A Deadly Paradise (17 page)

At seventeen, Juliet was a far better cook than her mother, and she was offered work at a neighboring farm— which she might have taken just to get away from home, but a better opportunity arose. She was asked to accompany the youngest McDougal daughter to her school in Johannesburg, and, instead of returning to the farm, Juliet cashed in her return ticket and found a job in Jo’burg as a cook. A stunningly beautiful woman in a large international city has many opportunities; yet Juliet, who had a great reservoir of patience, turned them all down, saved her money, and waited. Three years passed, and she spent her evenings in her bed-sitter reading
Vanity Fair,
the complete works of Charles Dickens, and the
Oxford English
Dictionary,
and watching
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
And every night after she’d settled into bed, she would listen to tapes of BBC English to improve her pronunciation.

It was during a performance of
Giselle
by the South African Ballet Theatre that the wait ended. She was seated next to a large, elderly woman in the orchestra when Lorna Maseko danced in the peasant pas de deux. Even through rape and her mother’s beatings, Juliet’s tears hadn’t fallen; yet as she watched Lorna Maseko whirl across the stage of the Civic Theatre, her black skin translucent under the stage lights, a decade of tears gushed forth. The packet of tissues that her neighbor pressed into her hands couldn’t contain them. They rolled down her cheeks, covered her hands, and soaked her little black dress.

The woman was a diplomat, a cultural attaché in Rome, and someone of importance, which is what Juliet wanted for herself, to be important. She visited Juliet’s restaurant the next evening, and the evening after that, and complimented her on her cooking. She understood perfectly Juliet’s great desire to live in Europe, to achieve something in life. “We all need to be recognized for our talents,” Jarvinia had said, taking Juliet’s hands into her own.

Sex was not important to Juliet, although she certainly understood its importance to others. Once a month, she slept with the owner of the restaurant (an act of fortitude), and once she had accepted an invitation from a man who’d spoken to her in the bank line. He spoke BBC English, wore an Armani suit, had white hair, and looked rich. He was rich: an Englishman, the president of a large electronics firm doing business in South Africa. He suggested a discreet arrangement: an apartment in the best part of Johannesburg, a generous allowance, and visits twice a week. Juliet refused. Perhaps if he’d asked her to go to London, she might have agreed. Sex in Jo’burg was a dead end for a woman of mixed race, not a beginning.

Rome was just as good as London, and an elderly woman was no more of a burden than an elderly man. For a European passport and the promise of entrée into the first circles in Rome, Juliet could endure a great deal, even the sexual attentions of Jarvinia Baudler. But Jarvinia Baudler had lied. There was no passport, just a visitor’s visa to enter Germany, and from Germany a trip by car to Italy. And not to Rome, as Jarvinia had promised, but to a small, obscure village in Umbria.

Jarvinia was more than a liar, she was a bully. She hid Juliet’s entry visa, refusing to return it, but Juliet had no intention of returning to Zimbabwe. Her mother would crow in triumph if her ambitious daughter came home in disgrace, so she bided her time once again.

Marcella had told her to hide the pearls, and Juliet knew it was good advice. Nannetta would call Juliet a thief if she saw her with anything that belonged to Palazzo Molin, and after Marcella was dead, there would be no one to say otherwise. Nannetta was very like Juliet’s own mother, a servant in someone else’s house, yet full of self-importance and jealous of anyone who desired to rise in the world. Juliet held the pearls up to catch the light and admired their luminous glow. The story of Grazia, the Spanish upstart who had commissioned the most famous artist in Europe to decorate her ceilings, fascinated Juliet, and sometimes, if she stared long enough at the portrait, she imagined herself sitting where Grazia had sat. And why not? Unbeknownst to the countess, she had dined out four times with Marcella’s cousin, Count Volpe. Juliet’s mother had once accused her daughter of being a witch, and perhaps it was true. She had certainly bewitched Save-rio Volpe. After their marriage, she would sit for her portrait wearing Grazia’s pearls.

7

“WHERE THE HELL have you been for the last two days?” Carlo had screamed at him earlier in the day when Cenni had finally turned on his cell phone. “And don’t hand me that crap about doing interviews. I had my secretary call around Venice this morning to the people on your list, and none of them had seen you.”

