6 - Whispers of Vivaldi (12 page)

I jumped up and began to pace the study. Twelve steps to the edge of the Persian carpet, then back again. Messer Grande’s man stuck his head in the door, alarmed at the sound of sudden activity.

“I’m thinking,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster. “I walk when I think.”

He shrugged and returned to his post.

If, as I suspected, Grillo was in Caprioli’s pay to spread rumors about Angeletto’s sex, then why couldn’t Caprioli have also hired the libertine to kill Torani. Grillo wouldn’t have put Torani on his guard nearly as much as Scarface. Grillo could have easily returned to the card room once I’d left and summoned Torani, perhaps by the same method that he’d used to tempt Beatrice. After some desultory talk, Grillo could have struck the unsuspecting old man, and absconded. Only this time, Grillo hadn’t forgotten to take his green cloak with him.

I was warming to this theory when Messer Grande entered. He was carrying Torani’s silver-headed stick as if it were a ceremonial mace.

“We found this in the garden shrubbery—Signora Dall’Agata has identified it as Torani’s. The silver is sparkling, wiped clean, but it could have served as a bludgeon.” He thumped the knob into his palm with the cadence of a funeral march. “It wouldn’t have taken much strength to crack the old man’s skull with one well-placed blow. A small man could have done it. Or a woman. Don’t you think, my friend?” Then he lifted one corner of his mouth and said, “Sit down, Tito.”

I did as he asked, grateful that Messer Grande appeared to remember our friendship. He laid Torani’s stick on the Savio’s broad desk and sat across from me. He took some time arranging his robes, and then propped his elbow on the chair arm and rubbed his prominent chin. “What can you tell me, Tito?”

“Maestro Torani was killed by someone he knew.”

“I was hoping you would start with something I couldn’t figure out for myself.”

I licked my lips. “It was someone who made him angry enough to strip off his wig and throw it at the nearest horizontal surface.”

“Yes, I knew Rinaldo Torani well enough to also make that deduction.”

“And I did warn you about Lorenzo Caprioli—after the maestro’s gondola was rammed.”

“So you did.”

The chief constable fell silent, nodding. Surprisingly enough, it was a companionable silence. While the Ca’Passoni sighed and creaked under the depredations of time, water, wind, and hundreds of feet, Messer Grande—Andrea—and I sat quietly. I couldn’t guess what was in his mind, but I was remembering our previous partnership and taking his current measure.

The man who fulfilled the solemn duties of Messer Grande was of a much warmer humor than any other chief constable I’d ever sparred with. I knew Andrea to be both intelligent and fair, with a mild cynical streak that should have run much deeper considering what he must have seen in his tenure. By some miracle of principle or personality, this Messer Grande had escaped the inclination for bribery which plagued much of Venetian officialdom.

Which didn’t mean Andrea wouldn’t haul me straight to the guardhouse if he was convinced I killed Torani.

Eventually he said, “You understand I must know who mangled your chest.”

“A mere scratch,” I said under my breath. Then, louder: “The story isn’t pretty, and it involves a young woman’s honor.”

He lifted an eyebrow into his high forehead. “Don’t you mean her dishonor?”

I shrugged.

“We reap what we sow, Tito. Isn’t that what the priests teach us? That should hold true for the kitchen maid or her mistress.”

I’d almost forgotten about Andrea’s Masonic ideals—he rarely spoke of them to men outside of that shadowy society. The equality of all was one of its more revolutionary notions. I suppose he’d once felt safe in confiding that philosophy to me; theater folk are known for tolerating conduct that others might find odd.

He continued, “Unless Signorina Beatrice bashed Torani’s skull herself, I believe that I can keep her name under wraps.”

“You’re very quick tonight.”

It was his turn to shrug. “I had Signor Passoni make a list of those who attended the reception. There were few unmarried women on it. Among them, Beatrice has the most to lose.”

