The Reincarnationist

Chapter 34

Two carabinieri were on their way out of Gabriella’s building when Josh and Malachai got there. Inside, they found the landlady standing in the hall beside a partially opened door, watching the last of the activity with a curious expression on her face. In broken English she answered Josh’s questions, telling him that she hadn’t seen Gabriella in several days and didn’t know what had happened to her.

“I think maybe she just went home,” she said. “No problems. Just home.” She kept looking past him into the hallway, up the staircase, as if she was making sure all the police were gone.

“Is there a reason you think she went home?” Malachai asked.

“Why you two asking me all these thing? I already talked to them.” She motioned to the empty hall the uniformed men had just passed through.

“Because she was here at eleven last night when I left, and if she went out after that you might have seen her go,” Josh said.

She was slowly closing the door, inch by inch, as she spoke. Unmistakably wanting to get rid of them. “Not that late, no. I no see anything.”

“We’d like to take a quick look around her apartment to see if she left a note for us,” Malachai said, trying to press money into her hand, but she pushed him away.

“I can’t let you in. The carabinieri told me. There will be trouble if I let anyone in.”

Somewhere in the building a telephone rang. A baby cried. The hallway was hot and Josh was sweating. He could smell garlic.

“We won’t disturb anything,” Josh insisted. While Malachai was hoping to find something about the stones, Josh was anxious to find anything that might explain Gabriella’s disappearance.

Signora Volpe backed up, shaking her head, and without any further response, closed her door on them. Josh started knocking on it, despite hearing her turn the lock.

“All we want to do is look around,” he shouted.

Malachai pulled at his arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here. She’s not going to let us in, and we don’t want to be here if the police come back.”

“I don’t care if they come back. Something’s going on, Malachai, and I want to know what it is. What if…” He couldn’t think it, much less say it, but he feared the worst.

They walked out onto the street. The gray sedan was there. Had it been there when they arrived? Josh wasn’t certain.

“Wait a minute. Tatti had that car following Gabriella ever since the professor was shot. It was here when I left last night.”

“If Tatti knows where she is, and he didn’t tell us, he must be trying to trap us.”

“Or to see who comes to her apartment for the same reasons we’re here,” Josh suggested.

“Well, the last thing we want is to give Tatti any additional reasons to suspect we are involved in the robbery, now that he’s about to give us the go-ahead to leave Rome,” Malachai warned. “Let’s get out of here.”

At the end of their breakfast, after the unsatisfactory interrogation, the detective had surprised them by returning Josh’s passport and saying they were both free to leave the country, though he hoped Josh would agree to return if there was a trial. Malachai had immediately booked the only seats for New York that were available at such short notice, but they weren’t on the same plane.

“Tatti will change his mind in a heartbeat about either of us leaving if he thinks we’re holding back information or are involved as anything other than innocent bystanders,” Malachai said as they walked down the street.

“You go home, then,” Josh said. “I’m staying. At least until I find out where she is.”

“Why does finding Gabriella matter to you that much?”

“Maybe she was seen at the site,” Josh said, ignoring the question because he wasn’t sure what the answer was himself.

“Josh? What’s going on?”

They’d stopped for a light on the corner.

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s just a feeling I have-” He broke off, too embarrassed by what he had been thinking to say it out loud.

Malachai guessed. “Do you think Gabriella is part of your past?”

There were no cars passing. It was quiet in the street, but Josh’s whisper was still hard to hear.

“Maybe.”

They found a taxi and gave the driver the site’s address. As they passed through the center of the city, Josh stared at the large, pitted, gray stone stumps that seemed to fill in and rise up as tall, proud, shining columns in front of his eyes.

“My brother was murdered not far from here,” he said morosely as they passed by the ancient coliseum.

“Your brother died in Rome?”

There are a few moments just as you’re falling asleep, Josh thought, when, already half in a dream, you blurt out words or phrases from inside your slumber. Speaking wakes you up and you realize you’ve been spouting gibberish. The moment was like that for Josh.

“I don’t have a brother.”

“You just told me your brother was killed not far from here.”

Josh couldn’t focus on Malachai’s voice; a tornado of fractured images was swirling in his head.

“Give me a second.”

He’d been overcome so quickly he hadn’t noticed the jasmine and sandalwood, but yes, it was in the air. He felt the current tugging at him, despite it being such an inopportune moment. He didn’t need to be a victim of his memory, he could control it. But he had to choose, then or now. If he stayed in between he’d get sick. He could feel the first sparks of the migraine. Shutting his eyes, he focused on the litany Dr. Talmage had worked out with him and repeated the mantra silently:

Connect to the present, connect to who you know you are.

Josh. Ryder. Josh. Ryder. Josh Ryder.

They’d gone another two blocks when Malachai shifted in his seat slightly and subtly turned his head, glancing out the back window.

“I think we’re being followed,” he said.

“By the gray sedan?”

“Yes, and I don’t like it.”

“It’s just the carabinieri.”

“How certain are you of that? What if it’s someone sent by whoever has the stones, who thinks we know their secret or someone who has a problem with the foundation and is looking for a way to implicate us in this mess? We have enemies, you know. We’re not very popular with the Church. The Catholic Church, especially. And we are in Rome.”

“The professor was saying the same thing about the Church down in the tomb before…before he was shot.” Josh looked out the window. After a moment, he continued. “He told me the site was getting its share of protesters from religious groups. I saw a few of them there that morning.”

Outside the taxi the scenery changed as they got farther from the city and deeper into the countryside. “You know,” Josh said, “if it is some crazy group, and if they killed the professor, Gabriella could have been their next target.”