Liquid Desires (34 page)

When Eugene had finished and they were getting out of the boat, however, he hadn't forgotten what had set him off in the first place. He asked Urbino again to decide if and when Evangeline could come to Venice for a quiet little get-together for old times' sake.

“No strings attached, Urbino.”

Urbino didn't believe this, but surprised himself by saying, without having made any decision that he could consciously remember, “All right, Eugene. Why not have Evangeline join you in a day or two?”

Urbino suspected that all the apparently unresolved history and unanswered questions of the Brollos and the Contessa and Alvise were lurking behind his decision.

“Yes,” Urbino said again as they went into the Cipriani lobby. “Tell her to come. We can make a reservation for her at the Cipriani right now.”

“Of course, Urbino! You didn't think Evie or I presumed she'd be stayin' with you, did you? Not yet anyway,” Eugene said with a laugh, leaving Urbino with the feeling that he very well might have made the wrong decision after all.

7

When Urbino left Eugene at the Cipriani Hotel at two, he knew that Zuin's gallery would be closed for a few more hours. He went back to the Palazzo Uccello and called the Contessa to give her his suspicions about Occhipinti.

“I insist that you let me talk to Silvestro,” the Contessa said. “I might be able to find out what he's hiding. There are things you can do there. Besides, you have Eugene.”

Ah yes, Eugene, Urbino thought—and also Evangeline within the next few days. He had yet to tell the Contessa about that.

“But, Barbara, Silvestro might be withholding information not because of you and Alvise but because of himself.”

“You mean the poor little man might be immobilized between wanting to give me proof that Alvise
wasn't
Flavia's father and not wanting to incriminate himself? But that would mean that—that
he
was Flavia's father! Or that
he
had pushed her into the Grand Canal! How ridiculous!”

“Ridiculous or not, Barbara, be careful. He'd never do anything to hurt you, I'm sure, but don't forget that one of the clippings contained
his
picture as well as Alvise's. And I'm pretty sure I saw him in Venice on Tuesday and that he was at the Casa Trieste.

“I can depend on Silvestro's honesty more than I can your eyes,
caro!
At any rate, do you really believe that silliness about criminals revisiting the scene of the crime? If you do, then what about Madge Lennox?” she asked sharply, revealing once again her antipathy to the retired actress. “Maybe you should be looking into
her
affairs instead of Silvestro's. She says she was in Milan when Flavia died, but how do we know she traveled on to Milan when she got to Venice with Flavia? She could have waited until the girl left the station and stalked her!”

Urbino's mind started to wander as he thought about Madge Lennox. He was pulled back into what the Contessa was saying, however, when she mentioned the clinic outside Milan that Graziella Gnocato had named—where Regina Brollo had gone to give birth to Flavia twenty-six years ago.

“I did what I could,
caro
, just as I promised. Dear Corrado helped me again, bless the man, but there's no record of Regina Brollo having been at the clinic. The woman that Corrado put me in touch with has been there since the early sixties. She said they lost some records and drugs from a break-in a few years after she started to work there, but she does vaguely remember the Brollo name. I tried my best, but that's all I came up with.”

Urbino commended her on her sleuthing. If this case hadn't so directly involved her, he would have liked both of them to have interviewed some of the suspects together. Her perspective was one that he valued above anyone else's.

“As I've told you before, Urbino, I just don't feel easy about putting so much faith in the words of a possibly senile old woman and a man who's probably always in an opium trance or something! Maybe Mirko
thinks
he heard that argument at Lago di Garda and convinced Flavia that she did, too. They might have taken opium together! Friendship is a fine and beautiful thing—look at Alvise and Silvestro! look at you and me!—But when you put a beautiful girl like Flavia together with someone like Mirko, you're bound to find the Mirkos of this world yearning for more than friendship.”

“Couldn't it also be the other way around, Barbara?” Urbino asked, disagreeing with her so as to get her reaction. “Maybe it was Flavia who yearned for more.”

The Contessa's response was a healthy laugh.

“I think I know where that idea comes from,
caro!
I mean Evangeline Hennepin Macintyre and whatever her name is now.
I've
seen the sweet girl's photograph. Not exactly a Flavia Brollo, no—but very attractive
and
very determined-looking. You're thinking of
her
yearnings, aren't you?”

