Poisonville (11 page)

“Francesco has to work tonight. I’ll expect you.”

Or maybe they met whenever Giovanna and I were fighting. We’d certainly had our fights. And whenever we had a fight, Giovanna refused to spend the night with me. Sometimes lasted for days on end. Then everything was fine again, and we’d celebrate the end of hostilities in bed, after an intimate candlelight dinner. Business as usual in the life of any couple. Thinking back on our more recent quarrels, I found myself thinking that they occasionally seemed almost contrived. I had taken for granted that it was the stress over the impending wedding, but now that I thought about it, it was entirely possible that Giovanna had staged them in order to have an extra opportunity to see her secret lover. Giovanna wanted to break up with him, but he was trying to hold the relationship together. So she was obliged to see him more often, in order to persuade him to accept the end of their clandestine liaison. There is no question they had to meet at night, because it would be practically impossible for Giovanna to get away successfully during the day. Between the time she had to spend in the law office, in court, and with me, she didn’t have a spare minute. We rarely ate lunch together, but Prunella had told me that she almost always came home for lunch. And during the day, the town has a thousand eyes, a thousand tongues. Giovanna’s little town house was in a private and discreet neighborhood, but her lover certainly couldn’t park out front. Her neighbors were accustomed to seeing my car parked there. He must have left his car in an adjoining street and then walked to her house. I thought of mentioning that point to Mele: maybe he should question the neighbors. It also occurred to me that the forensic office must have done some sloppy work if they had failed to find any traces of the murderer. Maybe I could find those traces. I knew Giovanna and perhaps I would know just where to look. Five minutes later, I was heading over to her house.

I did what I presumed her lover must have done, and parked my car in the parallel side street. Dogs barked as I walked past, but no one paid any attention. I opened the garden gate and walked up to the front door. I broke the seals of the district attorney’s office, and I pulled my set of keys out of my overcoat pocket. I still had my keys because the detectives hadn’t gotten around to confiscating them from me yet. A few seconds later, I was in the house. I made sure that the shutters were tightly fastened, and turned on the light.

I was torn between two emotions: sheer terror at the idea of being caught, and pure determination to find any evidence that would provide me with her lover’s identity. The house was a mess, after the going-over that the Carabinieri had given it. There were splotches and smears of grey fingerprint powder everywhere. I found nothing. Finally, I gathered my courage and walked into the bedroom. I wanted to find out the truth about something that had been tormenting me from the moment I had discovered that my fiancée had a lover. What I was about to do was absolutely necessary: unless I resolved this, it would become an obsession. I swung open the twin doors of the large armoire and began rummaging through the drawers. I found my hands filled with Giovanna’s lingerie; my fingers explored the light silky objects. I had purchased almost every item for her, in costly boutiques, in cities that were of course far away from our hometown. I had always been a lover of fine underthings. And Giovanna responded to this fantasy of mine. I liked watching her as she slowly undressed, removing her silk thigh-highs and her bra, and then slipping under the sheets next to me with nothing on but her panties. She wanted me to slip them off her, down her legs, but only at the last moment. In the days since the murder I had often wondered if she had offered herself to her lover wearing “my” lingerie. As I rummaged through the armoire, I hoped I would find different lingerie. And fortunately, one drawer yielded up the hoped-for trove of ordinary, unremarkable underthings. I felt a tremendous sense of relief. Giovanna might have betrayed me, but at least she had made sure to protect our little secret. Giovanna did love me after all.

I heard a muffled noise from downstairs. I immediately turned off the light and looked down over the railing. I was certain that it was the Carabinieri, and I racked my brain to come up with a plausible excuse. Then the cone of light from a flashlight illuminated the floor.

He came in the back door, I thought. In a split second I came to the conclusion that it must be the killer, and I hurtled down the stairs.

He heard me coming and pointed the flashlight straight into my eyes. A roar issued from my chest, and I lunged at him. We tumbled to the ground. I was shouting as I tried to hit him. He defended himself by clubbing me in the throat with his flashlight. It was a lucky blow, and it left me gasping.

