by Donna Leon
jacket, head lowered as if he had to take particular care of where he
placed his feet. When he was a few metres from Brunetti, he stopped
and reached first his left hand, then his right, into the pockets of
his trousers. On the second attempt, he pulled out a set of keys but
looked at them as if he didn't quite understand what they were or what
he was meant to do with them.
He raised his head then and saw Brunetti. There was no change in his
expression, but Brunetti was sure Moro recognized him.
Brunetti walked towards the other man, speaking before he thought,
surprised by the force of his own anger. "Are you going to let them
kill your wife and daughter, too?"
Moro took a step backwards, and the keys fell from his hand. He raised
one arm and shielded his face with it, as though Brunetti's words were
acid and he had to protect his eyes. But then, with a speed that
astonished Brunetti, Moro moved up to him and grabbed at his collar
with both hands. He misjudged the distance, and the nails of his
forefingers dug into the skin at the back of Brunetti's neck.
He pulled Brunetti towards him, yanking so savagely that he pulled him
a half-step forwards. Brunetti flung his hands out to the side in an
attempt to balance himself, but it was the strength of Moro's hands
that kept him from falling.
The doctor pulled him closer, shaking him the way a dog shakes a rat.
"Stay out of this," Moro hissed into his face,
sprinkling him with spittle. They didn't do it. What do you know?"
Brunetti, allowing Moro to support him, recovered his balance, and when
the doctor shoved him to arm's length, still holding tight, Brunetti
stepped back and flung his hands up, breaking the doctor's grip and
freeing himself. Instinctively he put his hands to his neck: his
fingers felt torn skin and the beginnings of pain.
He leaned forward until his face was dangerously close to the doctor's.
They'll find them. They found your mother. Do you want them to kill
them all?"
Again the doctor raised his hand, warding off Brunetti's words.
Robot-like, he raised the other hand, now a blind man, a trapped man,
seeking a place of safety. He turned away and staggered, stiff-kneed,
to the door of his house. Leaning brokenly against the wall, Moro
began to pat his pockets for his keys, which lay on the ground. He dug
his hands into his pockets, turning them out and scattering coins and
small pieces of paper around him. When no pockets remained unturned,
Moro lowered his head to his chest and began to sob.
Brunetti bent and picked up the keys. He walked over to the doctor and
took his right hand, which was hanging limply at his side. He turned
the doctor's palm up and placed the keys in it, then closed his fingers
over them.
Slowly, like a person long victim to arthritis, Moro pushed himself
away from the wall and put one key, then another, then another into the
lock until he found the right one. The lock turned noisily four times.
Moro pushed the door open and disappeared inside. Not bothering to
wait to see if lights went on inside, Brunetti turned away and started
to walk home.
Brunetti woke groggily the next morning to the dull sound of rain
against the bedroom windows and to Paola's absence from his side. She
was nowhere in the apartment, nor was there any sign of the children. A
glance at the clock showed him why: everyone had long since gone off to
the business of their day. When he went into the kitchen, he was
grateful to see that Paola had filled the Moka and left it on the
stove. He stared out the window while he waited for the coffee, and
when it was ready took it back into the living room. He stood looking
through the rain at the bell tower of San Polo, and sipped at his
coffee. When it was finished, he went back into the kitchen and made
more. This time, he came back and sat on the sofa, propped his
slippered feet on the table, and stared out the glass doors that led to
the terrace, not really aware of the rooftops beyond.
He tried to think of who 'they' could be. Moro had been too stunned by
Brunetti's attack to prepare a defence and so had made no attempt to
deny or pretend not to understand Brunetti's reference to this nameless
'they'. The first
possibility that occurred to Brunetti, as it would to anyone who knew
even the least bit about Moro's career, was someone at the health
services, the target of the Moro Report's accusation of
institutionalized corruption and greed. Closing his eyes, Brunetti
rested his head against the back of the sofa and tried to remember what
had become of the men who had been in charge of the provincial health
services at the time of the Moro Report.
One had disappeared into private law practice, another had retired, and
a third currently held a minor portfolio in the new government: in
charge of transportation safety or relief efforts for natural
disasters; Brunetti couldn't recall which. He did remember that, even
in the face of the scandal and indignation at the gross pilfering from
the public purse revealed by the report, the government's response had
proceeded with the stateliness of the Dead March from Saul. Years had
passed: the hospitals remained unbuilt, the official statistics
remained unchanged, and the men responsible for the deceit had moved on
quite undisturbed.
