She spotted Sabrina first, sitting close with another young woman, who Geena recognized as a student at the university but could not name. The two of them whispered to each other in a way that could only be thought of as intimate, and their eyes sparkled in what might have been mischief or flirtation. Geena arched an eyebrow, but neither option troubled her. Sabrina intrigued her and had proven herself a loyal employee, but they weren’t really friends. There were doubtless many things they did not know about each other.
Three tables had been dragged together, and the group was much larger than Geena had anticipated. There were graduate students, several undergrads, lovers and friends and spouses, and even Sandro Pustizzi, a history professor from Ca’Foscari. Coffee cups and wineglasses festooned the table, along with silver trays that had borne many pizzas, most of which had been devoured by now. No matter how long she lived in Italy, she would never get used to how late the Italians often ate their meals.
A waitress bumped her, skillfully managing not to dump the tray of drinks in her hand, and they danced away from each other in the swirl of movement in the café. When Geena looked at the table again, Ramus had already jumped up from the table and was rushing toward her with a broad smile on his face, his skin flushed from too much wine.
“Dr. Hodge! I’m so glad you came!” he said, glancing at her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Geena nodded, wondering what Ramus would say if he could see her unmarred skin. She had worn a thin cotton top, but fortunately it hid the absence of a wound.
“A claret wouldn’t go amiss,” she said.
This seemed all the confirmation Ramus needed of her physical and mental well-being, and he went in search of a drink.
That left Geena standing alone and awkward a few feet from the table, but by now perhaps a third of those gathered there had turned to notice her arrival. Sabrina waved, some people whispered to their immediate companions—gossip about her, no doubt—but Domenic stared at her with a relief that made her swell with gratitude that she had such a friend.
He dragged an empty chair from another table and slid it in beside him just as she approached, and he gestured for her to sit. Thankful, she sank into the chair and then, before either of them had spoken a word, she sighed and leaned on his shoulder.
“I’m so glad you called me,” she said, sitting up and turning to face him.
“I’m glad you came,” Domenic replied. “You need to be around sane people for a while.”
Geena surprised herself by laughing, and Domenic joined her.
“You look all right, considering,” he said. “What’s going on? Did you talk to Tonio? Have you seen Nico since …”
The questions stalled as Geena held up a hand. “Please, let’s not talk about it. Just tell me about the project. Where are we?”
Domenic warmed to the subject immediately, happy to provide her with a distraction.
“You’ll never believe it,” he said excitedly. “After you and I left—after all the drama and the bloodletting—Sabrina and our divers and the BBC team were documenting everything down in the Chamber when some men from the city engineer’s office showed up with enormous pumps and hoses and said they’d finished shoring up the canal wall.”
Geena stared at him. “You’re not serious? That quickly?”
“That’s what I said. There’s obviously more work to be done out there, but they’ve filled the hole, at least temporarily. The BBC must have put a ton of money into it, both on the table and under it, to make it happen that fast.”
“I guess,” Geena said, but she wasn’t so sure. Finch’s people had money, all right, but graft and corruption were nothing new in Italian government. How much money would it have taken to get the local authorities moving so swiftly? Was there enough money in the world?
Or were the Doges somehow involved? She tried to think of a reason they might use their influence in that fashion, why they might want access to the Chamber of Ten, but nothing occurred to her.
Maybe you’re just being paranoid. These guys aren’t pulling the strings on everything. She was so tired and confused.
“We got the pumps running right away,” Domenic was saying.
“How long, do you think, until the chamber’s dry?”
“Maybe forever. Whatever kept it dry—which Sabrina found no sign of, by the way—it isn’t working now. The pumps have probably already drained what flooded in, but there’s still going to be groundwater. Once the canal wall is permanently repaired we’ll know more, but my guess is a drainage system might need to be installed long-term.”
Geena let that sink in. Right now, as they sat there talking, the Chamber of Ten might be accessible. Who knew how much damage it had sustained? The broken wall, of course, and one of the obelisks had cracked. And then there was the urn …
“Domenic, there’s something I need you to do for me,” she said. “Now. Tonight.”
He nodded. “Of course. Anything.”
Geena spoke quickly and quietly, so that only Domenic could hear her over the din of the café. If he thought her request strange he showed no sign of it, only agreed to do as she asked.
“Now, tell me about this horrible thing in Dorsoduro,” she said. “What is this crypt they’ve discovered?”
“Awful, isn’t it?” Domenic said. “You saw it on the news?”
“Heard it from a waitress in a café, actually.”
“That’s what I love about Venice. We get our news over coffee.” Domenic smiled and then nodded toward a young guy who was one of the graduate students. “Luciano was over there today.”
Domenic got the grad student’s attention and made the introductions, though given his field of study, Luciano was well aware of Dr. Geena Hodge. It would have been almost impossible to be an archaeology student in Venice and not be familiar with her.
“Lu, Dr. Hodge was just asking about the tomb in Dorsoduro.”
Luciano nodded enthusiastically, as though being allowed to visit the site had been the best gift he had ever received.
“Dr. Schiavo sent a group of us down to observe,” Luciano said. “The city council wanted us there as consultants, or something. I’ve never seen anything like it, Dr. Hodge. Most of the building slid into the canal. No one seemed sure why. There was talk of explosives, but I overheard policemen saying there was no sign of anything like that. But if it hadn’t collapsed, the tomb wouldn’t have been discovered right away. It’s a mass grave, really. The building had a subchamber, probably 16th century. It’s similar in some ways to Petrarch’s library, but its only purpose was for burial. From what we could tell based on an initial evaluation, there’s not a single marking to indicate the identity of any of the entombed dead. Don’t you think that’s bizarre?”
Geena nodded to urge him on. “Very peculiar. And what about the tomb? Was it intact?”
Luciano had been excited to tell her his story, building up to something, but now his excitement left him in a single exhalation and he looked at her oddly.
“What have you heard?”
“Nothing. That’s why I’m asking. Why?”
He gave a small shrug. “It’s just weird that you would ask, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“I received a call just before I came over here,” Luciano said. “A couple of my classmates went down there tonight with a camera and a lighting rig to begin documenting the inside of the tomb so they would have photographs of what the site looked like before they started disturbing things tomorrow. The area around the building had been blocked off and the workers had gone home for the day. But there should have been at least a handful of police on guard, for safety if nothing else. Yet no one tried to stop them when they arrived with the equipment, or approached to ask them what they were doing. They called Dr. Schiavo and he called the police, who said there were officers posted there, but whatever their orders were, those police were nowhere to be found. My friends went inside the tomb—”