“I should have calmed her down!” Margo cried. “Dammit! If she hadn’t been so upset, she wouldn’t have come here in the first place.”
Hearing the commotion, Biondi approached them. Angela’s half-closed, haunted eyes followed him as she made a loud, animal-like groan. That was the call to action Margo needed. She ducked under the police tape and darted ahead until a tall policeman Anna recognized blocked her progress. When Margo stepped sideways to move past him, he repeated his maneuver. They were caught in a macabre dance. “Senta, è mia cugina. Lasciami passare, lasciami passare, per l’amore di Dio,” Margo shouted. “She’s my cousin. Let me pass, let me pass, for the love of God!”
“Signora, mi dispiace, ma questa è una scena del crimine.”
“He is right,” Biondi told her. “You cannot get closer. This is a crime scene.” He put his arm around Margo’s shoulder and brought her back to her friends. “She is barely conscious and cannot be disturbed. She has lost much blood. Whoever did this was interrupted by the noise of the nearby workmen and scared away. They were the ones to rescue her.”
“How could someone hurt her?” Margo cried.
“We have a twisted murderer on the loose,” Biondi said. His eyes flashed at Anna.
“If she was talking to you earlier, Detective Biondi, could she say who attacked her?” Anna asked.
“She is very weak and could not provide much. She just said, ‘Woman.’”
“Commissario,” one of the policemen called. “Excuse for a moment,” Biondi said. “Wait here.”
He joined a group examining an object on the ground near Angela. One of the policemen picked it up with a pair of tweezers and deposited it in a plastic bag. Anna heard Biondi say, “Buon lavoro,” adding, “Non dimenticare sotto le unghie,” reminding them not to forget to check under her fingernails.
When Biondi returned, Margo asked, “What about the baby?”
“It does not look good,” Biondi said in a distressed voice. “The doctors must diagnose. Our team has done our best to save her life. They will take her to Ospedale Civile. You can visit tomorrow.”
“Why not today?”
“Too frail. She needs all her strength to survive.”
“But I’m her cousin.” By now, Margo was practically nose to nose with Biondi.
“She cannot be excited. Her life depends on it.” He motioned to the paramedics with the stretcher. “Besides, I make-a the rules here.”
“Do what he says,” Alessandro ordered.
The paramedics raised Angela onto the stretcher and headed for the ambulance boat.
“Be strong, Angela,” Margo yelled. “We love you.”
“This has all of you shaken, of course,” Biondi said, pointing to the tall policeman. “Giovanni will accompany you to the palazzo, Count Favier. Guida la sua barca.”—“He will drive your boat.”
“Grazie.”
“Giovanni, vado nella pensione della Signora Lottol, e poi ci riuniamo nel palazzo,” Biondi said, informing the policeman that he was going to Anna’s pensione and would meet later at the palazzo. “Signora Lottol, come with me.”
The ambulance siren howled in the distance as Anna gazed at their retreating backs.
“So soon we meet again. We go to my police boat.” Biondi’s cold eyes appraised her as he led the way. “We find out you don’t stay with Count Favier, like you told me. I hope you have more than a flimsy story this time.”
“I didn’t know he couldn’t accommodate me until I spoke to my friend. Detective Biondi, this attack on Angela—only a madman could hurt her.”
“Or a madwoman. I rule nothing out, Signora Lottol. A woman who uses her body to manipulate men, twists them around her little finger, clouds their judgment, maybe hires an assassin. What were you doing with Roberto Cavallin?”
“That’s none of your business. Did you have me followed?”
“Where were you early this morning?”
“This morning?” Anna hesitated.
“Yes. Sta mattina,” he repeated.
“I walked around, took some pictures.” She tried to sound casual as they neared the police skiff.
“How many did you take? And where?”
She paused for a moment before regaining her pace. “I can’t remember exactly, a number. I went over to Piazza San Marco.”
“Miss Arithmetic cannot recall how many? And where else you go?”
“Down to the Arsenale and back.”
“Taking you in the direction of the Public Gardens. Where is the film now?”
