Liquid Desires (37 page)

After leaving Nicolina's grave, Urbino wandered into the Russian Orthodox section. Yet another ballet slipper was on Diaghilev's memorial stone. Farther along the wall a bouquet of fresh red roses rested in the arms of the stone effigy of a woman named Sonia. There was no last name. Dead at twenty-two, not much younger than Flavia and—if one could judge by the recumbent statue—just as beautiful.

And just as beautiful as Regina Brollo, whose beauty her daughter Flavia had eerily inherited. If only he could also see in the dead Flavia Alvise's patrician nose, or Lorenzo's musical talent, or—

Urbino stopped himself. This was ridiculous. A person wasn't a neat genetic pie to be sliced up. What did it really mean, for example, that he, Urbino, was half Italian, half Scotch-Irish? He looked a lot less like his own father than he did his great-uncle on his mother's side, a man who had lived not far from Venice.

Urbino made his way to a section of wall devoted to the Brollo dead. It wasn't far from the crematorium, and the sickeningly sweet scent of its smoke hung on the heavy air.

About twenty feet away he saw a man and a woman of late middle age, dressed in black and surrounded by sorrow. They were staring blankly up at the wall. The woman was sobbing, so passionate in her grief that Urbino could read into it a world of other passions, especially in her youth. The man had his arm around her waist. The woman took a black lace handkerchief from her dress and pressed it to her nose.

The man was Lorenzo Brollo and the woman, Violetta Volpi. Brollo kept his arm around his sister-in-law as she wept unrestrainedly on his shoulder. They could let themselves go, since they didn't think there was anyone around to see.

Urbino halted, concealing himself behind the wall of a mausoleum, not wanting to intrude. He could have turned around and left them alone, but of course he didn't.

Uncomfortable but unable to look away, he observed the intimacy of their grief—an intimacy that seemed, in fact, more than that of grief. It went on for long, painful moments until the two of them withdrew as if under a dark cloud.

Urbino stood there, still concealed behind the wall of the mausoleum. He remembered another scene, also not sought out but impossible to turn his eyes from. This was the scene behind the door he had opened during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, surprising Evangeline in the arms of her second cousin, Reid Delisle. When the shock and the pain had dimmed somewhat in the weeks that followed, what surfaced was the grim yet also sad appropriateness in Evangeline's turning to her cousin. Reid was someone who she believed could understand her better—someone who already understood her and her family because he
was
the family, even if the Delisles were on her mother's side. It had been far less a matter of sex than of the family bond. And here in Italy the family bond was even stronger. Flavia Brollo had devoted much of her short life to escaping from it—and might even have died because of it.

Lorenzo and Violetta were now out of sight. Urbino went up to the wall of the Brollo tomb, where there were half a dozen
loculi
, or burial niches. A plaque, with a fresh red rose in a vase next to it, commemorated Regina Brollo. Beside it was another plaque with Flavia's name and dates on it and a rose like the one left for Regina.

Urbino, with the intuitive understanding that often visited him after periods of puzzlement and was usually triggered by some fortuitous contact or observation of others, was almost certain now, with no proof yet, that Mirko had been wrong about the argument at Lago di Garda. Yet he hadn't lied about it either. Standing there in front of the Brollo tomb, after his observation of Lorenzo and Violetta during their unguarded moments of grief, Urbino went over the argument again, with the assumption this time that Flavia
had
been Lorenzo's daughter and that Violetta knew it. This opened a whole new world of speculation for him.

Lorenzo's obviously unfeigned grief helped convince Urbino more than all Brollo's affirmations ever could. Lorenzo was Flavia's father, and Lorenzo had abused his own daughter. But had he also murdered her?

If the presence of Lorenzo and Violetta at Flavia's grave told Urbino so much, the absence of Annabella spoke its own silent volumes. Annabella wasn't there because she didn't want to be there. Annabella wasn't there because she had hated Flavia just as she had hated Regina. Her hatred was like a black, smothering blanket that also covered Violetta, perhaps even Lorenzo, and probably even herself.

