“But he wouldn’t have been quite as much at ease. He had little enough to tell us about Gibbon though—except that he knew about him. The big question is why Signorina Reeve didn’t mention Vico.”
“She says she didn’t know he was in Venice until a few nights ago.”
“But she didn’t even mention another man to us.”
“She said that she had been seeing someone else when she met Gibbon. Even if she intended to conceal her relationship with Vico, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she had any motive other than sparing them both some embarrassment.”
“But she told you about another man, didn’t she? She must realize that every piece of information, no matter how insignificant it might seem or how embarrassing it might be, can be of vital importance to the police. What else did she have to tell you?”
Gemelli’s little smile warned Urbino that it was unreasonable to expect the Commissario to relinquish completely an attitude that was probably as ingrained personally as it was professionally.
As gulls screeched outside, Urbino told Gemelli how Hazel had been engaged to Vico before meeting Gibbon, how she hadn’t known Vico was in town until she saw him at the Montin, how she had gone to Mestre to think things through.
“And then came back straight to you, not us,” Gemelli added. “She’s told us all of this—although I see no reason why either of us should believe that it’s all she has to tell us. She might be parceling out information from embarrassment, as you seem to think, or for some other reason. We’re finished with her for the time being but we’ve made it clear that we would prefer her to stay in Venice for a while longer. I hope we made it clearer this time than we did last. If you learn anything from her that seems important, I’m sure you’ll let us know. That goes for Vico and your friend Lubonski, too. In the light of Porfirio Buffone’s death, we’ll be going to the hospital to ask Lubonski about the scaffold. He can have visitors now. It’s a remote possibility, but Lubonski might be able to tell us something that could link the two deaths. Gibbon and Buffone were both photographers.”
Gemelli stood up and went to the window that looked out over the Rio di San Lorenzo, where the police boats were moored. He drew aside the curtain.
“I’m asking for your cooperation, Macintyre, the kind of cooperation without which we couldn’t get our work done. I’m not asking you to do anything more than that. If these men come down from Scotland Yard on Wednesday, I would appreciate it if you would first tell us whatever it is you might have to tell them. Today is Sunday. Even a dedicated chief of police doesn’t work seven days a week. But it’s Carnevale. We have a lot to take into consideration. It would be a coup if we could get this case wrapped up before they come down.”
Urbino, surprised and gratified by Gemelli’s appeal, decided to seize an opportunity unlikely to come again.
“I understand you, Commissario. I’ve never had any other intention but to help. But if you want me to be able to help you as much as I can, I should know a few things—more than you were able to tell me on Friday.”
The Commissario turned away from the window, his dark, handsome face troubled. He looked down at Urbino.
“What kind of things?”
“The things you already know yourself.”
Urbino knew he was putting the Commissario in a difficult, if not impossible, situation. It would be far from orthodox to share police information, and it might be embarrassing to have to admit how little information they actually had. Gemelli hadn’t told Urbino much on Friday. He might think it best to keep Urbino uninformed, to let him assume that the Questura was waiting only for the one or two additional pieces of information that Urbino—or someone else—might provide, so that the Questura could tie up a neat package for the prosecutor.
Whatever train of thought Gemelli was going through, the immediate result was a sigh as he dropped the curtain and returned to his desk.
“Allora,” he said, uttering that indispensable word of Italian conversation. Urbino sensed that it could only be a prelude to the information he was seeking. He wasn’t wrong.
“There have been other times when I’ve felt it was necessary to—to share information with someone outside the Questura, with someone other than a legitimate authority, I mean.” He shrugged. “We do what we can the best way we can. You have your own American ideas about orderly procedure, but I assure you that the book is not something that can always be followed as if it were the Bible, neither here nor in America. My cousin who is an avvocato in New Jersey pretends to believe differently but it’s just the same there.”
Having delivered this defensive prologue, Gemelli began to tell Urbino what he knew up to this point, giving him no opening to ask questions.
