Frail Barrier (15 page)

‘Never. But after I heard about the break-in, I remembered something. How I was frightened the night of the storm.' He seemed embarrassed, and added, ‘Not because of the storm. And not really frightened.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I thought someone was following us. But it was a crazy night. We both got home safely. It was probably my imagination. I had been drinking a little.'

‘Did you notice if it was a man or a woman?'

‘I just saw a dark figure, maybe more than one, different ones. Who knows? I didn't think about it too much at the time. At one point a gondolier's hat blew against us. One like these.' He indicated the hats with their red ribbons hanging from his kiosk. ‘Signorina Albina got so scared because it hit her in the face, though it didn't do any damage. It just blew out of nowhere.'

‘From the direction that you thought someone was following you?'

‘I guess so.'

‘Did Albina seem to be aware that someone might be following you?'

Maurizio shrugged.

‘She didn't say anything. And, as I said, it was a crazy night. So much noise and confusion.'

An hour later when Giulietta led Urbino into her living room, he found Perla Beato on the sofa with a glass of Cynar. The bruise on her face had almost faded.

‘Urbino!' she cried. ‘Giulietta was just telling me how helpful you were with the locks and keys. Her guardian angel, she called you. Isn't that what you said, Giulietta? Your guardian angel?'

Perla gave a high-pitched laugh. In deference to Giulietta, whose knowledge of English was almost non-existent, she was speaking in Italian. She seemed charged with nervous energy.

Giulietta poured Urbino a generous portion of Cynar without asking if he wanted any on this occasion. As she handed him the glass, he noted again the two broken fingernails on her hand. Perhaps now that Albina was gone, she was obliged to endanger her manicures in doing more chores.

‘I think it's wonderful when we can help each other in little ways as well as big ones,' Perla rushed on. ‘Giulietta has enough food to open a restaurant, don't you, Giulietta dear? One woman brought her more
sarde in saor
than the Venetian sailors used to take with them on their voyages. No chance of you getting scurvy, my dear.' Perla stopped only long enough for a sip of the Cynar. ‘And all I brought her was a basket of herbs and some bottles of aromas from the shop.'

Perla owned an
erboristeria
in Dorsoduro near the Church of the Carmini.

She began to describe the herbs and aromas. Urbino let her run on, wondering if her high level of energy this morning was the result of one of her concoctions. His eye wandered around the room. The dressmaker's dummy was now standing upright. The flowered blue material was neatly draped on it. The box of cartons had been neatened, the brightly colored garments refolded and placed inside. Natalia, who had helped Giulietta put the apartment in better order, had said that the boxes contained carnival costumes in need of repair. These must have been the boxes Albina mentioned the night she died, the ones she had carried upstairs for her sister to prevent her from breaking her fingernails.

According to Natalia, although she and Giulietta had spent a lot of time on the rest of the apartment, they hadn't done anything with Albina's room. Urbino hoped that Giulietta hadn't thrown away anything from it as he had advised her.

The basket of herbs and aromas that Perla had brought lay on the end table beside his chair. The dark green bottles had identifying labels in elegant handwriting on the
erboristeria
's violet paper with a wheat sheaf logo.

Giulietta had a blank look on her face as Perla spoke. She seemed to be somewhere else, and she was staring at the dressmaker's dummy. She had applied a lot of make-up, and bright coins of rouge on her cheeks made her look almost clown-like. Her lips were vivid red.

Perla brought her description to an abrupt end. She put down her glass of Cynar and stood up.

‘If you need anything at all, Giulietta, don't be shy. Just ask Romolo or me. We don't live far away and the shop is even closer. Why don't I take this into the kitchen?' She picked up the basket. ‘If you leave it in here, you might think it's a decoration and forget it has things for you to use every day. Things that will keep our dear Giulietta fit. But from what I saw you doing outside the apartment, you're very fit.'

Giulietta looked embarrassed.

