Deadly to the Sight (29 page)

The library where Habib had knocked aside the pile of books before storming out into the night and being arrested. The parlor where Beatrix had surprised him with the mask of the plague doctor. Habib's studio where Urbino had found the story of the prince and the jeweler's son that might hold a valuable clue to the murders of Giorgio and Nina—a clue to be ferreted out not so much in what the story said, but in how it had come into Giorgio's hands.

Serena was curled up on Habib's divan. He went over to stroke her. Together they listened to the silence and the sounds of the house.

12

Early the next morning, groggy from too little sleep, Urbino took the
vaporetto
to Burano. As it slid slowly past the cemetery island on this damp, gray day, Urbino wondered what had become of Giorgio's body. Had a family member been contacted? Perhaps the elusive Signor Mazza, that is, if he wasn't dead himself? It was probable that the police had discovered relevant names and addresses among Giorgio's things, in addition to Habib's paintings of Burano.

Had anything else been found that might be incriminating for Habib? Among Giorgio's possessions, there was possibly even something that might help Urbino in his efforts to solve the two murders and clear Habib. He stood little chance, however, of knowing anything more than Gemelli wanted him to know for his own purposes.

Despite the unpromising weather the lace makers had set up their stalls on the street that stretched from the boat landing. At a café, Urbino tossed down an espresso, not giving in to the temptation to “correct” it with a portion of anisette. He headed for Salvatore's apartment.

The dilapidated building near the Church of San Martino contrasted in an almost sinister way with the many brightly painted houses on the island. Nina Crivelli's obituary notice had been removed from the entrance. But no one, not even her son, had washed away the blood-red scrawl of
Strega
!

Urbino climbed up the dark staircase to the second floor. Tacked on the first door was a piece of cardboard with the faded name
Crivelli
.

He didn't have time to reach his hand toward the knocker when the door was opened quickly. Salvatore's bloodshot eyes stared at him out of an unshaven face. His body, dressed in a dark blue bathrobe, was tense.

“What do you want?”

“I need your help.”

A wary look crept across the man's ravaged, handsome face.

“About what?”

“May I come in?”

Salvatore frowned and stood aside. Urbino went past him into a dark, sour-smelling room with a few scattered pieces of furniture. Salvatore closed the door and stood in front of it, with his arms crossed on his chest.

“It's about my friend Habib Laroussi. You know that he's being detained by the police in the murder of Giorgio, the Contessa's boatman?”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You might know something that could help him.”

“Why would I want to help a murderer?”

“I don't believe he murdered Giorgio.”

“Of course you don't! Because you're as responsible as he is. You brought someone like that into the country. They all end up bringing trouble on the heads of us Italians. They should stay where they belong.”

“I suppose you might say the same thing about me, being an American. But, nonetheless, I'm sure you wouldn't want an innocent person to be punished for what someone else did. Think of it this way, Signor Crivelli. Habib is someone's son. I know that you have a son who is about his age—or a little older, perhaps, more like Giorgio's age. Surely you have some sympathy.”

A muscle started twitching at the corner of Salvatore's eye.

“He should have stayed with his own father instead of coming here with you! What do you expect of people like that who make a display of themselves praying in public, throwing down a rug or a scrap of paper wherever they want?”

“Catholics carry saints through the streets and bless themselves when they go past churches.”

“That's different!”

“Yes, well, anyway, Signor Crivelli, although I see that you aren't positively disposed to Habib, I was wondering if you might remember something that could be of importance.”

He paused for the effect, and then said, “It's about an envelope.”

“An envelope?”

From the moment Salvatore had thrown open the door, Urbino had had an impression of alternating waves of fear and relief emanating from the man. He now furrowed his brow. The wary look returned to his face.

“Yes,” Urbino said. “An envelope.”

He described it, but not its contents.

“Did you notice one like it in the restaurant dining room, or perhaps in the kitchen, during the week before Giorgio's murder?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“What about photographs? Photographs of young men? Do you know anything about them?”

“Photographs of young men? I know nothing of such things, signore! You're not making any sense. If this is your way of helping your friend”—he came close to spitting out the words—“he will stay in prison where he belongs with all the rest of his breed. You must leave now. I have to get ready to go to the restaurant.”

13

Urbino went down the
calle
to the little courtyard to the kitchen entrance of Il Piccolo Nettuno. Nella was inside, chopping vegetables.

“The German lady left the envelope, Signor Urbino,” the little woman said. “I gave it back to her.”

“Where did you find it?”

“On the floor when I wasn't cleaning up the restaurant. Now that Nina is gone, God rest her soul, I've been looking after that as well, but I told Regina she will have to find someone else. It's too much for me.”

“Did Salvatore see it?”

“If he had, he would have given it to me. I look after the things people leave behind.”

“Where did you put it?”

“Right there.”

She indicated a counter next to the door into the courtyard. It was where Urbino had seen the white cap last week.

“Did Salvatore see it there?”

“All these questions about an envelope! What was inside? Money? Salvatore could have seen it as clear as day every time he came into the kitchen.”

“And Signorina Bella?”

“The next morning she moved it from the counter to the shelf above the refrigerator. She puts things like that up there from time to time. Envelopes too. When the German lady asked for it, I couldn't find it on the counter. I thought I had misplaced it or that someone had picked it up when I wasn't around. Then I thought about the shelf.”

“Did you look inside the envelope at any time?”

She stopped slicing a carrot to give him a critical squint.

“Do you think I don't mind my own business, Signor Urbino? I never put my nose or my eyes in matters that don't concern me.”

“I'm sure you don't, Nella. It's just that I know you're concerned about whatever relates to your kitchen.”

She continued to look at him for a few seconds longer, then, mollified, she finished slicing the carrot and started to attack an onion.

