A Very Venetian Murder Read online

  “It’s been Commissario Valier’s strong advice that all of you stay in Venice,” Reuben said. “But as long as Ms. Medford doesn’t leave the country, he may not object. I’ll ask him when I talk to him.”

  “What if we all just took off?”

  “Legally, you probably could. But I wouldn’t make any bets against the P.S. finding a way to stop you.”

  “What do they think’s going to happen?”

  “I’m not sure they know.”

  “Christ, we may be here forever.”

  Cynthia, curious, asked Abbott if Tony Garrison really could continue the business.

  “Oh, absolutely,” Abbott said. “The kid’s got a million ideas a minute. He’s a natural, the same way Gregg was. And now that he’s stable, now that he’s got Tabita, he’s going to be even more dependable.”

  Frost was sorry to have the conversation interrupted by arrival at the Fondamente Nuove. He was also not happy to see the size of the Sunday crowd, mostly locals, waiting for the number twelve. After a short wait, they boarded the two-decked motonave and were able to sit together on the upper deck.

  “Mr. Abbott—”

  “—Dan—”

  “Dan, how did you get hooked up with Gregg Baxter in the first place?” Reuben asked, when they had staked their claim.

  Abbott laughed. “Fate,” he said.

  “I’d be interested to hear the story.”

  “It’s not very exciting, but sure, I’ll be glad to tell you. I had a very conventional upbringing, up in Westchester, then went off to the Wharton School at Penn.

  “When I got out, I went to work for First Fiduciary Bank, where you and I first met. Eventually I was assigned to commercial lending and, in particular, the group that made loans to Seventh Avenue.

  “I really got to know the garment industry. The garmentos liked me—I was their goy friend in the big bank. That’s where I met Gregg, when he broke away from Liz Claiborne and wanted to borrow money to get started on his own. I liked his ideas, even if he didn’t have much of a business plan. We made the loan, Bergdorf’s made its first buy the next year and he was on a roll. That’s when he asked me to join him. ‘You had faith enough to lend me money, why don’t you have guts enough to be my partner?’ he said.

  “I knew he needed practical business help. And I was getting restless. Watching other people get rich with the loans I was making was getting to me. Why wasn’t I becoming rich, too? So I took him up on his offer.”

  “I know this is a rather private question,” Reuben said. “But I have an idea the more I know about Baxter and his business the more intelligent I’m going to be in helping to find who murdered him.”

  “Hell, I don’t mind. What’s your question?”

  “How big a percentage of the business do you own?”

  “Now, or back then?”

  “Now.”

  “A third. I began at twenty-five percent, but Gregg let me buy a bigger share as we went along.”

  “What about Tony Garrison?”

  “Ten percent, with a promise of more to come.”

  “An option?”

  “No, there was nothing in writing. Just Gregg’s word.”

  “What about Ms. Medford?”

  “Zilch. She’s on salary. A damned good one, but no points. The only owners are Gregg—were Gregg—Tony and me. Tony argued for giving her a piece, but Gregg never did. She drinks too much, you know. She’s a very valuable person and balanced Gregg nicely right from the beginning, but she’s got a real problem with the bottle. Sometimes she goes crazy when she drinks. Tony’s always been willing to overlook it, but Gregg was more cautious about bringing her in. I’m sorry to mention this, but you asked.”

  Their boat stopped at Murano as Abbott was explaining the ownership of Baxter Fashions. Here there was another large influx of Sunday trippers, mostly families, but Abbott paid no attention to them.

  “What happens to Baxter’s share now?” Reuben pressed, as they headed off again.

  “There’s a right to buy out Gregg’s interest from his estate. Luckily we had a key-man insurance policy on him, so with some borrowing from my old friends at First Fiduciary, we should be okay and Tony and I can take over.”

  “You’ll have to increase Garrison’s percentage won’t you?”

  “Sure. But I’m damned certain I’m going to put a pair of golden handcuffs on him so he isn’t tempted to wander off.”

  “And you think he can go on by himself?” Cynthia asked.

