique as a means of greeting. He was short and mousy, his face twitching in a way that reminded Ivy of a rodent. With each breath, his nose wiggled, and his lips seemed to purse and unpurse.
“Father Simon, if you could take our detectives to the altar and recount what you found,” Chief Vitali said. He gestured back toward the main hall.
“Of course,” the priest said. “Follow me if you will.” He led them back out of the offices and into the main area of the church, making his way to the altar. Tourists took photos from afar, the sound of their cameras and phones loud and intrusive for a recent murder scene. It seemed rude, though Ivy knew that wasn’t meant to be the purpose. Ivy kept her head down, letting her dark hair act as a curtain between herself and the crowd taking pictures.
The altar was blocked off with velvet ropes in lieu of caution tape, a sure eyesore in a place as beautiful as the basilica. He helped them through the second round of velvet ropes as they came to the steps.
“I found her here,” Father Simon said. “She was stooped in prayer, and there was a large puncture wound in her shoulder.” His hands floated in the air as if he were painting her back where he found her. “I don’t know why she might have been here after we’d closed the basilica to people. Security does a clean sweep, and there was nothing on the tapes we have.”
“You had tapes?” Ivy asked.
Father Simon wrung his hands. “Well, there should have been. But they’d been turned off starting at seven that evening, right when all the crowds were being ushered out for the evening.” His eyes drifted over their shoulders to the crowd growing increasingly interested in their inspection of the crime scene.
“Do you still have them?” Vince asked.
Father Simon nodded. “Oh, eh, yes, we still have them, but they are all blank. You’re welcome to look if you would want.” He shifted on his feet, his hands fluttering at his sides like he was attempting to stifle a nervous tick.
“Thank you,” Ivy said. “Did you notice anything else strange when you found her?”
Father Simon’s head bobbled, his light brown eyes shining from all the light in the church. “Well, it’s just that I did recognize her. The other priests did not, which is okay, we have so many, you know.”
“Recognized her as a regular churchgoer?” Ivy asked.
Father Simon stared at the stairs, whatever blood had been there having been scrubbed clean. “Yes. I don’t remember her name. But I did know her face. She came to confession more than just once a year, and she took it all seriously, you know? A good woman. I’ve been here for ten years, and I know she was here often when I began. She must have been a teenager then, but I would guess she was one of our members who have been coming since she was a small girl. Sad to lose her here. I like to think she had joy here.”
He was rambling, though neither Ivy nor Vince could manage to cut him off. He looked so sad. Ivy imagined the picture he was creating at the moment in a photography magazine. The priest, covered in sadness with wrinkles around his eyes, surrounded by symbolic architecture and drenched in the bright0white sunlight of the basilica’s dome.
“Did you ever notice someone who might have been angry with her? Did she ever come here with anyone?” Ivy asked once his words seemed to trickle to a stop, water reaching the end of a stream.
“Eh, no,” he said. “I saw her with her mother a few times, but the two always seemed, you know, fine, normal. Like a normal family.”
“Hmm,” Ivy said, scribbling at the notepad she’d pulled from her back pocket. “And have the cameras ever been turned off before?” she asked. “Would it seem routine for them all to go out and leave your security tapes blank?”
“No,” Father Simon said. “That is why it seems so strange.” So, the outage was planned then. Ivy’s gaze traveled from one camera to the next. Did all those eyes know that she, too, was being hunted by a Kingsman like Tatiana had been?
“Who would have access to those cameras?” Vince asked.
“Lots of people,” Father Simon said. He led them to a front pew, and they sat. “We have a large security team, lots of staff, our priests and deacons, of course.”
“How do you feel about all those people?” Vince asked. “Any standouts that you’ve ever had a strange feeling about, even just a gut feeling?”
Simon shook his head. “No, not at all,” he said. He raised his eyes to them. “We screen all our staff very carefully, considering how many people we have visiting the basilica and the delicate nature of a bunch of the things we have to do to serve the congregations.”
“All the staff would have access?” Ivy asked. With how large the staff likely was, they’d certainly have a search ahead of them, going through each person.
“It’s supposed to only be security, but it would be easy for any of our parishioners to get in, or even much of the housekeeping staff could use the cameras if they knew how. Only the groundskeepers wouldn’t have any type of access to that room or whatever is in it. Wrong keys.”
Ivy nodded as she wrote. “If you don’t mind, Father Simon,” she said, and he looked up. His eyes were bright behind his dull, mousy features. They looked intense, careful. “We were told you have found this to be a safe space more than the other priests of the basilica. What might be meant by that?”
Father Simon’s face softened. “Did Father Dominick tell you that?”
