The Devil's Own Crayons Read online

  She stopped drawing. “Did you know it’s my birthday today?”

  He loved how kids could go from one unrelated thing to the next. His own brain and mouth jumped around like that, even without help from the occasional toke. “Yeah. I heard. You and your sisters. The big six. I remember six. A good year. Better than five. Way better than four.”

  “Are you going to eat cake and ice cream with us?”

  “Depends. What kind of cake are we talking? White? Chocolate? Marble? Better not be carrot. Vegetables in a cake, that’s plain wrong.”

  “Pink,” she said cheerfully. “A pink cake with pink balloons and pink flowers.”

  “Pink,” he said, running the mop around the edges of a file cabinet. “Pink is always good.”

  Babette returned one crayon to the box and extracted another. Held it up for inspection. Put it back. Picked out a different one. “Will you buy me a Barbie, Mister P? A Barbie in a pink dress with pink heels?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, that’s what this is about. You want more presents. Typical female.”

  “It’s okay if you don’t have money for a doll,” she said sweetly. “Come and sing to me.”

  “What should I sing?”

  “Happy birthday to you!” she warbled. “Happy birthday to you!”

  “I think I can manage a tune.”

  Her scribbling suddenly intensified, and she stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth while she colored. “Why didn’t the doctors sew them back on? Didn’t they know how? Were they dumb, mean doctors?”

  Back to his fingers. What was up with that? He’d been around her and her sisters long enough that they should be used to his mangled hand. He tried to ignore her.

  “Mister P? Mister P?”

  “I got work to do, Missy.”

  “Why didn’t the doctors sew them back on? Were they too dumb?”

  “No, the doctors weren’t the dumb ones.” He stopped swabbing and leaned both hands atop the mop handle. Gave her a warning. “It’s kind of a gross story.”

  She giggled. “I like gross stories.”

  Lots of kids did, he figured. He held up his right hand – the good one - and wiggled his fingers. “If you were a pack of damn, dumb doggies, what would you think these looked like?”

  “Fingers.” She put her own hand down on the paper and outlined around it with the crayon.

  “What if they weren’t on my hand, but sitting on the ground all by themselves? What would they look like to a bunch of stupid mutts?”

  “Mister Petit!” gasped a female voice in back of the room.

  One of the fat, old nuns was standing in the doorway. She’d apparently heard enough of the conversation to figure out where it was going. Her hands were planted on her wide hips and her face was all scrunched up under that black veil. A giant prune dressed for a funeral. Her name was Sister Rose Estelle, but behind her back, the younger nuns called her Sister Rose From Hell. His pet name for her was Sister Prune.

  “She asked,” he said defensively, and put his head down to finish his mopping. “I don’t fib to children. Goes against my nature.”

  “Finish the gross story, Mister P,” said the girl. “What about the damn, dumb doggies?”

  “Watch your language, young lady,” said the prune in mourning, waddling over to the child. “That’s a swear word, and you know it.”

  “I want to know how it ends. I want it to have a happy ending.”

  Petit laughed dryly and shook his head while he mopped under another table. “Sorry, Missy. There’s no ‘happily ever after’ with this book.”

  “What are you doing here all by yourself, young lady?” asked the nun, putting her hand on the back of Babette’s chair. “Why aren’t you playing outside with the others?”

  “I want to color,” said the girl not bothering to glance up from her scribbling.

  The nun hurled an insult that went over the child’s head. “You need the exercise.”

  “I want to color.”

  “I want to color, Sister,” corrected the nun.

  “I want to color, Sister.”

  “Children should be exposed to the fresh air twice a day, for at least thirty minutes. More frequently during the summer months.”

  With his back turned to the big woman, Petit rolled his eyes. She was always issuing edicts and orders: Children should not watch more than thirty minutes of television each day. Children should memorize the Lord’s Prayer by the age of five. Children should be in bed by eight. If she couldn’t get them to follow her rules voluntarily, she hollered at them - or worse. When they were too hyper to sleep, he’d spotted the witch doctoring their bedtime milk with pink syrup. Allergy meds – and the girls didn’t have the sniffles.

