5 - Her Deadly Mischief

by Beverle Graves Myers

“I’m not sure. A coin?” I tugged, but Sary’s strong, square teeth were clenched in a death rictus. “Help me loosen her jaws.”

  After a few gruesome minutes, we had retrieved our prize. A small, cast iron key graced my palm.

  “Could it be?” I whispered. The key carried no markings, but the short shaft and arrangement of teeth looked decidedly familiar. “Do you still carry—”

  “Of course.” Messer Grande was already rummaging in his waistcoat pocket. He drew forth the key he had removed from Zulietta’s corpse and held it up to Paolo’s light. This official key was highly polished and impressed with D-17, the Pino box number.

  I brought the key from Sary’s mouth up beside his. The metal was dull and contained a few nicks and dings, but side by side, the teeth made a perfect match.

  “Paolo,” asked Messer Grande. “Do you know the man who has been staying here?”

  The candles wavered. Paolo peered at them as if they were in someone else’s control. “I’m not supposed to say his name.”

  Messer Grande stood. He towered over the boy but looked down on him with a kindly expression. “Do you understand who I am?”

  “Y…yes.”

  “Do you understand that I’m investigating the murder of the woman who used to live here and that now I have another murder on my hands?”

  Paolo nodded.

  “A killer is loose somewhere in the city. Innocent people may be in danger. I mean to catch this devil, but I can’t do it alone. I need help. Tito—this man here—he is one of my best helpers. I need your help, too.”

  Paolo’s voice and hand steadied. “I can be your helper.”

  “Good, good.” Messer Grande nodded. “I’m asking you about Alessio Pino. When did you last see him?”

  “Earlier today, when I brought the first bucket from the well. Sary scolded me for being late. The ten o’clock bells had just rung. But…”

  “But what, lad?”

  “I think Alessio was still here when Sary sent me out after him.” He pointed at me with a grubby finger. “Alessio hardly ever leaves the apartment, and as I was making for the door, she went over to the bedchamber and said a few words.”

  “What were they?” Messer Grande raised his eyebrows into his long forehead.

  “She said, ‘Not long now.’ And ‘Don’t worry. Signor Amato will advise us.’ If he answered I didn’t hear it.”

  I asked, “Did Sary seem upset? Was she afraid or angry or nervous?”

  Messer Grande showed me his palm. “Too many questions at one time, Tito.” And to Paolo: “Just describe how Sary seemed to you.”

  He shrugged. “About like always. She wasn’t laughing or anything, but she wasn’t afraid. She just told me how important it was to go straight to your house and bring you here. I wasn’t supposed to loiter around.”

  “And you didn’t,” Messer Grande observed. “You followed instructions to the letter.”

  Paolo nodded fiercely.

  “I’ll have more instructions for you. But a question or two first. Did anyone from outside visit the apartment today?”

  “Not that I saw, but the well is on the square around the corner. I made a lot of trips.”

  “Of course. Did Sary go out, do you think?”

  He shook his head.

  “Now, look around, Paolo. Is anything different or out of place?”

  Furrowing his forehead, the boy made a grave circuit of the entire casino. As Messer Grande and I dogged his steps, I made my own survey. In the days since Liya and I had visited, Sary had boxed up most of Zulietta’s clothing and personal items. Wooden crates made a pile by the door in the foyer. It was a wonder we hadn’t tripped over them in the dark.

  “Well?” Messer Grande asked once Paolo had halted by the entry door with hands on his hips.

  The boy shook his head. “I don’t see anything different.”

  I wasn’t so sure. Something besides the crates seemed out of place—something where it shouldn’t be or something missing. The thought irritated like a gnat buzzing in my ear, but I brushed it aside. From long experience, I knew the memory was more likely to return if I didn’t concentrate on it.

  “All right, Paolo.” Messer Grande laid a hand on the boy’s head. “You’ve done your best and I appreciate it. Now I have another errand for you. Do you know the guardhouse near the Rialto Bridge?”

  “Absolutely.” Paolo was already hopping from foot to foot, anxious to be off.

