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The Venice cemetery was situated on the island of San Michele and was the final resting place of several famous people— composers, poets, and even physicists. Tourists stood outside the gates, along the steps, listening to a tour guide who spoke very quick Polish as Janine, Alyssa, and Maggie walked up toward the entrance, captivated by the spooky, old-world beauty.
The Cacciapaglia mausoleum was located toward the back of the cemetery, between two tall cypress trees. Inside the mausoleum was a dramatic statue of the Virgin Mary, her hand over her chest, and beneath her were offerings of flowers and candles. Janine breathed slowly, studying the other Cacciapaglias who’d died long before.
“Wow. The first person was buried here in 1493?” Alyssa pointed to the aged tile.
Not long after they entered, they found Teresa’s name, along with her birth and death date. The death date had been newly carved and played in sharp contrast to the rest of the mausoleum. Maggie reached out to touch the etching, her eyes shining.
“It’s so strange that we never knew her,” she offered.
“It’s not our fault,” Alyssa tried. “But I know what you mean.”
After another long, heavy moment of silence, Alyssa said, “Remember the clue. ‘The unburied woman who lost her son far too soon.’”
Maggie winced. “I don’t like to say this. But it must be referring to a child?”
Janine scanned the names, the birth and death dates, trying to feel the immensity of all these lives. “Oh! What about him?” She hurried across the mausoleum toward a tile that read: Tristram Cacciapaglia: April 2, 1991- April 29, 1991.
“Oh no.” Maggie dropped her gaze. “I just hate that.”
Alyssa joined Janine near the tile, frowning. “Teresa must have meant this baby, right? And…” She pointed to the tile directly next to it, upon which had been written: Eva Cacciapaglia: June 19, 1971. “Eva hasn’t died yet!”
Janine stuttered. “What do you mean?” She’d assumed they would find a clue from Teresa at the mausoleum itself, however impossible that sounded.
“The unburied woman! Eva hasn’t died yet. She hasn’t been buried! And Tristram was her son!” Alyssa said.
“My gosh.” Maggie shook her head, impressed.
“We have to find her,” Alyssa insisted.
“But how do we get a hold of her?” Maggie asked.
Alyssa thought for a moment, then removed her phone from her purse and typed and typed and typed. “I found her social media!”
Janine and Maggie’s jaws dropped. Social media was the strangest thing to consider, especially from within the walls of a mausoleum. But Alyssa was right: Eva wasn’t dead. She had a life, a social network. She was reachable through modern means.
Alyssa typed out a message that she asked Janine and Maggie’s approval of:
Dear Eva. You don’t know me, but my name is Alyssa Potter, and my biological grandmother was Teresa Cacciapaglia, your relative. I am very sorry for your recent loss. It’s a tragedy that I never knew her. In any case, I’m in the city, and I wondered if you wanted to meet up. I would love to talk to you about something Teresa said in her will. All the best, Alyssa.
* * *
Immediately after Alyssa pressed send on her social media message, Janine, Maggie, and Alyssa stared intently at her phone, there in the mausoleum, waiting. It was an incredibly anticlimactic moment, interrupted only by a stream of tourists in the cemetery, talking a little too loudly, given the environment.
“Let’s get out of here,” Alyssa said with a sigh. “If she writes me back, she writes me back. If she doesn’t…”
“We’ll find her another way,” Janine assured her. “She’s the next clue. She has to be.”
Janine suggested they head back to the area of Venice nearest the villa, where they could grab a snack and think about what to do next. Although Alyssa was clearly disappointed, stuck in a wild goose chase, she reluctantly agreed, and together, the three Potter women disembarked on a water taxi, away from the mausoleum where so many relatives they would never know were buried.
At a little café in a piazza near the villa, they ordered mini pizzas, focaccia, and a plate of cheese, with Janine opting for an Aperol Spritz, which gleamed like an orange in the sun. Both Alyssa and Maggie ordered mock-cocktails that imitated margaritas, which Maggie wrinkled her nose at upon drinking. “This thing is ninety-nine percent sugar!”
Alyssa cackled. “That’s why it’s good!”
Maggie folded her lips, clearly ready to change the subject— and avoid her virgin margarita. “What did you see on Eva’s social media? Anything interesting?”
Alyssa brought back up the social media page, which showed a woman in her fifties with jet-black hair and an iconic smile not unlike Teresa’s.
“What relation is she to Teresa?” Janine asked.
