The Five-Day Dig (39 page)

She snorted. “I wouldn’t count on it. And the legalities will take years to untangle.”

“If the provenance checks out on the documented artifacts, they can be auctioned off for a fortune,” Chaz said. “The sales will pay for a top-notch attorney for Sam. We can get some of it sourced right away if we pull in favors from colleagues. And if your scruples are higher than other antiquities dealers, great. You can restore pieces to the sites they came from or donate some to public collections to ensure they’re shared with the world rather than hidden away in private mansions.”

Her head spun. She wouldn’t let herself believe there could be a silver lini
ng in this storm cloud, but they did have
connections who could figure out what her father had been up to. Looking at Sam, she asked, “Do the police know about Dad’s secret stash?”

He shook his head.

“You’ll be telling them today, as soon as I get a lawyer here to advise you.”

“
Domenico’s
lawyers are already working with me and Enza.”

“Then we owe him big time.” She stood up. “I have to go. I need some time to work through my thoughts about all of this.”

“Well, don’t worry about me.” Pushing himself up in bed, he winced. “Christina is flying out to help nurse me.”

“What?”
“I called her last night. Eddie’s going to stay home with the kids. She’s coming out on the first flight she can get.”

A little laugh of disbelief slipped out of her. He made it sound like this was just a typical little emergency that the family would handle. And who could tell? Maybe when all was said and done, he would land on his feet. She only knew that she was tired of worrying about him when he didn’t return the favor in any reasonable way. And she sure didn’t want to deal with Christina now. She’d had enough.

As if reading her mind, Chaz gave her arm a tug. “Let’s go. We still have to visit Enza.”

She agreed, glad for the excuse to get out.

Once they were in the hall, he suggested she wait in the lounge while he checked briefly on Enza. “I’ll give her and her father your regards,” he said.

“I’d appreciate that. I don’t think I can take anything else right now.”

“That’s not surprising. Maybe we should go home to Philly as soon as possible. Leave Sam to your sister’s care.”

Going home with him sounded like the best idea ever, but how could she? “How can I desert my family when they need me?”

“Your needs count as much as theirs do. More to me.” He stopped at the entrance to the lounge and kissed her. “Think about it. We’ll do what you decide.”

After he left, she glanced around the lounge and chose a seat in a corner. An Italian newspaper on an end table beside it mocked her.
The story must have broken by now,
she thought. No doubt her name would be dragged through the mud as the press dug for details.

 
She picked up the paper and paged through it. To her surprise, she couldn’t find any mention of the explosions. It seemed too much to hope that the story wouldn’t get out. She went through it again more carefully and was just setting it down when Chaz came back.

“What’s in the news?” he asked, standing above her.

“Nothing about the disaster. You’re back fast.”

“I didn’t bother going in the room. Signore Rentino was in the hall, so I spoke to him there.” He sat down next to her. “He’s calling in all favors, and it seems like it’s paying off. He’s a well-connected man.”

“He must be.”

“I didn’t want to tell him about the antiquities in your father’s warehouse without consulting you, but I think we should. The authorities will confiscate everything when they find out, but I’d wager Rentino can get us access to the documentation so we can work on verifying it. I’ll talk to him, if you trust him – and me – enough.”

She smiled softly. “Of course I do. And at this point, what have I got to lose?”

“Whatever you may lose, you can’t shake me.” He kissed her. “Are you ready to go?”

“More than ready.”

As they left, they ran into yet another acquaintance: Father Giampiero. After exchanging greetings, the priest asked them to come to his church later that afternoon. “I will say a mass for Enza, Samuelo and Duncan.”

Winnie felt a twinge of guilt that she’d ever suspected him of stealing scrolls. It seemed ridiculous now. Given her background, a church in
Italy
would normally be the last place she’d want to go, but right now she was grateful for support in any form. “That’s kind of you, Father,” she said. “We’ll be there.”

V
ENTITRÉ

A
SMALL GROUP
of neighbors and family turned out for the mass. Winnie participated in the prescribed actions and chants, wishing she felt half as much spiritual comfort from it as she’d felt during the drug-laced initiation-rite reenactment. At least Father Giampiero didn’t say anything that outraged her, like the priest on that awful day her father disappeared.

After the service, she and Chaz went up to thank him.

As they turned away, a nun stopped to talk to them. “Such a sad accident over at the villa. Are you two friends of Enza’s?”

“We were involved in the archaeological dig,” Winnie said, reluctant to reveal her relationship to Sam.

The sister crossed herself. “Thank the Lord you were not injured in the collapse.”

Winnie frowned, thinking that if the Lord had intervened with Sam, Dunk and Enza, the outcome could have been better, but before she could form a comment, Chaz jumped in to say, “Your church is lovely. I didn’t catch the name of the saint it’s devoted to.”

