Liquid Desires (15 page)

“Just listen to you, Macintyre! ‘Could have'! ‘If! Maybe we should get rid of Zavarella and hire you or some card reader! We have medical examiners for a very good reason—to give us their expert opinion, and that's what Zavarella has done. He sees no sign of foul play but plenty of indications of suicide. There's the antidepressant, and both you and the Contessa said that she seemed unstable. Our preliminary investigation indicates that she was pretty upset on Thursday evening, the last time anyone saw her alive.”

Something had occurred to Urbino when Gemelli mentioned the antidepressant again.

“What does the doctor who prescribed the drug have to say? Does he think that Flavia Brollo was suicidal?”

“The bottle had no label on it. Her family and what friends we've contacted have no idea who she might have gone to for the prescription. Of course, the doctor could read about her death in the paper and come forward, but until he does, there's not much we can do on that angle. And not much that we
should
do unless the substitute prosecutor gives us the go-ahead. I just don't understand you!”

Gemelli had been holding back his impatience, and now he let it go.

“Would you and the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini feel better if this woman had been murdered like Nicolina Ricci in Sant'Elena? The fact that Flavia Brollo knew the murdered girl and was upset makes a death by suicide even more likely. Thank God the Ricci case is sewn up with a confession and the perpetrator is in custody or you'd be telling me that we had a serial killer on the loose! I've already got a call from the mayor who doesn't want all this blown out of proportion, especially during high season. Flavia Brollo's father is respected here in Venice, and so is her aunt, the artist. They are good solid citizens. The
vicequestore
agrees with the mayor. No, Macintyre, the substitute prosecutor is unlikely to move that an inquiry is warranted in the death of Flavia Brollo, and I agree with him. There's no case to answer. If you or the Contessa have any complaints or doubts—if either of you is
disappointed
—go and bother Maurizio Agostini, but I warn you: Substitute prosecutors are even less patient than commissarios of police. Maybe you think if you poke around yourself, you'll be able to prove us all wrong and deliver a murderer to the steps of the Questura! You'll just be wasting your time and not earning anyone's good will. Good day, Macintyre.”

After his conversation with Gemelli, Urbino went over what he had just learned from him.

Suicide didn't ring true—even given the medical evidence and what Madge Lennox had told Urbino about Flavia's melancholy and nervousness and the urgency that had gripped her after the murder of Nicolina Ricci. Even when Urbino threw into the balance the tragic death of Flavia's mother and a rejected, unloved—perhaps unloving—father, he still found himself resisting the idea of suicide.

Urbino kept coming back to the wounds to Flavia's head. They could have been caused by someone wielding a heavy object of some kind. All that was necessary was for Flavia to have been knocked unconscious—perhaps only severely stunned—and then pushed into the Grand Canal. Maybe even her teeth had been knocked out in a struggle. And who was to say that hair or skin tissue of the murderer wouldn't have been found under her fingernails if she hadn't been in the water so long?

As far as the pills found at the Casa Trieste were concerned, Urbino would wait for the toxicology report before he speculated about them.

But he couldn't keep his mind away from why Flavia might have been murdered. Flavia had stormed out of Florian's to get proof that Lorenzo wasn't her father and that Alvise was. She had seemed confident about finding it. Searching for that proof—or finally finding it—could have led to her murder.

It was because of this possibility that Urbino couldn't let things lie where they were. Perhaps the substitute prosecutor would decide that there was a case to answer after all, despite Gemelli's skepticism. But even if he didn't, Urbino was determined to conduct his own investigation into Flavia's parentage and into what he strongly suspected was murder, not suicide.

Someone could have silenced Flavia to protect himself. And who was to say that the silencing was over? Whoever murdered Flavia might strike again to prevent the secret from ever coming out. This person would breathe a little easier if Flavia's death ended up not being treated as a homicide. Perhaps this could work to Urbino's advantage.

