Liquid Desires (20 page)

On the other side of the sheet was Dalí's
The Birth of Liquid Desires
, in which the woman struggled with a naked man. Urbino and Eugene had seen the original at the Peggy Guggenheim a few minutes before Flavia's body was found floating by the terrace of the palazzo. The images were disturbing. The burst of flowers that was the young woman's head. The naked younger man reaching down into a pool of water. A pale woman in the background, her face averted from the grappling couple. The bearded older man with a woman's breast and a prominent erection.

Urbino called the Contessa.

“Are you all right, Urbino?” the Contessa was quick to ask after he said only a few words. She was one of the few people who could detect his mood—disappointment, anger, apprehension, fatigue, whatever—from just a few syllables over the phone.

“I'm fine, Barbara,” Urbino answered quickly, making an effort to control his voice. “Just a little weary.” He didn't want to tell the Contessa about his mugging until they were face to face. Although he had just been to Asolo, he would make a quick trip there tomorrow and fill her in on everything. He would also accompany Eugene back to Venice. “There are some things to tell you but I'll come to Asolo tomorrow. What I want to know now is if you had any luck with Corrado.”

“He came through,
caro!
I've got just what you need in front of me.”

She read the names and times that Corrado Scarpa had given her. Urbino copied them down.

“So Lorenzo Brollo was the last person to see Flavia alive?” he asked the Contessa.

“So it seems.”

“Thank you, Barbara. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Urbino, are you sure you're all right? You seem so abrupt tonight.”

Urbino assured her that he was only tired and said good night.

According to the police investigation, Ladislao Mirko had seen Flavia at seven-thirty on Thursday evening. This matched what Mirko had told Urbino. Flavia had been at the Ca' Volpi from about ten minutes before eight until eight-thirty and then had gone to see Lorenzo Brollo. Brollo said she arrived before nine and left about forty-five minutes later. It seemed that Violetta Volpi had also paid a visit to the Palazzo Brollo that same night, but she and Brollo said that Flavia had left by then. Annabella Brollo hadn't seen Flavia, but she corroborated her brother's story. No one apparently had seen Flavia alive after she left Lorenzo.

The thunderstorm had come crashing down on Venice about ten-thirty. Had Flavia been dead by then? Had she met anyone other than Mirko, Violetta, and Lorenzo that night? Were all of them—including Annabella—telling the truth about the times? It was logical to assume that the murderer would lie about having seen her that night but yet, Urbino reminded himself, just because someone might lie didn't mean he or she was the murderer. There could be other reasons for not telling the truth, and anyone could have followed Flavia after she left the Palazzo Brollo and killed her.

Urbino was happy to have the list of names. It gave him something concrete to work with. He hoped he would be able to fill in the list more.

15

By eleven the next morning, a Wednesday, the heat and humidity were oppressive as Urbino pushed the brass bell at the Palazzo Brollo. He was looking forward to his brief trip to much cooler Asolo later that day to accompany Eugene back to Venice.

When a woman answered through the intercom, Urbino gave his name and was buzzed into the building. The woman told him to come up to the
piano nobile
. He ascended the stone staircase to the next floor. There was no sign of the woman who had just spoken.

The
sala
of the Palazzo Brollo was long and narrow, terminating in the balcony's closed doors through the chinks of which a dim, aqueous light filtered into the damp, suffocatingly hot room. Pots of ferns were arranged near the balcony doors, and throughout the room vases and urns of flowers filled the air with a heavy scent. Oriental carpets in shades of green covered the scagliola floor and the ceiling was frescoed in vaguely marine designs.

Portraits in heavy dark-wood frames ranged along the walls. With very few exceptions the portraits were in the heroic, romantic style of Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Romney. The Brollo family would seem to have preferred not to be shown “warts and all.”

A low voice came from the shadows at the far end of the room. It startled Urbino.

“You are most punctual, Signor Macintyre,” the voice said in precise British English. “San Giacomo dell'Orio is only now ringing.”

As Urbino's eyes became accustomed to the darkness, the tall figure of the man to whom the low but commanding voice belonged became visible. He was standing next to a piano. The man walked up to Urbino and shook his hand firmly.

“So pleased that you could come here on short notice.”

