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 onewoman…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.
