5 - Her Deadly Mischief

by Beverle Graves Myers

I told him about Liya’s suspicions regarding La Samsona and how Pamarino had shot them down.

  “Oh, no. No. La Samsona had nothing to do with the murder—except perhaps in the very indirect way of being party to the wager.” He crossed his arms and shook his head decisively. “I was speaking of your visit to Zulietta’s casino.”

  I considered a moment. Alessio had extracted a promise of silence regarding his whereabouts, which Messer Grande already knew. The proposed trip to Murano had not been included in the promise of secrecy, so I felt justified in relating my plan to question Alessio’s gondolier.

  “Ah, going to Murano, are you?” Messer Grande crossed to the sofa. He sat beside me and flung his arm around my shoulders. “Perhaps someone there can tell us something about the delivery of Cesare’s note. How would you manage that, do you think?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well…” he replied judiciously. “I have faith in you. I expect you’ll come up with something.”

  No cunning plans sprang to mind, but despite my empty head, Messer Grande’s manner radiated such confidence that I began to feel quite useful again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I dreamed there was a toad on my chest. A giant toad who knocked the breath from my lungs every time he hopped up and down, croaking, “Bwark, bwark.” I twisted under the beast, seeking to reclaim my peaceful rest on the soft mattress of goose feathers. But then there was an insistent hand stroking my cheek—not a dream, but real. My eyelids flew open.

  “Wake up, Papa. The morning is half over. I had my breakfast ages ago.” Titolino bounced on my chest again. His knees dug into my ribs like sharp stones.

  I groaned and rolled him off onto his mother’s vacant side of the bed. Still muzzy from sleep, I pushed up on one hand and massaged my brow with the other. The room was very dim. Instead of sunshine, a gray half-light seeped through the shutters’ open slats. As so often happens, the rain had moved out to sea, but the sun lagged behind.

  “Shouldn’t you be at your lessons?” I asked in a hoarse voice. Titolino was learning his letters and sums at a school run by the parish priest. Benito conducted him there every day at ten o’clock.

  “Mama said I could wake you before I go.” Still bouncing, he launched himself at my chest again. I collapsed under his wiggling weight. Oh, for just one more hour of blissful sleep.

  “I said wake your Papa, not smother him.” Liya edged through the door of our bedchamber, bearing a tray of pastry and fruit. She deposited the tray on the table and came to sit on the edge of the bed. Ruffling Titolino’s black curls, she took a firm tone. “It’s time to go. Benito is waiting for you in the downstairs hall.”

  “Just one more minute. Enough time for our song. Please—” He vaulted to the floor and pulled his chin into his neck. Making his voice as deep as old King Toad’s, he sang, “Firefly, Firefly, golden bright, bridle the filly under your light.”

  I cleared my throat and answered in a lilting soprano: “Oh, Toad King, Toad King, ready to ride, I’ll light your way as you fly by my side.”

  Our song contained many verses, but Liya only let us get through a few before she hustled Titolino downstairs. When she returned, I was making a meal of grapes and buttery, horn-shaped rolls. Mimicking the boy, I asked in a gruff, deep voice, “Do you have any chocolate for a toad king, my good lady?”

  “Todi is warming the milk in the kitchen. Benito will fetch it when he returns.” Liya plucked a grape from the bunch and nibbled at it thoughtfully. “Titolino is still begging to visit the menagerie.”

  I tapped my head with two fingers. “Of course he is. With all our detecting and the upheaval at the theater, I’d forgotten. I will take him, I promise.”

  “Today?” She arched an eyebrow.

  “Not today,” I answered with a sigh. “Tomorrow, I promise. As soon as he returns from lessons.”

  “Why not today?”

  “Today I visit Murano. Messer Grande was in perfect harmony with Alessio’s suggestion that I should question his gondolier. Our circle of suspects is getting smaller—I may be able to narrow it still further by asking certain questions around the glass factory.”

  “Messer Grande has ruled someone out?”

  I teased her with a mysterious smile but wasn’t allowed to keep silent for long. My wife plopped herself on my lap and took my chin in her hand. “Out with it, Tito.”

