by Joanne Pence
Time crept by slowly.
The three had checked out the ledge as best they could. Stefano had left nothing they could use to help themselves. They were stuck. Plus tired. Scared. And irritable.
Cat stood to stretch and shake out her legs. “I can’t take much more of this.”
“Sit down.” Angie yanked her pant legs. “You’re making me nervous.”
“You have a complaint?” Cat grumbled. “I’m the one with the right to complain! How the hell did I ever let you talk me into this mess?”
“Excuse me?” Angie enunciated sharply. “Are you talking to me?”
“Of course I’m talking to you! Who the hell else would I mean?”
“Ladies,” Father Daniel soothed, “I think we should join together in prayer.”
“I didn’t get you into anything!” Angie exclaimed, also getting to her feet. She had just about had it with Her Royal Prissiness. “All I ever did was try to help.”
“You call this help?” Cat screeched.
“You’re the one who wanted to take matters into your own hands. Before I ever suggested a thing, you got into your car all by yourself and started to follow Rocco. Don’t blame me for that!”
“Of course I wanted to take matters into my own hands,” Cat said indignantly. “That’s when things turn out right. Unfortunately, I got involved with a crazy woman!”
“Nobody forced you. And it wasn’t so crazy. It was logical. You saw the logic in it, as I recall.” Angie jutted her chin out belligerently.
“I was in shock!”
Father Daniel also stood and tried to get between the two. He would have had better luck if he could see what was going on. “Please, you two—”
“If I’d simply gone home after finding that body,” Cat continued woefully, “called my husband, and gotten a lawyer to explain everything to the police, none of this would have happened. I’d be in my own house, my own bed. Safe! Not here, and definitely not waiting for some madman to kill me!”
Father Daniel tried again. “How about me hearing your confessions? This is a time to be sure your soul is free of sin—”
Disgust dripped from Angie’s voice. “Too bad you didn’t know he was a madman when you thought he was trustworthy and hot for your body!”
“Why, you—”
“What about the chain? The corpse? The witness? The handkerchief? All of them convinced you to run to that madman who you swore would help you prove your innocence.” Angie hissed like an angry feline. “You think I like spending a week with you running from strangers, wearing grubby clothes, and listening to you bitch? You think I don’t miss Paavo and wish I could be anywhere but here?”
“Let’s join hands.” Father Daniel groped and found each of their hands in the dark. As he drew the two together, Cat reached out, found Angie in the dark and grabbed her arm, her bony fingers squeezing just the way she had when they were young.
“You don’t wish it any more than I!” Cat shouted.
Angie jerked free with such force, Father Daniel barely stopped her from falling backward. She slapped Cat’s hand away. “You called me, remember?”
Father Daniel kept his voice calm. “Cat, Angie—”
“For all the good that did!” She got right in Angie’s face. “I was hoping your worthless fiancé would help me. Was I ever wrong!”
“Ladies!” Father Daniel called haplessly.
“Don’t you dare call Paavo worthless!” Angie shoved Cat. Hard. To her surprise and semidelight, it sounded as if Cat fell over and landed on her butt. “You didn’t do one thing to make this any easier. You just wanted to make sure no one mentioned your sacrosanct name in connection with murderers and thieves! You cared more about your precious reputation than anything else, and you know it.”
Angie heard Cat sputtering and fuming, and slapping at her clothes as if brushing dirt from them. “You little worm!” Suddenly, she barreled into Angie, knocking her down.
“It’s better than being a big bitch!” Angie snarled as she dragged Cat to the ground with her. She gave Cat’s hair a solid yank.
Cat screamed, pulling free and flailing at Angie. “This is all your fault! I’ve never been so miserable in my entire life!”
“How can you say that when you’ve been married to Charles for twelve years?”
“You snot!” Cat swung a right hook.
In the dark, Angie felt the breeze as Cat’s arm sailed by. Outraged, she managed to get hold of the arm.
