Friends in High Places - [Commissario Brunetti 09]

by Donna Leon

  He pulled the cloth back over Rossi’s face, distracted by the desire to know how much of what lay there was Rossi; and if Rossi was no longer there, why what was left deserved so much respect. ‘Thank you,’ he said to the attendant and left the room. His response to the greater warmth of the courtyard was completely animal: he could almost feel the hair on the back of his neck smooth itself down. He thought about going to Orthopaedia to see what sort of justification they might engage in, but the sight of Rossi’s battered face lingered, and he wanted nothing so much as to get out of the confines of the hospital. He gave in to this desire and left. He paused again at the desk, this time showing his warrant card, and asked for Rossi’s address.

  The porter found it quickly and added the phone number. It was a low number in Castello, and when Brunetti asked the porter if he knew where it was, he said he thought it must be down by Santa Giustina, near the shop that used to be the Doll Hospital.

  ‘Has anyone been here to ask for him?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘No one while I’ve been here, Commissario. But his family will have been called by the hospital, so they’ll know where to go.’

  Brunetti looked at his watch. It was almost one, but he doubted that the usual summons to lunch would be heeded by Franco Rossi’s family, if he had one, that day. He knew that the dead man worked in the Ufficio Catasto and had died after a fall. Beyond that, he knew only what little he had inferred from their one brief meeting and even briefer phone conversation. Rossi was dutiful, timid, almost a cliché of the punctilious bureaucrat. And, like Lot’s wife, he had turned solid when Brunetti suggested he step out on to the terrace.

  He started down Barbaria delle Tolle, heading in the direction of San Francesco della Vigna. On his right, the fruit vendor, the one with the wig, was just closing, draping a green cloth over the open boxes of fruit and vegetables in a gesture Brunetti found disturbingly reminiscent of the way he had pulled the cloth over Rossi’s face. Around him, things went on as normal: people hurried home to lunch and life went on.

  The address was easy to find, on the right side of the campo, two doors beyond what had now become yet another real estate agency, rossi, franco , was engraved on a narrow brass plaque next to the doorbell for the second floor. He pressed the bell, waited, then pressed it again, but there was no answer. He pressed the one above but got the same result, and so he tried the one below it.

  After a moment, a man’s voice answered through the speakerphone, ‘Yes, who is it?’

  ‘Police.’

  There was the usual pause, then the voice said, ‘All right.’

  Brunetti waited for the click that would open the large outer door to the building, but instead he heard the sound of footsteps, and then the door was pulled open from within. A short man stood in front of him, his size not immediately apparent because he stood at the top of the high step the residents no doubt hoped would raise their front hall above the level of acqua alta. The man still held his napkin in his right hand and looked down at Brunetti with the initial suspicion he was long accustomed to encountering. The man wore thick glasses, and Brunetti noticed a red stain, probably tomato sauce, to the left of his tie.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked without smiling.

  ‘I’ve come about Signor Rossi,’ Brunetti said.

  At Rossi’s name, the man’s expression softened and he leaned down to open the door more fully. ‘Excuse me. I should have asked you to come in. Please, please.’ He moved aside and made room for Brunetti on the small landing then extended his hand as if to take Brunetti’s. When he noticed that he still held his napkin, he quickly hid it behind his back. He leaned down and pushed the door closed with his other hand then turned back to Brunetti.

  ‘Please, come with me,’ he said, turning back toward a door that stood open halfway down the corridor, just opposite the stairs that led to the upper floors of the building.

  Brunetti paused at the door to allow the man to enter before him, then followed him in. There was a small entrance, little more than a metre wide, up from which rose two steps, further evidence of the Venetians’ eternal confidence that they could outwit the tides that gnawed away perpetually at the foundations of the city. The room to which the steps led was clean and neat and surprisingly well lit for an apartment located on a piano rialzato. Brunetti noticed that at the back of the apartment a row of four tall windows looked across to a large garden on the other side of a wide canal.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was eating,’ the man said, tossing his napkin on to the table.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Brunetti insisted.

  ‘No, I was just finishing,’ the man said. A large helping of pasta still lay on his plate, an open newspaper spread out to its left. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he insisted and gestured Brunetti into the centre of the room, to a sofa that stood facing the windows. He asked, ‘May I offer you something? Un’ ombra?’

  There was nothing Brunetti would have liked better than a small glass of wine, but he refused. Instead, he put out his hand and introduced himself.

  ‘Marco Caberlotto,’ the man answered, taking his hand.

  Brunetti sat on the sofa, and Caberlotto sat opposite him. ‘What about Franco?’ he asked.

  ‘You know he was in the hospital?’ Brunetti asked by way of answer.

  ‘Yes. I read the article in theGazzettino this morning. I’m going to see him as soon as I finish,’ he said, waving toward the table, where his lunch sat, slowly growing cold. ‘How is he?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you,’ Brunetti began, using the formulaic introduction he’d become so familiar with in the last decades. When he saw that Caberlotto understood, he continued, ‘He never came out of the coma and died this morning.’

