by Donna Leon
ago.
As with any superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta was often the
subject of speculation among those under his command. His motives for
action or inertia were usually transparent: power, its maintenance and
aggrandizement. In
9i the past, however, he had proven capable of great weakness, had even
been deflected from his headlong pursuit of power, but only when he
acted in defence of his family. Brunetti, though often suspicious of
Patta and usually deeply contemptuous of his motives, felt nothing but
respect for this weakness.
Brunetti had told himself that decency demanded he wait at least two
days before attempting to speak again to either of the boy's parents.
That time had passed, and he arrived at the Questura that morning with
the intention of interviewing one or both of them. Dottor Moro's home
phone was answered by a machine. The phone at his practice said that,
until further notice, the doctor's patients would be seen by Doctor D.
Biasi, whose office hours and phone number were given. Brunetti re
dialled the first number and left his name and his direct number at the
Questura, requesting that the doctor call him.
That left the mother. Signorina Elettra had provided a brief
biography. Venetian, like her husband, she had met Moro in liceo, then
both had gone on to the University of Padova, where Moro opted for
medicine, Federica for child psychology. They married when her studies
were completed but didn't return to Venice until Moro was offered a
place at the Ospedale Civile, when she had opened a private practice in
the city.
Their legal separation, which took place with unseemly haste after her
accident, had been a surprise to their friends. They had not divorced,
and neither appeared to be involved with another person. There was no
evidence that they had contact with one another, and any communication
they had seemed to take place through their lawyers.
Signorina Elettra had clipped the article about Ernesto's death that
had appeared in La Nuova to the outside of the folder. He chose not to
read it, though he did read the caption under the photo of the family,
'in happier times'.
Federica Moro's smile was the centre of the photo: she stood with her
right arm wrapped around the back of her husband, her head leaning on
his chest, her other hand ruffling her son's hair. The photo showed
them on a beach, in shorts and T-shirts, tanned and bursting with
happiness and health; behind them the head of a swimmer bobbed just to
her husband's right. The picture must have been taken years ago, for
Ernesto was still a boy, not a young man. Federica looked away from
the camera, and the other two looked at her, Ernesto's glance open and
proud, as who would not be proud to have such an attractive woman as a
mother? Fernando's look was calmer, yet no less proud.
One of them, Brunetti thought, must just have said something funny, or
perhaps they'd seen something on the beach that made them laugh. Or
was it the photographer, perhaps, who had been the clown of the moment?
Brunetti was struck by the fact that, of the three of them, Federica
had the shortest hair: boyish, only a few centimetres long. It stood
in sharp contrast to the fullness of her body and the natural ease with
which she embraced her husband.
Who would dare to publish such a photo, and who could have given it to
the paper, surely knowing how it would be used? He slipped the
clipping free and stuck it inside the folder. The same number Signora
Ferro had given him was written on the outside; he dialled, forgetting
what she had told him about letting it ring once and hanging up.
On the fourth ring, a woman's voice answered, saying only "SIT
"Signora Moro?" Brunetti asked.
"Si."
"Signora, this is Commissario Guido Brunetti. Of the police. I'd be
very grateful if you would find the time to speak to me." He waited
for her to reply, then added, "About your son."
"Aah," she said. Then nothing for a long time.
"Why have you waited?" she finally asked, and he sensed that having to
ask the question made her angry.
"I didn't want to intrude on your grief, Signora." When she was
silent, he added, "I'm sorry."
"Do you have children?" she surprised him by asking.
"Yes, I do."
"How old?"
"I have a daughter he began, then said the rest quickly, "My son is the
same age as yours."
"You didn't say that at the beginning," she said, sounding surprised
that he should have failed to use such an emotive tool.
Unable to think of anything suitable to say, Brunetti asked "May I come
and speak to you, Signora?"
"Any time you want she said, and he had a vision of days, months,
years, an entire lifetime stretching away from her.
"May I come now?" he asked.
"It's all the same, isn't it?" she asked; it was a real request for
information, not a sarcastic or self-pitying pose.
"It should take me about twenty minutes to get there he said.
"I'll be here she replied.
