“It’s obvious that your son looks after you,” Urbino said after adjusting the volume.
“You don’t have to be so sly, young man! Trying to get on my good side like that. We’ve never met, not me and you, or me and that fancy Baronessa or Contessa or whatever she thinks she is.” She stared at the television screen for a few moments, then relented enough to add: “She’s kind enough to Marco. I guess that’s supposed to be enough for me. But just because I can’t go to her fancy balls or whatever they are is no reason for her not to come here!”
“I’ll extend your invitation.”
“Don’t you do anything of the kind! I’ll chase her right back to that museum of hers! Why don’t you just ask me what you came to ask me, young man, and forget about being polite! It’s a waste of time.”
“I appreciate your honesty, Signora. I want to ask you about the murders in the Rialto green market last week.”
“The young couple shot to death. You’d have to be dead yourself not to know about it.”
“Have you heard anything from your friends in the quarter that might help the police find out what happened?”
“Nothing! And don’t think my Marco knows any more, because he doesn’t! He would have told me. Anyway, he was here in the apartment all that night. He’s been in every single night for the past few weeks to keep me company—except for the Contessa’s ball,” she added quickly. “I hope you’re as good to your mother.”
“He had a visitor the night the couple was murdered.”
“He certainly did! Scrawny woman, thin as a broom handle, with a pinched face. The secretary of this Contessa. Why a single, solitary person needs a secretary I’ll never know. Well, she seems to have got one that can’t even push a pencil or whatever they do these days. Always sick, to hear her talk. Maybe she thinks Marco has a cure for her.”
This sent her into peals of laughter which precipitated a coughing fit. Urbino gave her a drink of water.
“What time did Signorina Kolb leave that night?”
“The same time Marco told you if you’ve asked him,” she snapped. “Almost eleven.”
Harriet hadn’t returned to the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini until at least twelve-thirty.
“Much too late to my way of thinking. Nervous as a cat, she was. Too keyed up to think that maybe other people wanted to get to sleep.”
With what he was sure the direct old woman considered an excess of politeness, Urbino apologized for having taken up her time. He turned the volume back up on the television and left.
14
“Bobo still isn’t feeling well,” the Contessa said coolly the next morning when Urbino went to the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini.
“Did you call a doctor?”
“He refuses to see one. All he needs, he says, is a bit of rest.”
She looked as if she could use more rest herself. Yesterday she had said that she felt about to drown, and today an imaginative eye as well as a concerned heart could make out the telltale signs of her distress. The slight breathlessness. Eyes opened wide as if in search of something substantial to grasp. Even a faint air of desperation.
“Rest or not, I have to talk with him. I’d appreciate it if you would see that he makes himself available—for your sake as well as his. The best way to protect him—to show that you care about him—is to urge him to tell me everything that might be even remotely significant. And it’s the best way for him to show you the same thing! I assure you, Barbara, he’s hiding something and you’re entitled to know!”
The Contessa stared at the Veronese over the fireplace.
“You confuse and frighten me these days!” she said. “Your behavior lately and all these terrible things have put my head in a whirl! I wanted to be in a completely different frame of mind for the procession to San Michele tomorrow night. However did it come on us so fast, I ask you? The Day of the Dead.” She shook her head slowly. “There’s always someone else to put on the dark list, isn’t there? Now poor Orlando. Yes, Urbino, I’ll speak to Bobo. I’ll tell him to search every single corner of his brain to see if he can come up with anything that might help him. Us.” She clarified: “The three of us. But you’re wrong about him, believe me. You’ll live to eat your words!”
She gave him a bright, brave smile.
“Tell me, Barbara, would Oriana be inclined to lie for Flint’s sake?”
“I think, my dear, that a woman in love is likely to do worse things than that!”
“Oriana might well be in love this time, but Flint is shrewd. He’s out for himself. By the way, I haven’t noticed Oriana wearing her diamond-and-sapphire bracelet lately.”
