Free The Veils of Venice by Edward Sklepowich

Shoes.’ The musical notation had been done by hand. He hummed several bars.
    They went to the nearby grave of Stravinsky and his wife. Small stones, votive lights, and fresh cut flowers, which had been left by admirers, adorned the composer’s modern-style marker as they did Diaghilev’s grave.
    Urbino and the contessa made a circuit of the compound, tracing out the inscriptions, some of them faint, on the markers. Most of the graves bore Russian names, written in both Western and Cyrillic script. Whenever Urbino was in this section of San Michele, he felt as if he were surrounded by the graves of characters out of a Tolstoy novel.
    They stopped in front of a stone effigy of a recumbent woman, who had died at twenty-two. A bouquet of fresh red roses lay in her stone arms.
    â€˜Someone always remembers Sonia,’ the contessa said. ‘And many of the other dead, too.’ She indicated the ones that had fresh flowers and were well tended.
    They passed into the main area of the cemetery.
    â€˜Cemeteries used to depress me,’ the contessa said. ‘Now what soothes me is seeing how so many of the dead are still alive in the hearts of those they’ve left behind. Even those who have been dead for a century seem to have someone who remembers them.’
    Urbino did not point out that many graves in the compound and elsewhere were abandoned and neglected.
    Urbino and the contessa fell into a silence until the contessa came to an abrupt halt as they were crossing the cloister. ‘Save Mina! Make it possible for her to weep on Olimpia’s grave. You have to do it before you leave for America!’
    â€˜I’ll do my best.’
    Urbino could make no stronger promise than this. It would be difficult to establish Mina’s innocence between now and his unavoidable trip back to America. He had a solemn but hopefully not impossible charge.
    That evening, as Urbino was having his coffee in his library, he re-read the article in Il Gazzettino about Olimpia’s murder.
    MURDER IN SANTA CROCE
    Art Collection Unharmed
    â€˜I loved her. I killed her.’
    These are the words of Mina Longo, 25, formerly of Palermo, who is being held for the murder of Olimpia Pindar, 54.
    According to Professor Alberto Lago, the medical examiner, Signorina Pindar, a dressmaker in the Santa Croce area, died in her workshop as a result of trauma to the chest by a pair of scissors.
    Longo, a close friend of the murdered woman, was seen entering the residence of the murdered woman in an evidently distressed state half an hour before she was found beside the body of Signorina Pindar.
    Longo worked as a maid at the Venice residence of the Contessa Barbara da Capo-Zendrini, the British widow of the deceased Conte Alvise da Capo-Zendrini. It was the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini who summoned the police to the murder scene.
    Pindar is survived by a brother Ercule Pindar and a sister Gabriella Pindar, who live in the building where the murder took place. The Palazzo Pindar houses a collection of art objects and curiosities that were acquired over the years by the Pindar family, who were among the most prominent import-exporters of the city from the eighteenth century to the nineteen thirties. No damage was done to the art collection insofar as has been determined up to this point.
    The police are making every effort to reconstruct the series of events that led to the tragic event.
    The details were simple, stark, and incriminating. Fortunately, the article did not mention that Olimpia was the contessa’s cousin, although the police were well aware of the fact.
    After finishing his coffee, Urbino went for one of his long walks. It was eight o’clock. It was a clear, chilly night. A cold, damp wind was blowing from the lagoon.
    He went to the Piazza San Marco, approaching it through empty squares and alleys. The only sounds were his own solitary footsteps, the lapping of water against stone, muted voices from behind