Deadly to the Sight (19 page)

“Was he better when he came back?”

“Who knows? He's sly. You don't know half of what he's thinking or feeling. He can keep a secret to the death. Nina probably thought he had forgotten about Evelina and Gino, but as far as he's concerned, he's as married as the day she left. He probably still expects her to return. Nina would have croaked if that had ever happened when she was alive!” Her eyes twinkled with malicious amusement. “And the thought of Gino must be a knife in the heart. I hope he'll be happier now, but Nina's death isn't enough. He'd need Evelina and Gino, but that won't happen, not in this life.”

Urbino needed one more piece of information.

“In what way did Nina poke her nose into other people's business?”

“Enjoyed hurting people by revealing their secrets. Sometimes she tried to make money from it. My friend Bettina gave her a sack of it to keep her from ruining her daughter's reputation. About something that happened all the way in Bologna! I would have told her to scream it from the top of the church tower and then jump off!”

“She needed money so badly?”

“Wanted it! And wanted to make people suffer one way or another, either by forking it over or being tortured and shamed. Probably thought she was going to live forever on pure meanness and a good bank account. I figure she was storing up a pile to buy out Regina Bella.”

“Does Regina plan to sell the restaurant?”

“She'll have to, the way she spends money! Nina wanted to be
padrona
and lord it over everyone. And it would have been security for Salvatore. No matter what he thought about her and how nasty she was, she loved him. He was the only thing she had.”

“When did Signor Crivelli die?”

“A long time ago. Kidney disease.”

Urbino got up to turn the record over. As the orchestral interlude started, he asked her why there wasn't any lace in her apartment.

“I could never learn one stitch! It's better not to be reminded of one's failures.”

They listened to the interlude. Carolina closed her eyes and hummed along in excruciating accompaniment with the chorus, stroking Mimi. When the music imitated the sound of birds, the cat's ears perked up, but she remained sleeping.

“Poor Butterfly!” Carolina said. “Soon she'll be dead—all over again!”

“I'm afraid I'll have to leave you to face the sad occasion on your own.”

“Will you see the German woman? She brought something for me the other day. Took me by surprise. In and out in a few minutes. I don't want it in the house!”

She indicated a cassette box of Wagner's
Tristan und Isolde
on the mantelpiece.

“But it isn't too much different from
Madama Butterfly
, is it?” Urbino asked with a smile. “Love and death.”

Carolina didn't look convinced.

He slipped the cassette box into his jacket pocket.

“One thing more,” Carolina called out when he reached the door. “Tell the Contessa that no one on Burano would have believed Nina if she had said anything against
her.
”

Her brightly painted lips curved in a smile.

“But did she?”

“
I
never heard anything, and as you know, Signor Urbino, I hear everything, one way or another!”

18

Urbino approached the door of the Casa Verde. Before he had a chance to ring it, the Contessa's tenant from the purple building next door called out a greeting. She was shaking out a rug from an upstairs window. She informed him that “the foreign lady” had gone out an hour before and hadn't returned yet.

He slowly made his way in the direction of the central square. The fog had grown thicker and was invading the scene around him. It was seeping through the drying nets and swirling around the upturned boats.

He mulled over what he had learned from Carolina Bruni. She had been a rich source of information, especially about Salvatore's marriage, Nina's role in its breakup, and Salvatore's behavior afterward. Urbino saw no reason to question most of what she had told him, at least up to a certain point. One of the tricks of both his sleuthing and his writing was figuring out what that point might be. Going beyond it could be disastrous. A whole biography, or large parts of it, could be tainted.

As for these investigations that he had become more and more involved in over the years, the stakes were nothing less than life and death.

Nina Crivelli was already dead. Salvatore's wife and son had disappeared twenty years ago, and had never returned to Burano, or so it seemed. If one or both of them had died, surely some word would have reached Burano. The content of every postcard Evelina had sent Salvatore had been common knowledge. Yet Salvatore had his secretive side, according to Carolina. His mother's eyes and those of Burano were ever vigilant, but they could have been deceived.