I nodded, then told him everything about Grillo, not stinting my suspicions or glossing over my efforts to neutralize his gossip.

He took it all in with an air of rueful disappointment at mankind in general. Only one thing seemed to significantly trouble him. “Tito, I’m astonished. You really let that flagrant rogue dupe you out of twenty ducats?”

As I nodded shamefully, a light tapping came from the door.

“Avanti,” the senior constable cried.

The door opened on a slight figure—Giuseppe Balbi. The violinist looked miserable; his thin back was bowed, and his eyes were glassy. He stammered out, “Your sergeant…he said I could…well, that it would be all right…”

Andrea rose. So did I. He said, “You have something to tell me, Signor Balbi?”

Words spilled from the violinist’s lips like the wriggling catch from a fisherman’s net. “It’s not right. Not right, I say. That Tito should be blamed for the murder. One of the guests tonight was saying hateful, awful things about Maestro Torani. And he wasn’t even invited. He snuck in under cover of that mask, and he said to me, ‘cats should claw Torani’s skin, dogs should gnaw his bones, and lice should devour him.’”

Balbi came to a breathless halt. He regarded Andrea with wet, bulging eyes. More than half-afraid, I thought. A Messer Grande in full regalia does tend to have that effect on people.

“Who said these things?” Andrea made his tone smooth and mellow. He was trying to calm the twitchy violinist.

Balbi gulped air, then spat out, “Signor Caprioli from the Teatro Grimani.”

“What?” That was me, booming at my loudest rasp.

“Yes, Tito.” The violinist bobbed his head at me in the suggestion of a bow. “Signor Caprioli was masked…that’s how he must have got past the footman at the door. He had the temerity to seek me out and ask me to come work for him at the Grimani. He talked against our theater in a vengeful, horrible way, but despite all, I stood up for Maestro Torani. For you, too. For all of us!”

“What did Lorenzo Caprioli want you to do at the Grimani?” asked Messer Grande.

“Why, he asked me to lead their orchestra. What else?” Balbi’s diffident manner suddenly became so confident that I drew a shocked breath. He continued in a metallic tone, “Caprioli offered to top my current salary by a quarter. I said no, never.” He twisted his shoulders. “I wouldn’t play for that trash. He’s more interested in whoring out his ballet girls and orange sellers than offering good music.”

Andrea had opened his mouth to ask another question, but I interrupted. “Wait, Giuseppe, you said that Caprioli was masked? Did he cover his face with a white leather mask?”

“That’s right. He shifted it to the side of his head as we talked.”

“And was he wearing a suit of turquoise blue?”

Balbi rolled his eyes. “Just so—the dolt has execrable taste in all things.”

Andrea questioned me with a lifted eyebrow.

“I saw Caprioli, too, about twenty minutes before the concert began. I just didn’t recognize him at the time.”

“When did Caprioli make his offer to you?” Andrea turned back to face Balbi.

The violinist’s timidity had returned. “I suppose…” He fingered his lip, seeming to have trouble making up his mind. “Ah, yes…it must have been right before the concert. I was on my way to the kitchen where we musicians were to have our supper.”

“Where precisely?”

Balbi spread his arms. His cheeks bunched in a frown. “A corridor. I don’t know which one—a footman led us there—I hung back when Signor Caprioli called my name. But it was not far from the kitchen steps, I think.” He nodded. “Yes…I could hear the clanking of pots and smell the aroma of meat and onions.”

“Where did Caprioli go when he left you?”

“Off, away from the kitchen. I don’t really know where he ended up—I didn’t see him again.”

“How was he?” Andrea was firing questions now, apparently no longer intent on calming the violinist.

Balbi appeared to think, then said, “He was well.”

“No, man. I don’t care about the state of his health. I want to know how he was behaving.”

“Oh. Once I had refused him, he was angry. He cursed me for a fool.”

Andrea whirled. “Tito, did you see Caprioli again? During or after the concert?”

“No.”

