Death at La Fenice

‘Guido, you’ve been a policeman long enough to have learned that as soon as a person reaches a certain level of notoriety, there are no more secrets.’ Brunetti smiled in agreement, and Padovani continued. ‘Now we have the interesting part, the return of our heroine to life. And the cause, as always in stories like this, is love. Well, at any rate,’ he added after a reflective pause, ‘lust.’

Brunetti, aware of the man’s obvious enjoyment of the story he was telling, was tempted to take his revenge by telling Antonia that Padovani hadn’t eaten all his fish but had hidden it in his napkin.

‘Her period of seclusion lasted almost three years. And then there was a series of, well, involvements. The first was a tenor she happened to be singing with. A very bad tenor but, luckily for her, a very nice man. Unluckily for her, he had an equally nice wife, to whom he very quickly returned. Then there were, in quick succession’—he began to tick them off on his fingers as he named them—’a baritone, another tenor, a dancer, or perhaps that was the director, a doctor who seems to have slipped in unnoticed, and finally, wonder of wonders, a countertenor. And then, as quickly as all this had begun, it stopped.’ So did Padovani, while Antonia set his salad down in front of him. He prepared it, adding far too much vinegar for Brunetti’s taste. ‘She was seen with no one for about a year. And suddenly l’americana was on the scene and seemed to have conquered the divine Flavia.’ Sensing Brunetti’s interest, he asked, ‘Do you know her?’

‘Yes.’

And what do you think of her?’

‘I like her.’

‘So do I,’ agreed Padovani. ‘This thing between her and Flavia makes no sense at all.’

Brunetti felt uncomfortable about showing any interest in this, so he didn’t ask Padovani to expand on the subject.

Asking him to do so was hardly necessary. ‘They met about three years ago, during that China exhibition. They were seen a few times after that, having lunch together, going to the theater, but then l’americana had to go back to China.’

All the coy archness dropped out of Padovani’s voice. ‘I’ve read her books on Chinese art, the two that have been translated into Italian and the short one in English. If she’s not the most important archaeologist working in the field today, she soon will be. I don’t understand what she sees in Flavia, for Flavia, though she might be a genius, is really something of a bitch.’

‘But what about love?’ Brunetti asked, then amended the question as Padovani had. ‘Or lust?’

‘That’s all right for the likes of Flavia; it doesn’t take her away from her work. But the other one has in her hands one of the most important archaeological discoveries of our time, and I think she has the judgment and the skill to—’ Padovani stopped suddenly, picked up his wine, and emptied his glass. ‘Excuse me. I seldom get carried away like this. It must be the influence of the stately Antonia.’

Even though he knew it had nothing to do with the investigation, Brunetti couldn’t stop himself from asking, ‘Is she the first, ah, woman lover Petrelli had?’

‘I don’t think so, but the others have been passing affairs.’

‘And this? Is it different?’

‘For which one?’

‘Both.’

‘Since it’s gone on for three years, I’d say yes, it’s serious. For both of them.’ Padovani picked the last green leaf from the bottom of his salad bowl and said, ‘Perhaps I’m being unfair to Flavia. It costs her a lot, this affair.’

‘In what way?’

‘There are a great number of lesbian singers,’ he explained. ‘Strangely enough, most of them seem to be mezzo-sopranos. But that’s neither here nor there. The difficulty is that they are far less tolerated than their male colleagues who also happen to be gay. So none of them dare to be open about their lives, and most of them are very discreet, choosing to disguise their lover as their secretary or their agent. But Flavia can hardly disguise Brett as anything. And so there is talk, and I’m sure there are looks and whispers when they come into a room together.’

Brunetti had only to remember the portiere’s tone to know how true this was. ‘Have you been to their apartment here?’

‘Those skylights,’ Padovani said, and they both laughed.

‘How did she manage that?’ asked Brunetti, who had been refused a permit to install thermal windows.

‘Her family is one of those old American ones, which stole its money more than a hundred years ago and is, therefore, respectable. An uncle of hers left her the apartment, which I think he won at cards about fifty years ago. As for the windows, the story goes that she tried to get someone to do them for her, but no one would lift a finger without a permit. So, finally, she simply went up on the roof, took off the tiles, cut holes in the roof, and built the frames.’

‘Didn’t anyone see her?’ In Venice, all a person had to do was lift a hammer to the outside of a building and phones would be lifted in every house in the area. ‘Didn’t anyone call the police?’

‘You’ve seen how high she is. No one who saw her up there could really tell what she was doing and would assume she was just checking the roof. Or fixing a tile.’

‘And then what?’

‘Once the windows were in, she called the office of the city planner and told them what she had done. She asked them to send someone around to figure out how much the fine would be.’

‘And?’ marveled Brunetti, amazed that a foreigner would come up with so perfectly Italianate a solution.

‘A few months later, that’s what they actually did. But when they got there and saw how well the work had been done, they wouldn’t believe her when she told them she had done the job herself and insisted that she give them the names of her “accomplices.” She repeated that she had done it herself, and they continued to refuse to