Frail Barrier (19 page)

But no money would be forthcoming – no money
should
be forthcoming – if Benigni hadn't died as the result of an accident. What this could mean, of course, was that the person or persons who would benefit might not be happy if his death was determined not to have been caused by negligence.

That Urbino was entertaining this latter possibility was not because he was a person who found it difficult to accept fateful accidents. Not at all. He had often been in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, his parents had died in an automobile accident precisely because of that. An unexpected visit had delayed their departure from the house. Yes, accidents did happen, and sometimes they were the most bizarre ones imaginable like what they said had happened to Luca Benigni.

But Urbino found it difficult to accept that two people who knew each other, albeit not well, had died within such a short time of each other in the manner in which everyone seemed to believe they had.

Albina Gonella because her weak heart had failed her at that particular moment on that particular night.

And Luca Benigni because a large falling building stone had smashed his head.

These two deaths in themselves would have provoked his curiosity. But it was the third death – or rather the
first
one – that was making him look beyond appearances for some kind of criminal cause.

It was this first death that brought him to the final stop on his corpse tour this evening. It was a building a mere five minutes' walk from the one where Benigni had met his death.

It was on the main
calle
that continued toward the Salute. One of the palaces along its length had a little gated courtyard verdant with plants. But he passed the courtyard, turned off the
calle
, and walked down the much narrower passageway to the Grand Canal and stood on the wooden
traghetto
landing. On the other side of the water was the Gritti Palace Hotel.

There, alone, beside the dark mirror of water, Urbino surprised himself by breaking out in his untrained tenor:

Tantum ergo sacramentum

Veneremur cernui

Et antiquum documentum

Novo cedat ritui

Praestet fides supplementum

Sensuum defectui

These Latin words from a Vesper hymn that were part of the Roman Catholic ritual of Benediction, with their simple, haunting melody, would spring unbidden to Urbino's lips during odd moments, especially when he was lonely, nervous, or preoccupied.

With the notes fading around him, Urbino turned to look up at the second story of the building to his left. This was Zoll's apartment – or now Nick Hollander's apartment. Beyond its dark windows the first death had taken place. Urbino and the contessa had seen the German a short time before he died, and he had looked gravely ill. There was no question of that. If he had died the next day, neither of them would have been surprised. Death had been planted in his gaunt, bloodless face.

But Urbino told himself that he should be consistent in his logic – or was it his illogic? If it was possible that a woman could die because of the weakness of her heart but could also be, in some sense, the victim of foul play, it was equally possible for a man to be murdered even if he had only a few days, hours, or minutes of natural life left – especially a man who had a disease and was taking medication. Zoll had been dying of leukemia, but this didn't mean that he had died
from
leukemia.

Urbino needed to consider this possibility and look into it, if only to eliminate it. As he had said to the contessa, they should not neglect anything that would bring them closer to the truth.

Urbino's eyes moved away from Zoll's apartment to the Gritti Palace across the water. Lights were showing from two of the windows on the second floor. Hollander had said his suite looked out on the Grand Canal. Perhaps he was standing behind one of the lit windows at this moment, gazing toward the apartment he was determined to sell. The possibility made Urbino move backward into the shadows as he had drawn away from the library window when Maisie Croy had examined the Palazzo Uccello.

Hollander was the most obvious link between Zoll and Luca Benigni. And he apparently had been a major beneficiary of his stepfather's will. Urbino hoped that Rebecca would be able to clarify this area more.

But what might Hollander's link to Albina Gonella be? For Urbino could not shake the conviction that Albina's death was connected to Luca's.

As he was considering this, standing there next to the Grand Canal and near the building Zoll had died in, some other names surfaced. Among them were Clementina Foppa and Perla Beato. Both had known all three of the recently dead.

Yes, there was a great deal to consider.

Urbino walked out of the
calle
and turned in the direction of the Salute. He would take the vaporetto back to Cannaregio from there. He was afraid that he wasn't going to be able to do what the contessa wanted him to do. There seemed to be no way he could get what she had called his ‘notions' about Albina out of his head.

In fact, his head was now filled with many more notions of a similar nature that were both directly and indirectly related to the original one.

He entertained them for the trip up the Grand Canal, sitting in his preferred place in the stern of the boat. He watched the scene unroll on both sides as his notions unfolded themselves darkly in his mind.

Part Four

Benevolent Deceptions

Eight

Three pieces of a puzzle. Albina Gonella, Luca Benigni, and Konrad Zoll. How did they fit? Might they fit at all? Could the puzzle be one he was imagining? Was he seeing things he wanted to see and not what was actually there?

These were some of the questions that were Urbino's almost constant companions in the hours and days subsequent to his corpse tour.

For a few days he confined himself to the Palazzo Uccello, turning over the pieces of the puzzle and examining them.

He spent a lot of time up on the
altana
. After the rainy days sunny weather had returned but without the debilitating humidity and storms that had cursed the city earlier in the month. He always brought his Goethe with him, but despite the wisdom and the beauty of the German's impressions, he couldn't remain focused on them for long without drifting off into his own impressions and speculations. He would stare out across the roofs and chimneys at the stretch of the lagoon in one direction or the deep gash in the buildings that was the Grand Canal in the other direction. Natalia came up to the
altana
, not to put out the laundry or to water the plants, but to try to coax Urbino down into the more sociable quarters of the house. But he assured her he was fine where he was. She left each time, shaking her head at the strangeness of the American.

Then, one morning, a week before the regatta, when the weather was all too obviously returning to its earlier, insufferable pattern, he set out from the Palazzo Uccello to try to answer some of the questions that had been swirling in his head during all those hours on the
altana
.

