by Donna Leon
“Are you suggesting that a client might have done this?” Lotto asked, voice rich with incredulity; clearly, this policeman could never hope to understand the sort of clients a man like Trevisan dealt with.
“I know how unlikely that is,” Brunetti said and smiled, he hoped, nervously. “But it is possible that Signor Trevisan, in his capacity as a lawyer, might have come into possession of information that would be dangerous for him to have.”
“About one of his clients? Are you suggesting this, Commissario?” The shock Lotto pumped into his voice was an indication of how certain he was of his ability to dominate this policeman.
“Yes.”
“Impossible.”
Brunetti gave another small smile. “I realize it is hard to believe, but still we need to see, if only to help us exclude this possibility, a list of Signor Trevisan’s clients, and I thought that you, as his business manager, might be able to provide us with one.”
“And are you going to drag them into this?” Lotto asked, making sure that Brunetti heard his tone of precipitant indignation.
“I assure you that we will do everything in our power to see that they never realize we are in possession of their names.”
“And if you were not to be given these names?”
“We would be forced to ask for a court order.”
Lotto finished his drink and set the empty glass on the table to his left. “I suppose I could have one prepared for you.” His reluctance was audible. He was, after all, dealing with the police. “But I want you to bear in mind that these are not the sort of people who are usually subject to a police investigation.”
Under ordinary circumstances, Brunetti would have remarked that, for the last few years, the police had been investigating little except “people like these,” but he chose to keep his own counsel and, instead, answered, “I appreciate this, Signor Lotto.”
The accountant cleared his throat. “Is that all?”
“Yes,” Brunetti said, swirling the remaining liquid around in his glass, watching it as it slid up the sides and then back down again. “There was one other thing, but it hardly bears mention.” The viscous liquid slid from side to side in Brunetti’s glass.
“Yes?” Lotto asked, not really interested now that the main purpose of this policeman’s visit was disposed of.
“Rino Favero,” Brunetti said, letting the name drop into the room as lightly as a butterfly leaps, plashless, into streams of air.
“What?” Lotto said with astonishment too strong to be contained. Content, Brunetti blinked in his most bovine manner and looked again at the liquid in his glass. Lotto changed his question to a neutral, “Who?”
“Favero. Rino. He was an accountant. In Padua, I think. I wondered if you knew him, Signor Lotto.”
“I might have heard the name. Why do you ask?”
“He died recently. By his own hand.” That seemed, to Brunetti, like the sort of euphemism a man in his social station would be expected to use in reference to the suicide of someone in Favero’s. He paused, waiting to see how strong Lotto’s curiosity would be.
“Why do you ask?”
“I thought that, if you knew him, it would be a difficult moment for you, losing two friends so closely together.”
“No, I didn’t know him. Not personally, at least.”
Brunetti shook his head. “A sad thing.”
“Yes,” Lotto agreed dismissively and got to his feet. “Will there be anything else, Commissario?”
Brunetti stood, looked around awkwardly for somewhere to put his unfinished drink and allowed Lotto to take it from him and place it beside the other glass on the table. “No. Just that list of clients.”
“Tomorrow. Or the day after,” Lotto said, starting for the door.
Brunetti suspected that it would be the latter, but he didn’t allow that to stop him from extending his hand and his effusive thanks to the accountant for his time and cooperation.
Lotto saw Brunetti to the door of the office, shook his hand again, and then closed the door behind him. In the corridor, Brunetti paused for a moment and studied the discreet bronze plaque that stood to the right of the door across the hall: C. TREVISAN, AVVOCATO. Brunetti had no doubt that the same atmosphere of efficient industry would prevail behind that door, as well, though he was now also convinced that the two offices were linked by far more than their physical location or decor, just as he was now certain that they were both somehow linked to Rino Favero.
15
The following morning, Brunetti found on his desk, faxed to him by Capitano della Corte of the Padua police, a copy of the file on Rino Favero, whose death was still being reported, at least to the press and public, as a suicide. It told him little more about Favero’s death than della Corte had told him on the phone; what Brunetti found interesting was what it revealed about Favero’s apparent position in the society and world of financial affairs in Padua, a sleepy, rich town about half an hour to the west of Venice.
Favero specialized in corporate work, was the head of an office of seven accountants that enjoyed the highest reputation, not only in Padua but in the entire province. His clients included many of the major businessmen and industrialists of this factory-dense province as well as the chairmen of three different departments of the university, one of the best in Italy. Brunetti recognized the names of many of the companies whose finances Favero examined as well as the names of many of his private clients. There was no discernible pattern: chemicals, leather goods, travel and employment agencies, the department of political science. Brunetti could see no way to connect them.
Nervous and eager for action, or even a change of location, he thought of going out to Padua to speak to della Corte, but after a moment’s reflection decided to call him instead. That thought brought to mind della Corte’s admonition that he not speak to anyone else about Favero, a warning that suggested there was more to be known about Favero—perhaps about the Padua police, as well—than della Corte had at first been willing to reveal.
