Chapter Three
Three
The crowd clustered like ants under the protection of the elaborate Baroque entryway of the massive cathedral.
Only one person stood in the piazza.
Arms outstretched, Leonora Alfieri looked like a statue of the Madonna—palms up to receive the rain. It was only as Valerio drew closer to his mother that he saw the reason: She was trying to wash the blood from her hands.
“Mamma, are you hurt?” he called, words drowned in the storm.
She stared, blinking, seeming not to recognize him. The hood of her clear plastic rain shield had fallen back, and her hair was slicked to her head. Valerio took her hands and turned them over, searching for injury. To his relief, the blood didn’t seem to be hers.
Wrapping an arm around her waist, he ushered her up the stairs and into the shelter.
He held his badge to the small crowd as he approached, and they parted to make way.
“What’s happened here?” he demanded.
Voices overlapped, everyone speaking at once.
“Silence!” Valerio shouted.
He pointed at a short, heavyset man in an expensive-looking rain jacket. “You!”
The man answered, “There’s a woman dead.”
“Dead? Are you sure she’s dead?”
“Murdered!” came a cry from the back. “Poor girl was stabbed to death.”
“Did you see the attack?”
“No—but it happened right there. In front of everyone…and during mass. She’s dead!”
This voice was joined by others, a cacophony amplified by the stone.
“Quiet!” bellowed Valerio.
If there was a chance the victim was still alive, he needed to get to her quickly.
“Is the attacker still inside?” he asked.
When nobody had a clear response, Valerio suspected the answer was no. Comfortable voyeurism was only possible when the threat was gone. But he didn’t want to take chances.
Beside him, Leonora was pale and shivering, eyes squeezed shut.
“Fuck,” he muttered. He couldn’t wait any longer to make a decision. He pulled his mother close, and rubbed her shoulder. “Come, Mamma. Let’s get you warm.”
To the crowd he yelled: “You’re witnesses. Don’t leave until you give police statements. Do you understand?”
Then he pushed through them, and pulled his mother into the church.
The voices suddenly faded as the heavy wooden door shut behind them.
Out of habit, and because his mother was with him, Valerio crossed himself.
—
Valerio knew Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo just as he knew every church, chapel, and shrine in the city.
In childhood, he’d spent minutes…hours…days in such places.
Leonora visited God with the same regularity that other people visited shops or the neighbors.
If a walk through the city took them past a church, she would stop and pray.
She treated it like fueling the tank: necessary, and any station would do.
Her personal conversations with Mary were desperately embarrassing to the young Valerio.
“I’m sorry to bother you again, Signora,” she would say, as if asking to borrow some milk, or an egg.
“But Orlanda has been sick with fever and won’t keep food down!
I’ve tried everything. Salt! You’re right—I should try salt.
And I’m ashamed to tell you that Valerio is getting into fights at school.
What can I do with such a son? I’m only one woman…
and a widow. You know I don’t blame you for that—but I need special help, you understand. ”
—
Of all the cathedrals in the city, the colossal and ornate structure of Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo had always overwhelmed Valerio.
Something about the scale, the elaborate decorations, gave him a sense of an alien, impersonal god.
Never more so than now, as he and his mother stood dripping onto the intricate inlaid marble floors.
Dozens of Corinthian columns in pink marble and alabaster stretched into arches high above, where detailed murals and sculptures gave the impression of gold extending into the domed roof.
Far ahead, nearly the distance of a football pitch, was the apse, where an enormous statue of the immaculate Madonna stood on a blue lapis globe, surrounded by a collection of fat marble cherubs.
“Buona sera,” Valerio called, his voice swallowed by the cavernous space.
He had hoped to find someone here—a priest, perhaps. But they seemed to be alone. He considered what to do next. He turned to his mother and was about to speak when she shook him off.
“How could you let this happen?” she said in a harsh whisper. “In your house!”
At first, Valerio thought she was talking to him, but her attention was on the altar. She moved towards it unsteadily, like a sleepwalker—slow at first, then with more surety.
“Are we not in your arms? How could you allow this?” She gestured, taking in the whole building, then reached towards the Madonna—a plea and a rebuke.
She shouted, “Are you there? Do you hear me?”
From across the nave, a steely-haired priest hurried towards them, footsteps clipping on the polished floor.
“Signora, please! The church is closed.”
Valerio jogged to intercept.
“Padre,” he said, holding up his wallet and identification. “I’m Capo Valerio Alfieri.”
The man paused, posture suddenly rigid. Only then did Valerio notice the blood on the white of his robes.
“You’re with the police—for the dead woman.”
“You’re sure she’s dead?” Valerio asked.
The priest nodded.
“Did you call one-one-two?”
“Sì.”
“Good. I need you to show me the body. And my mother’s in shock. Is there someplace warm she can rest?”
—
They followed the priest clockwise through the dimly lit church, the stone floor hard and radiantly cold beneath them.
