Death in a Serene City

by Edward Sklepowich

  “What about the pastor?,” Urbino asked. “Did he have any contact with her?”

  “None that I ever saw. She never came to Mass or went to the rectory. She would come in, pray, then leave. Always alone.”

  “Do you know why she came?”

  The old man looked offended.

  “Our church is very beautiful. What more reason?” Looking at the Contessa, he added more softly, “But it might have been because of il Giomo dei Morti. As I said, she always came around then. Maybe she was remembering her dead.”

  Before they might ask him anything else he turned and went back into the baptistery.

  21

  THE iridescent lump of molten glass at the end of the long tube started to swell from the force of the maestro’s lungs and then to take gradual, miraculous shape. Around him his workmen were fashioning what looked like vases, putting pieces of the glass paste on places the maestro indicated when he paused briefly from his own work.

  They looked like brawny priests officiating before a glowing altar, the object of their devotion an indestructible dish filled with the burning substance only they could magically transform into all the myriad shapes of creation.

  Urbino looked over at the Contessa. Surely she must have seen this dozens of times before, as he had himself, but to judge by the expression on her face you would think it was the first time.

  The maestro, within a remarkably short period of time and with the help of only his imagination, a spatula, and a pair of pincers, formed his paste into a delicate swan.

  Something out of nothing, Urbino thought as the glassmaker put the swan in the cooling gallery with numerous other little animals, vases, ashtrays, and candlesticks. Then he turned to his two visitors with an inquisitive look on his broad, flushed face.

  “Signor Macintyre and I have come to Murano for information,” the Contessa said in her unaccented Italian. “You are the first of the maestri we’re speaking with.”

  Because the Contessa was well known on Murano through her contributions to the Glass Museum and her patronage of the glass factories, they had decided she would be the one to ask the vetrai most of the questions. The smile that came over Bartolomeo Pignatti’s face showed how right they had been. It was as if she had paid him the highest compliment.

  “I will do what I can, Contessa, but what information could I have that might be of interest to you?”

  “It’s about Maria Galuppi.”

  “Sì, la poverina, but I don’t understand.”

  He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was a good-looking man in his late forties with curly black hair and a trim moustache. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal well-developed arms with several scars that looked as if they were from burns.

  “We would like to settle some things about her life so she can rest in peace. We’ve learned that she came to Murano regularly.”

  “Sì, Contessa, regularly but not often.” He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Every November like the festa of a saint.”

  “She came to see you?”

  “And before me my father and most of the other vetrai as well. We would talk about it among ourselves. She had the same business with us all. She came to ask questions, Contessa, just like you. And always the same ones, one November after another. Did we know a girl or woman named Domenica? Never any last name and she never could tell us what this Domenica looked like. Did this Domenica ever buy from our factory a crystal dove, a cocorita? Did we make such things back in the fifties? She would describe it so well that I could see it in front of me every time—small, fragile, with ruffled wings, the kind of thing you learn how to do when you first begin. I have made such uccellini myself but never one with an elegant ‘D’ on the bottom.”

  “And she came every November, you said.”

  “Sì, for more than twenty years—and always the first week, even at the time of the big flood.”

  “Did you know her daughter?”

  “Beatrice? More’s the pity! But I heard of her although I was just a boy at the time.” He didn’t meet the Contessa’s eyes. “My friend Alberto has an older brother, Vittorio, who was innamorato pazzo but it did him no good.”

  “Did Maria ever mention Beatrice when she came?”

  “Not that I heard, only questions about this Domenica and the glass dove. She was determined to find out what glassworks the trinket came from. She was sure it was from Murano. If only I could have examined it, there might have been a chance, who knows?” He shrugged. “But it was gone, she said, she didn’t have it any longer. I told her I would make her another free of charge but this didn’t please her at all. Sometimes she would be angry when she left us but she would always be back again the next year.”

  One of the workmen asked Pignatti to come over to the furnace.

  “You’ll have to excuse me. I hope I’ve been of some help. Let me give you a suggestion. After you’ve talked with some of the other glassmakers you should visit Caterina Zanetti farther along the Fondamenta dei Vetrai toward San Pietro Martire. She knows a lot about Murano—at least the Murano of many years ago. Her name isn’t on the bell but look for the name of her nephew, Agostinelli.”

  Going from the chill wind blowing off the lagoon to the heat of the glass factories and then back again gave them no new information but the feeling that if they continued it for much longer they might find themselves confined to their beds for a week.

  “Get me to the nearest restaurant,” the Contessa said as they stepped out onto the quay again. “I don’t care what it’s like.”

  Buffeted by the wind, they went along the quay toward a restaurant they had passed a few minutes before. The shop windows were crowded with gaudy and cheap-looking glass objects meant to catch the eye and open the pocketbook of tourists determined to bring back something—anything—from the island of glass before the next boat left. Only occasionally was there something that might have tempted them to linger for a few moments if the weather had been better—an elegant chandelier or chain lamp hanging above all the trinkets, goblets of milk-glass filigree, fragile little cups, bowls, and salt cellars. But they hastened toward the haven of the restaurant, not even bothering to heed the warning of the soiled menu turistico taped to the window. They managed to satisfy themselves with simple frittate and a bottle of red wine and talked about everything else but glass and Maria Galuppi.

