by Grace Brophy
She had spent the afternoon in her room, writing. Had she gone next door to check on her mother, Amelia might still be alive. But she hadn’t gone next door, not even when she realized that her small stock of sleeping pills was missing. Artemisia had decided when she was a child to punish her mother for loving her brother more than she loved Artemisia. When she was older, she understood that her mother couldn’t help it, that it was just the way things were, but Artemisia had continued to punish her anyway, to push her away whenever she’d tried to get close. She’d even been glad for her mother’s pain after Camillo’s death; somehow she knew that her mother would not have felt the same intense pain if her only daughter had died, and for that Artemisia had no forgiveness.
She left the museum at 5:00, after signing the packing receipt, and returned to Assisi. She pulled in across from the taxi stand in Santa Chiara, put the car into neutral, and settled in to wait. She could see his Ferrari parked next to the newsstand. Not even an unconscious tourist, she thought, would have the nerve to park there. But no one in the municipal police would dare give a commissario di poliza a traffic ticket. The pecking order in Italy is very clear, and only fools challenge it. Of one thing she was sure, he wouldn’t see her car when he got into his own. He was far too solipsistic to notice anything that didn’t immediately concern him. And even if he did look about, her car was partially hidden by scaffolding. The wooden structures that bounded the buildings across from the Church of Santa Chiara had been erected years earlier, after the earthquake of 97, for some purpose no longer evident to any but earthquake historians. Soon, she thought mockingly, they’ll cover it with Assisi pink stone and charge admission!
Three times in twenty minutes she reread the letter she had wrestled from Lucia. Finally, she opened her handbag to gaze at the dagger before lifting it out of her bag. A shaft of light pierced the windshield and caught the star ruby straight on, exploding it with light and color. She said the banishing words that she had memorized when she was only ten, away at boarding school for the first time, and that she had recited every day since: Do what you will shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will. She felt a scorching blood fire emanating from the ruby. Do what you will shall be the whole of the law, she repeated again as she covered the gemstone with her right hand. Its power entered her soul, investing her with the will to destroy her enemies. She laughed out loud, throwing her head straight back. She pictured the misericorde sinking into his veined neck, the blood flying upward. She knew her Judith well. Misericorde, an oxymoron, she thought. There is no mercy in death; death was the last enemy, and the cruelest one.
She looked around, amazed as always at the size of the crowds that had invaded Assisi over Easter Week. A taxi driver was observing her through the car window. He’s looking at me strangely, she thought, puzzled. I’ve probably parked in his spot. Very possessive about what doesn’t belong to him. Doesn’t he know who I am? Seventeenth Countess Casati, old Assisi family, Fourth Crusade. She shrugged and indicated with a time-out sign that she was leaving shortly. Very shortly she realized, as just then she caught sight of the red Ferrari pulling in front of the newsstand. He was already in the middle of the crowded square, moving toward Corso Mazzini. He’d just missed hitting a woman with a baby stroller. How like him, Artemisia thought, women and children first!
Artemisia changed gears but waited a few seconds before pulling out. She had time to catch up. He skirted the barrier that had been erected for the holiday week to prevent tourists from driving their cars into the Piazza del Comune. She followed behind, but at a safe distance. Not that it mattered, because even if she tailgated, it was doubtful he’d notice her. Driving on the main streets of Assisi in Easter Week requires all of one’s concentration. It was after 6:30, and tourists were streaming down the center of the street on their way back to the train station or to their hotels. They moved to the right or left only when a car was directly upon them, and then with stares of resentment. The Ferrari, still a hundred yards in front of her, had reached the entrance to the Piazza del Comune. But this time he didn’t drive across the Piazza and up via San Paolo as he usually did. Instead he circled the fountain and turned up via San Gabriele. Normally, he would have driven directly across the Piazza, taking the shortest route to the cemetery, however many barriers had been erected by the Assisi police. He relished the exercise of power, and he regarded the local police as his errand boys. But the police-woman who was stationed in the Piazza would notice his car immediately. He doesn’t want anyone to see him driving in the direction of the cemetery, she realized; since Rita’s death he’d grown more circumspect.
