by Donna Leon
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Then perhaps I can explain it to you. The first choice is that I have you repeat this conversation and your answers to my questions into a tape recorder or that we have a secretary come in and take it down in shorthand. Either way, I would ask you to sign a copy of that statement, ask both of you to sign it, since you are telling me the same thing.” Brunetti paused long enough for that to register. “Or you could, and I suggest this is by far the wiser course, begin to tell me the truth.” Both feigned surprise, Signora Ratti going so far as to add outrage.
“In either case,” Brunetti added calmly, “the least that will happen to you is that you will lose the apartment, although that might take some time to happen. But you will lose it; that is little, but it is certain.” He found it interesting that neither demanded that he explain what he was talking about.
“It is clear that many of these apartments have been rented illegally and that someone associated with the Lega has been collecting rents illegally for years.” When Professore Ratti began to object, Brunetti raised a hand for an instant, then quickly folded his fingers back together. “Were it only a case of fraud, then perhaps you would be better advised to continue to maintain that you know nothing about all of this. But, unfortunately, it is far more than a case of fraud.” He paused here. He’d have it out of them, by God.
“What is it a case of?” Ratti asked, speaking more softly than he had since he entered Brunetti’s office.
“It is a case of murder. Three murders, one of them a member of the police. I tell you this so that you will begin to realize that we are not going to let this go. One of our own has been killed, and we are going to find out who did that. And punish them.” He paused a moment to let that sink in.
“If you persist in maintaining your current story about the apartment, then you will eventually become involved in a prosecution for murder.”
“We know nothing about murder,” Signora Ratti said, voice sharp.
“You do now, Signora. Whoever is in back of this plan to rent the apartments is also responsible for the three murders. By refusing to help us discover who is responsible for renting you your apartment and collecting your rent each month, you are also obstructing a murder investigation. The penalty for that, I need not remind you, is far more severe than for being evasive in a case involving fraud. And I add, but quite at the personal level, that I will do everything in my power to see that it is imposed upon you if you continue to refuse to help us.”
Ratti got to his feet. “I’d like some time to speak to my wife. In private.”
“No,” Brunetti said, raising his voice for the first time.
“I have that right,” Ratti demanded.
“You have the right to speak to your lawyer, Signor Ratti, and I will gladly allow you to do that. But you and your wife will decide that other matter now, in front of me.” He was way beyond his legal rights, and he knew it; his only hope was that the Rattis did not.
They looked at one another for so long that Brunetti lost hope. But then she nodded her burgundy head and they both sat back down in their chairs.
“All right,” Ratti said, “but I want to make it clear that we know nothing about this murder.”
“Murders,” Brunetti said and saw that Ratti was shaken by the correction.
“Three years ago,” Ratti began, “a friend of ours in Milano told us he knew someone he thought could help us find an apartment in Venice. We had been looking for about six months, but it was very difficult to find anything, especially at that distance.” Brunetti wondered if he was going to have to listen to a series of complaints. Ratti, perhaps sensing Brunetti’s impatience, continued, “He gave us a phone number we could call, a number here in Venice. We called and explained what we wanted, and the person on the other end asked us what sort of apartment we had in mind and how much we wanted to pay.” Ratti paused, or did he stop?
“Yes?” Brunetti urged, voice just the same as that priest’s had been when the children had some question or uncertainty about the catechism.
“I told him what I had in mind, and he said he’d call me back in a few days. He did, and said he had three apartments to show us, if we could come to Venice that weekend. When we came, he showed us this apartment and two others.”
“Was he the same man who answered the phone when you called?”
“I don’t know. But it was certainly the same man who called us back.”
“Do you know who the man was? Or is?”
“It’s the man we pay the rent to, but I don’t know his name.”
“And how do you do that?”
“He calls us in the last week of the month and tells us where to meet him. It’s usually a bar, though sometimes, during the summer, it’s outside.”
“Where, here in Venice or in Milano?”
His wife interrupted. “He seems to know where we are. He calls us here if we’re in Venice or Milano if we’re there.”
“And then what do you do?”
Ratti answered this time. “I meet him and I give him the money.”
“How much?”
“Two and a half million lire.”
“A month?”
“Yes, though sometimes I give him a few months in advance.”
“Do you know who this man is?” Brunetti asked.
“No, but I’ve seen him on the street here a few times.”
Brunetti realized there would be time to get a description later and let that pass. “And what about the Lega? How are they involved?”
“When we told this man that we were interested in the apartment, he suggested a price, but we bargained him down to two and a half million.” Ratti said this with ill-disguised self-satisfaction.
“And the Lega?” Brunetti asked.
“He told us that we would receive application forms from the Lega and that we were to fill them out and return them, that we would be able to move into the apartment within two weeks of that.”
