A Very Venetian Murder

by Haughton Murphy

  “This morning, like everybody else,” Garrison said. “We’d already gone to Ceil’s workshop, when Dan called and told us.”

  Frost started to leave, but told them as he did so that “perhaps I should clarify my role in this.”

  “What I told Mr. Abbott the other day was that I would be willing to lend a hand to try and identify Baxter’s murderer, or attempted murderer, as it was then. I’m a naturally curious person and the killing of one of the greatest dress designers in the world intrigues me. So, if you have any bright insights, I hope you’ll share them with me.”

  Garrison and Tabita readily agreed and went inside. Frost decided it was time for a nap. When he went to pick up his room key, he was pleased to see that there was a note from Augusta Morrison, accepting his invitation for tea.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Gussie

  Later that afternoon, Reuben asked Cynthia if she wanted to join his tea party.

  “Of course,” she said. “That woman is pushing ninety, but I wouldn’t trust her alone with you for anything.”

  Augusta Morrison, who insisted on being called Gussie, was a welcome face on the Frosts’ trips to Venice. The very first time they had stayed at the Cipriani, Gussie and her nurse-companion, Sarah Cochran, had invited the Frosts to join them one evening when they were all sitting in the bar, and they had been friends ever since.

  Gussie’s long-dead husband had made a fortune in the machine-tool business in Philadelphia, sold out to an aggressive conglomerate in a booming market, and promptly died, leaving his widow with an amply overstuffed bank account and two adult sons. By her own admission bored with life as a Main Line matron, she was always determined to enjoy her annual Venetian furlough to the maximum.

  Her given name was apt, for she had an august and grand presence. She was Massimo’s biggest fan in the bar, listening to his renditions of the classic show tunes while smoking her king-sized cigarette and savoring the one Sambuca she permitted herself after dinner. (Gussie was withering to anyone who suggested that she was endangering her health with tobacco or alcohol. “Booze and cigarettes have made me happy and, I’m certain, prolonged my life. Besides, there’s no point in going teetotal now,” she would say.)

  The sharp-tongued and witty woman was thoroughly likeable, armed as she invariably was with the latest gossip and information about the guests currently present, recently departed or about to arrive.

  Morrison’s devoted companion, Sarah Cochran, was a wise woman in her own right, capable of both shrewd observation and wry humor. One of Gussie’s sons was an internist and had demanded many years before, when his mother was a mere seventy, that she be accompanied on her junkets abroad. Ms. Cochran, a former army nurse, had been available, and the two tough-minded and independent women, perhaps to their own surprise, had hit it off and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.

  For Sarah Cochran, her annual working trip to Venice was a welcome break in her routine as a private-duty nurse. Gussie Morrison was much healthier than the patients she saw during the rest of the year. The only real tasks she had were to see that Gussie took her various pills regularly; to traipse about the city with her on sightseeing jaunts and visits to her favorite restaurants; to keep her company in the bar for a long stretch each evening (the most difficult of her chores); and to take care that she never herself stole the limelight from her employer.

  Reuben was fond of both of them. Sarah Cochran was in her late sixties, but she continued working; he admired this. And Gussie, more than ten years his senior, gave him hope that there were future trips in store for him and that, at seventy-seven, life was not yet quite over.

  Given the small number of restaurants on the circuit followed by experienced visitors to Venice, it was never surprising to run into other guests from the Cipriani on an evening out. But it was still fortuitous that the Philadelphia ladies had been at Da Fiore when the Baxter entourage was there; it would be even better luck if they had been in proximity at the restaurant, in which case no detail would have escaped them.

  Reuben and Cynthia went to sit outside just before five-thirty. Gussie Morrison, walking jauntily and unassisted, arrived precisely at the appointed hour.

  “What a nice idea!” she said to Reuben, as she took a seat beside Cynthia. “Sarah will be along in a minute.” Then, lowering her voice, she said, “You know I’m a little worried about her. She’s never been quite the same since she broke her ankle last year. She just doesn’t get around the way she used to.” Gussie had neatly reversed the roles of kept and keeper—not for the first time.

