by Donna Leon
“I see,” Brunetti said, making no attempt to disguise his skepticism.
“You find that hard to believe, Commissario?”
“It would be unwise of me to tell you what I find hard to believe, Avvocato,” Brunetti said and then asked, “And Signor Crespo. Are you handling his estate?”
It had been years since Brunetti had seen a man purse his lips, but that is precisely what Santomauro did before he answered. “I am Signor Crespo’s lawyer, so of course I am handling his estate.”
“Is it a large estate?”
“That is privileged information, Commissario, as you, having taken your degree in law, should know.”
“Ah, yes, and I suppose the nature of whatever dealings you might have had with Signor Crespo is similarly privileged?”
“I see you do remember the law, Commissario,” Santomauro said and smiled.
“Could you tell me if the records of the Lega, the financial records, have been given to the police?”
“You speak of them as though you were no part of the police, Commissario.”
“The records, Signor Santomauro? Where are they?”
“Why, in the hands of your colleagues, Commissario. I had my secretary make copies of them this morning.”
“We want the originals.”
“Of course it’s the originals I’ve given you, Commissario,” Santomauro said, measuring out another small smile. “I took the liberty of making copies for myself, just in case something should get lost while they are in your care.”
“How cautious of you, Avvocato,” Brunetti said, but he didn’t smile. “But I don’t want to take any more of your time. I realize how precious time is to someone who has your stature in the community. I have only one more question. Could you tell me who the bank official is who handles the accounts of the Legal I’d like to speak to him.”
Santomauro’s smile blossomed. “I’m afraid that will be impossible, Commissario. You see, the Lega’s accounts were always handled by the late Leonardo Mascari.”
25
He went back to his office, marveling at the skill with which Santomauro had suggested Mascari’s guilt. It all rested on such fragile premises: that the papers in the bank now looked like Mascari had been in charge of them; that people at the bank would not know or could be induced not to remember if anyone else had ever handled the accounts of the Lega; that nothing would be discovered about the murders of Mascari or Crespo.
At the Questura, he discovered that the papers of both the Banca di Verona and the Lega had been given to the police who went to collect them, and a trio of men from the Guardia di Finanza were even then going over them in search of any indication of who had overseen the accounts into which rents were paid and out of which checks were written for the charity of the Lega.
Brunetti knew that nothing was to be gained by going down and standing over them while they worked, but he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to at least walk past the room in which they had been placed. To prevent this, he went out for lunch, deliberately choosing a restaurant in the Ghetto, even though this meant a long walk there and back in the worst heat of the day. When he got back, after three, his jacket was soaked through, and his shoes felt as though they had been melted to his feet.
Vianello came into his office only minutes after Brunetti had gotten back. Without preamble he said, “I’ve been checking the list of the people who receive checks from the Lega.”
Brunetti recognized his mood. “And what have you found?”
“That Malfatti’s mother has remarried and taken the name of her new husband.”
“And?”
“And she’s receiving checks under that name and under her former name. What’s more, her new husband is also receiving a check, as are two of his cousins, but it looks like each of them is getting them under two separate names.”
“What does that make the total for the Malfatti family?”
“The checks are all about five hundred thousand a month, so it makes it close to three million a month.” Involuntarily, the question sprang from Vianello’s mouth, “Didn’t they ever think they’d be caught?”
Brunetti thought that too obvious to answer and so, instead, asked, “What about the shoes?”
“No luck here. You talk to Gallo?”
“He’s still in Milano, but I’m sure Scarpa would have called me if they found anything. What are those men from Finance doing?”
Vianello shrugged. “They’ve been in there since the morning.”
“Do they know what they’re supposed to be looking for?” Brunetti asked, unable to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“Some sign of who handled it all, I think.”
“Would you go down there and ask them if they’ve found anything? If Ravanellos involved, I want to move on him as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” Vianello said and left the office.
While he waited for Vianello to come back, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, more for something to do with his hands than from any hope that it would make him feel any cooler.
Vianello came in, and the answer was written on his face. “I just spoke to their captain. He said that, so far, from what they can tell it looks like Mascari was in charge.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brunetti snapped.
“It’s what they told me,” Vianello said very slowly, voice level, and then added after a long pause, “sir.” Neither spoke for a moment. “Perhaps if you were to speak to them yourself, you’d get a clearer idea of what it means.”
Brunetti looked away and rolled down his sleeves. “Let’s go downstairs together, Vianello.” It was as close as he could come to an apology, but Vianello seemed to accept it. Given the heat in the office, it was probably all he was going to get.
Downstairs, Brunetti went into the office where three men in the grey uniforms of the Guardia di Finanza were working. The men sat at a long desk covered with files and papers. Two small pocket calculators and a laptop computer stood on the desk, one man in front of each. In concession to the heat, they had removed their woolen jackets, but they still wore their ties.
