Death in a Serene City (19 page)

“There are some who don't think Carlo killed her.”

“Yes, there are those. I've heard them talking.”

“And what about you, Signora Razzi?”

“I don't think it makes very much difference. I always said that Maria was dead ever since that daughter of hers died.” Her head was bent over the doll as she arranged its skirt more neatly. “Of course, thirty years is a long time to be alive and also dead.” There was no giggle but mirth managed to escape from her ravaged eyes.

“Did you know Beatrice Galuppi?”

She got up so quickly that the doll tumbled to the floor. Urbino rose to retrieve it but she waved him away. She snatched it up and put it down on the love seat. “My employee,” she said curtly.

“I beg your pardon, Signora Razzi, but I don't—”

“My employee,” she repeated impatiently. “Beatrice Galuppi was my employee, I said. No matter how uppity she was, she came to work for me like any other girl for five months. It was around the time my husband died.”

“What kind of business did you have?”

“Still have! Buildings, property—more now than I did then! He left me with three buildings back in fifty-four. I was young and rich, and I made myself richer. If there had only been some way to make myself younger too or at least stay the same age, like these sweet young things.” She sighed as she looked around at her dolls. “But at least I have my money and my health although I wish I could sleep better. I'm an insomniac.”

She went over to the window and drew aside the drapes to look down at the Fondamenta Nuove.

“There goes Giorgio with another bottle from the wineshop. Is that his nose or a bunch of grapes? Well, he's still sober enough, I see, to be able to avoid Angela Bellorini. Probably afraid shell use one of her meals as an excuse to poke around in his affairs the way she did when my Donato died. She's a strange one. Always wanting to give people those miserable meals of hers but give her anything yourself and she's likely to throw it in your face the way she did with the Cavatortas and a cousin of mine. Too proud, that woman.”

Somehow Urbino wasn't surprised to find that the widow Razzi was just as critical of Angela Bellorini as Angela had been of her. He hardly knew the widow Razzi at all but he knew her well enough to realize that deference, not charity, was what she wanted—and preferably from a man.

She was still looking out the window.

“And there's that silly old fool Gabriela with her nasty little dog. They look more and more alike every year!”

She started to laugh at her own joke and stopped. From the direction of her gaze he could tell she was now looking out at the cemetery island.

“I might have made a mistake staying here,” she said, dropping the drapes and closing off the view. “I should have moved to my building by the Madonna dell'Orto.” She turned back to Urbino. “What were we talking about?”

“Beatrice Galuppi.”

“My employee,” she emphasized again. “Yes, Beatrice Galuppi worked for me, cleaned apartments like anyone else who needed the money, although Maria probably never saw any of it. Beatrice spent it all on clothes, paints, brushes—everything for her own sweet self. She cleaned this apartment here, too, although she liked to work where I couldn't see her.”

“When?”

“I already told you—back in fifty-four! She worked until a month before she died. Didn't surprise me much when she did either.”

“Did she seem depressed?”

“I know what you're getting at—depressed and then killed herself like everyone says. Well, maybe she did and maybe she didn't. What I meant was that she was sick enough the last few weeks she worked for me. I would hear her throwing up in the toilet—or trying to was more like it. She looked ready to faint once or twice and was so thirsty she took to carrying a bottle of water around with her—a fancy bottle it was, too, all cut glass. I thought it had wine in it but I sniffed it once. It was water all right,” she said begrudgingly. “She looked a fright, too. She was a beauty but even a beauty can look a fright at times.”

She nodded with satisfaction as she went back to the love seat.

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary in the week between Maria's death and the discovery of Santa Teodora's body down there on the quay?” When she gave him a puzzled look, he added, “From your window there. You say you suffer from insomnia.”

“So did Rossini! He wrote operas from his bed, didn't even have to get up when he couldn't sleep. What I do myself is get up and see if any of my darlings are awake too. I make myself some tea and take it over to the window. Sometimes one of my sweethearts likes to keep me company.”

A comfortable-looking chair was near the window and on the sill was a dirty, lace-covered pillow. He could imagine her sitting there with one of her dolls and looking down at the quay for hours.

“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary on any of those nights or maybe during the day?” he asked again.

“What I see is always ordinary, most ordinary, that's my comfort. The usual people and boats come and go—the sweepers, the deliverymen, the police, the neighbors, the tourists—always different but always the same. During the night there's hardly anyone about. It's always been that way. It's all so predictable, it's better than counting sheep. Sometimes we drop off to sleep right there, me and one of my darlings, even from time to time during the afternoon when I haven't slept at all the night before.”

“Before I go, Signora Razzi, I have just a few more quick questions about Beatrice.”

She picked up another doll, this one dark-haired with a mantilla, combs, and a brightly colored dress.

“May he?” she asked, bending down to confer with the little señorita. The answer must have been affirmative for she raised her head and smiled, flashing close to every one of her false teeth.

“Did you ever hear her—or her mother—mention the name Domenica?”

She fussed with the doll's dress as she shook her head.

“Did Beatrice have a pet bird, a
cocorita?
”

“I have no idea, I assure you! If she did she never brought it when she was working for me, thank God!”

“I'll be going then, Signora Razzi. Thank you for your time.”

“I would rather be thanked for my good company.”

“For that too. Don't get up. I can show myself out.”

“I'm not an old lady, young man.” She got up from the love seat and walked with him to the door. “But aren't you going to ask me anything about the American signorina? The one who jumped from the window? When I opened the door and saw you standing there, that's what I said to myself. He's here to ask me about her, I said.”

“Signorina Quinton?”

“She always insisted on the ‘Signorina,' made quite a point of it the first few times. She rented two floors of the Casa Silviano off the Rio della Sensa.”

