A Deadly Paradise (25 page)

He didn’t answer.

“Dottore, I’m dying! Whatever you say, or don’t say, won’t make a particle of difference to the end game. A few days, a few hours! It’s not as though I have a child winging his way across the Atlantic to say goodbye to Mamma. More power to me,” she added.

She was hardly the prototype of the sweet dying old lady one reads about in novels, but he admired her spirit anyway.

“You don’t like me!” she said, throwing the words out as a challenge.

“I don’t know you well enough to like you or dislike you,
contessa.
I like you well enough” he added, after a moment of silence. “Not sure why, though.”

“Good, then tell me how Jarvinia died. Did she suffer?”

“Probably not. She was hit once and died of a heart attack. Anything that happened after that was gratuitous.”

“I’m glad,” she responded.

“Why?”

“I loved her once, and she made me laugh.”

“She was blackmailing you!”

“I see you’re still pushing the blackmail theory.”

“I’m not pushing anything,
contessa.
She did the same to your cousin, only for the opposite reason, and with the same letter. I’ll give her this; she was economical.”

“So you found the letter! Tell me, dottore, is Saverio going to get this pile of stones after all? Be frank,” she said, suppressing a cough in her anxiety to hear his answer.

“If you persist in making your father a hero, I’m afraid he will,” Cenni said.

“You’re
afraid
he will. Then you’ve met the pious hypocrite,” she said and fell into another fit of coughing. When the coughing subsided, she held out her hand in farewell. “Since you’re not planning to arrest me, dottore, I’ll say good day. My lawyer and I have a new will to write.”

As he got up from the bed, she said in a hoarse whisper, “Leave her be!”

“Who?” Cenni asked.

“Juliet. She’s not your killer.”

JULIET WASN’T LYING, at least about the murder, Cenni decided. And he didn’t base this conclusion on what the countess had told him. The African was afraid, but mainly about losing her residency permit.

“Why didn’t you tell me you visited Jarvinia the day of her death?” he asked at the outset, deciding not to play cat-and-mouse. Perhaps Elena had made an impact after all.

“I was afraid,” Juliet responded. “I never saw her, I swear. I called out a few times, and when she didn’t answer, I just packed my clothes and got out of there in a hurry. You can ask the countess if you don’t believe me.”

“I prefer to trust the driver on this one. He said you returned to the car in less than fifteen minutes.”

She sighed in relief.

“You had an appointment to meet her at four o’clock. Why?”

“She wanted me back, and I wanted my clothes.”

“You could have sent the driver in for your clothes.”

She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

“Juliet,” Cenni said, speaking her name softly. “Tell me the truth. It’s better for you to be completely honest. I’m looking for Jarvinia’s murderer, I don’t care about anything else going on between you.”

She looked up and searched his face. “All right,” she said. “Jarvinia said if I didn’t show up, she’d have me arrested and sent back to Zimbabwe.”

“How could she? You already had a permit to reside in Venice.” He held her eyes, making it difficult for her to look away. “Juliet, I want the truth.”

She looked toward the America room. “The countess can’t know,” she said.

He nodded in agreement.

“It was all Jarvinia’s idea. We met Marcella in the Caffé Inglese when we were visiting Venice four months ago. Marcella was very excited about a foundation she was setting up for her father. That’s all she talked about, mostly how it would destroy her cousin if he didn’t get the palazzo. ‘Remember what a weasel he was,’ she said to Jarvinia. At one point, I went to the toilet, and that’s when she told Jarvinia about her cancer.

“‘She has more money than God, and I’m going to get some of it before she dies,’ Jarvinia told me afterward. She had information about Marcella’s father, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was. When we returned to Paradiso, Jarvinia wrote to Marcella. ‘This should bring in a tidy sum,’ she said while sealing the letter. She instructed me to deliver it personally. ‘I can get in big trouble if this goes through the mail,’ she said.”

“What did the letter say?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.”

She stopped talking and fiddled with the bracelet on her left arm.

“So far, I don’t see any problem. You were the postman, a disinterested party.”

“She wrote another letter, to Count Volpe, which I also delivered.”

“I still don’t see any problem.”