“In the camera.”
He stepped onto the police boat and offered his hand. She declined, and they went forward. Biondi started up the engine. “Did anyone see you leave your pensione? And what time?”
“The clerk wasn’t at the desk, so I left my key on the counter. Later, I met Margo in the palazzo, around nine.”
Biondi cocked a fair eyebrow, threw the boat in reverse, and they sped off toward the center of Venice. Anna stared at the mahogany stern of Alessandro’s boat. “Why don’t we catch up to them? My camera’s right here in my bag. I can give it to you.”
“We need more. Besides, you could have taken those pictures on any morning. And you did not answer me the time you left the pensione.” He broke away from La Farfalla.
“About six or six-fifteen, I guess. Where are we going?”
“On my special tour,” Biondi said, veering into a narrow canal off the Riva. “You will see soon enough. So. You are on vacation, and yet getting up so early in the morning! For what?”
“To take pictures of the sunrise, and the city.”
They were passing beneath a dozen clotheslines linking the third floors of several buildings, the drying garments fluttering like flags. Anna looked up at all the colors set against the sky and dreamed of sprouting wings.
“The sun is not up by six.”
“Maybe it was later, then. I left right after I woke up.”
“I do not suppose,” he said, stroking his stubbled chin, “that anyone else out so early, a street sweeper or a bakery worker, could identify you.”
“I did have breakfast over at the Riva.”
“What time?”
“Maybe eight.”
“Before then, you talked to no one, even though you speak Italian.”
Anna coughed and tried to control her voice. “The first thing I did was to return to a canal near my pensione and speak to some men working on a barge. Later, I wasn’t paying attention to other people. I was looking for the perfect angle for my photos.” He was fishing, testing her reactions like a doctor aiming a rubber mallet at her knees. This time she knew what to expect from his forays, but was uncertain how long her will could hold back her fear.
“Afterward, what did you do, and when?”
“After breakfast, I went over to the gondola station near the Hotel Monaco, to speak to Armando Tota, the brother of Piero, the man who was killed in the old Gondola Murders.”
“Do not believe what he says,” Biondi said, turning the boat sharply.
They seemed to be going in a circle. The gray, stippled backside of the Palazzo Ducale loomed ahead.
“Even now, you hide something. Here we are. To our left are what we call the piombi,” said Biondi, like a perverse tour guide. “You have heard of them, I am sure: the ‘leads,’ the prison—the cramped, dark cells we put criminals in centuries ago. Shame we cannot use them anymore.” He peered at her. “You know, they were so frightening, we would get many confessions. We also had torture devices for easing truth from reluctant criminals.”
“And lies from the innocent as well, I imagine. Just to stop the pain.”
They slid under the Ponte della Paglia and came into the bacino once more, hugging the shore. Biondi pulled back on the throttle and pointed to the twin pillars of the Lion of Saint Mark and San Teodoro.
“Over there, we would hang perpetrators upside down. Very unlucky to walk between the columns. And we would suspend a cage for the criminal
against the pink marble of the Palazzo Ducale. Quite cold in wintertime, but such a beautiful view from that height. Have you not been to the top of the campanile?”
“Not yet.” Thinking about such a confined space, far above ground, jammed with tourists elbowing one another for the best vantage point, made her queasy.
“Venetians are an imaginative lot.” He leaned over until his eyes were level with hers. “Do not force me to get imaginative with you.”
“Stop it!” Anna yelled.
“I spoke with Dr. Zampone, Signora Lottol. You know, that ‘friend of someone back home’ in your address book? You make a habit of lying to me, but I know a little secret now. Even if you do not take the doctor’s warning serious, I do. How many bad dreams about killing Sergio Corrin have you had since you come to Venice? How many hallucinations?”
Anna gasped. How could Zampone have betrayed her and the confidentiality he had promised? If Biondi’s jilted inamorata theory wouldn’t work, he now had a new one: mental illness. She sat fuming at both men.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Biondi half smiling. “Have a glass of water,” he said cheerily. “You must be thirsty.”
