by Donna Leon
‘What?’
‘Your vow. Obedience. I don’t know how important that is to them, but it could be that they were worried about that, more than anything else.’ When she didn’t answer, he asked, ‘Do you think that’s possible?’ She still refused to answer, so he asked, ‘Then what happened? With the people on the Lido?’
‘They were very kind to me. After we had dinner, she gave me some of her clothes.’ She swept her hands open to show the skirt she was wearing. ‘I stayed with them for the first week, and then they helped me get the job at the clinic.’
‘Didn’t you have to show some sort of identification to get it?’
She shook her head. ‘No. They were so glad to find someone willing to do the work that they didn’t ask any questions. But I’ve sent to the city hall in my home town and asked that copies of my birth certificate and carta d’identità be sent to me. If I’m going to come back to this life, then I suppose I’ll need them.’
‘Where did you have them sent, to the clinic?’
‘No, to the home of these people.’ She had heard the concern in his voice and said, ‘Why do you ask?’
He shook her question away with a quick sideways motion of his head. ‘Just curiosity. You never know how long that sort of thing can take.’ It was a bad lie, but she had been a nun for so long that Brunetti did not believe she would easily recognize one. ‘Are you still in contact with anyone from the casa di cura or from your order?’
‘No. No one.’
‘Do they know where you’ve gone?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. There’s no way they could know.’
‘Would the people on the Lido tell them?’
‘No, I asked them not to tell anyone about me, and I think they won’t.’ Recalling his former uneasiness, she asked, ‘Why do you ask about that?’
He saw no reason not to tell her this much, at least. ‘If there is any truth in ...’ he began, but then realized that he wasn’t at all sure what to call it, for certainly it wasn’t an accusation, really no more than a comment on coincidence. He began again. ‘Because of what you’ve told me, it might be wise for you to make no contact with the people at the casa di cura.’ He realized that he had no idea who these people were. ‘When you heard these old women talk, did you have any idea who, and I mean specifically, who they would leave their money to?’
‘I’ve thought about that,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and I don’t like to say.’
‘Please, Maria, I don’t think you can choose any longer what you do and don’t want to say about this.’
She nodded, but very slowly, acknowledging the truth of what he said, though that didn’t make it palatable. ‘They could have left it to the casa di cura itself or to the director. Or to the order.’
‘Who’s the director?’
‘Doctor Messini, Fabio Messini.’
‘Is there anyone else?’
She considered this for a moment and then answered, ‘Perhaps to Padre Pio. He’s so good to the patients that many of them are very fond of him. But I don’t think he’d accept anything.’
‘The Mother Superior?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No. The order forbids us to own anything. The women, that is.’
Brunetti pulled a piece of paper toward him. ‘Do you know Padre Pio’s surname?’
Her alarm was palpable in her eyes. ‘But you aren’t going to talk to him, are you?’
‘No, I don’t think so. But I’d like to know it. In case it becomes necessary.’
‘Cavaletti,’ she said.
‘Do you know anything more about him?’
She shook her head. ‘No, only that he comes to hear confessions twice a week. If someone is very sick, he comes to give them the Last Rites. I’ve seldom had time to talk to him. Outside of the confessional, that is.’ She stopped for a moment, and then added, ‘The last time I saw him was about a month ago, Mother Superior’s name day, February twentieth.’ Suddenly her mouth drew closed and her eyes tightened, as if she had been struck by a sudden pain. Brunetti leaned forward in his chair, afraid she was going to faint.
She opened her eyes and looked across at him, raising a hand to ward him off. ‘Isn’t that strange?’ she asked. ‘That I would remember her feast day.’ She looked away and then back at him. ‘I can’t remember my birthday. Just the feast day of L’Immacolata, December eighth.’ She shook her head, whether in sadness or surprise, he couldn’t tell. ‘It’s as if part of me stopped existing for all those years, got cancelled out. I can’t remember any more when it is, my birthday.’
‘Maybe you could make it be the date you left the convent,’ Brunetti suggested and smiled to show he meant it gently.
She met his glance for a moment and then raised the first two fingers of her right hand to her forehead and rubbed at it, eyes turned down. ‘La Vita Nuova,’ she said, more to herself than to him.
With no warning, she got to her feet. ‘I think I’d like to leave now, Commissario.’ Her eyes were less calm than her voice, so Brunetti made no attempt to stop her.
‘Could you tell me the name of the pensione where you’re staying?’
‘La Pergola.’
‘On the Lido?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the people who helped you?’
‘Why do you want their name?’ she asked with real alarm.
‘Because I like to know things,’ he said, an honest answer.
‘Sassi, Vittorio Sassi. Via Morosini, number eleven.’
‘Thank you,’ Brunetti said, not writing these names down. She turned toward the door and for a moment he thought she would ask him what he was going to do about what she had told him, but she said nothing. He got up and came around the desk, hoping at least to open the door for her, but she was too quick for him. She opened it, took one glance back at him, didn’t smile, and left the room.