Cat clamped onto Angie’s wrist and the two proceeded to pull and tug at each other, rolling and tussling around on the ground.
“No, no, no! Angie! Cat! Cut it out! Knock this off!” Father Daniel leaped into the melee, trying to pull them apart.
Seconds later he scurried backward holding a bloody nose.
Neither listened. Days of frustration, resentment, and every imagined childhood wrong burst out. With flailing arms and kicking legs, the two sisters continued the wrestling match, oblivious to the now increasingly angry priest.
“Angelina, Caterina!” Father Daniel blared. “Come to your senses! Stop it! Stop it now!” One hand protectively covering his nose, he moved forward cautiously in the dark to try again to separate them. He couldn’t actually see the two women, but their grunts and yelps gave away their location.
Without warning, there was a terrified scream.
Father Daniel nearly jumped out of his skin. He squinted in the dark, petrified. Where were the women? One moment they were right in front of him, the next . . .
Realization hit him. He forgot all about his bloody nose. “The pit!” he shrieked. “For God’s sake!”
To his horror, there was only silence.
Heart pounding in his throat, he dropped to his knees and inched forward cautiously. “Angie! Caterina! Where are you?” he shouted even as he frantically prayed to every saint that they hadn’t fallen off the ledge. He reached forward with a shaky hand and touched bare sloping ground. “Cat? Angie?”
What was he going to do if they fell in? He had no light. He couldn’t go get help. Then something nudged him.
A shrill howl escaped his lips.
“It’s me,” came Cat’s strangled voice. “I can’t let go! Thank God you found us.”
“You can’t let go?” He gulped. If only he could see! “What are you talking about? Where’s Angie?”
“I’m holding her foot.”
“Foot? Her foot? What do you mean her foot?” Father Daniel shouted. He could hear the hysteria rising in his voice, and gave himself a mental smack.
A disembodied voice floated up from the darkness. “I’m upside down! Hurry! Get me out of here!”
With visions of Angie sliding head first into the pit swirling in his head, Daniel wrapped both arms around Cat’s waist and pulled while she somehow managed to keep her grip on Angie’s foot.
In a bizarre human chain, the three pulled and dragged themselves off the slope. It felt like hours. Then they sprawled, panting and moaning, on the ground. Sweating, nose bleeding, breathless, and absolutely furious, Daniel was about to deliver a homily of the fire and brimstone kind when Angie rolled over and sat up.
In an incredibly chirpy voice, she said, “You’ll never guess what I found!”
Chapter 41
Vice Questore Paolo Napolitano of the Commissariato di Polizia had smoked too many cigarettes and drunk too much coffee. All he wanted was to get home to his wife and children and the dinner he knew had turned cold hours earlier. It had been a long day, but he had to finish up a little more paperwork before leaving the office. That was the problem with a police system as unwieldy as Italy’s. Everyone needed reports to protect their turf, to look important. And busy.
Napolitano was part of the Polizia di Stato, the civil state police, which operated out of stations in cities throughout Italy. The Polizia di Stato were under the Director General of Public Security, who was under the Public Order and Security Committee, which was under the Ministry of the Interior. The Carabinieri, of the
fancy uniforms with white sashes across their chests, under the Minister of Defense, were also in cities, but were the primary force keeping order in the countryside. There was also a Guardia di Finanza, or financial police, a special antimafia patrol, an antiterrorist unit, and other branches of the police system. And they all stepped on each other’s toes or danced away from problems, leaving a gaping hole for the problems to fall through.
In the quiet of the office tucked in the back of the Questura Centrale, Rome’s main police station, Napolitano heard footsteps and voices approaching. He didn’t want to deal with any problems tonight. He was ready to leave.
There was a knock, and the door opened. Two unhappy officers entered with two men. The first was tall and fit, mid-thirties, with dark brown hair. Napolitano could hardly pull his gaze from the blue-eyed intensity of the man to scrutinize his companion. Portly. Thinning hair. Somewhere in his forties or fifties. American. Definitely American.
