Venetian Blood

by Christine Evelyn Volker

  “Did anything ever come from your analysis of account transactions?” Margo asked.

  “Nothing to clear me,” Anna said. “Only a mess of wire transfers. Or do you mean—”

  “Was Angela involved financially with Sergio, beyond the payments for artwork?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Thank God. Maybe we can still learn something for her sake or yours that’s been buried in the past.”

  “Hope so.”

  “Stranger things have happened, especially here. I checked the papers before we left—no promised article in the Gazzettino. They must have pulled it. Don’t forget the Mass for Angela tomorrow morning. Christ, what’s taking Agatha so long?” Margo yanked the pale blue head off one of the blossoms. It floated past Anna’s outstretched hand as the gate opened and Agatha’s face appeared.

  “Good to see you,” Agatha said, touching her lips to Margo’s cheek.

  “Where can we go to talk?” Margo asked.

  “You don’t have to look so worried. We’ll go up to my altana. The tea’s already steeping there.”

  Leading them across the lawn, Agatha said, “Dudley, of course, is holed up with his books, laboring over his latest.”

  “Not surprising,” Margo said.

  “I swear, he’s been working so hard that I worry about his health. He’s such a perfectionist, always saying the details need to be impeccable.”

  “He’d lose credibility pretty quickly if they weren’t,” said Margo. “What’s his new book called?”

  “I really shouldn’t say. He’s superstitious.” Agatha lowered her voice as she led them through the tapestry-festooned hallway. “I only know the title because I saw it on a draft. I’ll tell you if you promise not to repeat it.” She glanced sideways at Margo and Anna. “It’s Keys of Venice.”

  “His secret’s safe with us,” Margo said.

  As they passed the study, Anna spotted Dudley, sitting like a spider at the center of his gossamer web, his shoulders cloaked in velvet, the waves glittering through a window. She was startled to see a silver inkpot near his sleeve.

  “Does Dudley always write in longhand and use an old-fashioned pen?” Anna could not imagine the starts, the stops, the pauses as the pen scratched across the page. Dudley’s eccentricities made him seem a man from another time.

  “Nothing but,” Agatha replied. “And only on marbled paper. He says there’s something sensual in the pen that sparks his creativity. Imagine his muse contained in a Murano glass pen. Or perhaps she swims in his inkpot.” Agatha cackled as they ascended the steps to the altana. “An Italian Tinker Bell.”

  Anna tried to visualize Dudley’s muse. A beautiful sea nymph? A gargoyle, perhaps? In Dudley’s books, Margo had said, Venice itself is a character. Once he had seized her on the street and stuttered that he had seen someone who looked like a murdered doge staring at him from across Campo dei Frari. Anna recalled hearing about Dudley imitating a doge on Alessandro’s boat years back. Standing on the prow, he had portrayed blind old Enrico Dandalo leading his troops to battle in Constantinople, wildly swinging an imaginary rapier before losing his footing and falling into the bay.

  Dudley began each day with a silent communion on Venice’s waters. He traced Venice’s life through mute backwater rios, then he illuminated the past with his words. Today, for some reason, it was not Dudley’s kindness that struck Anna, but his peculiarities, as tangled as a morass of seaweed.

  In the altana, Anna craned her neck to see San Vidal and, off to the right, the fanciful domes of La Salute.

  “I can never resist this view,” Margo said. The serene repetition of red tile roofs seemed to soothe her.

  “No need to.” Agatha gave Margo’s shoulder a tentative pat. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m managing,” Margo shrugged. “Angela’s the one to worry about.”

  “Quite,” Agatha said, turning to pour steaming tea into porcelain cups before passing them to her guests. The waning sun accentuated the deep worry lines near Agatha’s eyes, lending her the countenance of a sad eagle.

  “Michael’s arranging a special flight if she stabilizes,” Margo said. “The doctor called me right before we left with news. They’d said comas can be unpredictable, and Angela really surprised him. This morning, things looked so bleak. Now there’s a fair chance she’ll come out of it.”

  “Oh, good, she’s improved,” said Agatha.

