by Donna Leon
'Pity,' she said when he told her, 'the kids are here and we're having . . .' she began and then stopped.
'Go ahead,' he said, 'I'm a man. I can stand it.'
'Grilled vegetables for antipasto, then veal with lemon and rosemary.'
Brunetti gave a theatrical moan.
'And fig sauce on home-made lemon sorbetto for dessert,' she added.
'Is this the truth?' he suddenly asked, 'or your way of punishing me for not coming home?'
Her silence was long. 'Would you prefer it if I told you I'm taking them over to McDonald's for a Big Mac?' she asked finally.
'That's child abuse,' he said.
"They're teenagers, Guido.'
'It's still abuse,' he said and hung up.
He and Vianello decided to walk to da Remigio, but when they got there, they discovered that it was closed until the tenth of September. That also proved to be the case at the next two places they tried, leaving them with the choice of a Chinese restaurant or the long walk to Via Garibaldi to see if anything was open down there.
Neither said anything, but by silent consent they headed back to the bar at Ponte dei Greci, where at least the tramezzini and wine were acceptable. Keeping his mind clear of the veal roast, Brunetti asked for a prosciutto e funghi, a prosciutto e pomodoro, and a simple panino con salami; Vianello, no doubt in response to the belief that, if it was not going to be a proper lunch, it didn't matter what he ate, asked for the same.
Vianello brought a bottle of mineral water and a half-litre of white wine to the table and sat opposite Brunetti. He looked at the plate of sandwiches that lay between them, said, 'Nadia made fresh pasta,' and reached for a tramezzino.
The inspector finished his first sandwich and two glasses of mineral water before speaking again. He set down his water glass, poured wine for both of them, and said, 'What do we do about Scarpa?'
The fact that he failed to use the lieutenant's title was sufficient to inform Brunetti that this was an entirely unofficial conversation.
Brunetti took a sip of wine. ‘I think the only thing we can do is let him go ahead with his investigation, if that's the right word, of Signora Gismondi.'
'But it's nonsense,' Vianello said angrily. He had not met her, had done nothing more than read the file in the case and spoken to Brunetti about his conversation with her, but that had served to convince him that her only involvement in the crime had been helping the Romanian woman to leave the country. As that thought suddenly took on darker implications, he asked, 'Do you think he's capable of saying that she's an accessory because she gave her the money and bought her the train ticket?'
Brunetti no longer had any idea of what Scarpa was or was not capable of doing. He regretted that a woman as apparently decent as Signora Gismondi should have become a hostage in Scarpa's guerrilla war against him, but he knew that any attempt to rescue her would only increase the risk of reprisals from Scarpa.
‘I think the only thing we can do is let him pursue this. If we try to stop him, he'll say we've got some secret motive for protecting her, and God knows where that will lead.' It was difficult for him to anticipate Scarpa's actions because he felt so incapable of understanding his motives. That is, he could understand them, grasp them intellectually, but he lacked the mechanism that would have allowed him to follow them through by mere instinct. He realized how much better Paola was at this sort of thing or, for that matter, Signorina Elettra. Female cats, he found himself thinking, were said to be much better hunters and seemed to take more delight in torturing their prey to death.
Vianello's question brought him back from these reflections. 'Does any of this make any sense to you, sir?'
'What, the murder? Or Scarpa?'
'The murder. Scarpa's easy enough to understand.'
Wishing that were indeed the case, Brunetti said, 'She was killed by someone who hated her or wanted it to look like they did. Which means the same thing.' Catching Vianello's look, he answered, ‘I mean that whoever did it is capable of that sort of violence, either out of rage or out of calculation. I didn't see the body, but I saw the photos.' He decided there was no sense in saying how much he regretted, now, not having come back from his vacation when he had read about the murder. He should have been suspicious of the reports in the newspapers, even more so of the answers he had been given when he phoned the Questura to ask about the case and was told it was already solved. They had been on the coast of Ireland, all four of them,
Raffi and Chiara spending half their time sailing and exploring tide pools, the other half eating, while he and Paola reread their patient ways, respectively, through Gibbon and the Palliser novels, and he had lacked the courage to broach the idea of returning to Venice.
While he waited for his superior to continue, Vianello ate his remaining sandwich and finished the water. He waved to the man behind the counter and held up the empty bottle.
Brunetti said, 'Both our wives would say this is simply sexist prejudice, but a woman didn't do that.' Vianello nodded in approval of simple sexist prejudice and Brunetti continued, 'So we have to find a reason a man would want to kill her, and it would have to be a man who either had access to the apartment or whom she would allow into the apartment.' The barman set the water on the table, and Brunetti filled both glasses before continuing, 'The only thing we've found so far that doesn't fit is the money: it stopped coming when she died, and her lawyer made no mention of it. We don't know how much the niece knew about it, or even if she did.' He poured some of the wine into his glass, but left it untouched. 'Not that there's any reason Marieschi should tell me, even if she did know about it,' he added.
