Dall'utero Della Madre

(“From the Mother's Womb”)

By Tom Rynard

The world stood still. One second the hustle and bustle of Venice was all about her. Men and women moved about the fondamente at the side of the canal that would eventually feed into the Grand Canal further downstream. Gondolas with their oarsmen perched at the back of their boats glided down the canal, their passengers seated under the feltre , or canopy, in the boat's midsection. At the side of the canal a boat was being unloaded of its goods, one man standing in the craft handing crates up to another standing on the fondamente . Clothes flapped on lines strung between windows. From those same windows, housewives leaned outside, their elbows resting on the bottoms of the windows, their hair moving slightly with the wind that followed the direction of the canal to the Grand Canal . These women craned their necks to watch the progress of the boat traffic on their canal or greeted neighbors and made conversation with those in windows next to them, across the canal or walking along the fondamente below.

Signora Cassano thought how lucky her daughter was. The daughter lived on the bottom floor of the building owned by her husband. Rare for a residence that was not a palazzo , the door to her daughter's dwelling opened directly onto the fondamente . Signora Cassano's daughter was expecting her. Since the daughter announced that she was pregnant with her first child, the mother stopped by twice each day to check on her, once in the late morning and again late in the afternoon. The mother's visits never varied in the time of her arrival by more than one-quarter of an hour one way or another. Signora Cassano was both expected and welcomed at her daughter's house, especially now as the day for the birth of her grandchild neared. The mid-wife had said the baby could be born any day now. Signora Cassano opened the door and started to enter, the first syllable of her daughter's name given voice before the world came to a stop for Signora Cassano.

The gondolas on the canal stood still. The unloading of the boat at the side of the canal stopped, the two men frozen in the position of each having both hands on the crate that was held between them, one in the process of letting go of the box and the other in the process of taking control of it. The clothes on the lines no longer flapped but were now suspended motionless at odd angles to the building. The chatter along the canal ceased, replaced by silence. It was a silence that lasted only a split second.

Signora Cassano screamed – a shriek so loud that everyone along the canal turned as one to see the source of the cry.

The sight that confronted Signora Cassano was more than her senses could take. The scream having run its course, she dropped to the ground in a dead faint.

* * *

The canal outside the dwelling where Signora Cassano's daughter had lived was lined with gondolas, at places two deep. Reginaldo Morosini and Jacopo da Ferrara added theirs to the others gathered there, although at a considerable distance from the dwelling. The fondamente was crowded with people, some officials of the Republic of Venice , others simply on-lookers. Among the different groups of officials huddled outside the dwelling and talking in hushed voices, Reginaldo spotted who he was looking for. He and Jacopo headed towards that group of men.

Teodoro Dinardi was segregario to the Avogadori di Comun of Venice . The Avogadori were the chief criminal prosecutors for the city and Dinardi was their chief investigator. Working for him were a group of vigili , known as the polizia giudiziaria , who were responsible for doing the legwork involved in both the criminal investigation and preparing the prosecution for trial. Unless there was an Avogadoro present at the scene – and Reginaldo did not see one – Dinardi would be in charge.

“It did not take long for the Dieci to involve you,” Dinardi said as Reginaldo grew near Dinardi's group. The “ Dieci ” to which Dinardi referred was Venice 's Council of Ten, the body that many referred to as the government behind the government of Venice . Reginaldo did not work for the Council on an every day basis but was often called in by them to serve as consultore speciale on criminal investigations having special interest to them. When he was not acting as consultore speciale , Reginaldo was operating an academy for boys, the Accademe di San Polo . One graduate of his school had been the venerable Teodoro Dinardi. Because of their past relationship, Dinardi seldom took Reginaldo's involvement in his cases as an interference with his work. Oftentimes, and this was one of those times, he welcomed Reginaldo's assistance.

“The crime was discovered not three hours ago and already there isn't a corner of Venice that does not know about it,” Reginaldo responded to Dinardi's comment.

“It is horrendous,” Dinardi added in explanation, “beyond words.” He pointed to the water of the canal at the side of the fondamente . Bits and pieces of food bobbed on the top of the water. From the looks of the food particles, it was evident that more than one person – in fact quite a few people – had experienced the same reaction to what was inside the dwelling: a sudden consciousness of what they were seeing, followed by a mad dash to the side of the canal for an involuntary emptying of the contents of their stomachs.

“The city will have even more to say about this crime before the day is out.” The words came from the doorway of the residence. Reginaldo, Dinardi and Jacopo turned towards the man who had spoken. He wore the black togata with bell-shaped sleeves of a medical doctor and the yellow circle of a Jew. The sleeves of his robe were bunched back at his elbows. He held his arms bent at the elbows, his hands in front of him and raised so that the sleeves would not find their way back over his lower arms. Blood covered his hands and parts of his forearms, as well.

“Dottor Zapudin,” Reginaldo greeted the man.

“Dottor Morosini.” The man gave a slight bow in recognition to Reginaldo. “Let's talk over here while I clean my hands and arms. The doctor nodded with his head in the direction he wished to go. Reginaldo, Dinardi and Jacopo broke from their group and followed as the doctor led them a short distance upstream from the house. As he knelt over the canal to rinse his arms in the water, Reginaldo stood close to the doctor's side, holding the doctor's sleeves back so they would become neither stained with blood nor soaked with water.

“Ser Dinardi is correct. It is gruesome. She wasn't just killed and she wasn't just stabbed. She was opened up. The blood is everywhere.”

Reginaldo would have to see for himself. Not out of any morbid curiosity but because he would have to examine the victim, the room and the house for any clue that might help him understand the crime. Before he did that, it wouldn't hurt to ask Dottor Zapudin if anything struck him about the crime beyond its sheer violence.

“It's pretty clear what the killer was after which is why the city will have more to say about this crime before the day is over,” the doctor responded to Reginaldo's question. Before Reginaldo or the two with him could ask, the doctor continued. “The victim, a woman, had been pregnant. The killer didn't just kill the mother. He removed the baby . . . from her womb. From the cut in the stomach here,” Dottor Zapudin made a cutting motion with his hand along his lower stomach, “and the evident, deliberate cut of the umbilical cord, I would say the intention all along was to take the baby from the mother. Whether the baby survived the ordeal or not, I can't say.”

* * *

Jacopo had thought he had steeled himself for the sight that would present itself inside the doorway of the dwelling. He had seen death many times and in many forms. He was wrong, though. He had not taken two steps into the front room before he found himself doubled over at the edge of the fondamente emptying his breakfast into the canal. He spit once, and then again, to get the bile from his mouth and wiped his hand across his lower lip and chin to remove the spittle clinging to those areas. He took a deep breath, followed by two more, before returning to the house. He smiled weakly at Dinardi as he passed through the doorway.

Reginaldo knelt beside the body, examining the wound to the lower stomach area. A medical doctor himself with training in dissections, autopsies and surgical procedures, Reginaldo did not have the same reaction to the sight of the body as Jacopo and the others who had found themselves at the side of the canal soon after entering the room for the first time. “Grisly” and “gruesome” were words that came to Reginaldo's mind as he took in the body of Evangelista Buonmonte.

