The Sonnet Lover

by Carol Goodman

  I revolve the well-oiled brass cogs and flip open the locks. Here, at least, Mark’s usual fastidiousness still reigns. The matching Dunhill diary and notepad I gave him for Christmas last year are neatly strapped into the top compartment. There’s only one piece of stray paper lying across the bottom. I pick it up and shiver at the leathery touch of parchment that’s been crumpled like a discarded glove. It’s hard to make out the faint ink on the wrinkled page, so I sit down on the bed under the bedside lamp and read the first line.

  Be not dismayed at winter’s icy breath.

  It’s as if an icy breath has brushed across the back of my neck. There could be several explanations for what Mark is doing with one of Ginevra’s poems, but I’m suddenly sure there’s only one. He took it from Robin before he died, thinking it was the letter from Lionel Graham. He must have been awfully disappointed when he found out he had a four-hundred-year-old poem instead. Mark didn’t even like poetry.

  Another wave of cold air chills the back of my neck, but this time I recognize its source. The door to the bedroom has opened, letting in a cold draft. I lift my gaze to the window in front of me and see, reflected in it, Mark’s familiar broad-shouldered silhouette.

  “So you’ve found at least one of the poems,” he says as he approaches me. “Let me guess; you’ve found the others, too? And Sir Lionel’s letter? You must have found that or you would never have broken into my room.”

  He sits down on the side of the bed next to me and reaches out his hand. I’m afraid he’s going to touch me, but instead he reaches into the pocket of my shorts and retrieves the folded letter. I slip my hand into my other pocket and grasp the handle of the letter opener.

  “Aha!” he says, proud of himself. But it’s me he commends. “I knew you’d find it, Rose. You’re a marvelous scholar.”

  “How did you know about the letter?” I ask.

  “Well, I really have you to thank for that, Rose. Don’t you remember? You sent Orlando to me outside the theater. He was only too eager to appeal to me as an authority figure to make Robin give him back the letter that proved he was entitled to his share of La Civetta. I told him that I’d have a nice long chat with Robin about that letter—and I would have, but your little friend was really very uncooperative. When I suggested on the balcony that we discuss the situation later, he started shouting that he could not be bought for a pound of flesh. He was sitting on that balcony and he took a piece of paper out of his pocket. So of course I thought it was the letter. I merely took advantage of the opportunity.”

  “But Orlando must have seen you—”

  “Of course he did, but who would have believed his word against mine? He was afraid I’d accuse him of pushing Robin…which is exactly what I told Claudia I would do if Orlando accused me of pushing Robin. She convinced Orlando to be quiet and tried to bribe me to settle the lawsuit out of court. She thought I had the letter because Orlando had seen me take the paper from Robin.”

  The thunder cracks again, so loudly this time that I jump and the lights flicker for an instant. Looking out the window, Mark smiles. “Good thing I made them switch the performance to the chapel, eh? I don’t think anyone will be making their way back here too soon in this.”

  The menace in his voice makes my skin prickle, but when I stand up he doesn’t try to stop me. “Well, now you have it,” I say. “No more lawsuit. I suppose that even if Orlando accuses you of pushing Robin, no one will believe him.”

  “Of course not,” Mark says, standing, too. “He’s been telling that story all day, but thanks to the evidence you provided, no one’s inclined to believe him, especially since he didn’t come forward sooner.”

  “And you got Gene to keep your secret by threatening his job?” I ask as I take a step toward the door. Instead of trying to stop me, Mark takes my elbow and steers me in that direction, falling into step beside me. In the hallway he turns me toward the rotunda. “But Leo. Why didn’t Leo say anything…?”

  “Leo just wanted to go ahead with his film, and for that he needed my permission to use the villa and the poems,” Mark says. “They’re in your bedroom, yes? I’m sure he’ll be happy to see them. Shall we get them together?”

  Is that why he hasn’t tried to hurt me yet? Unlike the rest of the people we’ve just mentioned, he must know that there’s nothing he can offer to keep me quiet. But how will he do it? He’s taken advantage of every opportunity so far or arranged for someone else to look like the guilty party.