She took her time driving to the cemetery, overly cautious perhaps, but he might look back. The sun had begun its leisurely descent, and the sky was a deep showy pink, streaked with scarlet red, like the color of blood in oxygenated arteries, she thought, remembering her research for the chapter on Judith Slaying Holofernes. Once, when they were having rough sex, she had bitten him with such ferocity that she’d drawn blood. It was faintly sweet with a not-unpleasant metallic taste in the front of her mouth, but when she swallowed, it was thick and viscous, like mucus, and she gagged, spoiling his final moment. He had slapped her hard across the cheek-bone, slamming the back of her head against the stone altar. She’d left a small white scar on his neck, directly below the left ear. Later, he had apologized for hitting her, telling her at the same time how stupid his wife was. “The cow thinks I was cut by a knife while trying to break up a fight between two Albanians. She actually called Giorgio to insist that he do something about the Albanian problem!” he’d said with a laughing sneer. Artemisia had laughed with him, but inside she was seething. He shouldn’t have hit her.
They always met in her family’s vault, and although she’d given him that key, he had his own key to the cemetery gates. He had a fetish about having sex in the cemetery. All his women did it there at least once, he’d told her. Only Grazia had refused. He liked having sex on the top of the tombstones and had pleaded with her to do it on one of the exposed flat stones in the older section of the cemetery, on the grave of a soldier who had died in the First World War, Maurizio Rossi. Just nineteen when he was killed at Caporetto. BELOVED SON AND BROTHER was the inscription on the stone. “Too risky,” she’d said, refusing. “The caretaker might see us.” In fact, he had begun to bore her. That was his second mistake.
Rita was a slut! Had Fulvio fucked her cousin on Maurizio’s grave? Perhaps it was to meet Rita that he’d stood her up on King’s Day. It certainly wasn’t to have dinner with Giorgio as he later claimed. Giorgio had been with her. His final mistake!
5
“CALL PIERO. DO nothing on your own!” the commissario had ordered when Genine finally reached him by telephone. Autocratic, like my father, she decided, then quickly erased that thought. No, more like an older brother. He’s just forty, a fifteen-year difference, not so old, really, was what she was thinking as she pressed the redial button on her cell phone. “Sorry, sorry, and sorry, the line is unavailable,” she mimicked. She had hidden herself and her Vespa in the passageway between the cemetery wall and the wooden flower stand at the front gate while waiting for Russo and his mysterious caller to appear. On the fifth redial, she saw a red Ferrari flash by, unexpectedly traveling along the back road, followed in short order by a black Mercedes. Both cars were headed toward the side gate. Alex had insisted that she wait at the front gate.
She wheeled her Vespa out from the narrow alleyway and mounted it with the intention of following when she saw a dark figure in a pilgrim’s robe approaching on the cemetery road. She quickly leaned the Vespa against the front wall and hid herself again.
ARTEMISIA WAS HEADY with exhilaration and walked with a bounce as she made her way down the hill after parking her car at the side of the road. His car was parked at the bottom, partially hidden under a canopy of cypress trees, just a few steps from the cemetery’s side gate. It was dusk and soon the waning rays of the moon would be the
only light in the Assisi night sky. He liked it dark but so did she—Artemis, goddess of the hunt and of the moon, and of all the creatures of the night. But tonight the Greek goddess would give way to the Israelite warrior— the virgin to the avenging widow. Judith of Bethulia had also been a night hunter and a far more dangerous one than Artemis with her puny arrows. Artemisia hummed softly to herself as she gently eased the iron latch back into its place and started upward on the dirt track toward her destiny, her bounty bag slung over her left shoulder, the misericorde razor-sharp within.