Evangelista Buonmonte, Signora Cassano's daughter, did not die from the wound to her stomach or the shock of having her baby taken from her womb. It was very likely, Reginaldo concluded, that she was already dead or very near death when her unborn infant was removed. The woman's throat had been cut, neatly from side to side. The cut was efficiently done, the blood staining the front of her dress attesting to how quickly the blood had drained from her body. The woman would have died quickly. The knife had been extremely sharp, perhaps a weapon of sorts but clearly not the knife to be found in the kitchen of Signora Buonmonte. The wound was a fine cut with little tearing of the skin. The edge went deep and clean as it was drawn across the throat. The killer had been standing behind his victim when the throat was cut, the knife held in the killer's right hand and drawn from left to right.

As Reginaldo visualized it, the killer caught the woman as she started to fall to the ground and, for a moment at least, held the body in an upright position before lowering her to the floor. Once the body was on the floor lying on its back, the killer had to work quickly if the baby was to be removed from the mother in time. The dress was ripped or cut down the front. The killer moved to the dead or dying woman's side, marked the spot on her rounded stomach where the cut needed to be made and carefully drew the knife across it. He had some idea of what he was doing, Reginaldo thought. The knife had not been plunged into the stomach. That might have killed the child. He made his slice in layers – opening the skin, then the muscle of the abdominal wall and then the outer layer of the womb. As with the wound to the throat, the knife made a clean cut. As further proof that the killer knew something of what he was doing, he had not opened the belly completely from side to side as he had done to the throat. The cut was long but only so long as what the killer judged would be sufficient to remove the unborn baby. Only the edges of the incision made by the killer exhibited any tearing, the result of the killer reaching inside the woman with both hands to grab the baby and remove it. The baby had been removed and the umbilical cord cut. The killer had done more than cut the umbilical cord, though, Reginaldo noted. The placenta had also been pulled out and laid on the floor between the dead woman's legs.

Was the baby alive when it was taken from its mother and was it alive now ? Like Dottor Zapudin, Reginaldo could not answer these questions from what he saw in the room. It was possible to remove the baby from the dead or dying mother before the baby itself died but it had to be done quickly after the mother's death. It had been done in the past and was believed to have its origins as far back as the classic age of Greece and Rome . Mythology told of Asclepius, who was taken from his mother's womb by the god Apollo. The procedure even bore the name of one of the greats of Rome – the “caesarian operation” – as it was believed that Julius Caesar had been brought into the world in this way. It was a job for a surgeon but there had been stories of others attempting the procedure, usually without success.

Assuming the child of Evengelista Buonmonte had been alive when removed from its mother, whether the child could survive outside the womb would depend on how close the mother had been to giving a natural birth. Reginaldo examined the woman closely and thoroughly. The violence done to the body made it more of a guess than an estimate but if asked, Reginaldo would say the woman was very late into her last month of pregnancy. It was possible that the infant, having survived the operation cutting it from its mother's womb, was surviving still.

“Why would someone do this ? Just for a baby ?” Jacopo had recovered from his physical reaction to the crime but his mind was still having trouble comprehending it.

“That's the thing,” Reginaldo replied, rising from the body as he spoke, his examination complete. “I'm not positive, but I don't think our killer was so much after a baby as he was after this baby.”

At least that was the picture the facts were painting for Reginaldo. The room showed no struggle. Everything was in its place. The concentration of the pool of blood and the openness of the room where the body lay suggested that the killer had not been laying in wait for Signora Buonmonte before coming up behind her and slitting her throat. No, instead, the woman had let her killer into the house (or he was already there, as Reginaldo was not willing to rule out the husband as the killer). Two other facts suggested the woman was somehow acquainted with her killer. She had turned her back on the killer, for one. And, for the other, assuming the object of the crime was to remove a live baby from the woman's womb, the killer had to be very familiar with the progress of Evangelista Buonmonte's pregnancy.

There was also the fact of everyday life in Venice which probably lay at the heart of Jacopo's inability to comprehend the true nature of the crime. Someone wanting a child did not have to go to these extremes. One did not even have to resort to stealing a newborn infant from its parents. Enough children were abandoned each year, many of them newborns left in the ruota , or turntable, of the numerous convents in the city, that it was easy enough to arrange an adoption, whether legal or private.

* * *

Reginaldo, Jacopo and Dinardi, along with a vigile on Dinardi's staff, were gathered in Dinardi's office in Palazzo Ducale. Their attention was focused on a woman, the sister of Evangelista Buonmonte who sat on one side of a table in the middle of the room facing Dinardi and the vigile who sat opposite her. Reginaldo and Jacopo leaned against two separate walls in the room.

“My sister wasn't sure of the father,” the woman finally got to the point of why she had sought out the authorities investigating her sister's death.

“But she had been married to her husband, your brother-in-law, for two years of so. How could she not know who the father was ?” It was Dinardi who asked the question but the woman's revelation had taken all those in the room by surprise.

“She had lovers,” her sister added. She said this as though it was no matter of importance.

“She had lovers ?” Dinardi repeated the statement as a question.

“Was your sister unhappy in her marriage ?” Reginaldo interrupted. “Did her husband give her reason to look elsewhere ?”

“Not so much unhappy as . . . well . . . unsatisfied with the relationship.” The statement was drawn out but then she added quickly, “She needed other relationships. That was how my sister put it. She wanted those other relationships.”

“And how do you know this?” Reginaldo continued the questioning.

“She confided in me. . . . In part because she's my sister. In part . . . well . . . , because she needed a place to bring her lovers. I could accommodate her.”

Dinardi and the vigile shook their heads at this sign of sisterly loyalty.

“So you know the lovers that your sister had ? Were they the same ones or was it anyone she found on the street ?” Reginaldo could not rule out the possibility that the woman's sexual cravings were also a way to make some private income hidden from her husband.

The sister paused before answering, perhaps trying to decide which question to answer first or, perhaps, reflecting on how bad her complicity in Evangelista's marital infidelities might seem to the four men gathered in the room. Finally, she answered, “There were two that she brought to my place.”

“And you had no problem with this ?” Dinardi asked.

“Did I approve of what she was doing ? Not really. I knew it was wrong but I couldn't say no to my sister. Her two lovers, well, they were, uh, in a sense they were forbidden lovers. Even if my sister had not been married, the relationships would have been forbidden. One was un Moro , the other, un ebreo . She had known both, loved both, even before her marriage.”

A Moor and a Jew, Reginaldo thought. No wonder the relationship had to be carried out in such secrecy. But Reginaldo's impression of the dead woman had changed significantly by the sister's final comment. Before he had pictured a woman with insatiable sexual desires. Now he simply saw someone incapable of breaking off her former relationships, someone who would not let herself be committed to a single person.

“Were there others ? Those she didn't bring around to your house ?” Reginaldo asked.

“There was one more,” the woman admitted sheepishly. “He was nobile and they were able to make their own arrangements.

“Who are these three men ?” Dinardi interrupted, the gruffness of his tone revealing his disapproval of the sister's involvement in the love affairs of Evangelista. Under Venetian law, she was, technically, guilty of aiding her sister in the commission of her criminal adultery.

The sister knew only the first names of the Moor and the Jew and denied any knowledge of the name of the lover from the city's patrician class. That relationship, the sister revealed, had began about the time Evangelista had married, although whether it was before or after the marriage, the sister could not say. As to the sister's ignorance of the nobile lover, Reginaldo had his doubts.

“You didn't care what your sister, with your help, was doing to your brother-in-law ?” Dinardi asked, still unable to comprehend the sister's participation in Evangelista's illicit relationships.

