Chapter 7: The Crypt

"Prove it," Rocco said.

The study was quiet for a long time after I said it.

"Arsenic stays in hair," I said. "It stays in nails and bone. A man buried four years ago still carries it, if it was there."

He understood before I finished.

"You want me to open my father's grave."

"I want a lock of his hair," I said. "Ten strands with the roots. A lab can read the whole last year of his life from it."

Rocco didn't say anything.

He looked at the desk and at the ID card with my younger face on it.

Then he picked up the phone and called his sister.

"Bring the car," he said. "And the keys to the family vault."

The cemetery was twenty minutes away, a walled hill of old stone angels, and the rain had stopped.

Gia drove.

Rocco sat in the back with me and said nothing the whole way.

The vault was a small stone house at the top of the hill, with the name BARSANTI cut over an iron door.

Rocco unlocked it with a key from his pocket.

Inside, the air was cold and smelled of wet stone.

There were shelves of caskets on both walls, and candles that had burned down a long time ago.

A brass plate near the back read AURELIO BARSANTI.

Gia stopped at the door.

"I'm not going in," she said.

"Stay there," Rocco said. "Watch the road."

She nodded and turned her back.

Rocco and I went in together, carrying a flashlight and a pair of surgical scissors I had taken from the car.

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