  “Absolutely. I’m not going to jump on Gregg’s grave, but Tony’s steady, reliable and smart. And he has a fresh eye, which is worth everything in our business.”

  “Will you continue the Baxter name?”

  “Oh, sure. That’s worth millions. Maybe someday we’ll put Tony’s name out there, but not now. You look skeptical, Mrs. Frost. But look at other houses. Chanel’s been dead how long? Twenty years? And Dior even longer. They survived with other designers—did better than ever, in fact. Or take Perry Ellis. They had a bad time when he died, but they’re doing fine today. I’m very confident we can do the same.”

  “There’s Torcello,” Reuben interrupted, pointing to the small island, with its lonely and ancient cathedral tower. “Do you know about its history, Dan?”

  “I’m afraid I’m very ignorant when it comes to that.”

  “The original settlement in the lagoon was here, in the early part of the seventh century. People fleeing the barbarians sought a safe hiding place off the mainland. I read that the population at one point got up to twenty thousand.”

  “Looks to me like it has gone down since then.”

  “Yes. There’re about a hundred people living here now,” Reuben said, as their boat was tied up. He looked around to get his bearings and then followed the crowd to a narrow footpath along an interior waterway.

  Ten minutes later, Reuben, Cynthia and Dan were in what remained of the Piazzetta in front of Santa Maria Assunta. Reuben sat down on a bench to refresh his memory of Torcello with the help of his Lorenzetti Guide.

  “Let’s go inside,” he said, after some quick reading. Standing in the nave, he noted that the cathedral had first been used in 639. “It was rebuilt, for God’s sake, in 863 and again in 1008!” he told Cynthia and Dan.

  Like all visitors to the church, Dan Abbott was drawn by the mosaic of the weeping Virgin in the center of the gold-encrusted domed arch over the main altar.

  “The guidebook says that’s thirteenth century,” Reuben explained, “and the apostles down below the Virgin are twelfth. Now,” he directed, “turn around and look at the mosaic on the opposite wall.” Abbott did as he was told and looked up at the extraordinary Apotheosis of Christ and the Last Judgment on the inner facade, a truly terrifying work from the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, showing at the bottom the wicked being consigned to the fires of hell and the tortures of the damned. If Abbott has any scruples of conscience at all, Reuben thought, he’ll play it straight with me after looking at that for a few minutes!

  “I’ve worked up an appetite,” Cynthia said as they emerged into the sunshine. “When is our reservation?”

  “I’m sure we can show up anytime. I’ve reserved at the Osteria al Ponte del Diavolo, which translates rather vividly, if I’ve got it right, as the Inn at the Bridge of the Devil,” he told Abbott. “The alternative is the Locanda Cipriani, which is charming and has a beautiful garden. We can peek in there when we go by. But I was curious about the Diavolo. We’ve never been there. Besides, a small rest from the Cipriani heritage may be good for us.”

  “Reuben, I like the thought you put into everything,” Abbott said. “It all sounds fine to me.”

  The restaurant, a fisherman’s cottage turned into a small inn, was surrounded by outdoor tables, which were beginning to fill up, the larger ones with families spanning three generations and, in one case, what appeared to be four.

  Sitting outside was perfect, as the temperature was mild, and Reuben enthusiasti
cally ordered a grande caraffa of the house white wine, a Cabernet from Friuli. He was surprised when Abbott declined a glass.

  “I’m afraid I’m your original spoilsport,” Abbott explained. “I gave it up when I was married to my first wife. I thought if I quit, she might, too.” Abbott hesitated, perhaps embarrassed at having stumbled into such a personal matter, then continued. “She didn’t. Instead she drank for both of us. After we were divorced, I never went back to the stuff. I figured you couldn’t be both a workaholic and an alcoholic. Sorry to get so personal, but I usually feel I have to explain. Then there’s the situation at Baxter Fashions, too. With Doris. Jack Spratt and Mrs. Spratt, Gregg called us once. With Doris licking the bottle clean.”

  “In my opinion, drinking is a private matter,” Reuben said. “If I went on a mineral-water regimen, I’m sure it would be better for me.”

  “Not a very likely prospect,” Cynthia said.