  22

  CATERINA Zanetti, a thin, papery-skinned woman who looked at least as old as the century itself, was propped up with pillows in an overstuffed chair by her bedroom window. The chair was positioned so that she could see what was reflected in the little mirror affixed to the outside of the window. On a small table next to her were a Bible, an empty glass, and a half-empty bottle of grappa.

  “So pleased to see you both,” she said in an almost inaudible voice, pushing stray strands of white hair back under her cap. She was seeing Urbino and the Contessa for the first time but was treating them as if she had known them for years. “Can my niece get you anything?”

  “Non grazie, Signora Zanetti,” the Contessa said. “All we will trouble you for is your knowledge. We were told that you’re the person to see if we want to know anything about Murano.”

  Signora Zanetti gave a self-satisfied smile.

  “What do you want to know? I can tell you all about the Palazzo da Mula and San Pietro Martire and the dragon of San Donato. Or maybe you want to know about the Golden Book of Families or the Room of the Mirrors in the Glass Museum.” Her voice was getting stronger as she went on. “Or maybe about how the daughters of the glassmakers were allowed to many into the Venetian aristocracy?”

  She looked at them expectantly.

  “Not about any of those things, Signora, but about something much more recent. We would like to know about Maria Galuppi.”

  “Una brutta morta.” The old woman shook her head and sighed.

  “Did you know that she came to Murano every November?�
�

  “Mariavergine! Certo! I would see her in my mirror.”

  “Did she ever visit you?”

  “Never, but Lodovico Pignatti was my good friend, God rest his soul. He would say, ‘Caterina, she came again.’ No need to ask who ‘she’ was. Always the first week of November, always the same questions about a woman and a glass bird. I would say, ‘Lodovico, tell her to stay away, tell her you will call her on the telephone next year if you happen to remember this woman.’ But he was a gentiluomo, was Lodovico. He wouldn’t stop seeing her even though I told him he might end up morto.”

  She looked at them both sharply to see the effect of her words, then reached for the grappa. Urbino poured her some. Without thanking him except for a nod, she downed it quickly.

  “I was right, you see. He died three weeks after one of her visits. I polmoni.”

  She tapped her chest with a withered hand. “He knew what I was talking about! One time didn’t he get the influenza twenty-four hours after she came? And another time didn’t his granddaughter have a miscarriage a week later? Then back in November of sixty-six, right after the flood, his showroom burned down, the most beautiful one on the Fondamenta dei Vetrai. He had just remodeled it. I helped him with some of the historical touches. There were new cases and mirrors, a parquet floor, an old map of Murano, a framed, handwritten quotation about the glassmakers from that ugly little man D’Annunzio, photographs of his family, friends, workers, apprentices, famous visitors to the factory—oh, so many nice things! And almost all destroyed in an hour! I saw the flames in my mirror. Poor Lodovico was never the same. I told him to redo it just the way it was before but he didn’t have the heart. I think he was afraid the same thing would happen again. Although the police and insurance people said it was an accident, he argued it was arson until the day he died. But believe me—it was Maria Galuppi!”

  She picked up her glass and held it out for Urbino to refill. More grappa seemed to be the only reward she wanted for having given them the benefit of her knowledge.

  23

  “SO it was a glass bird all along,” Urbino said as the boat headed back to the Cannaregio and they went over again what they had learned on Murano. The day had returned to clouds brought in by the wind, darker ones this time that threatened rain before long. “No one seems to have seen it, which might mean that if she wore it around her neck she kept it concealed. But what do you think happened to it?”

  The Contessa, who had slipped into a reflective mood since leaving Caterina Zanetti, looked back at him blankly.

  “Maybe Beatrice didn’t lose it as she thought,” he went on. “Couldn’t Maria have taken it herself to punish her daughter? Or maybe she wanted to examine it more closely or show it to someone who might now not even want to admit having seen it.” He considered this latter possibility for several moments, going over in his mind the different responses to his question about Beatrice’s lovebird. Deciding to think it through at another time he turned to the question of dates.

  “Remember how you said yesterday that we might learn why the month of November keeps coming up—Beatrice’s death, Maria’s visits to Murano, the burglary of the Galuppi apartment? Well, we didn’t, but we did find out that something else happened then—Lodovico Pignatti’s showroom burned down. And it was in the November of the flood, the same November that Beatrice’s artwork was stolen.”

  The Contessa was looking out the cabin window at San Michele. She drew her sable coat more closely around her and finally said something, but not anything he expected.

  “Do you want to be buried on San Michele?”

  “That’s a morbid thought,” he said, wondering if she had even been listening to him.

  “I guess it’s brought on by all this talk of death. And don’t forget we’ve been there twice in less than a month.”

