A Deadly Paradise (24 page)

“We had nothing against the wife or the daughter, although the daughter didn’t turn out very well, did she? But you can trust me, dottore; there’ll be no foundations set up in the Veneto to honor Count Molin. That I can promise you!”

“What happened to the money?” In the end, it was the money that Cenni had come to discuss.

“I don’t know for sure. Many people played for both sides during the war; toward the end, everyone was jumping ship. Our informer was half English and half German. He did it to save himself and also, of course, for the money. I never knew his name. Our group leader did, but he never broke faith with his sources, not even after the war. We lost two men in that raid and recovered less than a million pounds. But Molin, he had his chance! He denied nothing, just excused it. He did it for Italy, he said. Who knows, maybe if he hadn’t said
for the fatherland,
he might be alive today.”

CENNI LIKED SERGE Cattelan, so he hesitated only briefly before bringing up Chiara.

“I’m working on something else that you might know about. Not really a case, more a personal matter. I’m looking for a woman who married a man from Murano, a Ste-fano Tartare. Perhaps you knew him?”

Cattelan drew in his breath. “Stefano Tartare. Yes, I knew him. He was my best student at the
liceo.
A brilliant boy with a brilliant future. He had most of the right stuff to become someone but, unfortunately, not moderation. With his mind and passion, he could have been in the government today with Prodi, in the cabinet, or a Member of Parliament. But he would never temper his views with realism. He wanted to change the world
now.
He used to ask me about my time with the Resistance, but even that he didn’t understand. Why didn’t we hang all the collaborators in the public squares, he asked? I tried to explain that there wasn’t enough rope in all of Italy, and that when the war was over we had to compromise. During the war
La Resistenza
did what it did for Italy, and after the war those of us who survived did what we did for Italy. What good would it have done to try to shake every collaborator out of every tree? There would always have been another one waiting.”

“Did you ever hear anything about him getting married?” Cenni asked.

“I saw the woman he married on a few occasions, but we never spoke. Stefano never came back to visit his mother; he sent his wife. I suppose he was afraid of being arrested. But I saw her twice. A beautiful woman. But then Stefano was a beautiful man.”

Cenni explained his plan to speak to the neighbors about Chiara, but Cattelan discouraged him. “You’re not Muranese, dottore. They’ll never talk to you. Tomorrow, I’m off to Milan for a few weeks to visit my granddaughter. Come back when I return, and I’ll help you.”

THE STORM THAT had threatened on the western horizon arrived while Cenni was visiting with Serge Cattelan, and he found himself caught in a fierce downpour. He had intended to look for Elena in her twelfth-century church, which Serge had highly recommended, but he decided instead to duck out of the rain into a small café at the end of the fondamenta. And that’s where he found Elena, sitting alone at a table counting her money.

“Problem?” he asked, standing over her. She was so busy counting and recounting, she hadn’t seen him come in.

“Only my imminent death,” she said, smiling. “Glass here is not cheap. But I found these wonderful wineglasses, green with gold on the stems, and I bought six of them. I’m wondering now if I should even show them to Piero when I get home. Maybe I should tell him I bought them because they match his eyes. He won’t be happy to learn I spent three hundred euros on wine glasses.”

“Three hundred euros! That’s a lot of money to match Piero’s eyes.”

“Oh, Alex, I’m such a fool! You know how careful Piero and I are with money. We’re saving to buy an apartment, but I couldn’t resist them.”

“Don’t you have a wedding anniversary coming up in July? Perhaps your best man can give them to you as a gift?” Cenni said smiling.

“Really, Alex? I know I shouldn’t accept, but I do.” She jumped up to hug him.

The two women from the boat had also wandered into the café to escape the rain. The giggler turned to the huntress and said, “See, I told you they were married. That’s why he didn’t accept your invitation to dinner.”

10

WHEN THEY RETURNED to the hotel, Cenni called the Palazzo Molin to say he was in Venice and that he wanted to see Juliet and the countess in the morning.

“I thought you had everything you needed from us,” Juliet said, in her musical and fearful voice.

Cenni responded as he always did: “Just a few odds and ends to tidy up. Nothing to worry about.”

