5 - Her Deadly Mischief (13 page)

The Republic’s overseers were nothing if not practical. Built on commerce, Venice might as well have had a balance sheet for a constitution. There was no sense in wasting resources chasing a murderer who was well away, especially when the victim had been a woman who inhabited the shadowy world of the courtesan. Honest citizens whose household goods were disappearing in the middle of the night would always take precedence.

“Is Messer Grande satisfied that Alessio murdered Zulietta?”

I thought back to the chief constable’s ear-burning oaths concerning our Republic’s feared ten-man tribunal. Messer Grande was a brave man to criticize. Men of higher influence had been thrown in the Doge’s prison for such disrespect. “Satisfied? No, I wouldn’t say that. Messer Grande wants to continue the investigation, but—the Ten have spoken.”

“And you? Are you satisfied that Alessio killed Zulietta?”

“Not really. There are others who strike me as more likely to have killed Zulietta than Alessio Pino. At first I judged Alessio as too noble to be true, but after hearing reports of his honorable actions, I’ve come to believe he is who he appears to be—a high-minded young man who truly loved his Zulietta. Why would he kill her? He wasn’t bothered by the wager with La Samsona—in fact he seemed to relish it. I suspect his escape had something to do with the mysterious errand he refused to elaborate on.”

“Those others you mention—that brings us back to Reyna and Aram.”

“Oh, Liya. They would be the last names on my list of possibilities.”

“Who heads your list?”

I took a few sips of chocolate, now grown tepid. “If you consider ease of opportunity, there was someone with a powerful motive to kill Zulietta right there on the fourth tier, only steps away from the Pino box.”

Liya tilted her head, then made a face. “Of course, Maria Albergati. The spurned
fiancée
stalking her rival
. I suppose she would have had access to Alessio’s box key. But if Aram is too slight to have bested Zulietta, how could a seventeen-year-old girl have managed it?”

“I’m not speaking of Maria herself—she has two strapping brothers—though if Zulietta had ever set her sights on Emilio Strada, I can imagine the young lady turning as bloodthirsty as a Barbary pirate.”

“Emilio? How does that conceited fool come into it?” Liya set her cup down with a rattle. For once I’d managed to surprise her. I explained by recounting my conversation with Maria.

“Appalling,” Liya announced, once I’d finished.

“It makes sense, really. Signor Albergati was drooling over all the gold from the Pino—”

“No, no.” She waved her roll in the air. “Appalling that Maria would even look at Emilio with you also on the stage.”

I shifted in my chair and shook my head. “I thought you were serious about finding Zulietta’s killer.”

After a fleeting grin, she wiped her face clean of all mirth. “I am serious, Tito. Please go on. Who else is on your list?”

“La Samsona also had a motive for killing Zulietta. She’s one lady who has the strength to have done the deed.”

“I thought she’d sent her jewels to the Banco Giro for safekeeping.”

“Not all of them, and I wonder if her reputation as Venice’s reigning courtesan doesn’t mean more to her than she is letting on.”

“All right. Since we’re considering ease of opportunity, do we know where she was when your aria was interrupted?”

“La Samsona admitted she’d left her box.”

“And?”

I shrugged. “Her revelations stopped there.”

Liya made a disparaging sound deep in her throat. “Not very forthcoming for a whore was she?” She drew her dressing gown tight around her and continued. “I suppose our last suspect is Alessio’s father.”

I nodded. “Cesare was on the scene and had sufficient cause, more than sufficient when you consider how much he detested Je—” I bit my tongue, realizing what I was about to say.

“Jews? Is that it?” She regarded me keenly. “Alessio’s father hated Zulietta not only because she ruined his plans, but because she was born a Hebrew?”

I nodded, ashamed, though I was only repeating another man’s sentiments.

“Cesare and half of Venice. I may have left the ghetto behind, but I well understand that many of your fellow countrymen consider it their Christian duty to inflict insults and beatings on any Jew whose business takes him into the city. A Jew can be physician, banker, poet, or merchant, but he’s always a Jew first and foremost…” She let her words trail off, shrugging with eloquent bitterness.