“I . . . cared . . . .” Before she could answer, Reginaldo interrupted with another question.

“Did the husband know of his wife's infidelities ?” The question seemed to catch the sister off-guard and for the first time she seemed flustered as she gave her reply.

“I don't know . . . I don't think so. . . . No, no, maybe. Maybe he did. He and I had a talk, a disagreement last week. My sister wasn't feeling well and he wanted me to spend a few days with her until she got over it. I couldn't. When he accused me of not being there when my sister needed me, I might have said something, no, I did say something. Not directly, mind you. I would never do that. But one could clearly take from what I said that Gasparo should question whether he was the father of Evangelista's child. I caught myself as soon as the words were out of my mouth and said no more.”

* * *

Reginaldo could not believe the news the following day when he heard it. Gasparo Buonmonte had been arrested for the murder of his wife.

“I should have been there when they questioned him,” Reginaldo told Jacopo as he hurried out the door of his academy to make his way to the Palazzo Ducale. “If I had been there, the Avogadori would never have made this mistake.”

“He has not confessed. He maintains his innocence.” Dinardi was out, unavailable, at home for the day. Reginaldo was speaking to the vigile who had been left in charge of the office. “The confession will come. It is only a matter of time,” the man continued. A matter of time – and torture – Reginaldo added to himself.

Word of the arrest, like word of the crime, had quickly spread throughout the city. A crowd was gathered outside the Palazzo Ducale. Some were there for information. Some were there out of curiosity. Others were there simply because a crowd had gathered and they felt an insatiable urge to be part of it. Everyone shared something in common, though. They wanted someone to pay for the hideous crime and, it seemed, the Avogadori di Comun had found someone that would sate the hunger for revenge that seemed to be sweeping the city. That was what made this such a dangerous case, one that could very easily see an innocent man executed and a guilty one go unpunished. The Avogadori and the Dieci would be very reluctant to do anything other than hold an expeditious trial followed quickly by an execution. It would not do to show that Gasparo Buonmonte was innocent. The true guilty party would have to be found and substituted in Gasparo's place. The way things presently stood, given the mood of the city and its officials, the only one looking for that substitute would be Reginaldo.

“If he has not confessed, what evidence is there that he did it ?” Reginaldo asked.

“He was tricked in a way. He was asked what he would do if he found out his wife was unfaithful to him and that her child was not his and he said without hesitation that he would kill her.”

* * *

Reginaldo's investigation had not been terminated by the Council of Ten even after the arrest of Buonmonte so the vigile could not resist Reginaldo's request to meet with the arrested suspect. Gasparo Buonmonte was led into the interrogation room of the prison located on the top floors of the Palazzo Ducale. It was a long open room noted as much for the long rope hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room – the strapado – as it was for any of the other sparse furnishings. Reginaldo sat at a table at the end of the room under the windows high on the ceiling. The windows faced west and sunlight flooded the room with a natural light cast on the wall to the left of the wall with the windows.

Gasparo glanced at the rope as he was led past it. He knew its use and its effectiveness. Not first hand, of course. But the strapado and its uses were widely known throughout the city. Hands tied behind the back, the person would be lifted off the ground and suspended in mid-air, the pull of the rope and the weight of the body causing the shoulders and elbows to be progressively forced into unnatural and excruciatingly painful positions. Later, if the early rounds were not effective, the person would be lifted higher and then dropped suddenly as the rope was released. The interrogators knew their business, however, and the body's fall would be stopped before hitting the ground. The popping sound heard when the rope jerked taut at the end of the free fall, followed immediately by the scream of the person being interrogated, told the story of the effect and effectiveness of the torture. As he passed the device, Buonmonte could not help but wonder if the time had come for him to personally experience the strapado . He started to pray for the strength to endure the ordeal.

“We will not be using the strapado today, Signor Buonmonte. You can put your mind to ease about that,” Reginaldo told the man. There were other rooms where Reginaldo could have questioned the man, ones that might have been less intimidating. Reginaldo wanted Gasparo to see the strapado , to have its existence and the threat of its use in the back of his mind as he answered Reginaldo's questions.

Reginaldo indicated the seat at the table across from him. The guard that had led Gasparo into the room stood the prisoner in front of the chair and lightly pushed the man into a sitting position. “You may leave us alone,” Reginaldo told the guard. The guard nodded his understanding and left the room.

Gasparo Buonmonte's age was a surprise to Reginaldo. He had expected someone older. His dwelling had shown a modest level of financial success, both in its location and in its furnishings. Reginaldo also understood that the man owned not only his building but those flanking his on both sides, as well. The man was not yet thirty, Reginaldo judged, and perhaps much younger. It was apparent he had spent a sleepless night, the cumulative effect of the death of his wife, the loss of his unborn child, his arrest for the murder of his wife, and a long night in a bare prison cell that was not designed for comfort. Extra lines on the face, dark shadows under his eyes and his unkempt condition could easily have added three to five years to his appearance. There was one other thing about the man's appearance which surprised Reginaldo. Given the heinous nature of the crime he was charged with, Reginaldo expected that the vigili arresting him and the guards watching over him could not refrain from meting out their own physical form of justice. But Gasparo appeared untouched.

Reginaldo started slowly with his questioning, wanting to gauge the level of Buonmonte's nervousness and to instill a level of calm in the man. Reginaldo wanted information from the man, not confrontation.

“No, what I did say was ‘I would do what any man would do who discovered such a thing. I would kill her,'” Buonmonte answered when Reginaldo confronted him with the statement he had made during his interrogation the previous evening. “They asked a general question, ‘What would you do if you found your wife was cheating on your marriage and was having another man's child,' and I gave the answer any man would give to such a question. And like any man answering that question, what I said I would do and what I would actually do if such a thing actually happened are probably two different things.”

“Still that is a strange answer to give at the time. Your wife was dead. Murdered. Didn't it occur to you that you would be a suspect ?”

“No,” he answered directly. “I hadn't killed my wife so why should I be a suspect. She was fine when I left yesterday morning. Still in bed, in fact.”

“And it didn't seem unusual that the polizia would be asking you what you would do if you found out your wife had not been faithful to you ?”

“Maybe I should have thought it was strange but I didn't really stop to think about it. I was still trying to comprehend that my wife could be dead and our child,” at this point, Buonmonte's voice broke, “gone with her.”

Reginaldo waited a moment before continuing. “But you knew of, or perhaps suspected, your wife's infidelities. From your sister-in-law,” Reginaldo added.

There was a tinge of anger in the man's voice as he answered. “People who have known of my wife's existence for only a day, and who did not even know her as a living human being, have all concluded that she made me a cuckold. I don't know that fact to be true. As for my wife's sister, what little she hinted at wasn't worth condemning my wife over or even upsetting her with questions or accusations. You have to understand her sister. She has always been jealous of what Evangelista has . . . had.”

“You didn't believe her then ?”

“I saw no reason to. Besides,” Buonmonte had started to calm down again, “I do not know if you are married, Ser Morosini, or have children, but I suspect every man has a moment of doubt during his wife's pregnancy about whether the child is his. That moment had already come and gone with me and I wasn't going to let my wife's sister's displeasures with me bring it back.”

“And yesterday, you have accounted to the polizia for your whereabouts ?”

