A Very Venetian Murder Read online

  “You’re right,” Reuben said. “The Venetians captured Constantinople in one of the Crusades, and brought them back as booty. They’re not Byzantine, you know. It’s thought they originally came from Rome. Napoleon took them to Paris when the Republic collapsed, but they were returned in 1815.”

  “They’ve done a fair amount of traveling,” Cavanaugh said.

  “Yes, they have. At least one of them was sent to museums around the world a few years ago,” Reuben said. “Of course I hate to disappoint you, but what you’re looking at are reproductions. The originals are in an inside room, away from the outdoor air pollution.”

  “I have a feeling everything in this place is a reproduction,” Cavanaugh said.

  “You mean Venice is some sort of Renaissance Disneyland?” Frost asked. “I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. There’s really very little that’s not real. Restored, yes.”

  Cavanaugh looked up at the Campanile, the Piazza’s bell tower, and then turned to Reuben. “You say this place isn’t full of fakes. How about that?” he said. “I bought a postcard this morning that shows a pile of bricks over there, where the original tower fell down. So the one we’re looking at’s a replica.”

  “Touché, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Frost said. “The original campanile stood there for a thousand years and then collapsed back around 1900. The Venetians decided to rebuild it just like it was. So, you’re right, it’s a replica.”

  “This whole damn square’s one big copy. Those horses, that tower … It’s Alitalia back to New York for me. Shall we head for the hotel, Eric?”

  The two men bade farewell to the Frosts and doubled back through the Square. Reuben and Cynthia walked on to the Piazzetta and then to the Cipriani dock.

  “This place looks like a convention,” Reuben muttered, when he and Cynthia arrived back at the hotel shortly before eleven-fifteen. Getting off the Cipriani motoscafo, they had been all but bowled over by rousingly happy—perhaps even drunk—guests from the Hughes & Co. dinner, eager to cross to the San Marco side. One of their number, with at least a smattering of Italian, was shouting, “Avanti al Campiello!” Frost assumed the reference was to a late-night bar he had heard about but never visited.

  Moving on to their own bar, the Frosts took one look and decided to forgo a nightcap. The room was crowded almost to overflowing with still more formally dressed couples.

  “Poor Dan Abbott,” Reuben said, as he looked at the scene from the door. He pointed toward the Baxter Fashions executive sitting at the small bar, amid all the revelers. While the Frosts watched, Abbott tossed down a drink from a shot glass, followed by a large gulp of water, and ordered another.

  “It’s too noisy to join him,” Reuben said to Cynthia, as they went back outside. “I’ve never seen this place so jammed. It’s a madhouse.”

  “Not the place for us,” Cynthia said.

  “Agreed.”

  CHAPTER

  7

  Murder

  “Where to today?” Cynthia asked Friday morning, as Reuben opened the window shutters to bright sunshine.

  “The Frari. I can knock off three Doges in one visit,” he said. “Want to come along?”

  “No. I feel like a good swim, and then Giorgione beckons. I’m going to the Accademia to see The Tempest.”

  “Who knows, maybe you’ll figure out what that painting’s about.”

  “Sex, I think,” Cynthia said.

  At breakfast, the Frosts ran into Dan Abbott, eating by himself. They stopped at his table.

  “How’s everything?” Reuben asked, though really meaning, “Is Gregg Baxter still all right?”

  “Fine, thanks. A little apprehension in our merry band about what that laboratory’s going to report, but we’ll just have to wait that one out.”

  “Baxter’s okay, I assume?” Reuben said, deciding to ask the question directly.

  “Far as I know. He was gone when I came to breakfast. Already on his way to la marchesa’s, I imagine. He wants to finish and get the hell out of here.”

  “Can’t blame him for that,” Reuben said.

  “Let me know if Cavallaro is heard from,” Abbott said.

  “I just stopped at the desk to check and he hadn’t learned anything yet,” Reuben answered.