Ivy didn’t answer but tilted her head to the side.
Father Simon smiled. “I had a rather difficult childhood, Detective.” He looked down at his hands, and between the regular wrinkles of old age, she could see a lattice of scars on the back of his hands and wrapping around his wrists like bracelets. “Abusive parents and I’m afraid that I abused my body myself for a while. I was afraid of drugs, so I hurt myself
.” He pointed to one of the wooden confessionals. “I had a friend tell me it was a sin to hurt my body because it was God’s, so I came to confess about it. Whenever I wanted to injure myself, or sometimes when I was injured at my father’s hand, I’d drag myself here, and the priest at the time, Father Salvatore, would pray over me to help me feel better. I would relive the scary bits with him. Just, eh, talking? It ended up being helpful, and he spent a long, long time talking to me until I felt better. I wanted to be like him. Now I hope I am.”
Ivy smiled at him, and he smiled back. Father Simon’s eyes glittered with what might have been tears long ago but were now just the ghost of them.
“I…” she swallowed. “I’m doing something similar with something that happened to me, and it’s not helping at all.” She didn’t know why she felt the need to tell him. But the fact that she saw nothing in his eyes beyond being grateful for moving past his trouble.
“Are you seeing a priest, or, eh—”
“Psychologist,” Ivy said. A psychologist she’d asked Joyce to keep an eye one while she was away.
“Mmh,” Father Simon said, running a finger along the edge of a pew. “It’s helpful if you try to craft a story around the bad thing. I can tell the story of my parents and myself hurting me because it led to me being here,” he said, opening his arms up around him. “What happened had a reason whether you believe in God or not. What happened when I was young led me here? Where did your hurt lead you?”
“I don’t know,” Ivy said.
“Well, maybe you’re just not there yet,” he said. He fiddled with a bracelet on his wrist, a thin golden band that glittered against olive skin. “It helps to think about it if you’re trying to not be afraid of your past. To really get over it, you need to see the purpose behind it all. See the reason you had to go through that.”
Ivy understood, but she hadn’t reached that part yet. She wasn’t sure that part of her being tortured existed. “Not sure what I went through really has a reason,” Ivy said.
Father Simon smiled, but it was kind. “I know it is, eh, a cliché?” he said as if he weren’t sure of the English word. “All things happen for a reason. I’m the expert here on that, yes?”
Ivy wasn’t quite convinced, but she smiled, and Father Simon took them back to the offices. “I have a meeting I must attend,” he said. “I’ll leave you in the care of Father Nicholas.”
Father Nicholas was back behind his desk, and Ivy took a moment to sink into one of the comfortable chairs. Crushed velvet the color of roses, it smelled recently vacuumed and starched. She breathed in the clean scent. Chief Vitali had stayed behind in the office, though he stood to give Vince the other chair. He gave him a grateful nod, yawning again.
“Did you get what you needed?” Father Nicholas asked.
“It’ll be a bit of an ongoing process,” Ivy said. “Do you have that card?”
Father Nicholas turned to a cabinet behind his desk. He pulled out a plastic bag. “The polizia let us keep it after they took their pictures.” He handed the bag to Ivy. Part of her was certain it was some sort of knockoff imprint—a copycat trying to start up their own gig in Europe.
She didn’t know how she was so certain, but it wasn’t a fake. This was one of the old Kingsmen cards. Not even one of the flimsy prints she’d been finding in L.A. since the sudden explosion of Kingsmen in the area. She pulled it from the bag and ran her fingers over the velvety cardstock. Thick cream-colored paper and a gleaming red thumbprint in burgundy. It was the exact copy of what she’d found in her mother’s hand.
“This is them,” she said, handing the card to Vince, who eyed it warily.
“Do you think someone traveled?” he asked. “Like one of our Kingsmen came here?”
“She’s not a reincarnation in a witching line, though,” Ivy said. “Why travel all the way here, especially if she wasn’t known to be practicing Wicca?” Ivy moved up to the edge of the too comfortable armchair. “Doesn’t make sense if she wasn’t assigned?”
“Wicca,” Father Nicholas said. “That’s become more popular in our area recently. Stregoneria.”
“You think it might be likely she’d gotten into it, and someone killed her for it?” Ivy asked. Father Nicholas shook his head.
“I haven’t a clue,” he said. “I just know many of our young members have found themselves torn between the church and Wicca beliefs. I just know that they do not work together.” He pressed his lips together. “Father Simon has taken the hit of it extremely hard. He’s very invested in our outreach. Having the new option of magic… It’s taken away some of the people we hoped would be interested in our church.”