  Liya’s mouth flew open as I recounted the story of Aram’s robberies, then she demanded to hear every detail two and three times over. “I’m not surprised,” she finally said. “Aram’s arrogance knows no bounds. He has always been convinced that he could get away with anything. He takes it almost as a personal religion.” Switching topics briskly, she pressed her palm to the amulet bag that lay beneath my shirt. “You will be careful, won’t you?”

  “Of course, I just wish you could elaborate on this danger I’m trying to avoid.”

  She pushed off my lap. As she crossed the room to the mantel, her dark, smoldering eyes never left mine. I watched as she took something from her carved ivory box. Settling once again in my lap, she covered my lips with her own. After I’d returned her kiss, she showed me a card that pictured a man tied to a stake, his half-naked body pierced with ten swords.

  “You found a new deck of tarocchi,” I said slowly. It felt as though a cold, clammy wind had blown into the room, but the balcony doors were locked and shuttered.

  She nodded. “Fresh cards, but they convey the same warning.”

  “A dire warning by the look of it.” Now I saw that the man was staked on a desolate plain. The sky above was black, without stars or moon. I repressed a shudder. “Is this the card of violent death?”

  “Not necessarily…Though if you were a soldier, it would spell defeat in battle.”

  “It is rather like a battle. I feel our enemy, but I can’t see him. Somehow, he manages to stay one step ahead while spreading his evil all around.”

  “He?”

  “Or she.” Last night, Messer Grande had discounted La Samsona, but he had not told me why. My suspicions remained, Pamarino’s denial of a fragrance surrounding his attacker notwithstanding. She was a clever woman, this muscular courtesan; it may well have occurred to her to dispense with her attar of roses for the evening.

  Liya touched the red flannel bag again. “Just keep this with you. It’s all I ask.”

  “I will,” I promised crisply. “And while I’m making the crossing, what will you be doing? You look as if you’re going out.” At some point, I’d awakened sufficiently to recognize Liya’s best day dress decorated with new French ribbon and a freshly pleated fichu. Her clothing generally tended toward the practical rather than the modish, but she had dressed with special care that morning.

  She rose and replaced the disquieting card in its box with the others. “I thought I might take Papa a treat. When I lived at home, I used to make a special bread that he loved—a braided loaf with raisins, cinnamon, and other spices. I have some in the oven now.”

  “I hope you save some for us.”

  “Never fear. If you delay your errand, you can eat your fill while it’s still warm, otherwise it will be waiting when you return. I just hope I have the proportions right—the ingredients I could never forget.”

  I thought as I chewed on what now seemed like a very undistinguished piece of pastry. Liya didn’t usually dress up for her father or Fortunata, and my wife seemed to be worrying over something besides my safety. Perhaps it was time to address the thorny subject that we’d all been ignoring. Swallowing the last of my breakfast, I asked, “Do you expect to see your mother while you’re at the shop?”

  Liya dipped her chin. She clutched the mantelpiece with one hand. “Papa has given me to hope that I might. He says Mama has actually expressed an interest in how Titolino has grown up so far. Perhaps sh
e has given up her old retributions and will want to meet him someday.”

  “Hmm. Do Sara or Mara have children? I don’t think you’ve mentioned.”

  “Daughters. Two apiece. Our family is over blessed with girls, just like Zulietta’s. But Mama rarely sees them since they’ve moved to the mainland.”

  “And what of Fortunata? She’ll be of marriageable age before you know it.”

  “Fortunata seems quite happy working in the shop, and Papa would be desolated if she left. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fortunata stayed home and cared for Mama and Papa as they get older.”

  So…Titolino was Signora Del’Vecchio’s only grandson—and the only grandchild near at hand. His slender shoulders might well support the bridge that would carry Liya back to her mother. Signora Del’Vecchio was a formidable woman, easily angered and sharp-tongued, but she was Liya’s mother. She and her daughter should at least be on speaking terms. My own mother had died when I was six; her memory was so dim I could barely picture her face, much less anything of her personality. Still, if my mother lived but a few squares away, I couldn’t imagine any lingering argument that would keep me from attempting reconciliation.