“Jarvinia said she’d go to the police if she had to, confess everything and say I was in on it from the beginning.”

“What did she think that would accomplish?”

“She said I’d be kicked out of the country.”

“What did she expect would happen to her?”

“She didn’t care. She also said she had diplomatic immunity.”

Cenni looked skeptical, which drew an immediate protest.

“I’m black and African. Do you think the police would believe me over her?”

“No, I don’t. How did you wind up in Venice and not back in Paradiso with Baudler?” he asked.

“When I brought her the letter, Marcella offered me a room. It was too late to go back to Umbria that night, and the next day she asked me to work for her, doing some cooking and other things, for a salary. It’s not what you’re thinking,” she added defiantly. “She’s very sick, and I’ve been a real help to her. But she doesn’t care about me. She wanted to get even with Jarvinia, and I was the means.”

“You have no idea what I’m thinking,” Cenni said in response to her earlier statement. “Was it ‘helping her out’ to meet with her cousin behind her back?”

Two red spots appeared high on her cheeks. “Nobody will take care of me but me,” she said defensively.

“And what was Baudler’s reaction?”

“She was furious. In the beginning, she phoned two, three times a day, trying to speak to me. And then she showed up here a month ago. She was drunk and she threatened all kinds of things. Finally, to get rid of her, I promised to meet her, but in a bar, not at the house.”

“You met her in Assisi,” Cenni said, remembering the story Orlando had told him.”

“She threw a drink at me! Afterward, Marcella’s driver took me back to Paradiso, so I could collect my clothes, but she refused to let me inside. Ten days ago, she called again and threatened me with the police if I didn’t meet her at the house. Marcella thought she was bluffing. But I didn’t. And now she’s dead!” She looked at him defiantly. “I’m glad she’s dead. She promised me an exciting life in Rome, and then stuck me in that horrid town. I was better off in South Africa.”

“So, you knew Jarvinia was blackmailing the countess and her cousin, but you didn’t know about what, or for how much,” Cenni summarized. “I don’t see how that’s possible, but I’m not here to arrest you for blackmail. Who else?” he asked.

“Who else, what?” Juliet responded.

“Jarvinia Baudler had the blackmailing habit. Who else was she blackmailing?”

She stared at him for a moment, wondering what it would take to make him go away. “I know she was desperate for money. She talked a lot about what idiots most people are, but it was always general talk, no details about why they were idiots.”

“That’s all?” Cenni asked.

“A man came to visit her. She sent me to the third floor, but even up there I could hear angry voices. They spoke in German, so I didn’t understand.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was older, in his sixties.”

“Thin and balding?” Cenni asked.

“I think so.”

“The same man who gave her the key to the back door?”

“Yes, that’s him. A lot of help, he was. It only opened the door from the one side, so Jarvinia threw it away.”

SHE STOOD ON the landing, looking down on the two police officers as they left the palazzo. “Juliet, tell me the truth,” the policeman had said softly, holding her gaze like a lover. She was seduced, coming that close to telling him everything that he’d wanted to know about Jarvinia and her blackmailing schemes. Nannette had saved her. The old woman had come into the room soundlessly during their interview. Her shriveled face hardened with hatred when she saw Juliet, but when Cenni turned to acknowledge her presence, her expression softened into an ingratiating smile. Until that moment, Juliet had almost forgotten that she was the outsider, the African. “Juliet, I want the truth,” Cenni had said again, but the time for seduction had passed.

The commissario was right: she had known about Jarvinia’s blackmailing schemes. “Queenie will pay whatever I ask,” Jarvinia had told her when they’d returned from Venice. “Count Molin was never a leader in the resistance, and she knows it. Her father was training her to take over the family business. He told her about the notes and their shipping date; she told me; and I told Fritz.”

“They took you into their home; they befriended you,” Juiet had responded, although not in censure. She had wanted to understand why Jarvinia had betrayed the count to help Fritz and her mother, when she’d claimed repeatedly to hate them both.

“Blood counts,” Jarvinia had responded. “We needed money to get out of Venice before the Allies arrived, lots of money. What was the count or Queenie to me?”