'Could she have taken it?' Vianello asked.
'Of course.'
Brunetti had told him about Poppi, so Vianello said, 'Isn't it strange, that I'm reluctant to think a person with such a dog could be dishonest?' He sipped at his wine, turned to the barman and held up the empty sandwich plate, set it down, and said, 'How strange. Most of the people we arrest have children, but it would never occur to us to think that's a reason they wouldn't commit a crime.'
When Brunetti made no comment upon this observation, Vianello returned his attention to the matter at hand and said, 'The niece might just as easily have moved the money.'
Reflecting upon what he knew of the professional classes, Brunetti added, 'Or someone in the bank might have done it, once he knew she was dead.'
'Of course.'
The sandwiches came, but Brunetti could eat only half of one and set the rest of it back on his plate.
Not having to clarify that he was speaking of Signorina Elettra, Brunetti asked’Do you think she'll be able to find out who made the transfers?'
Vianello finished his wine but made no move to refill his glass. After a contemplative pause, he answered, 'If there are any records, anywhere in their files, she'll probably find them.'
'It's terrifying, isn't it?' Brunetti asked.
'If you're a banker, yes,' Vianello agreed.
They returned to the Questura, oppressed by the still-growing heat and their mutual resentment at having had to lunch on sandwiches. In her office, looking as though she'd spent her lunchtime in an air-conditioned environment waiting while the creases were pressed out of her dress, Signorina Elettra greeted them with an expression which seemed unusually sombre.
Sensitive to the difference in her mood, Vianello asked, 'The transfers?'
‘I still can't find out,' she answered tersely.
Brunetti found his mind suddenly filled with random memories of the lawyer: she was tall, athletic of build, and her grasp was firm. He tried to picture her poised over the old woman, hand raised high, but when he did, his vision was interrupted by the memory of the puzzle books he used to help Chiara with: 'What's Wrong with this Picture?' He had seen Awocatessa Marieschi's hands on Poppi's ears. He called himself a sentimental fool and found his attention returning to Signorina Elettra's voice.
'. . . been either of them,' she concluded, pointing to the sc
reen of her computer.
'What?' Brunetti asked.
'The transfer,' Signorina Elettra repeated, 'could have been made by either one of them.'
'The niece?' Vianello asked.
She nodded. 'All the person needed was the account number, power of attorney, and the code number: the transfer would be automatic. All they had to do was fill out the form and hand it to a teller.' Before he could ask if it would be possible to check the signature on the form, she said, 'No, the bank would never give it to us without an order from a judge.'
Brunetti followed this trail to its inevitable conclusion. 'And the banks in the Channel Islands?' he asked.
She shook her head. 'I've tried in a number of ways, but I've never been able to get anything from them.' Her respect was grudging, but it was still audible.
Brunetti felt the temptation to ask if she kept her money there, but he resisted and, instead, asked, 'Can you think of any way to trace the request?'
'Not without an order from a judge,' she repeated. All of them knew the likelihood of this.
'Have you been able to find out anything about the niece?' Brunetti asked.
'Very little. Birth, school records, medical file, taxes. Just the usual things.' She was not being ironic, Brunetti realized: finding these details of a person's life was as easy for her as consulting the phone book.
'And?' Brunetti asked.
'And she seems as inconsequential as her aunt,' Signorina Elettra answered.
'Where does she work?'
'She's a baker's assistant at Romolo,' she answered, naming a pasticceria on the other side of the city, where Brunetti sometimes went on Sunday morning to get fresh pastries.
Brunetti's thoughts were diverted from the pastries by the arrival of Alvise, who ran into the office, preventing himself from catapulting into Vianello only by grabbing the frame of the door with one hand and pulling himself to a sudden stop, breathing heavily. 'Sir’ he gasped, looking at Brunetti. ‘I just had a call for you, from a woman’
'Yes?7 Brunetti asked, alarmed at the expression on the face of the usually phlegmatic officer.
'She said you had to come immediately’
'Come where, Alvise?' Brunetti asked.
It took Alvise a moment to answer. 'She didn't say, sir. But she said you had to come now’
'Why?' Brunetti asked. 'She said they killed Poppi.'
17
The name galvanized Brunetti. Forcing his voice to remain calm, he asked Alvise, 'Did she say where she was calling from?'
‘I don't remember, sir,' Alvise said, confused that his superior should ask for such a detail in the face of such an urgent message.
'What, exactly, did she say, Alvise?' Brunetti asked.
At the new tone in his superior's voice, Alvise released his hold on the door jamb and stood up straighter. With an effort that was visible in his face, he recalled the conversation. "The call got transferred to the switchboard when you didn't answer, sir, and Russo thought you might be with Vianello, so he transferred the call to our office, and I picked it up.'
Once again wanting to hit the person in front of him, Brunetti said only, 'Go on.'