  “Go there and tell the night sergeant to send three of his best men to attend Messer Grande here. Understand?”

  “As you command, Excellency.” At last the boy remembered to use Messer Grande’s honorary address.

  Paolo scampered away. As we heard his boots clunking down the stairs, Messer Grande hung his head and massaged his brow. “Have I been blind, Tito? Have I been wrong about Alessio Pino all along?”

  “If you have, we both have.” I shook my head, glancing toward the humped, lifeless figure by the sofa. Sary had obviously been talking with someone she knew when she was attacked. My skin warmed as I imagined her blazing moment of surprise and sudden dread. “No matter how this looks, I can’t imagine Alessio twisting that garrote around Sary’s neck. Or plunging a dagger into Zulietta.”

  Messer Grande jiggled the pair of keys he still held in his palm, then examined them with a gimlet gaze. “There’s something else to consider. Why would Alessio go to the trouble of making a duplicate of his own key?” He tapped the shiny San Marco key. “According to Sary he gave this key to Zulietta several days before the opera’s opening night. He wouldn’t need another key to enter his box. After he’d met with the ship’s captain and gone on to the theater, Zulietta would admit him as a matter of course.” The wrinkles around his eyes deepened. “It doesn’t make sense. Nothing does. Why would Alessio kill Zulietta in the first place?”

  “The dwarf believes Alessio and Zulietta argued.”

  “From what we’ve learned about both of those young people—their histories, their dreams—does that strike you as credible?”

  I sighed. “Love can turn quickly to hate—it happens in the operas I sing all the time.”

  Messer Grande gave a barking laugh. “That’s it! Put real life aside and base your conclusions on stage dramatics—a fine way to make sense of things.”

  “You’re right, of course. I’m being ridiculous. What are you going to do now?”

  “The same as I did after Zulietta’s murder. First—send for the charnel house wagon. Second—find Alessio Pino.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “You can’t.” He sent me one of his crooked smiles. “I’ll put the force of the law in motion while you return to your beautiful wife…who isn’t feeling too well.”

  ***

  “Poor Sary. She wanted to tell you where she’d found the key and was killed for her trouble.”

  “So it would seem.” I adjusted my head on the pillow. I couldn’t see Liya in the blackness of our bedchamber, but I felt the mattress give as she turned on her side toward me. When I had returned home, she met me with a contrite apology for running away. I could tell that the scene in the ghetto was causing hurtful pangs, but she refused to discuss the matter, instead insisting that I tell my tale as we readied ourselves for bed.

  Now, her soft hand found my temple and stroked my hair away from my brow. After a moment, I grasped her hand and pressed her fingers to my lips. I was rewarded with the smell of lavender and bergamot.

  She spoke again. “The key must have been somewhere in Zulietta’s apartment, don’t you think? Where else would she have come by it?”

  “Sary may have gone out into the city for a time. Paolo couldn’t have known where she was all day—hauling water is an endless job.”

  Liya reclaimed her hand and pushed
up from the waist. “Tito, if we hadn’t visited the casino and discussed the importance of the second box key, Sary would still be alive.” Her tone carried a heavy helping of regret.

  I also sat up in the darkness. “It’s unfortunate, my love. But how were we to know?”

  She returned a heavy sigh. “We couldn’t have, but we can’t just go to sleep like nothing has happened.”

  “But there’s nothing we can do. At least not for now. Messer Grande is onto Alessio’s scent. He may have him in custody by the morning.”

  “You can’t really believe that fine young man is a murderer?” I didn’t require a lamp to read her expression—it would be at once dubious and prodding.

  “No,” I answered softly. “But it must be after two in the morning. What do you propose I do?”

  Liya swung her legs around, causing a small avalanche of bedclothes. “You can light the candles so I can see my cards.”

  When roused by injustice or curiosity, my wife can be as single-minded as I can. She merely pursues a different course. By the time I’d fumbled with the tinderbox and had our room ablaze with light, she had fetched her cards, seated herself at the mahogany table, and shuffled the deck the requisite seven times. I watched over her shoulder as she laid the cards in a cross one by one.