Liya didn’t need to go on; I understood nearly as well as she did. In tracking down the killer of the roguish scene painter who had fathered Titolino, I learned how easily Jews could become scapegoats, how quick people were to believe any wrongdoing of our Hebrew neighbors. The diabolical violence visited on Liya’s family the night of the ghetto fire that had almost killed her and Fortunata still haunted my nightmares. That’s why I’d been hesitant to feed Messer Grande any information that would point an accusing finger at Reyna and Aram. I didn’t intend to mention Zulietta’s sister and her scoundrel of a husband unless I found proof positive against them.

I sighed. “None of that brings us any closer to solving the murder. I look at it one way and I’m convinced that Maria’s family must be behind it. But if I shift my focus, another of our suspects seems just as likely.”

“It reminds me of that toy you brought home to Titolino.”

“Eh?”

“Oh, you know.” She rose and crossed to the mantelpiece. “He was playing with it before bed last night. Here it is—it makes pictures like the colored windows in the Basilica. What do you call it?”

I joined her before the cold fireplace. “The glassmaker called it a petal-scope.” I held the tube to my eye, aimed it at a patch of sunlight, and clicked through several different patterns.

“One turn and you have a whole new way of looking at things. Just like Zulietta’s murder,” Liya said.

I lowered the scope, frowning. My wife had something there. We must let the investigation flower at its own pace, not force the clues to fit a predetermined pattern. “We need more information.”

“Easy enough, we’ve both been questioning the people around Zulietta—her friends, her enemies, her family. Maybe we should focus on Zulietta herself. Who was she really? What did she want out of her wager? Where did she think her romance with Alessio would end?”

“And how do you propose we do that, clever wife?”

Liya threw off her dressing gown as she fairly skipped to the wardrobe. “We visit her lodgings. See if we can find a landlady. Talk to her maid if she’s still around—and the funny little man you mentioned. You haven’t been to her casino already, have you?”

“No.”

“Do you know where she lived?”

“Ah, yes.” Thanks to Benito.

“Well, let’s get going. You’ll have to help me.” She tossed corset and stockings at my head, laughing. “Since Angelina’s run home to Mama.”

***

Zulietta’s lodgings weren’t far from the Teatro San Marco. She kept a casino, one of the little pleasure houses that offered a debauchee either or both of Venice’s greatest attractions, women and gambling. Most casinos were clustered around the bustling Piazza. It made sense for all of Venice’s entertainments, even the menagerie of exotic beasts that Titolino so wanted to visit, to be
located where carnival merrymakers could easily find them.

Luigi set us down at the theater quay, and we crossed the square to enter a narrow alley bounded by a lottery office and the Pearl of the Waves. Casting a glance within the tavern’s dim recesses, I recalled the sailor who had attempted to meet Alessio there and ended up searching for his box at the opera house.

Nothing further had been heard from this mystery man, and I had to wonder if Alessio had tracked him down and was now aboard ship crossing the sea to…where? Hadn’t Liya just mentioned a sea journey foretold by her
tarocchi
? I glanced in her direction, but kept my mouth shut. If Liya procured a new pack of cards and again immersed herself in divination, so be it. But I wasn’t going to encourage her.

Several turns brought us to an arched bridge that angled across a foul-smelling thread of water. Once on the other side, we caught the attention of an old fellow who represented a class of beggar unique to Venice. Crab-catchers we call them; as you board a gondola, they keep it from rocking by kneeling on the landing and grasping the boat’s side walls. Of course, they expect a liberal bonus for their service. This one clutched my sleeve, dipping his head respectfully and insisting he be allowed to fetch a gondola for Signore’s pleasure and convenience. I shrugged him off, amazed that this grandfather with a tangled white beard was still spry enough to ply his trade.

We soon located Zulietta’s building on a damp, shadowy cul-de-sac. A tall wrought iron gate afforded a view of a vestibule open to the sky and stone stairs winding to the upper floors. I pulled the bell for the first-floor apartment. We heard a muffled jangle, but no one appeared. At Liya’s urging, I pulled harder. Again, nothing.

Just when we had decided that Zulietta’s servants must have abandoned the place, an extraordinary woman hurried downstairs clutching a straw broom. Since Venice rests at the crossroads of the eastern Mediterranean, I was accustomed to seeing skin of every hue our good Lord had seen fit to create, but I’d never seen a person as black as Zulietta’s maid.