He took advantage of my helplessness to get to his feet and shine the flashlight on me. I could hear him panting. I was trying to gather my strength to attack him again. He wouldn’t get away from me.

The cone of light swiveled around, and I suddenly found myself looking at a drawn, creased face, framed by long dirty grey hair, pulled into a ponytail with a rubber band.

“It’s me, Alvise Barovier,” he said. “Giovanna’s father.”

My father invited me over to his house for dinner. He only did that when he had something important to tell me. Otherwise, we’d meet at Nevio, his favorite restaurant, a short distance from his law firm. It used to be a country inn, without any furnishings to speak of but with incredible cooking. The food was still first class, but an architect had transformed it into a horrible deluxe restaurant, with walls painted Venetian pink, and tables and chairs in the Parisian brasserie style. Papa’s cook was good, too.

“Tagliolini in hot broth, assorted boiled meat with a side dish of peas and potato purée,” the butler announced as he set the tureen on the table. “Nothing could be better when it’s this cold.”

Papa asked him to open a bottle of Merlot. It was from Selvaggia’s wine cellars. The Conte Giannino, earlier than all the others, had grasped the potential of Venetian wines at a time when most of the local farmers produced low-quality vintages. He had hired a famous Piedmontese enologist. In just a few years’ time his vineyard had established a national reputation for itself, and his wines were being praised in trade magazines. After his death, the Contessa had ignored the wine business, leaving all the details to the enologist and to Filippo, who wanted to carry on his father’s work. Filippo had been very fond of his father.

“I talked to the district attorney,” Papa announced, as he poured me a glass of wine. “He assured me that he will personally keep an eye on the investigation, though he’s not going to replace Zan.”

“Is that all?” I blurted out in disappointment.

“Zan will do his duty. Marchesin is a tough old nut, and he’ll keep me posted on progress, so we can offer suggestions, too.”

“I would have preferred a more talented prosecutor.”

“That’s the best I could do,” he defended himself. “Problems with the internal workings of the local magistrature—these are problems we have to deal with on a daily basis in court.”

“Mele hinted to me that he needs a longer leash, more freedom to take initiatives of his own.”

He nodded his head. “Understood. I’ll pass the message on to Marchesin.”

I changed the subject. “Did Giovanna ever talk to you about her father’s trial?”

“No. And I was glad to avoid the subject. That whole matter caused Giovanna a lot of pain, and I didn’t want to open old wounds.”

“She was certain that her father was innocent.”

Papa looked at me in surprise. “Really? She told you so?”

“Once, a long time ago.”

“I understand. Alvise was her father, but I was his defense lawyer and, unfortunately, I have to say that his guilt was unmistakable. He was loaded down with debt, the bank had turned off the faucets, and so he set fire to the furniture factory in order to lay his hands on the insurance money. As a result, the watchman and his wife were burned alive . . .”

“What was his defense?”

“The worst imaginable. He supplied a false alibi and forced me to put forward the theory of a plot carried out against him by mysterious enemies. With no evidence, without a single name. It was just pitiful. I took his case only because we were childhood friends and we had grown up together.”

“What was he like?”

He shrugged. “A whoremonger and a gambler. In his personal life and in business. Why do you want to know?”

“I’m trying to put together the pieces of Giovanna’s life. I’m trying to understand her. At the time, I was in boarding school, I didn’t know what was happening. Maybe I’ve missed something important.”

My father spooned a little horseradish sauce onto the breast of chicken on his plate. He sighed. “I’m worried about you, Francesco,” he said. “You need to find the strength to strike back. Think of your future instead of torturing yourself like this.”

“It’s not easy.”

“I know that. That’s why it’s important for you to come to work in the law firm as soon as possible.” He cut a forkful of chicken and raised it to his mouth, studying my reaction as he did so. There was no reaction. “I shouldn’t talk about it yet, but you are a future partner in the firm, as well as my son . . .” he continued in the voice he used in court to capture the attention of the court. “The Torrefranchi Foundation has decided to move the entire group out of the country. We are preparing an industrial site just outside of Timisoara, in Romania. All that will remain here are a few operations that are either distinctly local or very prestigious, like the wine production.”