Twenty minutes later from the church doorway, Urbino watched Lorenzo and Violetta get into a waiting motorboat. He then took the next vaporetto to the Fondamenta Nuove. From there he went by water taxi to the Palazzo Brollo. If he had some luck, Lorenzo and Violetta weren't going directly back to the Palazzo Brollo.

Urbino got out of the water taxi on the canal embankment behind the building and told the
motoscafista
he could go. He didn't want Lorenzo and Violetta to come up in their own boat and find his waiting.

Urbino went into the little square and looked up at the Brollo windows with their pots of flowers. The windows were shuttered as usual, but the house seemed less forbidding now that he knew some of its secrets. He pushed the bell. There was no answer. Footsteps approached in a
calle
, and Urbino waited apprehensively for someone to appear around the corner. The footsteps continued but no one appeared. A door opened and closed. Then there was silence.

Urbino pushed the bell again. He thought he heard a click in the intercom above the brass bells.

“Signorina Brollo? It's Urbino Macintyre. I was wondering if I could speak with you.”

Silence.

Urbino rang again, but still there was no response. When a motorboat throbbed in the canal behind the Palazzo Brollo, Urbino hurried away, taking back alleys that would lead him circuitously out of the quarter.

He called the Questura from a bar in Campo San Giacomo dell'Orio, first telling Commissario Gemelli what he had learned from Madge Lennox about Lorenzo Brollo's abuse of Flavia.

“Even if it's true, Macintyre, it doesn't mean that he killed her. There's no evidence to support that at all. In fact, there's not even a scrap of evidence that there
was
foul play involved in Flavia Brollo's death.”

Urbino brought up again the wounds on Flavia's head and the fact that no traces of the medication had been found in her system. He then mentioned the argument between Massimo Zuin and Flavia. Gemelli said that Zuin hadn't come to the Questura yet with his story.

“What about the money Zuin gave her?” Urbino asked. “She still had a lot left over even after what she gave to Tina Zuin and the Ricci family. Where is it now?”

“Probably sweeping out to sea or washed up somewhere for some lucky people. It wasn't in her room at the Casa Trieste.

Urbino told him how Mirko had kept some of Flavia's things for himself.

“And maybe he kept the money, too?” Gemelli asked. “But we don't know if there
was
any money left over. She could have given the rest of it away to some other people. She seemed to be in that kind of a mood. Spreading the wealth she no longer had any use for once she decided to kill herself. I'll call Massimo Zuin in, though. I'll even send someone up to Asolo to talk with the American actress again. But even if Lennox had told us about Brollo and his daughter the first time around, it would only have lent more weight to death by suicide. Surely you can see that, Macintyre.”

Not inclined to concede anything, Urbino didn't respond but instead told Gemelli about the death of Mirko's father ten years ago and pointed out that it could be related to Flavia Brollo's murder.

“Flavia Brollo's
death
,” Gemelli corrected him. “You seem to be riding quite a few hobbyhorses these days. The money Flavia Brollo got from Zuin, her possible sexual abuse by Brollo, and now this connection to Ladislao Mirko's father. You're doing more than your usual snooping and legwork, Macintyre. I'm almost inclined to be impressed—but only almost! Of course we looked into the business of Ladislao Mirko's father! That all happened before I came here from Verona, but the police did a thorough job back then. Mirko's father died while he was freebasing cocaine. What is it with you? Don't go around trying to smell out a conspiracy everywhere, making connections to satisfy some perverse need for order! You're so American, Macintyre.”

And with this intended insult, Gemelli hung up. Urbino was left holding the phone, wondering if he should call Gemelli back and tell him about Silvestro Occhipinti's visit to the Casa Trieste after Flavia's death and possibly before. Loyalty to the Contessa, almost second nature to him, held him back.

15

Half an hour later Agata, Mirko's cleaning woman, let Urbino into the Casa Trieste. Although it was past eleven, Mirko was still asleep. Urbino pushed aside the curtain behind the parlor and, to the right of the kitchen area, found Mirko's small bedroom.