  “I’ll ignore that,” Reuben said, turning his attention to the menu. Following Cynthia’s lead from the night before, Reuben ordered filetto di San Pietro, while she opted for the restaurant’s version of grilled sole, sogliola ai ferri. Abbott sided with Reuben, though all three agreed to start with spaghetti con seppie. Reuben decided to bear in on Abbott once they had ordered.

  “Dan,” he began, “I’d like to bring up a difficult subject, and one that you may not want to discuss.”

  “Try me.”

  “Gregg Baxter’s sex life,” Reuben said. “I don’t mean to be prurient, but my intuition tells me it may be relevant to solving our puzzle.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can, but you should know that I tried to stay out of Gregg’s personal intrigues as much as I could. He wanted it that way, and I did, too. But you can’t help seeing things and knowing things, especially when you’re the one that writes the checks.”

  Abbott paused, took a large forkful of spaghetti and a generous swig of San Pellegrino.

  “Start with the proposition that Gregg was homosexual. He claimed he always had been, and I never knew him to have sex with a woman. He didn’t hide it, but he didn’t flaunt it, either. And when he was working very hard, which was often, there was no time for sex.

  “You know, some people have funny ideas about that. They think gays are in and out of bed all the time, without stopping. Just as people believe that alcoholics drink steadily. But that’s not necessarily true. Take my ex-wife, or Doris Medford for that matter. Either one of them could go for weeks without a drink and then might go on a binge and stay plastered for two or three days.

  “Sex can work that way, too. Gregg Baxter would have binges—seducing his models, cruising the trucks, calling hustlers who advertised in the gay magazines, running through his Filofax to find the numbers of former partners. He was so rich and powerful and famous that he could have the pick of the gay and bisexual boys that hung around. He’d take them out to his mansion in Quogue or have parties in the duplex up over his office in New York. Then, two, three, four days later, he’d be back designing, as celibate as a monk.

  “I hope this isn’t embarrassing you, Mrs. Frost,” Abbott continued.

  “Heavens, no. I was a dancer for many years, don’t forget, so I have seen a bit of sexual ‘bingeing’ in my day,” Cynthia said.

  “Was Thursday night one of Baxter’s ‘binges’?” Reuben asked.

  “I would say so. He knew he was in danger after the poison incident, but he went off anyway and there was no stopping him. I suspect he picked up the first piece of trade he met. And got himself killed in the process.”

  “You believe that?” Reuben asked.

  “At the moment I don’t have anything else to believe.”

  “I realize that,” Reuben said, “but how do you fit the attempt to poison Baxter into the picture?”

  “Yeah, that’s occurred to me. Maybe someone else pulled that stunt.”

  “It’s possible. But is it likely?”

  Abbott looked crestfallen, though he brightened when presented with his San Pietro.

  “Let me change the subject a little bit,” Reuben said. “Tell me about the relationship between Baxter and Tony Garrison.”

  “That’s more complicated. Gregg met Tony six years ago now, at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Gregg was teaching a course at FIT, and Tony was a student. A poor black kid, or half-black kid, who lived in Brooklyn. He had real talent and Gregg discovered that right away. Besides, he was smart, had a great sense of humor and was handsome as hell. Gregg hired him part-time when he was still in school and he started helping with the design work even then.

  “Gregg was a New York City boy through and through. So he was glad to see another city kid with talent and ambition come along. But his relationship with Tony was complicated. Gregg was almost paternal, treating and loving Tony like a son. Yet there was the other side, the gay side, too. Tony used to go out on the trunk shows with Gregg—you know what they are, where a designer takes his new designs to stores around the country—and I knew they’d begun sleeping together on the road. But the sex was only a part of an intricate arrangement in which Tony was employee, partner, lover and son, depending on the time and the day of the week.

  “About three months ago, Tony snarled things up but good by moving in with Tabita and announcing to Gregg that sex with him was over. I know Gregg was devastated but there wasn’t much he could do to get back at Tony. He’d become dependent on his wonderful imagination—I won’t say Tony had taken over, but he had become more than a paid helper—and the glamorous allure of Tabita was an asset for Gregg, too. The more Gregg felt helpless the moodier he got, ending up with his explosion Thursday night.”

