Liquid Desires (27 page)

Urbino remembered what Nicolina's brother Luigi had told him—that Flavia had never taken to Pasquale Zennaro. Urbino had passed this information on to Commissario Gemelli but Gemelli apparently found it of no interest.

The other piece of information that jumped out at Urbino was this:

Carlo Ricci, the father of the murdered girl, has returned to his job at the Volpi Import-Export Company in Mestre.

Could this be what Urbino was in search of, something that would explain the possible relationship between Nicolina Ricci's murder and Flavia's? If it was, it seemed to put Bernardo Volpi, the owner of the Volpi Import-Export Company, in an entirely different light—and perhaps his wife as well.

Urbino was about to leave when he thought of something else. It took him a long time to find the article on the death of Vladimir Mirko, the father of Ladislao. It was in an issue of
Il Gazzettino
from ten years ago.

Vladimir Mirko, forty-two, had died in an explosion in his apartment in the Castello quarter caused by his freebasing cocaine. It obviously hadn't deterred his son from living just as dangerously.

7

From Caffè Florian Urbino called Oriana Borelli, the Contessa's friend. She gave him the address of Graziella Gnocato, the old nurse who had taken care of Oriana's husband, Filippo, and Regina Brollo.

An hour later Urbino was in one of the most dismal quarters of Venice, the housing estate of Santa Marta with its dreary, uniform rows of low tenements, lines of washing, and wilted geraniums in window boxes. Cranes, warehouses, and even cars—an anomaly in Venice—were visible beyond the wall that cut the area off from its former source of spiritual comfort, the Church of Santa Marta, now just one more warehouse on the waterfront. In an unshaded basketball court, children in torn shorts and dirty T-shirts were kicking around the metal screw-top from a jar.

The sickening odors of motor oil, frying fish, and cigarette smoke formed a pall over the quarter, emanating from its dark row houses and the nearby warehouses, railway docks, and maritime buildings. This was an area that never found its way onto a postcard or into the heart of a tourist.

Urbino found the building where Graziella Gnocato lived with her niece. It was on a corner within sight of a railroad siding where a man was hosing down a line of railway cars. The fresh coat of salmon paint on the building didn't succeed in hiding its shabbiness. A stout, gray-haired woman about sixty answered the bell, wiping her hands on her apron. When Urbino explained who he was and that he was there to see Graziella Gnocato, the woman frowned.

“I'm sorry, signore, but my aunt is expecting the priest from San Nicolò dei Mendicoli. He comes every week to confess her. She can't see you now.”

“It's important, signora. You can call Oriana Borelli. She'll assure you that I'm not here to disturb your aunt.”

“Francesca?” a woman's voice called from within the apartment. “Is that Padre Ferrucci? You know I like to see him right away.”

“It's not Padre Ferrucci, Zia Graziella.”

“Who is it then? I might not have my sight but I can hear as sharp as I ever did. I can hear you talking with someone. Bring our visitor in.”

With obvious reluctance Francesca escorted Urbino to a small, stuffy bedroom crowded with pictures and statues of saints. Urbino made out the Infant of Prague, Saint Anthony, the Blessed Virgin, and assorted other saints, mostly female. Over the bed hung a blown-up photograph of the preserved body of Saint Lucy, a virgin saint invoked against afflictions of the sight. Saint Lucy was shown laid out in her crystal coffin in the Church of San Geremia on the Grand Canal. Not so much laid out as propped up with pillows in her own bed was a small, wrinkled, white-haired woman in a blue bed jacket. Half a dozen pill bottles and a glass of water were on the bedside table.

“Leave us alone, Francesca,” the woman said in a surprisingly strong voice. “Wait for Padre Ferrucci.”

With a glance at Urbino, Francesca complied, closing the door quietly behind her. Urbino explained that he was a friend of Oriana Borelli.

“You have a young voice, signore. You are English? Ah, yes, American. So, you are a friend of Signora Borelli. She called me a few days ago. Please tell her that we are very grateful for all her help.”

Urbino explained how Oriana Borelli had said that Graziella might be able to tell him some things about Flavia Brollo. Graziella had already told Oriana that Violetta and Regina were sisters.