Signora Ratti broke in here. “He also told us not to tell anyone about how we had gotten the apartment.”
“Has anyone asked you?”
“Some friends of ours in Milano,” she answered, “but we told them we found it through a rental agency.”
“And the person who gave you the original number?”
Ratti broke in. “We told him the same thing, that we had used an agency.”
“Do you know how he got the number?”
“He told us someone had given it to him at a party.”
“Do you remember the month and year when you made that original call?” Brunetti asked.
“Why?” Ratti asked, immediately suspicious.
“I’d like to have a clearer idea of when this began,” Brunetti lied, thinking that he could have their phone records checked for calls to Venice at that time.
Although he looked and sounded skeptical, Ratti answered, “It was in March, two years ago. Toward the end of the month. We moved in here at the beginning of May”
“I see,” said Brunetti. “And since you’ve been living in the apartment, have you had anything to do with the Lego?”
“No, nothing,” Ratti said.
“What about receipts?” Brunetti asked.
Ratti shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “We get one from the bank every month.”
“For how much?”
“Two hundred twenty thousand.”
“Then why didn’t you want to show it to Sergeant Vianello?”
His wife broke in again and answered for him. “We didn’t want to get involved in anything.”
“Mascari?” Brunetti suddenly asked.
Ratti’s nervousness seemed to increase. “What do you mean?”
“When the director of the bank that sent you the receipts for the rent was killed, you didn’t find it strange?”
“No, why should I?” Ratti said, putting anger into his voice. “I read about how he died. I assumed he was killed by one of his, what do you call
them, ‘tricks’?” Brunetti was fairly certain that everyone, today, knew what they were called, but he didn’t answer the question.
“Has anyone been in touch with you recently about the apartment?”
“No, no one.”
“If you should happen to receive a call or perhaps a visit from the man you pay the rent to, I expect you to call us immediately.”
“Yes, of course, Commissario,” Ratti said, restored to his role as irreproachable citizen.
Suddenly sick of them, their posing, their designer clothes, Brunetti said, “You can go downstairs with Sergeant Vianello. Please give him as detailed a description as you can of the man you pay the rent to.” Then, to Vianello, “If it sounds like anyone we might know, let them take a look at some pictures.”
Vianello nodded and opened the door. The Rattis both stood, but neither made any effort to shake Brunetti’s hand. The professor took his wife’s arm for the short trip to the door, then stood back to allow her to pass through it in front of him. Vianello glanced across at Brunetti, allowed himself the smallest of smiles, and followed them out of the office, closing the door after them.
24
His conversation with Paola that night was short. She asked if there was any news, repeated her suggestion that she come down for a few days; she thought she could leave the children alone at the hotel, but Brunetti told her it was too hot even to think of coming to the city.
He spent the rest of the evening in the company of the Emperor Nero, whom Tacitus described as being “corrupted by every lust, natural and unnatural.” He went to sleep only after reading the description of the burning of Rome, which Tacitus seemed to attribute to Nero’s having gone through a marriage ceremony with a man, during which ceremony the emperor shocked even the members of his dissolute court by “putting on the bridal veil.” Everywhere, transvestites.
The next morning, Brunetti, ignorant of the fact that the story of Burrasca’s arrest appeared in that morning’s Corriere, a story that made no mention of Signora Patta, attended the funeral of Maria Nardi. The Chiesa dei Gesuiti was crowded, filled with her friends and family and with most of the police of the city. Officer Scarpa from Mestre attended, explaining that Sergeant Gallo could not get away from the trial in Milan and would be there for at least another three days. Even Vice-Questore Patta attended, looking somber in a dark blue suit. Although he knew it was a sentimental and no doubt politically incorrect view, Brunetti could not rid himself of the idea that it was worse for a woman to die in the course of police duty than a man. When the mass was finished, he waited on the steps of the church while the coffin was carried out by six uniformed policemen. When Maria Nardi’s husband emerged, weeping brokenly and staggering with grief, Brunetti turned his eyes to the left and looked out across the waters of the laguna toward Murano. He was still standing there when Vianello came up to him and touched him on the arm.
“Commissario?”
He came back. “Yes, Vianello?”
“I’ve got a probable identification from those people.”
“When did that happen? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know until this morning. Yesterday afternoon they looked at a number of pictures, but they said they weren’t sure. I think they were but wanted to talk to their lawyer. In any case, they were back in this morning, at nine, and they identified Pietro Malfatti.”
Brunetti gave a silent whistle. Malfatti had been in and out of their hands for years; he had a record for violent crimes, among them rape and attempted murder, but the accusations seemed always to dissipate before Malfatti came to trial; witnesses changed their minds or said that they had been wrong in their original identification. He had been sent away twice, once for living off the earnings of a prostitute, and once for attempting to extort protection money from the owner of a bar. The bar had burned down during the two years Malfatti was in jail.
