Isabetta's face resumed its waxen inscrutability. "I will not betray confidences, messer. Nothing that was discussed yesterday can have any possible bearing on what happened in the Basilica eight years ago."
While I was working out the politest way of contradicting that statement, I saw Jacopo striding toward us like a war galley preparing to ram. The chance of learning anything from Isabetta had just ended, so I rose and thanked her and spoke my farewells.
"Did you know that Zorzi was having an affair with a married woman?"
Jacopo gave me the answer I expected from the family snoop: "Of course I did." He did not look at me as he said it.
"Even then you knew, or you have learned since?"
"Even then. More than one of them. He didn't care what they were, as long as they were female-servants, whores, or senators' granddaughters."
"But apparently he was with a lady on the night your father died. You don't happen to know her name, do you?"
"No."
By then I trusted very little of what Jacopo Fauro told me, but that time he was probably telling the truth. I had trouble imagining the libertine Zorzi bragging of his conquests to a much younger half-brother. That seemed out of character. He boasted to anger his father, not to impress the cook's bastard.
22
The Michiel library was not impressive as a book collection but as a room it was spectacular-large and bright and gloriously decorated. There we found Domenico with three artisan-class men, all standing around the central table, studying building plans. He looked up as we entered.
He beamed. "I did not think I should escape for long. Greetings to you, clarissimo!"
I responded. I thought for an instant that he was going to embrace me. If he thought of it he changed his mind quickly. We bowed.
"Jacopo," he said, "you have a good eye for style. See if you can figure out why this chapel extension looks off balance. Let us take a breath of air, sier Alfeo." He escorted me to a glass door leading to a small balcony overlooking the canal, thereby cutting out Jacopo much more graciously than his mother had. With the glass door closed, we were alone and could not be overheard.
Domenico wore well-cut gentleman's clothes in sober, somber gray. With his keen, aquiline features and easy charm he seemed all ready to sell me the palazzo of my dreams or relieve me of my current rat-infested hovel, whichever I wanted.
"So Nostradamus thinks he can find the person who killed my father, does he?"
"He is willing to try, clarissimo."
He leaned back against the parapet and rested his elbows on it, studying me with that odd smile displaying lower teeth.
"Then I had better start by pleading my own innocence and saving you having to ask. On the night in question, I attended San Zaccaria with my wife and her widowed sister, who was living with us at the time and has since died. The priest could testify that I was there, but the church was very full, so his evidence was not quite as convincing as it would normally have been. My companions later swore that I never went out, but of course they would say that, wouldn't they? I was wearing my black robes, the church was dark, and we sat near the door." He shrugged. "I did not slip out and murder my father, but if you want to assume that I was secretly glad when the Ten fixed on someone else as the murderer, then I couldn't deny it under oath. Does that help?"
"It helps a lot," I said. "When did you last see your brother?"
"Zorzi? Right after the funeral. I met him as he was leaving the house, decked up like a peacock."
"Do you know where he was going?"
"I can guess why, but I don't know where, or to whom."
"Did he say… What was his mood?"
"He was scared out of his wits," Domenico said brutally.
"He was?" That was not what donna Alina had told me.
"He was hiding it, but I knew him well enough to tell. Remember that he was a skilled actor and liar."
"Was he?" It must be a family trait.
"He could never have scored so well with women otherwise. Mostly he bought harlots, but he also collected amateurs."
Jacopo had told me that Domenico had taken Zorzi's side in the family quarrels. Perhaps he had, but now I suspected that he hated his youngest brother. If he hadn't hated him back then, he hated him now. Because he had been jealous of the young hedonist? Because Zorzi was a killer? Because the possibility of Zorzi returning was a threat to his share of the family fraterna?
"Do you know what was scaring him?"
"The Council of Ten, of course. Zorzi was a bad boy, a prodigal, a rakehell. He had gotten away with it until then because of his name, but murder changed the rules."
"Do you know who tipped him off that the Ten were about to arrest him?"
"The Ten, of course."
I must have looked surprised, because Domenico laughed.
"It was the crime of the century, sier Alfeo! A patrician murdered in the Basilica itself! It shook the entire Republic. The Ten were under enormous pressure to find the killer, so look at it from their point of view. Zorzi had motive, because his father was threatening to disinherit him-which he did every Tuesday and Friday, but this time he had sounded more serious. Zorzi had no alibi. He claimed he was defending the name of a noble lady, but who would believe a public outrage like him? No, it was simplest for the Ten just to drop him a hint that Missier Grande was coming to get him and Zorzi would solve their problem all by himself. He ran away so he must be guilty. Simple."
And I thought I was a cynic! "Was he guilty?"
"I think he was," Domenico said sadly. "Somebody killed our father, and he seemed then, and still seems, the most logical culprit. If so, he deserved the headsman's ax. If he wasn't guilty of murder he deserved banishment anyhow, and that's what he got."
"You told me on Saturday that you thought some bounty hunter had turned in his head by now."
He sighed. "I still think so." He paused for a while, pensive, staring down at a potted plant beside the wall. "It's hard for me to think of Zorzi doing anything so horrible, but even then I couldn't think of anyone else who would do so and I haven't since. I certainly think you're wasting your time trying to find evidence that the Ten couldn't find eight years ago."
"My master owns my time, and he's the one who's wasting it." The noon bell began to sound, notes floating out across the city signaling time to down tools and eat the midday meal. Domenico straightened up and took his elbows off the parapet, tall and hook-nosed like his Orio mother, not broad and beefy like the Michiel strain. His move implied impatience. My time was up.
"If Zorzi has come back," I asked, "who is sheltering him?" He rolled his eyes, mockery in his smile. "Oh that would have to be me, wouldn't it? I scuttle back and forth to the mainland all the time, and up the Brenta River. I own property on the mainland, which I have probably riddled with secret chambers just for this purpose." Again the curious smirk. "I know, you're only doing your job and I shouldn't sneer. I have no idea. Why should he come back and risk his neck? Why should he be going around murdering fallen women? Why should anyone in his right mind help him in that game-because he must have help, his face is too well-known. That's what you're really after, isn't it? Zorzi is only a blind. You really suspect that someone related to him has taken to strangling his old playmates."
I felt a little nettled that he could see through me so easily, although it was obvious enough. "If that were true, who would be the most likely killer this time?"
"Jacopo," Domenico said firmly, reaching for the door handle. "He's not up to Zorzi's standards as a satyr, but he sows enough wild oats to feed the Cossack cavalry. Can't think why he'd be murdering the lovelies, though."