“Hmm…”

I was familiar with the look that settled on Messer Grande’s face. Documents were leaping from drawer to drawer in the cabinet that made up his spectacular memory.

“You’ve been very helpful, Signor Balbi.” He unfurled a red sleeve in dismissal. “Now you may leave us.”

“As you wish, Excellency.” Balbi bowed himself from the study, but not before sending me a covert smile.

I raised a smile in return. Balbi could be a genial idiot at times, but it had taken courage to seek out Messer Grande and volunteer his information. According to the clandestine ways of our Republic, Balbi’s report to the chief constable could very well have the effect of pinning a target on his back. At the very least, one of the government’s confidenti would shadow him to his coffee house, his snuff merchant’s, and the theater for a few weeks. Many men in Balbi’s position would have slunk out of the Ca’Passoni as soon as they had leave and tried to forget anything they had seen or heard.

Once Andrea and I were alone, I began spouting troubling questions. Chief among them was the issue of Lorenzo Caprioli’s presence at the Ca’Passoni. Any of Caprioli’s bravos—and Grillo—could slit your throat and listen to your death rattle without a trace of remorse. But if Caprioli had ordered Torani’s death, he wouldn’t have attended the reception. Indeed, the canny manager of the Teatro Grimani would have made himself very visible at the opposite end of the island, as far from the Ca’Passoni as possible. Wouldn’t he? I peered into Andrea’s ruddy face for confirmation.

My old friend gripped my shoulder, making me wince openly. “Perhaps not such a mere scratch, eh?” As I nodded, the fine wrinkles around his eyes deepened. His mouth made a hard line. “You can’t help me this time, Tito. I must ask my own questions, find my own answers.”

“But…” I sucked in a long breath, “but I must discover who murdered Torani. Don’t you see? He was like a father to me. He was my father—my musical father.”

“It is you who doesn’t see. You have much to gain by Torani’s death. With him out of the way, you have a clear path to become the permanent director of the Teatro San Marco. Some men would find that ample motive for murder.” His lips drooped, and he inclined his gaze downward. “And then there’s that bloody shirt.”

“I told you how that happened!”

“I believe you. But until I can find Grillo and confirm the fight and the injury you delivered to him, certain…influential men…will remain convinced of your guilt.”

“Did you look at the candle stand?”

He nodded. “Wiped as clean as Maestro Torani’s stick.”

An unpleasant warmth spread through me—Grillo might never be found—he could have made his delayed trip to the mainland and simply kept running. Andrea’s hand on my shoulder suddenly felt very heavy. My voice came out in a whisper: “Are you arresting me?”

“Not tonight.” His hand fell away, and he stepped back. Without a smile. “I think perhaps you should go home now.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “I think perhaps I’d better.”

Chapter Twelve

One more humiliation awaited me.

When I returned to the foyer, Liya, Gussie, and Annetta were standing in a gloomy knot by the front entrance, watched over by Passoni’s frowning major domo. All the other guests had apparently departed. I glanced into the salon. The huge chandelier had been lowered so that a footman could extinguish its candles. The glowing points winked out one by one, and the raspy rhythm of a dozen brooms sounded from the dimming hall. Near the archway, a maid was on her knees scrubbing on a stain with a soapy brush.

I met Liya’s gaze as I crossed the foyer. Her eyes were heavy-lidded with weariness. Her lips looked as if they had forgotten how to smile. She was hiding inside herself, I knew, harboring emotions that would emerge later.

Before I reached her, the Savio materialized from a darkened room opposite the salon. Had he been waiting for me there in the blackness, working himself into a lather? He’d removed his wig and fine coat. His loosened cravat straggled down his shirt front. As he approached, he swung his arms deliberately, and his breath came quickly.

“Hold on, Signor Amato. I have something to say.” His senatorial voice reverberated off the marble surfaces like chiming bells. His breath smelled of brandy. “You will not return to the Teatro San Marco—tomorrow or any other day.”