“As you already know, Gibbon was found dead in the Calle Santa Scolastica at approximately eleven-thirty on Wednesday night. Ignazio Rigoletti, who lives in the Corte Santa Scolastica, was returning home. As he was about to enter the Calle Santa Scolastica a man dressed in dark clothes was coming out. A dark, good-looking man not yet thirty, he said. The man showed no surprise on seeing him. In fact, Rigoletti said the man acted as if he hadn’t seen him at all. Just walked right past him without a look or a comment and went toward the Riva degli Schiavoni. Rigoletti continued to the courtyard and noticed a form lying in the calle near the water steps—in the area where men have their assignations,” he added pointedly. “He went over and found Gibbon’s body. Rigoletti started to go out into the Calle degli Albanesi for help when he saw a young man slipping into the Calle Santa Scolastica. This man had light hair and definitely wasn’t the one he had seen a few minutes earlier, but Rigoletti seems to have a less clear idea of what he looked like. This young man—he was also about thirty—turned back into the Calle degli Albanesi and went toward the Riva degli Schiavoni as the other man had. Rigoletti then went to a restaurant and called the Questura. We’ve spoken with most of the residents of the area. No one saw or heard anything out of the ordinary that night.”
Gemelli paused and tapped out a cigarette from the crumpled pack on his desk. He looked at Urbino as he lit it, shook out the match, and dropped it into his Murano ashtray.
“Rigor mortis hadn’t set in and lividity was evident. Brilli determined that Gibbon couldn’t have been dead for more than three hours, that is, no earlier than eight-thirty. Corroborating this and narrowing it down further, as you’re well aware, is the fact that Gibbon was seen leaving the Casa Crispina about nine-fifteen. Allowing for at least half an hour for him to get to the Calle Santa Scolastica, we can say that he was murdered sometime between nine-forty-five and eleven-thirty. As I told you on Friday, he was attacked and died in the calle. We’ve had the film developed from the camera he had with him, and also the rolls in his pocket and those back at the Casa Crispina. He had had some film developed in a local shop but the shop didn’t have any other rolls. We’re checking other places. There’s a lot of film of the fresco at San Gabriele and of some paintings at the convent, some shots of the crowd in the Piazza and individuals in costumes, but there doesn’t seem to be anything of importance. We’re going through all the photographs again, however.” Gemelli smiled. “I assume you’d like to see them. Here they are. Perhaps you’ll see something we haven’t.”
He handed Urbino a small cardboard box. Urbino opened it and took out the large pile of photographs. These weren’t the ideal conditions for looking at them—not with Gemelli sitting there waiting for him to finish—but he tried to be as thorough as possible. As Gemelli had said, they were mainly of the San Gabriele fresco, the convent, and Carnevale. What struck Urbino was how few there actually were of Carnevale, however. He recognized Giovanni Firpo in his costume in several, but the pharmacist wasn’t focused on but was part of the background. Xenia Campi had been caught in one of her diatribes in front of the Basilica in one photograph, and in another she was frowning furiously at the camera. There were some shots of canals, buildings, and bridges but none of any of the guests of the Casa Crispina except Xen
ia Campi. For a second time, as Gemelli barely concealed his impatience, Urbino looked at the ones Gibbon had taken of revelers, but except for Firpo and several people in costumes that looked familiar to him, Urbino recognized no one. More time spent looking at the photographs might reveal something, but Urbino had to admit to himself that he didn’t find anything that might be of help—unless it was what Gibbon hadn’t taken photographs of.
He put the photographs back in the box and handed it to Gemelli.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything there,” Urbino said.
Gemelli nodded in agreement.
“Rigoletti says the same thing. He didn’t find anyone who remotely resembles the two men he saw in the Calle Santa Scolastica. I’m arranging for him to see Nicholas Spaak, Lubonski, and Vico as well as some other men known to frequent the area. He’ll be coming by in a little while to go through the photographs again on the chance he might have missed something the first time. We’ll also show him our artist’s composite of the two men he saw that night. By the way, the composites will be in tomorrow’s Gazzettino.”