Juliet Mudarikwa was withholding information. Tomorrow, he’d confront her with his suspicions, suggesting that she could lose her residency permit It was a bluff, of course, but her fear of being sent back to Africa might incite her to talk. In the meantime, he planned to honor Chiara by eating a totally Venetian dinner. When they were finally reconciled, she’d see how much he had changed, that he no longer insisted on having everything his own way.

The couple that ran their hotel was especially concerned to recommend a Venetian restaurant with typical food at reasonable prices after Cenni told them he was a police officer from Umbria. “Too many Italians think Venice is just one big rip-off, and we’re here to prove that it’s not,” the wife explained to Cenni, who was waiting at the desk for Elena to come down. “I know you’ll like this place. The food is excellent and the prices are good. Not cheap, mind you. A lot of people don’t appreciate that you can’t get good fish at pizza prices.”

The restaurant was located on the Fondamente Nove waterfront, and he and Elena had secured the last unreserved table. He had an excellent appetite, probably because he was pleased with what he had learned from Serge Cattelan. Stefano Tartare had been a hothead and a fanatic, and Chiara had always been very measured in her response to political parties that veered too close to the edge. Her father had been a distinguished jurist, and his writings were highly respected by leaders on both sides of the political divide; and in every way Chiara was his daughter. She hated the tactics of the
Brigate Rosse,
and in one debate at school had called its members “the new
blackshirts
of Italy, bullies who use intimidation and murder to make a point.” He had often wondered if someone sitting in the audience that night had been involved in her kidnapping. Stefano sounded like one of them, from what Serge had told him, and he couldn’t imagine Chiara willingly marrying a man so opposed to her own values. She certainly couldn’t have loved him.

He’d thought briefly of asking Elena what she thought, but until now he’d only spoken of Chiara to Renato and his grandmother. And Elena had been rather distant since they’d entered the restaurant, although she had been very excited back at the hotel while she was showing him the green glasses that matched Piero’s eyes.

He had ordered enthusiastically for the two of them, refusing to let Elena have the only meat dish on the menu, lamb from Umbria.

“We’re in Venice, Elena. When in Venice, you eat fish.”

She acceded to all his wishes after he’d rejected her selection for a second course, pasta with a meat sauce. He ordered a dinner of Venetian specialties, discussing each selection at length with their waiter, and he pretended not to see the glare she gave him when the waiter brought the fish to their table so he could study it in its uncooked glory. He asked if she wanted to pick the wine, but when she suggested a white from Orvieto, he moved her toward a Pinot Grigio. “It’s probably best to order a local wine,” he said.

They skipped the antipasti. “Let’s save our appetites for the real stuff,” Alex said, when Elena suggested cold cuts, and they began with a chilled fruit soup that Alex pronounced
superb
and Elena pronounced
ridiculous.
“Whoever heard of making soup from fruit?” The second course was even better than the first, and Alex wished he’d been less lavish in his praise of the soup. It was a rolled red mullet prepared with radicchio and spinach and, after some discussion with the waiter, he decided on a side dish of white asparagus. Alex was so delighted with the sweet, delicate flavor of the fish that he didn’t notice that Elena had barely touched hers until the waiter cleared the table. He remembered how stubborn he had been when he’d first visited Venice with Chiara, and he said nothing. Elena passed on salad or cheese entirely, but he decided on two cheeses: Gorgonzola dolce from Piedmont and pecorino di Pienza from Tuscany. He enjoyed the Gorgonzola, which was sweet and mildly spicy, but he was particularly intrigued by the musky flavor of the pecorino, which was studded with truffles. He tried offering Elena a small sliver on his knife.

“
No, grazie,
” she said, without an accompanying smile.

When the waiter asked if they wanted something sweet to finish, he said
no
and ordered two coffees.

“
Scusi,
” Elena called after the waiter. “No coffee for me, and bring two orders of tiramisu,
per favore!
”

“You never have dessert, Elena, and I don’t like tiramisu,” Cenni said. “If you’re planning to bring that back to Piero, it’ll never last that long in this hot weather.”

“I intend to savor every morsel myself,” Elena said. “I’m starving.” And that’s how she began her after-dinner review of his faults.

