Liquid Desires

by Edward Sklepowich

  It wasn’t unlike his feeling now as he watched Madge Lennox stride down the hill, determination in her shoulders.

  6

  The Contessa, having extricated herself from her duties as hostess to Eugene by foisting him off on Occhipinti, was free for some conversation with Urbino on the terrace of the Caffè Centrale later that afternoon.

  “I wonder what Eleonora Duse would think if she knew she had become a sundae?” the Contessa asked as she paused briefly in the middle of her decorous assault.

  It was a question that required no response, all the more so because it was far from the first time the Contessa had posed it. Urbino could hardly remember an occasion when she had ordered this particular concoction of vanilla ice cream, strawberries, blue liqueur, and cream and not asked it.

  “I would love to see the scrapbook that Flavia kept,” she said, having reached the bottom of her goblet. “It’s frightening to know she kept clippings about Alvise and me.”

  “And she was gathering information about you and Alvise here in Asolo.”

  “And in Venice she had Violetta Volpi! Oh, the lies that woman was likely to have told her!” The Contessa put down her spoon and took a sip of mineral water. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Lennox knew Violetta Volpi. She says she never heard Flavia mention her, but I don’t believe it any more than that she’s told you everything important. She wrapped you around her little finger, didn’t she? I know how you are with these women.”

  “You’re wrong. She didn’t charm me at all,” he defended himself. “And what do you mean by ‘these women’? American women? Retired actresses? Older women?”

  “Watch yourself! Suffice it to say that I know you have a great desire to please—especially women of a certain kind—but more specific than that I don’t care to be. It will have to remain within that large dim realm of things two people know very well about each other but never have to be specific about.”

  Urbino could usually distinguish among the Contessa’s various forms of banter, and this afternoon it was banter that covered anxiety. If he needed any more proof, he was soon provided with it when she ordered another Coppa Duse.

  “I have to see Violetta Volpi,” Urbino said after the waiter left. “She’s the key to this whole thing—certainly to Alvise and maybe even to Flavia’s murder.”

  “‘Flavia’s murder’!” The Contessa shook her head slowly from side to side. “I do hope you’re wrong about that, but if you’re not, I pray that it has nothing to do with Alvise.”

  Urbino, not wanting to give the Contessa false hope, said nothing.

  The waiter set down the Contessa’s second Coppa Duse. She removed the crowning cookie and ate it. Before attacking the rest she said, “Commissario Gemelli should have the autopsy report tomorrow, shouldn’t he? Give him a call. I pulled a few strings this morning to get him to be more cooperative than usual, although I have a feeling he’s warmed to you a bit over the years.”

  The Contessa looked across the square and waved.

  “I’m afraid our little tête-à-tête is about to end. Here come your ex—brother-in-law and Silvestro.” The Contessa started to speak more quickly. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you how much I’ve been learning from Eugene about your past. Is it true that you rescued Evangeline from the clutches of a malevolent man?”

  “That’s more than an exaggeration. It makes me wonder exactly what he’s been telling you.”

  “So what’s the truth?”

  “I’ve already told you. I met Evangeline when she had just broken up with someone who hadn’t treated her well. I consoled her, and we became very close.”

  “Now that’s the most detached response I’ve ever heard, even from you! I assume, caro, that you mean you both fell in love—you notice I don’t say ‘madly’—and eventually got married! And all because of your propensity to rescue damsels in distress!”

  A cloud seemed to come over the Contessa’s levity. Perhaps she was remembering, as Urbino was, that she had said something similar to this, here on the terrace of the Caffè Centrale after Flavia’s descent on her garden party.

  “I hear her uncle, a bishop, performed the ceremony,” the Contessa went on, recovering herself, “and that you refused to have your father-in-law set you up in a charming house in the French Quarter or some such place and that—”

  The Contessa, obviously enjoying finally being privy to things about Urbino that he had either glossed over or not mentioned at all, didn’t have the chance to tell him what else she had heard, for Eugene and Occhipinti had reached the terrace. Eugene was glowing.