SOPHIE’S WOOLEN CAPE and hood were a bit too warm for the evening. The weather had changed and she remembered how much Sergio had loved the first days of spring, when the hard brown earth turned soft and green. But the hood covered her blonde hair and hid her face. She didn’t notice the Vespa until she was on top of it. She glanced nervously around. The caretaker’s, probably. He often left it in the cemetery overnight, but not outside the gates. Getting old and careless. That’s when she saw the black cat slide through the iron bars. It crossed directly in front of her and sat for a moment to rub its sore eye. The cat had recently been in a fight, probably with a larger animal; the fur around its face was caked with dried blood. It finished its ablutions, looked up at her sideways, and approached, meowing softly as though ready to make a friend. She hissed at it and slammed the gate, almost on its tail. It growled and took off running down the cemetery road toward Porta San Giacomo. She hated cats.
A dark cloud drifted across the setting sun, shaking her out of her reverie. The cat had been a distraction. She looked at her watch and walked faster, skirting the main gravel-lined path and instead taking the narrow dirt track that zigzagged behind the mausoleums. A few feet before she reached the Casati vault, she could see the policeman leaning against the back wall, his blond hair luminous against the darkening pink stone. She could see his leer suggestive of things to come. And then she felt herself falling, drifting slowly down to the dark lovely green earth.
FULVIO WAS A man’s man and he hated the wincing softness of women. Grazia was always whining. “Please Fulvio, I didn’t mean it. Please Fulvio, you’re hurting me. Honest Fulvio, I won’t tell Giorgio.” She would tell, though, if she found out about Rita. She had wept for hours when she’d read in La Repubblica that the murdered American was pregnant. “The poor baby,” she’d cried, without a single concern for the dead woman, he’d thought with contempt. Giorgio had nearly killed him three years ago when he saw bruises on his sister’s arm, even after Grazia swore they were the result of a fall down some stairs. “Fall, my fucking ass,” Giorgio had shouted, punching him in the face. “You hurt my sister again, and you’re fucking dead. And next time I won’t dirty my hands on pretty-boy scrum like you, I’ll leave it to my associates.” Giorgio never made idle threats.
First it was Rita, and now the Croatian. At least Italian women knew the score and kept their mouths shut. Maybe he should have told Artemisia about this meeting. She’d know what to do, but he didn’t trust her. Artemisia wasn’t afraid of anyone, but she didn’t care about anyone either. She’d turn on him in an instant if he became a threat.
The air was warm and heavy, too warm for the season, and he could feel the wool of his jacket rubbing against his skin; he was wet through. The dread and shame had returned, gnawing at his insides, devouring everything within. His mother had whipped him with a leather strap whenever his father had crossed her or whenever she’d had too much to drink, which was always. But he was no longer a child; he could fight back. He struck a match to re-light his cigarette, and that’s when he saw the dark triangular shapes moving toward him. The Croatian was in the lead. He recognized her immediately from her purposeful stride. And then she was gone.
THE SCREAMING WAIL of the police car competed with the loud whirring in her ears. Sophie was bleeding, but not as badly as the policewoman. She moved her fingers gingerly along her head wound to check its depth and length and though she winced at the pain, she decided it was not so serious. It would need stitches but not that many. She looked down at her red-stained hands, sticky with blood. Most of it belonged to the policewoman. She tore off the bottom of her dress to make a tourniquet for Sergeant Antolini. She even remembered her name. So much had happened and in such a short time that she barely had time to think. Fulvio Russo was dead and with him her scheme to get money for Christina. She saw the men in uniform approaching, their white chest bands iridescent in the lowering light. She had to plan quickly.
6
THE ROAD FROM Gubbio to Assisi is a tarted-up one-lane mountain pass of some forty kilometers, mainly curves but with a sufficiency of straights for it to pose as a super strata in Italy. It took Cenni a treacherous fifty minutes, passing on the right, the left, and sometimes through the center, to arrive at the cemetery at precisely 7:35 in response to Sergeant Antolini’s frantic call for help.
