The Chins were not able to take their eyes off the rooms. The odor had not yet dissipated.
‘The rooms must have been a real treasure trove for her,’ Urbino said.
He thought of the black broadcloth coat in eighteenth-century style, its collar detached, up in Olimpia’s atelier. It must have been something she had raided from the blue rooms. He had not noticed any other old articles of clothing, but he had not given the atelier as thorough a search as he would have liked. And now that he knew that the blue rooms held not only clothes from the distant past but recent ones as well, he realized that some of the newer clothes that he had seen might very well have come from the blue rooms.
‘Eufrosina might find it interesting to photograph some of these things,’ Urbino added.
‘Eufrosina? She hates the rooms. She calls them graveyards.’
The door to the embankment opened and Eufrosina, as if conjured up by their references to her, entered the vestibule with a whirl of snow. She looked very pale. Wisps of damp hair straggled from beneath her knit hat. Far from being dressed in mourning, she was wearing a bright red coat, although her leather gloves were black and looked like the ones Apollonia had been accustomed to wearing. She was carrying her satchel.
She came to a momentary halt as she saw the group standing in front of the blue rooms. It seemed to startle her to see the rooms open, but she regained her composure enough to give them all a cursory, collective greeting before going up the staircase.
‘You see,’ Gaby said in a low voice. ‘She doesn’t even like to look at the rooms. Like mother, like daughter.’
Fifteen minutes later, the snow was still coming down thickly when Urbino emerged from the Palazzo Pindar with Eugene and the Chins. It helped to dispel some of the gloom that the blue rooms had cast on him – and, as was quite evident to him, on the Chins. Only Eugene seemed unaffected.
Over his companions’ protests, Urbino insisted that he was putting Gildo and Giovanni at their service for the next few hours.
‘I have to see to some business matters. The gondola can be your floating sleigh. And you won’t be out in the cold this time, Eugene.’
Before leaving them in the hands of the two gondoliers who were waiting with the gondola in front of the Palazzo Pindar, he arranged to see them when they returned in a few days from Parma and Bologna, where they were going on a restaurant tour sponsored by the cooking school.
Fifteen
After calling the contessa from the Palazzo Uccello and telling her about the blue rooms and the disturbing impression they had made on him and the others, he sat in the library, with a glass of sherry, and let his mind run freely and almost randomly over what he had learned about the Pindars and their relationships with each other during the past two weeks. Unlike any of his other cases, his investigation hadn’t taken him far afield from the immediate circumstances of the murder, largely because of the strong gravitational pull of the family and his assumption that the murder had been a family affair. Although there were so many odd pieces to try to put together, almost each one was directly related to the Palazzo Pindar and the family.
He feared he might have been neglecting two pieces that had a tangential relationship to the Pindars.
One involved Nedda Bari, whose connections with the Pindars included both branches of the family living at the Palazzo Pindar and went back more than twenty-five years. The other was Evelina, who appeared to have had a particular friendship with Olimpia before Mina came on the scene and who was now part of Nedda’s entourage. And Evelina’s name began with ‘E’.
After fifteen more minutes of pondering, Urbino was on his way to Nedda’s house. The snow had completed its magical transformation of the city, softening sharp angles, accenting curves and arches, and providing a powdery frosting to the parapets of the bridges. A greater silence had fallen on the city. Urbino’s boots squeaked in the snow, and he enjoyed the sharp pure sting of the air in his nostrils. He was brought back to his childhood visits to Vermont, when he used to wake up on snowy mornings and rush out into the yard, expecting the snow to have turned into sugar.
His reverie ended when he entered the Campiello Widman, where two costumed figures rushed over to him from the other side of the square and started to dance around him, gesturing in the air with their arms but without uttering a word. One was dressed in a voluminous black cloak, lace cape, three-cornered hat, and black oval mask. The other wore the costume of Columbine, with a white half-mask. They raced away toward the Grand Canal, sliding in the snow and being chased by a little boy blowing a squeaker.