“The Bulgari? The one she got from Filippo’s mother? You know, I don’t think she has worn it recently. She loves it so—But what are you suggesting? Oh, I see! Flint has run off with it, is that it? Maybe you think Oriana should nail down everything in the Ca’ Borelli. Maybe you think I should do the same thing! Fortune hunters hiding behind every gondola in Venice!”
There were so many things Urbino wanted to tell her, speculations he wanted to share with her, but a wariness now crept into his behavior with her. She might pass things on too readily and trustingly to Bobo, with possibly dangerous results. No, he would rather be there to see the man’s reaction and to be the one to choose what Bobo knew and didn’t know.
Mauro announced Livia Festa, who was right behind him, Peppino tucked under one arm. The two of them—dog and mistress—swept the room with eyes practically the same shade of dark brown.
“Is Bobo here?”
“I’m afraid he’s indisposed,” the Contessa said frostily. “Why don’t you sit down, Livia dear. Would you like a saucer? For your dog, I mean.”
“‘Peppino,’” Festa corrected. “No thank you on either count, Barbara. It’s Bobo I’ve come to see. Forgive me for seeming rude, but I must see Bobo.”
Festa’s buxom body was tense. Hair was slipping from her snood and her makeup seemed to have been applied in a rush.
“But I’ve just told you, Livia. Bobo is indisposed.”
“I’ve seen him more indisposed than whatever he’s like now. More indisposed than you’ve ever seen him, I’m sure. I must see him.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow it, Livia. This is my house. I have a responsibility to my guests.”
“‘Guests’! I like that! Don’t you think you should find out if Bobo wants to see me? I think you’ll find that he does. But don’t bother. I’ll go right up.”
The Contessa and Urbino watched as Livia turned around and left, Peppino grasped tightly under her arm.
“Don’t just gape like a fool! Do something!”
“What?”
“You’re impossible! I’ll show you what!”
He followed her out of the room, prepared to act as referee. But the Contessa had time to do nothing more than put a detaining hand on Festa’s plump shoulder when Bobo emerged hesitantly along the corridor, wearing a dark purple dressing gown lined with gold silk and gold morocco slippers. He did in fact look ill. His face was more gaunt and his eyes had dark shadows beneath them. The smile he gave the two women and Urbino was a ghost of its former self.
“I couldn’t bear lying in bed another moment. Even your beautiful Sargent was getting on my nerves, Barbara. That must show you what a state I was in.”
The mighty organ of his voice was considerably diminished and as he walked toward them his step had little of its usual vitality.
“Get right back upstairs,” the Contessa said. “Mauro! Would you come here and help the Barone back to his room?”
“Really, Barbara, that’s quite unnecessary. If I could just sit down somewhere. And perhaps a cup of tea?”
“Mauro, help him into the salotto, please. Then tell Lucia to bring some camomile tea.”
“Please, not camomile, Barbara! Darjeeling would be fine, and I don’t need Mauro’s help.”
“I must talk with you,” Livia said, putting her hand on his arm.
“Far
be it from me to interfere,” the Contessa said in a voice pitched above its normal register.
Bobo, now looking perplexed and a bit worried, said: “If I knew I was going to get this kind of attention, I would have come down earlier. What’s going on?”
“I’m sure Livia will give you a full explanation. Urbino and I will be in the morning room. He’d like to speak with you when you finish with Livia, if you feel up to it. I think it would be a good idea for the two of you to have an open, honest chat. And, Livia, would you see that your dog doesn’t sit on the furniture?”
15
Once in the morning room the Contessa sat down at the finde-siècle Viennese piano and started to play the movement of a Mozart sonata. The Contessa, who had been a student at the Venice Conservatory before she married the Conte, was a gifted pianist, but these days played only infrequently for others. Urbino sat back and listened.
The Contessa, all liquid fingers and rapt expression, was the mistress of an order and harmony that reigned all too briefly in the room. When she finished, the room seemed darker, heavier. The Contessa got up and sat beside Urbino on the sofa.