The man at the computer looked up when Brunetti came in, peered over his glasses for a moment, then looked back down and tapped some more information into the keyboard. He looked at the screen, glanced down at one of the papers beside the keyboard, punched some more keys, then looked at the screen again. He picked up the sheet of paper from the pile to the right of the computer, placed it face down on the left, and started to read more numbers from the next sheet of paper.
“Which of you is in charge?” Brunetti asked.
A small, redheaded man looked up from one of the calculators and said, “I am. Are you Commissario Brunetti?”
“Yes, I am,” Brunetti answered, coming to stand beside him and extending his hand.
“I’m Captain de Luca.” Then less formally, taking Brunetti’s hand, he added, “Beniamino.” He waved his hand over the papers. “You wanted to know who was in charge of all of this at the bank?”
“Yes.”
“It looks, right now, like it was all handled by someone named Mascari. His keycodes have been tapped into all of the transactions, and what look like his initials appear on many of the documents we’ve got here.”
“Could that have been faked?”
“What do you mean, Commissario?”
“Could someone else have changed these documents to make it look like Mascari had handled them?”
De Luca thought about this for a long time, then answered, “I suppose so. If whoever did it had a day or two to work on the files, I suppose he could have done it.” He considered this for a while, as if working out an algebraic formula in his head. “Yes, anyone could have done it, if he knew the keycodes.”
“In a bank, how private are those access codes?”
“I would imagine they aren’t private at all. People are always checking one another’s accounts, and they need to know the codes in order to
get into them. I would say it could be very easy.”
“What about the initials on the receipts?”
“Easier to forge than a signature,” de Luca said.
“Would there be any way to prove that someone else did it?”
Again, de Luca considered the question for a long time before he answered. “With the computer entries, not at all. Maybe the initials could be shown to be false, but most people just scribble them on things like this; often it’s difficult to tell them apart or, for that matter, to recognize your own.”
“Could a case be made that the records had been changed?”
De Luca’s look was as clear as his answer. “Commissario, you might want to make that case, but you wouldn’t want to make it in a courtroom.”
“So Mascari was in charge?”
De Luca hesitated this time. “No, I wouldn’t say that. It looks like it, but it is entirely possible that the records were changed to make it look like he was.”
“What about the rest of it, the process of selection for apartments?”
“Oh, it’s clear that people were chosen to get apartments for reasons other than need and, in the case of those who received money, that poverty didn’t have much to do with a lot of the grants.”
“How do you know that?”
“In the first case, the letters of application are all here, divided into two groups—those who did get apartments and those who were turned down.” De Luca paused for a moment. “No, I’m overstating the case. A number of the apartments, a large number of them, went to people who seemed to have real need, but the letters of application for almost a quarter of the applications come from people who aren’t even Venetian.”
“The ones who were accepted?” Brunetti asked.
“Yes. And your boys haven’t even finished checking on the complete list of tenants.”
Brunetti glanced toward Vianello, who explained, “They’ve gone through about half of the list, and it looks like a lot of them are rented to young people who live alone. And who work nights.”
Brunetti nodded. “Vianello, when you have a complete report on everyone on both lists, let me have it.”
“It’s going to take at least another two days, sir,” Vianello said.
“There’s no longer any need to hurry, I’m afraid.” Brunetti thanked de Luca for his help and went back up to his office.
It was perfect, he reflected, about as perfect as anyone could hope. Ravanello had spent his weekend all to good purpose, and the records now showed that Mascari had been in charge of the accounts of the Lega. What better way to explain those countless millions that had been pilfered from the Lega than to lay them at the feet of Mascari and his transvestites? Who knew what he had gotten up to when he traveled for the bank, what orgies he had not engaged in, what fortunes he had not squandered, this man who was too frugal to make a long-distance call to his wife? Malfatti, Brunetti was sure, was far from Venice and would not soon reappear, and he had no doubt that Malfatti would be recognized as the man who collected the rents and who had arranged that a percentage of the charity checks be given back to him as a condition of their being granted in the first place. And Ravanello? He would reveal himself as the intimate friend who, out of mistaken loyalty, had not betrayed Mascari’s sinful secret, never imagining what fiscal enormities his friend had engaged in to pay for his unnatural lusts. Santomauro? No doubt there would be a first wave of ridicule as he was revealed to have been such a gullible tool of his banker friend, Mascari, but, sooner or later, popular opinion was bound to see him as the selfless citizen whose instinct to trust had been betrayed by the duplicity to which Mascari was driven by his unnatural lust. Perfect, absolutely perfect, and not the slightest fissure into which Brunetti could introduce the truth.
26
That night, the high moral purpose of Tacitus provided Brunetti with no consolation, nor did the violent destinies of Messalina and Agrippina serve as vindications of justice. He read the grim account of their much-merited deaths but could not rid himself of the realization that the evil spawned by these malevolent women endured long beyond their passing. Finally, well after two, he forced himself to stop reading and spent what remained of the night in troubled sleep, assailed by the memory of Mascari, of that just man, dispatched before his time, his death even more sordid than those of Messalina and Agrippina. Here, as well, evil would long endure his passing.