“Does Queenie know that you betrayed her father?”

“Does she know, or does she
admit
to knowing?” Jarvinia had responded with contempt. “Where else would Fritz get English pound notes to pay for my boarding school in Switzerland? She never asked and we never talked about it, but she knew.”

“SO WHAT DO you think?” Elena asked Cenni as they were driving back to Umbria.

“About what?”

“For starters, Juliet’s statement that the key to the basement door never worked and that Baudler threw it into the garbage.”

“It’s probably true, as it agrees with Reimann’s story. We can check Reimann’s key tomorrow. And let’s not forget when we wrap up this case to return Juliet’s key to Signora Tangassi. It’ll save her at least ten euros.”

“Do you think she was telling the truth?”

“About not murdering Jarvinia Baudler, yes. For the rest, mainly lies. She’ll go a long way.

“What did you think?” Cenni asked in return. “You didn’t ask any questions.”

“You were doing okay without me, except toward the end.”

“How’s that?”

“You practically handed her the description of the man who came to the house.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Cenni said, not at all concerned.

“One interesting point,” Elena added. “She insisted that Anita Tangassi entered the house when they were away, that their cleaning woman saw her go inside a few times, but Tangassi told us that she never went inside after she rented to the German.”

“A landlord with a key? Not likely!” Cenni responded.

12

THE NEXT DAY was rainy and cold and matched Cenni’s mood exactly. His visit to Venice had eliminated suspects, but he still didn’t have a murderer. Elena hadn’t yet visited Signora Cecchetti to find out about Lorenzo and Anita’s relationship, so he decided to do it himself. The woman who answered the door looked somewhat different from Elena’s description. She was not old—in her late sixties rather than eighties—and quite glamorous in an old-fashioned way. Her hair was piled high on her head, held in place with tortoiseshell combs, and two long strands of pearls were draped around her long, soft neck. She was wearing a print silk dress and high heels and was made up for the evening. But when he asked if he was interrupting anything, she assured him that she no plans that day other than to water her plants.

The police gossiping with the neighbors raised a delicate issue, and he approached it with finesse. “I’m concerned about the stress you must have experienced, having a neighbor murdered. I called to be sure you’re all right, no aftereffects,” Cenni said with his brightest smile.

She grabbed her pearls with her right hand. “Do you think I’m in danger? I do worry so, being alone at night. I was married, you know, but my husband died very young, leaving me alone in the world. I’ve dedicated my life to his memory, which is why I’ve never married again.” She smiled flirtatiously. “I’ve had my chances, but Antonio was my life.”

Cenni smiled in return and asked if there was any chance of a coffee.

SIGNORA CECCHETTI’S ABILITY to remember everything that had ever happened in her life and everyone else’s life, from her earliest recollection of an older sister wheeling her about in a stroller to the story of her next-door neighbor stealing rosemary from one of her pots at night, when she thought no one was looking, was remarkable. She was a lexicon of neighborhood scandals, secrets, and grudges.

“Whatever you want to know about that family, I can tell you. Marta was my dear friend, and she told me everything.
Everything,
” she emphasized. She lowered her voice when she came to the part about the rape. “Yes, commis-sario,
rape!
Orazio raped his own sister, in the dungeons. She was stacking firewood when he grabbed her from behind. He raped her twice. The father found them and had to pull him off. Shocking, and one of our oldest families too. We live in a wicked world, commissario.” She blessed herself and asked again if he would like biscotti. “Almond,” she said. “I make them myself.”

“
Malata mentale
from the time he was a little boy. We were in school together, and he was always fighting, with the other children, the teachers, his cousin Lorenzo, but his mother worshipped him. Nothing was too good for her darling Orazio. Marta was a late child and was always an afterthought to her mother. After the rape, the mother blamed Marta. Both Marta and Orazio had their bedrooms on the second floor and the parents had theirs on the third. The mother accused Marta of walking around half naked, tempting her brother into sin. Well, I never walked around him half naked, and he attacked me, in the walkway that runs beneath this building. Antonio caught him and gave him a permanent limp, but his mother begged us not to go to the police.” She shrugged. “Antonio didn’t want people talking about me.”