Farewell to the Flesh

by Edward Sklepowich

  When he went to the Madonna dell’Orto boat landing and looked out over the lagoon toward the cemetery island, the image was even stronger. Hazel’s body might be in the mortuary on San Michele along with Gibbon’s. If this were centuries ago and Florence instead of Venice, her body could now be under dissection at Maria Novella for a presente cadavere lesson to which the public was invited twice a year during Carnevale.

  Urbino turned from the lagoon and made his way back to the Palazzo Uccello by the most direct route.

  A figure was leaning against the building next to the Palazzo Uccello as he came over the bridge. The person was looking up the calle away from Urbino as if he wasn’t familiar with the area or at ease in it either.

  Until Urbino got closer, he didn’t know if it was a man or a woman. Everything seemed meant to camouflage. Not just the long dark coat with the hood pulled up but the stance of the figure that betrayed nothing about sex or age.

  As Urbino approached, the figure turned toward him but the facial features were in shadow beneath the hood, pulled forward as it was. Then the figure spoke, and with one word all ambiguity disappeared. Sex, age, and personal identity were clear.

  “Urbino!”

  Hazel Reeve came forward and touched his arm, She didn’t throw back her hood but looked nervously up and down the calle.

  “Can we go inside?”

  Urbino unlocked the door and preceded her up the stairs to the little parlor.

  28

  “Give me a brandy,” Hazel Reeve said, throwing back her hood and taking off her coat, “and I’ll explain everything.”

  On the two previous times Hazel had confided in Urbino she had obviously kept things in reserve. Was he really going to hear the whole story now? He doubted it.

  Hazel settled into the deep blue cushions of the chair, closing her eyes and putting an arm across her face. Urbino handed her the brandy.

  “I’m sorry for whatever trouble I caused you, Urbino. It wasn’t until this morning that I realized that dropping out of sight like that after dinner might put you in a bad position.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  She took her arm away and looked at him with a smile before taking a sip of her brandy.

  “‘Worried about me.’ That’s nice but I don’t think I deserve it. In fact, I know I don’t. I went to Mestre.”

  Mestre! It was only a few minutes across the causeway from Venice.

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “How could you? I wandered around for a while after I left you. I went to the Piazza and had a drink at Florian’s. It was a madhouse! Then I took the boat as far as the train station and got on the first train that was leaving. Of course it stopped in Mestre like all the trains from Venice. I got off and went across the street to a hotel.”

  “But why Mestre?”

  “Because it wasn’t Venice. I realized I had to get away, if only for as long as this.”

  “Because of Tonio Vico?”

  If she was surprised she didn’t show it. She nodded.

  “So Tonio told you. I didn’t think he saw me.”

  “He doesn’t seem to have—or his mother. I spoke with them at the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini’s tonight. She and Mrs. Pillow used to be in school together. Tonio Vico saw the piece in today’s paper. He didn’t know Gibbon was dead until today.”

  “Today’s paper? What about yesterday’s? But I’m the one who’s been behindhand, aren’t I? I should have told you last night, I know. When I mentioned another man before Val, there was no reason to tell you who he was. But last night when I saw him come in with his stepmother, I couldn’t believe it. I knew the woman who was with them was your friend the Contessa. Porfirio showed me some pictures of her. When I saw Tonio, I got very frightened.”

  “For yourself?”

  She laughed without much humor and drank some of her brandy. With her cheeks flushed and her short haircut disarrayed from her hood, she looked even more girlish.

  “For him—for Tonio. If Tonio was here when Val was killed, it might mean—”

  She floundered and looked at him helplessly.

  “That he killed Val Gibbon?”

  Although he had finished her statement for her out of sympathy, the sudden anger in her eyes showed that she had taken offense. It went as quickly as it came, however.

  “What I meant is that the police would be in a good position to make his life uncomfortable. He would be their major suspect. It’s just the kind of violence most Italians understand. A crime of passion involving a faithless woman.”

  She put down her glass and took out a handkerchief. Urbino thought she was about to cry but she only blew her nose. Her words reminded him that the Italians—and many others as well—would also be able to understand another crime of passion, one committed by a spurned woman.

  “Tonio is going to the Questura tomorrow morning and tell Commissario Gemelli everything.”

  “Everything?”

  There was a note of fear in her voice.

  “Everything about his relationship with you and about having known who Gibbon was. He says he didn’t kill Gibbon.”

  “Of course not!” She shook her head slowly. “Well, it’s obvious that nothing’s going to be a secret now. Tonio’s going to be humiliated.”

  She put away her handkerchief and took another sip before going on.

  “Commissario Gemelli must be furious. I might even have broken the law but I don’t care. Last night I was so frightened and confused that I had to get away! I had to think, and I knew I couldn’t do it staying with Porfirio. I’m moving out.”

  Where she might be moving to close to midnight in a city without a spare room was something she had probably not worked out yet. There was a determined look on her face, however, that seemed to say she wouldn’t go back to Porfirio’s even if it meant sleeping in a vaporetto or going back to Mestre.