“Della Corte,” the captain answered on the first ring.
“Good morning, Capitano, it’s Brunetti. In Venice.”
“Good morning, Commissario.”
“I called to ask if anything’s new there,” Brunetti asked.
“Yes.”
“About Favero?”
“Yes,” della Corte answered briefly. He then added, “It seems that you and I have some friends in common, Dottore.”
“We do?” Brunetti asked, surprised by the remark.
“After speaking to you yesterday, I called around to some people I know.”
Brunetti said nothing.
“I mentioned your name,” della Corte said, “in passing.”
Brunetti doubted that. “What people?” he asked.
“Riccardo Fosco, for one. In Milan.”
“Ah, and how is he?” Brunetti asked, though his real curiosity concerned the reason della Corte would have called an investigative reporter to ask about Brunetti, for he was sure the call to Fosco had not been made in passing.
“He said a number of things about you,” della Corte began. “All good.”
As little as two years ago, if Brunetti had learned that a policeman felt it necessary to call a reporter to learn if another policeman could be trusted, he would have been shocked, but now all he felt was grinding despair that they were reduced to this. “How is Riccardo?” he asked blandly.
“Fine, fine. He asked to be remembered to you.”
“Did he get married?”
“Yes, last year.”
“Are you part of the hunt?” Brunetti asked, referring to Foscos friends on the police force who, years after the shooting, still hoped to find the persons responsible for the attack that had partially crippled him.
“Yes, but we never hear anything. You?” della Corte asked, pleasing Brunetti by assuming that he, too, would still be looking for some trace, even though the trail was more than five years old.
“Not a
thing. Did you call Riccardo for anything else?”
“I wanted to know if he could tell me anything about Favero, something we might be interested in knowing but might not be able to find out.”
“And did he?” Brunetti asked.
“No, nothing.”
Following a sudden hunch, Brunetti asked, “Did you call him from your office?”
The noise della Corte made might have been a laugh. “No.” Brunetti said nothing, and there ensued a long silence, at the end of which della Corte said, “Do you have a direct line to your office?”
Brunetti gave him the number.
“I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
While he waited for della Corte to call, Brunetti toyed with the idea of calling Fosco to find out about the other policeman, but he didn’t want to tie up his line, and he assumed that della Cone’s having mentioned the journalist was sufficient recommendation.
A quarter of an hour later, della Corte called. As he listened, Brunetti could hear the sound of traffic, horns, and motors roaring over della Corte’s voice.
“I’m assuming your line is safe,” della Corte said by way of explanation that his own was not. Brunetti resisted the impulse to ask what the line was safe from.
“What’s wrong there?” Brunetti asked.
“We’ve changed the cause of death. It’s now suicide. Officially.”
“What do you mean?”
“The autopsy report now reads two milligrams.”
“Now?” Brunetti asked.
“Now,” della Corte repeated.
“So Favero would have been able to drive?” Brunetti asked.
“Yes, and pull his car into the garage and close the door and, in short, commit suicide.” Della Corte’s voice was tight with anger. “I can’t find a judge who will issue an order to proceed with a murder investigation or to exhume the body for a second autopsy.”
“How did you get the original report you called me about?”
“I spoke to the doctor who did the autopsy; he’s one of the assistants at the hospital.”
“And?” Brunetti asked.
“When the official lab report came back—he had done a blood exam immediately after the autopsy, but he sent the samples up to the lab to have them confirmed—it said that the level of barbiturate was much lower than what he had found.”
“Did he check his notes? What about the samples?”
“Both are gone.”
“Gone?”
Della Corte didn’t bother to answer.
“Where were they?”
“In the pathology lab.”
“What usually happens to them?”
“After the official autopsy report is issued, they’re kept for a year and then destroyed.”
“And this time?”
“When the official report came down, he went to check his notes, to see if he’d been wrong. And then he called me.” Della Corte paused for a moment and then continued. “That was two days ago. Since then he’s called to tell me his original results must have been mistaken.”
“Someone got to him?”
“Of course,” della Corte answered sharply.
“Have you said anything?”
“No. I didn’t like what I heard when he told me about the notes the second time I talked to him. So I agreed with him that these things happen and pretended to be angry with him that he had made the mistake, warned him to be more careful the next time he did an autopsy.”
“Did he believe you?”
Della Corte’s shrug came right down the line. “Who knows?”
“And so?” Brunetti asked.
“So I called Fosco to find out about you.” Brunetti heard strange noises on the line and immediately wondered if his own phone was tapped, but then the noises clarified themselves into the clinks and beeps that said della Corte was feeding more coins into the phone.
“Commissario,” della Corte said, “I don’t have much more change. Can we meet to talk about this?”
“Of course. Unofficially?”
“Absolutely.”
“Where?” Brunetti asked.
“Split the distance?” della Corte suggested. “Mestre?”
“Pinetta’s?”
“Tonight at ten?”
“How will I know you?” Brunetti asked, hoping della Corte wouldn’t be a cop who looked like a cop.
