The Bone Chamber

by Robin Burcell

  Griffin paced the room. “If it’s not Tex, they killed this man and put Tex’s ring on his hand, because he fit the general description. I need a positive identification. Now.”

  “You forget. This man’s fingertips they are removed with his face, and the backlog for DNA is worse than in your country.”

  Griffin stopped, looked right at Sydney. “What about doing a forensic sketch, like you did for Alessandra?”

  “That’s a possibility,” she said, “but before you go that route, it might help to look at the missing person’s report. Maybe there’s something in it-something no one noticed, because they weren’t thinking it was anything beyond the routine.”

  “Have them fax you a copy,” Griffin told Giustino.

  Giustino made the call. A few minutes later, the fax purred to life. The moment the missing person’s report dropped into the tray, Griffin picked it up. He spoke fluent Italian, but his grasp of the written language wasn’t as good, and after looking it over, he gave it to Giustino to translate.

  “The victim, Enzo Vitale, he goes for a walk with his dog that evening. He never returns. I see nothing else. He and Tex, they are very close in size, but there is no more to identify. Niente.”

  To which Fitzpatrick said, “Something I didn’t take into consideration. How many overworked officers bother to ask for minute details on a standard missing person’s report? Especially when nine times out of ten, the victims turn up safe and sound?”

  Griffin stopped at that. “Good point. Giustino? Call the family. See if there’s some detail, some identifying detail they might have forgotten to tell the officer…And do it gently, in case it is this Enzo Vitale.”

  Giustino nodded, took the report, and made the call. When he hung up, he looked hopeful. “The wife of Enzo Vitale, she describes a heart-shaped mole about four centimeters below his navel.”

  Something only a wife would know. “Call the morgue.”

  Giustino dialed, related the information to the investigator on duty, then waited. Time stilled. No one moved, no one said a thing while Giustino sat there, the phone pressed to his ear. From the open windows, they could hear bits of conversation drifting up several stories from the piazza below, as diners arrived at Arnaldo’s ristorante. Almost eight o’clock, and the three of them had yet to eat. After several minutes, Giustino sat up, said, “Certo. Grazie, Commissario.”

  He hung up the phone, closed his eyes, seeming to sink in his seat, and Griffin had no idea if it was good news or bad, until Giustino said, “It is him. Enzo Vitale. They found the mole.”

  University of Virginia

  “Professor Denise Woods?” Carillo held out his shield and credentials for the petite woman to see.

  “You’re here about my missing student? Please tell me you’ve found him and he’s okay?”

  “Actually,” Carillo said. “I’m here on a somewhat related matter. My partner saw you earlier in the week? Special Agent Fitzpatrick?”

  “Yes. She’s the one I gave the papers on conspiracy theory to. I’ve had so many people here asking about my students lately, I can’t keep it straight.”

  “You’ve spoken to other agents?” he asked. Fitzpatrick had indicated there was more to this case than met the eye. “From which agency?”

  “Come to think of it, they didn’t really say.”

  “And what’d they ask you?”

  “Same thing as your partner. Sort of. They were interested in my assistant. Wanted to know when was the last time I saw Alessandra, if she’d discussed anything out of the ordinary with me.”

  “And did she?”

  “No. That was the gist of it, and they left.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “About Alessandra? No.”

  “What about the other student?”

  “Xavier, the young man Alessandra had befriended. Normally I don’t encourage my assistants to become so closely involved in the projects of my students, but Alessandra had said she’d seen something in his work, something she’d like to explore further.”

  “What sort of something?”

  “Two things, actually, the first being the conspiracy report I gave to your partner. What Alessandra saw in it besides the usual rubbish found on the Internet, I’m not sure.”

  “And what was the other?”

  “An odd thing on genealogy he’s working on with another professor who is away on sabbatical. It was, in fact, the reason that Alessandra befriended him.”

  “My partner see that report?”

  “Actually, no. I didn’t think of it at the time, because she specifically asked if he was working on conspiracy theory.”

  “You don’t still have it, do you?”

  “Of course.” She opened a file on her computer and printed something out. “Here it is, along with a copy of the conspiracy report.”

  “Mind if I copy it?”

  “If it helps you in your investigation, it’s yours.”

  “Thanks,” Carillo said. “One other thing. You have the name of this professor on sabbatical that your student was working with?”

  “Francesca Santarella.”

  Carillo handed Professor Woods a card, asking her to call if anyone else inquired into the matter, regardless of what governmental agency they said they were from. He left, sat in the car and sipped at his lukewarm coffee he’d picked up earlier that morning, and read the papers he’d been given.

  The odd thing on genealogy turned out to be a report on family trees and the skeletons one might find in their closets if they dug back far enough in their research. It was titled: “Six Degrees to a Serial Killer or King.” Starting with the fact that everyone has two sets of grandparents, who each have two sets of grandparents, who have two sets of grandparents, and so on and so on. A tongue-in-cheek look at the pyramidal scheme of family trees. Even those who might lay claim to royalty no doubt had some nefarious relatives tucked in their closets. And to prove his point, the author researched his own history, discovering that, while there were no serial killers in his tree, he was directly related to the Prince of Sansevero, reported to be the first Freemasons Grand Master in Naples.