“I'm concerned about how Flavia died,” Urbino said. “She visited a friend and me several times before her death. You see, Signora Gnocato, I suspect that Flavia didn't kill herself but might have been murdered.”

“Murdered? My poor Flavia murdered?” Fear threaded the old nurse's voice. She crossed herself and two tears rolled down her withered cheeks. “Flavia was as good as she was beautiful, signore,” she said after several moments of staring sightlessly ahead with tear-filled eyes. “She never forgot me. Never! I could always count on her for a visit. We would play guessing games, and years ago she would bring her sweet friend Tina, and we would all have such a good time. Oh, everyone loved Flavia, even the dogs and the cats in the street.”

“When was the last time you saw Flavia, Signora Gnocato?”

“The Thursday before they—they found her poor drowned body. About six o'clock.”

This was one and a half hours before she had been at the Casa Trieste with Ladislao Mirko and more than an hour after she had stormed out of Florian's.

“Why did she visit you?”

“She came for information. I told her and now I regret it. You say she might have been murdered. Maybe it was because of what I told her.”

Graziella shifted uneasily under the worn sheet.

“What did she want to know?”

“About her mother. I looked after Signora Brollo and Flavia from the time they came back to Venice from the clinic outside Milan where Flavia was born. That was for about three years. Then I worked for them again almost ten years later until Signora Brollo drowned herself at Lago di Garda, God have mercy on her soul.”

“Do you remember the name of the clinic?”

“Oh, yes, it's well-known.”

She gave Urbino the name.

“What was it about her mother that Flavia wanted to know?”

“I heard Signora Brollo tell her daughter many times that a prominent man named Alvise da Capo-Zendrini was her father. She said he was a count. I've told myself over and over again that Signora Brollo was just hallucinating—that it was her illness speaking—but she seemed to know exactly what she was saying. She had the schizophrenia. She had it since she was an adolescent, I understand, but it became much worse after she married.”

Graziella sighed.

“She was afraid of so much. The pigeons at the windows. The church bells. Even Flavia's dog. Flavia had to get rid of it. Signora Brollo was afraid that her husband would tell her and Flavia to leave the house and never come back. It was her illness that made her so afraid. Signor Brollo was always very good to her and to Flavia. He never raised his voice once. But that didn't make any difference to Signora Brollo. She would say, ‘We'll have to live in a gondola or in one of those little huts in the lagoon where the hunters hide to shoot the birds.' Such a pity! She even thought at times that I was her mother! But she had her lucid moments. She knew what she was saying some of the time, you can be sure, and maybe that's the way it was when she talked about this count. She had a large envelope filled with newspaper clippings with this man's picture. Do you know who he is?”

“I never met him. He's dead now. But why did Flavia want this information from you if she already knew it?”

“She said that she needed someone besides herself—someone people would believe—to say the name, to tell others what her mother had said. You see, signore,” Graziella continued, “Signora Brollo would say this many times to Flavia when she was a little girl. It was like a game between them. Signor Brollo would get upset, but never in a mean or loud way, and would tell his wife that she didn't know what she was saying, that she was hallucinating. Would you give me some water, please, signore?”

Urbino held the glass of water to Graziella's mouth as she took a sip.

“Sometimes her mother would mention this man's name,” Graziella went on, “and other times Signora Brollo wouldn't know who he was when Flavia would talk about him, especially in the last years of her life.”

“Did Flavia want you to meet someone and tell them about all this?”

“Oh, no, signore, my Flavia had more regard for me than that. I can't leave my apartment. Flavia had a little recording machine and I spoke into it. I didn't think it was a good idea. I thought that Signor Brollo—and Signora Brollo's sister Signora Volpi—would have it in for me, but I was only telling the truth, and Flavia begged and pleaded.”

Was this, then, the proof that Flavia had stormed off from Florian's in search of? The confidence of an old nurse that Flavia had recorded? Someone whom the Contessa was sure to believe?

“I never thought of what could happen to Flavia,” the nurse said sadly. “I only thought that I was making her happy. She kissed and hugged me and left. That was the last time I saw her. I did her no good, signore. I'm responsible for a grievous sin if someone murdered her!”