“I've told them. I spent the day working except for one time. I went looking to arrange to have a physician available and ready over the next couple of days, in case the birth was something the mid-wife could not handle on her own. She had given me his name and told me where I could find him. He had been called away when I got there so I never saw him.”

Reginaldo questioned Gasparo Buonmonte a few minutes longer with useful little information obtained. Reginaldo signaled for the guard and told him when he entered the room that the prisoner could be returned to his cell.

“Wait, Signor Buonmonte. One last question.” Reginaldo had waited until guard and prisoner had passed the strapado before calling out. Buonmonte turned to face Reginaldo, the strapado directly in his line of sight.

“You knew nothing of your wife's infidelities but obviously you cannot make the same claim for your own,” Reginaldo began. He paused before proceeding to see what effect his statement had on Buonmonte. It had struck a nerve, Reginaldo could see. “You said something strange about your wife's sister earlier. You said that it was her displeasures with you that caused her to hint at her sister's infidelities. You were having your own relationship with your wife's sister, weren't you ?”

Buonmonte did not answer, did not have to. The look on his face told the answer. He turned and started for the open door at the back of the room. The guard looked at Reginaldo, the expression on his face asking whether Buonmonte should be stopped and returned to answer the question. Reginaldo made a small backward flick of his hand that told the guard, “Let him go.”

* * *

Reginaldo had been throughout all of Venice , knew its sestieri , and had gone up and down almost every canal, rio , and calle on the islands making up the city. The key words, though, were “almost every.” Neither the small calle leading into the small piazzetta nor the piazzetta itself were familiar to Reginaldo.

It had been three years since Signora Petrini had been widowed and she still was not used to her life alone. It was the economics of trying to get by without her husband's income. Luckily, if there was anything such as luck in Signora Petrini's life, her husband had never been able to adequately provide for the family. Signora Petrini had to assist with the family finances with her work as a midwife. No, it wasn't the money she found lacking from her life once her husband died. She missed the presence of a man, the type of comfort that could come only from a member of the opposite sex. And although she looked hard for a man to share her storefront and small two room apartment behind it in the three years since her husband's death, she still found herself living alone with her two children.

Reginaldo searched the storefronts on the square until he found the one he was looking for. The Petrini name was above the door but the sign was a remnant from when Signora Petrini's husband had been alive and practicing his profession. The sign above the door, beginning to fade from years of afternoon sunlight, announced that the building was the business of Aldo Petrini, Barber and Surgeon.

“Your sign outside. It says your husband is a barber,” Reginaldo said more as an observation than a question after the introductions had passed and Reginaldo had made known his purpose. The sign outside the building belied what Reginaldo saw inside it. There is no barbering going on here, Reginaldo said to himself. At least nothing to indicate it was.

“My husband is dead,” Signora Petrini answered. “Three years ago.”

“Ahhh. I saw the sign out front. I didn't realize. I am sorry,” Reginaldo apologized, “sorry for bringing the matter up and sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, ser, and you needn't apologize. The sign . . . well . . . my husband owned little in life but his shop here he owned and left to me and our children. To our children, really,” she corrected herself. “I have control over it during my life or until one of the children comes of age and wants to use it for his business. But you wanted to talk to me of Signora Buonmonte,” she added, turning the conversation to the purpose of Reginaldo's visit.”

“You were her midwife?” Reginaldo asked.

She was, the woman admitted. As Reginaldo questioned her he learned that the Buonmontes had contacted Signora Petrini soon after Evangelista was certain she was with child. Early in the pregnancy she had seen Evangelista once a fortnight, then once a week as things progressed. As the time neared for birth, she stopped in more frequently, two or three times a week, she told Reginaldo.

“There was nothing unusual about her pregnancy and no complications to be worried about, not like in other pregnancies I've been involved with. Signora Buonmonte was like any first time mother,” the midwife explained, “worried about each little change, in wonder about what was going on inside her, scared of the pain that awaited her in childbirth and the dangers to the mother. But she was healthy and everything was normal. Her worries were... well, she had nothing to worry about.”

“But you had her husband, Signor Buonmonte, out finding a physician to be available in case one was needed,” Reginaldo told her. “On the very morning that his wife was murdered.”

The woman seemed surprised at Reginaldo's knowledge of this and she hesitated before answering. “It was more to set his and the signora's mind at ease. They were getting anxious about the birth and were worried about what could go wrong instead of looking at the joy it would bring. I thought he and she might feel better if he knew there was a dottore nearby. I did not anticipate having to call for him.”

“Did Signora Buonmonte ever express any concern to you about the father. I mean that maybe she wasn't sure her husband was the father or perhaps wasn't sure who the father was?”

Signora Petrini seemed as surprised about this question as she had been about Reginaldo's knowledge that she had sent Signor Buonmonte out to find a dottore. The shortest of pauses passed before the midwife answered. “No, nothing of that sort,” she answered. There was nothing in the way she answered that suggested the reason for pausing before replying.

It was difficult to say how close to having the baby Signora Buonmonte was, Signora Petrini told Reginaldo when he asked when the midwife was expecting the baby to be born. She was very close, the woman finally said. “It could have been any day,” she added. “You can never know when the seed was planted and even then it's not a precise clock. I've delivered babies that came a week, even close to two weeks before they should have been born. And they lived. Just as often, maybe more often, births one or two weeks later than the mother and her midwife think it will be happen.”

“You didn't see her yesterday?” Reginaldo asked.

“No,” she answered. “The day before I saw her.”

“You were still seeing her only two or three times a week? Even though she was so close to the birth?”

The midwife's voice became defensive as she answered Reginaldo. It would not have mattered, she explained. It was unlikely that the birth would have started while the midwife was making a visit, whether it was daily, less frequently or more frequently. In Signora Buonmonte's case, it was also unnecessary. She was in good health and everything was normal. Her husband, her mother, her sister, the neighbors, all knew where to find Signora Petrini when the time came for her to help deliver the baby.

“Did Signora Buonmonte know how close she was to giving birth?” Reginaldo asked as he stood in the doorway to the shop. He had gotten up to leave but the question came to him as he crossed the room so he stopped to ask it.

“Every mother has a sense about that,” the midwife answered.

“No. I meant did you say anything to her. Tell her maybe, it'll be tomorrow or the next day or the next week.”

“I told her a number of times, made some predictions. I thought the baby might be born tomorrow, maybe the day after. I'm sure I gave her those dates over the last couple of weeks or so. But, yes, the last time I saw her, which I think was, mi dio , was it only a couple of days ago, I told her it could be any day.”

* * *

The three sat eating at a small table in a local osteria not far from Reginaldo's academy. It was a good thing that Reginaldo did not value good food as one of life's pleasures, Jacopo thought as he picked at the food on his plate. Josef, Reginaldo's servant, was only a passable cook, or so that was Jacopo's estimation. He had tried to persuade Reginaldo of this on prior occasions and of the desirability of hiring a true cook to prepare his meals. Reginaldo was satisfied with Josef, as he was with this small restaurant where Jacopo, Reginaldo and Dinardi now ate.

The previous evening had been a late one for Dinardi as he questioned Gasparo Bounmonte. The man had returned to his home after dark and it was another hour before Dinardi arrived at the office of the local sestiere police station where Buonmonte was being questioned. Midnight had come and gone before Dinardi returned home to his wife. With the arrest of Buonmonte, there was nothing pressing for Dinardi to do. He slept into late morning and did not bother arriving at the office until the middle of the afternoon. Hours had passed since Reginaldo had been at the Palazzo Ducale questioning Buonmonte, but his invitation for Dinardi to join him for dinner had awaited Dinardi when he finally made his way to his office. For Dinardi, two nights away from his home was never a thing to look forward to.