  “Don’t you visit Alvise’s grave?”

  “Not anymore. Seeing my own name and birth date next to his disturbs me too much.”

  Although Urbino had never been to the da Capo-Zendrini mausoleum with the Contessa, he had sought it out one day with the help of a man from the cemetery office. It was an imposing structure with somber iron doors, two weeping angels, and statues of Catherine of Siena and Nicholas of Bari. He had found it romantic with its cracked, discolored marble and overhanging cypress but he could understand how disquieting it might be for his friend to see the empty space waiting for her own death date.

  “There’s the family plot back in New Orleans, of course, but I think I could see myself on San Michele, one among all the other foreigners who died at Venice.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said as the boat slipped into the Misericordia Canal and the cemetery was lost to view. “Half of them probably had no choice and the other half had some grim notion of finally having a pied-à-terre in Venice. You’ve already got that.”

  This ended the brief discussion between them and they said no more for the rest of the trip. When they reached the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini, Urbino declined the Contessa’s offer of a drink or the convenience of continuing on in the boat and set out for home on foot.

  At the Palazzo Uccello a tearful Natalia was in the upstairs hall with an agente di polizia. She hurried over to Urbino and put her hand on his arm.

  “Signor Macintyre, it’s not my fault! I came at my usual time, maybe a few minutes later than usual, that’s all. I didn’t—”

  But he didn’t wait for her to explain. He hurried down the hall to the library. Before he went through the door, he knew what he would find or—more precisely—what he wouldn’t. The room was a mess of scattered books and papers, of pulled-out drawers and gaping shelves. Someone had been in a big hurry and hadn’t bothered to be neat.

  He went to the shelf where he had put the Venice notebook, having slipped it in the space above two of Margaret Quinton’s novels. For the first time in his life he cursed his passion for order.

  24

  A quick call to the Contessa brought Milo within minutes to take him to the Questura but when they entered the Grand Canal from the Rio della Maddalena Urbino asked to be brought to the Europa e Regina first. The Questura could wait for as long as it would take to tell Voyd in person what had happened to the notebook the writer had entrusted to him.

  A heavy rain had started but Urbino was oblivious to it.

  Whoever stole the notebook had known or feared that there was incriminating evidence in its entries. As far as Urbino was concerned, its theft was yet one more argument for Carlo’s innocence and even against the theory that Maria might have been killed during the snatching of Santa Teodora’s body. He hoped that Commissario Gemelli would see the sense of this.

  He assumed he had not misplaced his trust in the Contessa’s discretion. He was less sure about Voyd, however, given his garrulity, although the writer certainly must know how important the notebook could be in relationship to Maria’s murder.

  That left Kobke. Maybe he was prejudiced against the Dane because of his supercilious manner but he seemed the most likely person to have said something in spite and anger before leaving for Florence. He remembered how much Kobke had disapproved of his taking the notebook.

  After breaking the news to Voyd, he would broach the topic of Kobke. Perhaps without his young friend around, the writer would be more inclined to speak frankly about him.

  When Milo left him off at the hotel landing, Urbino told him he could go back to the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini. After talking with Voyd, he would walk the rest of the way to the Questura despite the rain.

  The door of Voyd’s suite had a Non disturbi sign. After a few moments of wondering what he should do, he rang the bell. When there was no response, he rang again. Perhaps Voyd was dozing or couldn’t get up easily from the sofa. When there was still no answer, he turned the knob. The door opened silently. The writer must have left it unlocked to avoid getting up for room service now that Kobke was away.

  Urbino stepped into the foyer.

  “Mr. Voyd? Are you here? It�
�s Urbino Macintyre.”

  There was no answer. He continued through the foyer to the sitting room. Once again the first thing he saw was the white baroque facade of Santa Maria della Salute, this afternoon slashed by driving lines of rain.

  The second thing was Voyd lying just as before on the sofa—except that this time he had a small hole in his forehead.

  The poor man’s mouth was open as if he were about to say something or had just finished.

  Part Four

  THE BONES OF VENICE

  1

  “NOT only do you refuse to come here in the police boat,” Commissario Gemelli said several hours later, “but you don’t even come directly. On the way you make a detour and discover a dead body. And now you’re telling me that this man’s death has something to do with the murder of Maria Galuppi! Need I remind you again that the case is closed?”

  “I know it sounds incredible, but when you consider that Voyd was murdered and Margaret Quinton’s notebook was stolen within hours of each other—”

  “Even if I agree that there might be a connection between the two—other than yourself—there’s no way you can convince me they’re related to the Galuppi affair.”

  “But Voyd told me himself that Maria Galuppi and Margaret Quinton had become friendly, perhaps even to the point of exchanging confidences. I’m sure that if you looked at her letters to Voyd, you’d find—”

  “I’d find, perhaps”—he stressed the word—“that this Quinton and Maria Galuppi were acquainted, that they took coffee together on occasion, that they might even have taken a picnic basket to Torcello in good weather.”