  I joined Liya at the fireplace and took her by the shoulders. “What is the worst that can happen? Relations couldn’t possibly deteriorate from what they are at this moment. So, deliver your wonderful bread to the ghetto, and I’ll be thinking of you all the while I’m on Murano. I may come back before I go to rehearsal. When do you expect to return?”

  “One o’clock at the latest. A relation of Todi’s is coming to inquire about the maid’s job.”

  “Do you think you’ll hire her?”

  “I have to meet her before I decide. She’s very young, so perhaps not. After Angelina, I’d rather have a woman who has a bit of life behind her.”

  “You haven’t made any promises?”

  “No. Why?”

  I shrugged. “I was just thinking. Now that her mistress is dead, perhaps Sary would rather stay in Venice than go to America—that’s assuming Alessio would be able to arrange passage after all that’s happened.”

  “Hire Sary to replace Angelina?”

  I nodded.

  “I have no objection, but I promised Todi I would interview the girl. If I don’t give her cousin a chance, Todi will take it as a personal insult and we’ll have to put up with overdone chops and burnt risotto.” Liya shrugged absently, her anxious smile revealing that the ghetto was more on her mind than housekeeping staff. My wife could benefit from a complete change of subject.

  “Now,” I grumbled in the toad king’s voice, “what has become of my chocolate?”

  ***

  The gondoliers of Venice are a race apart. Local legend has it that a true gondolier is born, not trained. The sure sign is webbed feet to help them glide over the water. I’ve never asked Luigi to remove his boots, so I can’t be certain about his anatomy. I do know that he inherited his instinctive knowledge of the city’s waterways and the surrounding lagoon from his father. Lithe in body, often vexingly arrogant in attitude, Luigi claimed membership in a brotherhood founded centuries ago, when the ancient patricians first developed a sleek, graceful boat for private transport between the low-lying islands that became Venice. Besides carrying people to and fro, often singing or whistling as they rowed, gondoliers had also come to function as messengers, local guides, and news carriers. Together they wove a wide, complex web of acquaintance, which I didn’t hesitate to exploit. By agreeing to give me an introduction to the man who rowed for Alessio Pino, Luigi made up for leaving me in the lurch on several occasions. Now our accounts were settled.

  The mouth of the Canale Serenella appeared soft and dreamy in the moisture-laden air. Drooping willows gathered mist in leafy armfuls while thin spikes of poplars disappeared into nothingness. Though the workday was well along, little traffic plied the canal. Luigi’s oar broke the water in muffled plops, and all was at peace until a gull caught by a sudden updraft cried with the agony of a burning martyr. For no reason at all, I found myself touching the bump made by the amulet bag under my clothing.

  Luigi tied up at a small boatyard. Under a lean-to attached to a long wooden shed, we found a number of gondolas in various stages of restoration set up on wooden racks. Most lay on their sides. Arced bows that usually towered above the water swept outward to form dangerous barriers; their six-pronged steel combs that represented the six districts of Venice were sharp enough to cut a boat, or a man, in half. Picking our way through this maze, we found Alessio’s gondolier polishing the lacquered frame of his boat that had apparently undergone minor repair. I hung back while Luigi explained and joined the two men only when summoned by a brisk gesture.

  “This is Guido,” instructed Luigi. “He prefers to keep his family name to himself, but he’s agreed to answer your questions if they will help his master.” With a nod of his jutting chin, Luigi disappeared around a stack of lumber and entered the shed. Before the door slammed shut, I heard a burst of masculine greetings rife with friendly swearing.

  Guido and I were alone in the stealthy quiet formed by the enveloping mist. The gondolier had the look of a young man who hadn’t slept well for many nights. Blue-black stubble covered gaunt, pockmarked cheeks, and shadowed eyes peered at me from beneath a single bristling eyebrow. I had rehearsed my questions during the row to the island, but the gondolier’s hunched shoulders and the defensive set to his jaw drove them from my head.

  I said quietly, “It’s not your fault, you know.”

  He scowled. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know your master describes you as a loyal rower, a man who never let him down until the night of the opera house murder.”