  Caberlotto murmured something and put one hand to his mouth, pressing his fingers against his lips. ‘I didn’t know. The poor boy.’

  Brunetti paused for a moment, then asked softly, ‘Did you know him well?’

  Ignoring the question, Caberlotto asked, ‘Is it true that he fell? That he fell and hit his head?’

  Brunetti nodded.

  ‘He fell?’ Caberlotto insisted.

  ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

  Again, Caberlotto did not respond directly. ‘Ah, the poor boy,’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘I never would have believed something like this could have happened. He was always so cautious.’

  ‘On the job, do you mean?’

  Caberlotto looked across at Brunetti and said, ‘No, about everything. He was just... well, he was just like that: cautious. He worked in that office, and part of their job means they have to go out and keep an eye on what’s being done, but he preferred to stay in the office and work with the plans and projects, seeing how buildings were put together, or how they would be when they were put back together after a restoration. It’s what he loved, that part of the job. He said that.’

  Remembering the visit Rossi had made to his own home, Brunetti said, ‘But I thought part of his job was to visit sites, to inspect houses that had building violations.’

  Caber lotto shrugged. ‘I know he had to go to houses sometimes, but the impression I got was that he did that only to be able to explain things to the owners so that they’d understand what was happening.’ Caberlotto paused, perhaps trying to recall conversations with Rossi, but then went on. ‘I didn’t know him all that well. We were neighbours, so we’d talk on the street sometimes or have a drink together. That was when he told me about liking to study the plans.’

  ‘You said he was always so cautious,’ Brunetti prompted.

  ‘About everything,’ Caberlotto said and seemed almost to smile at the memory. ‘I used to joke with him about it. He’d never carry a box downstairs. He said he needed to see both feet when he walked.’ He paused, as though considering whether to continue, and then did. ‘One time he had a light bulb blow up on him, and he called me to get the name of an electrician. I asked him what it was, and when he told me, I told him to change the bulb himself. All you�
��ve got to do is wrap some tape backwards around a piece of cardboard and stick it in the base of the bulb and unscrew it. But he said he was afraid to touch it.’ Caberlotto stopped.

  ‘What happened?’ Brunetti prodded.

  ‘It was a Sunday, so it would have been impossible to get someone, anyway. So I went up and did it for him. I just turned off the current and took the broken bulb out.’ He looked across at Brunetti and made a turning gesture with his right hand. ‘I did it just like I’d told him, with the tape, and it came right out. It took about five seconds, but there was no way he could have done it himself. He wouldn’t have used that room until he could find an electrician, just would have let it stay dark.’ He smiled and glanced across at Brunetti. ‘It’s not really that he was afraid, you see. It’s just the way he was.’

  ‘Was he married?’ Brunetti asked.

  Caberlotto shook his head.

  ‘A girlfriend?’

  ‘No, not that either.’

  Had he known Caberlotto better, Brunetti would have asked about a boyfriend. ‘Parents?’

  ‘I don’t know. If he still has them, I don’t think they’re in Venice. He never spoke of them, and he was always here on holidays.’

  ‘Friends?’

  Caberlotto gave this some thought and then said, ‘I’d see him on the street with people occasionally. Or having a drink. You know the way it is. But I don’t remember anyone in particular or seeing him with the same person.’ Brunetti made no answer to this, so Caberlotto tried to explain. ‘We weren’t really friends, you know, so I guess I would see him and not really pay much attention, just recognize him.’

  Brunetti asked, ‘Did people come here?’

  ‘I suppose so. I don’t have much of an idea of who comes in and out. I hear people going up and down, but I never know who they are.’ Suddenly he asked, ‘But why are you here?’

  ‘I knew him, too,’ Brunetti answered. ‘So when I found out he was dead, I came to talk to his family, but I came as a friend, nothing more than that.’ Caberlotto didn’t think to question why Brunetti, if he was a friend of Rossi’s, should know so little about him.

  Brunetti got to his feet. ‘I’ll leave you to finish your lunch, Signor Caberlotto,’ he said, extending his hand.

  Caberlotto took it and returned the pressure. He went with Brunetti down the hall to the outer door and pulled it open. There, standing on the higher step and looking down at Brunetti, he said, ‘He was a good man. I didn’t know him well, but I liked him. He always said kind things about people.’ He leaned forward and placed his hand on Brunetti’s sleeve, as if to impress him with the importance of what he had just said, and then he closed the door.

  * * * *

  8

  On the way back to the Questura, Brunetti stopped to call Paola and tell her he wouldn’t be home for lunch, then went into a small trattoria and ate a plate of pasta he didn’t taste and a few pieces of chicken that served only as fuel to propel him into the afternoon. When he returned to work, he found a note on his desk, saying that Vice-Questore Patta wanted to see him in his office at four.