It reminded Urbino of van Gogh's painting of his bedroom at Arles. Mirko's room contained a similar sturdy bed, washstand, and two chairs. There were several small framed pictures over the bed, one of them a color photograph of Mirko and Flavia at the wintertime Luna Park along the Riva degli Schiavoni and the other, a simple painting of the bay of Trieste, where Mirko had lived as a boy.

Whereas van Gogh's painting conveyed a calculated brightness and normalcy, however, Mirko's bedroom was dark and oppressive. The bare floor slanted alarmingly toward the lone window and paint was peeling from the ceiling in long, sharp-looking pieces. A sour odor permeated the room. Mirko lay supine on the bed in Flavia's kimono, his mouth open. His cat was curled up at his feet. Grateful to be able to take the homely man by surprise, Urbino shook him.

“Wake up, Mirko! You've been holding back.”

“What the hell is going on? Macintyre!” Mirko sat up and rubbed a hand across his face. His breath was foul. The cat jumped from the bed and ran out of the room. “What are you talking about?”

Urbino stared at Mirko and saw a shadow of alarm cross his face. Mirko reached for a glass of water on the table beside the bed and took a drink. Although the scratch on his face had almost healed, there were fresh ones on his hand. When Mirko looked back at Urbino, wariness lurked in his eyes. He seemed to be weighing possibilities, deciding exactly the best way to respond. Drugs might have dulled his mind but they hadn't destroyed it. It might still come to his aid in an extreme situation.

“You know, don't you, Macintyre?” Mirko said, running a finger under his large nose. Still Urbino said nothing. Let Mirko tell him what he thought he knew. Let him take his pick and maybe give himself away. “You—you know about Flavia and Lorenzo, don't you?”

Mirko was holding his foul breath, waiting to see what Urbino's response would be. Urbino hoped his face was noncommittal as Mirko now fully corroborated what Urbino already knew from Madge Lennox about Lorenzo's sexual abuse of Flavia.

“But I promised her I'd never tell anyone, and I didn't! She said I was the only one she had ever told,” Mirko whined. He reached out to grab Urbino's arm. Despite his size, his grip was surprisingly strong. “She told me about ten years ago and I never told anyone, I swear! I hated him every time I would see him. I wanted to spit at him, to—to—”

“To do what? Blackmail him? Tell him that you'd let his sister and Violetta Volpi and the whole community know? Is that why Brollo gave you that money? What else do you know about him that you're not telling me?”

“You're wrong, Macintyre!” Mirko was gleeful and Urbino saw that he had been mistaken. Mirko wasn't blackmailing Brollo—not yet, anyway.

“When were you planning to put your claws into him, Mirko? Were you trying to persuade Flavia to let you do it? Now that's she's dead, I don't think your chances of getting money out of Brollo are as good as they were before.”

“You don't know what you're talking about!” Mirko pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I was always Flavia's friend. Always! Yes, even now that she—she's gone. That's why I didn't tell you. It was our secret.”

“And what secret did you tell her about yourself? Didn't the two of you—and Tina Zuin, too—have a game, an understanding that you would exchange secrets between you?”

“That was just kid stuff!” Mirko said, but Urbino could see that he was frightened.

“Wasn't it only logical to tell her something about yourself when she told you about Brollo? Maybe to make her feel better, to show her that she had been right to trust you? You would have done just about anything to have her care for you, wouldn't you?”

“She
did
care about me. We cared about each other.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don't!”

“Did you tell her about your father?”

Mirko seemed stunned. Something close to hatred flashed in his eyes. Urbino was afraid that Mirko was going to attack him, but then Mirko relaxed and seemed to collapse. He put his face in his hands. Urbino wished he knew what was going on in Mirko's mind. How intelligent and crafty was he?

“You're right, Macintyre. Yes, I told Flavia about my father.” He paused, his face still in his hands. “I told her how he used to beat me, how he used to take the little money I had. I wanted to show her that—that we had something in common and that I would always be her friend. I told her I'd never tell anyone what she had told me.”

“Are you sure that's all you had to tell her about your father? Did she promise she'd never tell anyone what you confided in her?”

“Of course she promised!”

Mirko, however, didn't answer the first part of the question. He leaped from the bed and went to the window, moving the shutter to see down into the little square.

“And did she keep her promise?”