Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Nancy
“ O nce more,” Vivi said. “From the top.”
Vivi was stretched out on Nell’s sofa, her slender legs propped up on the back, gilded toenails flashing in the candlelight.
She peered at her own photocopy of Liam’s transcription of Lucia’s letter with intense concentration.
“So. Something very bad happened in her marriage. Something very bad happened to her father. But was it the same bad thing? And when did she come to America, anyway?”
I racked my brain as I petted the wildly purring cat curled in my lap. “Nineteen sixty-eight, or shortly after, I think. She taught art history at Beardsley for more than forty years before she retired. And that was well over ten years ago.”
“And what was the name of the town she came from again?” Vivi asked.
“Castiglione Santangelo,” Nell replied. “In Tuscany.” She turned the Fabergé picture frame that held the old photograph of Lucia’s father over in her hands.
“Maybe that’s why she changed her name from de Luca to D’Onofrio.
Because of this mysterious thing that happened.
To her father. With her husband. Or both of them. ”
“Maybe,” I said. “It’s just so strange that she never mentioned any of it.”
“I asked her once why she changed her name, but she didn’t want to talk about it,” I said. “She just changed the subject.”
“I asked her to go to Italy with me once, for an art and architecture tour, back when I was an undergrad,” Nell said, her voice low. “I’d saved up money for it. But she snapped my head off, and I was so taken aback, I never mentioned it again.”
“Hmm. Let’s run it all down again,” Vivi said.
“The things we didn’t know about Lucia, and sadly, still don’t.
” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Her father. Her marriage. The mysterious object. The terrible event in the past. The unexplained name change. The system of checks and balances designed to protect our sisterly love. Whatever mystery that the necklaces are the key to. Then, to make things even more interesting, we now have the mysteries of the purloined letter, the murdered jeweler, and the pissed-off burglar. That’s a lot of mysteries.
Makes a girl hungry.” She rolled up onto her side and reached for a slice of the pizza in the open box on the coffee table.
“I wish we had access to Lucia’s papers,” Nell fretted. “I’d like to go through her letters and photographs.”
“The burglar trashed Lucia’s office,” Vivi reminded her.
“He might have missed something,” Nell said stubbornly. “He probably didn’t stop to read the documents. Some of which are certainly in Italian.”
I held out my hand. “Can I see that photo for a second?”
Nell handed it to her. “Of course.”
I studied the fierce, hawklike face of the late Conte de Luca, Lucia’s father.
His intense, blazing dark eyes were so much like Lucia’s, they made my chest ache.
“I wonder when he died,” I mused. “He looks like he was in his fifties in this photo. Maybe there’s a date on the back.
” I fumbled with the back of the delicate gold frame until I managed to carefully loosen the little hook that held it closed, and pried the back loose, shaking the contents into my hand.
We all stared, frozen, at what lay in her hand. Not one photograph, but two—and something else: a small, carefully folded square of yellowed paper.
I gently pushed Moxie out of my lap and scooted over toward the single dim lamp we’d left on. Nell and Vivi scrambled to look over my shoulder. Moxie stalked away, tail high, deeply offended.
“Oh, wow,” Vivi breathed softly, as we stared down at the picture. “That’s Lucia. Just look at her. What a bombshell.”
The young, beautiful Lucia had an elegant pouff of backcombed sixties hair, styled into a curled flip below her ears, and wore a smart little pillbox hat.
Her lips were painted into a bold Cupid’s bow, and she gazed up into the face of a tall, handsome man who clasped her waist and looked hungry to kiss her.
I turned it over. On the back, in faded, brownish ink, was written, Venezia,Carnevale, 1966.
“Who is this guy?” Nell murmured. “The missing husband. What’s on the paper?”
I unfolded the delicate, yellowing paper. It was lightweight, onion-skin
airmail paper, covered with fine, faded script. I held it to the light. “It’s in Italian,” I said, passing it promptly to Nell.
Nell fumbled for her glasses and pushed them up her nose. “It’s dated April of 1969,” she said, and began to translate.
Beloved Lucia,
I do not know why I continue to write while you continue to be silent, but I cannot seem to stop myself, undignified though I must seem, begging on my knees for your return to our life together.
I understand how shocked and horrified you are by what happened to Babbo, but believe me, it was like a knife to my own heart as well. If I could change the terrible events of the past for you, I would, at any cost. But I cannot.
But this is no reason to abandon your home, your family, your nation. You will never heal in a foreign land. You cannot run from this pain, my love. It will follow you wherever you go. Of this, I am sure.