I gaped at him in astonishment. Papa had certainly succeeded in capturing my full and undivided attention. For the past year he had traveled frequently to Romania. He had told me that he was keeping track of cases for a few different clients. What he was really doing was organizing the wholesale transfer of the Foundation.

“Why?” I asked.

“The group is no longer competitive. High operating costs and too little investment in technological research and development. The Chinese are eating our lunch on a daily basis,” he answered.

“What about the law firm?”

He smiled with satisfaction. “That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. In the early days, I’m going to have to spend a substantial part of my time in Timisoara, and I need someone to run the law firm while I’m gone.” He pointed his fork at me. “I was planning to tell you about it when you got back from your honeymoon.”

Just a few days earlier, I would have been overjoyed, but now I felt empty and listless. I shook my head. “I can’t do it, Papa.”

He wasn’t giving up. “In two days I’m leaving for Timisoara. Why don’t you come with me? A change of scenery would do you good.”

I laid the fork and knife down on my plate. The time had come to say something important. “Before I take on something like that, I have to find out who killed Giovanna. I don’t think I can go on living and working in this town without that knowledge. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Papa nodded, seriously. “Understood. If that’s how you feel about it, take all the time you need.”

As soon as it was dark, I got into my car and drove until I turned down a dirt road. I pulled up outside an old mansion that was in ruins. Alvise Barovier stood in the open front door, smoking as he leaned against the jamb. He looked like a hobo. I followed him inside. He led me to a large room that must once have been a drawing room. Now it was decorated with a sofa that was shedding all its stuffing from various lacerations, sitting in front of a fireplace in which a fire burned merrily. He pointed to the sofa. I shook my head no. I didn’t like him. The night before, after our tussle in Giovanna’s house, he had jabbered out a disjointed story, most of which I had failed to understand. He had begged me to tell no one that he was in town. He promised to tell me everything, the next day. And now here I was, in that hovel, ready to listen.

“I don’t know where to begin,” he said uncomfortably.

“Why are you hiding? Why didn’t you come to Giovanna’s funeral?” I bore in on him harshly.

He threw more wood on the fire. “I don’t want anyone to see me until I’ve uncovered the truth.”

“Really,” I replied ironically.

He looked hard at me. “Sit down, boy,” he ordered. “I have a long story to tell you.”

After he was released from prison, Alvise Barovier couldn’t come back to town. The guilty verdict and jail sentence had ruined him. Everyone had abandoned him. His relatives and the friends with whom he had sipped thousands of aperitifs, with whom he had played soccer as a boy, had all turned their backs. Even Prunella refused to so much as see him after his arrest. Only Giovanna had always believed in his innocence, but she was only a little girl. There was nothing she could do to help him. After traveling around Europe, he arrived in Argentina, like an Italian emigrant in the late nineteenth century. He had found work in a vineyard, near the city of Mendoza. The vineyard was owned by a family of Venetian origin. Over all those years, he stayed in sporadic contact with his daughter. The occasional Christmas card mailed in secret. Prunella refused to allow his name to be spoken under her roof. About six months earlier, he had received a phone call from Giovanna informing him that she had discovered the truth about the fire in the furniture factory. She had refused to say more, but his daughter was overjoyed. “They’ll pay for what they did,” she had said before hanging up. They had spoken on other occasions, and each time Giovanna was more confident and more determined. She had found proof that it was a plot, just as he had always claimed. Then, suddenly, she had stopped calling, and when he called her, Giovanna had been evasive. She had asked him to be patient. When the time was ripe, she’d get in touch with him. Instead, she had never called or written him again. And so he decided to return home, to discover the reason for her odd behavior. But the very same night he came back to town, Giovanna had been murdered.

“They wanted to keep her from talking,” he said when he was done, his eyes swollen with tears.