A chill passed over me. “Are you canceling
The False Duke
, then?”

“No.”

“But, I have singers who must be rehearsed.”

“Do you not understand?” The Savio curled his lip. “I’ve made other arrangements to complete the opera. You are no longer in the Teatro San Marco’s employ.”

With that simple statement, I was cast into limbo.

***

The next day dawned bright, cool, and clear, but I stayed abed as the morning waned. Part of me wanted to stay in bed forever. Liya had rebandaged my wound with a soothing balm, but her ministrations failed to roust me from between the sheets. My worried wife finally dressed for the day and set out for the market. She left the double doors to our small balcony cocked open with the outside shutters flung back against the stucco. Gauzy draperies billowed inward, and the seagulls’ cries as they soared and dipped over the Cannaregio punctuated my gloomy thoughts. I was aching inside, and I couldn’t decide which hurt more: Maestro Torani’s death or the Savio’s callous dismissal.

The corridor door clicked open, and Benito entered bearing a blue and white chocolate pot that exuded a wisp of vapor. Thank the Virgin for small miracles! I slid up onto my pillows and motioned my manservant over with a weary hand.

He shook his head. With deliberate steps, he crossed the chamber to the opposite wall. Then he deposited his tray on my dressing table, crossed his arms over his flowered waistcoat, and sent me a look that could have presaged the challenge to a duel.

“Benito, I warn you…” I started with a groan and finished with the growl of a boatyard cur.

“No, Master. If you want your chocolate, you must come and get it.” He lifted the porcelain pot and poured an enticing stream into the cup.

Anger forced blood through my veins. I jerked the bedclothes aside. My feet hit the floor. “No one would blame me for discharging you for insubordination.”

He merely shrugged and fixed me with his bright canary gaze.

My anger flew as quickly as it had come. “All right, Benito, you win.” Glumly, I shrugged into my dressing gown. “I suppose I can’t keep to my bed forever.”

I had my chocolate in silence, then padded about the chamber in bare feet, stopping to splash my face at the wash bowl. Benito handed me a clean shirt and underclothes without comment. Once I began to feel like one of the living, I settled in at my dressing table and allowed Benito to arrange my hair. I closed my eyes as he drew the brush through my hair in long, relaxing strokes. Presently, he sensed that I was ready to discuss the previous night’s tragedy.

Benito told me what he’d gleaned, and in truth, if I’d employed any other man, I would find it disconcerting that a servant could discover so much about his master’s business. But Benito was Benito and as much a part of my life as my right arm—I filled him in on the rest.

“You want to believe Grillo killed Maestro Torani,” he observed, cocking a graceful eyebrow.

“At Lorenzo Caprioli’s direction, yes. Those two make a perfect pair of villains.”

“But Master, it seems to me that Signor Caprioli had already achieved his first goal.” Benito’s beady gaze met mine in the dressing table’s oval mirror. “By smashing Maestro Torani’s gondola, he’d removed him from day-to-day preparations for the opera. You were put in charge and, according to everything I saw and heard around the theater, you were managing in fine style and headed for a great success. If Caprioli paid Grillo to kill anyone, it should have been you.”

My hand flew to my bandaged wound. “He very nearly did.”

“Sheer happenstance.” Benito waved the brush airily. “Grillo wouldn’t have attacked you if you hadn’t interrupted his debauchery.”

“Perhaps he was only saving me for later,” I answered slowly. “Treat himself to the daughter of the house, then kill Tito Amato.”

I paused to wonder how long the affair between Beatrice and Grillo had been going on. The speed with which he’d maneuvered the girl into an intimate position on the sofa implied an ongoing relationship. I also wondered who else might know about the lovers.

After a sigh, I continued, “There was another reason for Caprioli to put the maestro out of the way. Torani still had the ears of influential Senators—they’ve been depending on him for counsel on the state opera house for years. Even last night, he pulled himself out of his sick bed to rally support for the San Marco to retain its Senate sponsorship.”