  The first depicted a youth dressed in motley. He shouldered a staff with a bag hanging from the end and raised an innocent face to the sun. Unfortunately, he was about to step off a rocky crag. “Who is that careless fellow?” I asked.

  “We call him the Fool. He has no idea where he’s going.”

  “Must be me, then,” I answered grumpily.

  “He represents all of us, Tito. The important thing is that he is prepared to take the plunge.”

  “To crack his noggin? Then he’s a fool, for certain.”

  “He’s on a quest for the truth. He understands there is risk in every discovery.” She reached up and patted my hand that lay on her shoulder. “Now be quiet and let me work.”

  I did as I was told, but my heart skipped a beat when Liya turned over the now-familiar card showing the man pierced with swords. She merely shook her head and went quickly on, completing the Greek cross and laying cards in a circle around it. She seemed most interested in the card that crowned the circle: a juggler entertaining a crowd from a makeshift platform, only he wasn’t juggling balls or clubs, but large golden coins.

  “This is the final card to guide us on our way.” Liya tapped the juggler with a decisive forefinger.

  “What does it mean?”

  She took a few deep breaths. On a prolonged exhale, she tipped her head back against me and closed her eyes. Seen from that angle, her clear brow surrounded by a cloud of jet-black tresses, her finely molded nose and lips as perfect as those of a marble goddess, she seemed beautiful beyond words. How lucky I am, I thought, and then she gave a slight jerk. Afraid she would slide to the floor, I steadied her with both hands.

  Liya’s eyelids fluttered and she spoke in a voice so hollow and otherworldly that a chill ran up my spine. “A player on a stage—the crowd roars and applauds—a mask gains your trust—but you won’t be fooled for long.”

  She ended on a little moan. From long experience, I knew she would say no more. I carried her to bed, then extinguished the candles. Liya fell asleep at once. I pressed close, adjusting my curves to hers, but I didn’t close my eyes. I stared into the darkness, wondering at the power that allowed my wife to see beyond the present moment and bring hidden secrets to light.

  Was the old magic to be believed? A player on a stage, Liya said. Someone I’d come to trust. Had Zulietta’s killer been right under my nose, one of the company that sang Armida? While I was alone on the stage, commanding the attention of a rapt audience, had one of my fellow singers crept through the pass door and completed a murderous errand on the fourth tier of the auditorium? And later killed Sary because the maid had discovered the all-important key?

  Colorful new patterns exploded in the darkness. Click, click. Had Emilio known Zulietta? Click. Had Vittoria? Click. I remembered standing at the curtain peephole with Maestro Torani on opening night. How nervous he’d seemed, twisting his wig in his hands. Over the years, I’d known him to frequent a courtesan or two. What if Torani had been one of Zulietta’s discarded patrons, overtaken with jealousy so profound he was driven to murder?

  Sick at heart, I pondered the dizzying possibilities until dawn’s gray light crept around the edges of the shutters.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I must have managed to get several hours’ sleep, because I awoke to my wife and son flanking the bed. Liya shook me from one side, Tito from the other. Both loudly insisted that I’d promised to take the boy to see the rhinoceros.

  “Today?” I asked, stretching stiff arms and legs.

  “Today,” Liya and Titolino answered in tandem.

  Leaning over from the foot of the bed, Benito seemed as excited as Titolino. “They say the beast nearly escaped her pen yesterday. She kicked over the gate, and if her keeper hadn’t beaten her back with his whip, she could have charged around the Piazza, trampling everyone in her path.”

  I sat up tall, hands on my knees. “A rampaging beast? That sounds like an excellent reason to stay well away from the menagerie.”

  “No!” Titolino cried.

  I cocked an eyebrow at Liya.

  She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “The animal is called Clara, and from what I’ve heard, she’s as sweet and meek as her name. I’ll bet the rumor about her escape was started by her owner in an effort to increase the till. People who’ve actually seen Clara describe her major occupations as eating hay and dropping dung.”