“I appreciate your offer to buy the wineglasses, Alex, but I must decline. I’ll take the money out of my clothes budget. It will be a good lesson for me to resist impulse buying in the future.”

He protested, but she was adamant. He tried again, “There’s something else going on.
Dimmi!
”

“Didn’t you even notice that I hated the food? Everything that we ate and drank was chosen by you, for you. And who the hell ever heard of fruit soup? You didn’t even ask if I wanted dessert, and on top of all that you ordered me a coffee. I never drink coffee after six o’clock.”

“You could have said something, Elena. You’re not usually so retiring,” Alex protested.

“Hah! That’s how I show my gratitude for the wineglasses, by refusing to eat your fruit soup? As you told Piero, one favor always leads to another. Speaking of which. . . .”

He knew from the ferocity of her expression that she was on a roll.

“Give me a minute, Elena,” he said, and ordered another coffee.

* * *

EARLIER IN THE day, when he had defended his actions to Elena on the efficacy of getting information from reluctant witnesses by pointing out minor lapses in other areas, like not paying their taxes, he hadn’t seen any irony, but then he wasn’t thinking of his recent run-in with Piero. Elena had seen it, as Piero told her everything, and she pointed it out to Cenni over his three coffees and their two cognacs.

“It’s not that I don’t agree, Alex. What Piero did was wrong, and you were right to read him the riot act. Believe me, he’ll never do it again. But I don’t see that what you’re doing is a whole lot better. If you really think the car service is cheating on its taxes, call the Finance Police. Don’t blackmail the driver. What if he’s not cheating, and you scared the wits out of him for no reason?”

That’s when they both laughed, and Elena agreed to join him in a cognac.

“Okay, so he is cheating on his taxes; it doesn’t change the fact that you blackmailed him, and that’s wrong.”

Until Elena had openly called it blackmail, Cenni had managed to view his intimidation of witnesses as a bartering system. The police got something they wanted; the witnesses got something in return. Elena forced him to admit that the witnesses already had what they wanted—peace of mind—until he took it away.

“How are you . . . we . . . any different from the bad guys if we break the law to enforce it?” she’d asked.

“I don’t know,” Cenni replied to her question. “All I know is, we are different.”

11

SHORTLY AFTER NINE the next morning, Cenni and Elena arrived at Palazzo Molin. “Get a load of this place!” Elena said, as they waited for someone to open the gate. “Don’t tell me things have changed in this country when an old lady with a defunct title lives in a palace, and Piero and I have to kill ourselves to buy a one-bedroom apartment.” Cenni, who never discussed politics during a case, merely grunted.

“How come the bigger the place is, the more I whisper?” Elena asked, as they followed Molin’s servant up a wide arc of stairs to the
piano nobile.
“Shouldn’t it be the other way round?”

“Because it feels like a church,” Cenni responded distractedly. He was thinking about how to approach Mar-cella Molin. Her servant had just informed him that the countess was dying.

She was propped up on a mound of pillows and was so frail that she barely made a presence in the bed. She might easily disappear into the linens and never be seen again, Cenni thought, as he entered the room. He made his decision right then not to question her any further about Baudler’s murder, but she proved uncooperative.

“Dottore, I was missing you and now you’re back. I want to know more about who killed Jarvinia,” she said, patting the side of her bed with her claw-like hand. He went to take the chair that the servant had placed next to the bed, but she patted the bed again. “Please,” she said. “It’s too difficult for me to talk if you sit so far away.”

Cenni sat where she indicated, and in an unthinking gesture covered her hand with his own. When he realized what he’d done, he pulled it back quickly.

“Sorry!” he said.

The dying woman started to laugh, which set off a fit of coughing. Her servant, a wizened ancient, barely alive herself, lifted the countess, took her in her arms and held her until she’d stopped coughing, then gently laid her back on the pillows.

He waited until the countess caught her breath and asked himself for the umpteenth time why he did what he did, and, even worse, why he was good at it.

“We can do this another time,
contessa,
” he said, addressing her for the first time by her title.

“There isn’t going to be another time,” she snapped. “Let’s do it now. Why are you here?”