Alibi: A Novel (28 page)

We joined the flotilla of boats heading up the canal to Gianni’s house, Claudia fidgeting beside me, restive, wanting it to be over. The sun had come out, the early Venetian spring that had eluded Mimi, making the buildings shine, scrubbed fresh by the rain. At Ca’ Maglione footmen lifted us onto a floating dock between striped mooring poles, like Mimi’s ball again, without the umbrellas. A long staircase lined with candelabra led up to the piano nobile, the usual Venetian layout. The ballroom was not as pretty as Mimi’s but just as large, done in red damask and heavy gilt chairs, like a version of La Fenice. Everything gleamed, spotless. How large a staff did it take to keep it going?

“I thought you said he had no money,” Claudia whispered to me, looking around.

“I didn’t say broke.” But in fact the room made me uneasy. It was not what I’d expected. No frayed upholstery, no chipped pieces. Nothing needed repair. The war might never have happened.

A long table had been set out with plates of biscotti, coffee cups, and thin glasses for vin santo—spare but appropriate, a reception, not a party. People spoke softly. Near one end Giulia was being kissed by an old man, just a movement to the cheek, hands placed over hers. When he moved back, she turned to the next in line, so that her face was toward us. I stopped. She had the kind of delicate features that went with the convent school posture, but her face, soft and composed, was slightly long, the one trace of her mother’s family. Otherwise, she looked exactly like Gianni, the same wavy hair, broad-set eyes. She was wearing a black dress with a small white bow at the neck, and for one awkward second I saw Gianni in his cutaway, arriving to take my mother to the ball, even the same quizzical look in his eyes. The look, at least, was real. I realized I must be staring and turned away.

“There’s Giulia,” my mother said. “Come and meet her.”

“Later,” I said. “I want some coffee. You go.”

“There’s nothing wrong, is there? You look all white.”

“No, I just need some coffee.” Eager now for her to leave.

“You’ll be nice,” she said, looking at me, a question. “You know you were almost brother and sister.”

“Yes, almost.”

“What’s wrong?” Claudia said to me when my mother left.

“She looks just like him.”

Claudia peered down the table at her. She was greeting my mother now, not with a kiss, but polite. “The eyes, a little.”

“All his features.”

“No, I don’t see that. The eyes, yes. His eyes were like that.” She looked away, then reached over and picked up a coffee cup. “What a pair we are. Standing here talking about his eyes, a man we—” She took a sip of coffee, still looking down.

“I’ll have to say something to her.”

She was leading my mother out of the room.

I looked around. “Who are they? Do you know any of these people?”

“From the newspapers.
Il bel mondo
.” Claudia said.

“What did the eulogy say?”

“A humanitarian. A savior of men.”

“Christ.”

My mother was back in the room, carrying a brown envelope. Of sentimental value.

“So, another meeting.” Father Luca was leaning over the table to pick up a biscotti. “A very different occasion,” he said sadly, looking at it as if he were referring to the food.

“Yes, very different. A beautiful service, though.”

He nodded. “Father Prato,” he said, “always excellent.” A professional appraisal. He bowed to Claudia, who acknowledged it, then glanced away, uncomfortable.

“He will be buried tomorrow?” I said, making conversation. “In the country, not at San Michele?”

“Yes, of course, the country. All the Magliones are buried there.”

“I didn’t realize he had a house there.”

He looked at me, stupefied, as if this were too absurd to answer. “Yes,” he said finally, “they always preferred it there. Not Gianni, he loved Venice, but the others.” He waved his hand. “Always this love of land. Well, you can see how lucky it was for them. Poor Venice. The trade declines, what do the families do? Buy more ships. But the Magliones? Land. And now the other families are gone. How many of these are left?” he said, indicating the palazzo. “In the family? Not a hotel. Not a museum. Still Ca’ Maglione. It’s because they bought land. It’s an irony, yes? A house in the water, still here, all because of land.”

“How much do they own?”

He looked at me again. “You mean exactly? I don’t know. These are private matters, family matters—”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Just in general. It’s a farm?”

“A farm? But Signor Miller, the Magliones are the largest landowners in the Veneto. Surely you knew that.”

“No,” I said, disconcerted.