“The Avogadoro is asking why you are still investigating the murder of the Buonmonte woman,” Dinardi said. Throughout the meal the three had avoided any discussion of the murder. With the remains of the meal removed, they were now ready to settle in for serious discussion.

“It doesn't make sense,” Reginaldo answered, “the husband being the killer, I mean. I'm not ready to believe he killed his wife.”

The husband could have done it, Dinardi reminded Reginaldo. It was never easy pinpointing the time of death and the condition of the body made an estimate of the time of death even more difficult. Still, the congealed condition of the pooled blood on the floor and the onset of rigor mortis had led Dottor Zapudin to conclude the woman had been dead at least three hours and as many as six or seven hours before the doctor arrived on the scene. Gasparo could have done it before leaving that morning. He had also not been able to account for his whereabouts, other than by his own word, for the better part of the morning.

No, it didn't make sense, Reginaldo countered. Why kill his wife and take the baby from the womb. If he killed the wife, the baby's death would follow, as well. “I am convinced the baby was not removed to kill it but to preserve it,” Reginaldo added. There were other indications that the killing had not occurred early in the morning. Signora Buonmonte was dressed for the day, Reginaldo pointed out. A more thorough examination of the body had shown that she had eaten earlier that morning. The kitchen also showed signs that she had started at least preliminary preparation of the evening meal. And then there was the one fact that Reginaldo believed pointed to a killer other than the husband. Gasparo Buonmonte lacked the skills to have carried out the removal of the baby. The cut was too deliberate, too precise, even if it wasn't totally skillful.

Dinardi was still not convinced. No one was seen entering the house and no one was seen leaving it before the dead woman's poor mother arrived to find her daughter, Dinardi cut in as he returned to the offensive. Nothing was heard by the neighbors throughout the morning, either. Everyone was on pins and needles where Evangelista Buonmonte was concerned, Dinardi reminded Reginaldo. They knew the baby could come at any time and the neighbors might have to be the ones to go for the midwife. And there was one more thing, Dinardi added. The killer acted before the mother arrived. It was possible he was just lucky in his timing, but it was also more likely that he knew when Signora Cassano would make her late morning visit.

Reginaldo thought on this last point for a second as though it had not occurred to him. That makes no difference and is not necessarily so, he answered. The killer could have been lucky – Signora Cassano could have been lucky – that the victim's mother was not at her daughter's house while the killer was carrying out his deed or when he arrived. No, Reginaldo asserted emphatically, the purpose of the crime was to obtain a live baby. Gasparo Buonmonte did not share that purpose.

“I was able to identify the Moor,” Jacopo announced as the debate between Reginaldo and Dinardi wound down. “He has lived in the city for ten or fifteen years, a minor trader, only modestly successful. I've not talked to him. I thought I would leave it to the two of you. There was something of interest about him, though, at least as it relates to the murder of Signora Buonmonte. He practices medicine among the Moorish community here in Venice . He comes from a family of medical practitioners.”

Reginaldo raised his eyebrow at this bit of information. The practice of caesarian operations was not unknown among the Islamic medical practitioners. There were even rumors of cases where both mother and child survived the procedure. He started to begin the debate with Dinardi anew but Dinardi also had something to say, his own startling revelation to match Jacopo's.

“There is a new wrinkle in the case,” he announced. “When the conversa at the Convent of Santa Mariana went to the ruota at the convent gate this morning, she discovered a newborn infant. It wasn't just any newborn. It was un ibrido .”

Reginaldo's mouth closed on this news from Dinardi. Un ibrido , he repeated silently to himself, a child born of parents of two different races. Out loud, he announced, “ Il Moro is not the killer we seek.”

* * *

If the killer was not the Moor, then it must be the Jew or the unknown lover of the patrician class, Jacopo observed as he and Reginaldo made their way back to the academy. Then it must be the Jew, Reginaldo corrected him. The City of Venice was littered with the illegitimate children of the nobili . Reginaldo's own son Roberto was a testament to that, born out of Reginaldo's relationship with the boy's mother who was now an onesta cotigiana , or honest courtesan.

Where Signora Buonmonte was concerned, the nobile father would have no compunction to steal his child from the mother. He would either recognize the child as his, or not, as he desired. If so, he would likely provide some level of financial support for the child or at some point, perhaps, even bring the child to live with him and bestow upon the child the family name. Even if this happened, however, the child's name would not be entered in the Golden Book as a member of the city's nobili class.

It was different with the Moor or the Jew. Not only would the relationship have been contrary to the laws of Venice even if Signora Buonmonte had not been married, Reginaldo could see where either Jew or Islamic Moor could have been motivated by religious fervor to obtain the child and raise it in their own religion. It was crazy, it was irrational, and it contravened the teachings of both religions, but it was the motivation which seemed to make the most sense.

It had not been necessary to explain to Dinardi and Jacopo why the Moor was no longer a suspect. The child that had been left at the gate of the convent was a boy and a healthy one at that. Equally as important, the child was un ibrido – neither white nor black but a mixture of both races. The child was the son of the Moor. He would not have abandoned his son at the convent gate. A daughter might have been left at the convent gate, but not a son. At least not after what had been done to obtain the child.

The Jew, on the other hand, would have been quick to abandon the child once he discovered the child could not have been his. He would have waited until the time he believed it was safe to do so. The time for doing it would have been in the early morning hours between Matins and Prime, or three a.m. to six a.m., when the gates of the Santa Mariana convent would have been unattended. At such times, the ruota , or revolving turntable in the door, remained accessible. Indeed, it was for the express purpose of leaving abandoned children at the convent that the gate was unattended and the ruota left unlocked during these early morning hours.

Still, as the case unraveled – and it was unraveling, Reginaldo thought – there was something troubling about his basic premise about the murder.

* * *

“It makes no sense, this idea of yours,” Dottor Zapudin chastised Reginaldo. Reginaldo and Dinardi had come to the doctor to enlist his aid in discovering the identity of Evangelista Buonmonte's Jewish lover. “You have allowed your ‘Christian' disfavor of my religion and the Islamic religion to color your views of things where this case is concerned,” the doctor added.

Reginaldo thought for a long moment on what Dottor Zapudin had said.

“Reginaldo, we have known each other a long time, worked together, we respect each others as professionals,” Dottor Zapudin broke the silence, “but what I say is true. No Jew or Muslim would have done what was done to that poor woman for the reasons you suggest any more than a Christian would have done them. Your whole case is based on the killer doing this thing in the name of his religion, because he wanted to ensure the child was raised in his religion. Jews, Christians and Muslims may kill in the name of religion but not this way or for the simple reason you suggest. You are missing something. There has to be something else at work here.”

Reginaldo remained silent for a moment longer as he continued to consider what the doctor had said. “You are right, dottore. About how unreasonable my theory is and about how I perhaps was so quick to embrace it.”

“But you still wish my assistance in locating the dead woman's lover that lives within the Ghetto walls?” Zapudin asked.

“It's a loose end, something to follow up on and then say, it wasn't him,” Reginaldo answered. Zapudin's response was equally quick and surprising to Reginaldo.