  “You told Claudia that Mara was going to break her side of the deal, didn’t you? So she pushed Mara down the stairs. But what about Zoe—what possible harm could poor Zoe do?”

  “She saw the letter from Sir Lionel,” Mark says, pausing at the top of the stairs. “She doesn’t understand its significance yet, but I’m afraid that if she ever talks to Bruno, he’ll know what she’s talking about. Luckily, with her allergies…”

  The oculus above us flares hot white. I look up and see a web spreading across the black-green sky—like veins in a giant eye—and I can taste metal at the back of my throat. I feel Mark’s grip tighten on my elbow, and suddenly I’m looking down the steep marble stairs, the splotches of red marble gleaming in the metallic glow of the next lightning flash. I pull the letter opener from my pocket and drive it into Mark’s thigh. His scream is even louder than the thunder. Please, God, I think as I run down the hall, let someone hear that.

  The hall is pitch black, but a faint light is coming through the open door to my room. I run in there and lock the door—remembering only at that moment that Mark has the key.

  I hear a bloodcurdling yowl, which I guess is him pulling the letter opener out of his leg, and I run onto the balcony. The terrace below looks far away. If only this were a play there’d be a convenient trellis or vine to climb down, but it’s not a play and the fall looks like it would at least twist my ankle—and then how quickly could I get away? He’d have me in the deserted, rain-soaked garden, close to the crumbling—and now slippery—steps that Mara broke her neck on. No—I don’t want to go this way, but I do want him to think I went this way.

  I slip the hem of my T-shirt over the railing and pull until it tears away, making sure the fabric snags on the metal. Then I go back into my room, glancing back to see the piece of white cotton waving in the wind like a white flag. I hear a key slip into the lock.

  When the next thunder rumbles overhead, I open the lid of the cassone and climb inside, closing the lid quickly so that the thunder will cover the creak of its hinges. Then I lie in the darkness and wait. I try to listen for Mark’s footsteps, but the wood is too thick for me to hear anything that’s outside of the narrow casket (it looked so much bigger from outside!). Even the thunder is a low rumble from in here. I suppose these wedding chests were made solid and sturdy to protect the bride’s valuable clothing from dampness and vermin, the joints smoothly planed and fitted together so snugly that no air will get in. What was I thinking when I climbed in here? Mark won’t have to throw me down a flight of stairs—he’ll only have to wait until I suffocate to death. Perhaps even now he’s figured out where I am and is sitting on top of the chest to make sure I can’t escape.

  The thought that the lid—only inches from my face—is pinned down is so excruciating that it’s all I can do to keep myself from testing it. I run my fingers lightly over the inside of the lid and feel the crescent indentations of Ginevra’s fingernails embedded in the wood. What had she said in her deposition? I was there so long, screaming and trying to claw my way out, that I thought it would be my coffin. How long, I wonder? How long before she would have run out of air? Or gone insane—another option that occurs to me. That’s one of Juliet’s fears when she drinks Friar Lawrence’s potion—that waking up in her ancestors’ tomb she’ll “madly play with my forefathers’ joints.” At least there are no bones here in this coffin…only…

  My hand roving over the lid has lit on something stuck in one of the crescents. It comes loose and falls on my face, and I h
ave to bite my lip to keep from screaming. I pick it off my face and feel its ragged contours—a centuries-old fingernail, relic of my rediscovered poet.

  I am half ready to take my chances with Mark when I hear a loud creak—like wood on old hinges. It sounds so much like what the cassone would sound like being opened up that I put my hand over my face to protect myself from the attack I think is coming, but when the lid remains closed I come up with another theory. It’s the shutter to the balcony. Mark’s gone out and found the scrap of my shirt on the railing. Will he believe I’ve gone into the garden?

  Something bumps into the cassone and then I hear another creak—this time I’m sure it must be the bedroom door. He’s gone downstairs—no need for him to risk the jump from the balcony—and from there he’ll go out into the garden to find me. Now all I have to do is get out of this damn box and run toward the limonaia. Bruno will be there; he wouldn’t have gone to the performance with Orlando in jail.