“Yes, from the Brenta—” He started spreading his arms, then stopped. “Well, considerable property. Of course, Giulia, the first wife, also had property. Near Ferrara.” He paused. “His first—his wife, I should say. Now she will be the only one.” He placed his hand on my arm. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

I looked at him, then nodded, a silent thank-you. “I wish I’d known him better.” Something to say.

Surprisingly, this seemed to move him. He gripped my arm tighter. “Your mother. She’s—?”

“It’s hard for her.”

Father Luca shook his head in sympathy. “To lose a man like that. And think of the family. Always taking care of everybody. Paolo, everybody. Even as a child you could see it—the head of the family.”

“But I thought Paolo was older.”

“Yes, but Gianni was the head. Even then. Boys. Well, we were all boys. And now? A tragedy, a tragedy. So much evil in the world now.”

“More than before?” Bertie said, coming up behind him. “I wonder. Luca, I have to drag you away. Hello, Claudia,” he said, his voice cooler. “What a surprise.” He met her eye for a second, then backed away, turning to me instead. “I promised Luca a proper lunch. You must be famished,” he said to him, glancing at the table. “She’s the mother’s daughter, isn’t she?” He sighed. “Be lovely to pay a little attention to the living.”

“But this is traditional.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s perfect. Just right. The mother was like that too. And you never had a decent meal in her house.”

“Signor Howard,” the priest said.

“Oh, I know. Very bad of me. Anyway, come to lunch. Adam, you ought to get Grace home. It’s a strain, a thing like this.”

“She seems all right.”

“Mm. It’s all this holding herself together I don’t like. Much better
to collapse with a good weep and get it over with. Much better in the end.”

Father Luca took my hand. “If you ever want to talk, I knew him very well.”

Bertie threw me a “What are you up to” look, then turned to the room. “Aren’t people extraordinary?” I followed his gaze to the crowd in suits and black dresses, idly talking, sipping coffee. “You’d think he’d had a heart attack.”

It was Giulia finally who found us, smoking out on the balcony, pretending there was more sun than there was. “You’re Adam,” she said simply, extending a hand. I introduced Claudia, who moved back against the railing, suddenly skittish, but Giulia nodded graciously. There was no sign of recognition, the engagement party scene apparently not known to her. Another relief, something already fading, no longer gossiped about.

“I saw you looking at me before,” she said.

“I’m sorry. It’s just, you look so like your father.”

“You think so? Most people think my mother.”

“Well, I never knew her.”

“No,” she said, suddenly embarrassed. “Well, the eyes maybe. Everyone says that.”

But her eyes had none of Gianni’s sharpness. They were soft, almost hazy, as if she had just taken off glasses and were trying to focus. “You went to San Michele,” she said, her voice flat, so that for a second I wondered if she resented it, felt it was an intrusion.

“The police asked me.”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “I am so grateful. To see him like that—” She stopped herself. “I gave your mother some pictures. From his youth. They knew each other then, before—before the others.”

“Yes.”

“So it’s a romantic story. I didn’t know.”

“He never told you?”

She looked down. “We didn’t talk about it, no. Well, maybe he tried.” She lifted her head, clear-eyed, no longer soft or unfocused.
“You know, it’s not easy to say this. I disagreed with him about this marriage. I thought he was bewitched.”

I smiled to myself. A word never used in conversation. Despite the perfect English, foreign after all.

“But now, I meet her and I see I was wrong. Not the fortune hunter. An affair of the heart.”

“Fortune hunter?” I said, thrown by the unexpectedness of it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to say it. You know, with my father there was always that danger, so it was natural—” She paused. “A mistake. I apologize to you.”

“No, I just meant—” But what did I mean? That she would appreciate the irony? That it was the other way around? I put out my cigarette, stalling. “I wish we’d met earlier.”

“Yes, I apologize for that too. Of course I had examinations, but that was an excuse, really. Anyway, I didn’t come. So that was the last thing he said to me. ‘Good luck with the examinations.’ ” She looked out at the canal, where a vaporetto was passing, catching the faint sun on its white roof.

“You’re going to be a lawyer?” I said, bringing her back to somewhere neutral.

