Black Bridge (20 page)

“Don't just gape like a fool! Do something!”

“What?”

“You're impossible! I'll show you what!”

He followed her out of the room, prepared to act as referee. But the Contessa had time to do nothing more than put a detaining hand on Festa's plump shoulder when Bobo emerged hesitantly along the corridor, wearing a dark purple dressing gown lined with gold silk and gold morocco slippers. He did in fact look ill. His face was more gaunt and his eyes had dark shadows beneath them. The smile he gave the two women and Urbino was a ghost of its former self.

“I couldn't bear lying in bed another moment. Even your beautiful Sargent was getting on my nerves, Barbara. That must show you what a state I was in.”

The mighty organ of his voice was considerably diminished and as he walked toward them his step had little of its usual vitality.

“Get right back upstairs,” the Contessa said. “Mauro! Would you come here and help the Barone back to his room?”

“Really, Barbara, that's quite unnecessary. If I could just sit down somewhere. And perhaps a cup of tea?”

“Mauro, help him into the
salotto
, please. Then tell Lucia to bring some camomile tea.”

“Please, not camomile, Barbara! Darjeeling would be fine, and I don't need Mauro's help.”

“I must talk with you,” Livia said, putting her hand on his arm.

“Far be it from me to interfere,” the Contessa said in a voice pitched above its normal register.

Bobo, now looking perplexed and a bit worried, said: “If I knew I was going to get this kind of attention, I would have come down earlier. What's going on?”

“I'm sure Livia will give you a full explanation. Urbino and I will be in the morning room. He'd like to speak with you when you finish with Livia, if you feel up to it. I think it would be a good idea for the two of you to have an open, honest chat. And, Livia, would you see that your dog doesn't sit on the furniture?”

15

Once in the morning room the Contessa sat down at the finde-siècle Viennese piano and started to play the movement of a Mozart sonata. The Contessa, who had been a student at the Venice Conservatory before she married the Conte, was a gifted pianist, but these days played only infrequently for others. Urbino sat back and listened.

The Contessa, all liquid fingers and rapt expression, was the mistress of an order and harmony that reigned all too briefly in the room. When she finished, the room seemed darker, heavier. The Contessa got up and sat beside Urbino on the sofa.

“Was that the equivalent of fiddling away while Rome burns,
caro
?”

“It was beautiful, Barbara. If life could be like that!”

“Like that on a good day, and a Jane Austen novel on a bad! But we unfortunately live in the nasty world, with uncivil souls like Livia. But I refuse to be discouraged by her kind! What I'm going to do, this time without the help of Mozart, is to try to comfort us with some much-needed clarity. I'll run through our list of suspects and give you the dubious benefit of my opinion.”

She took a deep breath and began:

“Whoever murdered Moss and Quimper knew them and also knows Bobo.” This immediately made it clear that she of course excluded Bobo from the list. “This wasn't a random act of violence, right? We have to ask ourselves what did the murderer gain by Moss's and Quimper's deaths. Motivation is the key. It's the sticky-point, isn't it? Anyone could have obtained a gun in some way. As for opportunity during the crucial time, let's begin with Harriet,” she said, showing less regard for her secretary than she had yesterday when she had berated Urbino for “dragging her in.” “She was wandering around Venice after leaving Marco's. And what about Marco? What did he do after she left?”

Urbino told her that Signora Zeoli did in fact swear that her son had stayed in after Harriet left.

“There you are then! Let's next take a look at our dear and ever so gracious Livia! She left the Flora to walk that little beast about eleven, right on the heels of Moss and Quimper, but no one saw her come back! She could have tucked him right under her chubby arm and brought him all over town without any trouble. She's a determined little thing. Look at the way she just barged in here and imposed herself on poor Bobo! And,” she added, obviously warming to the topic of Livia's suspicious behavior, “there's her connection to Orlando. She had easy access to his room with a key he might or might not have given her, and she was the one who found his body.”

She frowned after saying this, perhaps realizing that by pointing the finger at Livia, she was pointing it a bit too close to Bobo. Urbino couldn't agree more.

