“Meaning what? I’m a busy man. My son, he helps when he’s not in school but look here, look there.” He made large circular gestures. “A lot for me, this house. Manage the gardeners, take close looks at the guards, and they’re a sorry lot, the guards. Work all the time. Let me think.” He picked at a spot on one suspender, bowed his head, and squirmed to the edge of the chair.
Silence.
“The first one to die, Gemma. In August. I remember her funeral,” Serafina said. “Can you tell me about her?”
Again he did not reply.
A mysterious man, this Scarpo. He played the strong man, yet, like a child hiding in the corner, he longed for discovery. She spoke again, and this time her voice softened the room. “I think I met your son last week. Handsome boy. He looks just like you, but with hair. He helped Beppe with our trap and must have a way with mules because Largo seemed unusually calm on the way home.”
He gave her a down-from-under look. His smile was slow to spread. “Arcangelo, sixteen next month.” He dug in his pocket, fished out a dirty yellow bandanna. “The sudden heat you know,” he said, wiping his forehead. He took small swipes at his eyes. “The wife, she’s been gone three years.” He stared at the floor. “Good in the morning, baking bread for Rosa. Come home for dinner, the table is bare. She, the wife, curled up on the floor, dead. From the sudden sickness.” His body sagged. “Only me and him now. Works like a man and La Signura knows it. Arcangelo, the same age I was when I started helping my father here.”
“So you know this house,” she said.
“All of it.” He looked at her, this time in control of his eyes.
“That’s why I need to talk to you. If something were strange, you’d know.”
“Yes, I know when one of my men, he doesn’t pull his load. I know when Don Tigro’s men trample one blade of grass.”
“That’s what they’re saying in town.”
“What?”
“That Don Tigro is behind the killing because he wants Rosa’s business.” Her eyes watched his face for change of expression.
He shook his head. “Never. We pay him every month, and I take extra care of his men.” He tapped the side of his nose with a callused finger, squared his shoulders, and said, “Don’t tell La Signura about the extra. Besides, against their honor, the don’s men, to kill a woman for nothing. Kill Gemma, Nelli, Bella? Why would they? Not like the strega who owned a store some years ago and refused to pay. You know the one I mean.”
“The one who sold fruit and vegetables in town? Her daughter was shot, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, the daughter shot, they say, by his men, yes, after she was used, you know how. But the old woman, nasty of mouth, she didn’t pay. We knew it, too. La Signura, she pays Don Tigro’s men. I see to it.”
“Thank you for your help.” She meant it as a dismissal.
He stared at the patterns on the rug. “One thing I notice, but probably nothing.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“I need to find the words,” he said.
“Take your time. They’ll come.”
“Well, something in the air. More sound. Yes, and more movement during the day.” He twisted his mustache. “And the women dress earlier, more going out in the afternoon. Always more movement in summer, but this summer? — oh, the comings, the goings! Bella, she took trips to Palermo, stayed for a few days. Gemma, I think, in and out. Starting in June, maybe. The weather, hot, I know, because I remember seeing her leave while we were scything the field in back-Rosa likes it trimmed and a path cleared to the sea-and I can see them now, as I speak, going in and out, in and out.” He waved his arms back and forth. “Yes, and in August, just before La Signura finds Gemma’s body, Arcangelo stops in the middle of cutting. He tells me, ‘Got to drive Gemma to town. Then I come back.’ Yes, and he did, too, and we finished before evening.”
“Did he tell you where he went?”
He shook his head. “Gemma, all dressed up, he told me.”
“I’d like to talk to the rest of your men, then to Arcangelo. He saw something that may be important. Get them for me, please, Scarpo.”
• • •
Eight men stood before her, boots, aprons, bowed heads. One driver, two gardeners, five guards. Their squat fingers were hooked into their belts or held straw hats. No, they saw nothing, they told her. They spoke in a dialect she barely understood. Let’s face it: they barely spoke. She was sure that if they knew something, they were not about to tell her. She’d have to rely on Scarpo and Arcangelo.
Arcangelo
“Don’t look at me like I’m from the heavens. I’ve got a son a little older than you, although I think you’re taller, probably stronger. His nose always in a book, my Vicenzu, especially after the accident, and he loves his numbers.”
“Numbers?”
“You know, you add them, subtract them, make them tell whatever story you want. Vicenzu keeps the ledgers for the apothecary shop.”
“Ledgers?”
“Yes. He tells me I spend too much money. Do you believe it?”
Arcangelo pulled at his sleeves.
Serafina waited.
“One day, I’ll be the doctor of animals. And your mule, dear lady, needs new shoes.”
“I’ll tell Carlo, my oldest son. He’s supposed to tend to things like that.” She circled her hand in the air. “A mother doesn’t know about these things.”
“My mother did, but she died.”
Silence.
Softly she said, “So did mine. Last year.” Serafina paused. “Terrible, the cholera. One day she was fine, the next day, dead. I miss her, and I’m a grown woman with children of my own, but I still need her. I talk to her and she answers.” She saw Maddalena’s smile, her wrinkled nose. “Sometimes she still scolds me.”
Arcangelo looked up and furrowed his brows. His ears were red. His eyes might have been wet.
She continued. “My mama told me once she’d never leave me, and I believed her, but she did leave. She lied. And there are no answers and no smiles for that. Anyway,” she blew her nose, “I have a few questions to ask, and your father said you might be able to answer them. He told me you drove Gemma to town the day before she died. Can you tell me about it?”
“Of course, dear lady.”
“Call me Donna Fina, everyone does.”
“Of course, Donna Fina. I drove Gemma because she asked me to.”
“Where?”
“To the blacksmith’s, close to the stables. She told me, ‘My uncle meets me.’”
“Did you see him, the uncle?”
He nodded. “He wore a hat. I remember thinking at the time, it’s cool for August, but still hot, and I wondered why the uncle wore a fedora in summer. Dark, the color, and he dressed in a heavy jacket of some sort, as if it were winter.”
“Can you describe it?”
“Dark brown or grey, like a monk’s cape, but without the hood. His back was to me and hunched over, his cape, all bunched in the back. Tall, I think. But I didn’t say hello. I helped Gemma out of the carriage and said goodbye to her. He took her hand or beckoned to her or something.” Arcangelo’s face worked to remember. “He had a small mule and cart with him. The mule was old and worn. I could tell just by looking at him, he was not cared for by one who loves animals. His hooves, not shod. But I had to get back to help Papa-scything time. I left.”
“Of course. Give me a minute to write down what you’ve just said.”
When she had finished, she read it back to him. “A man, tall, in wintry clothes, wearing a fedora and a short jacket or cape. Mule and cart. Clothes bunched in the back. You mean like a hunchback?”
“Yes, that’s it. Like Quasimodo.”
She smiled. “My son liked the book, too. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
He frowned. “Perhaps the clothes and his shape, but I didn’t see his face. His dress, not from around here. And he took Gemma’s case and put it in his cart. Now I remember; when he reached for the case, he wore gloves. In the heat of August.”
“Some men wear them when they work or drive.”