Death Of A Sad Face (A Serafina Florio Mystery) Read online

  A blast of cool air brought Captain Badali into the dining room, removing his three-cornered hat and greeting everyone. His eyes locked onto Carmela’s, whose cheeks reddened. Lovely, Serafina thought. Vicenzu helped the captain to his seat, poured his wine, and filled his plate.

  “No interruptions, please,” Serafina said, “while I tell you our plans for this evening. After supper, Carmela, you ride with the children and don’t leave their side. Rosa, Vicenzu, Badali and I will follow in another carriage, and we’ll meet in front of the big tent and sit together.”

  The children nodded. Totò grabbed an olive from Tessa’s plate and grinned, whispering, “We’re going to the circus!”

  “Shhh!” someone said.

  “Vicenzu, bring Papa’s stiletto.”

  Serafina glanced at Badali whose eyes rounded.

  “We’ll enter and sit together until the circus begins, when Vicenzu, the captain, Rosa and I will leave for a short while, returning in time to watch the finale.”

  The Leaps Of A Wizard

  “Tell us what this is all about,” Rosa said as the carriage wheels spun through the piazza and down via Serpentina on the way to Barco’s Circus.

  Serafina told Vicenzu and Badali about the pink strand of fabric she’d found in the Lanza entryway, probably from the costume of a performer.

  Rosa scowled. “We know all that. Hurry up and finish with your story, I smell elephants.”

  As they pulled into the road leading to the tents, Serafina told them what she’d learned about Cecco and Roberto from talking to Lucia, her maid, and Mother Concetta.

  Rosa hung onto her hat and rolled with the coach. “What makes you think that Roberto works in Barco’s circus? That Teo is with him? That Roberto killed Cecco?”

  “It’s impossible to argue with my mother when she has that look in her eye,” Vicenzu said.

  “Two events happened simultaneously: Roberto shot Cecco, and Teo left our home. Lucia told me that she’d heard a shot when the moon was high in the sky and saw a cloaked figure ‘leap away into the night’; the wet nurse said Teo left ‘when the moon were at its zenith.’ I think what happened is that Roberto collided with Teo. He thought the boy had witnessed his flight, so he kidnapped him. How else would Teo have vanished so quickly?”

  “By taking a train or a boat,” Rosa said and rolled her eyes. The madam was silent for a moment. “Still, I’ve learned to live with the leaps of a wizard.”

  The Circus

  The two carriages parked close to each other in a large field adjacent to the big top and Serafina’s party moved through the throng toward the tent to take their seats. Lions roared in the distance. Clowns stood on the sidelines holding dancing bears or monkeys or parrots. People shouted to one another. Someone pushed Rosa, who elbowed the offender.

  After they took their seats, Totò and Tessa clapped. Maria smiled. Someone blew a whistle, and the gaslights dimmed. “Ladies and gentleman!” the announcer intoned. A hush fell over the crowd.

  Serafina swallowed. The moment had arrived. She gave the signal and quietly and with bowed heads, the foursome moved silently out of the row, down the aisle, and out of the big tent.

  Barco stood outside the entrance, a ringmaster’s whip in hand. A ball of a man, short and round, he dressed in the only garb Serafina had ever seen him wear: overalls, a tattered shirt stained with sweat, red tails, a top hat with bald patches.

  “Haven’t seen you since Giorgio’s funeral. Leaving so soon?” He tipped his hat to the women.

  Serafina said, “We want to see Roberto.”

  Barco narrowed his brows. “Since it’s you, Donna Fina, go right ahead.” He waved an arm in the direction of a tent in the middle distance. “You’ll find him over there, him and his trapeze. Gets special treatment, does our Roberto, his own tent. Comes and goes as he pleases. Works all over Europe, but he’s here tonight, and the crowd will go wild, mark me. Flies through the air, somersaulting like a specter. Best tumbler I ever seen. Good for business, I tell you. I got the big tent packed every night, even Mondays. Roberto has his duds made for him in Paris, and this time, brought his own little shoemaker with him.” He pulled on a chain and looked at his watch. “Goes on in a few minutes. Better hurry!”

  The group walked down the narrow path that led to the acrobat’s tent. Vicenzu looked at Badali; Rosa for once said nothing; and Serafina, praying to the Madonna, gripped the handle of Giorgio’s stiletto.

  Vicenzu opened the flap to Roberto’s tent, and the four entered, splitting up to search. Serafina breathed fetid air, doubtless caused by several torches giving off a foul smoke. In one corner, Teo sat, tied to a chair. He was gagged, his shirt and pantaloons torn.

  Serafina rushed to him. “Let’s get you out of here!” Using the stiletto, she tore the gag and sliced his ropes.

  Freed, Teo pointed. “Up there!”