  The nun put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Off with you, child. Outside for some fresh air and exercise. Work off some of that baby fat.”

  Babette continued coloring. “I want to finish this picture, Sister.”

  “What you want doesn’t matter, young lady.”

  “She said I could stay and color. She said I could finish.”

  “Who said?”

  “Mother Superior said.”

  “For your information, young lady, Mother Superior is the one who told me to come in here and check on you. ” The nun leaned down and adjusted her glasses. “What is it that you’re drawing?”

  Petit heard Sister Prune gasp. He stopped mopping and turned around to watch. What did Babette draw? A set of boobs?

  The nun stood straight and folded her arms under her bosom. “Young lady, I think you need to have a talk with Mother Magdalen.”

  Babette girl set down her crayon and smiled at her work of art. Tilted her head to the right and the left. “Why?”

  Sister’s eyes met Petit’s and dropped down to the table. She put her hand on the paper. “Let’s show this to Mother Magdalen and see what she thinks of it.”

  Petit carried the mop over to the bucket while trying to steal a sideways look at the naughty picture. Sister had her fat hand over it. Killjoy.

  “You’re messing it up,” the little girl said, working at unpeeling the fat fingers from the drawing. “You’re going to ruin it. You’re going to ruin everything.”

  “We mustn’t hurt people’s feelings.”

  “I want to show him. Let me show him.”

  “Go ahead.” The nun lifted her hand from the paper, and the right side of her mouth turned up slightly. “Show him.”

  Babette picked up the drawing and turned in her seat. Held it up in front of her. “For you, Mister P. It’s a birthday gift from me.”

  “Well ain’t you a sweet one.” He leaned the mop against the wall and went over for an inspection. Took it from the girl and stared at it. He felt his face reddening with humiliation. The old prune was probably enjoying his reaction. “Uh, gee, Missy...That’s real nice,” he stumbled. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  She’d drawn a man in gray – the color of his janitor’s uniform - with a bucket at his feet. He was smiling like a jack-o-lantern. Outstretched were his two disproportionably large hands – outlines of her own.

  “You’ve got all your fingers in the picture,” the girl said proudly. “Count. Ten fingers. Five on each hand. Count them, Mister P.”

  “I can see that,” he mumbled, and handed the picture back to her.

  Babette set the drawing down in front of her and began coloring in the outline, starting with the thumb of the left hand. “I fixed you up.”

  Sister Prune and the janitor stood eye to eye. “I’m so sorry, Mister Petit,” said the nun, her voice dripping with artificial sympathy. “Children can be cruel.”

  He reflexively tucked his bad hand under his right armpit. Realizing what he was doing, he quickly lowered the left arm so it hung down his side. “Well...she didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  “I’ll make sure Mother Magdalen hears about it.”

  He stared down at the ground and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “No, you don’t ha
ve to...”

  “In fact, I’ll raise the issue of sensitivity at the next staff meeting. All the other sisters will hear about this, so they can be made aware.”

  The old bitch was going to embarrass him in front of the entire house. “Please don’t,” he pleaded.

  The little girl mumbled under her breath. “Leave him alone, meanie.”

  Under the veil, the nun’s brows arched with shock, and she took a step back from the table. “What did you say?”

  Realizing the nun had actually heard her whisper, Babette looked from the woman to the man and back to the woman. “Leave him alone, please,” the girl squeaked.

  “That’s not what you said, and you know it.”

  Afraid his little defender was going to get in deep trouble, Petit tried to help her backpedal. He swallowed hard. The next words were liable to make him gag. “Everybody loves Sister Rose Estelle. She’s a nice person, right Missy? You love her.”

  The girl nodded.

