Brimstone

{ 64 }

The morning after the trip to Cremona was bright and crisp, and D'Agosta squinted against the noonday sun as he accompanied Pendergast back to Piazza Santo Spirito, across the river from their hotel.

"You checked in with Captain Hayward?" Pendergast asked as they walked.

"Just before going to bed."

"Anything of interest?"

"Not really. What few leads they'd been following up on Cutforth all turned into dead ends. The security video cams at his building told them nothing. It's the same with Grove, apparently. And now, all the top New York brass are preoccupied with this preacher who's taken up residence in Central Park."

This time, D'Agosta found the piazza not nearly as quiet as before: its tranquillity was spoiled by a large group of backpackers sitting on the steps of the fountain, smoking pot and passing around a bottle of Brunello wine, talking loudly in half a dozen languages. They were accompanied by at least ten loose dogs.

"Careful where you step, Vincent," murmured Pendergast with a wry smile. "Florence: such a marvelous mixture of high and low." He raised his hand above the piles of dogshit and gestured at the magnificent building which occupied the southeast corner. "For example, the Palazzo Guadagni. One of the finest examples of a Renaissance palace in the entire city. It was constructed in the 1400s, but the Guadagni family goes back several more centuries."

D'Agosta examined the building. The first story was built in rough blocks of dun-colored limestone, while the upper floors were covered in yellow stucco. Most of the top floor was a loggia: a roofed portico supported by stone columns. The structure was restrained but elegant.

"There are various offices and apartments on the second floor, a language school on the third. And the top floor is a pensione , run by a Signora Donatelli. That, without doubt, is where Beckmann and the rest met back in 1974."

"Does this woman own the palazzo?"

"She does. The last descendant of the Guadagni."

"You really think she'll remember a couple of college students who visited three decades ago?"

"One can only try, Vincent."

They picked their way gingerly across the piazza and through an enormous pair of iron-studded wooden doors. A once-grand but now grimy vaulted passageway led to a stairway and a second-floor landing. Here, a shabby piece of cardboard had been hung on the cornice of a faded Baroque fresco. A hand-drawn arrow and the word Reception had been scrawled on the cardboard with a firm hand.

The reception room was incongruously small for such a giant palace: cluttered yet neat as a pin, bisected by a wooden transom, a battered set of wooden mail slots on one side and a rack of keys on the other. The room had only one occupant: a tiny old lady sitting behind an ancient desk. She was dressed with extraordinary elegance, her hair perfectly dyed and coiffed, red lipstick impeccably applied, with what looked like real diamonds draped around her neck and dangling from withered ears.

She rose and Pendergast bowed.

"Molto lieto di conoscer La, signora."

The woman responded crisply, "Il piacere è mio." Then she continued in accented English. "Obviously, you are not here to take a room."

"No," said Pendergast. He removed his ID, offered it to her.

"You are policemen."

"Yes."

"What is it that you want? My time is limited." The voice was sharp and intimidating.

"In the fall of 1974, I believe, several American students stayed here. Here is a picture of them." Pendergast took out Beckmann's photo.

She did not look at it. "Do you have the names?"

"Yes."

"Then come with me." And she turned and walked around the transom, through a back door, and into a much larger room. D'Agosta saw it was an old library of sorts, with bound books, manuscripts, and vellum documents filling shelves from floor to ceiling. It smelled of parchment and dry rot, old leather and wax. The ceiling was coffered and had once been elaborately gilded. Now it was crumbling with age, the wood riddled with holes.

"The archives of the family," she said. "They go back eight centuries."

"You keep good records."

"I keep excellent records, thank you." She made a beeline to a low shelf at the far end of the room, selected a massive register, carried it to a center table. She opened the register, revealing page after page of accounts, payments, names, and dates, written in a fanatical, tiny hand.

"Names?"

"Bullard, Cutforth, Beckmann, and Grove."

She began flipping pages, scanning each with tremendous rapidity, each flip sending up a faint cloud of dust. Suddenly, she stopped.

"There. Grove." A bony finger, burdened with a huge diamond ring, pointed to the name. Then it slid down the rest of the page.

"Beckmann . Cutforth . Bullard. Yes, they were all here in October."

Pendergast peered at the register, but even he was clearly having trouble deciphering the minuscule hand.

"Did their visits overlap?"

"Yes." A pause. "According to this, one night only, that of October 31."

She closed the book with a snap. "Anything else, signore ?"

"Yes, signora . Will you do me the courtesy of looking at this photograph?"

"Surely you don't expect me to remember some slovenly American students from thirty years ago? I am ninety-two, sir. I have earned the privilege of forgetting."

"I beg your indulgence."

Sighing with impatience, she took the photograph, looked at it-and visibly started. She stared a long time, what little color there was in her face slowly disappearing. Then she handed the photograph back to Pendergast.

"As it happens," she said in a low tone, "I do remember. That one." She pointed to Beckmann. "Let me see. Something terrible happened. He and some other boys, probably those others in the photograph, went off somewhere together. They were gone all night. He came back and was terribly upset. I had to get a priest for him . ..."

She paused, her voice trailing off. Gone was the crisp confidence, the unshakable sense of self.

"It was the night before All Saints' Day. He came back from a night of carousing, and he was in a bad state. I took him to church."

"What church?"

"The one right here, Santo Spirito. I remember him panicked and begging to go to confession. It was long ago, yet it was such a strange occurrence it stuck in my mind. That, and the expression on the poor boy's face. He was begging for a priest as if his life depended on it."

"And?"

"He went to confession and right afterwards he packed up his belongings and left."

"And the other American students?"

"I don't recall. Every year they celebrate All Saints' Day, or rather the day before, which I believe you call Halloween. It's an excuse to drink."

"Do you know where they went that evening, or who they might have encountered?"

"I know nothing more than what I have told you."

The ring of a bell came from the front office. "I have guests to attend to," she said.

"One last question, signora, if you please," Pendergast said. "The priest who heard the confession-is he still alive?"

"That would have been Father Zenobi. Yes, Father Zenobi. He is now living with the monks of La Verna."

She turned, then paused and slowly glanced back. "But if you think you can persuade him to break the sacred seal of the confessional, sir, you are sadly mistaken."