  Serafina could barely see Roberto in the smoky light as she raised her head to the top of the tent, where a thick rope hung to the ground, and beside it, swinging slightly, a trapeze. On it, Roberto hung upside down. His strong legs and feet wound around the bar. And the enormous muscles of his back bent upward so that he faced Teo and Serafina. His hair hung loose. His eyes bore holes in Serafina. On his feet were thin-soled shoes, and in his outstretched hands, a revolver aimed at Teo.

  From the other side, Badali shouted, “Down on the ground. Now!”

  “Move and I shoot the boy,” Roberto said.

  Unnoticed by the acrobat and silent as a cat, Rosa walked in back of Roberto and grabbed the end of the rope.

  “Over here!” Vicenzu cried from the shadows.

  Caught off guard, Roberto turned, pointing the gun at Badali, twisting again, and leveling the gun at Vicenzu who was a short distance away from the carabiniere and moving toward Rosa.

  Serafina spirited Teo toward the entrance. But seeing her escape, Roberto swung the revolver back and forth between Serafina and Badali, now running toward him.

  “You’re surrounded! Give up, and come down from there,” Badali said.

  Serafina stopped and turned to the trapeze artist. “We know you killed Cecco!”

  Roberto jumped up to a standing position on the bar, his gun following Serafina and Teo. “His death was instant. I gave him peace.”

  But Rosa, who’d taken the rope in both hands, shook it, sending rippling waves up and down its length, catching the acrobat off guard, and pitching him and his trapeze from side to side. Then she ran to join Serafina, the plumes of her hat wafting in the heavy air.

  Instead of falling, the acrobat leapt off the bar in a graceful arc, soaring to a great height before somersaulting and righting himself to land on both feet. Waving his gun, he corralled the five. “Watch this young man die.”

  He aimed his gun at Teo.

  “Don’t shoot!” Serafina yelled, hiding Teo in the folds of her voluminous skirts.

  It seemed as if they stood fixed forever in a tableau she’d designed, Roberto in the center of their doomed semicircle. Serafina’s heart pounded. They’d be killed, and she was to blame. Her children and Tessa would be orphans, and all because of her own pride and foolhardiness, her wish to outshine Colonna. She shielded Teo as she had on that fateful day by the sea, trembling, wishing she could turn back time. Roberto aimed for her, his arms gripping the gun, strong and steady. He cocked the hammer. Slowly his finger began to squeeze the trigger.

  Serafina stared at him, waiting for her own death, when she felt a giant suck of wind as Barco who suddenly appeared, cracked his whip. It wrapped around the acrobat’s throat, and the revolver tumbled to the ground.

  No More Brothers

  A Serafina Florio Mystery

  A novella set in Sicily

  by

  Susan Russo Anderson

  CHAPTER ONE

  On the Beach

  Monday, February 11, 1867

  Perched near the water’s edge, the gunnysack tilted toward the sea. Fingers curled out of a hole near the to
p. Serafina Florio picked her way over stones still wet from the tide to take a closer look. Bloated eyes gaped back at her. “Poor man,” she muttered.

  Something moved behind her? She shivered, turned this way and that. No one. She looked up at the sky. It was grey, decidedly so, like the color of stale body parts strewn over fields during Garibaldi’s campaign and mixed into the soil these past seven years. Were the crops better for the mulching?

  Life was full of death in Sicily. Last year, a wave of cholera created a sea of makeshift coffins. They lined the piazza like battered ships. But that wasn’t all. In the fall, peasants stormed the city’s gates, scything humans and animals alike. The streets were slicked with blood. Artisans joined in the uprising, railing against taxes, conscription, the price of bread. Serafina was grateful that Giorgio hadn’t lived to see it.

  This chaos must have been the reason that the commissioner summoned her to his office last week. He stood before her in sash and frock coat. “Dear lady, you caught the Ambrosi murderer before he could slash more women. You stunned us with the cleverness of your plan, the deftness of its execution.” His arms flailed like broken windmills. “We teeter on the edge of anarchy. Police and soldiers fill the streets, yet no one quells the riots. A pity, but we need your detecting skills. Say yes, you must. We’ll double your stipend.”

  About time, too. The government paid her a pittance for all her backbreaking midwifery. And with Carlo in medical school and customers using wheat instead of coins to pay for their medicinals, Serafina needed the extra money her sleuthing would fetch. Besides, someone had to stop this butchery. Who better than she?

  Someone hiding behind the prickly pear? She bit her lip, forcing herself to remain calm. Something familiar about the corpse—his flat face—but she couldn’t quite recall where she’d seen the man. Staring out to sea, she let its vastness mesmerize her, and in the letting go, remembered his name. She felt a surge of pity as she recalled his friendly presence in the piazza. A coincidence, she was just talking about him the other day with Loffredo. What had he said? Something about shady dealings. Serafina wrestled with herself until she was interrupted by the sound of retching.