Brunetti realized that, in Italy, scandal had the same shelf life as
fresh fish: by the third day, both were worthless; one because it had
begun to stink, the other because it no longer did. Any punishment or
revenge that 'they' might have inflicted upon the author of the report
would have been exacted years ago: punishment that was delayed six
years would not dissuade other honest officials from calling attention
to the irregularities of government.
That possibility dismissed, Brunetti turned his thoughts to Moro's
medical career and tried to see the attacks on his family as the work
of a vengeful patient, only to dismiss that immediately. Brunetti
didn't believe that the purpose of what had happened to Moro was
punishment, otherwise he would have been attacked personally: it was
threat. The origin of the attacks against his family must lie in what
Moro was doing or had learned at the time his wife was shot. The
attacks, then, could make sense as a repeated and violent attempt to
prevent the publication of a second Moro Report. What struck Brunetti
as strange, when he reconsidered Moro's reaction the night before, was
not that the doctor had made no attempt to deny that 'they' existed so
much as his insistence that 'they' were not responsible for the
attacks.
Brunetti took a sip of his coffee but found it was cold; and it was
only then that he heard the phone ringing. He set the cup down and
went into the hall to answer it.
"Brunetti/ he said.
"It's me Paola said. "Are you still in bed?"
"No, I've been up a long time." I've called you three times in the
last half-hour. Where were you, in the shower?"
> "Yes/ Brunetti lied.
"Are you lying?"
"Yes."
"What have you been doing?" Paola asked with real concern.
"Sitting and looking out the window."
"Well, it's good to know your day has started out as a productive one.
Sitting and looking or sitting and looking and thinking?"
"And thinking."
"What about."
"Moro."
"And?"
"And I think I see something I didn't see before."
"Do you want to tell me?" she asked, but he could hear the haste in
her voice.
"No. I need to think about it a little more."
Tonight, then?"
"Yes."
She paused a moment and then said, using a voice straight
out of Brazilian soap opera, "We've got unfinished business from last
night, big boy."
With a jolt, his body remembered that unfinished business, but before
he could speak, she laughed and hung up.
He left the apartment half an hour later, wearing a pair of
rubber-soled brogues and sheltered under a dark umbrella. His pace was
slowed by the umbrella, which caused him to duck and bob his way
between the other people on the street. The rain appeared to have
lessened, not eliminated, the streams of tourists. How he wished there
were some other way he could get to work, some means to avoid being
trapped in the narrow zigs and zags of Ruga Rialto. He cut right just
after Sant' Aponal and walked down to the Canal Grande. As he emerged
from the underpass, a traghetto pulled up to the Riva. After the
passengers had got off, he stepped aboard, handing the gondoliere one
of the Euro coins he still found unfamiliar, hoping it would be
sufficient. The young man handed him back a few coins, and Brunetti
moved to the rear of the gondola, allowing his knees to turn to rubber
and thus help maintain his balance as the boat bobbed around on the
water.
When there were thirteen people, one of them with a sodden German
Shepherd, standing in the gondola, all trying to huddle under the
umbrellas spread above their heads in an almost unbroken shield, the
gondolieri shoved off and took them quickly to the other side. Even in
this rain, Brunetti could see people standing without umbrellas at the
top of the bridge, their backs to him, while other people took their
photos.
The gondola slid up to the wooden steps, and everyone filed off.
Brunetti waited while the gondoliere at the front handed a woman's
shopping cart up to her. One of its wheels caught on the side of the
steps and it tilted back toward the gondoliere, who caught it by the
handle and handed it up. Suddenly the dog jumped back into the boat
and picked up
something that once had been a tennis ball. With it firmly between his
jaws, he leaped back on to the dock and ran after his master.
It occurred to Brunetti that he had just witnessed a series of crimes.
The number of people in the boat had exceeded the legal limit. There
was probably a law stating that umbrellas had to be furled while they
crossed the canal, but he wasn't sure and so let that one go. The dog
had worn no muzzle and wasn't on a leash. Two people speaking German
had been given change only when they asked for it.
On the way up to his office, Brunetti stopped in the officers' room and
asked Pucetti to come upstairs. When they were both seated, Brunetti
asked, "What else have you learned?" Obviously surprised by the
question, Pucetti said, "You mean about the school, sir?"