Chapter Two
Brunetti returned to the contemplation of his feet, but they no longer spoke to him of idle things. Like a presiding deity, his mother filled his thoughts, she for years a traveller in the unchartable territory of the mad. Fears for her safety flailed at his mind with their wild wings, though he knew well that only one, final, absolute safety remained for his mother, a safety his heart could not wish for her, no matter how much his mind urged him. He found himself involuntarily pulled toward the memories of the last six years, fingering them like the beads on some horrid rosary.
With a sudden, violent motion, he kicked the drawer shut and got to his feet. Suor’Immacolata – he could not yet call her anything else – had assured him there was no danger to his mother; he had heard no proof that there was danger to anyone at all. Old people died, and it was often a liberation for them and for those around them, as it would be for ... He went back to his desk and picked up the list she had given him, again ran his eye down the names and ages.
Brunetti began to think of ways to learn more about the people on the list, more about their lives and their deaths. Suor’Immacolata had given the dates of their deaths, which would lead to death certificates at the city hall, the first path in the vast bureaucratic labyrinth that would lead him eventually to copies of their wills. Gossamer, his curiosity would have to be as light and airy as gossamer, his questions as delicate as the touch of a cat’s whiskers. He tried to remember ever having told Suor’-Immacolata that he was a commissario of police. Perhaps he had mentioned it during one of those long afternoons when his mother allowed him to take her hand, but only if the young woman who was her favourite remained in the room with them. They, the two of them, had to talk about something, since Brunetti’s mother often remained silent for hours, crooning a tuneless melody to herself. As if the habit she wore had amputated her personality, Suor’Immacolata had never said anything about herself, at least nothing that Brunetti remembered, so it must have been then that he had told her what he did, as he cast about for topics to fill those endless, ragged hours. And she had heard and remembered and so had come to him, a y
ear later, with her story and her fear.
Years before, there had been certain things that Brunetti had found it difficult, sometimes impossible, to believe people capable of doing. He had once believed, or perhaps had forced himself to believe, that there were limits to human vice. Gradually, as he was exposed to ever more horrible examples of crime, as he saw the lengths to which people would go to feed their various lusts – greed, though the most common, was hardly the most compelling – he had seen this illusion eaten away by the mounting tide until he sometimes felt himself in the position of that daft Irish king, the one whose name he could never pronounce correctly, who stood at the edge of the sea, beating at the encroaching tide with his sword, maddened by the defiance of the mounting waters.
It no longer surprised him, therefore, that old people might be killed for their wealth; what surprised him was the technique, for at least at first glance it was replete with possibility for error or discovery.
He had also learned, during the years he had practised this profession of his, that the important trail to follow was the one left by money. The place where it began was usually a given: the person from whom the money was taken, either by force or by craft. The other end, where the trail finished, was the difficult one to find, just as it was the more vital one, for it was there that would also be found the person who had practised the craft or the force. Cui bono?
If Suor’Immacolata was right – he forced himself into the conditional mode – then the first thing he had to find was the end of the trail, and that search could begin only with their wills.
He found Signorina Elettra at her desk, and the sight of her busy at her computer surprised him, almost as if he had expected her to be reading the newspaper or working on a crossword puzzle as a way to celebrate Patta’s continuing absence. ‘Signorina, what do you know about wills?’ he asked as he came in.
‘That I don’t have one,’ she said lightly and smiled, tossing her answer over her shoulder and treating the question lightly, as would anyone still in their early thirties.
And may you never need one, Brunetti found himself wishing. He returned her smile and then allowed his own to fade away. ‘Well, about other people’s wills, then?’
Seeing his seriousness, she swivelled around in her chair and faced him, waiting for an explanation.
‘I’d like to find out the contents of the wills of five people who died here this year, in the San Leonardo nursing home.’
‘Were they residents of Venice?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. Why? Does it make a difference?’
‘Wills are made public by the notory who drew them up, regardless of where the person dies. If they made their wills here in Venice, then all I need is the name of the notory.’
‘And if I don’t have that?’ he asked.
‘Then that will make it harder.’
‘Harder?’
Her smile was open, her voice level. ‘The fact that you didn’t simply contact the heirs and ask for copies, Commissario, makes me think that you don’t want anyone to know you’re asking questions.’ She smiled again. ‘There’s a central office where copies are recorded. Their files were computerized two years ago, so there’s no problem there, but if the notaries work out in some little paese out on the mainland that hasn’t been computerized yet, then it might be more difficult.’
‘If they were recorded here, can you get the information?’
‘Of course.’
‘How?’
She looked down at her skirt and brushed away an invisible speck. ‘I’m afraid it’s illegal.’
‘What’s illegal?’
‘The way I get the information.’
‘Which is ...?’
‘I’m not sure you can understand, Commissario, or that I could explain it to you adequately, but there are ways of discovering the codes which give access to almost all information. The more public the information is – a city hall, public records – the easier it is to discover the code. And once a person has that, it’s as if ... well, it’s as if they’d gone home and left the door to the office open and the lights on.’
‘Is this true of all government agencies?’ he asked uneasily.
‘I think you’d prefer not to know the answer,’ she said, her smile gone.
‘How easy is it to get this information?’ he asked.