What would Salvatore do to get his wife and child back? What might he already have done? That he might have harmed his own mother was a possibility that Urbino needed to confront, disturbing though it was to his sensibilities. But he couldn't allow himself to be hampered by this blind spot anymore than by others he knew he had to guard himself against. Salvatore's life with his mother, from all reports, had been a torment. If he had done something as monstrous as kill Nina, what had brought him to do it? To say that he might have snapped after all these years wasn't enough for Urbino. There would have to have been something outside the small confines of their apartment that had triggered it.

That there had been a trigger, Urbino was fairly certain, but Salvatore was far from being the only one it could have set off.

By this time Urbino had reached the Piazza Galuppi. A mother and her little girl smiled at him as they walked past. Both of them had the delicate faces and masses of bright hair that Burano has long been famous for. A few moments later, the sight of two handsome men lounging against one of the buildings reminded him that the island had once had a reputation for something in addition to feminine beauty, lace, and fishing. Men, both Venetians and foreigners, had often sought their illicit assignations here. The Baron Corvo, buried on San Michele, had spent many languorous hours with his gondolier of the moment, as Frieda had drawn attention to on the night of her party.

Urbino stepped into the Oratorio Santa Barbara. As he contemplated the huge Crucifixion scene by the young Tiepolo, he considered, with almost a sense of relief, something unrelated to his previous line of thought.

It was the Contessa's encounter with Nina Crivelli near the portrait of Santa Barbara in Santa Maria Formosa. Nina's behavior had been more or less consistent until the entrance of the person who, a few minutes later, revealed himself to be Giorgio. What might this mean? What secrets might she have had from him? Or could Nina have been sly enough to deflect the Contessa's suspicions on to Giorgio in this way? If she had, however, it hadn't had its desired effect.

Urbino turned his speculations to Giorgio's presence in the church. Was he there by chance or had he been in search of Nina, perhaps to prevent her from saying anything against him? That he might have gone to Santa Maria Formosa to protect the Contessa from Nina was not inconceivable, except that Urbino felt himself resisting the idea. He took note, once again, of another one of his blind spots. He wasn't well disposed toward Giorgio and might be too willing to think ill of him. How much of this was because of Habib's obvious admiration of the boatman was not clear in his mind.

After leaving the Oratorio, Urbino went to the Lace School a short distance away. A sign announced that the museum was closed for repairs until March. Urbino was disappointed. He had hoped that the women who sat making lace as part of the museum's exhibits might have been encouraged to tell him a few things he didn't already know about Nina and Salvatore.

Out in the square again, Urbino skirted the Church of San Martino, where a fishing net was drying on one of its walls. He looked up at the leaning campanile.

It was from here that Carolina had said Nina could have shouted out whatever secrets she knew about her for all Carolina cared, and then jumped off. Urbino agreed with the spirit, if not exactly the letter of Carolina's comment. The only effective way to deal with blackmailers was to break the tyranny of fear and silence they thrived on.

No sooner did he have the thought than its naivete struck him. Most people in the power of a blackmailer saw no escape except through money or murder. Carolina's friend Bettina had paid up for the sake of her daughter's reputation. How many other people in Burano, or even Venice, had done the same? And had some desperate person, perhaps even innocent of any crime or indiscretion, seen no choice but to remove Nina from the scene completely? And had the lace handkerchief been his, or her, way of showing that her mouth had been stopped forever?

The bell sounded the noon hour. Urbino went down the Via Galuppi to Il Piccolo Nettuno.

Two tables were set out on the pavement. At one was an elderly couple, both with white hair and elegant clothes. Muffled in scarves, but otherwise giving no sign that it wasn't the warmest of months, they spoke enthusiastically in German. Salvatore came out with a tray of steaming plates. He glanced at Urbino, but didn't give a flicker of recognition.