“I know the man you are looking for but I also know he is not your killer.”

* * *

Zevi Alpron could not have committed the murder of Evangelista Buonmonte, Reginaldo and Dinardi soon learned. A tailor with a growing reputation outside the walls of the Ghetto and a practice to match, Alpron had been busy throughout the day on which Signora Buonmonte had been murdered. He had a very influential client who could speak for him in that regard. Alpron had more or less moved his shop for the day to his client's apartment and had alternated between measuring, sewing, fitting, re-sizing and re-sewing throughout the day. He was never more than five or ten minutes outside of the sight of his client, his client's servants or Alpron's own assistant. The benefactor of Alpron's efforts and the owner of a new togata and matching cornaro was Ser Misier Andrea Gritti, the Doge of Venice. Alpron's story was confirmed by the doge's servants on Dinardi's return to his office in the Palazzo Ducale.

“The tailor Alpron doubts that he could have been the father of the child anyway,” Reginaldo told Jacopo. “He says he can't be absolutely sure but he thought the relationship with Signora Buonmonte ended sometime around Sukkot last year. That puts it over ten months ago.”

“How can he have any certainty about the date?” A hint of skepticism could be detected in Jacopo's voice, but as soon as he asked the question he also realized the answer was of little importance. The man had been with the doge all day and could not be the killer. Reginaldo answered the question nonetheless.

“His own son was born to him by his wife shortly after the holiday. He lost interest in his relationship with Signora Buonmonte and stopped going to her.”

“So what does it all mean? For the investigation, I mean?”

“Our friend Dinardi believes it makes Gasparo Buonmonte more and more likely to be the guilty person. He says we have eliminated all the other suspects and the only one left is the husband.”

“It does seem that way,” Jacopo observed.

“No. The answer is here,” Reginaldo tapped his head with his forefinger. “It just hasn't made its way to my conscious mind from the deeper recesses of my thoughts. But I have that sense. The pieces are there. They are just waiting to be put together.”

* * *

The next morning, a Saturday, Reginaldo was at the Palazzo Ducale again, not for any reason related to the death of Evangelista Buonmonte but to attend the regular meeting of the Maggior Consiglio , or Grand Council. All nobili men of the Comun of Venice were members of the Maggior Consiglio and all were expected to attend that governing body's meetings.

Benches sat in rows throughout the room. Those in the middle of the room were double benches consisting of a single back and two seats facing in opposite directions. The men in their black togate sat back-to-back at these benches. The rows of benches came out from the dais at the front of the great hall, so that the members of the Maggior Consiglio were required to turn their heads to watch those speaking from the front of the room. Along the side walls of the rooms were two rows of benches, the back row elevated, and the benches facing inward to the center of the room.

The meeting had not started, the chairs at the head of the room reserved for the doge and the Council of Ten still empty. A buzz filled the room as the men, most of them seated, greeted each other and discussed matters of state, city and family as they waited for the doge and the Council to enter.

For his part, Reginaldo sat quietly, lost in his thoughts of the murder of Evangelista Buonmonte. He had gotten nowhere with his investigation and his dissatisfaction with his progress was beginning to wear him down. He had tried thinking on the matter but then decided that was the problem. He was thinking too hard on it. He needed to let the puzzle work itself out in his inner mind. So he tried ignoring the problem by turning his attention to reading in his room. That was also unsuccessful. He read but he did not comprehend what he was reading, his eyes taking in the words printed on the page but the information they imparted never took hold in his mind. Sometimes he stopped reading altogether as his mind returned to the problem of the death of the Buonmonte woman. Reginaldo fell asleep in his chair, his book open in his lap. He did not remember it but at some point in the night, Josef had led Reginaldo to his bed. Reginaldo knew this only because he woke wearing the same clothes he had on as he sat in the chair the night before.

His sleep had been a fitful one, he decided. He was tired as he dressed and even more tired after rowing his gondola to the meeting of the Maggior Consiglio . On the one hand, he hoped that the meeting would hold his interest and take his mind off the murder he was investigating. On the other hand, he knew that was unlikely. It was more likely that his mind would go to Evangelista Buonmonte or that he would fall asleep. Neither outcome was desirable.

The buzz in the room and the warmth of the morning was already having its effect. Reginaldo wandered in and out of a light sleep. His attention caught bits and pieces of conversations around him, a word here, a phrase there, as he moved back and forth between consciousness and his semi-conscious sleep. “Da Canal . . . surprised he is here . . . death . . . child . . . near death . . . physician . . . his poor wife . . . abominable . . . waited too long . . . denounced . . . .” Suddenly, Reginaldo was jerked back fully awake. Was it something that had been said in the conversations around him or was it the sudden commotion of the room going silent and the gathered throng rising as one? Reginaldo could not be certain. The doge had entered the room, followed by the Council of Ten and the Savi .

* * *

“I am not well, Josef. I am going to lay down,” Reginaldo announced on his return from the Palazzo Ducale.

“Not well, Ser Morosini? Is it a stomach ailment?”

“It is a mental ailment,” Reginaldo answered, tapping his temple with his forefinger. “This investigation – it has mentally drained me. I can't figure it out.”

“It will come to you, Ser.”

Reginaldo smiled at Josef's simple confidence. Reginaldo did not share it.

“Perhaps un sonnellino will help,” Josef suggested. “I will see that you are not disturbed.

Yes, Reginaldo thought, un sonnellino , a nap. I thought that is what I said I was going to do when I first came in. Reginaldo said nothing, though, as he walked past Josef and headed towards his bedroom.

Sonnelini can be refreshing or leave one more exhausted. The latter type of nap Reginaldo referred to as a fighting sonnellino . One never sleeps but one is also not awake, there being a constant cognizance of thoughts running through the mind but the thoughts themselves were not real. Conscious dreams almost, it seemed to Reginaldo. He referred to it as a “fighting sonnellino ” because it seemed the entire nap was a battle to find the sleep that would rejuvenate. It was also a battle that was rarely, if ever, won. The refreshing sonnelini were pure unconsciousness. You might dream, probably did dream, Reginaldo believed, but it was at such a deep level that one never remembered the dreams. The only experience, the only memory, was of waking up.

On the afternoon of the meeting of the Maggior Consiglio , Reginaldo experienced one of those rare sonnellino that combined the fighting sonnellino with the refreshing one. He fought to reach the level of true unconsciousness at first and, then, as he was on the verge of giving up and willing himself awake, there was nothingness, followed by an awakening. He woke with a thought on his mind but whether that thought had formed in the earlier stage of il sonnellino or the later one, he could not tell. All he knew was that sometime during his sleep the vision of the sister of Evangelista Buonmonte had come to him. It was a vision of the woman shrouded in mist, but a vision just the same.

Reginaldo hurriedly scribbled a note to Jacopo – instructions on information he was to gather over the remainder of the afternoon. He handed the note to Josef with instructions to deliver it to Jacopo.

“I will be out for awhile but should return for a regular dinner,” Reginaldo said. His movement toward the door of his apartment never stopped from the time he instructed Josef about the message for Jacopo and told him of his plans.

“Feeling better, Ser,” Josef asked, but he was alone in the apartment by the time the words were out.

