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ChapterSeventeen
Devere didn’t returnthe next morning, or the next. Days turned into weeks. Winter bore down on the town, the sun so weak it barely burned the mist away. Jacapo’s funeral came and went, his body lowered into the ground, taking any further answers with it. I stood among the huge crowd of mourners, umbrella lifted to fend off the snow, and feared the truth of his murder might never be known.
With Devere gone, no leads, and no Rochefort to pay my fee, there was no reason to stay in Minerva. The agency back in the city needed me. Yet I couldn’t leave, not without finding Devere.
My parents’ demise, Jacapo’s death, even Rochefort’s murder—Devere had alluded to how these things could all be linked. But how? Unless hewasthe link. He wasn’t a killer, of that I was certain, but there was too much about the toymaker’s son I did not know.Nobodyknew. And in his absence, nobody cared that he’d gone. People acted as though he’d never existed. But I knew. My heart knew.
Jacapo’s murder, Rochefort’s demise, and Devere’s disappearance. I would make it right.
Beginning at the beginning.
* * *
A rare blue sky brightened the winter morning as I walked through the churchyard’s creaking gate. This time, I strode past graves and followed the weaving path toward the town’s church. All records were held here—births, deaths, marriages.
The church’s huge oak door groaned open into a small vestibule with a granite stone in its center—for coffins to rest. An even larger door barred the way into the church, studded with thick iron bolts, each one the size of my knuckles. My mother had once told me the iron was to keep the fae-folk and the wicked out. She’d said it in such a way that I’d half-believed I’d burn up the moment I stepped inside. I suspected they’d believed it too.
I clunked the huge bolt over and pushed the door open. The church was a wonder of floor-standing candelabras, all their candles lit, the smell of warm wax, and rows of empty pews. I’d never been a believer in God or religion, mostly because I’d been told He didn’t believe in problem boys like me.
Miss Romano, the church assistant, greeted me with a tight smile. She’d scowled at me years ago too, but she scowled at everyone. I’d never taken it personally.
“I have some of the records you asked for,” she said, leading me toward a table where several thick, rectangular registry books lay open. “The Barella family goes back many generations, but I understand it’s their more recent history you’re interested in.”
“Yes, and thank you. I appreciate your help.”
She showed me Jacapo Barella’s death entry and reached for an older book. “Almost twenty years ago now, Jacapo married Rosemary Tidings. A lovely woman, she was. So very bright. His childhood sweetheart.” She showed me the marriage entry among the others, written in swirling penmanship.
Then Rosemary Tidings was Devere’s mother.
Why hadn’t he told me her name when I’d asked? Why did nobody speak of her?
I spotted the death register, and after a brief scan, I found her name listed. “She died not long after marrying Jacapo?”
“In childbirth, yes,” Miss Romano explained, touching her shoulders in the mark of the cross. “Terrible. They were so in love.”
The birth register lay open too, and there was Devere’s name: Devere Barella, boy, born on the same day as his mother’s death. The town’s resentment had begun before the babe was a day old. Had Jacapo blamed his baby boy for his wife’s death? I knew, better than most, that not all parents loved their children.
“How did Jacapo fare after his wife’s death?” I asked. I’d have been just a babe during that time and had no memory of any Barella tragedy.
“He was distraught, as any husband would be,” Miss Romano said. “He didn’t have a store back then, just a stall on market days. But he didn’t come to the market for months, and nobody saw the babe. Some wondered if, well… A child needs a mother to nurse it.”
“Nobody thought to check on him and the child?”
She stiffened. “I don’t rightly know. But all was well. The boy clearly survived.”
The boy had a name that she didn’t seem to want to use. In all likelihood, Devere had grown up knowing he’d killed his mother. And now the father/son relationship presented to the world beyond the toy store’s windows likely hadn’t been as heartwarming as it had appeared. Was that why he’d burned his father’s photograph?
“That’s odd,” Miss Romano remarked.
“Oh?”
“There’s a whole page missing, you see?” She ran her finger down the center of the death register, dislodging torn pieces of paper. “And the dates…”
“What dates are missing?”
“I’d say…” She flicked between the pages. “Almost six months. Oh dear.”
“Do you have copies?”