  “I can’t trust anyone but you, Urbino.” When she said this, it was as if Urbino could hear the Contessa whispering in his ear to be careful. “Let me tell you about Tonio. I met him two years ago at a lecture on Palladian architecture at the V and A. I hadn’t had a relationship in—well, a long time—and we got along from the start. Tonio was studying architecture in London then and we started to see a lot of each other. Surely you can see even after only a short time that he’s Italian in the best ways and none of the worst, yet he’s very much American, thanks to his stepmother. I thought he understood me better than any other man ever had or could. He was intelligent, handsome, sensitive—everything that a girl could want.”

  She hadn’t mentioned “rich” but she was rich enough herself.

  “But you didn’t love him,” he said, risking her anger again.

  “But I didn’t realize it, not until Val came along. And when Val did, then I knew. I was in love with Val almost from the first. As I told you, he appeared like magic just when I needed someone to photograph my parents’ things at the house in Knightsbridge. He was completely different from Tonio.”

  “In what way?”

  “Oh, he was good-looking and intelligent, too, but he didn’t take himself so seriously. Maybe that came of being more than ten years older.”

  Her comment surprised Urbino because one of the things that had struck him about Gibbon was just how self-important he could be. But that had been with him, another man. He might have been completely different with Hazel.

  “But who knows why we fall in love with one person and not someone else? Le coeur a ses raisons. It’s true. And we don’t fall in love with the one we want to or even with the better person—frequently the opposite, in fact.”

  She seemed to consider this before going on.

  “Tonio didn’t understand any of this. How could he? I still don’t understand it myself. When I told him about my feelings for Val—on Boxing Day, far from the best time, I know—he wouldn’t believe it. He said that I would feel different after a while, that he knew I really loved him.”

&nbs
p; Tears came into her eyes.

  “Sometimes since then I’ve thought that Tonio might have been right. He’s such a good person. Val had a nasty side to him when it came to Tonio. He was envious of him—not so much because of me or because Tonio had so much money but because Tonio was privileged in a way he had never been. Val would follow him around sometimes and take his picture as if he were trying to learn some secret about him that would show up in the photograph. Exactly what he got out of doing that, I never could figure out.”

  “And what about Mrs. Pillow? How did she feel about you and Val—about the problems between you and Tonio?”

  According to Tonio and Mrs. Pillow, Val Gibbon’s name had never been mentioned between them.

  “Tonio said he didn’t tell her, and he didn’t want me to say anything either—as if I would! He even suggested that I come over to dinner before they both left for Naples, but I couldn’t have gone through with that. It would have been a farce. His stepmother would have seen through it. She’s an intelligent woman.”

  “How did you get along with her?”

  “Well enough. I don’t think that she was that taken with me. There was some girl back in America, a niece of Mrs. Pillow’s from her second marriage, not any relation to Tonio, of course. I’m sure Mrs. Pillow would probably have accepted me in the end. She loves Tonio as much as if he were her natural son and I suppose you can’t blame her for wanting to protect him. Who knows? Maybe another woman could see that I didn’t really love Tonio even if I couldn’t see it myself. Maybe that was why she didn’t completely approve of me.”

  “Did Tonio know that you would be here in Venice with Gibbon?”

  She stiffened slightly in her chair.

  “I wouldn’t quite say that I was ‘here in Venice with him.’ Porfirio invited me to stay with him. I had already accepted before I knew that Val would be here too. He came for Carnevale, and once he was here he was asked to take photographs of the church and the convent. But you know that.”

  Hazel looked down into the brandy glass cupped in her hands. She still hadn’t answered his question of whether or not Tonio Vico had known she would be in Venice. Urbino asked her again.

  “I didn’t tell him.” Then, perhaps realizing that this wasn’t enough, she added, “He didn’t know. I don’t know how he could have known. The only people who knew were Porfirio, my editor, and Val, of course. Besides, Tonio has been down in Naples with his stepmother for the past few weeks—or so I thought.”

  In her wide green eyes he saw puzzlement, as if she were asking herself how Vico had come to be in Venice at the same time she was. She took out her handkerchief again and this time she was crying, deep sobs that wracked her small frame.

  Urbino went over to her. He put his arm around her shoulders and let her cry.

  “You’ll stay here tonight, Hazel. You say you don’t want to go back to Porfirio’s and I don’t think you have much chance of getting a room at this hour, not during Carnevale. After a good night’s sleep, Natalia will fix you breakfast and we’ll go to the Questura.”

  She dried her tears and looked up at him gratefully. He went to get her a glass of mineral water. As he was bringing it back, he realized something with a start.

  He had also promised Tonio Vico just a few hours ago that he would go to the Questura in the morning with him. It was a strange dilemma to be in. He might even have seen some humor in it if it hadn’t been a question of murder.

  29

  But next morning he soon realized that it made no difference what impossible promises he had made. When Natalia went to the guest bedroom to see about Hazel, she came back with a puzzled look on her face.

  “There’s no one there, Signor Urbino.” Then she added, as if to assure him that he hadn’t been mistaken but had indeed had an overnight guest, “But the bed was used.”