Anna reached over and managed to pour some water from a thermos into a cup without spilling any. The water vibrated with the boat’s engine. She sat there meditating on the tiny ripples, hoping an answer would rise from beneath, as if it were a liquid Ouija board. Anna recalled nudges, cuts, and rude comments she had received over the years, including many from Leslie, that she had let pass. However, this was her dignity. Biondi had crossed a line.
At the moment, it didn’t matter how much more trouble her actions would bring. She threw the water in Biondi’s face and said, “Pumping my . . . therapist is immoral and illegal. You call yourself a police detective, but you’re nothing but a lazy bully, trying to pin everything on me.”
“I can arrest you for that,” Biondi said with clenched teeth, taking out his handkerchief and wiping his face. Anna noted a few stains on his fine charcoal suit, but most of the water had hit its mark. “You are lucky I am interested only in catching l’assassino. Some people in your predicament try to bribe me instead of throwing water. But do not think it, because Biondi cannot be bought. I am not a politician.”
When they entered the pensione, Anna asked Giuseppe for her key. “Ma lei ha pagato soltanto per una singola,” he replied, wagging his finger at Biondi, convinced that Anna was trying to sneak a man upstairs when she had paid for only a single room.
“Cazzo, questo è un affare della polizia,” Biondi cursed him, face flushing. “Sono il Commissario Biondi. La chiave.”
Cowering, the clerk dangled the room key to Biondi, who snatched it and charged up the squeaking stairs. Anna followed slowly.
“Here is the mandato di perquisizione, the search warrant, for your room,” Biondi said, unfurling a paper. “My team will be here soon to comb through everything. I start now and give them a little boost.” He put on a pair of thin rubber gloves.
Anna sat on her bed, shoulders hunched, surrounded by her belongings, as if on a patchwork quilt sewn by a maniac. She doubted she was capable of much now—like Gaetano at the bottom of the stairs, ready for the dustbin.
She remained still and mute as the police sorted through her purse and every goddamn thing she had brought on her trip—taking items with her fingerprints, pulling hair from her brush, grabbing her raincoat along with a postcard she had started to write. A female officer accompanied her to the bathroom, where she had to strip off her clothing and surrender it. The policewoman examined her for scratches and bruises, inspecting her hands, her fingernails. She took a sample of Anna’s saliva for DNA testing.
Back in her room, Biondi counted her money, compared it to what receipts he could find, and muttered a few expletives when he was unable to reconcile her spending. He stuffed her torn, still-gleaming Fortuny dress, her camera and undeveloped film, and a pair of shoes into a large satchel. He asked her who had sent her flowers.
Biondi frowned when she showed him the water-stained ledger book with its wavy pages. “I was carrying this in my pocket on Wednesday night, when I dove into a canal to save my life. Somebody tried to hurt me in a narrow passage with a pushcart. I got a note asking me to come to Alessandro’s palazzo, and I carried, um, a diary I had borrowed from the Favier library. I thought Margo had sent it, but she hadn’t. I’m sure the note’s someplace in this room.”
“We will search for it, and I will have one of our officers take your statement about the dangerous pushcart.” As he confiscated the ledger book, he looked as if he wanted to smile. “We do not wish to exclude anything, just in case you tell the truth this time. But maybe you soaked the little book in the sink or the bathtub, to try to make me believe you. And where is the diary you borrowed?”
“I tried to save it by tossing it aside before I went into the canal. But when I looked for it later, it was gone.”
“So, in addition to the ledger you took from Count Favier, you stole a diary, which was then taken by another thief?”
“I told you, I was only borrowing them.”
“Let me guess. Without permission.”
One of the officers reentered the room then and spoke with Biondi. The detective turned to Anna with a smirk and said, “They tell me what the desk clerk recalls. You told him you fell into the canal.”
Anna glanced at the bouquet of roses. Petals were falling like tears.
Dark Star Trails
Saturday, afternoon
Lying in bed, Anna stared at the ceiling and recalled other trials.