  Guido bent his head and rubbed his polishing rag back and forth along the gondola’s jet black surface. The mellow smell of beeswax and linseed oil met my nostrils. I couldn’t see his expression, but I could hear the disgust in his voice. “Who else’s fault would it be? Seven years I’ve been Signor Alessio’s boatman, ever since Signor Cesare allowed him off the island by himself. I’ve carried him back and forth to Venice a thousand times without harm coming to one hair on his head. And now he stands accused of a crime he doesn’t have it in him to commit. If I’d gotten my master to the opera house in good time, this would never have happened.

  “How can the law believe Signor Alessio killed that woman?” Guido continued, stiffening his back and meeting my gaze. “For all that he’s the glass master’s son, Signor Alessio is unspoiled in every way—not a wild, arrogant sprig like other rich men’s sons. He was always a good boy, now grown into a fine man. While Signor Cesare barely knows my name, Signor Alessio never fails to ask how I’m doing, how my old Mama and Papa are getting on—and he actually waits for an answer. If I have troubles, he sees them righted. Last winter, he had our cottage repaired when a storm blew the chimney down, and the year before that, when Mama took a congestion in her chest, he sent over broth for her and macaroni to feed the rest of us.” Guido’s expression was cloaked in guilt and regret. “And look how I’ve repaid him. I should fill my pockets with stones and walk out into the lagoon until the waters take me.”

  I shuffled my feet, uneasy with such naked emotion. “That would hardly be of help to your young master. Signor Alessio believes someone tricked you that night—that is where the fault lies. I need to understand what happened.”

  “I was a fool, that’s what happened.”

  “You’ll be more of a fool if you don’t start at the beginning and spare no detail.”

  He sighed as he replaced his rag in the wax pot and snapped the lid shut. Propping his elbows on the overturned gondola, he spoke as he stared into the thick mist beyond the boatyard.

  “I’ve rowed Signor Alessio over to the opera house many a time. It makes for a long night. We don’t get back until the small hours, and I can tell you it’
s a cold, lonely crossing. For several years, I made it a habit to stop at La Volta Celeste on the way to the boat dock to collect Signor Alessio.”

  “A tavern?”

  He nodded. “This time of year, I always have a cup of warmed wine—just one cup mulled with cinnamon and cloves—to fortify myself for the crossing, you know.”

  “Your master said he found you staggering drunk,” I observed mildly, unsure how far to push this sorrowful man.

  He whirled to face me head-on and stepped close, so close his forceful reply sprayed my cheeks with spittle. “It wasn’t the wine. It was something that woman slipped in my cup—some powder or potion that spun my head dizzy and turned my legs into boiled spaghetti.”

  “Who was this woman? Someone from Murano?” I mopped my face with my handkerchief.

  He shook his head violently. “I was born here—I know everyone there is to know. This woman was a stranger, and if I’d used the sense our Lord gave me, I would never have let her near me in the first place.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “Pretty, was she?”

  “Prettier than any woman that’s ever looked at me twice.”

  “Did she have a name?”

  “‘Caterina,’ she told me.” He twisted his lips in a sneer. “That’s the name of the church at the top of the lane—Santa Caterina della Rosa. You see how much of a fool I was? I took the bait without one thought.”

  “Isn’t it unusual for a woman from off the island to drink in a tavern alone?”

  “Caterina had a story to explain it. Said she was a lady’s maid. Her mistress had come over on the traghetto to meet her lover. She didn’t want to make the crossing alone, but once they’d arrived, Caterina was in the way. The lady stashed her at the Volta until she was ready to leave.”

  “Describe Caterina’s appearance. Did she dress like a lady’s maid?”

  “Bit flashy for her station. But you know how the ladies will give their cast-off gowns to a maid, so I thought little of it. Her hair was brown, tucked up under a white cap. Bright, black eyes, too knowing by half. Nose upturned like a pig snout—I overlooked that, her being so bold in her speech and free with her caresses. That’s how she must’ve slipped her evil potion in my wine—one hand down my breeches and the other playing about our cups. When it was time for me to set off for the boat dock, I was all right—right enough to take her around back and give her what she’d been asking for. When I was done, I chanced to look behind me as I went down the lane. She stood at the tavern door watching me. I could see her in the light of the lamp that burns in the yard. Funny expression she had—like she was mighty amused at something. I guess she laughed when she saw me start to stumble.”