“Was that the equivalent of fiddling away while Rome burns, caro?”
“It was beautiful, Barbara. If life could be like that!”
“Like that on a good day, and a Jane Austen novel on a bad! But we unfortunately live in the nasty world, with uncivil souls like Livia. But I refuse to be discouraged by her kind! What I’m going to do, this time without the help of Mozart, is to try to comfort us with some much-needed clarity. I’ll run through our list of suspects and give you the dubious benefit of my opinion.”
She took a deep breath and began:
“Whoever murdered Moss and Quimper knew them and also knows Bobo.” This immediately made it clear that she of course excluded Bobo from the list. “This wasn’t a random act of violence, right? We have to ask ourselves what did the murderer gain by Moss’s and Quimper’s deaths. Motivation is the key. It’s the sticky-point, isn’t it? Anyone could have obtained a gun in some way. As for opportunity during the crucial time, let’s begin with Harriet,” she said, showing less regard for her secretary than she had yesterday when she had berated Urbino for “dragging her in.” “She was wandering around Venice after leaving Marco’s. And what about Marco? What did he do after she left?”
Urbino told her that Signora Zeoli did in fact swear that her son had stayed in after Harriet left.
“There you are then! Let’s next take a look at our dear and ever so gracious Livia! She left the Flora to walk that little beast about eleven, right on the heels of Moss and Quimper, but no one saw her come back! She could have tucked him right under her chubby arm and brought him all over town without any trouble. She’s a determined little thing. Look at the way she just barged in here and imposed herself on poor Bobo! And,” she added, obviously warming to the topic of Livia’s suspicious behavior, “there’s her connection to Orlando. She had easy access to his room with a key he might or might not have given her, and she was the one who found his body.”
She frowned after saying this, perhaps realizing that by pointing the finger at Livia, she was pointing it a bit too close to Bobo. Urbino couldn’t agree more.
“But what am I saying! I’m sure Orlando died a natural death.”
“He could have died ‘naturally,’ but as a result of interference,” Urbino allowed himself to suggest. “Someone could have emptied his medicine into the toilet and thrown his inhaler out of the window when he was having his attack—or before.”
“I suppose so, diabolical and sadistic though it is,” the Contessa said, clearly reluctant to pursue this line of thought either. “Let me see. Who else do we have?”
“There’s Flint, although Oriana says they were together all that night,” Urbino said.
“But what possible motive could he have?”
“You haven’t really mentioned a motive for any of your suspects, my dear,” Urbino pointed out, thinking of his own ruminations on the topic the other night. “Or means, either, although these days a gun could find its way into anyone’s hands. But before we get to motive, let’s clear away opportunity, and not just for Moss’s and Quimper’s murders but for Orlando’s death, too.”
“Orlando’s?”
“Yes, to cover all possibilities. First of all, there are only two people with an alibi for the time of Moss’s and Quimper’s murders. One is Zeoli, as I’ve just told you. The other is Flint. Oriana swears they spent that night together at the Ca’ Borelli. Filippo was down in Rimini.”
The Contessa showed neither surprise nor disapproval.
“But as you yourself said about Oriana,” Urbino pointed out, “a woman is liable to do worse things for someone she loves than lie.” He paused fractionally, then went on: “As for Bobo, Festa, and Harriet, they have no one to corroborate exactly where they were between midnight and half past. And don’t forget that Harriet was all out of breath when she came in that night and that Bobo had blood on his scarf, which might or might not have been his own.”
The Contessa stared at him stonily for a few moments and said: “It’s been my experience—or rather my observation—that murderers always have an alibi. The innocent see no need to.”
“True, but having one is no more a proof of guilt than not having one is a proof of innocence.” Realizing that, after intending only to throw an oar in, he was now taking over, rather self-indulgently perhaps, all the rowing himself, he sat back and said: “But go on, Barbara.”
