Michelangelo's Ghost

by Gigi Pandian

  “You don’t understand as much as you think.” His tired eyes and thin lips narrowed. “I don’t own this land.”

  “You don’t?”

  “It belongs to my cousin. Just as Lazzaro Allegri lived on the land as a courtesy of his wealthy cousin, as do I. I have the Allegri name, but not a title, and not any claim on the land.”

  “But you live in the castle—”

  “A crumbling pile of rocks that won’t even stay warm in the summer.” He spat out the words. “The house is falling apart. I have no money for a cook or housekeeper, so I had to let them go years ago. Brunella has been unhappy every day since then.”

  I thought about Brunella’s suggestive clothing, stretching the seams of her expensive fabric nearly to the breaking point. She wasn’t trying to be provocative. She didn’t have money to buy newer designer clothes.

  “My cousin lives like a king in Rome,” Enzo continued with bitterness, “and he takes pity on me so he lets me stay at this house, rather than having it sit empty. The only condition is that I maintain the gardens, which were once much renowned. For this, we receive a small stipend to live on.”

  I realized my mistake about Francesco. I thought he was lying to me about the “vision” in his dream, which led him to Lazzaro’s missing notebook. But there was another explanation. Like Lilith Vine, Francesco had been drugged.

  “You’re the ghost,” I said. “Why impersonate the ghost, if you weren’t trying to scare us away?”

  “Stupida. I did not try. Rain was predicted. This is why I was wearing my hooded cloak in the rain at the Parco dei Mostri. It was your brother who call me a ghost. This is what gave me the idea that I could follow you without you seeing it was me. I know the secrets of the old buildings here, so I knew if you saw me following, I could get away.”

  That first night at the park, my brother had yelled that it was the ghost. We hadn’t seen more than the shadow of a man dressed for the rain. But on the roof of the medieval kitchen building, he’d been purposefully disguised in flowing black fabric to create the illusion of being a ghost. And I knew, now, why Lane hadn’t found the car of our pursuer. We were on Allegri land. Enzo had been driving the car we saw on the small road that night, so he knew our location. Afterwards, he parked the car at home and came back to spy on us on foot.

  “I only wished to find Lazzaro’s studio,” Enzo said. “It should have been mine. I could not find it, even with the map. You could not either. I had to ‘convince’ Francesco to give you the map. He did not know this, of course. I fooled you both.”

  I saw it now. After failing to find this hiding spot with the map in the sketchbook, Enzo had started following me, thinking my knowledge would lead me to it. But when he realized I wasn’t going to be able to find Lazzaro’s hiding place without the missing notebook, he needed to find a way to get it to me. So he gave Francesco, who was known to be crazy, a drug that would give him hallucinations, put mud on his shoes, and left the notebook for Francesco to find. The dramatic actor filled in the missing pieces in his mind.

  I never took my eyes off Enzo, but I had time to think. He wasn’t moving. He must be planning his next move too, wondering if he should make me go into the passageway, or if he needed to kill me first.

  A scraping noise sounded from the rock opening. It was sliding back into place. It must have been weighted so it would shut automatically, keeping the spot hidden. Both Enzo and I looked to the heavy rock that was sliding shut.

  Could I jump Enzo without getting slashed too badly in the process? If he had any training in combat, he would have already acted. There was a chance.

  “I see your eyes,” Enzo said. “Do not think of running away. If you do, I will kill your friend.”

  “My friend?”

  “The magician.”

  I gulped. “Sanjay?”

  “I find him drowning his sorrow at the Fantasma bar.”

  The bar at the bottom of the hill. Sanjay must have stopped there after he left.

  “He is a very loud man, yes?” Enzo said. “He talks much of you.”

  I groaned.

  “He performs fantastico magic tricks,” Enzo said. “I would hate to see him dead.”

  “You can’t—”

  “There are many secret passageways in my old home. Nobody will find him.”

  “What do you want?” My voice shook. It was my fault Enzo had Sanjay.

  “You go,” he said, pointing with the knife.

  “Into the cave?”

  “Sì, sì. Where else could I mean? You go.”

  I pushed the lever a second time and looked into the dark abyss as the ghostly wail sounded. What could I do but go along with Enzo?

  Chapter 57

  I was about to step into the chasm when the sound of snapping branches came from behind us.

  “Brunella?” I called, hoping she’d seen her husband follow me to this spot.

  “Brunella does not know,” Enzo said, whipping his head around.

  “She doesn’t know what you’ve done? How do you expect her to not find out?”

  “She will be happy when we have money again. You don’t know what she used to be like. When I met her, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Both her body and her mind. She gave up her job to come live here with me. It was good for many years, until the money ran out. She had not worked in so long that she could not get a good job again. She works part-time at a hotel.”

  “She’s the one who found the sketchbooks in your attic,” I said. “That’s why she knew there were four notebooks.”

  “I did not wish her to be at home when you called, but it could not be helped.”

  “It was you who dealt with Lilith Vine directly. And you only sold her three notebooks. After Lilith told you about Lazzaro’s treasure, you thought you could pocket the money from selling insignificant sketchbooks, but keep the relevant one for yourself, the one that would lead you to the paintings.”