"Of course."
"You're still interested?"
"Yes. Why wouldn't I be?"
"But I thought the investigation was finished."
"Who told you that?" Brunetti asked, though he had a good f idea.
"Lieutenant Scarpa, sir."
"When?"
Pucetti glanced aside, trying to remember. "Yesterday, sir. He came
into the office and told me that the Moro case was no longer active and
that I had been assigned to Tronchetto."
Tronchetto?" Brunetti asked, failing to hide his astonishment that a
police officer should be sent to patrol a parking lot. "What for?"
"We've had reports about those guys who stand at the entrance and offer
tourists boat rides into the city."
"Reports from whom?" Brunetti asked.
There was a complaint from someone at the American Embassy in Rome. He
said he paid two hundred Euros for a ride to San Marco."
"What was he doing at Tronchetto?"
"Trying to park, sir. And that's when one of those guys with the white
hats and fake uniforms told him where to park and offered to show him a
taxi that would take him into the city, right to his hotel."
"And he paid?"
Pucetti shrugged and said, "You know what Americans are like, sir. He
didn't understand what was going on. So yes, he paid, but when he told
the people at the hotel, they said he'd been cheated. Turns out he's
something important at the Embassy, so he called Rome, and then they
called us and complained. And that's why we've been going out there,
to keep it from happening again."
"How long have you been doing this?"
The went out yesterday, sir, and I'm due there in an hour," Pucetti
said; then, in response to Brunetti's expression, he added, "It was an
order."
Brunetti decided to make no observation on the young officer's
docility. Instead he said, The investigation of the Moro boy's death
is still open, so you can forget about Tronchetto. I want you to go
back and talk to one of the boys, named Ruffo. I think you spoke to
him already." Brunetti had seen the boy's name in Pucetti's written
report and recalled the young officer's comment that the boy had seemed
unduly nervous during the interview. Pucetti nodded at the name and
Brunetti added, "Not at the school, if that's possible. And not while
you're in uniform."
"Yes, sir. That is, no, sir," Pucetti said, then quickly asked, "And
the lieutenant?"
Till deal with him Brunetti answered.
Pucetti instantly got to his feet and said, Till go over there as soon
as I change, sir."
That left Brunetti with Lieutenant Scarpa. He toyed with the idea of
summoning the lieutenant to his office but, thinking it better to
appear before him unannounced, went
down two flights of stairs to the office Scarpa had insisted he be
given. The room had for years functioned as a storeroom, a place where
officers could leave umbrellas and boots and coats to be used in the
event of a change in the weather or the sudden arrival of ac qua alia.
Some years ago, a sofa had appeared as if by magic, and since then
officers on the night shift had been known to steal an hour's sleep.
Legend had it that a female commissa rio had been introduced to the
pleasures of adultery on that very sofa. Three years ago, however,
Vice-Questore Patta had ordered the boots, umbrellas and coats removed;
the next day the sofa disappeared, replaced by a desk made of a plate
of mirrored glass supported by thick metal legs. No one lower than
commissa rio had a private office at the Questu
ra, but Vice Questore
Patta had installed his assistant behind that glass desk. There had
been no official discussion of his rank, though there had certainly
been more than ample comment.
Brunetti knocked at the door and entered in response to Scarpa's
shouted "Avantil' There ensued a precarious moment during which
Brunetti observed Scarpa deal with the arrival of one of his superiors.
Instinct asserted itself, and Scarpa braced his hands on the edge of
his desk as if to push himself back and get to his feet. But then
Brunetti saw him react, not only to the realization of just which
superior it was, but also to the territorial imperative, and the
lieutenant transformed the motion into one that did no more than propel
himself higher in his chair. "Good morning, Commissario," he said.
"May I help you?"
Ignoring what Scarpa tried to make a gracious wave towards the chair in
front of his desk, Brunetti remained standing near the door and said,
"I'm putting Pucetti on a special assignment."
Scarpa's face moved in something that was perhaps meant to be a smile.
"Pucetti is already on special assignment, Commissario."
Tronchetto, you mean?"
"Yes. What's going on there is very harmful to the image of the
city."
Telling his better self to ignore the dissonance between the sentiments
and the Palermitano accent in which they were voiced, Brunetti
answered, "I'm not sure I share your concern for the image of the city,