  “Sylvester told me he had some items at his villa he was willin’ to part with for the right person”—Eugene smiled amiably down at Occhipinti—“so we stopped by. Interestin’ woman he has stayin’ there. Couldn’t figure out exactly how old she was. Probably somewhere in your ballpark, Countess Barbara. His villa isn’t as big as yours by a long shot, but it’s crammed to the gills. I bought a marble statue of a—what did you call him, Sylvester?”

  “A bravo who was in the service of our family many, many years ago.”

  The old man’s voice was slightly hoarse and he had a feverish look. He took off his straw hat and used it as a fan before putting it back on his bald head.

  “He looks real fierce. I also bought one of the wood angels he has hangin’ on the wall, so I might not have to do any more buyin’ until right before I leave.”

  “Silvestro! Not those lovely eighteenth-century angels over the door to the library!”

  “I took only one of them, ma’am. There’s no need to get so agitated. Sylvester doesn’t seem to mind, do you?”

  Occhipinti shrugged.

  “I’m ‘guiltless forever, like a tree that buds and blooms, nor seeks to know the law by which it prospers so.’”

  “‘Prospers,’ is right!” Eugene said. “You can be sure I paid him a pretty penny for it, Countess Barbara.”

  Eugene and Occhipinti sat down and ordered drinks. As the Contessa was finishing her sundae, she asked Eugene if he would like to stay a few days longer at La Muta.

  “Just the two of us, Eugene, and no one else. Oh, don’t give me that hurt look, Silvestro. You’d be better off far away from Eugene and me and everyone if I can judge by your peaked look. Bed rest is what you need. And that will leave dear Eugene and me all alone to our own devices, won’t it, my dear? We’ll continue our little chat about Urbino. He’s kept me mercilessly starved for information.”

  The Contessa, as if to illustrate the extent of her famine, avidly took up the last spoonful of gelato.

  7

  The next morning, back in Venice, Urbino called Commissario Gemelli about the autopsy report. The Commissario seemed to be in the cooperative, albeit begrudging, mood that the Contessa had predicted.

  “Flavia Brollo was alive when she fell into the Grand Canal,” Gemelli said. “If she hadn’t been, her tissues wouldn’t have had any of those algae in them. Not the kind that scummed up all the Adriatic beaches a few summers ago. I forget what they’re called.” There was a rustle of paper, then Gemelli said, “Diatoms. She had been dead for at least thirty-six hours. That puts her death at no later than about midnight Thursday.”

  This was just eight hours after Urbino and the Contessa had seen her at Florian’s.

  “I could go on,” Gemelli continued. “Froth at the nostrils, the skin on her hands and feet as wrinkled as a washerwoman’s, terrible bloating from the heat, loss of tissue from the tips of some of her fingers and her nose, presumably by water rats, and so forth—but the point is that she drowned, all right.”

  “She drowned, but that doesn’t mean that foul play couldn’t have been involved. What else did Zavarella find?”

  Gemelli gave an impatient sigh. Once again Urbino heard the rustle of paper as Gemelli continued, “No trace of semen in any of the body orifices, no sign of recent sexual activity and she wasn’t pregnant, no blunt trauma or wounds except ones consistent with hitting herself
against stones or being abraded by the junk on the bottom of the Grand Canal, some slivers from the Palazzo Guggenheim mooring poles embedded in her skin. The tide must have dragged her—that and the action of the vaporetti and other water traffic.”

  “Couldn’t the wounds have been caused by something other than by hitting herself or abrasion? If the body was as messed up as the report says because of submersion in the water and being dragged around, how can Zavarella be sure none of the wounds was caused by a blow before she went in the water?”

  “There are two wounds on the front of her head that, in other circumstances, might indicate foul play. And several teeth were knocked out. But Zavarella says that the wounds and the missing teeth are consistent with trauma after death.”

  Urbino detected a slightly dubious note in Gemelli’s voice.

  “And there are other things in the report that make it probable that foul play wasn’t involved.”

  “What?”