Napolitano stood. “What’s going on?”
“I’m Inspector Paavo Smith of the San Francisco Police Department.” He held out his badge.
Immediately, the vice questore’s phone began to ring.
A breathless aide came in wide-eyed. “Excuse me, sir, the call is from the minister himself.”
The blue-eyed foreigner glanced at his companion, and then to Napolitano. “I believe that call will save us both a lot of time.”
“It’s working,” Paavo said to Charles as they sat waiting for the call to end.
Charles nodded, but looked confused and wary.
They’d been greeted at the airport by a police escort and whisked through town to a large imposing gray building. It didn’t look like a police station, which was what they’d both been expecting, but more like a fortress.
The escort and the fortresslike questura was impressive. Paavo was sure that Charles now understood why he’d refused to allow him to bring the Luger to Rome. To avoid delays and red tape, he hadn’t even brought his own weapon. Instead, after tossing some clothes into his duffel, putting out several days worth of food and water for his cat, and finding his passport, they said good-bye to the teary-eyed Amalfi women, then rushed to the airport where the private air charter company that Charles’s company contracted with had a plane waiting.
Paavo had made a few phone calls to Rome from the private plane, but as soon as the full complexity of the Italian security force became clear to him, he contacted Serefina. The Amalfis were friends with San Francisco Police Commissioner Tom Barcelli.
Barcelli happened to personally know Italy’s Minister of the Interior, who got Paavo and Charles into Napolitano’s office.
As Napolitano hung up the phone, he regarded Paavo with all the friendliness of a pit bull. Although Barcelli might have been a friend of the Minister of the Interior, the day-to-day police work was Napolitano’s. It was his decision to go along, or to cart them off to the American embassy.
“It sounds as if you’ve taken a big chance coming here, Inspector Smith,” he said bluntly. “There are international laws and statutes to handle this sort of thing that don’t necessitate this kind of American cowboy riding-into-town and handling everything yourself.”
“I’m aware, sir,” Paavo said sternly, “but I have all the information in my head, and time is of the essence.”
Napolitano regarded him in silence, then said, “If this doesn’t work, it could mean your career, Inspector.”
Paavo’s expression never varied. “It could mean much more to me than that.”
“Is she worth it?”
Paavo knew exactly what Napolitano meant. His reply was simple, direct, and honest. “She’s worth everything to me.”
Napolitano smiled, but rather than warm, it was world-weary, as if he could barely remember a time when love burned that way in his own soul. He picked up the phone. “I’m expecting an envelope,” he told the person at the other end. “It’s here already? Excellent. Bring it in.”
He hung up, then began to explain the situation to Paavo and Charles. “A car registered to the Vatican was found abandoned near the airport at Fiumicino. It sustained a slight bit of damage to its fender. It looked as if it might have been driven off the road. We have been in contact with the Vatican to learn who had been given the car and for what purpose.”
Napolitano paused as the same aide who had given him the information about the phone call returned with an envelope. “Tucked under the front seat,” he went on as the aide departed, “as if purposefully hidden there, they found something that pertains to this case.” He tore open the packet and shook out a small card.
A California driver’s license. Name: Caterina Amalfi Swenson.
Rocco Piccoletti slammed down the phone. Bruno had just phoned in a panic. He’d been taken to the Questura Centrale and questioned by the police. They were looking for the two American women and heard they’d been working at Da Vinci’s. Bruno denied knowing anything and was freed.
Rocco wondered how the polizia had gotten involved. He also wondered how much Bruno had told them, and if Bruno had told them where he lived.
He called Stefano. It was too early for the bank to open, so they could get into the safe deposit box, but he didn’t want to wait at home any longer. An uneasiness had come over him. He reminded himself not to panic, not to rush. He must take it slowly, carefully. Victory was near, and he didn’t want to screw it up now.