  “I hope so,” Margo said. “It’s all my fault. If I had done something different. . . If I had been able to keep Angela at the palazzo, she’d still be fine, and her baby, too. That’s all it would have taken. One little thing could have changed everything.”

  “Don’t think that way,” Agatha said. “How could you have expected what happened? She could have been attacked elsewhere. Even if you could have stopped her, that moment is impossible to recapture. I know about these things. You can drive yourself crazy.” Stirring her tea, she added softly, “I still can’t believe it. First Sergio, then Angela.”

  Margo asked, “What exactly do you mean?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “They were . . . an item.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” Margo said, flushing. “I had to find it out after someone tried to kill her? If I had known earlier, I would have warned her not to see him. Maybe she got mixed up in one of his schemes.”

  “Both of them were adults.” Agatha took a sip of tea. “And you were married to neither. I have a live-and-let-live attitude toward these things. Perhaps I’ve spent too much time here. Dudley, on the other hand, was revolted. ‘Impure,’ I think he said. Men—they always see things in black and white. You know, I rather liked Sergio in the old days. I could see some of his ancient Spanish blood in those passionate black eyes, his machismo. I wonder.”

  “How’d you find out?” asked Anna.

  “Was their affair out in the open, then?” Margo asked. “I never realized—”

  “Oh, no, no. Dudley saw them early this year on one of his rowing expeditions. Both still dressed in evening clothes. Sergio had her pinned against a wall, their mouths feeding on each other. His hand up her skirt.”

  “Enough,” Margo said, drawing a palm over her eyes. “Maybe I should tell the police . . . but why? I’d end up destroying Angela’s family, and for what? How much justice is there, anyway?”

  “We each have to decide for ourselves,” Agatha said. “I used to argue with Dudley’s mother. She treated him so shabbily all his life, always swearing he would never amount to anything. It was terribly cruel and unfair, crippling, really. Then she died, almost out of spite, right before he became successful. Justice, my dears, is in short supply.”

  “You knew Dudley’s mother?” Anna asked, startled.

  “Is that strange?” Agatha asked.

  “But who’d want to kill Angela?” Margo asked.

  “Frankly, I think there’s some crazy person doing all this,” Agatha said. “Angela was friendly with just a few people around town, mostly gallery owners, a colorful but sane bunch. Fanfarone got a kick out of her. He’s harmless, of course.”

  “Oh, God, I’ll have to put all my trust in the police,” Margo sighed. “Biondi—what a joke.” Her voice hardened. “Agatha, I wanted to ask you about something else. A mystery from long ago. You and Alessandro.”

  “What’s mysterious about being friends?” Agatha shrugged.

  “Isn’t there something more? Weren’t you . . . didn’t you have a crush on him?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Agatha’s teeth flashed before she looked away. “He can be very charming, as you know.”

  Margo tossed her head. “Cut it out. I discovered your little secret. It took awhile, but I recognized your handwriting, with a more youthful tilt. It was you . . . the ‘A’ who wrote the love note about meeting him at the Dogana.”

  Blanching, Agatha clanged her cup down on the table. “You shouldn’t be nosing into other people�
�s lives. Alessandro would be furious if he knew. And in front of Anna, too.” She rose and walked to the edge of the altana.

  Anna heard the whoosh of the wind and the far-off scream of a gull as Agatha rocked back and forth on her heels, her arms clasping one another. The throaty growl of a vaporetto docking in the canal below hovered in the air. Minutes passed and Agatha continued swaying, as if in a trance.

  Shoulders slumped in resignation, she finally turned back to them. “Oh, hell, what’s the point? But you can’t repeat this, do you understand?” She thrust her pleading face close to Margo’s. “Or . . . I . . . will . . . just . . . stop . . . now.”

  “As long as it’s not murder, and it doesn’t involve Angela.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m not proud of it. You have to know that. I’m not the same person now. Swear it. Swear it on Angela.”

  “I do.” Margo nodded.

  “Anna should leave.”

  “She and I have been looking for any scrap of information that can help Angela, even from decades ago. So we’re a package.”

  “As painful as your story is to retell, it might aid us,” Anna said. “Please.”