* * *

“I had it all wrong in the beginning,” Reginaldo started. It was the following day and at the invitation of Dinardi a group had been gathered at the Palazzo Ducale in the offices of the polizia guidizaria . Reginaldo looked around the room and counted off the people. There were the family of the murder victim – her husband, her sister and her mother. There were two of her lovers – the Moor and the Jew. The midwife was there. Dinardi, Jacopo and two vigili filled out the group in the room. There were also two others present but not present, nearby and ready to make an entrance when their presence was needed.

“I thought this was a man's crime, the crime of a father wanting to have possession of his soon-to-be-born child. Killing Signora Buonmonte was not the goal of the murderer. Getting to her baby, the live baby ready to be born, was. But the only way that was going to happen was if the signora was dead. Remember, the baby had to be taken from her. The killer could not wait until she went into childbirth and delivered the baby for a number of reasons, obvious and not so obvious.”

Reginaldo looked at the vigile standing closest to the door and nodded his head in the direction of the man. The vigile left the room. Reginaldo continued in his absence.

“The killer cut the throat of Signora Buonmonte and quickly moved to slice open her belly, in the manner approximating what is called a caesarian operation.” Reginaldo made a slicing motion across his own lower stomach indicating where the cut had been made on Evangelista Buonmonte. As one the assembled group flinched as Reginaldo described and illustrated the assault. The entire group reacted except one, Reginaldo could not but help notice.

“There was a problem, though, that immediately became apparent to the killer, a problem that both shocked and surprised the killer, something that was totally unexpected and which completely undermined the killer's plans. No, the baby was not stillborn.”

As though on cue, the vigile re-entered the room. The look of discomfort on his face was evident. He held an infant in his arms, the infant that had been left in the ruota of Convento di Santa Marina.

“The baby was alive and even though it had been literally dragged into the world before he was ready to come on his own, he was healthy. Still, there was something not quite right with the infant – he wasn't what he should have been. He was un ibrido . Since the mother was white, the father must be black. In Venice , that could only mean the father was a Moor.”

Reginaldo stopped and looked at the Moor, who at first looked away from Reginaldo but then looked back. He blurted out, “I know nothing of this. I had stopped seeing Eva when she started growing large with the child.”

The vigile who had carried the child into the room had been instructed to hand the infant to Signora Cassano. She had become oblivious to what was being said in the room as she held and examined her grandchild. “He has Evangelista's eyes. And lips. And chin,” she said aloud. “Oh . . . .” She went silent and turned red with embarrassment as she realized where she was and what was going on around her. Silence momentarily filled the room.

“Yes, I totally agree with you. That the child was un ibrido meant that you were not the killer, Signor Ibrahim.” Reginaldo emphasized the word “not” and looked directly at the Moor as he made this pronouncement. “Otherwise, the child would never have been abandoned at Santa Marina.”

“Nor was the killer you, Signor Alpron, as we also quickly learned. Your whereabouts when Signora Buonmonte was being murdered were accounted for. And it is possible that your relationship had ended before she became with child. Still, for a fleeting moment I considered you the possible murderer. You had been the woman's lover and you could have had the desire to have the child that Venetian law would have denied you. And, unlike Signor Ibrahim, you would have had reason to abandon the child. It clearly was not yours. But you were not the killer.”

“Then I can go?” Alpron rose to go. The vigile nearest the door moved to block any exit, looking to Reginaldo for instructions. There was no reason to keep him here, just as there had been no reason to bring him here in the first place, Reginaldo thought.

“You and Signor Ibrahim are free to go,” Reginaldo said.

The Moor started to rise but then stopped, frozen between a sitting and fully standing position. “You going to tell who killed ‘Vangelista,” he asked in a broken Venetian dialect from his bent position. Reginaldo nodded his head in affirmance. “I will hear,” the Moor said. He lowered himself back onto the chair. Alpron had no interest in hearing more. He pushed his way past the vigile at the door.

Reginaldo picked up where he had left off. “Maybe the authorities were right in arresting Signor Buonmonte for his wife's death. He had recently discovered that his wife had been unfaithful to him and that the child might not be his own. He could have confronted her with what he had learned. She could have admitted it. And in a rage, he attacked her, cut her throat and then removed the baby.” All attention in the room was now turned on the husband. He shook his head from side to side and appeared to be in the process of blurting out a denial.

“But that wasn't right,” Reginaldo added before Gasparo Buonmonte could speak. “It didn't make sense. The cut was too precise in its imitation of the caesarian operation, a medical or surgical procedure. The signore is a water merchant working on the drainage systems for taking rainwater from the roofs and putting them into the pozzi where water can then be drawn for use. When drought has dried up the wells, he hauls water from terra firma and sells it to his customers. What did he know of something a physician or, perhaps, a surgeon, would be called in to do.

“And what of the child? What did he do with the child once he had it and he realized it wasn't his own? Why would he keep it alive? And since it was kept alive, what did he do with it once he left his home? Did he give it to someone? Did he take the child with him as he went about his work? There were no acceptable answers to these questions. I did not share the belief of the Avogadori that Signor Buonmonte murdered his wife and took her child.”

Reginaldo paused to catch his breath. He had considered telling of Evangelista's third lover, the unidentified nobile , but decided against it. Signor Buonmonte had heard enough of his wife's infidelities. It also added nothing to the story at this point.

“All along I had been looking at the case wrong. Once I knew of the lovers, I had thought of it as a case of a father trying to claim his child. It wasn't until yesterday as I woke from un sonnellino that another possibility occurred to me. I woke to a thought – a picture – in my mind. It was a picture of Signora Buonmonte's sister.” Signora Cassano gasped. The sister glared back at Reginaldo. “That picture got me to thinking on other things – the sister's jealousies of what Signora Buonmonte possessed, other things I need not go into now, and a simple fact that Ser Dinardi had mentioned during one of our discussions on the case. Either the killer was very lucky in the choice of times for carrying out the killing,” Reginaldo hesitated, “or the killer knew when Signora Cassano would arrive and knew the time by which the crime had to be completed.”

There was still no reaction from the sister other than her intense stare that never left Reginaldo's face.

Reginaldo's voice softened as he began again. “You needn't fear, Signora Cassano. You are not to lose two daughters by this crime. One daughter did not kill the other. I realized,” Reginaldo's voice had lost its soft inflection, “that whatever vision I had of what I thought was Evangelista's sister enshrouded in a mist was simply a dream. It was telling me something, yes, but not that Signora Buonmonte had been murdered by her sister. It was more basic. It was telling me that she had been murdered by a woman. I had simply mistaken that woman for the sister.”

“Who does that leave?” Signor Buonmonte demanded, apparently confused by the story that Reginaldo was weaving.

“The midwife,” Reginaldo answered. “I was wrong from the beginning in my belief that the killer wasn't just after a baby, the killer was after this baby. But that wasn't true, Signora Petrini.” Reginaldo's attention focused on the midwife. “You were only after a baby. It just happened that Signora Buonmonte's baby was the most convenient to you.”

“Why?!” the disbelief and shock in Gasparo Buonmonte's voice was evident. As he asked the question, he turned to face the midwife.

“Don't listen to him,” the midwife answered. “This is just his way of doing things. So far, everyone in this room has killed your wife and ended up not killing her.”

If Signora Petrini thinks I am going to build up the case against her and then dismiss it with the declaration that she is not the killer, she is wrong, Reginaldo thought.

“I spoke with Ser Da Canal yesterday. He was very forthcoming about his wife's pregnancy and the problems with the birth.”