  She spun around. “Carlo, steel yourself!”

  “The smell is fierce, worse than the cadaver room in May. Who is it?”

  “You know our shoemaker?—it’s his brother, Ugo. Quick, before he comes, let’s take a closer look.” She unbuttoned the dead man’s shirt.

  “Before who comes?”

  “Inspector Colonna. Now, no more questions. Tell me what you see. Start at the head and go down to the toes.”

  “You’ve sent for Dr. Loffredo?”

  “Yes. But no harm in beginning.”

  Carlo knelt and examined the face. “A dried, bile-like substance around his lips. I think he’s been poisoned, but why the multiple stab wounds on his chest and abdomen? Look at their size and shape. Made by a double-edged, thin blade.”

  The sea was still. She cupped her elbows, waiting for Carlo to loosen the dead man’s cape and shirt, hoping for a breeze to soothe her temples. For a moment her mother appeared, not as she was in death, but full of vigorous regard and wrinkling her nose. “Such a fuss! It’s only death. And with Giorgio gone, you have a household to feed. Get on with life!”

  Serafina rubbed her forehead.

  “Angle of wounds and contusions on the left side of the neck suggest the killer approached his victim from the front, grabbed him with his right hand, used his left hand to stab.”

  He lifted the torso. More bruises on the nape and shoulders.

  “Couldn’t the killer have surprised Ugo from behind, squeezed him with his left arm, used his right hand to stab?” Serafina asked.

  He pointed to Ugo’s neck. “Look at that abrasion on his Adam’s apple, probably made by the killer’s right thumb where he pressed it into the throat. What’s more, he used an upward thrust when he stabbed. Hard to do from behind a tall man like Ugo unless the killer’s a giant, and giants are rare in Sicily.”

  Carlo droned on and she realized she missed half of what her son was saying. “Anything else?”

  “Some leaves and pieces of prickly pear in the folds of his cape. Are you listening?”

  “Of course, dear. Brilliant.” Her mind whirled, pieces of it flaking off in different directions as it often did in the morning hours, some of it ranging over this year, that plan. She must remember to take Maria to her lesson before school; she’d remind Giulia to finish sewing beads on the baroness’s collar by tomorrow; Totò’s sore finger needed addressing. Her stomach knotted as her son talked about the corpse’s lividity. She wondered where she’d get the coins to buy new shoes for the children this spring. Was she heartless in the face of this poor soul’s recent agony?

  She shook herself and examined one of the leaves Carlo had just given her, turning it over a few times and pricking her finger on its edges. Her mind played its tricks again. She and Giorgio were frolicking in the Madonie when she threw a handful of leaves his way. They looked like the leaf she held in her hand. The fantasy evaporated. “Go on.”

  “Loose bowels, another indication of poisoning. Soiled all over the front and back of his pants. Little wonder, the stench.”

  “Why go to all this trouble? Why not just poison to kill?” Serafina asked.

  “More than one person wanted him dead?”

  A left-handed killer with a stiletto and help. But why so many wounds? The killer was inexperienced? Enraged? Probably both.

  She watched the thin, wet line of shore as morning clouds massed in the distance. Awake, now, the wind. It slid across her vision, churned up bits of seaweed, molding the water into small waves as it had done, she imagined, on the first day of creation. For a moment, she listened to the ebb and flow of the sea.

  Carlo pulled at the sack. The rest of the body slipped out. “Only one boot.”

  “Take it off. I’ll put it in my bag.” Serafina brushed sand from her skirt.

  He shrugged but removed the boot. After fishing in Ugo’s pockets, he found a scribbled note and handed it to Serafina.

  She read aloud. “‘Midnight, m’dni, ea.’ An assignation?”

  “Who knows?” Carlo made a face.

  “Better cover him up again.”

  While Carlo retied the gunnysack, Serafina stuffed Ugo’s boot into her bag, along with the note and a few of the leaves.

  In the distance, Serafina saw Beppe approaching with Inspector Colonna. Black-hooded stretcher bearers followed in a cart and, behind them, uniformed men.

  “Look! Colonna’s holding a bandana over his mouth and nose already,” Serafina said. “Waddles like a goose, no?” The air, now blowing, snapped at her skirts.

  The rest of No More Brothers is

  available on Amazon

  The novella tells Teo’s story.

  About the Author

  Susan Russo Anderson is a writer, a mother, a grandmother, a widow, a graduate of Marquette University, a member of Sisters In Crime, a member of the Historical Novel Society. She has taught language arts and creative writing, worked for a publisher, an airline, an opera company. Like Faulkner’s Dilsey, she’s seen the best and the worst, the first and the last. Through it all, and to understand it somewhat, she writes.

  Author’s Website

  susanrussoanderson.com

  Readers, I’d love to hear from you:

  [email protected]