  Carillo flipped through the report, and there were a couple of things that bothered him. The biggie was that the kid was missing after drafting such a report, whether it was this report or the other one he’d done on conspiracies. Now maybe it was merely coincidence that the kid happened to be friends with the daughter of the ambassador to the Holy See, who also happened to be missing-well, was missing, now dead. But Carillo didn’t like coincidences, and this thing smacked of conspiracy all over the place. The other thing that bothered him was, as Professor Woods mentioned, under the list of references on his report, the kid noted a Professor Francesca Santarella. That in itself wouldn’t bother him, since he had no idea who she was. It was her current address at the American Academy in Rome that made him look twice, something he might not have noticed if not for the fact Sydney was looking into the death of the ambassador’s daughter. First thing he did once he found out that little tidbit was look up the ambassador’s residence on a nice, big, fat Internet map. That, of course, was the only reason he even knew that the American Academy was directly across the street.

  And that was one hell of a coincidence he wasn’t about to overlook.

  He hit a number on his speed dial for the San Francisco office. Michael “Doc” Schermer picked up on his end of the phone. “I need you to check into something,” Carillo said. “It’s below the radar. That thing Fitz is working on. We need you to work your research magic, figure out what the common thread in all this is.”

  “Between you and Fitzpatrick, I should be getting paid double time.”

  “That’s the beauty about government salaries. No double time. Saves the taxpayers’ money.”

  “Yeah, well, I suppose they have to give me a lunch break sometime. What’dya got?”

  “I’m gonna fax you over a couple reports,” he said. “And I want you to dig up
some information on a Professor Francesca Santarella.”

  About an hour later, Doc Schermer called him back. “These look like college term papers.”

  “They are.”

  “Some of this conspiracy stuff’s swiped straight from the Net. I have to admit, the one he’s working on with this Professor Santarella on six degrees of separation? At least it’s interesting.”

  “And your point?”

  “This stuff is pretty far out there. Any idea what you’re looking for?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Griffin, not trusting Sydney for an instant, handed her his cell phone, then listened intently to her conversation with her partner, Carillo, while she told him that she was booked on a flight out that very night. Suddenly her voice dropped, and she turned her back. Griffin should have put her on speakerphone, but he didn’t want to tie up the secure line, and a good thing, too, because a moment later, it rang. Griffin grabbed it, hoping it was Marc with more information on Tex, now that the carabinieri had made a tentative ID on the man at the morgue as their missing person, Enzo Vitale.

  It was Dumas. “We have a situation.”

  “What is it?” Griffin asked, shaking his head at Giustino to let him know it was not about Tex.

  “The professoressa. She slipped out of the Vatican.”

  “Slipped out for what? A cappuccino?”

  “Somehow I don’t think that is foremost on her mind.”

  “Great. This is all I need right now.”

  “Something else going on?”

  “Nothing,” he said, not willing to share his hopes that Tex might be alive. Not yet. “Why would the professor leave?”

  “According to Father Martinez, who was assisting her with her research, he noticed her taking numerous notes, and happened to walk past to see what had caught her interest.”

  “I don’t suppose you happen to know what her notes said?”

  “Actually I do. She only took the top sheet when she left. Father Martinez was able to bring up the remnants. The name Raimondo di Sangro came up. Apparently she was looking at transcripts that had to do with this prince in the 1700s, who managed to find himself jailed for matters that now would seem inconsequential, but back then were the height of scandal. Something to do with his involvement with Freemasonry.”

  “Freemasonry was a jailing offense?”

  “Let us just say that back then the church held far more sway when it came to dissuading its congregation from embarking down the path of darkness. The other matter she was looking into had something to do with columbaria.”

  “Columbaria?”

  “Ancient burial sites.”

  “She did say she was doing research on ancient burial sites. Anything else?”

  “You have the same information I have.”

  “I appreciate the call.”

  “I know you would do the same.”

  Griffin wasn’t so sure about that, but he muttered, “Of course. I’ll let you know if we hear anything.” He disconnected, trying to determine if it was even worth their effort to try to find the professor. “Santarella took off,” he said to Giustino, who was busy perusing the book on the Egyptian influence on Roman history in hopes of discovering why it was sent.

  “If she is stupid enough to leave on her own after being shot at, she deserves her fate.”

  “I tend to agree with you.” He didn’t have time to run after the professor. Not with Tex’s situation unresolved, and not until he personally put Sydney safely on her flight out.

  At least that was his thought until Sydney handed him back his cell phone, her look somewhat smug. “If I told you something you didn’t know,” she said, “would it change your mind about sending me home just yet?”

  “I doubt it. But try me.”

  “Two things. One, that book. Carillo said the security video from the gift shop showed that wasn’t the only thing Alessandra mailed.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “She bought a postcard with a mummy on the front of it. On the back she wrote something and mailed it separately.”

  “Any idea what she wrote?” Griffin asked.