As Benito moved to fetch the curling tongs from his little alcohol stove, I felt a prickling along my spine. Last night, I hadn’t fully digested Signor Balbi’s information before the Savio delivered his final blow. This morning, the logical consequences of Caprioli’s presence at the Ca’Passoni became clearer. The director of the Teatro Grimani hadn’t gained access to the reception merely to seek out a new lead violinist; he had come for the same reason as Maestro Torani. With his identity disguised under a mask, Caprioli must have been seeking out Senators to toady, bootlick, and otherwise curry favor. His plans to destroy the San Marco were continuing apace.

“Ah, you’re thinking. Good.” Benito pulled the hair above my left ear onto two fingers and deftly rolled it on the warm tongs. “Move beyond your dislike of Grillo and Caprioli and tell me about the other passions aroused by
The False Duke
.”

I smiled. For a moment I was carried back to happier days and the solving of puzzles that didn’t cut so close to my heart. “Why don’t you tell me about the passions you’ve noticed?” I countered.

“All right. Firstly, only a blockhead could ignore the heightened feelings swirling around Angeletto.”

“Skirts or breeches, you mean.” I had banned all talk and speculation about Angeletto’s sex from the theater. I wasn’t being naïve—I know an opera company dines on gossip—I was merely trying to tamp down the worst of it. I also hoped that the rumors Grillo had spread among his patrician acquaintances were a flash in the pan, soon to be replaced by fresh scandals.

Venice usually offers endless diversions in the way of outrages: a genteel young widow marries her late husband’s gondolier, or a kitchen boy is discovered in the papal nuncio’s bed, or a popular courtesan inherits a tidy fortune and purchases her own vineyard. Unfortunately, my countrymen had been rather restrained of late; fresh gossip was at a low ebb.

While I’d been working long hours at the opera house, Benito had been gadding about the city, listening to the ribald tongues flapping fast and loose about Angeletto. As my manservant worked his tongs around my brow, he repeated what he’d heard in the salacious language of the tavern and the casino. No wonder Maria Luisa had taken me to task over Venice’s boorish welcome to her brother.

Benito coaxed the rest of my hair into a neat braid asking, “Are you still quite certain that our angel is a valid castrato?”

I thought back to the beautifully dressed and wigged creature who had patiently greeted the Savio’s guests, especially delighting the women. The fashion of the day called for excess in all things; Angeletto’s face had been heavily painted right up to the smooth seam of his white wig, and layers of lace had obscured his neck and chest. As any woman will tell you, the stratagems of fashion can hide as much as they enhance.

“Let’s say I’m wrong, Benito. Let’s say that Carlo Vanini is really Carla—just for argument’s sake, mind you.” I turned my head this way and that to admire Benito’s work in the mirror. “How would Angeletto’s masquerade provoke an attack on Maestro Torani?”

“I don’t know, but I sense something…off, something wrong where Angeletto is concerned. Don’t you?”

“Possibly.”

“Don’t you want to discover what it is?”

I shook my head. “I don’t see how Angeletto could have had anything to do with Maestro Torani’s death. The first time he laid eyes on Torani was in the foyer last night—there wasn’t time to exchange more than a few words—and until the footman announced that Torani was dead, Angeletto was constantly on view. Besides, he is such a mild creature. It’s his sister who burrows under my skin like some biting insect.”

“Well,” Benito was fussing with the ribbon at the top of my braid, “as you’ve always told me, murder is much like the opera—it hinges on life’s great passions: love, hate, envy, revenge. Any of those motives floating around?”

His comment suggested a new train of thought. “No one envies Angeletto more than Majorano,” I said.

Benito broke into gleeful soprano spasms that sounded like a peahen clucking over a chick. “Majorano can strike a belligerent pose with a pasteboard sword. But…” The laughs were still coming. “Wielding an actual weapon? Bashing Torani over the head? That scrumptious poppet drawing blood? Oh, it’s just too funny.”