Lorenzo Brollo was a handsome man in his late fifties with pale skin, blue eyes, a deeply lined face, and sharp features. A monkish fringe of gray hair around a balding crown did nothing to detract from his aquiline good looks. He was what Urbino often thought of as an Anglicized Italian, the kind that Alvise da Capo-Zendrini had been. Urbino was sure that he was a frequent traveler to Britain and prided himself on his perfect English and knowledge of affairs in the UK. His clothes were Savile Row, not Milan, and despite the heat of the day he wore white flannel trousers, a dark blue blazer, and a cravat—a costume, in fact, not very much different from that in which Urbino had dressed for the Contessa's garden party.

“My sister Annabella will be bringing us some coffee and anisette,” Brollo said, his glance lingering on Urbino's bruised eye. “Please sit down.”

He indicated one of two Louis Seize armchairs flanking a matching banquette. On a small, round table was a photograph of a younger Lorenzo Brollo, a girl about ten, and a woman who bore an eerie resemblance to Flavia. Next to it were an English edition of Dickens's
Little Dorrit
and a crystal vase overflowing with crimson cattleya orchids. Brollo, who noticed Urbino taking in the photograph, eased his slim frame onto the banquette.

“My wife, Regina, Flavia, and I fifteen long years ago. That's my late wife on the wall there,” Brollo added almost languidly, nodding his head to a painting across from Urbino.

Brollo's words struck a familiar chord. They were almost identical to the opening lines of Browning's
My Last Duchess
. Silvestro Occhipinti would have appreciated the similarity. And who knew? Perhaps Brollo, with his obvious Anglophilia, had intended the allusion, although he couldn't also want any comparisons drawn between his own late wife and Browning's Duchess, whose proud, jealous husband had murdered her. As Urbino gave his attention to the portrait, he caught a smile curving Brollo's thin lips.

The woman in the portrait was stunning. Regina Brollo and her daughter had shared the same auburn hair and green eyes, strong, arresting face and pale skin, and also slightly uneasy air, if one could judge by Regina's stiff, Bronzino-like pose. Urbino got up and went closer to the portrait, looking for the signature in the lower right-hand corner.

“Not by my sister-in-law Violetta, but an Englishman who used to live in Dorsoduro. He did another portrait. I have it with several others of my dear wife in a room upstairs. My sister calls the room a shrine and perhaps it is. But I've left this one out for all to see. She looks as if she were still alive.” Once again the same smile as he echoed words from Browning's poem. “Amazing, isn't it, how much Flavia resembled her?” He picked up the photograph on the table. “Even as a little girl.” Brollo shook his head slowly and replaced the photograph. “Time passes, Signor Macintyre. If only we could freeze it at its best moments.”

When Urbino sat down again, Brollo asked in his clipped, tight speech, “Do you see anything of
me
in my daughter, Signor Macintyre?”

“She had long, thin fingers, too.”

Brollo spread his hands and looked down at his well-manicured fingers. He seemed casually amused.

“You're right. The fingers of another pianist, my wife used to say. But Flavia never took to the piano—or to any other instrument. Children usually don't care to compete with their parents.” His eyes flicked back in the direction of his wife's portrait. “Although if my wife had lived, it might have been she who ended up competing with Flavia as her own beauty inevitably faded. Ah! Here is Annabella.”

Urbino hadn't heard the silent entrance of Annabella Brollo. She was a short woman about fifty, dressed in black. Her fair, graying hair was pulled severely back, emphasizing a sharp, pinched face. All life seemed centered in pale blue eyes that had an insolent look and rested for a few seconds on Urbino's bruised eye as she advanced, carrying a silver tray with two demitasses of coffee and a bottle of anisette. Annabella Brollo was the woman who had slipped past him into the Casa Trieste on his first visit there to ask Ladislao Mirko about Flavia. Now, as then, he caught the odor of anisette surrounding her.

Annabella deposited the tray and, without a word, padded back across the dark
sala
.

“A remarkable woman, Annabella. I don't know what I would have done without her after Regina died. She brings color and beauty into my life in more ways than one.”

Lorenzo Brollo touched the velvety petal of one of the large, flamboyant orchids. Annabella gave no indication that she had heard these words of praise. She closed the door behind her as quietly as she had opened it.