  The thought of Bruno—so close—gives me the strength to open the lid of the cassone and pull myself out, gasping in the warm muggy air as though it were an Alpine elixir. Before leaving the room I take the Maglite from my night table and then steal out into the blackness of the hall. I don’t turn the light on, though, because I’m afraid that it will draw Mark’s attention if he’s still in the villa, but I grip it in my hand, ready to strike. I could go through the archive room and down the spiral stairs, but I don’t want to risk those twanging steps. So I start down the hall toward the rotunda, following—I can’t help but think—the path Ginevra took fleeing from the scene of her rape.

  When I come into the rotunda it is empty and dark. No light shines through the oculus. I feel my way along the landing banister, toward the stairs, making myself go slow enough not to trip. I’ve reached the first step—I can feel the edge of it with my bare toes—when something hard rams into my back. I keep from going over the stairs only by gripping the banister. I can hear the flashlight fall to the marble floor below and crack when it lands. Then I feel my neck wrench as Mark hauls me to my feet by the roots of my hair. He bends me over the banister on the landing and I can feel the cold marble pressing into the small of my back. I feel the hand he has in my hair snake onto my shoulder, shoving me back, while his other hand slides down my leg, behind my thigh, and starts to lift me up—

  Another crack of lightning splits the blackness, lighting up Mark’s face. He looks—surprised. I feel his hand on my thigh lose its grip, but the one on my shoulder clutches at my flesh as he falls heavily onto me. His weight is pushing us both backward. Beneath us yawns the empty space of the rotunda—not the abysses of the Alps or even the ten stories Robin fell, but enough of a fall to break both our necks. Then something pulls us both back from the edge. Mark slides onto the floor, clutching his shoulder, and at that moment the lights come on.

  Cyril is standing above Mark with a small silver pistol in his hand, his face pursed in disapproval—but whether it’s because Mark had been about to kill me or because Mark’s blood is dripping down the marble steps, I’m not sure. He shakes his head as if he were thinking of how hard it will be to scrub the bloodstain off the marble. I can’t think of anything better to say than, “Why aren’t you at the play?” to which he answers, “Oh, my dear, when you get to my age you really have had enough of tragic endings.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I THINK YOU’D BETTER GO CALL THE POLICE,” CYRILSAYSTOME, “AND AN ambulance.”

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” Mark says, drawing his lips back in pain. “You could dress it yourself…No need to call the police…I won’t press charges…”

  Cyril starts to laugh. “Do you hear that, Rose? He won’t press charges. I don’t suppose you feel the same.”

  “Certainly not. He was trying to kill me—and he did kill Robin.”

  “You can’t prove that,” Mark says. His breath is getting ragged. He really could bleed to death, and though a moment ago he was about to kill me, I find myself not wanting him to die—not out of any sympathy for him but because I want to watch him confess his misdeeds. I would like, ultimately, for Saul Weiss to see him convicted in a court of law for Robin’s murder.

  “There were other witnesses,” I say. “Gene Silverman and Leo Balthasar. I think when they realize how far you went to protect your secret they’ll testify against you.”

  “Yes,” Cyril says, “you have no power over them any longer. I certainly won’t be leaving my villa to your college with you as president, nor will I allow Balthasar to film on the premises if he persists in backing you up—”

  “It won’t be your villa much longer once the Brunellis get a hold of this.” He reaches into his pocket with his good hand and gingerly retrieves the folded letter.

  “You’d better take it from him, Rose,” Cyril says. “I don’t like to let him get too close to the gun.”

  I take the letter from Mark, but instead of handing it to Cyril I read it aloud. I don’t intend to let anyone take it from me again. Cyril is silent after I finish reading it. Mark starts to say something, but Cyril waves the gun at him to be silent. When he finally speaks I’m surprised to hear that his voice—perfectly controlled after shooting Mark—is quivering. “What an old romantic fool—” Cyril begins.

  “Let me go and we can destroy the letter. It will only be her word—”

  “Which is worth a million times more than any you’ve ever uttered,” Cyril says sharply. “Do you honestly think I’d stoop to such base tactics to avoid sharing my home with my half brother—a brother who’s never asked a thing of me? Or that I would condone the murder of an innocent young boy for the sake of property? No, Mr. Abrams, I don’t believe you would have ever made a proper steward for La Civetta.”