Urbino was familiar with the building from the outside. A few years ago a piece of its facade had broken off and damaged a tricycle that a child had left out in the
calle
during the night.

“She was a big, boring woman, God rest her soul, probably slept the whole night through, but she was no trouble at all, gave me what I asked right from the first, all in crisp new notes and in advance. I love renting to you
forestieri
. If you have any American friends looking for a place, Signor Macintyre, send them to me. We can work something out as soon as that apartment is put back in order. Now don't forget.”

10

ABOUT five that afternoon Urbino was sitting in one of the pews of San Gabriele as Sister Veronica, who kept giving him uneasy glances, explained to her small group of hospice guests the story of Santa Teodora. She said nothing about the theft and the murder, perhaps at the order of the Mother Superior or even the Vatican, but she did mention the recent reconsecration. Her guests—an elderly couple with weary looks on their faces and an obese woman in a natty fur coat—didn't seem particularly interested in any more details, however.

When she finished she told them they could stay in the church for the six o'clock Mass or return to the hospice. She would see them tomorrow at nine for the tour of Murano.

Urbino went over to her.

“It's good to have Santa Teodora back,” he said.

She nodded but there was a worried look in her dark brown eyes. With her finely chiseled face and expressive eyes Sister Veronica was an attractive woman. Though over fifty she looked ten years younger, the way religious often do. She must have been beautiful as a young woman.

“It certainly is but I keep expecting someone to ask about Maria. When they do, I don't know what to say. I don't like to talk about it.”

“But they're probably so filled with wrong ideas they could use a dose of the truth.”

“The truth! I know less of it than anyone else, less than you do, I'm sure.” It seemed almost a criticism.

“But you don't think Carlo killed his mother, do you?”

Although it was barely a second before she responded, it seemed much longer. In fact it seemed as if she didn't want to answer the question at all. But when she did it was with a fervent denial.

“Of course not. I had many opportunities to observe Carlo. Kill his mother? No, Carlo didn't kill her.”

“What about the sister, Beatrice? Did you know her?”

Sister Veronica's expressive eyes had lost their worried look. In its place was something close to disapproval.

“No, I never knew her.”

She turned to look at the fat woman in the fur coat who was bending over the glass case to peer into the masked face of the saint. When she looked back at Urbino, she stared at him without adding anything in clarification. It might well have been that, being from Murano and roughly the same age as Beatrice, she had heard rumors about the girl's behavior. Perhaps it had been indecorous of him to suggest they had known each other.

“But you did see some of her art work.” Then, as if to give more authority to his questioning, he added, “Don Marcantonio mentioned it.”

“Yes, but not until many years after her death. Since I was giving the tours here, even back then around the time of the flood, Maria trusted my opinion on art. She also knew I had an interest in Tintoretto just as her daughter had had and wanted to impress me with her talent. I don't think she doubted for a moment that there was some.”

“Wasn't there?”

“Oh, there was but it needed to be developed much more. She was an amateur without any formal training, from what I know. Who's to say what she might have done if she had lived and applied herself? There was something there.”

Having delivered this lukewarm praise, she cast her eye back over her little group.

“What about the Tintoretto?”

“There were two Tintorettos:
The Transport of the Body of Saint Mark
at the Accademia and
The Presentation of the Virgin
at the Madonna dell'Orto. Only details, not the whole pictures, Just the men carrying Saint Mark's body with the camel behind them and Saint Anne with her arm around the Virgin. Maria was pleased with them because of the religious themes. It made her feel better about her daughter.”

She avoided his eyes.

“You saw only the two Tintorettos?”

“Oh, no,” she said, looking up at him and smiling now. “She was determined to show me everything. There were some sketchbooks with nothing of much interest, also a
capriccio
derivative of Piranesi, drawings of buildings, bridges, and piazzas. The best of the lot were copies of several scenes from the Barovier Wedding Cup at the Glass Museum. I say they were the best even though she didn't copy some of the scenes exactly as they were. She made some changes. And it might not have been such a good idea to try to capture the scenes in oils.”

“All that might be why they were the best. She showed some originality.”

“You might say. But don't forget that the scenes on the Wedding Cup are much simpler than the Tintorettos.”

There was no disagreeing with this—and even if there were, Urbino would have avoided challenging Sister Veronica on a painter she knew and loved so well. At any rate, he had no opportunity for she had barely finished when the woman in the fur coat asked her about the murder, in an unnecessarily loud voice.

“There was a theft, you know,” she said for the benefit of the elderly couple who had gone over to inspect the Cima more closely.

Sister Veronica sighed and excused herself. It didn't seem as if today was going to be one of the days she escaped without giving more details than she wanted to.

11

THIS time Cavatorta didn't ask him in. He looked as if he had just awakened, his hair more mussed than before and his thin face puffy.

“This morning you said that you saw three of Beatrice Galuppi's paintings—two scenes of Venice and a Tintoretto. Is that right?”

The mask maker crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

“Your memory isn't quite as good as you'd like to think, I'm afraid. It was only a detail from a Tintoretto. But now that you've been reassured, if you'll excuse me—”

“Where did you see them?”

“At the Galuppi apartment on the Rio della Sensa. You don't think Carlo and Maria carted them all the way here, do you?”

“Were there any other paintings around?”

“Would a lithograph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a calendar with a picture of the Matterhorn qualify?”

“You didn't see a detail from Tintoretto's
Presentation of the Virgin
that's at the Madonna dell'Orto or—”

“Listen, Signor Macintyre. If you think you're going to pin the theft of any of Beatrice's paintings on me, don't even try. Those things were taken while I was hearing confessions at San Gabriele. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Good afternoon.”