Shoulders shaking, he crossed to the wardrobe, pulled out a drawer, and held up several neckcloths for my inspection. I ambled over and chose one of plain linen. I lowered myself to the cushioned window sill so that my much shorter manservant could tie it.

“Besides,” Benito continued, “why would Majorano take his spite out on the maestro when his rival was also on the spot?”

“Because it was Maestro Torani who assigned the roles—while you and I and Gussie were in Milan. The day I returned, Balbi was nearly out of his mind with frustration as he tried to instruct Majorano in one of the huntsman’s arias. It makes sense that a singer would direct his anger at the director who gave him the inferior part, but…No!” I pushed Benito’s hands away and jumped up. Pacing the floor, I stabbed my fingers through my newly curled locks. Over Benito’s groan, I cried, “What am I saying? Majorano wasn’t even at the Ca’Passoni. He never showed up at the reception.”

“Anyone could have climbed through that open window. Correct?”

“I’m not sure.” I halted, thinking. “No, I believe the entire garden is surrounded by a wall. If there is a gate, it would surely be kept locked. But Grillo got in somehow. Oh, Benito.” I sighed and let my arms flop at my sides.

The emotional ache that had kept me abed was welling up again, tightening my chest and making the wound throb.

“We know nothing, Benito. Messer Grande has shut me out. The Savio suspects me of killing Torani and would never allow me on his property to inspect the garden or question Angeletto. I’m not even welcome at the theater. All I have is a dog’s dinner of random suspicions. Nothing certain—”

“No, Master,” Benito interrupted my tirade. “There is one thing we know for certain.”

“What’s that?”

“That you didn’t do it.”

I nodded solemnly, then stepped through the curtains and out onto the balcony. The midday sun had turned the narrow canal that ran between our house and the next building to glistening jade. I stared down at the lapping water, gripping the iron railing. Every instinct told me that Maestro Torani’s murder was tied to the opera. The very thing that was his life had become his death. I didn’t know who, much less why, but someone connected with the San Marco or the rival Teatro Grimani had killed my old mentor. Finding his murderer would be the only balm for the throbbing ache within me.

But where to begin, persona non grata that I’d become? I could locate most of the singers and musicians at their lodgings or in a public place, but how could I question them without arousing suspicion? I didn’t want to startle my prey. Or did I? Hunters trained their dogs to sniff out a rabbit and startle it into running right past their master’s hidden stand. If the hunter was a sure shot, the rabbit ended up in the stew pot.

I entered the chamber and cast a brief, longing look toward my bed. It would be so easy to crawl back under the sheets and stay there, much as I had when I’d suffered the fatal injury to my vocal apparatus.

Benito looked up from tidying my dressing table, one eyebrow cocked expectantly.

“Fetch my hat,” I said. “I’m going out.”

***

I decided to begin with the easiest quarry: Tedi. The soprano kept modest lodgings in the parish of San Lorenzo, but for the past several months she had been staying with Maestro Torani in the Calle Castangna. I shunned the most direct route so that I could take in a water view of the Ca’Passoni on my way.

I walked over several squares and found a free gondola near the entrance to the Ghetto. That curious compromise between Venice’s acceptance and expulsion of the Hebrew race had been built on the site of an old copper foundry. At this time of day, the Ghetto’s stout wooden gates had been thrown back to allow both Christians and Hebrews unfettered passage, as the Republic’s law permitted from dawn to dusk. When night fell, the Hebrew population would be locked in behind closed gates that were guarded by a pair of sbirri. That the Ghetto officials were obliged to pay the salaries of the very guards who contained them formed a deep well of resentment in Liya’s mind.

My wife wasn’t forced to live in one of the lofty, slope-roofed houses behind those gates because she had submitted herself to the priests at the House of Catechumens. So that our lives could be forever intertwined, Liya had renounced her family’s faith and kissed the cross of our Lord. Was it a false swearing? An outright lie?