The path he pursued in the following days was as improvised as it was calculated, a combination that often led him to unforeseen, remarkable destinations.

He warned himself, however, that sometimes they were also unwelcome and even dangerous ones.

‘A glass of Cynar, Signor Urbino?' Giulietta asked Urbino as she preceded him into the living room.

It seemed that he would have to endure more of the distasteful drink. But he was surprised when Giulietta brought only one glass in from the kitchen, went to a sideboard, and poured him a generous portion. The situation became clear after she seated herself next to him on the sofa. A half-filled glass of the liqueur stood on the little table next to her beside one of her crossword puzzle books, several sharp pencils, and an open packet of cigarettes. Urbino hadn't noticed cigarettes in the apartment on his previous visits. Was it possible that she had taken up the habit – or returned to it – as a consequence of Albina's death and the break-in?

‘Everyone in the house feels as safe now as the Contessa Barbara in her palazzo,' she said. ‘As for me, I'm not waking up every two minutes during the night and listening for every strange sound.'

‘That's good to hear. But it still must be difficult to be alone now that Albina is gone.'

‘Yes. I miss her.'

Giulietta's voice quavered. She had hardly any make-up on, none of the bright red rouge and lipstick she had worn when he had visited her last.

‘Of course you do. All those years.'

Urbino picked up the Cynar and took a little sip.

‘I've been thinking of something that might make you feel better. It should make us all feel better, you, me, the contessa, all of her friends.'

‘What's that?'

It was one of the things that Urbino had run through his mind on the
altana
.

‘You know I'm a writer, Giulietta,' he began.

‘Yes. I saw your books in the window of a store near the piazza, but they were in English.'

‘I've decided to write a little book. About Albina. And I'll write it in Italian.'

Giulietta took a sip of her Cynar.

‘A book about Albina?'

‘Yes.'

The book would be a convenient excuse for the questions he planned to ask her and others about Albina. Most of the people acquainted with him knew about his sleuthing, and any questions from him following a death risked being placed in this category. But they were also aware of his biographies, and by drawing attention to this other interest of his, he might be able to throw them off the track or slightly disorient them, enough to gain an advantage. But aside from being a camouflage, the book would also be a nice tribute to the woman. He would have it published at his own expense.

Jesuits had put their stamp on Urbino at an impressionable age. Their habit of sophistical argumentation and explanation was much too expedient to abandon, especially in his detecting work. His plan to write something about Albina was a good example, but he needed Giulietta's approval to make the truthful deception as smooth and effective as possible.

‘But Albina wasn't famous,' Giulietta protested. ‘She didn't do anything important.'

‘That's true. She had a simple life, but simple lives can be the most beautiful. They can be very interesting in their own way. Most of the saints were simple people.'

Urbino feared that he might have gone too far. Giulietta didn't strike him as a pious woman. Even if she had been, it was doubtful whether she would have been sympathetic to any comparison between her sister and a saint or, in fact, any comparison that placed Giulietta in a lesser light. Urbino tried to repair whatever damage he might have done.

‘What I mean is that everyone is important, even in apparently little ways. Think of the good things you've done for others and for your sister that have made their lives better. Just the other day you went out and cleaned up the area under the
sotto-portico
where Albina died. You did it for her, didn't you?' Giulietta gave him a somewhat distracted nod in response. ‘That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.'

Giulietta straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat.

‘Well, I suppose that would be nice of you, to write something about Albina.' But there wasn't much enthusiasm in her words. She drained her Cynar. ‘How can I help you?'

‘I'd like to know as much about her as you'd care to share with me. You spent your whole lives together. I won't be able to put most of it in the book but the book will only be the better for knowing as much about her as possible.'

Giulietta poured herself another glass of Cynar and stared down at the viscous brown liquid. She seemed to be assessing what he had said.

‘I'll tell you whatever you want to know,' she said as she looked up. ‘My memory is good. Albina used to ask me about things that had happened in the past. I remembered our first house better than she did, even though I'm five years younger. We lived in Castello, behind the Church of San Francesco di Paola.'

This was the quarter where the Le Due Sorelle was located. Giulietta went on to describe the apartment in detail, and even – it seemed – every doll the two sisters had ever had. Nursing his Cynar, Urbino soon settled back for a narrative of Albina's life in which Giulietta played a central role.

It was a familiar tale: two daughters brought up in a strict family, sheltered, uneducated beyond secondary school, unmarried, without any close relatives after the deaths in quick succession of their parents. They had moved to the smaller apartment in Dorsoduro twenty years before, where it would appear they had lived together in a shifting alliance of intimacy and distance, affection and coolness. Neither had ventured far from Venice. They had once made a trip together to Rome, and on another occasion to distant cousins in Treviso. Giulietta had once spent a week alone in Vienna with an Austrian woman, a regular visitor to Venice whom she had met through her dressmaking business which at one time seemed to have been much more flourishing than it was now.

Contrary to what was usually the case, Giulietta's account became less detailed as it moved to more recent events. He listened, he nodded, he sifted what she was saying for anything relevant. Nothing particular struck him.

‘I noticed that Clementina Foppa was at the funeral Mass,' he said when Giulietta had finished. ‘Did Albina know her well?'

‘I don't think she ever mentioned the name. Which one was she?'

Urbino described the
cartaio
. Giulietta shook her head.

‘I don't remember her.'

‘She told me something very nice about Albina,' Urbino continued. ‘She helped a German man who was sick. She went all the way from Florian's to Perla Beato's
erboristeria
to get herbs for him. Like the ones she brought you.'