  After breakfast, Reuben said goodbye to Cynthia and went across in the hotel boat. Then he rode the number thirty-four diretto down the Grand Canal to San Tomà, from where he walked to Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. He approached the campanile, second in height only to the one in the Piazza (with the added virtue that it had never collapsed in its 600-year history), and the massive Gothic red-brick church itself.

  It was the only active church in Venice to charge admission to tourists, so he queued up and paid the 1,000-lire fee. The first monument he wanted to see was built around the door through which he had entered, the Baroque tomb of Doge Giovanni Pesaro (1658–59). It was most eccentric, held up by four straining Moors, each at least twenty feet high. The massive structure was covered with carved putti and allegorical statues, including two grotesque skeletons, that were not identified in any guidebook Reuben had consulted.

  Taking The Stones of Venice out of his green bag, he found that John Ruskin had dismissed the monument as “a huge accumulation of theatrical scenery in marble.” Ruskin fumed that “here sculpture has lost its taste and learning. It seems impossible for false taste and base feeling to sink lower.”

  Reuben felt that Ruskin had been excessively harsh, though he was amused to recall that Doge Pesaro supposedly had no teeth, a fact not evident from his marble likeness, in which his “arms expanded, like an actor courting applause, under a huge canopy of metal, like the roof of a bed.” And Reuben did have to admit that the Madonna di Ca’ Pesaro, the adjoining Titian masterpiece commissioned by a member of the family in 1519, was a surpassingly more interesting work of art.

  Moving toward the sanctuary, Reuben sought out the tombs of Doges Francesco Foscari (1423–57) and Nicolò Tron (1471–73), which flanked the high altar and the even greater Titian work above it, The Assumption of Mary.

  Stopping to admire the monks’ choir in the center of the church, he was startled when he heard Cynthia’s voice. He turned to see her rushing toward him.

  “I thought you were going to the Accademia,” he said when she had caught up to him.

  “Thank God you’re here. They got him. Gregg Baxter has been killed.”

  “What!”

  “Stabbed to death.”

  “Where, for God’s sake?”

  “I don’t know the details. Somewhere near the Bauer Grunwald. They found him very early this morning.”

  “So someone was trying to kill him after all! How did you find out?”

  “I was in the pool when Dan Abbott came and started shouting at me. I swam over to the side and he told me the police had called the hotel with the news, that Baxter’s body had been discovered. He’d been killed sometime in the night.”

  “Let’s go outside. We shouldn’t be talking in here,” Reuben said, as he led the way out to the Campo San Rocco. “It was a stabbing?” he asked.

  “That’s what the police told him.”

  “And behind Doris Medford’s hotel.”

  “I know. I thought of that.”

  “Do the police have any idea who might have done it?”

  “If they do, I don’t believe they said.”

  “What about Abbott? What does he think?”

  “He’s completely shocked. Dumbfounded, I guess would be the word.”

  “Rats,” Reuben said, after a long pause. “Remember the year, before I retired, when I was on the phone most of the time we were here? Talking to New York about a damn fool merger that ended up never taking place? I can see this may be the same thing—total interruption of our vacation.”

  “Well, dear, you do have a knack for being around when murder happens.”

  “What exactly am I supposed to do?” he asked testily.

  “Dan has gone t
o see the police. He wants you to meet him there.”

  “Where is ‘there’? I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “I asked Gianni at the concierge’s desk and he said it would be the Questura, the headquarters of the P.S., as he called it. La Pubblica Sicurezza. It’s at the Fondamenta di San Lorenzo.”

  “It’s not the Carabinieri?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I’m not quite sure where San Lorenzo is,” Reuben said irritably.

  “Gianni showed me on the map. Here, let me see yours.” Reuben pulled his map of the city out of his green bag and unfolded it.

  “Here we are,” Cynthia said, moving closer. “Looks like you take the vaporetto to San Zaccaria.”

  “He really wants me there?”

  “He begged me to find you.”

  The Frosts walked to the landing stage.

