The Lost Pope by Glenn Cooper

Author:Glenn Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2023-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

There was a time when Monica Magnani considered this kind of work grubby, but that time had long passed. When Antonio Solla first approached her to join his firm as a junior associate, he told her that no one grew up wanting to be a private investigator. It’s something you fall into, not like a pothole, he joked, but as a better alternative to your current line of work.

In her case, she had been chained to a desk as a bored claims adjuster at an insurance company. Antonio had met her while working on a case, thought she would make a good PI, and coaxed her to make a move. He had a crush on her back then, and he still did, but he was always a gentleman. She was married, he was married, and their relationship had never strayed from professional.

Her first assignments skewed heavily toward surveillance of wives suspected of straying on their husbands, some of them complete bastards as far as Monica could make out. Who could blame these women for looking for a little sunshine? After work, she would often spend an inordinate amount of time under the shower, literally and metaphorically cleansing herself of the day’s dirt. But as time marched on, she became inured to the work, and her evening showers were shorter.

She and Antonio agreed she was the better of the two to investigate Elisabetta Celestino’s formative years and interview old friends. She began by tracking down classmates at Elisabetta’s upper secondary school in Trastevere and her university, La Sapienza. Posing as a journalist writing a flattering article for a feminist website, she collected mostly glowing anecdotes about Elisabetta’s character and deeds while gently probing for chinks in the nun’s armor. Did she do any drugs in those days? Could there have been a hidden abortion? Her boyfriend’s stabbing death—was it possible there was some kind of love triangle going on? Yet more than two dozen friends and acquaintances had nothing negative to say about her. On the contrary, the young Elisabetta had been good as gold, pure as the driven snow—pick your cliché.

Monica was left with one last door to knock on. She had a photo of the girls’ volleyball team published in the school’s student newspaper that showed Emanuela Sordelli standing next to Elisabetta. The two girls smiled for the camera, arms around each other’s shoulders. Emanuela was last on Monica’s list because she had been the most difficult of Elisabetta’s contemporaries to track down. She never married or had children. She changed her residence frequently, often without leaving a forwarding address with the post office. Her employment history was spotty—mostly waitressing and bartending jobs, and she was repeatedly fired for being late or missing shifts.

Her trail led to a drug-infested neighborhood in the Ostia district of Rome. Monica would never have gone to Piazza Gasparri alone at night, but she was willing to poke around in the light of day. Rival clans there dealt drugs, collected protection money, and warred.

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