So far was it from what he
had
been thinking about Flavia and Ladislao Mirko—and yet so close to what he hadn't yet told her—that for a few moments he didn't know what to say.

“Not that I think you might share anything with the drug-crazed and homely Mirko except the possibility of his having been pursued. He, too, might have wanted to run as far in the opposite direction as he could, although I doubt it.”

With not a little satisfaction, Urbino finally broke his silence to tell the Contessa that she was, in the matter of Evangeline, completely wrong—at least as of that afternoon. He wasn't running any longer.

“I told Eugene that I'd like to see her. She'll be here soon.”

“By whatever twisted logic or guilt did you come to that decision,
caro
? I don't know whether to be proud or appalled that you decided all by yourself—without
me
, I mean. I think your decision has something to do with Flavia Brollo.”

“And in what way would that be?” Urbino asked. Hadn't he been thinking something similar in the gondola across the lagoon to the Cipriani Hotel?

“I wouldn't embarrass either of us by daring to bring it to my lips. Good-bye!”

8

After several cups of coffee, a shower, and a change of clothes, Urbino went to Zuin's gallery. Urbino ignored Zuin's look of surprised annoyance and immediately brought up the argument Zuin had had with Flavia at the Casa Trieste before her death. When something seemed to collapse in Zuin, Urbino realized that Annabella Brollo had told him the truth.

“Sit down,” Zuin said in an unnaturally low voice. He sat across from Urbino. “How did you find out?”

“That's not important. You went to see Flavia to convince her to stay away from Novembrini, didn't you? You even gave her a large sum of money. Did you know that she gave some of it back to your daughter Tina to help her set up her apartment?”

“Tina?” A pained look passed over his lined face. “I don't deny I went there to talk with Flavia—and yes, I gave her money—a lot of it. Ten million lire.” About eight thousand dollars. “It was my commission from the sale of some of Bruno's paintings. I know it was a lot of money but I thought that if I could get rid of Flavia—I mean, if I could get her to stop being a thorn in Bruno's side—then he'd be a lot happier and productive and make that amount for me ten times over. Bruno didn't know about anything. He still doesn't. I wouldn't want him to know—or Tina either. I know it wasn't the right thing to do.”

“When did you realize that? Before or after Flavia was found dead? I advise you to go to the Questura and tell them about this whole thing.”

“Listen here, Macintyre,” Zuin said, standing up. “I had nothing to do with Flavia's death! I just told her it would be best if she stayed away from Bruno—and best for Bruno, too! She just took it as a big joke, made me feel like a fool, said she'd keep the money and decide what she wanted to do with it and with herself. Everyone's made a mistake about her. She was strong and could take care of herself.”

“But she
was
murdered.”

Fear crossed the man's face, and he ran his hand through the long gray hair at the nape of his neck. He sat down heavily.

“But who would want to murder Flavia?”

Any number of people, Urbino answered him silently. Zuin looked at him. Urbino still said nothing as he waited to see whom the art dealer would defend first—his daughter Tina or Novembrini.

When he had finished, Urbino was fairly certain that, despite the lies and maneuverings of Zuin, Novembrini, and perhaps even Tina, none of them was Flavia's murderer. This wasn't the same thing as saying, however, that they hadn't unwittingly played a role in her death.

Before Urbino left Zuin, he asked him one more question.

“Eugene said that someone else was bidding against Novembrini's painting of Flavia. Who was it?”

When Zuin named the person, Urbino nodded his head. It made perfect sense. Who else, indeed?

9

On saturday morning Urbino and Eugene took their postponed outing to Burano. It was a full week since Flavia's body had surfaced at the Palazzo Guggenheim. Urbino thought that a change of scene away from Venice and Asolo, both of them associated as they were with Flavia and his investigations, might do him some good. It might help clear his mind and perhaps bring him closer to seeing the pattern he knew was there in Flavia's death.