Gemelli seemed pleased to be able to say this. It probably gave him the feeling that everything he was imparting to Urbino wasn’t privileged information.
“Gibbon died of a stab wound to the heart. A lucky strike—or maybe not so lucky, maybe the person knew exactly where to stab him. He must have died almost instantly. There was some roughening and bruising around the wound, which might indicate a weapon relatively blunt, like a pair of scissors or a knife that wasn’t too sharp. It was a single blade. Whatever it was was at least five inches long, possibly longer. We can be sure only of the minimum length. The weapon hasn’t been found.”
Gemelli smoked his cigarette for a few moments and then lost interest in it, extinguishing it forcefully in the ashtray.
“I’m sure you know the reputation of the Calle Santa Scolastica. There are several other areas like it in the city, but because it’s so close to the lagoon and the Piazza it’s one of the most popular with homosexuals. Its proximity to the Bridge of Sighs must be an added attraction. We’ve had complaints from the people who live in the Corte Santa Scolastica, but short of posting one of our men there—and at other assignation points—what can we do? It’s low priority. But this murder puts things in a completely different perspective. The residents want us to clean up the area, and so does the Danieli, which uses it for its trash. I can’t blame them. They’re all saying that it’s a homosexual murder and they want us to police the area more rigorously, make arrests—which we’ve been doing. But no one who meets Rigoletti’s descriptions has turned up.”
“Do you think it was a homosexual murder?”
“Sexuality is a mystery, Macintyre. Who knows? This is Venice! You know its history of these things better than I do, I’m sure. It certainly doesn’t have the best reputation, especially during these days of Carnevale, when it’s impossible to distinguish the men from the women. Some of these people running around in costumes probably don’t even know themselves who they are!”
“Is there any reason to consider it a homosexual murder other than the fact that the Calle Santa Scolastica is a cruising area?”
Urbino was thinking about the money found on Gibbon that the Contessa had learned about from Corrado Scarpa, information that hadn’t been made public any more than most of what Gemelli was telling him now. The presence of the money on Gibbon’s body might strengthen the theory of a homosexual murder or a murder of passion. Urbino wondered why Gemelli hadn’t mentioned the money. Was it an oversight or something intentional? Withholding this piece of information—and possibly others that Urbino couldn’t be aware of—might indicate that there was a limit to what Gemelli was willing to tell him.
“Yes, there is another reason. Partially dried semen was found on the side of Gibbon’s trousers, semen that the lab people tell us was not his. That’s the most significant thing our scene-of-crime people came up with. It doesn’t appear that Gibbon had an orgasm anytime immediately before his death and there was no indication of anal intercourse.”
“Couldn’t Gibbon have met or lured or followed a man to the Calle Santa Scolastica,” Urbino said, “and then been murdered?”
“It’s not unlikely. Obviously we’re not talking about a well-adjusted homosexual or heterosexual here. Murder of men or women following sex happens more often than you might think. Of course, Signorina Reeve was very upset when I mentioned the possibility that her fiancé might have been sexually involved with a man.”
“But if the Calle Santa Scolastica is used for assignations between men, isn’t it possible that the semen found on Gibbon’s pants had been left by someone earlier? That he might have brushed up against the wall or got it on his pants when he fell to the pavement?”
“Matching semen was found on the wall near him but that doesn’t prove or disprove anything, does it? We’re not ruling anything out. Gibbon was attractive to women—and was attracted to them, it seems. But there’s such a thing as bisexuality. I’ve come across it plenty of times here in Italy. In fact, some of the men we’ve pulled in recently from the Calle Santa Scolastica and some other areas are married. Yet we’ve found nothing to indicate that Gibbon was involved with men.”
The Commissario had failed to mention another possibility—that Gibbon could have been attractive to men without himself being attracted to them.
