“Okay,” Sam said with a smile.
“The reason I asked about your time frame is that Giuseppe is what you might call a throwback. He has no interest in anything modern. If it didn’t happen in the nineteenth century or earlier, it doesn’t exist for him.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” replied Remi.
Maria opened the door and gestured for them to step through. “Just press the buzzer on the wall here when you’re done. I’ll come back for you. Good luck.” She shut the door.
The museum’s library was long and narrow, measuring two hundred feet by forty feet. The walls were not walls at all, but floor-to-ceiling bookcases. They were twenty feet tall. On each of the four walls was a rolling wooden ladder. A single, ten-foot-long worktable and a lone hard-backed chair sat in the center aisle. Halogen pendants hung from the ceiling, casting soft pools of light on the green-tiled floor.
“Is someone there?” a voice called.
“Yes,” Sam replied. “Signora Favaretto let us in.”
As their eyes adjusted they could see a figure standing atop the ladder at the far end of the library. He was perched on the top rung, finger tracing along the book spines, occasionally nudging one inward or sliding one outward. After a moment the man climbed down and started shuffling down the aisle toward them. Thirty seconds later he came to a stop before them.
“Yes?” he said simply.
Giuseppe was barely five feet tall with wispy white hair that jutted out from his head at all angles. He couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds. He stared up at them with surprisingly sharp blue eyes.
“Hello. I’m Sam and this is—”
Giuseppe waved his hand dismissively. “You have a question for me?”
“Um, yes. . . . We’ve got a riddle on our hands. We’re looking for the name of a man, probably from Istria in Croatia, that might have a connection to either Poveglia or Santa Maria di Nazareth.”
“Give me the riddle,” Giuseppe ordered.
“ ‘Man of Histria, thirteen by tradition,’ ” Sam recited.
Giuseppe said nothing, but stared at them for ten seconds as he pursed his lips from side to side.
Remi said, “We also think he might have something to do with lazarets—”
Abruptly Giuseppe turned around and shuffled away. He stopped in the aisle, then stared at each wall in turn. His index finger tapped the air before him in the manner of a slow-motion conductor.
“He’s cataloging books in his head,” Remi whispered.
“Quiet, please,” Giuseppe barked.
After two minutes Giuseppe went to the right-hand wall and pushed the ladder to the far end. He climbed up, plucked a book off the shelf, paged through it, then put it back and climbed back down.
Five more times he repeated the process, staring at the walls, conducting the air, and mounting the ladder before climbing back down and shuffling back to them.
“The man you’re looking for is named Pietro Tradonico, the Doge of Venice from 836 to 864. Chronologically he was the eleventh Doge, but by tradition he is considered the thirteenth. Tradonico’s followers fled to the island of Poveglia after he was assassinated. They had some huts near the island’s northeastern corner.”
With that, Giuseppe turned and started shuffling away.
“One more question,” Sam called.
Giuseppe turned, said nothing.
“Is Tradonico buried there?” asked Sam.
“Some think so, some not. His followers claimed the body after his assassination, but no one knows where it was taken.”
Giuseppe turned again and doddered away.
Remi called, “Thank you.”
Giuseppe didn’t reply.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Maria asked a few minutes later when they came out. After they’d pushed the buzzer beside the door it had taken her five minutes to arrive. During that time, Giuseppe continued about his work as though they didn’t exist.
“We did,” Sam replied. “Giuseppe was everything you said he’d be. We appreciate your help.”
“It’s my pleasure. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Since you’re being so helpful . . . what’s the best way to get to Poveglia?”
Maria stopped walking and turned to them. Her face was drawn. “Why would you want to go to Poveglia?”
“Research.”
“You’re welcome to use our facilities. I’m sure Giuseppe would—”
Sam said, “Thank you, but we’d like to see it for ourselves.”
“Please reconsider.”
“Why?” Remi asked.
“How much do you know about Poveglia’s history?”
“If you’re talking about the plague pits, we read—”
“Not just those. There’s much more. Let’s have a drink. I’ll tell you the rest.”
CHAPTER 54
Explain it to me again,” Remi whispered. “Why couldn’t this wait till morning?”
“It is morning,” Sam replied, turning the wheel slightly to keep the bow on course. Though their destination showed no lights, its bell tower was nicely silhouetted against the night sky.
From above, Poveglia looked like a fan, measuring five hundred yards from its flared tip to its base, and three hundred yards at its waist where a narrow, walled canal bisected the island from west to east, save for a sandbar in the center.
“Don’t get technical on me, Fargo. As far as I’m concerned, two A.M. is the middle of the night. It isn’t morning until the sun comes up.”
After drinks with Maria they’d managed to find an open boat rental office. The owner had only one craft left, a twelve-foot open dory with an outboard motor. Though not luxurious by any means, it would suffice, Sam decided. Poveglia was only three miles from Venice, inside the sheltering arms of the lagoon, and there was little wind.
“Don’t tell me you bought into Maria’s stories,” Sam said.
“No, but they weren’t exactly cheery.”
“That’s the truth.”
In addition to having served as a dumping ground for plague victims, throughout its thousand-year history Poveglia had been home to monasteries, colonies, a fort and ammunition depot for Napoleon, and most recently in the 1920s, a psychiatric hospital.
In frightening detail Maria had explained that the doctor in charge, after hearing the patients complain about seeing the ghosts of plague victims, began to conduct crude lobotomies and gruesome experiments on the inmates, his own brand of medical exorcism.
Legend had it that the doctor eventually began seeing the same ghosts his patients had reported and went insane. One night he climbed up the bell tower and jumped to his death. The remaining patients returned the doctor’s body to the bell tower and sealed the exits, entombing him forever. Shortly thereafter the hospital and the island were abandoned, but to this day Venetians reported hearing Poveglia’s bell ringing or seeing ghostly lights moving in the windows of the hospital wing.
Poveglia was, Maria told them, the most haunted place in Italy.
“No, I don’t buy the part about the ghosts,” Remi said, “but what went on in that hospital is well documented. Besides, the island’s closed to tourism. We’re breaking and entering.”
“That’s never stopped us before.”
“Just trying to be the voice of reason.”
“Well, I have to admit it’s very creepy, but we’re so close to solving this riddle I want to get it done.”
“Me, too. But promise me something: One gong from that bell tower and we’re gone.”