Drifts of snow had collected under the sottoportico of Nedda’s building, blown in from the canal side. The moored boats, covered with tarpaulins, seemed like soft waiting beds with clean white sheets.
Maria answered the bell. She hesitated when Urbino asked if Nedda was at home.
‘Who is that, Maria?’ came Nedda’s voice from the front parlor.
‘Signor Macintyre.’
‘Show him in.’
Urbino took off his cape and did his best to stamp the snow from his boots before going into the parlor.
Nedda, who was sitting on her sofa, had a small glass of clear liquid in her hand. A half-empty bottle of anisette stood on the table in front of her. Nedda’s large, attractive face was flushed and had a slack look.
The room, which had been a hub of activity on his previous visit, was silent and filled with shadows. The rest of the house was quiet.
‘Sit down and have a drink.’ Nedda’s voice was slurred. ‘Maria, bring another glass for Signor Macintyre.’
Maria complied and then left them alone.
Nedda poured anisette into Urbino’s glass and more into her own.
‘Salute!’ She raised her glass and downed most of the anisette in one gulp. She gave him a quick look, in which there was a great deal of sharp awareness despite her inebriated state. ‘Let’s not play games. I am not the type for that. There is no need for either of us to pretend this time. You’re investigating Olimpia’s murder. I knew it the other day but I didn’t say anything because of the others. You’ve come at a good time. We are alone now, and anisette always puts me in a truthful mood. I have nothing to hide.’
Urbino, who was always alerted and sceptical when anyone said this, took a sip of anisette.
‘From what I read in the newspaper and what I heard,’ Nedda went on, ‘Mina Longo killed Olimpia.’
‘Heard from whom? Ercule?’
‘So you know? It must have been Natalia. But that was a long time ago. Yes, he told me how he saw Mina with the scissors and how she was screaming that she had killed Olimpia. It couldn’t have been more obvious. Ercule and I bump into each other from time to time. No reason not to be civil. And he helped me rent Apollonia’s building. It was good for him and good for me. He and his sisters got money from Apollonia for the apartment and I got this building. And I have no intention of leaving!’
‘I’m sure something can be worked out with Alessandro and Eufrosina.’
‘Let them try to get me out! They will see a different side to me, especially that Eufrosina. She’s had it coming for a long time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that I won’t restrain myself any longer from slapping her face, and that’s all I’m going to say about it!’
Nedda was making even less of an effort this afternoon to conceal her dislike for Eufrosina.
‘Maybe Ercule will help you with Alessandro and Eufrosina,’ Urbino suggested as a way of staying in the same general area of her relationship with Eufrosina.
‘If it’s to his financial benefit. Only money is going to get him his dreams. That was one reason why it never worked out between us. Even back then he had his wild dreams, and was always looking for money.’ She drank down the remaining anisette in her glass. ‘It would have been ridiculous, me and Ercule. What a mismatch! It was only my grief that brought us together for a while. He was Achille’s brother, and he was devastated
by his death. I’ll say that for him.’ Nedda’s face clouded. ‘But that was a long time ago.’
She poured herself more anisette.
‘If you think the anisette is going to get me to talk about my relation-ship with Achille, you’re wrong. That’s a sacred topic. But you’ve also come about Evelina – Evelina Cardinale, right?’
There was no point in pretending otherwise. ‘Yes. She was Olimpia’s friend.’
‘More than her friend. But it was all over a year ago.’
‘How do you know her?’
‘She’s the daughter of one of the women I help. She started to ask for advice about her relationship with Olimpia. Olimpia was too possessive, she said. Evelina is an assistant at a veterinary clinic in Dorsoduro. Olimpia was always giving her money, telling her she should quit her job. I encouraged Evelina to break away. It wasn’t that I had anything against Olimpia. I am a very accepting woman. I could not do the kind of work I do if I weren’t. So I gave Evelina a place to stay. Olimpia had been paying for an apartment near the clinic. She’s still living here. She’s upstairs now. But don’t think she had any animosity toward Olimpia. She wished her well.’