Burano, with its pastel houses and little canals, its decorated boats and draped fishing nets, never failed to lift Urbino's spirits. Eugene wasn't immune to its attractions either, having said several times within the first hour of their arrival that it was “as pretty as a picture.” He had already bought a fistful of postcards and a pile of decorative place mats, but the purchases had in no way taken the edge off his appetite for things more expensive.

“Oh, look, there's another little old lady sewin' away or tattin' or whatever you call lacemakin'. See if
she
has some.”

By “some,” Eugene meant four matching lace fans that “
looked
old.” He didn't want any real antique fans—not, he emphasized, because he was unwilling to pay the price but because they might fall apart when May-Foy, his two daughters, and Evangeline used them. Urbino and Eugene had already approached half a dozen women and looked at a large assortment of fans, but Eugene hadn't found any to suit him.

The woman Eugene had drawn Urbino's attention to was sitting in a chair in front of a lemon-yellow house. She could have been any one of the other lacemakers they had already tried to do business with. It wasn't only that she was typical of the rest. It was something more—something that struck to the heart of what Urbino considered the essential inbred quality of this lagoon island. He suspected that families had a long tradition of intermarrying with not-too-distant cousins. He saw it in the faces as well as the infirmities—there was a considerable percentage of cripples, for one thing. It was only his little theory, however, one which he had never tried to verify.

This particular Buranella lacemaker was in her seventies, with pure white hair pulled completely back from a round face. She wore a black dress, small pearl earrings and, of course, glasses, for none of the women seemed to escape years at their skill without damaging their eyesight. A
tombolo
cushion was on her lap to help her with the lacemaking. Another cushion supported the small of her back. Her feet, shod in low black shoes, were propped on a stool.

Unlike the other lacemakers they had met today, she spoke English. Eugene was happy to be able to speak with her directly rather than through Urbino, whom he somehow blamed for not having yet found the fans. Urbino left Eugene to his negotiations while he wandered a short distance on his own, telling Eugene to call him if he needed any help or wanted his opinion.

Urbino ducked under a line of laundry strung across the little square on the canal. White lace curtains billowed from the windows of a fuchsia house and gave glimpses of a woman, almost a replica of the others, bent over her work.

Although Urbino had hoped for a respite from thoughts about Flavia here on Burano, he now found himself plunged into them once again. His thoughts were not unlike the forms in
The Sun in Its Casket
, the Tanguy at the Guggenheim—amorphous, deliquescent, fluid, teasing him with an elusive meaning. So much seemed at the point of coming together, but not quite yet.

Perhaps what was making things difficult, Urbino thought, was that Flavia's murder could have resulted from not just one strand in her life but from the disastrous knitting together of several on that crucial last night she was seen alive. Urbino's intuition, something he trusted almost as much as his intellect, was sounding the alarm almost as loudly as a fire bell. He had been going mainly under the assumption that a variation of the cliché “
Cherchez la femme
”—in this case, “
Cherchez le père
”—would lead him to Flavia's murderer. He wasn't so sure about this now, but he did believe that the more he continued to learn about Flavia, the more tightly he would close in on the person who had seen no choice but to murder her. He hoped he would be able to identify who it was before the person might strike again.

“Urbino, where have you disappeared to? What do you think of this?”

Urbino rejoined Eugene and the old lacemaker. Eugene was examining a pink lace parasol.

“She don't have any fans but maybe this will be nice for May-Foy. Don't know if it'll do much good in the hot Louisiana sun but May-Foy will get a kick out of just carryin' it around. Maybe she can use it for Mardi Gras. I think I'll take it.”

After Eugene bought the parasol, they sat at an outside table at a restaurant on Via Baldassare Galuppi. It was perhaps inevitable that Urbino's thoughts now took the turn they did as he watched the crowds pass on this main thoroughfare, only half listening to Eugene run on about the leaning campanile. Because the street was named after the Buranello composer who was the subject of Robert Browning's
Toccata of Galuppi's
, Urbino started thinking of Occhipinti. The verses from the poem that Occhipinti had perplexed Madge Lennox with last week at the Contessa's garden party came back to Urbino. The verses had him thinking of not only Occhipinti and Lennox but especially the two dead Brollo women, Regina and Flavia, mother and daughter. How did they go?