  She picked up the bag of espresso beans and started to measure them out, more absorbed in the task than was necessary.

  “I think there’s a note on the dresser. Do you want me to get it?”

  “No, thank you, Natalia. I’ll get it myself.”

  A page ripped from an appointment book was propped on the dresser against the mirror. In an obviously hurried hand was the message:

  Urbino,

  I’m going back to Porfirio’s for a few hours. I’ll go to the Questura on my own. It might be better that way. Don’t worry.

  Hazel

  When the phone rang a few minutes later, he was still holding Hazel’s note. It was the Contessa.

  “Are you awake, caro? I’m afraid I have bad news. We’ve got another violent death to account for. Porfirio’s dead. His body was found in San Gabriele this morning.” The Contessa paused. “It seems he broke his neck in a fall from the fresco you and Josef are restoring.”

  Part Three

  BUT THE TRUTH NOT TO EVERYONE

  1

  Urbino called Porfirio’s apartment a few minutes later. Carmela, the photographer’s maid, answered, but before Urbino could ask the breathless, abstracted woman for Hazel, the phone was taken from her and a male voice came over the line.

  “The residence of Porfirio Buffone. Who is this?”

  Urbino recognized Commissario Gemelli’s voice.

  “Urbino Macintyre. Is that Commissario Gemelli?”

  “Are you disappointed that I’m here before you, Macintyre? Maybe you’re thinking you should have accompanied Signorina Reeve back here from your place. It seems that you’ve been lacking in gallantry with this particular young lady.”

  “She’s there then? Is she all right?”

  “Yes, she’s here and I suppose she’s all right. She hasn’t flown away again, which is the important thing. She’s apologetic about her little excursion to Mestre and seems reasonably upset over the death of her host. Not any tears but she has a very white face.”

  “She came here last night.”

  “And spent the night—yes, I know—and told you how she stayed in Mestre after leaving you in the Campo San Barnaba. She told me all about Antonio Vico, the son of a friend of the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini.”

  “A stepson. Vico was planning to come to see you this morning. He still is, I’m sure.”

  “Is he? And how do you know?”

  “I was with him last night at the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini. He told us—that is, his stepmother, Mrs. Pillow, the Contessa, and myself—that he knew Gibbon. He asked me to go to the Questura with him this morning.”

  “I’m impressed, Macintyre. It appears that you are the confidant of two very important people in our investigation into Gibbon’s murder. I’m sure you realize that this carries a responsibility. And now there’s this business of Porfirio Buffone’s death. I don’t dare ask you what your theories are about the deaths of two photographers who knew Signorina Reeve, but I would like to know about your movements during the past twelve hours—that is, when you weren’t entertaining Signorina Reeve and getting Antonio Vico’s confidences.”

  “My movements?”

  “Exactly. I know you’ve become involved in an amateur way in restoration and have been helping the Polish man with his work at San Gabriele. But we needn’t discuss this over the telephone, Macintyre. Come to the Questura in about two hours. Bring along Antonio Vico, too. We wouldn’t want him staying in his room afraid to face the police without you by his side.”

  Urbino next called the Splendide-Suisse and asked to be connected with the Vico-Pillow suite.

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Macintyre,” Mrs. Pillow said with faint surprise. “Tony was going to call you but he wanted to be sure you were awake.”

  Urbino looked at the clock on the table. It wasn’t even seven-thirty.

  “Tony’s being very brave about going to the police. I’m glad that you’ll be with him.”

  “I don’t want either you or your stepson to think I can work any magic with the Questura, Mrs. Pillow. I’m not on the best footing with them myself. Commissario Gemelli and I have had a strained relations
hip during the past few years. I don’t know what I can do for your stepson other than accompany him to San Lorenzo and be with him for as long as Gemelli thinks appropriate.”

  He didn’t mention that Gemelli wanted to see him in his own right. In fact, he didn’t see any point in mentioning the death of Porfirio at all.

  “I have a feeling that you’re being too modest, Mr. Macintyre, but in any case I’m happy he’ll be going with you. Tony and I have talked it over and he thinks it would be better if he didn’t have his mother along. Someone like yourself has the virtue of not being biased in his favor.”

  Urbino didn’t get a chance to talk with Vico, but Mrs. Pillow assured him that her stepson would be waiting downstairs in the lounge at ten.

  2

  Gemelli’s door opened. The Commissario ushered out a white-faced Vico.

  “Signor Vico is free either to wait for you or to go wherever he wishes—as soon as he reads and signs the typed version of his statement, that is. It’s being prepared.”

  “I think I’ll go back to the hotel when I’m finished here, if you don’t mind,” Vico said to Urbino.

  “Good idea. I’m sure your mother is concerned.”

  From his first moments alone with Gemelli in his office, Urbino sensed a somewhat different attitude in the Commissario from his usual one of cynical forbearance and irony. Instead of asking insinuating questions about his relationship to the restoration of the fresco and the last time he had been on the scaffold, he smiled at him over the desk and thanked him for encouraging Vico to talk with him.

  “I’m not sure how much I had to do with that. He would have come on his own.”