His instructions to her had been clear. “Call Piero now! If you don’t reach him, call Elena. Do nothing on your own, Sergeant; that’s an order. Wait for me at the front gate and stay out of sight. Russo is dangerous!” And just before he hung up, “Nice work, Genine . . . thanks.” But he didn’t trust her to follow orders. She’s too nervy by half, he decided, remembering her foray into the dumpster, so when he wasn’t passing cars, and even when he was, he dialed Piero, then Elena, and in desperation Antonio Martini, but an electrical storm over Gubbio was blocking transmission.
The scene-of-crime was immediately behind the Casati vault. It was a nightmare of noise, lights, and confusion, a replay of the thunderstorm he’d just left behind. Blinding strobe lights were focused on the body of Russo, who was lying uncovered in a halo of coagulated blood, his body cordoned off by a bright band of yellow tape. A battalion of police officers—municipal, carabinieri, and state—were milling around the edges of the scene, joined by a complement of unidentified bystanders. Only the finance police seemed to be missing.
The commander of the Assisi carabinieri and Dr. Batori— who’d happened to be in Assisi presiding at the autopsy of Amelia Casati—were center stage. As Cenni also noted to his distress, they were the only officers appropriately garbed for a blood-soaked crime scene; at least they had covered their street shoes with plastic. The forensic team had not yet arrived, and without the constraint of their silent, ordered professionalism, chaos reigned.
As soon as he saw Cenni, Batori excused himself and approached the commissario. “It’s all over but the cheering,” Batori said, a disquieting smile lighting his face. “It would appear that we have Minelli’s murderer right there,” he said, pointing to Russo’s horribly savaged body almost with glee.
Cenni reminded himself that Russo had once threatened to have the medical examiner fired. Batori had been on the scene when Sophie Orlic had made a brief statement to the carabinieri before being removed to the Assisi Hospital, and he proceeded, without invitation, to give Cenni a description of the events that had led to Russo’s death.
“The other one, the pretty blonde, she was gutsy, bleeding like a stuck pig, yet she insisted on making a statement before they took her off to the hospital. These head wounds bleed like the dickens, you know. But she’ll be all right, a few stitches, a few days rest. Il Lupino hit her with a brick,” he added. “He would have killed her if the young countess hadn’t intervened. She saved the blonde’s life. He can tell you more about it,” he added as an afterthought, pointing to the carabinieri commander. “He took her statement.” Batori then pointed to one of the bystanders, a little man, not five feet tall, who looked over at Cenni with an air of expectation. “He’s the caretaker here; he found the three of them together behind the Casati vault and called the carabinieri.”
“And him?” Cenni interrupted, pointing to the blood-soaked body of Fulvio Russo. “It would appear that his throat was slashed. By whom?”
“Slashed right enough,” Batori responded in awe. “Right through the thyroid ligament. Couldn’t have done a better job myself,” he nodded. “Not that the
service provides us with such elegant tools. A huge ruby on its handle and as sharp as any of my surgical instruments. Worth a fortune, too, I’m told. According to the blonde. . . .”
“Her name is Sophie Orlic, Signora Orlic,” Cenni interjected.
“Signora Orlic, then,” Batori conceded before continuing. “She said that the countess was carrying the dagger to protect herself from Russo. The countess and the blon . . . Signora Orlic—she worked for the family, you know—they’d both suspected Russo of murdering Minelli. They joined together to accost him in the cemetery. They’re damned lucky it’s not one or both of them lying there.” It seemed to Cenni that Batori was caught between admiring the women for their courage and reproaching them for their foolishness. “Damned fine women,” he opted for finally, and excused himself to join the forensic science policemen who’d just appeared on the scene.
Marshal Stefano Sbarretti had waited for Batori to leave before approaching Cenni. They had met only once and that on a somber occasion where social exchanges were out of order—at the funeral in Perugia of two officers who had lost their lives in a gun battle with car thieves—but Cenni knew of Sbarretti’s reputation. The caribiniere was some years younger than Cenni and highly ambitious for honors and advancement, but he was also punctilious in observing the rules of engagement. He avoided stepping on toes, at least where the outcome was in doubt.