You have always been obstinate. It is a part of your strength, which I love and admire. But true strength must be tempered by softness, reason, compromise.
But why do I waste ink? You are resolved to be cruel and immovable. I try to accept this, but I cannot swallow it. I enclose this photograph, in hopes that it will remind you of happier times.
I continue to work on deciphering your father's map. I have once again completely excavated the palace gardens, this time draining the lake in my search, which you hold to be both stupid and pointless. My efforts were entirely in vain, as I am sure you will be gratified to know.
Forgive my acid tone. I miss you desperately. For the sake of the children we might still have together, please, Lucia, come back to me. Come home.
In faith,
Marco
We all stared at each other after Nell stopped reading, eyes wide with shock.
“Wow,” Vivi whispered. “That guy really knew how to lay a guilt trip.”
“I bet that’s why she never married,” Nell said. “She had men chasing her all her life, but she blew them off. She must have still been in love with Marco.”
“And they spent their entire lives apart.” I stared at the photo. The innocent happiness radiating out of the young couple made my stomach hurt. “All because of some horrible thing that happened to the Conte. Between the years of 1966 and 1968.”
“Do you guys think that this horrible thing could possibly be connected to the horrible things happening now?” Vivi’s voice was timid.
I folded the letter delicately back into its original creases.
“Well, this Marco had a map,” I said. “And he was looking for some hidden object. In Lucia’s letter, she refers to “this thing,” plus what happened to her father and what it did to her marriage.
So, yeah. I can’t imagine how, but yeah. Somehow, they’re all connected.”
“And this is not good news,” Nell said. “Since we are utterly clueless.”
“At least the letter I found in the garbage makes it clear that the ‘thing’ she’s referring to isn’t the trio of necklaces that she gave us,” I said. “The necklaces are the key, she said. So maybe this secret thing is in that safe that the carpenter installed?”
“Yeah, the safe we have no combination for.” Nell held up her pendant. It spun, tiny rubies gleaming in the light of the candles she’d set around her Williamsburg apartment.
“I guess we could count the stones, try the different sequences we come up with as possible combinations to the safe,” I mused.
“But that doesn’t use our love of music, literature, or the visual arts.
It seems too obvious. Lucia had a more devious personality than that.
” I tucked the photograph and the letter carefully back into the picture frame.
“She was gearing up to tell us more when she was killed.”
“Killed?” Vivi choked on her pizza, coughing. “God, Nance. You really think ... ?”
“The jeweler and his family get murdered the same night the house is trashed, and before I can talk to him about the necklaces? Hell, yes. I do think that.”
Nell reclasped her pendant around her neck, her dark eyes worried.
“I’ve never seen you this way, Nance. You’d say you were fine even if you were bleeding to death.
I about dropped my teeth when you asked to come over tonight to stay.
Not that you aren’t more than welcome. I’m scared too, and I’m glad to have you both here. ”
I fidgeted. “Oh, that’s just because I swore a vow,” I blurted. “I would’ve been perfectly fine at home.”
“Vow?” Vivi straightened up, eyes wide. “What vow? To whom?”
“To Liam.” I picked at the fabric of my jeans, already regretting my incautious words. “The carpenter who was going to do the remodel.”
Nell and Vivi exchanged significant looks. “He made you swear not to stay alone?” Nell asked. “This is the carpenter who flash-memorized Lucia’s letter? My. He certainly is taking a personal interest, isn’t he?”
If they only knew. “I guess you could say that,” I hedged.
“Tell us about this carpenter,” Nell prompted. “I’m picturing a potbellied guy with a bushy beard, a red nose, and twinkling eyes. Like a young Santa. Jeans slipping down over a big, hairy ass crack. Am I close?”
“Nope,” I admitted. “Light-years.”
Her sisters exchanged knowing looks. “So?” Vivi asked. “No potbelly? No hairy ass-crack? Do tell.”
“His belly’s pretty tight,” I hedged. “I can’t speak for his ass, but shape-wise, it was … well, proportional. In his jeans.”
“Proportional, hmm?” Vivi purred. “Height?”
“Maybe six-two,” I admitted. “Maybe a little more.”
“Six-two,” Nell said dreamily. “Nice. Eye color?”
“Very pale green. Dollar bill green.”
Nell and Vivi gave each other a high five. “She remembers his eye color! She has fanciful metaphors for it!” Vivi crowed. “It’s serious!”
“Oh, shut up,” I muttered.