Serafina shook her head. "I don't think so. A deserter living rough, my guess."

Renata said, "If it weren't for Arcangelo, who knows what would have happened. We have you to thank for him."

"Told her, I did, not safe at night with only Beppe."

While Rosa beamed, Serafina thought the time was ripe to strike with some uncomfortable questions. "Who do you think is the killer of your women?" she asked.

"In front of Tessa?" Renata asked.

Rosa batted the air and said with her mouth full of cookies, "My Tessa knows everything, don't you, Tessa?"

She nodded.

"Would you like a cookie?" Renata asked.

Tessa shook her head.

Rosa swallowed. "Why would I be sitting here with you on a rocking train, filling my belly with figs and your daughter's ossa da mordere if I knew the answer to your question?"

"But you have an idea?"

"Ideas, they come into my head, convince me for a day, and, like the larks of summer, fly away with the first icy wind."

"After Gemma died, who did you think might be the killer?"

Rosa's face reddened. "At first I thought it must be a relative or someone from the past. Or Gemma's mourner."

"Say again?" Serafina asked.

"To Gemma's wake there came a mourner."

Serafina consulted her notes. "You didn't tell me about him, but the embalmer did."

"I'm telling you now. As we were about to leave, the room, full, the priest finished with his prayers, a man, not old, not young, he came up to the casket, raised his fist, cursed the corpse." Rosa wiped her forehead. "Escorted out, he was."

"A customer?"

"There you go again. Never!"

"The embalmer said he had 'seeping eyes.'"

"What?"

"'They watered, but not from grief. The eyes, disconnected from the mouth,' he told me."

"I searched for him, didn't I? Had the guards scour the land for an angry father, a jealous suitor. Nothing. After Nelli's murder, I became confused. The two, Gemma and Nelli, were from different towns, had no relatives in common, no friends together, so I gave up, didn't bother telling you about the man at Gemma's wake, the tricky one."

"And any ideas after that?"

"Why do you ask me these questions?"

"You trust Scarpo?"

Rosa looked like she was caught in a spell. "Scarpo, the killer? Utter nonsense. What are you saying?"

"All I'm saying is that we need to look at everyone around us with new eyes."

"Wild words spit from your mouth. It's little wonder you can't keep your daughter at home."

"Where was he, Scarpo, around the time of the murders?" Serafina continued. "The afternoon, the evening, the night before you found the bodies?"

"My house, of course. Scarpo doesn't leave unless he has an errand in town. Devoted to me, he is. At night he's always there. The house would fall without him. Who'd see to the guards, call the time, collect the money, throw out the scruffy ones, scare off the bandits?"

"What was the first thing you did after you saw Gemma's body?"

"Screamed and...and what did I do? I pulled the cord? I don't remember, I must have done. People poured in from all around, upstairs, the front parlors. All the girls were around me, I think, and Scarpo. Arcangelo went for Colonna."

"Any of the women missing? Away? On a day off?"

The madam considered. "Bella was the only one. She had the weekend off. All the others were at the house, but if one of them were gone, what would that mean? Nothing. These killings are the work of a wild devil with a thirst for my coins."

"But he could have had help from inside," Renata said.

"For instance, Eugenia, the thief," Serafina said. "And several of the women said the house has changed."

Rosa nodded. Tears formed in her lower lids. "Different now and strange. Silent, the girls, or they whisper in the halls. We used to be so lovely-so gay, so droll-before the killing started. Just like a family."

"You mean before Eugenia came," Serafina said.

"You mean like a family during good times," Renata said, "because families can be silent and untrusting, too, when something bad happens."

Serafina shot her a look. "Enough Renata. Let's stay fixed on these killings, nothing else. I know what you're up to, you and Carlo, but not here, not now."

Renata and Rosa looked at each other.

"If you die, does Scarpo gain?"

"You always have a way to make me squirm. Why ask such questions?"

Serafina watched the purple spread over her friend's cheek and waited.

"Who'd gain from my death?-Tessa, not Scarpo. I fooled them, those greasy officials. They said I couldn't adopt her, being a woman without a husband, but I have a smart avvucatu who knows all the ins and outs." Rosa twirled her hands in the air. "Struts around the courts like a silky black rooster. Expensive he might be, but knows the laws of inheritance and how to make them work for me. Not enough to have a will. He made it work." Rosa moved plaintive hands up and down. "Tessa inherits my estate, all of it. How does that answer fit into your theories, oh fancyIspetturi?"

Serafina chewed the inside of her cheek. "Didn't she need a husband?"

"Two: one for me, one for her. Cost extra. He took care of it, my handsome avvucatu."

"You're married?"

"Deceased, the spouse. Tessa's, too." Rosa made a placatory gesture with her hands. "Suggested him to Nittu, I did, after his sons perished."

"Nittu?"

"How many times must I tell you. Nittu Baldassare, Bella's father. The man we visit today. What's wrong with you? Mind stuck?"

Renata passed the basket of food again. Rosa reached for several cookies, a slice of cheese, and a fig. They all ate something, even Serafina.

A conductor with a purple nose opened the door to their compartment. He offered drinks from his beverage trolley. The three women asked for caffe which the conductor poured from a dented tin pot. Thick as molasses, the drink, steeped for days, it seemed to Serafina, but it was wet and washed down their food. With a flourish, the conductor handed Tessa an orange drink.