'It was a woman and she was crying, I think, sir. She kept asking to talk to you, and when I said I'd find you, she said to tell you to come now because they killed Poppi.'
'Did she say anything else, Alvise?' Brunetti asked with iron calm.
As if being asked to recall a conversation that had taken place some weeks before, Alvise closed his eyes for a moment, opened them and stared at the floor, then said, 'Only that she just got there and found her. Poppi, I suppose.'
'Did she say where she was, Alvise?' he repeated, voice tight.
'No, sir,' the officer insisted. 'She said only that she just got back from lunch, and she was there.'
Brunetti relaxed his hands, which were clenched into tight fists at his sides, and told the officer, 'You can go now, Alvise.' Turning back to Vianello and Signorina Elettra and ignoring the sound of Alvise's departure, Brunetti said, 'Find out where she lives. Vianello, you go over and see if she's there. I'll go to the office.'
'And if she is, sir?' Vianello asked.
'Find out who "they" are and why she thinks they killed the dog.'
Brunetti turned away and was out of the office even before Signorina Elettra reached for the phone book. Checking that his telefonino was in the pocket of his jacket, he ran down the steps and out of the Questura. An empty launch was tied to the dock, but he didn't want to go back inside and look for the pilot, so he set off towards Castello.
By the time he got to the end of Salizada S. Lorenzo, his shirt and jacket were clinging to his back and his collar was sodden with sweat. When he left the protective shadows of the colli and walked out on to Riva degli Schiavoni, the afternoon sun blasted him. At first he thought the faint breeze coming off the water would help, but it did nothing more than cast a sudden chill as it rolled across his damp clothing.
He hurried down the last broad bridge and turned into Via Garibaldi. The sun had driven almost everyone indoors: even the shade under the umbrellas of the bars that lined the street was empty as people waited for the sun to move westward and put at least one side of the street in the shade.
The outside door was open so he ran up the steps to her office. In front of the door there was a puddle of slimy yellow liquid that could have been vomit. Stepping over it, he pounded on the door with his fist and shouted, 'Signora, it's me. Brunetti.' He tried the handle and found the door open. He stepped inside, shouting out again, 'I'm here, Signora. Brunetti.' He registered a faint, sour smell, and saw more signs of the yellow liquid, this time splashed on the wall to the left of the secretary's desk and puddled on the floor below.
He thought he heard some faint noise from behind the door of her office. Not even thinking of his pistol, which was in a locked drawer in his desk, Brunetti crossed the room and opened the door to Marieschi's office.
The lawyer sat at her desk, her left hand cupped over her mouth as if to stifle a cry of panic at the sight of the opening door. He thought she recognized him, if only because the terror in her eyes diminished, but her hand remained firmly clasped over her mouth.
Brunetti said nothing but cast his eyes around the room. And saw the dog, lying on the floor a bit to the left of the desk. The entire area around her was splashed with the same stinking yellow mess. Poppi's jaws were open, her tongue extended beyond the limits of the possible. Jaws and tongue were covered with a thick whitish froth; in death one liquid eye looked up at her mistress as if in accusation or appeal.
The sudden chill that came over Brunetti was caused as much by the knowledge of what he had to do as by the air conditioning in the room. Decades ago, when he had been told always to strike a witness at the moment of greatest weakness, it had been easy to write it down as a rule; it was the practice that was difficult.
He drew closer to her desk, paused a moment, then extended a hand to the silent woman. ‘I think you'd better come with me, Signora,' he said, moving no closer and keeping his voice calm.
Hand still pressed to her mouth, she shook the idea away.
'There's nothing you can do for her now,' he said, making no attempt to disguise the sorrow he felt at the ending of such beauty. 'Come out into the other room now. I think it would be better.'
Keeping her eyes away from the body of the dog, she said, 'I don't want to leave her alone’
'It's all right, Signora’ he assured her, having no idea at all what he meant by that. He made a small summoning gesture with the fingers of his hand, and said, 'Come on. It's all right.'
She took her hand from her mouth and placed it squarely on her desk, put the other beside it and pushed herself to her feet like a woman twice her age. Not looking at the dead dog, she came around to the other side of the desk, towards Brunetti. When she reached him, he took her arm and led her from the room, careful to close the door behind them.
He pulled the secretary's chair from he
r desk and, placing it so that it faced away from the splashed liquid, helped the lawyer into it. He took one of the other chairs and placed it about a metre from hers, facing her, and sat down.
'Can you tell me about it, Signora?' She said nothing. 'Tell me what happened.'
Signora Marieschi started to cry. She did so softly, the only sign being her tightened lips and the tears spilling from her eyes. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was surprisingly calm, as if she were speaking about things that had happened somewhere else or to other people. 'She was only two. Still a puppy, really. She loved everyone.'
It's in the breed, I think’ Brunetti agreed, 'to love everyone’