‘Did helping her cause any problems between you and Olimpia?’
‘It certainly did! But then Mina Longo came along. Olimpia became friendlier to me after that. We got together once in a while.’
Nedda’s description of a reconciliation with Olimpia did not match what he had seen in front of the Palazzo Pindar.
‘She seemed happier than she had been when she was with Evelina,’ Nedda said. ‘I guess everything –’ She broke off. ‘Can you believe I was going to say that everything worked out for the best in the end? But Longo ended up killing her.’ She leaned back, not quite suppressing a sigh. ‘The past. Change one thing in it and you change the future.’
The philosophy was very much on her mind these days.
She stood up, swaying slightly. ‘Excuse me, but I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down.’
Maria appeared from the hallway and steadied her with a firm hand under Nedda’s elbow. From the way Maria did it, Urbino suspected it was something she often did for Nedda.
‘If you want to speak with Evelina,’ Nedda said, turning around, ‘I’ll see if she can come down. Neither of us has anything to hide.’
Ten minutes later, Evelina came down the staircase. On closer inspection, Urbino found that she was indeed pretty, as Rosa Custodi had said, in a delicate manner similar to Mina, with light brown eyes. But her pale face was drawn and her blond hair needed a careful application of a comb or a brush.
‘Nedda said you’d like to talk with me.’ Her voice was soft. She dropped her eyes before his gaze. ‘About Olimpia.’
‘Yes. I’ve been asking Signora Bari some things about her, too.’
‘You don’t think Mina Longo killed Olimpia, Nedda said.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘I don’t want to believe it, but it seems to be true. To think of Olimpia being murdered by someone she cared about. It is too horrible.’
Her lips started to quiver. She went to the window and looked out at the sottoportico and the canal.
‘I have only good things to say about Olimpia and Mina Longo,’ she went on in a strained voice, her back turned to Urbino. ‘They seemed to be good for each other, better than Olimpia and I were. I don’t like to have any bad feelings toward anyone. I am glad Olimpia and I made peace between us before she was killed. And I’m glad I forgave her aunt Apollonia in my heart long before she died.’
‘What do you mean about Apollonia Ballarin?’
Evelina turned around. She had a calm, composed expression on her face now.
‘She cursed me sometimes when I was going up to Olimpia’s workshop. Olimpia told me to ignore her. Her mind had been twisted by religion, she said. But I could tell it bothered Olimpia – bothered her for my sake and her own. She had to put up with a lot with Apollonia living in the same house. I am not religious, Signor Macintyre. But I believe in forgiveness. That’s why I’m going to Apollonia’s wake and funeral. Nedda and I will go together. And I forgive Mina Longo, too.’
Although Urbino believed in forgiveness, Evelina’s quickness to reveal her forgiving spirit put him on his guard, as he had been earlier when Nedda had been so apparently open and honest with him.
‘Did Olimpia ever mention the blue rooms?’
‘The blue rooms?’
Urbino explained.
‘Oh, those rooms. I asked her what was inside them once. She said they were storerooms for clothes and other things.’
‘Were the rooms ever open when you went to see her?’
‘No. Never.’
Urbino did not go directly back to the Palazzo Uccello, but he wandered through the snow-filled city to savor the rare atmosphere and to stimulate his thinking – or rather to try to sort out its various elements, for it was thick with theories and speculations.
In his abstracted state, he found his way to the Piazza San Marco, which was relatively empty. A few people stood in the white expanse as if they were in the middle of a country field, looking at the pigeons wheeling above them and pecking in the snow.