Inside, only one table in the far corner was occupied. A thin woman in her seventies, wearing a faded blue shawl, sat alone. A plate of pasta and a half-filled bottle of wine were in front of her. She nodded to Urbino, and returned to her meal.

Urbino seated himself at the same table he and Habib had lunched at a few weeks before. Low voices came from the kitchen. He ran his eye over the menu. He wasn't hungry.

Salvatore came inside. He poured more wine into the woman's glass and brought her more bread before coming over to Urbino.

“My regrets on the death of your mother, Signor Crivelli.”

“Thank you, signore. Would you like some wine?”

Urbino chose a Bardolino.

“I'll have a salad and a plate of the same pasta the woman over there has. She seems to be enjoying it a great deal.”

Salvatore made a little face. It might have been a frown or an attempt at a smile.

“Very good, signore.”

He nodded and walked into the back of the room. He appeared to be steady on his feet today. Perhaps now that his mother was dead he was drinking less. This possibility was quickly driven from Urbino's mind, however. In one of the mirrors he caught a glimpse of Salvatore raising a small bottle to his lips, then thrusting it into the deep pocket of his apron.

Urbino had known that he wouldn't be likely to have much conversation with the man other than whatever was natural between a waiter and a customer. Surely Salvatore knew about his relationship with the Contessa and, even more to the point, his reputation as an amateur sleuth. On both counts he wouldn't be receptive, whether or not there was good reason to suspect him in the death of his own mother. He had already had enough meddling in his life. It would be natural for him to resent any more.

There was another way of arguing it, however, Urbino reminded himself. If Salvatore were guilty, he would probably be inclined to put Urbino off the scent by being friendlier, to both him and the Contessa. Instead, he was doing the opposite.

And it was also possible that, with his mother now dead, resentment had faded. In its place there could be regret that he hadn't been a better son, even if he had deserved a better mother. Even Urbino, who had often been told by his own parents and others that he was a good son, had suffered his own peculiar kind of guilt when they had both died in an automobile accident. Urbino had seen too many ways that grief could manifest itself, and in the most unlikely of people, to feel secure about easily identifying its true expression. He—

“Urbino, how nice to see you!” Regina Bella broke into his thoughts. She wore one of her stylish outfits. She looked as if she had lost weight since Frieda's party. “I hope you're enjoying the meal? Why only salad and pasta? You're not still ill, I hope? What brings you here? Are you alone, or is Barbara somewhere? And Habib?”

Her questions came so thick and fast that at first he could do little more than smile and nod. She was filled with nervous energy.

He asked her to sit down.

“Just for a few minutes,” she said. “Would you mind if I smoked?”

She lit up a cigarette and seated herself. But the next moment, she was up again to greet five French tourists, whom she escorted to a large table in the back.

When she returned, they chatted briefly about Burano and a project to drain its canals. Then he mentioned that he had visited Carolina Bruni. Regina stiffened and colored. She stubbed out her cigarette, and made a joke about the woman's voice.

Salvatore came to clear the table. Urbino ordered a coffee.

“Salvatore is back at work, I see. It's good to return to a regular schedule after a bereavement, if one feels up to it, of course. Considering that his mother had her heart attack right here, though, I thought he might have some reluctance.”

Regina followed Salvatore with her eyes as he went into the kitchen. Before she brought them back to they glanced down at the floor a few feet from their table.

“It's the way he wanted it. I suggested that he take more time off. You'll have to excuse me, but I want to catch the next boat.”

“I have the Contessa's boat. Giorgio could drop you anywhere you like. You'd get there much quicker.”

“That's all right.” She got up. “You enjoy your coffee. Have some of the tiramisu—on the house. Nella made it this morning.
Ciao
!”

Urbino decided against the dessert, but he lingered over his coffee. A few more customers came in. Salvatore was busy. Although there weren't many tables, it was a lot of work for one person. Nina had frequently helped. In the light of her death, Il Piccolo Nettuno would see some changes, but not, Urbino suspected, the kind that the old lace maker had hoped for, if she had lived.