  “I have so many people to look after and to worry about,” she went on. “Did I tell you the other night that my son George has retired?” She was referring to her son the internist in Chicago. “He’s sixty-eight and said it was time to give up his practice. I couldn’t for the life of me see why—he enjoys it, he’s in excellent health. Why not go on? I would have, and so would you, Reuben.”

  “Maybe he wants to travel, like his mother,” Cynthia suggested.

  “He’s never been interested in travel, ever. He’d rather stay in Chicago and see patients. Ask his ex-wife.”

  Sarah Cochran arrived, apologizing for being late, just as Reuben was asking Gussie what she wanted to drink.

  “Do you want tea, Gussie?”

  “Oh dear, I really don’t,” she replied. “Tea gives me gas. Is it too early for a martini? Surely the sun is over the yardarm by now.”

  “No, it’s not too early, and I’ll join you,” Reuben said, not at all displeased with the turn of events. “What do you think, Gussie, is it the air here that makes them seem so good?”

  “I thought it was the gin,” she replied.

  Cynthia and Sarah, more circumspect, each ordered Campari and soda.

  “Now, I want to know all about this fellow Baxter’s murder,” Gussie said. From past conversations, she knew of Reuben’s skill as a detective.

  “I was hoping to get the inside story from you, Gussie,” Reuben said.

  “All I know is what they were saying around here at lunchtime. Salute.”

  “What were they saying?” Reuben asked, after a mutual toast was finished.

  “That Gregg Baxter’s body was found this morning over near the Bauer Grunwald. That he’d been stabbed.”

  “No rumors about a killer?”

  “Oh yes, they all say it was a gay Baxter picked up. But I’ve got a different theory.”

  “You do? Let’s hear it,” Reuben said.

  “I suppose you’re mixed up in it,” Morrison said.

  “I’ll admit I’ve talked to Baxter’s partner.”

  “We saw Baxter last night,” Sarah Cochran said. “At Da Fiore.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Reuben said.

  “You’re involved, just as I thought,” Morrison said. “Well then, put this olive in your martini.”

  “I’m listening,” Reuben said.

  “Baxter and his crowd were at Da Fiore, as you already seem to know. Sarah and I were there, too, sitting on the other side of the dining room, but with a perfect view of their table.”

  “You had the view, not me,” Cochran said.

  “Be that as it may. I could see and hear everything. Baxter was in command. He was doing all the talking, in a voice loud enough to hear up and down his table, and even across at ours. It was like the time we saw Frank Sinatra and his hangers-on at a restaurant in Palm Springs—he did the talking, the others the laughing. Appreciative laughing. Baxter was also putting the wine away, let me tell you.”

  “What was he holding forth about?” Reuben asked.

  “He was being awful, truly awful. I’ve never heard anything like it. Maybe it was creative genius at work, but if that’s what it was, I’m glad I’m just a country simpleton. He was baiting everybody, starting with la marchesa Scamozzi. He said he needed her fabrics to make dresses for beautiful, rich women and it was only too bad most of her designs were only go
od for upholstery.”

  “Everyone laughed,” Cochran added. “Including the marchesa.”

  “It was unbelievably humiliating,” Gussie continued. “But she just sat there and smiled with the rest of them.”

  “What about her boyfriend?” Cynthia asked. “Luigi Regillo?”

  “If he’s the one I think he is—slippery-looking—he laughed, too,” Gussie said. “Business is business, I suppose.”

  “No sign of anger?” Reuben asked.

  “Not that you could see,” Gussie said. “But if I’d been that woman, I’d’ve been furious.”

  “Ceil wasn’t the only one he picked on, is that right?”

  “Lord, no,” Morrison replied. “When he was through with her, he started in on that black model of his.”

  “Tabita.”

  “If you say so. By now Baxter was getting drunker and talking even more loudly. Fortunately, those near his table were Italians who didn’t appear to speak English, so I don’t think they understood how obnoxious he was becoming. ‘You better watch out with him, Tabita,’ Baxter told the model. ‘You don’t know who he’s been sleeping with,’ he said, pointing his finger at the black boy in the party—”

  “—Tony Garrison,” Reuben interjected.