“I know that my cook Natalia doesn't like people coming in the kitchen and confusing things.”

“Did I ever say that anyone confused things in here? Nothing like that has ever happened as long as I've been here, and it will be seven years in August.”

Urbino let her go about her work for several minutes as he pretended an interest in the calendar on the wall.

Then, in as offhand a manner as he could bring off, he said, “When I was in the kitchen last week, I noticed a white cap on the same counter. I guess it was Giorgio's.”

“Yes, poor man! They say that the African boy who lives with you did him harm, but I can't believe such a thing.” She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her arm. “You must be very disappointed in him, to say the least, for all the trouble he's brought down on your good head.”

“He never harmed Giorgio, I assure you, Nella.”

“Who knows these days? The bad seem good, and the good turn out bad. It gets more mixed up when it's a foreigner. We don't know their ways well enough to figure them out. And they can't understand ours.”

“There's some truth in that,” Urbino had to admit. “But to get back to Giorgio, did he come into the kitchen often?”

Once again she shot him a suspicious look, but kept up the rhythm of her chopping.

“When the Contessa came to Burano, I'd give him something to eat. He's come once or twice since Nina's death, it seems to me. Very quick into the kitchen and out of it. It was usually when I was busy with the cooking, but I didn't pay attention.”

“Did he have much to say to Salvatore?”

“I never noticed. If he did, it wouldn't have been my business.”

“Thank you, Nella. I hope I didn't put you behind in your preparations. Do you know if I might find Signorina Bella at home? Or perhaps I can stop by the restaurant a little later in the day?”

“You won't find her either here or there. She's gone off for a rest. To some clinic near Florence.”

“When did she go?”

“Yesterday. And very suddenly. She didn't look very well. Circles under eyes and all white and pinched. I hope it does her some good, but she could have stayed in her own house and rested. I would have helped her. Why spend all that money?”

“Sometimes a change of scene is what a person needs.”

“The best that poor folks like me can afford, signor, is a picnic on Torcello when the weather is good!”

After leaving the restaurant, Urbino wandered around the island. He went through the events on the night Nina Crivelli had died, replaying Frieda's party in his mind as best he could and trying to make some sense out of the tensions displayed. He also reviewed the departure of the guests after he had left with Habib.

And what about the figure he thought he had seen in the fog, the figure that had resembled some spectral form in the early days of cinema, all dark gray and indistinguishable as to sex or age? The figure had approached and then seemingly disappeared. Had the figure been someone he knew or some stranger returning home? Or had it all been conjured up out of his half-conscious state?

Urbino became so caught up in these thoughts that he collided with some fish traps on the edge of a deserted square. He saw that he wasn't far from the Casa Verde, and was soon standing in front of its door. The loud strains of the Volsungs' Battle Cry came through the unshuttered, but closed windows. He rang the bell in vain, and decided to leave Frieda to the rest of
Die Walküre
.

He was peculiarly reluctant to leave Burano. He felt as if he were overlooking something that could only be answered here.

He circled back to the main square and walked past Il Piccolo Nettuno. Salvatore was standing beside one of the tables, taking an order. Urbino didn't linger, but continued down the street. The sight of Da Romano Restaurant a short distance away gave him a pang. He hadn't had a chance to take Habib there since their first day on Burano. It seemed a long time ago.

Urbino's footsteps then carried him to the causeway that connected the island of lace with Mazzorbo. He went to the far end and looked back along its length. There was no one in sight. He felt chilled, and pulled his cape more tightly around him.

According to Habib's confused recollections of the crucial night, this was where he had lost his way in the fog. At the time, Urbino had been sitting on the overturned bucket, protected from the cold by Habib's burnoose. And Nina Crivelli had just been murdered, or had been about to be.

Urbino stood thinking for a few more minutes. He then recrossed the causeway and returned to the Casa Verde. It was now silent. There was no answer to his persistent rings.

14

As the
vaporetto
made the crossing back to Venice, Urbino's mind was filled with scattered pieces of information that kept shifting into different patterns like the colored fragments of glass in a kaleidoscope.

Each pattern possessed its own logic, and was seductively persuasive, until the next one fell into place, and seemed equally compelling. What they all had in common, however—other than that the same person had murdered Nina and Giorgio and that this person had also attacked Polidoro—was that Habib's role was an innocent one.

In the past his judgment had been good precisely because it had been detached. On one occasion, however, his fear of losing his special relationship with the Contessa had put him dangerously off the scent. Now he was being tested much more rigorously.

He had often been accused of being distant and cool. “You're above it all,” an artist friend had once half-joked. “Sitting there in your palazzo and carrying on all these intellectual exercises. Your blue needs a bit of the red to warm and humanize it.”

But not too much of it, a voice in his head warned him as the boat approached the landing on the Fondamenta Nuove.

15

“You've got a lovely view,” Urbino said to Beatrix and Marie. He had come directly to their apartment from the
vaporetto
.

“A lovely view, yes, if you like a memento mori,” the plainfaced Marie said. A small brimless hat with a tiny white feather perched on her head. Its violet color matched her trim little suit. “A sight to die for.”

The cemetery island, with its brick wall, cypress trees, gate, and some of the higher tombstones, was visible in the near distance.

The two women occupied furnished rooms that looked out on the lagoon. Scattered liberally among all the mismatched, broken-down furniture and hanging from doorknobs, curtain rods, and pegs on the wall was a jumble of masks and hats. An entire wall of the adjacent bedroom was devoted to an assortment of masks, one of which looked eerily like Salvatore, except that it was painted a virulent shade of green. It hung next to the plague doctor that Beatrix had surprised Urbino with on her visit to the Palazzo Uccello.