He had located her address on the map and so knew which way to walk. He
could have taken the boat up towards San Marco, but he chose to walk up
the Riva, cutting through the Piazza and in front of the Museo Correr.
He entered Frezzerie and turned left at the first cafe on his left. It
was the second door on the right, the top bell. He rang it, and with
no question asked through the intercom, the door snapped open and he
went in.
The entrance hall was damp and dark, though no canal was nearby. He
climbed to the third floor and found, directly opposite him, an open
door. He paused, called, "Signora Moro?" and heard a voice say
something from inside, so he went in and closed the door behind him. He
went down a
narrow corridor with a cheap machine-made carpet on the floor, towards
what seemed to be a source of light.
A door stood open on his right and he stepped inside. A woman was
sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, and light filtered in
from two curtained windows that stood behind her. The room smelled of
cigarette smoke and, he thought, mothballs.
"Commissario?" she asked, raising her face to look in his direction.
"Yes/ he answered. Thank you for letting me come."
She waved his words away with her right hand, then returned the
cigarette it held to her mouth and inhaled deeply. There's a chair
over there she said, exhaling and pointing to a cane-seated chair that
stood against the wall.
He brought it over and set it facing her, but not very close and a
short distance to one side. He sat and waited for her to say
something. He didn't want to seem to stare at her and so he directed
his attention to the windows, beyond which he saw, just on the other
side of the narrow calle, the windows of another house. Little light
could get in that way. He turned his attention back to her and, even
in this strange penumbra, recognized the woman in the photo. She
looked as though she'
d been on a crash diet that had drawn the flesh
tight on her face and honed the bones of her jaw until they were so
sharp that they would soon come slicing through the skin. The same
process seemed to have pared her body down to the bare essentials of
shoulders, arms, and legs contained in a heavy sweater and dark slacks
that accentuated her body's frailty.
It became evident that she was not going to speak, was simply going to
sit with him and smoke her cigarette. "I'd like to ask you some
questions, Signora/ he began, and exploded in a sudden fit of nervous
coughing.
"Is it the cigarette?" she asked, turning to the table on her right
and making to put it out.
He raised a reassuring hand. "No, not at all he gasped but was gripped
by another coughing fit.
She stabbed out the cigarette and got to her feet. He started to get
to his, doubled over by his coughing, but she waved him back and left
the room. Brunetti lowered himself into the chair and continued to
cough, tears streaming from his eyes. In a moment, she was back,
handing him a glass of water. "Drink it slowly," she said. Take small
sips."
Still shaking with the attempt to control himself, he took the glass
with a nod of thanks and put it to his lips. He waited for the spasms
to subside and took a small sip, and then another and another until all
of the water was gone and he could breathe freely again. Occasionally,
puffs of air rushed from his lungs, but the worst was over. He leaned
down and set the glass on the floor. "Thank you," he said.
"It's nothing," she answered, taking her place in the chair opposite
him. He saw her reach instinctively to the right, towards the pack of
cigarettes that lay on the table, and then lower her hand to her lap.
She looked over at him and asked, "Nerves?"
He smiled. "I think so, though I don't think I'm supposed to say
so."
"Why not?" she asked, sounding interested.
"Because I'm the policeman, and we're not supposed to be weak or
nervous."
That's ridiculous, isn't it?"
He nodded, and in that instant recalled that she was a psychologist.
He cleared his throat and asked, "Could we begin again, Signora?"
Her smile was minimal, a ghost of the one on her face in the photo that
still lay on his desk. "I suppose we have to. What is it you'd like
to know?"
"I'd like to ask you about your accident, Signora/
Her confusion was visible, and he could understand its
cause. Her son was recently dead in circumstances that had yet to be
officially determined, and he was asking her about something that had
happened more than two years ago. "Do you mean in Siena?" she finally
asked.
"Yes."
"Why do you want to know about that?"
"Because no one seemed curious about it at the time."
She tilted her head to one side as she considered his answer. "I see
she finally said, then added, "Should they have been?"
That's what I'm hoping to learn, Signora."