They passed rows of empty wooden pews, the confessional boxes carved of dark wood, and the shadowed recesses of the side chapels.
At the third chapel, the priest stopped and pointed.
“The sacristy is through those doors. It’s warmer there.”
It was then Valerio saw the bloody footprints. Everywhere. An overlapping, chaotic mess on the inlaid marble.
“Please take my mother,” he told the priest.
—
Using the light from his phone to examine the floor, he carefully stepped outside the range of bloody footprints and scuffs, and followed them to their inevitable, terrible destination.
—
The body was at the far end of the church—in the Chapel of the Crucifix, the area lit by a bank of electric candles.
She was young. Not much older than Valerio’s daughter, Gemma.
Early twenties, perhaps, like Maria at the restaurant.
Her clothing was soaked, spattered, and smeared in crimson.
Blood pooled around her, dark and glistening.
A cloying, metallic smell hung in the air.
Her pale brown skin was unblemished, and her cheeks were full.
Her mouth was open, as if in a last gasp of surprise.
Blood on her eyelids indicated that someone had closed them posthumously.
Similarly, her posture had clearly been arranged—hands folded across her chest. Her clothes were stylish and tidy: jeans, boots, and a powder-blue puffer jacket, unzipped to reveal a soft grey sweater.
Feathers, burst from slashes in the jacket, had settled onto everything.
A priest in a black suit knelt at a nearby chapel pew, hands clasped around the rosary, eyes shut.
“Padre,” said Valerio, “I’m with the police.”
The man opened his eyes and stood. Valerio stopped him with a shout.
“Please stay where you are!”
The priest nodded, and slowly sat.
“Did you see what happened?” Valerio asked.
He bowed his head. “I was too late to give her last rites.”
“Can you tell me what you saw?”
“I was in the sacristy—I heard screaming. Three women were with her. I think they were trying to help…but she was already gone.”
“Did you see anyone else?”
He shook his head.
From far away came the sound of sirens—muted at first, then suddenly loud as the cathedral doors slammed open. The noise of pounding footsteps and shouts was a relief.
He shouted, “Back here!” and ran to join them.
—
Uniformed policemen had entered the cathedral, along with two ambulance soccorritori and Sonia Dieng, a plainclothes detective from the homicide unit.
Valerio hadn’t expected Homicide to respond so quickly—but was glad she was here.
He greeted her, ready to transfer the burden to competent shoulders.
“What do we have?” she asked.
They walked and talked.
“Female. Early twenties. Stab wounds in the chest and abdomen.”
“Witnesses?” Sonia asked.
“There’s a priest with the body. He says there were three women with her when she died. One of them was likely my mother.”
Sonia paused, turning to face him. “Your mother? Is she alright?”
“I don’t know,” Valerio said honestly.
“What did she say happened?”
“We haven’t spoken. She’s in the sacristy.”
Sonia nodded and they started walking again.
“Take the medics and check on her,” she said. “I’ll join in a few minutes.”
—
Valerio was wringing wet and numb as he opened the door to the sacristy, warmth leeched from his body. It was a surprisingly spartan space—with plain wooden cupboards and frosted 1970s glasswork.
Leading the ambulance workers, Valerio followed bloody footprints and drips to a door on the far end, where he knocked and, not waiting for a response, entered.
This room was small, informal, warm—a rug on the floor, and an ancient space heater, gunmetal grey, with red glowing elements.
Two young women huddled by the heater. They were roughly the same age as the murdered girl.
One with dark skin—only slightly lighter than Sonia’s; the other with pink cheeks and long white-blonde hair, dipped in red.
Blood painted the hems of their coat sleeves, the front of their pants, and their shoes.
The dark-skinned woman sat with her head in her hands.
She gazed at Valerio, eyes hollow—a resonant aftershock of horror.
—
Leonora’s hands had been cleaned, the wet rain shield removed. A rough woolen blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The grey-haired priest was praying with her.
Valerio crossed to them.
Leonora tried to stand. He pushed her gently down, and signaled for the emergency workers.
“Rest, rest, Mamma,” he said. “Let the soccorritori do their work.”
—
To the young women, he held up his identification, and introduced himself.
“I’m with the police. What are your names?”
The women exchanged looks.
“We don’t speak Italian,” the dark-skinned girl said in English.
“Okay,” Valerio said.
He could understand and speak some English, but he didn’t like it. He’d never taken classes—just learned from American movies and YouTube. This would have to wait for Sonia, whose English was better.
“We’re American,” the blonde girl articulated slowly. “My father is Paul Lissom—the United States ambassador. Do you understand? The ambassador.”
Valerio nodded. “Capisco. I understand.”
She held out her phone, pointing at the screen.
Valerio took it and read the bubble text message she indicated.
Tell the police to call Phoenix Seven. Tell them to get Nikki Serafino.