“Did they identify him positively?”
“Both of them were pretty sure.”
“Do we have an address for him?”
“The last address we had was an apartment in Mestre, but he hasn’t lived there for more than a year.”
“Friends? Women?”
“We’re checking.”
“What about relatives?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. It ought to be in his file.”
“See who he’s got. If it’s someone close, a mother or a brother, get someone into an apartment near them and watch for him. No,” he said, remembering what little he knew of Malfatti’s history, “get two.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
“The papers from the bank and from the Lega?”
“Both of them are supposed to give us their records today.”
“I want them. I don’t care if you have to go in there and take them. I want all the records that have to do with the payments of money for these apartments, and I want everyone in that bank interviewed to see if Mascari said anything to them about the Lega. At any time. If you have to ask the judge to go with you to get them, then do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When you go to the bank, try to find out whose job it was to oversee the accounts of the Lega.”
“Ravanello?” Vianello asked.
“Probably.”
“We’ll see what we can find out. What about Santomauro, sir?”
“I’m going to speak to him today.”
“Is that ...” Vianello stopped himself before asking if that was wise and instead asked, “is that possible, without an appointment?”
“I think Avvocato Santomauro will be very interested in talking to me, Sergeant.”
And so he was. The avvocato’s offices were in Campo San Luca, on the second floor of a building within twenty meters of three different banks. How fitting that proximity was, Brunetti thought, as Santomauro’s secretary showed him into the lawyer’s office only a few minutes after his arrival.
Santomauro sat at his desk, behind him a large window that looked out on the campo. The window, however, was tightly sealed, and the office cooled to an almost uncomfortable degree, especially in view of what could be seen below: naked shoulders, legs, backs, arms all passed across the campo, yet here it was cool enough for a jacket and tie.
The lawyer looked up when Brunetti was shown in but didn’t bother to smile or stand. He wore a conservative grey suit, dark tie, and gleaming white shirt. His eyes were wide-spaced and blue and looked out on the world with candor. He was pale, as pale as if it were mid-winter: no vacations for those who labor in the vineyards of the law.
“Have a seat, Commissario,” he said. “What is it you want to see me about?” He reached out and moved a photo in a silver frame slightly to the right so as to provide himself with a clear view of Brunetti and Brunetti with a clear view of the photo. In it stood a woman about Santomauro’s age and two young men, both of whom resembled Santomauro.
“Any one of a number of things, Avvocato Santomauro,” Brunetti replied, sitting opposite him, “but I’ll begin with La Lega della Moralità.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask my secretary to give you information about that, Commissario. My involvement is almost entirely ceremonial.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that, Avvocato.”
“The Lega always needs a figurehead, someone to serve as president. But as I’m sure you’ve already ascertained, we members of the board have no say in the day-to-day running of the affairs of the Lega. The real work is done by the bank director who handles the accounts.”
“Then what is your precise function?”
“As I explained,” Santomauro said, giving a minimal smile, “I serve as a figurehead. I have a certain—a certain, shall I say stature?—in the community, and so I was asked to become president, a purely titular post.”
“Who asked you?”
“The authorities at the bank which handles the accounts of the Lega.”
“If the bank director attends to the business of t
he Lega, then what are your duties, Avvocato?”
“I speak for the Lega in those cases when a question is put to, us by the press or when the Lega’s view is sought on some issue.”
“I see. And what else?”
“Twice a year I meet with the bank official charged with the Lega’s account to discuss the financial status of the Lega.”
“And what is that status? If I might ask.”
Santomauro lay both palms on the desk in front of him. “As you know, we are a nonprofit organization, so it is enough to us that we manage, as it were, to keep our head above water. In the financial sense.”
“And what does that mean? In the financial sense, that is.”
Santomauro’s voice grew even calmer, his patience even more audible. “That we manage to collect enough money to allow us to continue to bestow our charitable bequests upon those who have been selected to receive them.”
“And who, if I might ask, decides who will receive them?” “The official at the bank, of course.”
“And the apartments which the Lega has in its care, who is it that decides to whom they will be given?”
“The same person,” Santomauro said, permitting himself a small smile, then adding, “the board routinely approves his suggestions.”
“And do you, as president, have any say in this, any decision-making power?”
“If I were to choose to use it, I suppose I might have. But, as I’ve already told you, Commissario, our positions are entirely honorary.”
“What does that mean, Avvocato?”
Before he answered, Santomauro placed the very tip of his finger on his desk and picked up a small speck of dust. He moved his hand to his side and shook it, removing the speck. “As I said, my position is merely titular. I do not feel that it would be correct, knowing as many people in the city as I do, for me to attempt to select those who might profit in any way from the charity of the Lega. Nor, I am sure, and if I might take the liberty of speaking for them, would my fellow members of the board.”