  Agatha narrowed her eyes. “Maybe it’ll make up for a few things,” she said, lowering herself into her chair. “But you’ll see that there’s absolutely no connection.”

  “Tell us anyway,” Margo said.

  Agatha sighed. “In many ways, youth is foolish. He didn’t really desire me, or ever fully respond. He loved Gabriella. He was toying with me . . . a boost to his ego, a feather in his cap. I tried my best to seduce him. The more he clung to her, the more I wanted him. I even thought that having a part of him was infinitely better than not having him at all. Perhaps it was because I knew I could never have him that I wanted him—the ultimate aphrodisiac for some women, don’t you think? Am I making any sense?”

  “Yes, but—” Anna said.

  “You hope that the years will bring wisdom, but for the life of me, there is still so much I can’t explain. Dudley and I were arguing a lot. He had turned inward, leaving me adrift. Alessandro was so . . . so . . . worldly, I thought. What could be more dashing than an Italian count?” Agatha looked up with a smile. “I remember that first night, every minute. I was passing Le Onde, on the Zattere, and from inside the bar, Alessandro called out to me. There he was, drinking Prosecco, eating sarde in saor, and generally feeling sorry for himself. At that point, Gabriella was seeing Piero, the gondolier; we all knew. I went in, had a drink with him. We took a walk to the Dogana, where we kissed. I remember his lips and the warmth of his chest pressing against my breasts. He was so masculine, but not rough. We flirted a lot after that. A few weeks later, we made love. On his boat, near Torcello.”

  “Did Dudley find out?” Margo asked.

  “Did Sergio know?” Anna asked.

  “No, no. We were careful, and the affair was very brief. Alessandro ended it. He couldn’t stop loving Gabriella, despite her infidelity. ‘Basta,’ he said. With one word, he crumpled all we had experienced together—the wonderful talks, the touches, laughter, sharing of our souls. All lost, turned to stone. It was as if I didn’t exist anymore. I had to accept the sadness of never having him. Not then, not a year from then. Not two. Not three. Not ever. Never is a cruel word. To go on, I had to take all those beautiful feelings and crush them. I squeezed them into a secret spot inside, where no sunlight could enter, no food, no water. And so they died. Alone in the dark, they died.”

  She looked at Margo with watery eyes.

  “But in their place came bitterness, jealousy, a feeling of vengeance. These were stronger, in a perverse way. They made me feel immortal, like some Indian goddess of destruction. I didn’t care if I brought about my own. So when Dudley returned with Alessandro’s little girl the day Gabriella died, I didn’t hesitate to call Gabriella’s father, back in the States. Why, after all, should I give Alessandro any joy? I had freely offered my love. He had left me with nothing but heartache.”

  “I thought his daughter drowned,” Margo said, confused.

  “Monica is named on the family monument, but her body was never found.”

  “How were you able to reach her grandfather?”

  “Gabriella gave me his number a few months before. She was already thinking about going to live with her parents, and she said she had a bad feeling.”

  “But what about the little girl?” Anna asked.

  “Dudley rescued her. He had been out rowing and came upon her, soaking wet, in Piero’s gondola. Gabriella was already dead, on the shore by the entrance to San Michele in Isola. Dudley could do nothing for her. He was terribly shaken. Piero was missing, gone overboard. I convinced Dudley to see it my way. We decided not to tell Alessandro, to lie—to give the girl to the grandfather, as Gabriella would have wanted. After all, Alessandro, I told Dudley, had driven her into the arms of another. He was cruel to her, a weakling who couldn’t stop the damage inflicted by his wife. She had died running away with another man. Did he want the little girl to grow up with everyone in Venice knowing all that?”

  “Why didn’t Dudley go to the police and report what happened?” asked Anna.

  “He hadn’t seen anything. No other boats, no people were around when he happened to row by. And in hiding the girl, we needed to stay far from the police.”

  “What became of her?” Margo asked.

  “The grandfather booked a flight and got here the next day. He hated Alessandro, of course. He blamed him for abandoning Gabriella, for sending her to Piero in the first place, into the hands of death. I remember that’s what he kept saying: ‘Le mani della morte, le mani della morte’—the hands of death. He could never prove it, but he was certain that Alessandro, with all his money and pride, had arranged for both adults to be killed. He got a passport for Monica somehow and whisked her out of the country.”