  “Say it, young lady,” said the nun, her fists closing and opening at her side. “Tell me you love me, and all will be forgiven.”

  Petit felt ready to hurl. “Go ahead, Missy. Tell Sister Rose how much you love her.”

  Babette’s mouth moved up and down, but nothing came out.

  “Just as I thought,” said the nun.

  Sister Prune cooked up a punishment that probably stung Babette worse than a spanking: She wasn’t allowed to go to her own birthday party.

  Petit felt sick about it. While the rest of the house was having pink cake after dinner, he quietly exited the dining room with a slice wrapped up in a paper towel and took it up to the second floor.

  Babette shared a room at the end of the hall with her sisters. They were the only kids in the place. Little Sisters of the Orphans used to run a full-blown orphanage, but by the time he got there it had been phased out. The abbess had gotten them into baking and selling bread. Then the three kids had showed up, one after the other. He’d been told they’d been adopted out of the orphanage as babies, but had been returned to the convent because their parents had died. He couldn’t understand how all three could lose their adoptive parents, but life was strange.

  The girls’ names were taped to the door in fat paper letters. Adeline was spelled out in yellow cutouts and Cecelia was in purple. Babette was pink. He tapped a couple times with his toe. “Baab? You in there?”

  The knob turned and the door popped open. A red-eyed little girl greeted him with a sniffle. “That...meanie.”

  “Forget about her.” He brought his hands around from behind his back.

  Her eyes went to the cake in his right hand. “Is that for me?”

  “You know it is, Missy.”

  Babette took the plate. “I’m starving.”

  “Didn’t they even feed you dinner, the old...” He stopped himself before he gave her yet another word with which to hang herself. “Eat up before C.C. and Ada come back.”

  “Thank you, Mister P.”

  “You’re welcome, and happy sixth b-day.” He turned and started to go.

  “I’m getting you a present, too,” she whispered after him. “It’ll be finished soon.”

  He raised his good hand in a farewell greeting and continued toward the stairs.

  After gobbling her cake, Babette sprawled on the floor on her belly to work on the drawing. She had to finish coloring in Mister P’s fingers. As she moved the crayon back and forth in short, disciplined strokes, her brown eyes narrowed with concentration.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The curtains were open, and Rome’s night lights bathed the room in a weak glow. Waking from her nap, Rossi turned from the window and rolled over to face the door. She spotted a white rectangle on the floor and assumed it was from the hotel. She clicked on her bedside lamp.

  As soon as she picked it up and read it, she knew she needed to find who’d left the note. She dropped it, threw open the door and scoped both ways down the narrow hall. Empty. Rossi ran to the elevators, where the doors were parting. She fired off questions in Italian to the pair on board, noted their confused expressions and switched to English. “When you got on, was there someone getting off?”

  “What?” asked a big woman, stepping into the hall.

  “Who was just on this elevator?” asked Rossi, holding the door open with her stocking foot.

  “Nobody,” said a big guy, getting off behind the big woman.

  Rossi ran to the stairwell and darted down to the lobby. No one there, not even a clerk at the desk. She pushed open the front door and looked up and down the street. Too many people crowded the sidewalks. “Damn,” she said, and went back inside. Ran up to her room.

  Carefully using two fingers, Rossi picked up the paper by its edge, dropped it on the desk and sat down to study the note. In case there were prints, she was careful not to touch the slip any further as she examined it. The message was on white computer paper of a standard weight and size. The letters were all in bold caps, and the font was something ordinary. Could have been spit out by any printer connected to any computer.

  CBGNIREHAG ZR NPRGB

  To the untrained eye, the single line of letters in the middle of the page would have been nonsense. Rossi knew better; someone had left her an enciphered message. Bookies and drug dealers used codes to conceal everything – customer names, addresses, phone numbers, dollar amounts, drop sites – in case their records fell into the hands of the law. She was the law, however, and the message had been delivered straight to her door. Why bother encoding it? Perhaps the writer feared there was a chance someone else could see it. A hotel maid or a visitor to Rossi’s room. Could be the delivery person was a mere flunky and the boss didn’t want the courier to read the note.