  “Sì. Professoressa Vine also thought I owned this land. She thought it would be a great thing for me when she discovered the artwork. She approached me with a very generous offer for anything of Lazzaro Allegri’s that I had. I told Brunella of this, and she climbed to the attic first. There she found four sketchbooks. This is why she believed we sold Professoressa Vine all four, as she told you when we met.” He shook his head. “After Brunella found my ancestor’s drawings, I looked at them. Such nonsense, with monsters as well as people. But one of them had a map. Why would a man draw a map, if not for something of value?”

  “Lilith never saw Lazzaro’s fourth notebook,” I whispered, “but as she was dying she realized the third book ended too abruptly and you’d held something back from her.”

  “Yes,” Enzo said. “It was a mistake. Anyone who studied the other three would come to see there were pieces missing.”

  “Enzo!” Brunella’s voice. “Enzo, are you here? I hear the sound of the ghost, but there is no rain. What is happening?”

  “We’re over here!” I called. “Brunella! It’s Jaya Jones! I’m here with Enzo.”

  Enzo lunged at me but stumbled.

  “What in God’s name?” Brunella said as she came into view. “Enzo, are you having an affair with Professoressa Jones?” She narrowed her eyes and stomped towards him. “I knew you had been acting strangely since they arrived. This is where you meet? A cave in the forest?”

  Enzo tucked the knife into his pocket. He had told me the truth: She didn’t know.

  “I was just leaving,” I said, creeping away. “We’re not having an affair, just a misunderstanding. Arrivederci. Bye.” With Brunella distracting Enzo, I hoped I’d have time to find Sanjay at the Allegri house.

  “Stop,” Enzo said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was forceful.

  When I turned, the knife was back in his hand.

  “Enzo?”
Brunella gawked at the blade.

  “We cannot let her leave,” he said. “If you let her leave, you will be left with nothing. Your life will be a disgrace. But if you help me now, you will have all the riches you desire.”

  “He’s killed two people,” I said. “And he kidnapped my friend. He won’t hesitate to kill us both.”

  “That’s a lie,” Enzo roared. “I will not harm you, Brunella.”

  “You harmed others?” she said.

  “I did this for you, mia amore.”

  “You killed people for me?”

  “Yes, you see how much I love you.” Enzo smiled. He was happy he had an opportunity to tell Brunella what he’d done.

  “You,” Brunella said while Enzo beamed, “are a lunatic man.”

  Enzo’s smile turned into a snarl. I was glad Brunella was on my side, but I wished she’d played along. Now that Enzo knew Brunella wasn’t as impressed with his actions as he’d hoped, he had no reason not to kill us both. And Sanjay, as soon as he was done with us.

  “Two of us against one of you,” I said to Enzo, “but we’ll let you go.”

  “I am the one with the knife, signora.”

  “Why, Enzo?” Brunella’s lip trembled.

  “My cousin would have taken the paintings Professoressa Vine found. We are the ones who live on this land. Why should we not be the ones to benefit?”

  “It is true you killed people?” Brunella asked. “Please tell me this is a nightmare.”

  “Professoressa Vine was not going to give up,” Enzo said, then he spun to me. “But I did not mean to kill her. When she visited me again before she left Italy, I crushed my anxiety medication into powder and mixed it into the sweet drink mix she liked, and gave it to her as a gift. I believed this would distract her once she was home, making her forget about seeking my ancestor’s treasure. I wished her no harm, only to leave me to find the treasure first.”

  Brunella was crying now. But she was doing something else at the same time. While Enzo was facing me, Brunella locked her eyes on mine and gave me a barely perceptible nod. She inched her way not toward the boulder, but the area of brambles next to it. What was she doing?

  “Finding Lazzaro’s studio was not as simple as Professoressa Vine made me believe,” Enzo continued. “I could not find it. I needed more time. More help.”

  “Which you got when I arrived,” I said, taking small steps toward Brunella. “You had no way to get me that fourth notebook without showing your hand. It occurred to you that you could use Francesco. You weren’t certain it would work, so you also tried to get Orazio’s help, because he’d helped me with research.”

  “Stop moving,” Enzo snapped. “I see what you are doing, trying to escape.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing,” I said, taking another slow step. I saw what Brunella was up to. The mess of overgrowth next to the hillside boulder wasn’t simply a patch of brambles and weeds. It was decades, if not centuries, of fallen branches that covered an opening below. We were leading him there.

  Confusion crossed Enzo’s face, right before giving way to another emotion. Fear. He fell through the spot we’d led him to, on top of the insecure overgrowth that had grown over a natural opening on the hillside. He cried out as the moss-covered branches gave way, and he fell into a rocky crevice next to Lazzaro’s hidden grotto.

  Chapter 58

  It took three men on a rescue crew to lift Enzo from the narrow opening through which he’d fallen. He had a broken leg, so he couldn’t climb out. The police moved a stone into the entrance to keep the rock from sliding back in place. They were waiting for him next to the boulder.

  So was Brunella. Before the police pulled her off of him, she gave him a rather large bump on the head.