Silence settled in between them and Brunetti, having no option, sat and
waited to see if she would tell him what had happened. In the minutes
that passed, she glanced aside at the cigarettes twice, and the second
time he almost told her to go ahead and smoke, that it wouldn't bother
him, but he said nothing. As the silence lengthened, he studied the
few objects he could see in the room: her chair, the table, the
curtains at the window. All spoke of a taste far different from the
casual wealth he had observed in Moro's home. There was no attempt to
suit style to style or do anything more than provide furniture that
would meet the most basic needs.
"I'd gone down to our friends on the Friday morning," she said,
surprising him when she finally began to speak. "Fernando was supposed
to get there on the last train, at about ten that night. It was a
beautiful day, late autumn but still very warm, so I decided to go for
a walk in the afternoon. I was about a half a kilo metre from the
house when I heard a loud noise it could have been a bomb for all I
knew and then I felt a pain in my leg, and I fell down. It wasn't as
if anyone had pushed me or anything: I just fell down."
She glanced across at him, as if to establish whether he could possibly
find any of this interesting. He nodded and she went on. "I lay
there, too stunned to do anything. It didn't even hurt all that much
then. I heard noises from the woods
that I had been walking towards. Well, not really woods, perhaps an
acre or two of trees. I heard something moving around in there and I
wanted to shout for help, but then I didn't. I don't know why, but I
didn't. I just lay there.
"A minute or two must have passed, and then, over from where I'd come
from, two dogs came running toward me, barking their heads off, came
right up to me and started jumping around, barking all the time. I
shouted at them to shut up. My leg had started to hurt then, and when
I looked at it, I realized I'd been shot, so I knew I had to do
something. And then there were these hunting dogs, barking and dancing
around me like crazy things."
She stopped talking for so long that Brunetti was forced to ask, "What
happened then?"
The hunters came. The men whose dogs they were, that is. They saw the
dogs and they saw me on the ground and they thought the dogs had
attacked me, so they came running and when they got to us they started
kicking the dogs away and hitting at them with the ends of their guns,
but the dogs weren't doing anything. They probably saved my life,
those dogs."
She stopped and looked directly at him, as if to ask if he had any
questions, and when he said nothing, she went on, "One of them used his
handkerchief and made a tourniquet, and then they carried me to their
Jeep, which was just at the edge of the woods. And they took me to the
hospital. The doctors there are used to this kind of thing: hunters
are always shooting themselves or other hunters down there, it seems."
She paused and then said softly, "Poor things," in a voice so filled
with real sympathy that he was struck by how vulgar and cheap his
conversation with Signorina Elettra sounded in comparison.
"Did they ask you at the hospital how it happened, Signora?"
The men who found me told them what had happened, so
all I did, when I came out from surgery, was confirm what they'd
said."
That it was an accident?" he asked.
"Yes." She said the word with no special tone.
"Do you think it was?" he asked.
Again, there was a long delay before she spoke. "At the time, I didn't
think it could have been anything else. But since then I've started to
wonder why whoever it was that shot me didn't come to see what they'd
done. If they thought I was some sort of an animal, they would have
come to check that they'd killed me, wouldn't they?"
That was what had troubled Brunetti ever since he'd first heard the
story.
"And when they heard the dogs and then the
other hunters, they would
have come to see what all that was about, if they thought someone else
was going to take the animal they'd killed." She let some time pass
and then said, "As I said, I didn't think about any of this at the
time."
"And what do you think now?"
She started to speak, stopped herself, and then said, "I don't mean to
be melodramatic, but I have other things to think about now."
So did Brunetti. He was wondering if a police report had been filed of
the incident, if the two hunters who found her had noticed anyone in
the area.
Brunetti could no longer keep her from her cigarettes, so he said, "I
have only one more question, Signora."
She didn't wait for him to ask it. "No, Ernesto didn't kill himself.
I'm his mother, and I know that to be true. That's another reason why
I think it wasn't an accident." She prised herself from her chair,
said, "If that was your last question ..." and started towards the
door of the room. Her limp was slight, the merest favouring of her
right leg when she walked, and as she wore slacks, he had no idea of
the damage that had been done to her leg.
He let her lead him to the door of the apartment. He thanked her but
didn't offer his hand. Outside, it had grown marginally warmer, and as
it was already after noon, Brunetti decided to go directly home for