There were no shortcuts to mastering the hurdles. It took two years before she could soar, defying gravity, above them. Sprinting with all her might, driving with one knee, lifting her arms, positioning her trail leg over the side, leaning forward, staying patient, knowing that how she cleared the first hurdle would foretell the other nine. And learning how to not . . . look . . . down.
That had been easy compared with establishing a complex mathematical proof in front of an entirely male audience. Ignoring the roomful of students—squinting at every notation, tittering, ready to pounce—and the skeptical professor, standing in back, she had stayed focused, calmly writing each equation on the blackboard, constructing a thoroughly logical, unassailable edifice when she was done. Undaunted, she had twirled around and beamed in their incredulous faces.
A loud knock at the door brought her back to the present. “Chi è?”
“Sono io.”
Recognizing Giuseppe’s voice, she tugged the door open to find him holding out several pages from the fax machine. “Quando è arrivato?” she asked him.
It had come on Thursday, he confessed with a groan, but had gotten lost under a pile of bills. Anna clapped her hands and kissed him on the cheek. He touched his face and lingered as she retreated into her room and shut the door.
Grabbing a pen, she dashed to the writing desk and slipped into the chair. Despite Anna’s complaint, Brian had persisted in sending faxes. They were less noticeable, he had claimed, given Leslie’s obsessive scrutiny of phone bills. How wrong that turned out, she thought. When Brian had dispatched this fax to Anna in his final hours at Treasury, he had proved his fidelity. She’d have to find a way to show him hers.
The pages outlined money trails between Sergio and Alessandro, Dudley, Angela, and others. Some may have been just innocent transfers of funds involving investments and purchases of art. Or maybe sinister. Why would Alessandro send fifty thousand dollars to Sergio’s personal account in New York, instead of depositing Italian lire locally in Banco Saturno, if not to keep the money transfers from the gaze of Italian regulators and tax authorities? Why had Sergio wired Dudley steady sums, which could represent a handsome rental or annuity stream, at an outsized clip of twenty-five thousand dollars a month?
Sergio’s art gallery maintained a separate US dollar account at Granite Bank in New York. This account indicated repetitive transfers, credits of ten to tw
enty thousand dollars apiece, originating from a Manhattan store called Polo Road, plus funds arriving from Angela, periodic incoming payments from a bank in China, and outlays in Africa.
Nothing linked Sergio to his ex-employers: Banca Serenissima and Mediobanca. A portion of Banco Saturno’s account traffic through Granite went to and from US brokerage and investment houses. This made sense given its clientele.
But Saturno’s interbranch activity showed high volumes as funds were shifted among locations. Instead of an illuminating trail of stars, the pattern was a dizzying potpourri of transactions from fifteen countries and more than one hundred counterparties. Anna pictured a fun-house pinball machine lighting up as money bounced back and forth, up and down, ultimately finding its way to the bottom, where it fed into Sergio’s mouth. Such a maze of twists and turns, with funds skipping through multiple countries, often masked laundering. Criminals know that a given country’s regulations and examinations of sources of funds stop at its borders. Money can evade such scrutiny hopping across borders unimpeded, ultimately circling the globe.
If Anna could decipher which origins were legitimate and which illegal, she might get a lead on Sergio’s killer. One transfer had caught her eye: On the Monday after Sergio’s murder, fifty million dollars from Saturno’s sub-account for Le Pont Neuf, a company in Luxembourg, had been sent to a Panamanian construction company, Nuevo Puente de Panamá.
Brian had scribbled the phone number and name of a contact at the local office of the Guardia di Finanza, a specialized Italian police force focusing on financial crimes and smuggling. The Guardia would be very interested in the account of Sergio’s US activities that the faxes laid bare. In return, Anna might be able to glean something that could help her solve Sergio’s murder.
She phoned the number and was able to make an appointment for five p.m. Either Brian had destroyed this last fax or Leslie hadn’t felt she needed to alert the Guardia di Finanza to a potential visit from an ex-employee, whose determination, Anna thought proudly, had been wildly underestimated.
Venetian Blood Page 24