  “‘That’s very dangerous these days,’ Baxter said. ‘Look at me. Who’d have guessed I was HIV-positive? But that’s what the test showed last week.’ I didn’t know what ‘HIV-positive’ meant, but Sarah here, being a nurse, did. Do you think Gregg Baxter really did have AIDS?”

  “It’s not AIDS, Gussie,” Cochran explained. “It’s what they call a precondition to it.”

  “Call it what you like. It’s not a good thing to have. And after Baxter said that, the handsome black boy got up and left the restaurant and took the model with him.”

  “What did he say?” Reuben asked.

  “Something original, like ‘I don’t have to take this shit!’ He didn’t argue, he just grabbed the girl and left.”

  “Did anybody chase after them?”

  “Negative. The next thing that happened was that the other man in the party, that I’ve seen around here with Baxter—”

  “That would be Dan Abbott, his partner,” Reuben said.

  “He moved next to Baxter and said it was time to go. Baxter said he’d leave when he was good and ready and ordered another carafe of wine. Abbott conferred with the waiter, and he brought coffee all around instead. ‘First you run my business and now you plan my dinner,’ Baxter yelled. It was something. Then he started shouting even more—I’ll try to get this straight. ‘St. Laurent has Pierre Bergé, Valentino has Giancarlo Giammetti, what do I have? A freckle-faced, bald-headed creep like you. You should have stayed at the bank. You’d probably be a teller by now!’ Is that about right, Sarah?”

  “A masterful performance, Gussie. That’s pretty much how I remember it. I couldn’t see but I heard all the goings-on,” Cochran said. “I’m surprised someone hadn’t killed that man long before last night.”

  “And then?” Reuben asked.

  “Baxter calmed down, his partner paid the check, and the four of them left.”

  “Four—Baxter, Abbott, Ceil Scamozzi and Luigi Regillo,” Frost double-checked.

  “Yes,” Gussie said. “The two blacks had already left, as I told you.”

  “This has been very interesting, Gussie.”

  “I’ve earned my martini?” she said.

  “Absolutely. If we weren’t already committed for dinner, I’d say you’d sung for your supper, too.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Da Fiore

  “She’s really amazing, isn’t she?” Cynthia said to Reuben after they had left Gussie Morrison and headed back upstairs.

  “Yes, but she’s got a shirker son. Imagine wanting to retire when you’re only sixty-eight!”

  “I thought Sarah Cochran looked pale,” Cynthia said.

  “You would, too, if you had to keep up with Gussie.”

  “What do you make of what she told us?”

  Reuben declined to answer until they were inside their room.

  “I want to know more about Baxter and Garrison,” Reuben said. “They used to be lovers. But now it looks to me as if Tabita has turned Garrison around. Given the way he acts with her, he has to be bisexual at least. There may be a lovers’ quarrel at the root of everything.”

  “Don’t forget the AIDS angle,” Cynthia said. “When Baxter started ranting about being HIV-positive he probably scared Garrison and Tabita.”

  “More likely enraged them.”

  “Garrison could have killed Baxter for exposing him to AIDS. Or Tabita could have killed him for starting the chain that exposed her.”

  “Possibly,” Reuben answered. “You know, if Gussie got the picture correct, Baxter was in a foul mood and managed to pick a fight with everybody. I’d like to hear what Dan Abbott has to say about what went on. I’m going to call him.”

  Frost rang Abbott’s room. Not getting an answer, he reclined on his bed and turned on the television to the Cable News Network. A few minutes later, CNN began a segment on Gregg Baxter. A moderator interviewed Priscilla Gordon, the reporter the Frosts had sat with at the Wednesday dinner, and two other fashion writers. All agreed that Baxter had been one of the most exciting and influential figures ever to appear in American fashion. Gordon said the designer’s plans for tackling the European market promised to be “the most successful invasion since D-Day.” The montage of dresses and men’s clothes that followed, distilled from ten years’ creations, underscored the extravagant praise and showed Baxter’s unquestioned originality.