  “A half-empty bottle of an antidepressant was found in her room back at the Casa Trieste. Zavarella says the drug is controversial, especially in the States. It’s supposed to cure depression but some researchers say it can make the depression worse. It’s been linked with suicide and violence in general. From what Zavarella said, people taking it can be preoccupied with death and self-destruction. The toxicology report will probably turn up a high concentration of the drug—and maybe even some others—in Flavia Brollo’s body.”

  “But even if it does, it wouldn’t be proof of suicide or accident, would it?” Urbino insisted. “When it comes to drowning, it’s difficult to distinguish cases of suicide, accident, or murder.”

  “So now you’re a medical expert, Macintyre?”

  “Couldn’t she have been knocked unconscious with a brick or a piece of wood before she drowned?” Urbino asked, ignoring Gemelli’s sarcasm. “Were her fingernails checked for any tissue not her own?”

  “Zavarella found none under her fingernails.”

  “But the report says that the tips of some of her fingers were eaten by water rats. That could have destroyed any evidence of tissue under the nails, too, couldn’t it? If—”

  “Just listen to you, Macintyre! ‘Could have’! ‘If! Maybe we should get rid of Zavarella and hire you or some card reader! We have medical examiners for a very good reason—to give us their expert opinion, and that’s what Zavarella has done. He sees no sign of foul play but plenty of indications of suicide. There’s the antidepressant, and both you and the Contessa said that she seemed unstable. Our preliminary investigation indicates that she was pretty upset on Thursday evening, the last time anyone saw her alive.”

  Something had occurred to Urbino when Gemelli mentioned the antidepressant again.

  “What does the doctor who prescribed the drug have to say? Does he think that Flavia Brollo was suicidal?”

  “The bottle had no label on it. Her family and what friends we’ve contacted have no idea who she might have gone to for the prescription. Of course, the doctor could read about her death in the paper and come forward, but until he does, there’s not much we can do on that angle. And not much that we should do unless the substitute prosecutor gives us the go-ahead. I just don’t understand you!”

  Gemelli had been holding back his impatience, and now he let it go.

  “Would you and the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini feel better if this woman had been murdered like Nicolina Ricci in Sant’Elena? The fact that Flavia Brollo knew the murdered girl and was upset makes a death by suicide even more likely. Thank God the Ricci case is sewn up with a confession and the perpetrator is in custody or you’d be telling me that we had a serial killer on the loose! I’ve already got a call from the mayor who doesn’t want all this blown out of proportion, especially during high season. Flavia Brollo’s father is respected here in Venice, and so is her aunt, the artist. They are good solid citizens. The vicequestore agrees with the mayor. No, Macintyre, the substitute prosecutor is unlikely to move that an inquiry is warranted in the death of Flavia Brollo, and I agree with him. There’s no case to answer. If you or the Contessa have any complaints or doubts—if either of you is disappointed—go and bother Maurizio Agostini, but I warn you: Substitute prosecutors are even less patient than commissarios of police. Maybe you think if you poke around yourself, you’ll be able to prove us all wrong and deliver a murderer to the steps of the Questura! You’ll just be wasting your time and not earning anyone’s good will. Good day, Macintyre.”

  After his conversation with Gemelli, Urbino went over what he had just learned from him.

  Suicide didn’t ring true—even given the medical evidence and what Madge Lennox had told Urbino about Flavia’s melancholy and nervousness and the urgency that had gripped her after the murder of Nicolina Ricci. Even when Urbino threw into the balance the tragic death of Flavia’s mother and a rejected, unloved—perhaps unloving—father, he still found himself resisting the idea of suicide.

  Urbino kept coming back to the wounds to Flavia’s head. They could have been caused by someone wielding a heavy object of some kind. All that was necessary was for Flavia to have been knocked unconscious—perhaps only severely stunned—and then pushed into the Grand Canal. Maybe even her teeth had been knocked out in a struggle. And who was to say that hair or skin tissue of the murderer wouldn’t have been found under her fingernails if she hadn’t been in the water so long?