  “And you think Claudia Brunelli will make a better one?”

  “I don’t believe Claudia will have anything more to say about the matter.”

  “She murdered Mara,” I say, “and poisoned Zoe.”

  “Yes, yes,” Cyril says, clucking his tongue, “all terrible things and all for nothing. She and her son have no claim on La Civetta at all. They never have.”

  “But the letter—” I say.

  “Only proves that Bruno has a claim,” Cyril says. “As for Orlando, well, the thing is, he’s not Bruno’s son.”

  Before I have a chance to say anything, I notice that Mark’s eyes are fluttering and he slumps to the floor. “You’d better go call that ambulance,” Cyril says. “I’d hate to have his death on my hands.”

  The arrival of the ambulance, blaring all the way up the viale, alerts the audience of Romeo and Juliet to the drama going on in the main villa. They flock down the muddy road, the actors still in their costumes, just in time to see Mark loaded into the ambulance. I find Frieda Main-bocher and tell her to get the students back to the dorm, and then I ask Daisy Wallace to bring Gene Silverman and Leo Balthasar into the library. It takes me a few more minutes to get back there myself because Zoe Demarchis corners me and I feel she’s owed an explanation of what’s happened.

  When I tell her that Mark pushed Robin off the balcony she starts to cry. “I should never have believed he killed himself,” she says. “I should have known President Abrams was lying.”

  “You couldn’t help that,” I say. “Mark took advantage of all our weaknesses. Orlando was too afraid that he’d be accused of killing Robin to come forward with what he saw, and Claudia was only too willing to trade her son’s silence for money. He used Leo Balthasar’s greed and Gene Silverman’s desperation to break into film to buy their silence. Mara was willing to do whatever Gene told her to do if it meant a more comfortable lifestyle. He knew I’d feel guilty if I believed Robin killed himself and he thought I’d be too paralyzed by that guilt to do anything…and he would have been right if I hadn’t gotten that note from Robin and started to think that Orlando killed him. And once Mark realized I thought that Orlando killed Robin, he thought I’d be too afraid of losing Bruno to tell t
he truth. He was almost right about that, too. Your only crime was believing what a responsible adult told you to believe. We’re all more culpable than you.”

  She nods, but she doesn’t look as if she’s ready to forgive herself. I imagine it will take a while. She leaves with Ned and a few others, but I still put off going into the library. In all the crowd there’s only one person missing—Bruno. Surely he would have heard the commotion from the limonaia—but then Daisy pops her head out of the library and waves me to come in.

  Cyril is sitting in his favorite club chair; Leo and Gene are crammed together on the little love seat looking like boys called into the principal’s office; and Daisy is standing between them with her blue portfolio balanced on one arm, ticking off points on a hastily scribbled list, pausing only to speak into the phone headset attached to her right ear. In the ten minutes I’ve lingered in the rotunda she’s cowed Leo and Gene into testifying against Mark and formed a plan to minimize damage to the college.

  “Rose,” she says to me, “the police will want to speak to you first. I’ve asked them to interview you in the dining room, but they may want you to walk them through the house to show them where Mark attacked you and where he was shot. I will accompany Mr. Balthasar and Mr. Silverman to the police headquarters, where they will be giving their statements, and Mr. Graham…”

  “Call me Cyril, darling; we are, after all, cousins.”

  “Cyril will be talking to the police in here.” By the time the police have arrived, Daisy has marshaled us into our separate rooms. “Just tell them exactly what happened,” she says. “Don’t be afraid; you did nothing wrong.” Then she closes the door.

  Despite Daisy Wallace’s unexpected reassurance, I can’t help feeling nervous waiting for the police. The formality of the room doesn’t help. I look up at the fat cupids on the ceiling and miss the monkeys from the New York version of this room, and I miss having Chihiro by my side. How long ago that last meeting at the Graham townhouse seems! And the night of the film show seems like it happened in another lifetime.