3
Within twenty minutes of his conversation with Gemelli, Urbino was in the Campo Zanipolo by the equestrian statue of the fifteenth-century military leader Colleoni that Porfirio had mentioned. The huge man and horse rose above him in all their virile nobility, perhaps after all these centuries finally reconciled to the trick played on them by the Republic. Colleoni had agreed to leave a large part of his fortune to Venice on the condition that a statue to him be put up in front of San Marco. The Republic, ever wily, accepted the bequest, and after Colleoni’s death blithely erected the statue in front of the Scuola San Marco instead of the Basilica San Marco.
It was the Scuola of this trickery that Urbino was interested in at the moment.
Formerly one of the six great guilds of Venice dedicated to religious and humanitarian purposes, it was now the city’s largest hospital. As he approached the Renaissance building, with its heavily decorated facade of carved cornices, ornate columns and capitals, graceful arches, windows and lunettes, Urbino could think only of the fear, death, and misery behind the deceptive front. Ambulance sirens screamed as he approached the main door flanked with trompe l’oeil sculptures and pedestals adorned, inappropriately now that the building was a hospital, with carefree, dancing children.
Lubonski’s room was in the back wing in the former monastery. As he was walking along the corridor, checking the room numbers, Urbino was startled to see Giovanni Firpo walking toward him. He couldn’t have been more surprised if Firpo had appeared in all his full Carnevale regalia instead of the clean white shirt and dark slacks he wore for his work as a pharmacist. Urbino felt grateful for seeing the man, so easy to condescend to and not take seriously, in this new light.
“Good morning, Signor Macintyre. Lubonski’s room is the next one on the right. He’s just had breakfast and is looking much better. I stop in from time to time if I happen to be on the floor. He hasn’t been aware of very much since he was admitted.”
Urbino wondered if Firpo knew about Porfirio’s death. That was a good possibility, working in the hospital as he did, but the pharmacist gave no indication.
“The night nurse told me that he was asking for you. She promised she would call you first thing in the morning. I assume she had a chance.”
Urbino let his presence in the hospital early this morning provide Firpo with an ambiguous answer. The pharmacist waited for a few seconds as if he expected Urbino to say something and then continued down the corridor to the elevator.
Lubonski didn’t look any better than a week ago. His Tatar cheekbones accentuated his cadaverous face. Two bright spots of
color on his cheeks did nothing to diminish the ghastly effect.
“Thank God you’re here, Urbino. I was afraid that the nurse would forget to call you.”
As with Firpo, Urbino thought it best to let Lubonski assume that he was there in response to the call. He needed to proceed carefully with him.
“How are you, Josef?”
The Pole waved a thin hand weakly.
“Better. Urbino, you must promise me again that you won’t go anywhere near the restoration work. Not until I get back to work myself first.”
Urbino didn’t know what to say. Was this the time to tell him, right at the beginning of his visit?
“You haven’t, have you?”
Fear livened the Pole’s deathlike face.
“No, Josef, I haven’t.” Lubonski smiled grimly and rested his bead back on the pillow. Then, this time with a slightly different emphasis, Urbino repeated, “No, Josef, I haven’t, but someone else has.”
The look that passed over Lubonski’s face was difficult to decipher. Was it surprise? relief? fear? satisfaction? It seemed a combination of them all.
“Not—not the photographer?”
“Which photographer, Josef?”
Lubonski was clearly confused.
“The one staying at the Casa Crispina. Gibbon.”
“No, it wasn’t Gibbon but Gibbon is dead. He was stabbed to death the night they rushed you here.”
“Stabbed! I don’t understand.”
It would be best now for Urbino to explain things as quickly as he could. He told Lubonski about Gibbon’s murder in the Calle Santa Scolastica but said nothing about Hazel Reeve or Tonio Vico.
“So he’s dead,” Josef said.
“Yes, and the police are speaking with everyone at the Casa Crispina. I was just at the Questura. The Commissario will be coming by to talk with you in a little while.”
Urbino wondered what Gemelli’s reaction would be if he found out that he had spoken with Lubonski first.
Farewell to the Flesh Page 16