‘Do you know what I found her doing as I was on my way here? She was under the
sottoportico
sweeping and washing away. You would think the municipality had employed her. She had a bucket, a broom, a brush, rags, and a little shovel, and the most terrible smelling liquid. I hope you didn't inhale much of it, Giulietta.'

‘I – I was only trying to clean the place where Albina died.'

‘And bless you for that, but don't you think you were overdoing it? You need to take the best care of yourself. Well, as I said, my gift will help you. You stay right where you are, Giulietta, and keep Urbino company. I'll be back as soon as I find a good place for this in the kitchen.'

After Perla left the room, Urbino mentioned that he had seen Maurizio.

‘He's a nice young man,' he said.

They spent a few minutes talking about Maurizio and his kindness to Albina. Giulietta told him that he was now doing errands for her before he went to work in the morning. She kept looking in the direction of the kitchen. She was starting to get up when Perla reappeared.

‘I found the perfect spot for it on the little table under the window. I'm afraid I had to move a few things. Take care of yourself, Giulietta. See you soon, Urbino. No, Giulietta, I'll find my own way out.'

When Perla left, Giulietta thanked Urbino again for his help with the locks, but she struck him again as being abstracted. Perhaps she was starting to feel the full force of her sister's death and what it meant to her, being all alone.

After declining some more Cynar, Urbino withdrew the two keys on the chain from his pocket.

‘Valdo found these at his place.' He held them out to Giulietta. ‘Are they Albina's?'

Giulietta took the keys.

‘They're hers, but the ones for the doors are no use any more, now that you had the new locks put in. Should I keep them or throw them away? I only ask because you said that I shouldn't get rid of any of her things for a while.'

‘Just put them in her room with all her other things. We can decide what to do with everything later.'

‘As you think best, Signor Urbino.'

‘By the way, Giulietta, during the past few weeks have you noticed anyone unfamiliar, someone who isn't from the neighborhood, lingering around your building?'

‘Tourists are always coming into the
calle
and turning around because it's a dead end. Some stay long enough to take a picture, but that's it. Once in a while painters will come for a few hours, cluttering the way with all their stuff. There was one a few weeks ago, a big, fat man. They're a nuisance. They should leave us alone.'

‘Wish you were here,
caro,'
the contessa said on the telephone that evening. She had returned to Asolo after the funeral. ‘We haven't had any rain. The air is delightful.'

‘I'd love to be there. The rest would be nice.'

Urbino filled her in on most of what he had accomplished yesterday and today. When he finished, the contessa, who had allowed him to recount his activities with only a few clarifying questions, said, ‘You're feeling guilty.'

‘Guilty?'

‘Yes, guilty because of those keys. You can't let it go that if you hadn't gone to Da Valdo that night, Albina would still be alive.'

‘But—'

‘It's guilt that's driving you,' she interrupted. ‘All of these questions, all of these good deeds, all of this running around the city from one end to the other! You're doing penance. I hope you feel the burden lifted. Giulietta has her locks, Hollander has the name of an estate agent, and your new friend has a room with a view at a reasonable price. You've even returned to the scene of your crime and retrieved the keys from Valdo and given them to Giulietta. Bravo, my son. You don't even have to say fifty Ave Marias! Do you feel better now?'

‘Not in the sense you mean. Of course I'm happy to have accomplished some things, but I've also learned a lot. The Gonella apartment was broken into and although Giulietta says nothing of value was taken, she's either not being honest or she doesn't realize what
has
been taken. Because surely something must have been, or at the least the person was looking for something of value. Why else break in? Maurizio suspected that someone was shadowing him and Albina when they walked through the storm from Da Valdo. I had the same sensation the night I walked her home.'

The contessa didn't respond at once. When she did, she asked, ‘Is all that so much to have learned?'

‘It's a beginning. One step leads to another.'