“He claims to be part of Signora Buonmonte's murder and has named me as involved in it?” the midwife asked, her voice defiant.

“No, signora.” The voice had come from the back of the room. The large room where the group sat was joined to a smaller room at its rear. Ser Da Canal, clad in the black togata of the nobili had emerged from the smaller room on the mention of his name and now stood in its doorway. “I had no part in the murder of this man's poor wife. I had no idea that when you offered to replace the infant that had been born dead to my wife that you meant to kill to do it.”

* * *

For Guilermo Da Canal and his wife, Beatrice, their marriage had been a good and happy one. The only thing missing from the marriage was children. In the twenty-four years they had been married, there had been no children. There had been two pregnancies early but both had ended in miscarriage. A physician had examined Beatrice after the second and declared that she could have no children. Many years later, as Beatrice entered her mid-forties, the doctor was proven wrong.

The couple had a new physician by then, Da Canal had told Reginaldo, and while it violated everything the Church taught, he recommended that the child be aborted out of fear for the mother's health. Beatrice refused steadfastly. Her pregnancy was a miracle, heaven sent. She was meant to have this child, she insisted to husband and doctor. The doctor shook his head at the decision and told them that they would need the services of a good midwife, maybe more than one. Someone that was experienced in handling difficult pregnancies. “I'm not saying that the pregnancy will be difficult,” the doctor explained, “but at your age it would be folly to not be prepared for it.” Two days later the doctor stopped by with the name of a possible midwife that could help them through the pregnancy. The name was Signora Petrini.

Childbirth had been difficult, excruciatingly so, for Beatrice Da Canal. Twenty-one hours of labor. The baby had been turned in the womb, wanting to come out feet first. The midwife had known this or, rather, had suspected it, a week before labor began. She told Ser Da Canal but on his request she withheld the information from Beatrice. Signora Petrini had told the father-to-be that the baby's position “complicated” things but that the birth should be manageable.

Neither Signora Petrini nor Guilermo Da Canal slept during the twenty-one hours that Beatrice struggled to give birth. Beatrice went in and out of sleep, never sleeping for more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, but in the later hours of the labor when she was not awake, it wasn't because she was asleep. Her mind shut down to block out the pain as she struggled for life. During those later hours, her waking moments were marked by delirium.

Guilermo's pleas that other midwives or physicians be brought in were met by refusals from Signora Petrini and by threats to walk out and leave Guilermo alone to deal with his wife's childbirth. She had seen worse, she had told him and gave assurances that it was almost over. For his part, he could not understand how it could be any worse.

Not only did the labor last twenty-one hours, it began in the late hours of the evening. Both Signora Petrini and Guilermo Da Canal had been up for two full days. Neither was thinking clearly, the fatigue and emotional drain affecting them. “I didn't know fully what she was suggesting. I didn't ask what she meant, how she intended to do it,” Guilermo told Reginaldo.

The final hour was a blur in Guilermo's mind. Signora Petrini had come to Guilermo and told him that she could not save both the baby and his wife. Let me send for a doctor, he pleaded. There isn't time, she answered. What are you suggesting, he demanded. The baby must be killed, the midwife told him. Guilermo: No, it will kill my wife to have the baby killed. Signora Petrini: It will kill your wife if we don't stop the labor soon. Guilermo: Is there nothing we can do to get the baby from my wife? Signora Petrini: Nothing, I've done everything humanly possible. The only way to save the baby now is for your wife to die and cut the baby from her while it still has life. Guilermo: No, my wife is going to live and my child will be born. You've got to do something. Signora Petrini: I've done everything. Guilermo: You will do something or you will never deliver another baby in Venice again. Signora Petrini: Please, Ser, there is nothing I can do to save the baby without your wife dying first . . . . But maybe I can replace the baby with another and have it done before your wife recovers her senses enough to know what has happened.

* * *

“I should have seen the solution earlier, Signora, the first time I visited with you,” Reginaldo added after he finished telling Guilermo Da Canal's story to the group. “You knew of Signora Cassano's daily visits to her daughter. More importantly, the sign had been right before my eyes. Literally. Your husband had been a barber and, like all good barbers, he practiced surgery and dentistry, as well. It was a simple matter had I been paying attention then to check the probate records of your husband's estate, as Jacopo did late yesterday, and to learn that your husband did, indeed, own surgical instruments and that these were left to his children in your care until the last one reached adulthood. There was one other interesting clause in his will. He asked that you instruct the children in the art of his profession so that at least one would carry on the family business. Obviously, you worked side-by-side with your husband and learned much of his profession from him. In fact, Jacopo discovered one other interesting piece of information, this from the certificates of death filed with the city. Your husband had been called in once some years ago to try to save an infant by performing the caesarian operation procedure. The mother had died suddenly in an accident and it was hoped the infant could be saved. You are listed in the Record of Death as present and a witness to the death.”

While Reginaldo had been telling the story of Guilermo and Beatrice Da Canal and what Jacopo had learned, Signora Petrini sat without moving. Her chin rested on her chest and her hair, which she wore loose, obscured her face to those on either side of her. Reginaldo, who stood to her front, could see little more than the top of her head. Her eyes were either closed or she was staring at the floor. He could not tell which.

“I'm not the monster you think I am,” she said, her voice low and tremulous. “The child lives.”

“But the mother is dead,” Reginaldo reminded her.

“I . . . I . . . I have no memory of it, how it happened. I asked her to let me have the baby, to let me give her an herb I had with me that would bring on the birth. It could all have been done while her husband was out and he would have never known. We would tell him the child was stillborn. I could bring her the Da Canal infant. No one needed to know. She was young. She would have more children.

“‘No,' her answer was, ‘No,' emphatically, ‘No.' She was upset with me, angry. She turned her back on me and I remember nothing until I was looking down at the child in my arms. Un bambino ibrido, il figlio bastardo di un altra . I could not take this child to Ser Da Canal. But the child lives.”

And somehow, you believe that makes everything all right, Reginaldo told himself.

* * *

It was just a glimpse, a quick one, as the gondola Reginaldo was poling passed before the Frari. Even though the glimpse was short, recognition was certain. Signora Cassano stood before the church of the monastery, a man of the age to be her husband at her side. She was holding an infant, her grandson born of her daughter Evangelista.

The Comun of Venice has the same prejudices I do, he thought, or maybe it is the other way around. Maybe I have inherited the prejudices of my community. Over a month had passed since the arrest of Signora Petrini for the murder of Evangelista Buonmonte. The infant was living with Signora Cassano and her husband. Gasparo had wanted nothing to do with the child. The father of the child, Ibrahim, was not only denied his son but was banished from Venice on pain of death should he return. That was the law – relations between the two faiths were forbidden and the offense was compounded when it also involved adultery.

As for the child, Reginaldo could not say whether it was right, or even fair, that the natural father would be denied his child. But as with the banishment of Ibrahim, awarding the child to Signora Cassano was probably inevitable once she declared her desire to raise the child. That also was the product of the prejudices of the comun .

He pushed the thoughts of Evangelista Buonmonte, her lovers, and her child from his mind. He was not ready yet to face his own prejudices that grew from his religion. The time would come though, he hoped, when he could follow the lead of Signora Cassano who overcame those same prejudices and opened her heart to the child born of a Moor and who would carry the signs of that heritage throughout his life.