“But what am I saying! I'm sure Orlando died a natural death.”

“He could have died ‘naturally,' but as a result of interference,” Urbino allowed himself to suggest. “Someone could have emptied his medicine into the toilet and thrown his inhaler out of the window when he was having his attack—or before.”

“I suppose so, diabolical and sadistic though it is,” the Contessa said, clearly reluctant to pursue this line of thought either. “Let me see. Who else do we have?”

“There's Flint, although Oriana says they were together all that night,” Urbino said.

“But what possible motive could he have?”

“You haven't really mentioned a motive for any of your suspects, my dear,” Urbino pointed out, thinking of his own ruminations on the topic the other night. “Or means, either, although these days a gun could find its way into anyone's hands. But before we get to motive, let's clear away opportunity, and not just for Moss's and Quimper's murders but for Orlando's death, too.”

“Orlando's?”

“Yes, to cover all possibilities. First of all, there are only two people with an alibi for the time of Moss's and Quimper's murders. One is Zeoli, as I've just told you. The other is Flint. Oriana swears they spent that night together at the Ca' Borelli. Filippo was down in Rimini.”

The Contessa showed neither surprise nor disapproval.

“But as you yourself said about Oriana,” Urbino pointed out, “a woman is liable to do worse things for someone she loves than lie.” He paused fractionally, then went on: “As for Bobo, Festa, and Harriet, they have no one to corroborate exactly where they were between midnight and half past. And don't forget that Harriet was all out of breath when she came in that night and that Bobo had blood on his scarf, which might or might not have been his own.”

The Contessa stared at him stonily for a few moments and said: “It's been my experience—or rather my observation—that murderers always have an alibi. The innocent see no need to.”

“True, but having one is no more a proof of guilt than not having one is a proof of innocence.” Realizing that, after intending only to throw an oar in, he was now taking over, rather self-indulgently perhaps, all the rowing himself, he sat back and said: “But go on, Barbara.”

“No, you go on. I don't feel up to it anymore. But if I don't agree, you can be sure I'll let you know.”

She gave him a weak smile.

He gathered his thoughts and resumed after a few moments: “Staying with alibis and turning to the time of Orlando's death, we get this picture. Once again only Flint and Zeoli have alibis—which makes them doubly guilty by your rule of thumb. Zeoli and his mother both say he was at home again.”

“We know how unimpeachable the word of a mother is!”

“Exactly. As for Flint, he claims he was in a card game with his landlady and her brother until what he calls the ‘wee hours' of the morning. Although I haven't verified it, I think I have him figured out enough to know that he never would have said that unless it's true—and that he probably took away a large share of the winnings. I can't imagine him playing for any other reason, unless it was to establish an alibi. Of course, even if the game got over as late as four, which I doubt, he could easily have made his way over to the Flora in the given time and done what he wanted to do.”

“Very improbable,” the Contessa said with a trace of regret in her voice. “He could never have gone in and out at that hour without being seen.”

“That's how I look at it. Harriet would have been noticed, too.”

“Anyone would have. But even if that weren't the case, you can forget about Bobo slipping into the Flora through some back door.”

“You can give him an alibi?”

The Contessa made a moue of distaste.

“I hope I don't have to ‘give' him anything of the sort!” she said as if they were talking about something vaguely disreputable or embarrassingly contagious. “But, yes, Bobo was with me!”

Urbino couldn't help but be reminded of what he had just said about Oriana, lies, and a woman in love. Surely the blush now spreading across the Contessa's face was, at least in part, caused by the same association of ideas.

“Are you saying that you definitely know that there was no time from midnight to six when Bobo could have left here without your knowing about it?”

The Contessa didn't answer right away. When she did, it was somewhat falteringly: “We—we weren't together the whole time, but I remember I didn't sleep well that night, and I would have heard him leave his room. He didn't.” She added in a stronger voice: “He didn't, I tell you!”

“I'm sure you believe that, Barbara, and I hope it's true.”