  Tito clutched my hand and regarded me with big brown eyes. “Papa, please. I want to see Clara.”

  I was clearly outmaneuvered. “All right,” I said, running a hand through my loose, tangled hair.

  Tito hugged himself in a thrill of rapture, Liya chuckled, and Benito hurried to my wardrobe to find an ensemble suitable for rhinoceros viewing.

  The day was perfect for our undertaking. Above the Piazza, the sky was an inverted bowl of cerulean blue. The recent rains had scrubbed it to a high shine, and puffy white clouds crossed its arc in an orderly procession. The air was cool—it was November, now—but the sun warmed our backs and the wind blew only hard enough to flutter the colorful pennants hanging from poles and balconies. Benito, Titolino, and I stood in a line at Clara’s enclosure on the waterfront for over an hour. There were other animals on view, but the rhinoceros was clearly the most popular attraction. Later I would have a rehearsal at the theater, but I pushed that thought aside for now. There would be plenty of time to address my harrowing suspicions of the night before. For now, I gave Titolino my full attention.

  When we reached the entrance, an African man almost as black as poor Sary took my coins, even though a broadsheet pasted to the wall behind him informed us that the great and noble rhino had been captured in Bengal. I supposed a lackey of Indian hue couldn’t be found on short notice. Once inside, another attendant ushered the three of us to a raised bench several rows back from the large display pen. The first row had been partitioned off by a rope of crimson velvet, set aside for those of patrician rank. As the seats around us slowly filled, I stared at the hairless mountain of brown-gray hide that had occasioned such wonder.

  Clara had plenty of room to pace in a circle and exercise her stumpy legs, but as Liya had warned, her preferred activity seemed to be munching mouthful after mouthful of the hay that was available in abundant quantities. When she tired of the hay, she emitted a few hoarse snorts and immediately went to work on a loaf of bread supplied by her keeper. Above all, she put me in mind of very large, very pampered, armored dog.

  “Papa,” Titolino whispered in awe. “Where is her horn?”

  The boy was observ
ant. All the broadsheets showed Clara with a pointed horn springing from her snout, but instead of that amazing appendage, her nose was topped by a round patch of darkened skin.

  Benito quickly spoke up. “I heard what happened. When the beast was in France she reduced an oak tree to splinters, right under the eyes of King Louis and his court. Unfortunately, her horn splintered too.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” an onlooker behind us scoffed. “Everyone knows that Clara dispensed with the horn herself. While in Rome, she took to rubbing it against the boards and it fell off. Look there, the keeper has it in his hand.”

  Titolino’s eyes grew even larger as we stared down at the pen. The man who’d fed Clara her five loaves of bread was passing the shiny, wicked-looking horn to the favored spectators on the first row. A woman who’d shed her moretta as completely as Clara had her horn drew back with a delicate sneer, refusing to touch it. Her companion, a man in an expressionless bauta, grasped the horn readily, then didn’t want to give it back. As the keeper remonstrated with the stubborn aristocrat, Clara turned tail and deposited a mound of steaming dung in front of the group.

  I wrinkled my nose. “I think I’ve seen enough. What about you?” I asked Titolino.

  He responded with a brisk nod. Even an exotic animal can only hold a seven-year-old boy’s attention for so long. Once we had left the enclosure, Titolino wouldn’t hear of returning home. He pulled me away from the gondola mooring where we’d left Luigi, and Benito and I navigated the shifting crowds of the Piazza hand-in-hand with the boy in the middle.

  Everything delighted Titolino. Under the arcades surrounding the great square, he sniffed at the door of cook shops roasting cheap meats, drooled over the pastries set out before the bakers’ stalls, and gazed at the café tables swarming with people from far-flung places. He cocked his head at the sound of so many foreign voices and was heartily impressed by the multitude of masks and costumes. It was easy to forget that the boy had spent most of his young life in the one corner of the city not drenched in carnival celebration. Eventually he tugged us onto the main part of the Piazza where the entertainers held sway. We stopped at a trestle stage where an acrobatic troupe was just starting a performance.