The morning was suffocating, as though a curse had been laid upon the city, condemning it to stagnant air and numbing heat, while the breezes abandoned it to its fate and went elsewhere to play. As he passed through the Rialto Market on his way to work, Brunetti noticed how many of the produce vendors were closed, their usual spots in the ordered ranks of stalls gaping open like missing teeth in a drunkard’s smile. No sense trying to sell vegetables during Ferragosto; residents fled the city, and tourists wanted only panini and acqua minerale.
He arrived early at the Questura, reluctant to walk through the city after nine, when the heat grew worse and the streets even more crowded with tourists. He turned his thoughts from them. Not today.
Nothing satisfied him, not the thought that the illegal dealings of the Lega would now be stopped, and not the hope that de Luca and his men might still find some thread of evidence that would lead them to Santomauro and Ravanello. Nor did he have any hope of tracing either the dress or the shoes Mascari had been wearing; too much time had already passed.
In the midst of this grim reverie, Vianello burst into his office without knocking and shouted, “We’ve found Malfatti!”
“Where?” Brunetti asked, getting up and moving toward him, suddenly filled with energy.
“At his girlfriend’s, Luciana Vespa, over at San Barnaba.”
“How?”
“Her cousin called us. He’s on the list, been getting a check from the Lega for the last year.”
“Did you make a deal?” Brunetti asked, not at all disturbed by the illegality of this.
“No, he didn’t even dare ask. He told us he wanted to help.” Vianello’s snort told how much faith he put in this.
“What did he tell you?” Brunetti asked.
“Malfatti’s been there for three days.”
“Is she in the file?”
Vianello shook his head. “Just the wife. We’ve had someone in the apartment next to hers for two days, but there’s been no sign of him there.” While they spoke they walked down the stairs toward the office where the uniformed branch worked.
“Did you call a launch?” Brunetti asked.
“It’s outside. How many men do you want to take?”
Brunetti had never been directly involved with any of Malfatti’s many arrests, but he had read the reports. “Three. Armed. And with vests.”
Ten minutes later, he and Vianello and the three officers, these last ballooned out and already sweating from the thick bullet-proof vests they wore over their uniforms, climbed aboard the blue and white police launch that stood, motor running, in front of the Questura. The three officers filed down into the cabin, leaving Brunetti and Vianello on deck to try to catch what little breeze was created by their motion. The pilot took them out into the bacino of San Marco, then turned right and headed up toward the entrance to the Grand Canal. Glory swept past on both sides as Brunetti and Vianello stood, heads together, talking against the force of the wind and the roar of the motor. They decided that Brunetti would go to the apartment and try to make contact with Malfatti. Since they knew nothing about the woman, they had no idea what her involvement with Malfatti might be, and so her safety had to be their chief concern.
At that thought, Brunetti began to regret having brought the officers along. If passersby saw four policemen, three of them heavily armed and standing near an apartment, a crowd was sure to form, and that was sure to draw the attention of anyone in the building.
The launch pulled up at the Ca’ Rezzonico vaporetto stop, and the five men filed off, much to the surprise and curiosity of the people wait
ing for the number one boat. Single file, they walked down the narrow calle that led to Campo San Barnaba and then out into the open square. Although the sun had not yet reached its zenith, heat radiated up from the paving stones and seared them from below.
The building they sought was at the far right corner of the campo, its door just in front of one of the two enormous boats that sold fruit and vegetables from the embankment of the canal running alongside the campo. To the right of the door was a restaurant, not yet open for the day, and beyond it a bookstore. “All of you,” Brunetti said, conscious of the stares and comments the police and their machine guns were causing among the people around them, “get into the bookstore. Vianello, you wait outside.”
Awkwardly, seeming too big for it, the men trooped through the door of the store. The owner stuck her head out, saw Vianello and Brunetti, and ducked back into the shop without saying anything.
The name “Vespa” was written on a piece of paper taped to the right of one of the bells. Brunetti ignored it and rang the one above it. After a moment, a woman’s voice came across the intercom. “Si?”
“Posta, Signora. I have a registered letter for you. You have to sign for it.”
When the door clicked open, Brunetti turned back to Vianello. “I’ll see what I can find out about him. Stay down here, and keep them off the street.” The sight of the three old women who now surrounded him and Vianello, shopping carts parked beside them, made him regret even more having brought the other officers with him.
He opened the door and went into the entrance, where he was greeted by the heavy, thudding sound of rock music spilling down toward him from one of the upper floors. If the bells on the outside corresponded to the location of the apartments, Signorina Vespa lived one floor above, and the woman who let him in on the floor above her. Brunetti walked quickly up the stairs and passed the door to the Vespa apartment, from which the music blasted.
At the top of the next flight of steps, a young woman with a baby balanced on her hip stood at the door of an apartment. When she saw him, she stepped back and reached for the door. “One moment, Signora,” Brunetti said, stopping where he was on the steps so as not to frighten her. “I’m from the police.”