‘Each step can take you further astray, especially in Venice! The way it is for you in my maze.' He detected a smile in the contessa's voice. ‘My dear Urbino, would you feel better if Albina didn't die naturally? But she was still out in the storm because of the keys, and you feel responsible for that. I don't mean to be cruel, but that's the sense of it. We have to accept these things. Konrad Zoll's disease. His friend's accident. I hope you're still not bothering yourself about their unfortunate deaths. Life,
caro.'

‘Something doesn't seem right. We have three deaths, all so close together. And Zoll and Luca were friends. Is it too strange to think that Albina could have had some link to Zoll and Luca? After all, she worked in Florian's. No, something just isn't right.'

‘But don't you see?' the contessa said. ‘You
want
there to be foul play. That way you can console yourself by wearing yourself out, trying to find a murderer, and bringing him or her to justice in the way we know you can do so well. But you can do it only when there
has
been a murder. There hasn't been any. There hasn't!'

Urbino didn't respond.

‘If there
was
a murder,' she went on, more calmly, ‘then how do we explain what Salvatore Rizzo said about her heart?'

‘There wasn't an autopsy, was there?'

‘None was required, and Giulietta didn't request one. Why should she?'

‘I understand that. And I'm not saying that Albina didn't die of a heart attack. Even if she did, she could still have been the victim of foul play.'

‘You mean someone could have scared her to death?'

Her words were more than a little charged with ridicule.

‘Something like that. It's not impossible.' He paused. ‘Or someone could have induced the heart attack. Drugs exist that would do that.'

‘To be honest I don't feel easy about Albina's death myself. But don't lose your clear way of thinking. Just because Albina died after Zoll and Benigni doesn't mean that she died because of them.'

“‘Post hoc, ergo propter hoc,'”
Urbino said. ‘The logical fallacy: “After this because of this.” But nonetheless I feel there's some connection. If there is, I'm determined to find it.'

‘I understand. And I know how much you want to do the right thing. You and your good deeds! Look at all the ones you've been wrapping yourself in. I tell you what,
caro
, why not do another good deed? Oh, it has nothing to do with Albina! Why don't you invite your watercolorist to my regatta party? What's her name again?'

‘Maisie Croy. That would be a kind gesture on your part, Barbara,' he said in an encouraging tone, despite a small cloud of uneasiness that drifted across his consciousness. ‘From one countrywoman to another.'

‘I don't know what my country is anymore, and neither do you! But the more the merrier, as they say. By the way, I'm having lunch tomorrow with Nick Hollander.' She named one of their favorite restaurants in Dorsoduro that was attached to a little hotel. ‘I made a reservation for one o'clock. If you'd care to, you could join us for dessert. I know how much you like their
tiramisù!'

‘That might be a good idea. And would you do me a favor?'

‘What?'

‘Would you try not to mention Benigni's death to him? Or Albina's? I'd like to be the one to do it.'

The next morning Urbino found Maisie Croy behind Le Due Sorelle. It was an overcast, humid day that threatened rain. Croy, surrounded by a group of neighborhood children and sporting her battered straw gondolier's hat, was making a watercolor rendition of the stone bridge.

‘This is bridge number seven,' she said. She put down her brush and smiled. She looked worse than she had a few days ago. Her skin had a grayish pallor. One eye was bloodshot. ‘I wonder how many more I have?'

Urbino made a quick mental calculation.

‘There are about four hundred in the city. In a few years there should be four hundred and one.'

He mentioned the glass bridge under construction by the Piazzale Roma.

‘So unless you stay here until they work out the problems with that one,' he said, ‘you have approximately three hundred and ninety-three bridges left to paint.'

‘You know such things? I'm impressed.'

‘My mind is cluttered with useless information about the city.'

‘I don't think it's useless, and I don't believe you do either! Look how you found me this charming little place! I love it. I'll be able to stay in Venice for as long as I want now.'

The filtered quality of the light on a day like today gave a strange glow to the dilapidated stones of the sisters' building.

‘I owe you some money,' Croy said. ‘If you could wait a few minutes I'll get it for you.'

‘Consider it a gift.'

‘A gift! You are very generous. Are you sure?'