“Isidora of
Campania
. She was martyred trying to save holy scrolls from a fire.”

“Scrolls?” A shiver ran down Winnie’s spine. After all of the turmoil about scrolls at the dig site, the word carried special weight.

“Yes. Her fate is difficult to contemplate, but now she has her heavenly reward.” The woman smiled. “Due to the method of her martyrdom, she is always depicted carrying water. There is a beautiful ancient statue of her in our Lady Chapel. If you have time, you should see it while you are here.”

“Certainly,” Chaz said. “We’ll pay our respects.”

“I’ll show you the way.”

Feeling vaguely uneasy, Winnie followed them into a modestly sized but ornately decorated transept. On one side stood a closed wooden door next to a bench holding several rows of lit and unlit candles and a box for donations. It was funny how in here the heavy air of authority felt so different from the rich, wild atmosphere of the ancient temple, where it seemed like anything could happen – and then it did.

“The Lady Chapel is through the door,” the nun said. “If you’d like to light candles, you can get them here.”

“
Grazie
.” Chaz said. As the woman left, he turned to Winnie and reached for his wallet. “Let’s get some votives. Consider it more research for my dissertation. Besides,
Isidora’s
story strikes a chord with me.”

She nodded. “I guess it does with me, too. It’s strange that she died for the sake of scrolls, when we’ve been so focused on finding them ourselves.”

He stuffed a few bills into the slot in the donation box. “I suppose you could say Dunk died for the sake of scrolls, too, but his motives were rather less noble than hers.”

They each took candles. He opened the wooden door and held it, waiting for her to enter first.

She stepped into a spacious chamber, lit only by electric chandeliers and the weak rays of the setting sun filtering through stained glass. A dramatic scene on the windows depicted a woman in flaming robes carrying a stack of burning scrolls out of a fiery building. It reminded Winnie of her flaming-statuette hallucination. She shivered. Another weird coincidence.

Chaz joined her in front of the image. “That looks painful, but at least saving scrolls is a worthy cause.”

“That depends on what’s written on them.” Still staring at the window, she edged toward the front of the chapel.

When she finally pulled her gaze away, she saw the statue the nun had mentioned. The feminine figure wore ancient Roman garb, and soot blackened one side of her, as if the statue itself had been in a fire at some point. Odd. In this portrayal, the saint wasn’t carrying scrolls. In one hand, she grasped the handle of a missing object, and in the other she held a familiar-looking, kettle-like container.

Winnie recognized and gasped. “That’s a situla.”

Chaz stepped up beside her. “Yes. And I suspect she held a sistrum in her other hand.”

“Holy cow.” She took in the statue’s intricate sculpted draping, her stoic classic features, and her strange headpiece featuring a central disc flanked by horns. “It’s
Isis
.”

He stooped and looked at a plaque screwed to the base. “ ‘Isidora,’ ” he read. “The statue appears to be ancient, but the lettering on the plaque looks medieval.”

She followed his gaze to the inscription. “The name Isidora means ‘gift of
Isis
.’ This is the missing statue from the temple, isn’t it?”

“It must be.”

Anger built up inside of her. “Then it’s stolen. Father Giampiero will have to return her to the temple, where she belongs.”

Straightening back up, he gave her a sad look and shook his head. “It was probably taken in antiquity – or at the time of Charlemagne, when the coin you spotted was dropped. Either way, the statute of limitations will be up.”

Of course, he was right. Now a sense of grief filled her, and her eyes teared up. In that moment, all the pressures of the last couple of weeks seemed to come to a head and send her reeling. Emotionally exhausted, she dropped to her knees in front of the statue and stared up at it. “Are you the one who was burning in my bathroom?” she asked it.

Silence hung in the air.

After a moment, Chaz squatted beside her and put his arm around her.

She looked at him, feeling foolish. “I’m sorry for getting emotional over a lump of carved marble. It’s just that people should know her identity.”

“Does it really matter what people call her? The name
Isis
just refers to a Greek interpretation of an Egyptian goddess. In Egyptian, her name was pronounced something like Aset or Ese. And the Italians call her Iside.”

As she contemplated the names, the linguistic gears in her brain started to turn. The fog of pain began to lift. “I wonder if Ishtar comes from the same root. And Easter.”

He nodded. “And Easter sounds like it’s related to Eos, goddess of dawn to the Greeks, and therefore associated with the east.”

“But whom did she originate as?” She stared at the goddess’s face.

“Sounds like a good topic for a book.”

She looked at him in surprise. Book or not, after the last week, she needed to explore the question. The temple complex was imprinted in her being now, shaping her future for both good and bad. Mostly good, she believed. “I like it. Maybe we could collaborate. Or am I crazy?”