  “As a matter of fact I do. She drew a triangle, then the word Egypt inside the null sign.”

  “A triangle?” He saw the image carved on Alessandra’s face, tried not to think of it, failed, and it took him a moment to recover his thoughts. “Like the triangle carved on her face?”

  “It could be a pyramid,” she said. “Especially considering the word Egypt is next to it. Carillo thought the literal translation would be ‘pyramid no Egypt.’”

  “They were in Egypt,” Griffin said. “Digging in a pyramid. Pyramid not in Egypt? But why mail the book?”

  “Maybe as a decoy.”

  “More importantly, what does this have to do with Adami building and smuggling bioweapons?”

  “Maybe she was trying to tell you that the dig was a ploy?”

  The same thing that Tasha had suggested…It made no sense. “This second thing?”

  “You’ll never guess which professor’s name Carillo saw on a reference page to a research paper written by a second missing person from UVA-a student who was last seen with Alessandra.”

  “Why do I not want to hear this?”

  “Because the student also listed this professor’s address as being at the American Academy.”

  Giustino set the book on the table. “What is that saying? The story fattens?”

  “The plot thickens,” Sydney said.

  “I can think of a few other choice sayings,” Griffin muttered. “None of them remotely polite.”

  Sydney gave a shrug. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly plausible explanation, and I’d love to help you, especially with all the maps and notes tucked away in her office that probably have something to do with all this, but”-she made a show of looking at her watch-“have a plane to catch.”

  Giustino’s smile turned into a full-blown grin, and Griffin glared at him before turning his attention back to Sydney. “Tell me about this paper Carillo found.”

  “According to Carillo, genealogy, something about some long-lost relative in Naples who was a prince. The other paper, the one I brought a copy of, was on conspiracy theory.”

  Hell. Dumas said Santarella was looking up something about a prince. “Like I said, what would either have to do with the smuggling of bioweapons?”

  “Good question. Clearly the professor is hiding something.”

  He hated to admit she was right, but she was. He’d been bothered by the same thing, something he might have taken more heed of had he not been so distracted by Sydney’s presence-which was another reason to get her on that plane tonight.

  “Of course,” Sydney continued, “you could always ask her.”

  “If I knew where she was.”

  “You mean Dumas lost her?”

  “She was looking up information on a prince,” he said, ignoring yet another smug look from her, “as well as something to do with the columbaria.”

  “When I was in her office, I saw a lot of stuff on her walls that had to do with the columbaria.”

  “What sort of stuff?”

  “Maps, diagrams, photos, notes. I gathered it was sort of a specialty. What she was here to study. Maybe if we-if you stopped by her studio, you might find something that would give you an indication on where to look.”

  The thought bore merit. “Even if we did find something, how would we even know what we were looking at? It would have been nice to have an expert solidly in our own court. Someone we could trust without question.”

  Sydney walked over, picked up her travel bag, then placed it by the front door. “Too bad I’m leaving. I actually do have a go-to man when it comes to digging up obscure bits of information. If anyone can put a spin on some long-forgotten columbarium, Doc Schermer can.”

  “Doc Schermer?”

  “My ex-partner Carillo’s current partner.”

  “May I ask you something,
Special Agent Fitzpatrick?”

  “Fire away.”

  “Back in Quantico, when I mentioned that this case was not to be discussed with anyone, at what point did you disobey that directive?”

  She gave a light shrug. “Couple hours into it when I called Carillo from my dorm room.”

  “Figures,” he said, wondering how it was he’d so totally misjudged her. Then again, maybe had he given her free rein as she’d insisted, they might be further along.

  Or she might be dead.

  He’d had a number of good reasons for keeping things from her. Even now it was a risk. But like it or not, she was involved, not likely to change her mind, and he could use the help. Unlike Professor Santarella, Sydney Fitzpatrick knew most of the risks, was well-trained by the Bureau, and any knowledge she and her fellow agents brought to the table was a plus. He looked at Giustino, said, “I need two calls made before we move out. First, bring in someone to cover for you here. I don’t want this unmanned while Tex is still out there.”

  “And the second?” Giustino asked.

  “Call the airport and cancel Fitzpatrick’s flight,” he said, ignoring her catlike smile.

  Sydney rolled up the cuffs on her ENEL coveralls, trying to make them look more like they fit her, when they belonged to Giustino, who stood about four inches taller. When she finished, she smoothed out the uniform, and Griffin, also in ENEL coveralls, nodded.

  “Not to worry,” he said. “No one will pay much attention.”

  She could only hope, she thought as they walked across the street to the van where Giustino, dressed all in black, was waiting.

  The moment she slid into the front passenger seat, Griffin said, “Do me a favor, Fitzpatrick. When we get to the American Academy, don’t say a thing.”

  “Like the four words of Italian I know are going to do much good?”

  “You sure you want to do this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  A little after ten, they drove to the academy, the ENEL electric company logo still on the van, a perfect cover for their plans this evening. Griffin dropped Giustino off around the corner from the entrance, then waited a short way down the street. About five minutes later, every light at the academy went out.