  As far as the pills found at the Casa Trieste were concerned, Urbino would wait for the toxicology report before he speculated about them.

  But he couldn’t keep his mind away from why Flavia might have been murdered. Flavia had stormed out of Florian’s to get proof that Lorenzo wasn’t her father and that Alvise was. She had seemed confident about finding it. Searching for that proof—or finally finding it—could have led to her murder.

  It was because of this possibility that Urbino couldn’t let things lie where they were. Perhaps the substitute prosecutor would decide that there was a case to answer after all, despite Gemelli’s skepticism. But even if he didn’t, Urbino was determined to conduct his own investigation into Flavia’s parentage and into what he strongly suspected was murder, not suicide.

  Someone could have silenced Flavia to protect himself. And who was to say that the silencing was over? Whoever murdered Flavia might strike again to prevent the secret from ever coming out. This person would breathe a little easier if Flavia’s death ended up not being treated as a homicide. Perhaps this could work to Urbino’s advantage.

  Urbino searched out the address of Bernardo and Violetta Volpi from the Venice phone directory and set out for the Ca’ Volpi. Venetian addresses being as confusing as they were, he knew only that it was somewhere in the San Marco quarter. After following house numbers for almost half an hour with no success, Urbino stopped at a café in Campo Morosini. When he asked the barman if he knew where the Ca’ Volpi was, he was directed toward a calle near the Accademia Bridge. The Ca’ Volpi was one of the palazzi on the Grand Canal.

  8

  After giving his card to the Volpis’ maid, Urbino waited in a sunny sala perched above the Grand Canal. Reflections from the canal played in patterns on the frescoed ceiling, where a fan added its quiet sound to the chug and throb of the water traffic. The room, stylishly but minimally furnished, was hung with the paintings of Violetta Volpi, the aunt of Flavia Brollo.

  Over the sofa, covered in an antique Rubelli print, was a portrait of a girl with flowers. It was almost a replica of the painting Eugene had bought from Zuin except that the eyes of this girl were green, not brown, and the hair was a bright red.

  On an easel next to a wooden chair was a painting of a naked, prepubescent girl tensely posed on a shadowed bed. Over a trestle table hung a large canvas of a group of women on the Accademia Bridge. The waters of the Grand Canal were choppy and lightning zigzagged in the right-hand corner above a dome of the Salute. All the women were wearing long dark gowns, had faces without features, and had their hands clapped over their e
ars.

  Most of the other pictures contained these same wide-eyed, haunted-looking women and emphasized moonlight, nighttime, and water.

  Urbino was unprepared for these paintings, so much like those of Edvard Munch. He had been too quick to place Violetta Volpi in a category. When he heard that she was a painter, he had expected watercolors or aquatints of Venice, the conventionally pretty kind that artists offered for sale along the Molo in front of the Giardinetti Reali. He hadn’t expected these violent, even tragic canvases that had love and death as their themes.

  The maid led Urbino down a flight of stairs to a hall flanked by large Venetian torchères. At the end of the hall she threw open a door and announced his name. Urbino stepped into a large, sunshine-filled room smelling of turpentine and linseed oil. The maid closed the door after her.

  The room was obviously Violetta Volpi’s studio. Canvases were turned to the wall, paraphernalia was scattered about, and brushes and rubber gloves hung above a sink. A beringed, be robed, and mascaraed woman was kneeling on a clear space on the floor. She was in the first stages of stretching a frame.

  “Good afternoon, Signor Macintyre,” she said in a deep, throaty voice, looking up at Urbino. “I’m Violetta Volpi.”

  Urbino was no more prepared for the woman than he had been for her art. “Sensuality” was the word that immediately came into his mind as he gazed at Violetta Volpi. It was there in her not unpleasantly coarse features, her full body that the robe only partly concealed, her easy smile that seemed to take pleasure in showing an appealing gap between her two front teeth, and the remarkably dark irises of her light green eyes. It was even there in the musky odor that mixed with the aroma of her perfume.

  “That’s my husband, Bernardo.”