Indecent Secrets : The Infamous Murri Murder Affair

by Christina Vella

• ISBN13: 9780743250467
• ISBN10: 074325046X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-12-27
• Publisher: Free Press

Summary

On a hot summer day in Italy in 1902, the brutally stabbed body of Count Francesco Bonmartini was discovered, by means of its decomposing stench, inside his locked apartment. He was a typical Italian provincial aristocrat in all but one way: he had mar

Table of Contents

Dramatis Personae	xi
A Note	xiii
The Murder	1	(8)
The Marriage	9	(38)
The Wife	47	(38)
The Brother	85	(41)
The Lover	126	(28)
The Third Accomplice	154	(13)
The Latest News	167	(14)
The Trial Begins	181	(36)
The Mystery Witness	217	(29)
The Summations	246	(32)
The Closing	278	(13)
Tutti	291	(36)
Coda	327	(18)
Notes	345	(38)
Pronunciation Guide	383	(2)
Acknowledgments	385	(2)
Index	387

Excerpts

Chapter One: The Murder Dressed in his good suit, his vest neatly buttoned over his gray tie, and his suitcase full of soap, Count Francesco Bonmartini stank uncontrollably. Years later, neighbors could still recall the odor that permeated all the apartments at 39 Via Mazzini and reached out to the street, where the driver of the police carriage finally had to urge his horse toward the gentler air of the next block. The smell had begun on August 30, and was so unbearable by September 2 that the manager of the building called the police and made arrangements to open the Bonmartini apartment that appeared to be the source. Several officers of Bologna's public security arrived with a picklock and hammer and broke the fastening with a practiced blow. When the door swung open, the invaders were thrown back into the hall by the stench of Bonmartini. He was lying just inside the entrance. Faustino Cenacci, the manager, controlled his nausea, braced himself against the odor, and went in behind the police, following the black creek that led from the door to the body. He made for the window and opened it, gulping the outside air before he turned around to look at the rotting man. Bonmartini was lying on his side, his hand on his chest as if to touch the gaping crescent where his larynx had been and which now held a deep socket of clotted blood. There were thirteen cuts on his face, hands, arms, and chest, including one terrible hole between the second and third buttons of his vest where a ferocious stab had broken his sternum, pierced his heart, and produced the hemorrhage that covered the room with a carpet of dark crust. His jacket was open; his wallet, empty of money, lay nearby. Among the folded papers in the wallet was a note signed with an initial: Dear Count, Thursday the 27th is fine for me, also the time. However, I wonder if we couldn't meet at the door on the Via Pusterla side, where we won't be seen by the tenants in the front? Meanwhile, I'm sending you many kisses and fondly remainYour B. Bonmartini had just arrived home from Venice when he was attacked, still holding his keys, umbrella, overcoat, and yellow suitcase. A knife was plunged into his chest as he crossed the threshold. He must have tried to defend himself even while hemorrhaging on the floor -- both his hands were cut from grabbing the weapon -- but his desperate efforts were futile. According to the medical examiners, the lethal blow was the first one, "cutting the sternum in two," they said with amazement, "even though it is one of the densest bones in the body." To finish him off, the assassin cut his throat twice, with two sweeping slices that severed Bonmartini's esophagus and a nerve bundle near his shoulder. Now the yellow nerves had spilled onto his jacket lapel. Cenacci could detect a few strands on the railroad schedule that was folded under Bonmartini's arm. The big body had long been spoiling. Cenacci forced himself to look at the vermin swarming over Bonmartini and at the movement that had gathered in a tight party at the count's nostrils and eyes. Where do maggots come from? he remembered thinking. Are they born spontaneously as the body decays? The apartment was scarcely less horrible and fascinating than the body. A trail, black and coagulated, stretched from the body to the bathroom, where there was a full basin of blood and red-soaked towels. Two glasses and an empty champagne bottle stood on the dining room table like props left behind onstage from some previous affable play. Bonmartini's wife and two children were in Venice taking the baths. In the children's bedroom were part of a cake and two sandwiches, the remains of a simple meal. There was an imprint of a body on one of the beds and a light, dirty footprint on the other, as if someone had stepped on the coverlet. Between the two little beds, cigar ashes had spilled to the floor. The pol