“No, you go on. I don’t feel up to it anymore. But if I don’t agree, you can be sure I’ll let you know.”
She gave him a weak smile.
He gathered his thoughts and resumed after a few moments: “Staying with alibis and turning to the time of Orlando’s death, we get this picture. Once again only Flint and Zeoli have alibis—which makes them doubly guilty by your rule of thumb. Zeoli and his mother both say he was at home again.”
“We know how unimpeachable the word of a mother is!”
“Exactly. As for Flint, he claims he was in a card game with his landlady and her brother until what he calls the ‘wee hours’ of the morning. Although I haven’t verified it, I think I have him figured out enough to know that he never would have said that unless it’s true—and that he probably took away a large share of the winnings. I can’t imagine him playing for any other reason, unless it was to establish an alibi. Of course, even if the game got over as late as four, which I doubt, he could easily have made his way over to the Flora in the given time and done what he wanted to do.”
“Very improbable,” the Contessa said with a trace of regret in her voice. “He could never have gone in and out at that hour without being seen.”
“That’s how I look at it. Harriet would have been noticed, too.”
“Anyone would have. But even if that weren’t the case, you can forget about Bobo slipping into the Flora through some back door.”
“You can give him an alibi?”
The Contessa made a moue of distaste.
“I hope I don’t have to ‘give’ him anything of the sort!” she said as if they were talking about something vaguely disreputable or embarrassingly contagious. “But, yes, Bobo was with me!”
Urbino couldn’t help but be reminded of what he had just said about Oriana, lies, and a woman in love. Surely the blush now spreading across the Contessa’s face was, at least in part, caused by the same association of ideas.
“Are you saying that you definitely know that there was no time from midnight to six when Bobo could have left here without your knowing about it?”
The Contessa didn’t answer right away. When she did, it was somewhat falteringly: “We—we weren’t together the whole time, but I remember I didn’t sleep well that night, and I would have heard him leave his room. He didn’t.” She added in a stronger voice: “He didn’t, I tell you!”
“I’m sure you believe that, Barbara, and I hope it’s true.”
She seemed about to challenge this latter point but instead assumed a look of sufferance.
“At any rate, no one but registered guests were seen anywhere near the elevators or the stairway of the Flora,” Urbino went on. “Which puts Livia in a bad light since she was already in the hotel that night—with a key to Orlando’s room. And she was supposedly walking her dog when Moss and Quimper were murdered. But you know, Barbara, the fact that no one knows exactly when she came in creates a question in my mind. Perhaps we’re wrong and someone might have been able to slip into the hotel unnoticed on the night Gava died.”
“I don’t think we’re wrong, but suppose we’re dealing with two murderers?”
“Very unlikely.”
“Or suppose Orlando wasn’t murdered at all?”
“Yes, a great deal hangs on the answer to that. Until we know for sure, we have no choice, as far as I see it, but to assume he was and that it was because he knew something that would lead us directly to the murderer’s identity.”
“Let’s forget about Orlando. It will help us more if we stick to motives for the murders of Moss and Quimper since we have no doubt that they were murdered!”
“Well, if Flint’s involved, it’s got to be because of money. He never seems to have enough and he always has it on his mind.”
He quickly told her what Flint had said at the Palazzo Uccello about her “generosity” and reminded her of what they knew about his days as a model. Then he described the incidents of the Bulgari bracelet and the man with the briefcase whom he had seen leaving Flint’s apartment.
“But Moss and Quimper had nothing.”
“No money, no, but they might have had something that could have been turned into money.”
“About that murdered woman Helen Creel, you mean? But I don’t see what Flint or—or anyone else has to do with that.”
Urbino wondered if he was making a mistake—perhaps putting the Contessa in more danger—by not telling her that Moss had been Helen Creel’s son and that Bobo had probably been her lover. But he held himself back now, tempted though he was, since there was some doubt about a liaison between Bobo and Helen Creel. He would wait until his talk with Bobo.
Black Bridge Page 15
