The Reincarnationist

Chapter 28

Glancing at her watch, Gabriella was surprised that it was 11:20 p.m. Only fifteen minutes had passed since the last time she’d called the hospital. She wanted to call again and find out if there’d been any change, but last time the night nurse had promised that if the professor took a turn for the worse, she’d phone Gabriella.

Except she was going crazy. The longer she paced the more she thought about the tragedies of the past two days: the professor’s life hanging in the balance, the robbery and Tony’s death. He had been such a presence at the dig, was always there in the morning when she arrived at the site with his big grin and boisterous hello. Several times when she’d worked through lunch he’d call down to tell her he was going off duty and ask if she wanted him to get her something before he went home. He’d even bought her a toy for Quinn. A doll of a Vatican guard with his high hat and yellow-and-black tights.

Tears threatened, but she fought them back. Gabriella had learned, first when her mother died and then when her husband had been asphyxiated, tears didn’t do a damn bit of good. Emotions were something to be endured, not indulged. Sometimes when she thought about Quinn she bit down on the inside of her mouth until the pain distracted her from the overwhelming fear-the floating fear, she called it-that she could not control what would happen to her baby.

Gabriella had spent her life with the dead, and she wasn’t scared of joining them, but she couldn’t bear any more loss in her life. Especially not her precious child. And yet, tragedy was too accommodating. Accidents were always waiting. A runaway car careened down a street. An errant germ passed from child to child at school. An internal time bomb was transmitted from parent to child through DNA.

No, no, no. She wasn’t going to fall prey to this perverse, masochistic indulgence. If horrors were going to come, her worrying now wouldn’t stop them. She should get out of there. Take a walk. Stop at a café. Have a glass of wine. Anything but sitting, waiting and thinking or, worse, obsessing.

She brushed her hair, picked up her bag and walked toward the door, and then her cell phone rang.

Mrs. Rudolfo was crying. The professor was worse. His fever had spiked and he was delirious. The medicine wasn’t controlling the infection. Would she come?

Yes, Gabriella said. Yes, of course, she was on her way.

The man in the gray sedan watched Professor Chase come out of her apartment, run to her car and get in. He turned on his ignition, and twenty seconds after she pulled out, he did, too, driving far enough behind her so he wouldn’t be too obvious.

The man in the black SUV who had parked much farther down the block saw Gabriella drive away, too, but he didn’t follow her. All he did was punch a number in on his cell phone and wait for someone to pick up.

Across the street, inside the apartment building that Gabriella had just left, her landlady sat in the living room of her ground-floor apartment, knitting a sweater for one of her grandchildren and watching an old Fellini movie on television. She was close enough to the telephone so that when it rang, Camilla Volpe picked it up on the second ring. She said hello, listened, nodded, said, sì, sì, sì, began to say something else and then heard the man she was speaking to hang up. Reaching for a key ring that sat in a green glass bowl on her entry table, the landlady went out her front door.

Her knees hurt as she climbed the stairs. Her arthritis was acting up, but she was tired of going to doctors and waiting in sitting rooms. There wasn’t any miracle cure for getting older. She remembered her grandmother’s hands when she reached her nineties, gnarled and spotted with heavy ropes of veins in bas-relief.

Reaching apartment 2B, Signora Volpe opened the door as if it was her right to do that. And it was, wasn’t it? If someone she had rented one of her apartments to was doing something illegal, it was her duty to help the police catch her, no?

There were always stories in the papers about archeologists raping Rome-finding ancient artwork and smuggling it out of the country where it rightfully belonged. If the American woman was doing that, it was her responsibility to help the police.

The detective on the phone had told her the proof he needed would be in the black notebooks Gabriella Chase wrote in and in the photographs of the site.

That was what she was supposed to look for: black notebooks and photographs. That was all they wanted.

Methodically, Signora Volpe went through the piles of papers on the desk. She could feel her heart beating. She was like one of those actors in the movies her husband liked to watch when he was alive, sneaking around, spying on people. She was sixty-two years old and she had never set foot in a police station. Now she was cooperating with a detective and playing private eye. As scared as she was, she was also a little excited. Exhilarated, really. After all, she was helping to prevent the theft of a national treasure.

Under a pile of papers and magazines, Signora Volpe found a notebook. And, yes, it was black. She picked it up. What luck to have found it so fast! Underneath that was a pile of photographs. Glancing at the one on top, she saw a small, cavernous room. Old and dusty, but with the most glorious painting of flowers on the wall. Could they steal a wall painting, she wondered?

Taking a plastic bag from the pocket of her housedress, she shook it out and carefully put the photos and the notebook inside.

Detective Metzo had told her to look on the bookshelves, too, and in the bedroom. She hurried through the task. She’d been inside the apartment for several minutes. What if the American woman came home suddenly? She’d need to make up a story that someone complained about, what? Not noise. Maybe a gas leak. Yes, a gas leak. That would be perfect. But she wouldn’t get caught. Detective Metzo had given his word that he’d honk his horn if he saw her tenant. Three times. Quickly. That would be her signal. So far it had been quiet.

No, there was nothing in the bedroom. The search was over. She’d found what he wanted in the living room. A dozen photographs and a notebook.

Now for the next part.

“Why can’t I just come downstairs and give you what I find,” she’d argued with him when he’d explained what he wanted her to do.

“It has to look like a break-in, Signora Volpe. Please.” Metzo had started losing patience.

She did understand. She and her husband, dear Jesus, keep his soul safe, had worked so hard to restore this building. It hurt her to do this, even this one small thing. But she was protecting a national treasure-possibly, the detective had said, a treasure of importance to the church and the Holy Father. Pride was a sin. She would have to confess on Sunday that she had hesitated over this small act.

She took off her shoe and held it.

She couldn’t do it.

She had to.

Inhaling, then holding her breath, Signora Volpe smacked her shoe against the window, the one that looked down on the alleyway. The glass shattered and, a few seconds later, hit the pavement below with a sound that reminded her of church bells. That gave her courage. It was a sign. But the next part was going to be more difficult. It was one thing to break glass that was simple to replace. It was much more upsetting to hit, hit, hit the wooden frame until it split and fell apart. And then hit it from the outside, while she leaned out the window, trying not to look down on the alley, not to see the glass shimmering in the moonlight.

When she was done it looked just like a robber had broken in. That’s what it was supposed to look like, Metzo had told her.

When she asked him why, he’d put his fingers to his lips in a mock hushing gesture and told her that he wasn’t at liberty just yet to discuss police procedure. And then he had given her double what it would cost to replace the window and the wooden frame and had promised a nice bonus if she found what he was looking for.

She tried not to think about the wood being more than a hundred years old and that she’d never be able to replace the frame exactly. But, she thought as she dropped the plastic bag out of the window as instructed, she was doing her job, helping the police. What was some old wood if she could save that lovely flower wall in the photograph or a precious relic? Leaving the apartment, the worst of it behind her, she felt a little righteous.

After all, she’d made a noble sacrifice.