“I’m bald. How will I know you?”
“I look like a cop.”
16
Brunetti walked down the steps of the Mestre train station at ten minutes to ten that night and turned to his left, having located Via Fagare on the map in the front of the Venice phone book. The usual cluster of cars was parked illegally in front of the station, and light traffic flowed by in both directions. He crossed the road and started up to the left. At the second street, he turned right, walking toward the center of the city. Both sides of the street were lined with the metal shutters of small shops, pulled down now like portcullises in the face of the possible invasions of the night.
Occasional puffs of wind swirled papers and leaves into lazy circles at his feet; the unaccustomed reverberation of traffic disturbed him, as it always did when he was out of Venice and exposed to it. Everyone complained about Venice’s climate, humid and unforgiving, but to Brunetti the numbing sound of traffic was far worse, and when to that was added the terrible smell of exhaust, he marveled that people could live with cars and accept them as part of the ordinary business of life. And yet each year, more and more Venetians left the city and moved here, to this, forced out by the general decline of business and the sky-rocketing rents. He could understand that it happened, that economic motives could drive people from their city. But to exchange it for this? Surely, a sordid boon.
After another few minutes, a neon sign came into view at the end of the next block. The letters, running vertically from the top of the building to a distance about a man’s height above the pavement, spelled out “B___in__ta.” Keeping his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, he turned his shoulders sideways and slipped into the bar without having to open the door any wider.
The owner of the bar, apparently, had seen too many American films, for it tried to resemble the sort of place where Victor Mature had thrown his weight around. The wall behind the bar was mirrored, though so much dust and smoke had accumulated on it that no image could any longer be reflected with accuracy. Instead of the many rows of bottles so familiar in Italian bars, here there was only one row, all bourbon and scotch. Instead of the straight counter and espresso machine, this bar curved in a horseshoe, at the center of which stood a bartender with a once-white apron tied tightly around his waist.
Tables stood on both sides of the bar. Those on the left held trios or quartets of cardplaying men; those on the right held mixed duets who were clearly engaged in other games of chance. All of the walls held blown-up photos of American film stars, many of whom seemed to be taking a dim view of what circumstance had doomed them to observe.
Four men and two women stood at the bar. The first man, short and stocky, held both hands protectively around his drink and stared down into it. The second, taller and slighter, stood with his back to the bar, turning his head slowly from side to side as he studied first the cardplayers, then the other bidders. The third was bald, obviously della Corte. The last man, thin to the point of emaciation, stood with one of the women on either side of him, turning his head nervously back and forth between them as they spoke to him in turn. He glanced up at Brunetti when he came in, and the women, seeing him look toward the door, turned to study Brunetti. The look in the eyes of the Three Fates as they snipped the thread of a man’s life could be no bleaker.
Brunetti went up to della Corte, a thin man with a heavily lined face and a thick mustache, and slapped him on the shoulder. Speaking in thick Veneziano and far more loudly than was necessary, he said, “Ciao, Bepe, come stai? Sorry I’m late, but my bitch of a wife …” He let his voice trail off and waved his hand in the air in
an angry gesture directed at all bitches, all wives. He turned to the bartender and said, voice even louder, “Amico mio, give me a whiskey,” then, turning to della Corte, he asked “What are you drinking, Bepe? Have another one.” He was careful, when he turned toward the bartender, to turn his whole body, not just his head, and to be sure to turn it too far. To steady himself, he put one hand on the bar and muttered, “Bitch,” again.
When the whiskey came, he picked up the tall glass and tossed the drink down in one gulp, slammed the glass loudly down on the bar, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A second drink appeared in front of him, but before he could pick it up, he saw della Corte’s hand reach out and take it.
“Cin cin, Guido,” della Corte said, lifting the glass and tilting it toward Brunetti in a gesture filled with old friendship. “I’m glad you got away from her.” He sipped at the drink, sipped again. “Are you going to come hunting with us this weekend?”
He and della Corte hadn’t prepared a script for this meeting, but Brunetti assumed that one topic was as good as another for two middle-aged drunks at a cheap bar in Mestre. He answered that he wanted to go, but his bitch of a wife wanted him to stay home that weekend because it was their anniversary and she expected him to take her out to dinner. Why did they have a stove in the house if she wasn’t going to use it to cook his dinner? After a few minutes of this, one of the couples got up from their table and left the bar. Della Corte, ordering two more drinks, pulled Brunetti by the sleeve over toward the empty table and helped him sit down in one of the chairs. After the drinks came, Brunetti propped his chin up on one palm and asked in a low voice, “Have you been here long?”
“About a half hour,” della Corte answered, his voice no longer thickened either by alcohol or the heavy Veneto accent he had used when speaking at the bar.
“And?” Brunetti asked.
“The man at the bar, the one with the women,” della Corte said and paused to sip at his drink, “every so often men come into the bar and talk to him. Twice, one of the women with him has gone to sit at the bar and have a drink with the man. Once, one of them left with the man, then came back alone about twenty minutes later.”