She smiled. “In Italy? A woman? No. They let me study—well, because of my father. But in the courtroom? They wouldn’t like that so much.” This to Claudia, who gave a thin smile back.

“So what will you do?”

“Oh, it was to work with my father. Like a son, you know? He used to say that to me, ‘You’re my son.’ So it’s a good thing to know, law, to run the businesses. My father used to trust everybody, and of course they cheated him. So now his son is there, a lawyer, they don’t cheat so easily.” Not soft. Gianni telling me exactly what would happen at the trial he’d never have. She stopped, smiling shyly. “I’m sorry, it’s boring to talk about this.”

“No,” I said automatically. Businesses, not just land.

“We should go in. It’s getting cold,” Claudia said, folding her arms across her chest and starting for the door.

Giulia glanced into the room, still filled with people. “Yes, they can’t go until they tell me how sorry they are. It’s the form. Over and over, how sorry.”

“Who was the woman with you in church?”

“My grandmother.”

“Gianni’s mother?” I said, a nervous twinge in my stomach. A child killed—nothing was worse. Not just killed.

“No, my mother’s. She’s the only one left now.”

I opened my hand to indicate “After you,” expecting her to follow Claudia through the door, but she hesitated.

“Wait,” she said. “A moment. I don’t know how to say it. I want to talk more. Will you come to see me?”

“Yes, if you’d like.”

“It’s strange, you know, but there’s no one else. I mean, we’re not family, but we might have been. So it happened to you too, this death. Death—murder,” she said. “Murder,” she said again. “They won’t even say it. No one else will care the way we do. You’re the only one I can ask.”

“Ask what?”

“For your help.”

“My help?”

“To find the murderer.”

I stared at her. “But the police—”

“Ouf, Cavallini. Filomena’s husband, that one.”

“He’s still the police.”

“They’ll never find out. They’ll look and then they’ll stop.”

“But you won’t,” I said quietly.

“Never,” she said, her voice Gianni’s again, sure. “I can’t. I’m the son.” She looked at me. “And you.”

“The way she looks at you,” Claudia said later, in bed.

“Like a sister.”

“Ha.”

“Jealous?” I said, smiling at her.

“No, careful. One slip, you say, but who’s talking? The priest, then the daughter. I thought I would scream. I thought we’d never leave.”

I smiled again, but my mind was elsewhere, in the polished high room with the gilt furniture. Not a fortune hunter.

“But we did,” she said, putting a finger on my chest, bringing me back. “So it’s over, yes?”

The largest landowners in the Veneto.

“Everyone saw us. That was the point,” I said.

“Everyone saw us at the ball.”

When I got home, my mother was looking through the photographs, the brown envelope next to her on the couch. I turned on a lamp and went over to the sideboard to make a drink.

“Want one?”

She pointed to her half-filled glass on the end table.

“You know, I don’t remember wearing my hair this short,” she said, peering at a snapshot, “but I suppose I must have.”

“What businesses did Gianni own?”

“Oh, darling, I don’t know, a little of this, a little of that. Wines. He was always talking about that. Why?”

“Giulia mentioned the family businesses. I was just wondering what they were.”

“They own part of a bank. I expect that’s what she meant. And bits of things. He said it was safer that way, spreading out your chips.” She looked up. “Not munitions, if that’s what you mean. He wasn’t that.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. Just curious.”

“Well, the wines he used to mention. He said there was no such thing as a bad year during the war. So much demand. But I think it was more a hobby, really. The rest was through the bank.”

“But he was rich?”

“Darling, what a question. What’s this all about?”

“Cavallini said he was one of the richest men in Italy.”

“Well, the family. They always had pots.”

“But he
was
the family.”

“After his brother, you mean. Yes, I suppose. But darling, you knew all this. Anyway, what does it matter now?”

“It doesn’t, I guess,” I said, sipping my drink. “But you knew?”

“Well, of course I
knew
. He always had money. I don’t know how much exactly. I didn’t ask to see his bank balance. I’m not Peggy Joyce yet.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You might as well.” She looked away. “I admit I thought about it. Well, who wouldn’t? But I was fond of him, you know. I really was. It wasn’t just the money.”

I hesitated, taking this in. “I didn’t know it was the money at all. I thought you were in love with him.”