She seemed about to challenge this latter point but instead assumed a look of sufferance.

“At any rate, no one but registered guests were seen anywhere near the elevators or the stairway of the Flora,” Urbino went on. “Which puts Livia in a bad light since she was already in the hotel that night—with a key to Orlando's room. And she was supposedly walking her dog when Moss and Quimper were murdered. But you know, Barbara, the fact that no one knows exactly when she came in creates a question in my mind. Perhaps we're wrong and someone might have been able to slip into the hotel unnoticed on the night Gava died.”

“I don't think we're wrong, but suppose we're dealing with two murderers?”

“Very unlikely.”

“Or suppose Orlando wasn't murdered at all?”

“Yes, a great deal hangs on the answer to that. Until we know for sure, we have no choice, as far as I see it, but to assume he was and that it was because he knew something that would lead us directly to the murderer's identity.”

“Let's forget about Orlando. It will help us more if we stick to motives for the murders of Moss and Quimper since we have no doubt that they
were
murdered!”

“Well, if Flint's involved, it's got to be because of money. He never seems to have enough and he always has it on his mind.”

He quickly told her what Flint had said at the Palazzo Uccello about her “generosity” and reminded her of what they knew about his days as a model. Then he described the incidents of the Bulgari bracelet and the man with the briefcase whom he had seen leaving Flint's apartment.

“But Moss and Quimper had nothing.”

“No money, no, but they might have had something that could have been turned into money.”

“About that murdered woman Helen Creel, you mean? But I don't see what Flint or—or anyone else has to do with that.”

Urbino wondered if he was making a mistake—perhaps putting the Contessa in more danger—by not telling her that Moss had been Helen Creel's son and that Bobo had probably been her lover. But he held himself back now, tempted though he was, since there was some doubt about a liaison between Bobo and Helen Creel. He would wait until his talk with Bobo.

“I've remembered something, though,” the Contessa said. “A rumor was going around this summer when you were out of town that Flint had forged one of Filippo's checks. Oriana swore on her mother's grave that it wasn't true, but where there's smoke there's fire. I promised her I wouldn't encourage the rumor but now—But how ridiculous! Oriana intimate with a murderer! It could never be. Love isn't that blind. Marco, then!” she quickly went on. “He was at Abano when Helen Creel was murdered. But what motive could he have?”

Urbino, who thought the Contessa's silence meant that she was pondering Zeoli's possible motive, was about to offer his opinion when she burst out with: “Harriet! Now, isn't she the one best placed to do some damage! She knows my affairs—my business,” she corrected herself, “and don't forget that she handled some of the publicity for Bobo and that the postcard of Abano passed through her hands. But I don't know! I can't see any motive for Harriet any more than Zeoli. Or for Livia either!” she added with almost a touch of pique.

Urbino thought very much the opposite about Livia. He told her about Orlando's will.

“Nothing for Bobo? But—but that's impossible! Whatever was he thinking of? And a generous sum for Livia! Well, there you are then! Just find some link between Orlando, Moss, and Quimper that involves Livia. Then you'll have it all in a neat package!”

Urbino silently disagreed, but only with how neat the package would be. It would be very messy, indeed, and it would almost inevitably involve Bobo.

“How well do you know Livia?”

“I know that I don't like her, and never have!” Then the Contessa relented: “But it doesn't make her a murderer—a triple murderer or a double murderer or any kind! I met her twenty years ago at the Venice Film Festival. She was just a scriptwriter then, although she had worked with some of the best. She was never a beauty and even then she was”—she searched for the right word—“
zoftig
, but she had a certain presence and determination that got her what she wanted—and
who
she wanted,” she added after a pause. “She started to make films two or three years later. One of her films—all about sex, love, and death in Sardinia, you might remember it—got a lot of attention, but after that she seems to have lost whatever she had. Talent, patronage, drive? She went into debt and dropped from the scene for a few years, then began directing little theatrical productions. She puts up a good front, lives beyond her means. I wouldn't be surprised if Bobo helped her out from time to time, not that
he
has all that much, but they're old friends.”