Uniform Justice

by Donna Leon

  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 Questura, 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,

  Lieutenant, so I'm reassigning him."