  What a perverse start to a life, Anna thought. “Did Sergio find out about this later on?”

  “How could he? We certainly didn’t mention it. No one else knew.”

  “Did you see the grandfather again?” Margo asked.

  “Only once, when he and his wife came back for the funeral of Gabriella and remembrance for Monica, a month later. They refused to speak to Alessandro. They even paid for a private investigation into the murder.”

  “I can’t believe that all these years you’ve let Alessandro believe his child is dead,” Margo said. “You’re supposedly his friend. Don’t you think you were heartless? And Dudley, too!”

  “We had our reasons,” Agatha said. “We played God. Like in one of his books, I suppose. The Divine Doctor. We never mention it now.”

  Agatha paused, gazing into the distance.

  “When I awoke from my bitter dream, years later, I couldn’t own up to it. How could I tell Alessandro about my betrayal? I took his only child away from him. I let him mourn her for the rest of his life.”

  The Lilies of San Stae

  Monday, morning and afternoon

  Well past midnight, just as Anna was falling asleep, Margo roused her with a phone call, too excited to wait. Angela was still unconscious but breathing on her own. Now they could give thanks as well as pray for Angela at morning Mass. Maybe Michael’s words and embraces had penetrated the iron cloak of her coma, Anna thought, before drifting into uneven slumber.

  She glimpsed Angela’s pallid face among the spectators at a dance performance. In a Granada cave, a high-heeled gypsy woman in a yellow ruffled dress rhythmically tapped the floor with her heels, awaiting her partner’s response. The sound of stomping feet erased the music, then transformed into a loud rattling. With a start, Anna awakened to a racket at her door. Turning on the light, she watched, frozen, as the handle turned in a fury. One, two, ten seconds passed. For the moment, the deadbolt managed to keep the door in place.

  “Chi è?” she shouted. “Roberto?”

  No answer. Just the door handle clicking back and forth. Anna’s heart thumped with the knowledge that she could n
ot escape from her room unless she wanted to risk injury by jumping out the window onto the pavement. She grabbed the phone, her mind blanking, unable to recall the police emergency number. As the door heaved and rattled amid loud grunting from the hallway, she dialed the reception desk with a trembling hand. After the fifth ring, she hung up and yelled to Giuseppe as if he were on the line, telling him an intruder was at her door.

  When the people in the next room banged on the common wall, the uproar at the door ceased abruptly. Anna waited, but sensed no movement outside her room. Leaving the bed, she scanned the narrow space beneath the door. She saw only light from the hallway lamp.

  In bed until daybreak, staring at the doorknob, she focused on one question: Who had tried to break into her room? A thief would have attempted it during the day, while she was out. A drunken, confused hotel guest would have been yelling or swearing in exasperation. That left someone who wanted to harm her while she was sleeping or barely awake and unable to defend herself. Someone who was not very skilled at picking locks.

  At ten o’clock, she packed her suitcases before downing a coffee in the dining area and forgoing breakfast. Once again, Giuseppe was not at the desk. She left him a note about the intrusion and demanded he transfer her belongings to another room—one with a strong deadbolt.

  At the hotel door, she studied each passerby in the street before summoning the courage to venture outside. She circled the block, wary of any loitering figure, then dove into the sea of humanity flooding the alleyways, hiding in the crowd. Lively travelers were rubbernecking at each small bridge, lining up for endless streams of gondolas and vaporettos, photographing the sights and each other as if nothing were amiss. Umbrellas choked paths broad and narrow as tour leaders marched ahead of their charges, following like ducklings in a row. News of a dead Italian count and an American who’d been attacked hadn’t cooled their ardor for all things Venetian.

  Traversing the Rialto Bridge, then turning to the north, Anna reached the Baroque white Church of San Stae. Dedicated to Saint Eustache, who converted to Christianity after he beheld a cross between a stag’s antlers, it hadn’t changed since John Singer Sargent had painted it, early in the century. Angela would like having the Mass said for her here, Anna thought.