Urbino searched out the address of Bernardo and Violetta Volpi from the Venice phone directory and set out for the Ca' Volpi. Venetian addresses being as confusing as they were, he knew only that it was somewhere in the San Marco quarter. After following house numbers for almost half an hour with no success, Urbino stopped at a café in Campo Morosini. When he asked the barman if he knew where the Ca' Volpi was, he was directed toward a
calle
near the Accademia Bridge. The Ca' Volpi was one of the palazzi on the Grand Canal.

8

After giving his card to the Volpis' maid, Urbino waited in a sunny
sala
perched above the Grand Canal. Reflections from the canal played in patterns on the frescoed ceiling, where a fan added its quiet sound to the chug and throb of the water traffic. The room, stylishly but minimally furnished, was hung with the paintings of Violetta Volpi, the aunt of Flavia Brollo.

Over the sofa, covered in an antique Rubelli print, was a portrait of a girl with flowers. It was almost a replica of the painting Eugene had bought from Zuin except that the eyes of this girl were green, not brown, and the hair was a bright red.

On an easel next to a wooden chair was a painting of a naked, prepubescent girl tensely posed on a shadowed bed. Over a trestle table hung a large canvas of a group of women on the Accademia Bridge. The waters of the Grand Canal were choppy and lightning zigzagged in the right-hand corner above a dome of the Salute. All the women were wearing long dark gowns, had faces without features, and had their hands clapped over their ears.

Most of the other pictures contained these same wide-eyed, haunted-looking women and emphasized moonlight, nighttime, and water.

Urbino was unprepared for these paintings, so much like those of Edvard Munch. He had been too quick to place Violetta Volpi in a category. When he heard that she was a painter, he had expected watercolors or aquatints of Venice, the conventionally pretty kind that artists offered for sale along the Molo in front of the Giardinetti Reali. He hadn't expected these violent, even tragic canvases that had love and death as their themes.

The maid led Urbino down a flight of stairs to a hall flanked by large Venetian
torchères
. At the end of the hall she threw open a door and announced his name. Urbino stepped into a large, sunshine-filled room smelling of turpentine and linseed oil. The maid closed the door after her.

The room was obviously Violetta Volpi's studio. Canvases were turned to the wall, paraphernalia was scattered about, and brushes and rubber gloves hung above a sink. A beringed, be robed, and mascaraed woman was kneeling on a clear space on the floor. She was in the first stages of stretching a frame.

“Good afternoon, Signor Macintyre,” she said in a deep, throaty voice, looking up at Urbino. “I'm Violetta Volpi.”

Urbino was no more prepared for the woman than he had been for her art. “Sensuality” was the word that immediately came into his mind as he gazed at Violetta Volpi. It was there in her not unpleasantly coarse features, her full body that the robe only partly concealed, her easy smile that seemed to take pleasure in showing an appealing gap between her two front teeth, and the remarkably dark irises of her light green eyes. It was even there in the musky odor that mixed with the aroma of her perfume.

“That's my husband, Bernardo.”

She nodded toward a man around seventy-five sitting in a chair in the sunshine of a garden. Behind him was bougainvillaea and ivy, a pergola of vines, and a white stone wall, beyond which sparkled the waters of the Grand Canal.

The contrast between Bernardo Volpi and his wife could hardly have been greater. He had a fragile-looking face, and beneath his parchment-colored skin the contours of his skull were visible. Dressed in a beige Prince of Wales linen jacket and linen trousers, with an ascot around his neck, Bernardo Volpi sat immobile and gave no sign of greeting.

Violetta started to cut the canvas around the stretching frame with a knife, her bracelets jangling. A beam of sunlight from the open door struck red highlights in her graying brown hair.

“Please sit down, Signor Macintyre. You won't mind if I continue with this? It's important that I throw myself into my work. All I can think about is my niece.”

Violetta was speaking in Italian even though, according to the Contessa, she knew English—or had known it thirty years ago.

Urbino sat on a small sofa against the wall.

“But I'm not going to get any respite from thoughts of Flavia with you, am I, Signor Macintyre? You're here about her, aren't you?”