He turned into Florian’s for a glass of wine. Like the other patrons, he sat at a table next to one of the windows to enjoy the scene outside. Soon, the municipality would be setting up the stage for carnevale across from the Basilica, and something far less serene than the snowfall would be transforming the city. But Urbino would be in America by then, escaping the madness. He was far from able to appreciate this thought since it only brought even closer to the surface the anxiety he felt over Mina and his imminent departure with Eugene.
After leaving Florian’s, Urbino retraced some of his steps to the Fondamenta Nuove to stand on the bridge near the Church of the Gesuiti.
He looked across the dark gray waters of the lagoon to the cemetery island, whose brick walls and cypresses were cloaked with snow. Olimpia lay there, and soon Apollonia would – one the victim of the foulest of play, the other dead, it would seem, in the sad natural order of things.
Was it possible that a fatal connection existed between them – a connection other than the family one – that had led either directly or indirectly to Olimpia’s murder? Something that had to do with the morally righteous Apollonia’s animosity toward Olimpia and the forgiving Evelina – and, he assumed, toward Mina as well, who had taken Evelina’s place?
He had begun his investigation into the mysteries of the Palazzo Pindar with the fear that Gaby might be about to become a victim for some unknown reason, but now she was squarely within the small company of suspects for her sister’s murder. Her reluctance to open the blue rooms could mean there might be something in them that could connect her, through the past, with her sister’s brutal murder.
Gaby’s fears, Olimpia’s murder, and now Apollonia’s death. The sequence continued to intrigue him, and even more so because he could not be sure that the death of the eldest member of the Pindar clan had been natural. If it had been the result of foul play, so much of what he and the contessa had been considering – the results of all their poking and peering and peeping about – needed to be re-fashioned.
Pulling himself out of these thoughts, Urbino noticed that the waterbus was approaching the nearby dock. He hurried to catch it. He needed to get home as soon as possible now.
Back at the Palazzo Uccello, Urbino put on his smoking jacket of dull red brocade in which he had never smoked a single cigarette, cigar, or pipe. In the library, after pouring himself a snifter of brandy, he selected Smetana’s Moldau and Shostakovich’s Symphony Number Five and Violin Concerto Number One to listen to. They seldom failed to encourage his meditative moods.
He sat down at the long priory refectory table. Serena abandoned one of the maroon velvet seats of the mahogany confessional, and, after kneading for a minute, settled in his lap.
He drew a vertical line down the center of a blank sheet of paper, making two colu
mns.
At the top of one column he wrote ‘A’ and at the top of the other ‘E’. Beneath each letter he listed every relevant ‘A’ and ‘E’ in the case.
A
E
Achille
Efigenia
Apollonia
Ella (Gaby)
Alessandro
Ercule
Eufrosina
Evelina
Three in the group – Achille, Apollonia, and Efigenia – were family members who had died over the course of more than twenty-five years. Also on the list was someone who was outside the family but linked to it through Olimpia. This was Evelina, whom Urbino considered the wild card of the group. She brought with her Nedda, who, although not on the list, had to be considered as a player in the game, because of her relationships with Achille, Ercule, Apollonia and Olimpia.
He worked out various combinations of the two names, scribbling them on another piece of paper. He enjoyed playing with the combinations, seeing what he could come up with.
Sometimes the combinations were bizarre, even shocking. Other times his imagination ran away with him, but he let it run as far as it would go, even though he ended up with what seemed to be the most unlikely of scenarios.
Through it all, he assigned different values to his wild card Evelina, further complicating the picture. And he reminded himself that he needed to see beyond the initials, which risked misleading him by not encouraging him to look in other areas – for example, mainly Nedda Bari, but even Italo Bianchi.
There were so many unanswered questions – even, quite probably, unanswerable ones.
Had there been anything in Apollonia’s life before her embrace of her ‘vita nuova’ that might clarify her relationships with her two children and her Pindar relatives? Something that might connect her in some way with Olimpia’s murder? Why had she left Alessandro the lion’s share of her assets and possessions?
The Veils of Venice Page 24