“But who, Signora Gnocato?”

“Probably someone who doesn't want anyone to know that this Alvise da Capo-Zendrini was her father! Oh, I can tell who you're thinking about, but it wasn't Signor Brollo! That's impossible! He's a gentle, quiet man. You don't have to be afraid of him. He never raised his voice to me or anyone else. He always wanted things as smooth as glass. No matter how bad things would get he always was as calm as anything and could make things better.” She screwed up her face. “Maybe Annabella Brollo, his sister. She's a strange one with all her flowers! She never had anything good to say about Flavia. She wanted her brother only for herself. She probably danced the day Signora Brollo died.”

“What happened to Signora Brollo?”

“Drowned herself. She insisted on taking the boat to Gardone by herself. Flavia wanted to go, too, because the villa of some famous man is there”—it was Gabriele D'Annunzio's villa II Vittoriale—“but Signora Brollo said that she wanted to be alone. Flavia threw a tantrum and went to her room to pout. Forty-five minutes later Signora Brollo jumped into the lake from the boat—and that was it. Yes,” she sighed, shaking her head, “that was it.”

“Did the police ask you any questions about Flavia?”

“The police? I haven't seen a policeman or a carabiniere in years!”

“What about your niece?”

“Francesca minds her own business. Besides, I never told her why Flavia came that last time.”

“Would you know if Flavia was on any medication?”

“Medication? I wouldn't know, signore, but I don't think so. I remember having to force her to take aspirin and she didn't like to see all the pills I have to take.” She waved her hand toward the bedside table. “She said I would be better off without them.”

Graziella didn't know anything about an argument at Lago di Garda in Regina Brollo's bedroom and she had never heard of Salvador Dalí or
The Birth of Liquid Desires
. She did, however, have some choice words to say about Violetta Volpi, who, as Oriana Borelli had told Urbino, had once hired her to look after Bernardo.

“I never took to her—or to any of those godless paintings she does!”

“Did you work for her before or after Signora Brollo's death?”

“A couple of years before. She used to make me sick the way she would pretend to care about her husband when all she ever seemed to think about were her paintings. If you meet her on the street, you might think she was a fine woman, but she was always stabbing people in the back.”

“Like who?”

“Like her own sister! Telling Signor Volpi that she had a crazy woman for a sister who didn't know anything about raising a child, who was going to make her own daughter as
pazza
as she was. The poor man never would say anything. He's a saint. I would have to listen to Signora Volpi many times as she was painting away like a demon! She kept talking about some Englishwoman who had ruined her life, how I don't know.”

Leaving the old nurse, with a promise to visit her again soon, Urbino walked past the gates of the Venice Port Authority to the boat landing.

The most important thing he had learned from Graziella Gnocato was that Regina Brollo
had
told Flavia that Alvise da Capo-Zendrini was her father. Ladislao Mirko hadn't been lying. And according to Graziella, Regina Brollo seemed to be the source of the clippings about Alvise that Flavia had put in her scrapbook. Graziella had also confirmed some of his suspicions about Violetta Volpi.

There was no question about it. Urbino had learned a lot from the old nurse, and none of it made him feel easy. He decided to go back to the Palazzo Uccello and get Flavia's scrapbook, and then go to Asolo. Two weeks ago, the Contessa had literally had to drag him off to her country retreat, and here he was going back and forth so often—both yesterday and today. But he needed to speak with Madge Lennox and Silvestro Occhipinti face-to-face, and he wanted to show the Contessa Alvise's signature. Also, on the way to Asolo he could get off the train at Mestre on the other side of the lagoon to talk with Carlo Ricci at the Volpi Import-Export Company.

8

All trains to and from Venice stopped in Mestre, a sprawling city of concrete that continued to woo Venetians with its promise of high, dry, and modern apartments. Urbino considered it a blight and avoided it, unless, like now, he had business there.

He took a taxi to the Volpi Import-Export Company. A blond receptionist smiled brightly at him when he came in the front office, but the smile disappeared when he told her he would like to speak with Carlo Ricci. She seemed more suspicious than relieved when he said he had nothing to do with the police. After eyeing his Caraceni suit, she picked up the telephone and had Ricci paged.