  The fashion show over, the scene switched to Venice where Jacopo Valier was interviewed by a local TV reporter. The Commissario’s vernacular contrasted with the halting English of his questioner. He would not comment on whether there were suspects, but said an investigation was being conducted “strictly according to Hoyle.”

  “According to?” the newsman asked.

  “According to our established procedures,” Valier replied.

  Just as CNN turned to a new subject, Valier called. Having just seen the detective on television (even if on tape), talking to him so immediately gave Reuben an odd feeling. Valier, all business, asked if he could come and see Frost, “to turn some stones.” This puzzled him, until the Commissario declared that “we must leave no stone unturned.” Reuben said that he and Cynthia were about to leave for dinner and then, impulsively, asked Valier if he would like to join them at Da Fiore. He accepted with alacrity.

  “Should I change the reservation to three?” Reuben asked.

  “Avvocato Frost, with the rotten tourist season we’ve been having, I assure you it’s not necessary. But if you would feel more comfortable, let me call and change the booking.”

  Reuben almost said he thought that would be according to Hoyle, but refrained.

  A half hour later, heading down the walk to get the Cipriani motoscafo, the Frosts met Dan Abbott and Doris Medford, who were just arriving from San Marco. Reuben wanted to talk with both of them—preferably separately—but there was no practical way of getting them aside, especially if he and Cynthia wanted to be on time for dinner. The best he could do was to ask Abbott and Medford if they wanted to eat with them.

  “We’re going to Da Fiore,” Frost said.

  “I couldn’t face it,” Abbott said.

  “I’m exhausted,” Medford added. “But thank you anyway.”

  Frost resigned himself to pursuing them later.

  Maurizio Martin, the young owner of Da Fiore, greeted the Frosts genially, seeming to remember them from earlier visits. They were placed at a table at the back of the pleasant dining room, with its soft lights and yellow-and-white striped wallpaper. It would be easier to talk here; Reuben wondered if Valier had arranged this.

  “I think you’ll like Jacopo Valier—Jack, as he wants to be called,” Reuben said to Cynthia.

  “He’s coming now,” Cynthia sa
id, recognizing him from his CNN appearance.

  Commissario Valier made his way slowly through the dining room. He was quite evidently a local celebrity, stopping at several tables, working the room like a politician. He introduced himself to Cynthia before Reuben could do so.

  “Good evening, Avvocato Frost,” he said to Reuben. “You were holding out on me.”

  Reuben did not understand what Valier was getting at, and said so.

  “I was talking to the police in New York—the NYPD, I believe you call them—to make a routine check on the late Mr. Baxter and his friends. I included you among them, and my old contact reported that you are quite well known as a detective in New York. An amateur, of course, but a very successful one.”

  “My reputation is terribly overblown,” Frost said.

  Maurizio Martin reappeared and Commissario Valier engaged him in vigorous conversation, in Italian too rapid for Reuben to understand.

  “Excuse me, I was just asking Maurizio what he recommended to start with tonight,” Valier explained. “Of course we must begin with these.” He pointed to the plate of deep-fried schie, tiny shrimp, a specialty that a waiter had brought. Reuben remembered their delicious sweet taste from other meals at the restaurant.

  “Why don’t you order for all of us,” he said; the dialogue he had been unable to follow had sounded authoritative.

  “You want to put your lives in my hands?”

  “With pleasure, Commissario,” Cynthia said.

  More rapid-fire conversation followed and the owner hurried off.

  As they enthusiastically consumed the plate of schie, they drank the fresh, fruity, straw-colored Breganze Vespaiolo that Valier, urged on by Reuben, had selected.

  “We saw you on television,” Reuben told the Commissario. “The CNN broadcast.”

  “Ah yes. Death in Venice, if I may dare to use that phrase. Wonderful publicity for us.”

  “You seemed confident that Baxter’s killer will be caught,” Reuben said.

  “One must bluster the press,” Valier said.

  “I’ve been curious,” Cynthia asked. “How frequent are murders here in Venice? I’d never heard of one before.”