  That a cipher text was used at all sent a menacing message aimed specifically at Rossi: We know you’re an FBI agent in the country on bureau business. If that was indeed their main reason for employing a cipher system – to rattle her – she assumed they wouldn’t have bothered utilizing anything too complicated.

  She wasn’t an expert on codes, but she’d had some experience. One of the simplest coding systems was called the Caesar Cipher or Caesar Shift, so named because Julius Caesar used it to communicate with his generals. The fact that she was in Rome could have inspired the author of the message to use this particular code. All users needed to do was write the alphabet on one line, and write it again below – except in the second line, the characters are shifted by one or more letters to the left or right. She remembered Caesar used it with a shift of three to protect messages of military significance.

  She eyed the short word in the middle – ZR – and decided it would be an easy place to start. On a sheet of hotel stationary, she wrote her plain line and then what she guessed was the cipher:

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  D E F G H I J K L M O N P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C

  A left rotation of three places came up with the middle word in the ciphered message - ZR - translating into WO. She tried a right rotation of three places, and that didn’t make sense either. Another common Caesar shift was to start the cipher alphabet in the middle of the plain alphabet.

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M

  Employing that cipher translated ZR into ME. At least ME was a word in English. As she continued to decipher using that code, she figured she was wrong – unless the language was in something other than English. She decoded the entire message. Along with Italian, she’d studied Latin in college and recognized the three words:

  POTAVERUNT ME ACETO.

  “They gave me vinegar to drink,” she said out loud.

  What did it mean? Why had it been left at her door? Had she indeed been followed during her walking tour?

  Her tour. The bridge with the statues. Retrieving her cell, Rossi called up the photos she’d snapped on the bridge. One of the angels carried a sponge on a sp
ear, a symbol of the vinegar given to Christ as he was suffering on the cross. All she could guess was that she was to go to that spot. Fingering her cell, she thought about Camp back in D.C. She’d been instructed not to call him unless it was an emergency. She didn’t know the guy except by reputation, and word was he could be an absolute prick. Her old supervisor in L.A. didn’t know what was going on. Dragging the Italian police into bureau business was a bad idea, especially when she didn’t even know what this particular business involved. The Legats?

  Calling their after hours number, Rossi got no answer and didn’t feel comfortable leaving a message. She stepped into her shoes and pulled on her blazer. Checked her Glock and tucked it into the holster inside her jeans. The bridge was about a mile from her hotel. She’d scope it out from a safe distance, see if there was anyone suspicious lurking about, and call headquarters if she needed help.

  The Italian cops were already there. So were a couple dozen spectators being kept behind police barricades, stretched across the streets approaching both ends of Ponte Sant’Angelo. She elbowed her way to the front of the barricade. “Mi scusi...scusi...Excuse me.”

  Lights resembling old-fashioned street lanterns lined the bridge, and illuminated the officers gathered around the base of one of the statues. The angel with the sponge.

  “Che cosa e successo?” Rossi asked an older man to her right.

  He shrugged.

  A young woman to Rossi’s left pointed in the direction of the statue and said it was a suicide.

  “Chi?” asked Rossi, trying to find out the victim’s identity.

  “Un uomo,” said the young woman.

  A man.

  Rossi reached inside her jacket and felt the edges of her wallet, but decided against flashing her bureau identification. An officer had his back to her and she got his attention. She told him she might know the man who’d died. On a hunch, she raised her hand to her forehead.

  His eyes widened and he held up a finger. He went over to the group standing under the statue and had a conference with them. Half of the men turned and gaped at her. One of them nodded. The barricade cop returned for her and escorted her to the other officers. Two of the men parted and let her inside the circle, quickly closing it after her. On the ground was a lumpy tarp. An officer squatted down and lifted a corner of the cover.