‘I’d say it’s in direct proportion to the skill of the person looking for it.’
‘And how skilled are you, Signorina?’
The question summoned back a smile, a very small one. ‘I think that’s a question I’d prefer not to answer, Commissario.’
He studied the soft contours of her face, noticed for the first time two faint lines that extended down from the outside corners of her eyes, no doubt the result of frequent smiles, and found it difficult to believe that this was a person possessed of criminal craft and, in all likelihood, of criminal intent.
Not for a moment reflecting upon his oath of office, Brunetti asked, ‘But if they lived here, then you can get the information?’
He noticed the way she struggled to keep all evidence of pride out of her voice, struggled and failed. ‘The records in the registry office, Commissario?’
Amused at the tone of condescension which a former employee of the Banca D’Italia used when speaking the name of a mere government office, he nodded.
‘I can get you the names of the principal heirs after lunch. Copies of the wills might take a day or two.’
Only the young and attractive can risk showing off, he realized. ‘After lunch will do nicely, Signorina.’ He left the list with the names and dates of death on her desk and went back up to his office.
When he sat at his desk, he looked at the names of the two men he’d written down: Dr Fabio Messini, and Father Pio Cavaletti. Neither of them was familiar to him, but in a city as socially incestuous as Venice, that was meaningless to a person in pursuit of information.
He called down to the office where the uniformed police had their desks. ‘Vianello, could you come up here for a moment? And bring Miotti along with you, would you?’ While he waited for the two policemen to arrive, Brunetti drew a row of checks under the names, and it was not until Vianello and Miotti appeared at his door that he realized they were crosses. He set his pen down and motioned the two policemen to the chairs in front of his desk.
As Vianello sat, his unbuttoned uniform jacket swung open, and Brunetti noticed that he looked thinner than he had during the winter.
‘You on a diet, Vianello?’ he asked.
‘No, sir,’ the Sergeant replied, surprised that Brunetti had noticed. ‘Exercise.’
‘What?’ Brunetti, to whom the idea of exercise bordered on the obscene, made no attempt to disguise his shock.
‘Exercise,’ Vianello repeated. ‘I go over to the palestra after work and spend a half hour or so.’
‘Doing what?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Exercising, sir.’
‘How often?’
‘As often as I can,’ Vianello answered, sounding suddenly evasive.
‘How often is that?’
‘Oh, three or four times a week.’
Miotti sat silent, his head turning back and forth as he followed this strange conversation. Is this how crime was fought?
‘And what do you do when you’re there?’
‘I exercise, sir,’ coming down on the verb with impressive force.
Interested now, however perversely so, Brunetti leaned forward, elbows on his desk, chin cupped in one hand. ‘But how? Running in place? Swinging from ropes?’
‘No, sir,’ Vianello answered, not smiling. ‘With machines.’
‘What kind of machines?’
‘Exercise machines.’
Brunetti turned his eyes to Miotti who, because he was young, might understand some of this. But Miotti, whose youth took care of his body for him, looked away from Brunetti and back to Vianello.
‘Well,’ Brunetti concluded, when it was evident that
Vianello was going to be no more forthcoming, ‘you look very good.’
‘Thank you, sir. You might want to think about giving it a try yourself.’
Tucking in his stomach and sitting up straighter in his chair, Brunetti turned his attention back to business. ‘Miotti,’ he began, ‘your brother is a priest, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he answered, evidently surprised that his superior would know.
‘What kind?’
‘A Dominican, sir.’
‘Is he here in Venice?’
‘No, sir. He was here for four years, but then they sent him to Novara, three years ago, to teach in a boys’ school.’
‘Are you in touch with him?’
‘Yes, sir. I speak to him every week, and I see him three or four times a year.’
‘Good. The next time you talk to him, I’d like you to ask him something.’
‘What about, sir?’ Miotti asked, taking a notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket and pleasing Brunetti by not asking why.
‘I’d like you to ask him if he knows anything about Padre Pio Cavaletti. He’s a member of the Order of the Sacred Cross here in the city.’ Brunetti saw Vianello’s raised eyebrows, but the Sergeant remained silent, listening.
‘Is there anything specific you’d like me to ask him, sir?’
‘No, anything at all that he can think of or remember.’
Miotti started to speak, hesitated, then asked, ‘Can you tell me anything more about him, sir? That I can tell my brother?’
‘He’s the chaplain for the casa di cura over near the Ospedale Giustiniani, but that’s all I know about him.’ Miotti kept his head down, writing, so Brunetti asked, ‘Do you have any idea about who he could be, Miotti?’
The young officer looked up. ‘No, sir. I never had much to do with my brother’s clerical friends.’
Brunetti, responding more to his tone than to the words, asked, ‘Is there any reason for that?’
Instead of answering, Miotti shook his head quickly and then looked down at the pages of his notebook, adding a few words to what he had written.
Brunetti glanced at Vianello over the lowered head of the younger man, but the Sergeant gave a barely perceptible shrug. Brunetti opened his eyes and nodded briefly toward Miotti. Vianello, interpreting this as a signal that he discover the reasons for the young man’s reticence when they went back downstairs, nodded in return.