After he left, they were silent for a while. Serafina picked at her food and stared at the passing scenery, swaying back and forth, lulled by the movement.

Presently she said, "Sometimes, you know, I think I need a crowbar to pry information out of you. But I will say this: you have an amazing group of women who work for you, amazing. And all to your credit."

Rosa's eyes sparked. "But? Out with it."

"I'll bet Don Tigro would love to get his hands on your business."

"Never." Rosa sat on her velvet seat like a Sicilian Buddha.

"I want to talk about this figure in brown that Scarpo describes lurking about your house." She told them about her encounter with the begging monk in the piazza shortly after Bella died. "Wearing gloves and boots. Called himself Don Roberto. He smelled like a thousand foreign sheep. I'm convinced he's the same man Scarpo saw at the blacksmith's, the same one Arcangelo saw when he drove Gemma to meet her uncle on the evening before you found her body-the last time she was seen alive, except by her killer."

Rosa's eyes took on a haunted look. She reached across and stroked Tessa's cheek.

Serafina read her notes. "'A man, tall, in wintry clothes,' that's the way Arcangelo described Gemma's uncle, or his driver, at least the one who picked up Gemma."

Rosa smiled. "Arcangelo, bad with his colors."

"And here's what Scarpo said about him, 'There's one, a stranger...he wears brown and smells funny, not from around here.' And something else about their descriptions, something odd, the detail that convinces me it's the same man they're talking about, this man wearing brown: both Scarpo and Arcangelo say the man was wearing gloves and the weather was warm."

"Gloves in August?" Rosa asked. "That's it: he's got something to hide, like a hand with six fingers or a missing thumb. The man in mocha, he's our killer. Forget the others."

"Speaking of forgetting, did you remember to ask Scarpo to talk to the smith? Did you ask him to get Eugenia's address?"

Rosa shook her head. The four munched their food while the train slowly rounded a corner.

Breaking the silence, Serafina said, "Whoever it was, he plans on killing again. And soon."

"Not while we're eating. What's wrong with you?" Rosa asked.

Serafina looked out the window. "Just thinking what it is you know that you're not telling me."

"Like a peasant with a gold coin, your mother." Rosa pursed her lips.

Renata shrugged.

Tessa tapped her finger on Rosa's sleeve. "Is brown the color that bad men wear?"

"Not always."

"Once I saw a man in brown talking to Gemma and Nelli in the piazza. Bella, too. They called him 'the monk.'"

Serafina looked at Rosa. "Have you seen this monk since then?"

Tessa nodded. "Sometimes in the morning when I buy bread."

The feathers on Rosa's hat quivered. Serafina wrote down Tessa's information in her book and stared out the window.

The train blasted steam and headed for Bagheria, the end of the line, where they would hire a cab to Palermo.

"Who do you think will be the next to die?" Serafina asked. "Any of your women seem different? Need to visit relatives? Go out more often now, when before they stayed in? Change their pattern?"

"Changed? We're all changed. Next time? No next time!" The madam's eyes narrowed. "We'll stop this madman before he strikes again."

"We're almost there," Renata said, looking out the window.

Serafina reached for Rosa's heavy package. "Hurry, we must queue up to get off the train. Tessa, take Renata's hand. We'll meet beneath the statue of St. Dominic between two and half past. That should give us enough time to meet with Bella's father and the contessa."

"The contessa?" Renata asked.

"Bella's friend. They were going into business together. Keeps a dress shop not far from the Baldassare shop."

"You should have taken Giulia with you. She'd love to see a dressmaker's studio, especially one in Palermo. Already she dreams of making gowns in Paris."

Serafina put her hand on her heart and glanced out the window at a line of peasants bound for the wharves. "Giulia's a child, only sixteen. Let her grow up first."

"You're afraid of losing her, like you've lost Carmela. I know you. If Giulia leaves, you're wondering who will sew our clothes."

"Not more talk of leaving. You're still children, all of you. Even you-eighteen is nothing. Living with your family, all of us together in this uncertain hour-savor it."

"All of us together? Not all of us," Renata muttered.

Nittu Baldassare.

"I don't know what I can tell you of Bella, but I'll try." He wiped his forehead and led them to his study by way of the kitchen where a cook was preparing food. Serafina watched as the woman slid a long-handled spatula into the deep interior of an oven and fished out bread, oiled and steaming, crackling at the edges.

Rosa breathed audibly. "Heavenly, the smells-oregano, tomato, pesto, basil."

They walked down a long hallway into another room washed in tawny gold. Serafina smelled tobacco, leather, the mustiness of old books. Not a mote of dust. In the middle of the room was a carved mahogany desk piled with papers, and on the wall behind it, shelves stuffed with books. Several large volumes lay open on the desk, some containing plates of women's gowns, others with drawings of men in uniform. Underneath the window was a long table heaped with fabric. Swatches of brocades, silks and wools spilled onto the carpet. In front of Baldassare's desk were two chairs covered in damask. He invited Serafina and Rosa to sit.

Serafina took out her notebook and pencil. "Tell me about yourself," she said.

He passed a hand over his eyes. "Born into a trade that has served me well. Inherited my father's shop. Across the piazza. You noticed it?"