  “You’d better go ahead and have lunch without me,” Reuben said, when they reached San Marco, where he handed her his green bag to take back to the hotel. “God knows how long I’ll be tied up.”

  “You poor dear. Good luck. And be careful.” She kissed her husband on the cheek and left the boat.

  Reuben, remaining aboard, felt put-upon. It wasn’t fair that murder should blight this beautiful day in La Serenissima.

  Bells throughout the city were ringing the noon Angelus when Reuben got off at San Zaccaria. He headed inland past the perilously leaning campanile of San Giorgio dei Greci, then along the Fondamenta di San Lorenzo to the austere entrance to the Questura. It was a reddish-brown building with four stories by an American’s count, three by an Italian’s.

  Once he arrived, he paused outside. He did not know quite what to do. What should he say? Whom should he ask for? What if no one spoke English? His dilemma was solved when he saw Dan Abbott and, unexpectedly, Doris Medford come out of the second building further down on the Fondamenta. Medford was sobbing and Abbott had his arm around her. He looked stricken and frightened, hardly the sturdy pillar that Medford unquestionably needed.

  When she saw Reuben, she stopped crying. “Oh, Mr. Frost, thank God you’re here,” she said.

  “I came as soon as I heard,” Reuben said. It seemed plain to him that some strong coffee might do the distraught pair some good, so he suggested that they go to a caffè where they could sit while they briefed him.

  Medford and Abbott agreed, so they walked back to the Caffè ai Greci and settled down at an outdoor table at water’s edge next to a row of pots of vivid red geraniums. Reuben ordered espresso, and Medford and Abbott cappuccino.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “After you saw me at breakfast, I went to my room to get my wallet,” Abbott began. “I was planning to go to Ceil’s. As I told you, I hadn’t seen Gregg since last night, but assumed he’d already gone down to her workshop. When I got back to the room the phone rang. It was Cavallaro who said he must come by, that he had some bad news.

  “I figured he was going to confirm Gregg’s suspicions about his insulin, but then he laid it on me that they’d found Gregg’s body. A guy coming to work at the Bauer Grunwald came across it near the service entrance to the hotel. It was in a temporary rubbish bin that had been set up for a construction job at the church next door.

  “The police recovered his wallet—they don’t think it was a robbery—and were calling hotels when they found he’d been registered at the Cipriani. Once Cavallaro gave me the news, I got hold of Doris and came over here. Oh, yes, and I also told your wife.” Abbott took a large gulp of his coffee when he had finished his account.

  “They sent us to see a detective named Valier. Jacopo Valier—”

  “Commissario Valier,” Medford interrupted. Her voice was hoarse and she cleared her throat.

  “He’s the one that wanted to see us,” Abbott explained.

  “What does he think happened?” Reuben asked.

  “It’s very strange. Gregg was stabbed with a glass dagger,” Abbott said.

  “How do they know that?” Reuben asked.

  “It broke off in his gut. The glass blade was inside him, with the handle broken off.”

  “That’s a new one,” Reuben said.

  “Valier said it was a blade as sharp as a razor.”

  Abbott’s narrative prompted more tears from Doris Medford. He stopped talking, pulled out a large white handkerchief and handed it to her. Then he waited until she had composed herself before going on.

  “Valier says such daggers can be bought at some of the fancier glass places. They’re an old Venetian tradition, he says.”

  “So anybody could’ve gotten hold of one.”

  “Correct.”

  “Any idea who it might have been?” Frost asked.

  “None. But I’m not really thinking very lucidly right now.”

  “What do we know about Baxter’s whereabouts last night?” Reuben asked.

  “He was with me,” Abbott said. “We’d gone to a place called Fior, something like that.”

  “Da Fiore?” Reuben said.

  “That’s it.”

  “Just the two of you?”

  “No, Tony Garrison and Tabita were there, and Ceil Scamozzi and her boyfriend, Luigi Regillo.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “Early. A little after ten. Tony and Tabita had already left. The rest of us walked over to the vaporetto. Ceil looked at the timetable posted on the wall and said there’d be a boat at ten-seventeen. I remember looking at my watch and it was ten-ten.”