  He called the hospital and left a message with Dottor Rizzardi’s secretary, asking the pathologist if he’d perform the autopsy on Francesco Rossi himself, then made another call that set in motion the bureaucratic process that would order that autopsy to be performed. He went down to the officers’ room to see if his assistant, Sergeant Vianello, was there. He was, at his desk, a thick file open before him. Though he wasn’t much taller than his superior, Vianello seemed somehow to take up much more space.

  He looked up when Brunetti came in and started to get to his feet, but Brunetti waved him back to his seat. Then, noticing the three other officers who were there, he changed his mind and gave a quick lift of his chin to Vianello, then nodded in the direction of the door. The sergeant closed the file and followed Brunetti up to his office.

  When they were seated facing one another, Brunetti asked, ‘Did you see the story about the man who fell from the scaffolding over in Santa Croce?’

  ‘The one from the Ufficio Catasto?’ Vianello asked, but it really wasn’t a question. When Brunetti confirmed that it was, Vianello asked, ‘What about it?’

  ‘He called me on Friday,’ Brunetti said and paused to allow Vianello to question him. When he did not, Brunetti went on, ‘He said he wanted to talk to me about something that was going on at his office, but he was calling me on his telefonino, and when I told him it wasn’t secure, he said he’d call me back.’

  ‘And didn’t?’ Vianello interrupted.

  ‘No,’ said Brunetti with a shake of his head. ‘I waited here until after seven. I even left my home number, in case he called, but he didn’t. And then, this morning, I saw his picture in the paper. I went over to the hospital as soon as I saw it, but it was too late.’ He stopped and again waited for Vianello to comment.

  ‘Why did you go to the hospital, sir?’

  ‘He was afraid of heights.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘When he came to my apartment, he . . .’ Brunetti began, but Vianello cut him off.

  ‘He came to your apartment? When?’

  ‘Months ago. It was about the plans or the records they have for my apartment. Or that they don’t have. It doesn’t really matter; anyway, he came and asked to see some papers. They’d sent me a letter. But it’s not important why he came; what’s important is what happened when he was there.’

  Vianello said nothing, but his curiosity was written large on his broad face.

  ‘I asked him, when we were talking about the building, to come out on the terrace and have a look at the windows in the apartment below ours. I thought they’d show that both floors had been added at the same time, and that, if they had, it might affect their decision about the apartment.’ As he spoke, Brunetti realized he had no idea at all what decision, if any, the Ufficio Catasto had come to.

  ‘I was out there, leaning over and looking down at the windows on the floor below us, and when I turned back to him, it was as if I’d shown him a viper. He was paralysed.’ When he saw the scepticism with which Vianello greeted this, he temporized, ‘Well, that’s what it looked like to me. Frightened, at any rate.’ He stopped talking and glanced at Vianello.

  Vianello said nothing.

  ‘If you had seen him, you’d understand what I mean,’ Brunetti said. “The idea of leaning over the terrace terrified him.’

  ‘And so?’ Vianello asked.

  ‘And so there was no way he would dare to go out on scaffolding, and even less that he would do it alone.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Being afraid of heights?’

  ‘Vianello, I just told you. He didn’t have to say anything; it was written all over his face. He was terrified. If a person is that frightened of something, he can’t do it. It’s impossible.’

  Vianello tried a different tack. ‘But he didn’t say anything to you, sir. That’s what I’m trying to make you see. Well, make you consider. You don’t know it was the idea of looking over the side of the terrace that frightened him. It could have been something else.’

  ‘Of course it could have been something else,’ Brunetti admitted with exasperation and disbelief. ‘But it wasn’t. I saw him. I talked to him.’

  Gracious, Vianello asked, ‘And so?’

  ‘And so if he didn’t go up that scaffolding willingly, he didn’t fall off it accidentally.’

  ‘You think he was killed?’

  ‘I don’t know that that’s true,’ Brunetti admitted. ‘But I don’t think he went there willingly, or if he went to the place willingly, he didn’t go out on the scaffolding because he wanted to.’

  ‘Have you seen it?’

  ‘The scaffolding?’

  Vianello nodded.

  ‘There’s been no time.’

  Vianello pushed back the sleeve of his jacket and looked at his watch. ‘There’s time now, sir.’


  ‘The Vice-Questore wants me in his office at four,’ Brunetti answered, glancing down at his own watch. He had twenty minutes to wait before his meeting. He caught Vianello’s look. ‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, ‘let’s go.’

  They stopped in the officers’ room and picked up Vianello’s copy of that day’s Gazzettino, which gave the address of the building in Santa Croce. They also picked up Bonsuan, the chief pilot, and told him they wanted to go over to Santa Croce. On the way, the two men standing on the deck of the police boat studied a street directory and found the number, on a calle that led off of Campo Angelo Raffaele. The boat took them toward the end of the Zattere, in the waters beyond which loomed an enormous ship, moored to the embankment and dwarfing the area beside it.