  Abbott had been talking so much that he had fallen behind Reuben and Cynthia and now wolfed down his food to catch up. As they finished their coffee—they had passed up the crespelli alla crema urged on them by Alfonso Corrado, the owner—Reuben managed to work into the conversation a reference to the Orientale gondolier. It was an awkward one, but it alerted Cynthia.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to hurry back to those stands in the Piazzetta. There was some lace there that caught my eye.”

  “We should try to get the boat at two-fifteen,” Reuben said.

  “I’ll only be a few minutes, dear, don’t worry.”

  When Cynthia had left, Reuben returned to the matter of Baxter’s sex life. “Did Baxter have AIDS? Or was he what they call HIV-positive?”

  Abbott appeared uneasy with the question, but soon answered, “He didn’t have either one. Gregg was a terrible hypochondriac. With some justification, given his diabetes. But I know that he had himself tested for AIDS every month. And the result was always negative. Why do you ask?”

  “Mr. Abbott, a little more than three days ago you and the late Gregg Baxter asked me to help you out—help you discover a would-be murderer, which unhappily has turned into a search for a real one. I agreed, and I believe I’ve tried to cooperate with you. But I would not be frank if I didn’t tell you that I have not been entirely pleased with how things have gone.”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “What I’m driving at is that I haven’t been given all the facts.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Then why was I not told that Baxter had pretty strong words with Tony Garrison the night he was killed? Specifically, he told Garrison that he was HIV-positive. Not a very comforting revelation to Garrison, who’d exchanged bodily fluids, as they say, with Baxter.”

  “You get around, don’t you?”

  “I thought that’s what I was supposed to be doing,” Reuben snapped.

  “It is. I was just admiring your technique. You’re absolutely correct. I was less than candid with you about what happened at the restaurant Thursday night. Gregg told Tony that he was HIV-positive, and Tony and Tabita left, obviously mad as hell. Why didn’t I tell you? As I said, the HIV business was a cruel joke of Baxter’s.”

  “Garrison didn’t know it was a joke.”
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  “Granted. But I didn’t tell you because it was irrelevant and would only get people going down the wrong track. However bad the situation had gotten, there’s no way Tony could or would have killed Gregg. I’m real confident of that. So I tried to save you—and the police—from wasting unnecessary energy.”

  “That should have been my call, not yours,” Reuben said.

  “I see that now,” Abbott said. “But I still say the fact that Baxter and Garrison had words is irrelevant. Hell, for the last few months Baxter was quarreling with everybody. Me included.”

  “What about, in your case?” Frost asked, thinking of what Gussie Morrison had said.

  “About the direction of the business. Gregg had a very conservative approach. He wanted to design dresses and menswear, period. No perfume. No luggage. No cheap line run up in Korea by some schlock licensee. I was doing my best to persuade him that the money was out there hanging on the trees, ready to be picked. Can you imagine the millions that could be made from a Gregg Baxter perfume? A Gregg Baxter after-shave lotion?

  “That’s why Eric Werth was here. I wanted him to make a pitch to Gregg. But he wouldn’t even see Werth, and even disinvited him from the big party. Said he didn’t want ‘the old runt’ anywhere around.

  “And look at this, Mr. Frost,” Abbott went on, pointing to the small figure of a polo player on his sports shirt. “Ralph Lauren’s logo. You look around at the Americans over here, you’ll see it on about half the men’s shirts. Do you know how many millions that means? Gregg Baxter could have had a logo and grabbed off part of those millions. But he wouldn’t do it. That’s a long answer to your question, but that’s what we quarreled about.”

  Cynthia, with impeccable timing, appeared as Abbott finished his response. Abbott, when he saw her, asked for the check. “This is on me,” he said, as he flipped his American Express card onto the table. “A peace offering,” he said quietly to Reuben. Then it turned out that the Ponte del Diavolo did not take credit cards, so all three of them had to pool their cash. Cynthia was the largest contributor.