Lorenzo was now considering Urbino with a cool stare.

“I know it's a hellish day but sometimes something hot is the best remedy. Would you like your coffee corrected?”

Urbino nodded. Brollo poured a generous dollop of anisette into each cup. He handed one of them to Urbino.

“I saw no reason to wait until you contacted me, Signor Macintyre. Why put you through the embarrassment of having to impose yourself on a bereaved father? You seem to be a man of
gentilezza
. Violetta was impressed, and she isn't easily. In that respect as well as others, she's totally unlike her sister, who was much more credulous. We—
I
”—he corrected himself—“thought it best if we spoke and settled this matter of the Conte Alvise da Capo-Zendrini.” Brollo crossed one long, flanneled leg over the other and contemplated the high shine on his brown wingtips. “You do appreciate directness, don't you, Signor Macintyre? You Americans are said to have that quality in abundance, whereas we Italians have acquired a completely different reputation—unjustified for many of us. Not all of us own ‘a fine Italian hand'—or ‘tongue,' for that matter.”

“Since you mention directness, Signor Brollo, perhaps, you'll forgive me when I tell you that I'm not only here about the Conte da Capo-Zendrini but because I suspect that Flavia was murdered. It might have something to do with the Conte.”

Urbino read surprise in Brollo's pale blue eyes.

“My sister-in-law said nothing about your mentioning a suspicion of murder,” Brollo said, looking down at his demitasse as he stirred it with a little spoon.

“I didn't.”

“Indeed?” The eyes he turned to Urbino now no longer had any surprise in them. Their blank expression seemed perfectly under Brollo's control. “But yet you drop it down on me now. Why do you think that a daughter of mine could have been murdered? The police have no suspicion of foul play.”

“That's true,” Urbino admitted, “but I feel differently. I—”

“‘Feel'! Surely this isn't a matter of
feeling
, Signor Macintyre. My emotions—and those of my sister and my sister-in-law—are in a terrible state of disarray. We're trying to adjust to having lost our Flavia in what must have been suicide and now you are bringing up the grim specter of murder! Think of our guilt and our pain! We feel them to the quick, I assure you! The police have said that they found medicine of some kind—something that probably disoriented her. I wasn't aware that she was taking anything, but there are many things we don't know about our children. I have to let all this go and put it behind me.”

“But surely if Flavia was murdered, you would want to have the murderer found.”

“Without question, my dear Signor Macintyre, but I think we should deal with some actual, verifiable accusations rather than a matter of nebulous ‘feeling.'” Brollo said the word scornfully. “What I mean is this nonsensical notion my daughter had about the Conte da Capo-Zendrini, a gentleman Violetta knew many years ago. An absurdity! The last time I saw Flavia, I told her most firmly once again that there was nothing to it. She was upset when she came here and upset when she left as well, I'm afraid. Such a burden.”

“What time was that?”

Brollo laughed a quiet laugh.

“I have nothing to fear along those lines, despite your ‘feelings' about murder. It was about nine-thirty last Thursday.”

He looked at Urbino as if he were trying to gauge his reaction to the time. Nine-thirty was the time Brollo had told the police, according to Corrado Scarpa's list.

“No one seems to have seen her after then,” Urbino ventured to say.

“Indeed? And this has great import when you ‘feel' that she was murdered, doesn't it? But very sadly, Signor Macintyre, there's a saying: ‘Suicide runs in families.' There has already been a lot of talk. ‘Like mother, like daughter.' I never thought there was much truth in such expressions but I have no doubt now. I've lost the two people I've loved the most in the same painful way.”

Brollo shook his head and gave an appearance of melancholy reflection for a few silent moments. Then, as if pulling himself from far away, he said, “So you can go back to the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini—an admirable woman whose efforts on behalf of our dear city we all sincerely appreciate, I assure you—and tell her that she need be troubled no longer. That's what I wanted to tell you face-to-face. The Contessa can cast her fears off on the gentle Asolo breeze! I can imagine what it must be like to fear that the person you loved most has wronged you in some base way. I couldn't—I
wouldn't
—have endured it. So please tell your friend that her late husband was most definitely not Flavia's father and had no relationship with my dead wife whatsoever.”