“And where is Father Simon now? He said he had to leave?” Ivy asked. “Does he conduct meetings for this type of thing, or…?”
Father Nicholas looked down at his desk. The modern desk calendar atop it looked out of place among the older-looking artifacts—various Biblical translations in different languages, ornately decorated leather journals, and a vintage teacup. “Can I be honest with you, Detectives?” He looked up at them from beneath his lashes. “I fear for Simon.”
Ivy blinked. “Why is that?”
“He disappears often. Sometimes, I find money missing from the goodwill coffers. We usually, eh, convene? On these types of things. It’s rare one of ours just take money without an explanation, even if it is for a charitable deed.” He swallowed, carefully readjusting the teacup on its chipped saucer. “I haven’t asked for anyone to own up to it, but Simon’s the only one who has those sorts of mysterious ways. I fear that if it’s him, the money might not be being used for its best purposes.”
“I see,” Ivy said, scribbling the note onto her notebook. Despite his kindness, his abrupt leave of absence during their visit had seemed strange. Perhaps he was pulling Kingsmen business right beneath their noses. “Thank you.”
“Have you noticed any other strange activity?” Vince asked.
“I assume Simon told you about the cameras going out?” Father Nicholas said.
“Yes,” Ivy said.
Father Nicholas nodded. “That would be the only other thing I could think to say.”
“Have you noticed any other odd activity from any other members of the parish?” Ivy asked.
“No,” the priest said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to incriminate Simon in your minds. I don’t even really know if it’s odd for Simon to be secretive. I’ve been serving here for two years, and I know that he’s the type to enjoy time alone. He spends lots of time alone in the basilica in prayer. So, please, keep that in mind. What I think is odd may be nothing at all.”
“Noted,” Ivy said. She stood, slipping the notebook back into her pocket. “Thank you for your help.”
“Thank you for yours,” Father Nicholas said. He stood to usher them out of the office.
Back at the hotel, Vince dropped into the café next door, promising to return with dinner. He ordered a calzone for Ivy and three for himself.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” Ivy asked, laughing.
“I want to bathe in this melted cheese.”
“Did you find any channels on your television that aren’t in Italian?” Ivy asked, flipping through the stations.
Vince grinned, strings of cheese dangling from his mouth. “I can’t speak it, but I understand a lot of Italian. So, I get to watch whatever I want,” he said.
“Unhelpful.”
CHAPTER NINE
Posted: Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 3:24 p.m.; Reblogged: Thursday, March 30, 2017, 7:22 a.m. | Central European Time
Witch Pride Event
In the recent event of an attack of a woman in Rome, Italy by a member of the witch-hunting Kingsmen, we plan to gather to not only show our sorrow for this woman and celebrate her life but to show any order of Kingsmen rising in Europe that we will not be intimidated.
Assembly will begin at 9 a.m. on Friday, March 31. Witches—Wicca, traditional, and regional traditional alike—will gather be
neath the flag of their country as we celebrate our heritage and show magic folk living in fear due to this attack that they are not alone.
A market will be set up at the end for an exchange of spells and materials as well as a time for shared rituals and blessings, should you wish to participate.
Meeting place: Piazza della Rotonda (to Fontana del Moro)
Thursday, March 30, 2017, 10:10 a.m. | Central European Standard Time
Tatiana’s husband hadn’t been much help. He hadn’t known anything at all about whether his wife had been into witchcraft, but as the conversation unfolded more and more, his entire surety that his wife never had and would never be interested in that type of thing slowly dissolved until he said that she had a friend who was into witchcraft or something of the like.
“It’s her living,” he said. “But Tati hadn’t ever liked that stuff,” he’d said. “But, I dunno, eh, maybe ask her. Livia. I’m not sure where she lives, though. I know it’s close.”
It’d been an easy online search to find her phone number and she’d readily given her address. When they opened the door, a tall woman with a swollen belly and a child hanging off of either side of her answered the door.
He blinked at Ivy, his dark eyes curious. “Polizia,” he whispered to his mother.
“Vai nella tua stanza,” the woman said, setting the smaller boy down. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, waving Ivy and Vince inside.
“I’m guessing you’re here because of Tati,” she said. Ivy made a quick sweep of the home. An ornate rug splayed across the floor, and it seemed at every available nook and cranny, a flowerpot was overflowing with green. Smoke was floating off the end of an incense pot, and a basket filled with candles sat on the edge of the fireplace. “Tea?” she asked, pointing back to the kitchen, which was flooded with warm light and more greenery.
“No, thank you,” Ivy said. “We were wondering about Tatiana’s use of magic in her last days. Did you know anything about whether she was using magic, or for how long?”