He’d taken three more calls since then, all from Carlo, and all of them demanding that he arrest someone soon. “That German fellow’s on my back, which means that somebody’s on his back, and you know what that means. My promotion is twisting in the wind. And, by the way, so is yours.”

Carlo’s single concern in life after choosing his shirt and tie in the morning was his career, and he seemed incapable of believing that his concerns were not everyone else’s. Alex amused himself with the idea of handing over Baudler’s murderer and his resignation at the same time. Carlo’s expression would be a joy to see. Alex’s visit to Venice had been a success of sorts. He had discovered at least one reason for Baudler’s murder, but as yet no way to prove it. Mar-cella Molin had freely admitted giving money to Baudler. “Why not, we were great friends once, even lovers. She needed money. I have money. And who else’s business is it but mine?” she’d asked, challenging him. When he’d brought up the possibility of blackmail, she’d laughed.

“And what exactly, dottore
,
was she blackmailing me about?”

She also insisted that she’d stopped the monthly deposits when Nannetta, who glued herself to the TV, told her of Jarvinia’s death. Cenni had the fleeting impression that she would have enjoyed the sensation of being arrested, that she had accepted her imminent death and would have liked to go out in style. He was tempted to do just that, arrest her, and give Carlo apoplexy. Carlo wanted him to arrest somebody, but not somebody who could fight back with a phalanx of lawyers and put his job at risk. When Cenni had asked about her recent visits to Par-adiso, she responded that they were strictly friendship calls, adding: “I expect that old cow across the square gave you an exact accounting.”

He had interviewed Juliet Mudarikwa in the visitors’ salon, both of them sitting on hard chairs. Alone, and without the countess to challenge every question, she was less collected with her answers. She was noticeably ill at ease when he’d asked to see her residency permit, and then her passport. Her permit to stay in Venice had been issued just two weeks earlier, for a term of ten years. This was at least five years longer than most EU residents received on their first try, and Mudarikwa was not an EU resident. Her passport had been issued in Zimbabwe and seemed to be in order, but she couldn’t produce an accompanying travel visa, without which she could never have entered Germany legally. She claimed it had been stolen from a hotel in Rome, but when Cenni asked for the police report, she couldn’t produce it. Cenni was sure that Molin had used her position and her money to get Mudarikwa her residency permit; at the very least, she must have sponsored the African to the tune of several hundred thousand euros. Mudarikwa was particularly evasive in her response to how and why she’d left Jarvinia Baudler for Marcella Molin.

“I was hired by the countess as her cook. Nannetta has no idea what foods to cook for a cancer patient. Everything she makes is heavy and unhealthful.”

When he mentioned that she’d been seen arguing with the German in Paradiso, she made light of it.

“Jarvinia was angry that I’d left her to join the countess’s household. She resented my bettering myself. She hired me in Jo’burg to be her cook, and now I’m the countess’s cook.”

When he asked if there had been a personal relationship between her and the German, or between her and the countess, her reply was equivocal.

“I trained as a cook for five years in Zimbabwe, and for three years in Jo’burg. Jarvinia came to the restaurant twice, liked my cooking, and offered me a job. She was my employer; I was her employee.”

Both women denied having been in Paradiso on the Wednesday that Baudler was killed, and Cenni had no way, yet, of challenging their assertions. So far, the cara-binieri and the civil police had found no witnesses who’d seen either woman or the Mercedes in Paradiso on the day of the murder. But it was early in the investigation, and Cenni knew that Juliet Mudarikwa had lied at least twice during her interview. She had been unusually still when answering his questions: her back straight, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and her feet planted firmly on the floor. Throughout the interview, she’d maintained eye contact, with two notable exceptions: when he asked about the stolen visa, and later when he asked if she’d been in Paradiso on Wednesday. She hesitated both times, looking sideways to the right before answering. He realized afterward that she had been looking at the portrait of Grazia Molin, perhaps for guidance.

8

AS CENNI WALKED across the Piazza San Marco on his way to his third interview of the day, the pigeons took momentary flight, and a vendor tried to sell him a packet of maize. “They’ll eat out of your hand, signore, if you’re perfectly still.”