  “Where would that be? San Tomà?” Reuben asked, referring to the stop he had so recently left.

  “That sounds right,” Abbott said. “Ceil and Luigi got off after two stops. They said they would walk across and take the boat to the Giudecca on the other side. That’s a shortcut that avoids St. Mark’s, apparently.”

  “Okay, so then what happened?” Reuben asked, simultaneously motioning to the waiter, who had come into view for the first time in several minutes. They all ordered more coffee.

  “The boat went across the Grand Canal to—”

  “—Santa Maria del Giglio,” Reuben interrupted, suddenly realizing that he and his party had been tracing Baxter’s path practically at the same time he was.

  “I think so,” Abbott said. “Gregg announced that he was getting off. There’s a bar he was going to.”

  “Haig’s? Across from the Gritti?” Reuben asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  “It’s a gay bar, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve always been told,” Reuben said.

  “Not necessarily. Mixed is more like it,” Abbott replied. “Doris here has been there with us. Most times women are around. It’s open late. Gregg had been there every night since we arrived, except after the big dinner.”

  “That’s the night he got his kicks out of firing me,” Medford interrupted.

  “Anyway,” Abbott continued, “I’d gone with him a couple of times, but he always outlasted me.”

  “Baxter was gay, was he not?” Reuben asked.

  “Yes,” Abbott said.

  “Did he try to make pickups in Haig’s?”

  “Not while I was there,” Abbott said. “But I’m sure he did when I wasn’t.”

  “Successfully?”

  “I have no way of knowing. I never discussed Gregg’s sex life with him if I could help it.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, I assume you’re not gay,” Reuben said.

  “Your assumption’s correct, unless you mean it in the sense of ‘gay young bachelor,’” Abbott said sardonically. “I’ve been very expensively divorced twice.”

  “So what happened? Did Baxter get off the boat?” Frost asked.

  “I urged him not to. With the poison mystery hanging over him, I figured he ought to play it a little cool, like you said last night. There might be someone out there waiting to get him. Unfortunately, I was right. I told him he was a damn fool, that he was risking his life. But it didn’t do any good.”

  “Why didn’
t you go along to protect him?” Reuben asked.

  “I tried to, but he refused to have me. And if he was on the prowl, as I’m sure he was, there wouldn’t have been a helluva lot I could have done if he picked somebody up. I couldn’t exactly go along as a chaperone.”

  “I see your point. So what did you do?”

  “I stayed on the vaporetto to San Marco and then took the boat back to the hotel.”

  “What about Garrison and Tabita?”

  “I don’t know about them. They bugged out early from the restaurant. And they’d already gone out when I looked for them this morning,” Abbott explained.

  “Are they an ‘item,’ as they say?” Reuben asked.

  He saw Abbott and Medford make eye contact. “The answer is yes,” Medford said.

  “My wife and I sat with them at your dinner. That was our impression,” Reuben said. “Even though I’d understood Baxter and Garrison were lovers.”

  “A thing of the past,” Abbott told him.

  “What about you, Ms. Medford?” Reuben asked. “I believe it was a little after ten-thirty, maybe ten-forty, when we said goodnight to you at your hotel. What happened after that?”

  Medford’s face became even redder than usual. “This is a terrible thing to say, Mr. Frost and I’m embarrassed. I have no recollection of the evening after I left you. The last thing I remember is going up in the elevator at the Bauer Grunwald.”

  “So you, um, passed out?” Frost asked.

  “I’m ashamed to say it, but I’m afraid that’s the answer.”

  “Let me ask another question,” Frost said. “Were Baxter and la marchesa Scamozzi getting along?”

  “Famously, I’d say,” Medford said, palpably relieved to be talking about someone other than herself. “No problem there at all.”

  “Then who is there, here in Venice, with a reason for murdering Gregg Baxter? How about Eric Werth? Or his lawyer?”