Observing her through the bars of the gate, I was astonished by the shining ebony mounds of her cheeks, as well as her mass of wiry tresses restrained by a brightly flowered kerchief. This exotic creature was neither old, nor girlish. She was a woman in her prime, with bold, handsome features and a well-padded figure only partially covered by her yellow gown and white apron. The delicate, dusky scent of sandalwood emanated from her person. Her eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

“If you please,” I said. “We were friends of your mistress.” Well, Liya
had
known Zulietta when she was still Mina Grazziano. By extension, I gave myself permission to claim friendship.

The maid took in my beardless chin, my spindle-thin extremities, and then looked my petite wife up and down. Apparently finding no danger in our appearance, she inquired after our business in polite, oddly accented tones. I allowed Liya to negotiate our entrée.

Sary—as she gave her name, be it Christian or surname I couldn’t say—wasn’t easily convinced. “My mistress never mentioned a Liya Del’Vecchio. Or any Liya at all, for that matter.” Shaking her head, she made no move to open the gate.

My wife continued by fretting over all the years she’d let pass without calling on her old friend, whom she referred to as Mina. She also mentioned Reyna and Aram by name.

Sary scrunched an eyebrow. “If you’re in tight with those scoundrels—”

“Not at all,” Liya replied without hesitation. “That’s why we came, my husband and I.”

“Husband!” Sary shot me a disparaging look. It was often thus with peasants who never darkened the door of the opera house. Removed from my prodigious singing voice, I suppose I did cut rather an effete figure.

“Yes!” Liya proudly retorted. “My husband, Signor Tito Amato,
primo uomo
at the Teatro San Marco.”

Did I see a glimmer of interest in Sary’s eyes? Even if the world of opera was foreign to her, she must be calculating that “the first man” must be someone of importance. She put her hand on the bolt that would unlock the gate as Liya continued.

“We went to Reyna to hear something of Mina…er, Zulietta’s last days, to beg some trifling memento for sentiment’s sake. We were such friends back at school…more like sisters, really…then she left the ghetto….” Liya dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Real tears! My wife had missed her calling. She would have made a talented actress. “But that evil shrew Reyna would grant me nothing. She was always jealous of Zulietta, and of our friendship. She suggested that I come see you.”

Sary slid the bolt open. The gate squeaked on its hinges. “Come up,” she said, and we followed her wide hips up to the first landing and through a shiny-painted green door.

Zulietta’s apartment was elegant, but dark. The small foyer was lit by girandoles flanking a gilt-framed mirror. Even so, I nearly tripped over a battered traveling trunk set near the door. “Are you packed up to leave?”

Sary hesitated for a heartbeat, eyes showing very white against her coal-black skin.

I pointed to the trunk. “You can’t stay here for long—now that your mistress is gone.”

“That belongs to Pamarino, my mistress’ footman.”

Footman was he—that position was several rungs lower than the combination of majordomo and
cavaliere servente
the dwarf had claimed. “Oh, yes. I met Pamarino at the theater. Has he already left then?”

“He’s gone to stay with his sister.” She shrugged, disinterested. “He’ll come back for his things once he’s found another position.”

“Is his sister also a dwarf?”

The maid shook her head. “She’s as normal as anyone. Pretty, too, if you can believe it by looking at Pamarino’s ugly face.”

“A married woman?” I asked.

“Hardly. Estrella is her name and she makes her money on her back. Lives in a brothel over by the Arsenale.”

“Where will you go?” That was Liya, warmly concerned.

Instead of answering at once, Sary led us into the sitting room. Several doors leading to other rooms were closed and the window shutters were only half-open, throwing this larger room into murky gloom. Sary rested her broom in a corner and gestured for us to sit on a comfortable-looking sofa which was bracketed by two elbow chairs. She remained standing with hands crossed in front of her starched apron. “The right position will present itself when I’m ready,” she finally replied. “Even though my mistress has been laid to rest, I still have a lot of work here. She had a great many possessions which must be boxed up for auction. The magistrate who read her will allowed me a fortnight.”

“What was done with her body?” Liya asked. “Her mother told me they had wished to bury her as a Jew.”