“
No, grazie,
” Cenni replied politely, and watched as two priests dressed in cassocks accepted the woman’s offer. One of them made a half-hearted gesture at looking for some change, but she refused payment. Cenni couldn’t hear what the vendor said, but he did hear a “God bless you” from one of the priests. Renato would have paid, he thought, and for one intense moment he had a vision of his younger brother joyfully chasing pigeons across the square and whooping like an Indian. Renato will know what to do, Alex thought, thinking of Chiara. He’ll advise me.

Signor Volpe—or Count Volpe, as his secretary addressed him—was a senior director of Banca Centrale Venezia. He had agreed to see the commissario late in the day, at seven, in his office in the Piazza San Marco. Cenni found it interesting that he was a director of the same bank mentioned in Jacob Lagerskjöld’s letter. They must hand these positions down with the family silver, he reflected, as he waited for Volpe to appear. The walls of the outer office were covered in plaques, all very fulsome in praising the recipient, and just about every one of them describing Count Volpe as the savior of Venice. When Cenni had asked Marcella Molin about her cousin, she had advised him to “stay away from that ‘do-gooder’ hypocrite.” The walls gave testament to the ‘do-gooder’ part. He was withholding judgment about the rest.

“Dottor Cenni, my apologies for keeping you waiting,” a voice behind him said. Cenni looked around to find a small, very dapper man with a large smile looking up at him.

“Let’s go into my office where we can be private,” he said. “My secretary told me that you want to discuss my financial dealings with Jarvinia Baudler.”

Good, no skirting the issue. Cenni preferred to begin in the middle and not waste time. It turned out to be an easy interview after Volpe acknowledged paying five thousand euros into Baudler’s bank account. “For information,” he said, and he was quite direct, and unashamed about why. His cousin was trying to deprive him of what was rightfully his—Palazzo Molin—by creating a foundation to honor her father.

“Under Italian law, my uncle had to leave the palazzo to his daughter, or he would have left it to me. He preferred me to her,” he said smugly. “And if you’ve been visiting her, you’ll know why. He loved the palazzo, and she’s let it fall apart. I’m surprised she hasn’t had the Tiepolo frescoes painted over. His will is very specific: at her death, if she dies without heirs, it comes to me. There’s nothing I can do about her money, she can leave it to whomever she wants, but not the Palazzo Molin.”

Cenni interrupted before Volpe got too wound up defending his rights. “How do you know she’s planning to set up a foundation? I gather that you two are not that fond of each other, so I assume she wasn’t the one who told you?”

“That African she’s living with, Juliet Mudarikwa, she told me. I’ve wined and dined her a few times,” he said. “And a bit more,” he added with a sly grin. “My cousin is planning to circumvent her father’s will by setting up a foundation to honor him for his bravery during the war. He gave his life to save other members of
La Resistenza,
is what she’s claiming in the foundation’s by-laws,” he said and laughed.

“Why is that funny?”

“He was never in the Resistance. If he were alive today, he’d be Umberto Bossi’s biggest supporter. Jarvinia Baudler has a document that proves my uncle was a collaborator during the occupation. My lawyer insists that even without that document, the courts would rule in my favor, but I’m not taking any chances. Five thousand euros is a small price to pay for a building worth millions.”

“So, out of the blue, Jarvinia Baudler shows up with a document to save your inheritance!” Cenni responded, beginning to get irritated, not entirely sure why. “How did she know about the foundation, and how did she know about your interest?”

“Juliet,” he said with confidence, not picking up on Cenni’s changing mood. “She’s a good little spy.”

“And what’s in it for the good little spy?” Cenni asked.

Volpe laughed. “Not what she thinks! She sees herself as the mistress of Palazzo Molin. Can you imagine—an African of no family or education, mistress of one of the great palaces in Venice!” He grew serious. “The Volpe family traces its roots back to the founding of Venice. The Molins are parvenus, as far as we’re concerned.”

But you’ll take their palazzo!

Cenni suggested that there might be another reason for Volpe’s payment to the German. Blackmail! For the miserly sum of five thousand euros, she promised not to reveal that the bank, or one of its directors, had hidden the counterfeit pounds and used them after the war?

Volpe denied the charge. “I never heard of a sum that size being shipped to our bank until Baudler showed me a letter, less than a month ago. The money never arrived here. If it had, I would have known about it.” As much as he was beginning to dislike this self-satisfied little man, Cenni was inclined to believe him.