A massive bulk of a man and a smaller one with a goatee peered from the shadows at the building where Rocco Piccoletti was now living.
They’d found it by following him two nights earlier.
They could no longer find the American women, which meant either that Piccoletti himself now had the St. Peter chain or that he could lead them to the women who had it.
They suspected the latter.
They weren’t about to give up, not after all those American witches had put them through. Especially the young one. They could hardly wait to get their hands on her again. As much as they wanted the chain, it was secondary now.
They wanted revenge.
A yellow car drove up to the front of the apartment and stopped, the motor running.
Rocco Piccoletti bolted from the building into the car, and it drove off.
The goons followed.
It was early morning, but already tourists dotted the ancient Roman Forum like ants at a picnic.
Paavo rushed down a walkway to enter the area, Charles and a policeman following. Paavo could hardly believe how massive the Forum was, much larger than he’d ever imagined. Most of it was below street level. He realized it was essentially a gigantic archeological dig in the heart of Rome. The digging and restoration appeared to be still going on, as many marble and granite columns and pillars lay on their sides, and great portions of the area were cordoned off.
He could scarcely believe the scope of what he was looking at. Much had been restored, and massive archways and pillars from temples reached high into the sky. These were grounds where Roman senators and orators gave some of the most famous speeches in history, and wrote laws that continued to form the basis for many civilized societies to this day.
It was hard to believe that a civilization that could build something so grand and powerful had eventually crumbled under the internal weight of unruly mobs and attacks from those the Romans called “barbarians” from elsewhere in Europe and Asia. Evidence that it had happened before gave sudden credence that it could again.
Paavo watched as Rocco went down into the Forum. He followed, careful that Rocco didn’t notice him.
The plan he and Vice Questore Napolitano concocted had worked.
Arrest Bruno, get him to tell them where Rocco was living, then make him phone Rocco and let the man know the police were on to him. They hoped it would spur Rocco into action, and it had.
They had watched as Rocco got into a car driven by a younger man. Before they pulled out of their parking space, however, another car started after Piccoletti. They followed both.
The second auto stayed a safe distance behind Piccoletti all the way to the Forum. There, Piccoletti got out.
The entire episode was quite peculiar.
At the Forum, Paavo, Charles, and one of the officers with them sprang from the police car to follow Rocco, who went directly to a fenced area with signs for the public to keep out. He had a key to unlock the gate, and walked inside.
The only sound was Father Daniel quietly reciting prayers, psalms, and the litany of the saints of the Church, asking them for help on this long night. In the Catholic tradition, each sister had gone to a corner and made a confession to him in whispers, away from the prying ears of the other “just in case” things didn’t work out well the next morning.
His duty done, Father Daniel now sat alone at his station.
“Do you think Rocco forgot about us?” Cat whispered from her corner.
“I don’t know,” Angie whispered from hers. “It’s like watching water boil.”
In her almost slide into the pit, Angie had managed to find some rope left behind. A great idea had occurred to her as she was being dragged backward by Cat. Well, she considered it a great idea. Cat and Father Daniel greeted it with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. Nevertheless, since they were working in total darkness, it took them most of the night to set it up.
First, they felt along the wood supports until they found two spots at some distance from each other with loose boards. They pulled the boards free, making enough space for Angie to hide alongside one and Cat in the other. Even when the lights were on, they were fairly sure the area would be cast in shadow and they’d be obscured.
Angie took one end of the rope, Cat the other, and they stretched it between them, lightly covering it with dirt.
Their plan was that when Rocco showed up, Father Daniel would tell him Cat and Angie had fallen into the pit. They were hurt, maybe dead, he’d say.
Hearing this, their hope was that Rocco would get a ladder and climb down to the layer they were on. As he hurried to the edge, the women would lift the rope and trip him. Father Daniel would rush up from behind and give Rocco a shove.