Violetta Volpi, tucking her paint-spattered robe around her more tightly to get it out of the way, stared at him. Urbino saw grief written in her face but, as he continued to look at her, it was as if she banished the grief by an act of will. Her strong features exerted their influence and once again Urbino felt the power of her sensuality. He remembered what Occhipinti had said the other night at the Contessa's villa about Violetta having been at all of the balls in her youth. Seeing her now Urbino didn't doubt it.

Violetta bent over and continued to cut the canvas.

“I'm afraid you're right, Signora Volpi. I
am
here about Flavia—more precisely about Flavia and the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini.”

“But surely that goes without saying! I've been expecting either you or the Contessa ever since Flavia told me she paid the Contessa a visit. It's all pure and simple nonsense!” she said dismissively in her throaty voice. “When Flavia told me that she had mentioned this business of Alvise da Capo-Zendrini being her father to the Contessa, I was appalled, and, I admit, I felt a little responsible. After her mother—my sister—died, I looked after her, gave her what advice and help I could. Bernardo was a second father to her. We've never been blessed with children, and what time I could spare from my Bernardo and my art, I gave to her. She was certainly getting nothing from her
other
aunt.”

She finished cutting the canvas and dropped the knife on the floor.

“Her other aunt?”

“No relation to me, thank God! Annabella Brollo, her father's sister.” Violetta almost sniffed with disapproval as she put the stretching frame to one side and started to shave down the knots and slub threads of the canvas with a large pumice. “I wouldn't be surprised if Flavia got her crazy idea about Alvise from Annabella. Poor, poor Alvise,” she added in an affectionately commiserative tone. “He was a good man. He deserved better.”

The ambiguity of this comment would in no way please the Contessa.

“But Annabella! She did everything she could to turn Flavia against me—and against her own mother! Always scheming behind the scenes! All she cares about is her brother and that jungle of flowers she grows up on their
altana
.”

“But surely she wouldn't have led Flavia to believe that her brother wasn't Flavia's father, would she? Not if she cares so much for him.”

Violetta Volpi rubbed with the pumice at a recalcitrant imperfection in the canvas before answering. Urbino suspected that Violetta's activity was a way of not giving him a clear view of her face.

“Who knows?” Violetta said. “Maybe she was trying to poison Lorenzo's mind against my sister. He was devoted to Regina. He still is.” She looked over at Bernardo, who was still sitting silently in the garden. “Two sisters got two good husbands. Annabella never married.
That's
the source of her problems. She's all twisted up and resentful. You can see it in her face. She might be trying to drive her brother crazy for some reason by spreading a story like that. Didn't that happen in a play by Ibsen?”

“I believe it was Strindberg. But isn't that a bit far-fetched? Perhaps Annabella knows something you don't.”

Violetta Volpi stopped rubbing and stiffened.

“If I believed that, I'd slit my wrists! Annabella has always lived in a dreamworld. The happiest day of her life was when my sister died. She just moved right in with Lorenzo and hasn't moved out since! No, she couldn't know anything about my sister that I don't.”

Although Urbino had gone to see Violetta Volpi in quest of information, he was somewhat surprised at her willingness to give it out.

“Did your sister know Alvise da Capo-Zendrini?”

“Hardly. He was
my
friend until he married. Even after that, I saw him from time to time because of Silvestro Occhipinti.”

Violetta Volpi's brow was beaded with perspiration. She put down the pumice and ran the back of her hand across her forehead.

“I'm sorry, Bernardo dear,” she said, looking at her husband and pushing back her hair. The man had said nothing although he was close enough to hear their conversation. “I know you don't want me to go on.” She turned her face to Urbino fully now and smiled, once again unabashedly revealing the space between her teeth. “My husband doesn't like me to criticize others, Signor Macintyre. Such high morals in the world of business is one of life's mysteries! And he's been extremely upset since Flavia died. Ever since Saturday, he doesn't want to go anywhere near our water gate.” She lowered her husky voice. “You can see the Palazzo Guggenheim from there.”

She returned to the piece of cut canvas, picking up a hammer lying beside some nails on the floor.

“Of course, the Contessa needs to have her mind put at ease. Such a terrible shock to the system to be told that your dead husband might have been unfaithful—and with such a beautiful woman, too.”