  Enzo yelled at the police. Since he was speaking Italian, I couldn’t understand the words. But from the way in which his chest was puffed out as he spoke, I thought it was a good bet he was claiming to be a nobleman they should bow down to. If that was the case, Lane was right: Nobility in Italy didn’t carry much weight.

  I told an English-speaking police officer that Sanjay was being held hostage somewhere in the Allegri house, possibly in a secret dungeon. He looked skeptical. Perhaps I should have used less dramatic words than “secret dungeon.” To prove my point, I called Sanjay. His phone was off. That convinced the police to search the house. I went with them.

  I apologized for the confusion with Francesco, but assured them they’d also find evidence that Enzo had killed an American professor, and probably Orazio as well. Since they didn’t know what might lie beyond the fissure in the boulder, the police weren’t concerned about securing this area of forest. I’d come back and search for Lazzaro’s lost masterpieces—just as soon as I found Sanjay.

  With the help of the police, I hunted through the Allegri house.

  “Sanjay?” I called from every room.

  No answer.

  The police removed paintings from the walls and pushed antique furniture aside as we searched for secret rooms.

  Nothing.

  “Qui!” a young officer called out.

  I followed the sound of her voice to a three-foot hole in the wall behind a kitchen cabinet. She grinned and stepped through the wall.

  “Sanjay?” I called.

  Instead of a voice reply, my phone buzzed. A text message from Sanjay popped on the screen: Your shoe is in the vase.

  My shoe? The vase? Was he delirious? He could be dying in an airless dungeon and thinking jumbled thoughts of me in his last breath. I choked back a sob.

  “Is empty,” the police officer said, shaking her head as she crawled back into the kitchen with cobwebs in her hair.

  Where are you? I texted Sanjay.

  Landed in Nantes. Forgot to tell you where you could find your sneaker. Knew you’d be missing it by now.

  I groaned. Sanjay hadn’t answered his phone because he was on an airplane. Enzo had been bluffing.

  Mahilan and Francesco arrived in a police car. A swath of bandages covered my brother’s nose. I wished Lane could have been there too, but whenever police were involved, he disappeared. Stefano Gopal would be arriving soon. He was on his way with his new girlfriend, the museum curator. I explained to everyone what I’d found in the forest.

  “If Sanjay’s Houdini handcuffs won’t hold you,” Mahilan said, “I’ll have to think of something else.”

  “She has found the treasure,” Francesco said. “You cannot fault her for this.”

  Mahilan glared at him. I wasn’t sure if it was because Francesco had contradicted him or if he was still mad about his nose. I couldn’t help laughing. With his overly bandaged nose, the glare had less gravitas. He turned the scowl to me, but I cut it off with a hug.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Fish,” I said. “You can make the discovery with me.”

  “You haven’t gone inside yet?”

  I shook my head. “Nobody has. Enzo fell into a natural canyon formed by rainwater along the hillside. It’s next to the grotto, but not part of it. We need to go through that doorway in the rock to find whatever Lazzaro Allegri left behind. You up for a little hike?”

  Mahilan looked around and shook his head sadly. “Look at all the moisture and moss in the woods, JJ. I hope you’re prepared for whatever you’ll find. I don’t know what will be left of any paintings.”

  “I’ve got a theory about that.” An idea had been forming in my mind, based on what we’d learned in the museum of Lazzaro’s observations of Indian art. Not about technique, as Lane and Stefano thought, but something far simpler. Something that had been in front of us this whole time.

  I led the way back to Lazzaro’s hidden grotto, wondering if I was right. The tips of my heels sank into the damp soil on the walk, but I didn’t mind. My heels had saved me yet again.

  “We’re here,” I said, pointing at
the rock holding open the entrance.

  I pulled my flashlight from my bag and led the way through the dark doorway that had opened in the rock. Shallow steps, carved from the rock itself, led downward, following the edge of the sloping hillside.

  “This was made possible because of my memories of my past life?” Francesco asked, following behind us.

  “About that—” I explained how Enzo had drugged him and planted the sketchbook. As we followed the steps down, I also apologized to Francesco for suspecting him, and on behalf of my brother for punching him. Mahilan wouldn’t apologize himself, since he was still upset about his sore nose and black eye.

  “Why did you run?” I asked, pausing as the ground leveled out.

  “When three Americans believe you to be a murderer,” Francesco said, “running seems a prudent course of action.”

  “You’ve read too many movie scripts,” I said.

  Francesco grimaced. “This is true.”

  “JJ,” my brother whispered. “Look.”

  I no longer needed my flashlight. Natural light filtered through an opening from above. Treetops prevented much light from getting inside, but in the past it would have been even brighter.

  Lane was probably right: no paintings could have survived in the open for all these centuries, no matter what the technique. But I still felt a tingling anticipation as I stood on the threshold of Lazzaro’s hidden workshop. Could my theory be correct?

  I took my brother’s hand, and we stepped into a cavern cut into the hillside.

  Chapter 59

  Inside Lazzaro’s hidden art studio, three stone monsters that rivaled those of the Park of Monsters greeted us. Only these weren’t nearly as big, and they weren’t made of bedrock from the area where they were carved. These were made of Italian marble.