Friends In High Places

by Donna Leon

  ‘You wrote in your report that he had fallen from the scaffolding. I wondered if you examined the scaffolding to see if there were signs of that. Perhaps a broken board or a piece of fabric from his clothing. Or perhaps a bloodstain.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Brunetti waited for an explanation, and when it didn’t come, he asked, ‘Why didn’t you do that, officer?’

  ‘I saw him there on the ground, next to the scaffolding. The door to the house was open, and when I opened his wallet, I saw that he worked in the Ufficio Catasto, so I just figured he was there on a job.’ He paused and, into Brunetti’s silence, added, ‘If you see what I mean, sir.’

  ‘You said he was being carried to the ambulance by the time you got there?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then how was it you had his wallet?’

  ‘It was on the ground, sort of hidden by an empty cement bag.’

  ‘And where was his body?’

  ‘On the ground, sir.’

  Keeping his voice level, Brunetti asked patiently, ‘Where was his body in relation to the scaffolding?’

  Franchi considered the question and then answered, ‘To the left of the front door, sir, about a metre from the wall.’

  ‘And the wallet?’

  ‘Under the cement bag, sir, as I told you.’

  ‘And when did you find it?’

  ‘After they took him to the hospital. I thought I should have a look around, so I went inside the house. The door was open when I got there, as I wrote in the report. And I’d already seen that the shutters just above where he was lying were open, so I didn’t bother to go upstairs. It was when I came out that I saw the wallet lying there, and when I picked it up, there was an identification card from the Ufficio Catasto, so I assumed he was there to check on the building or something like that.’

  ‘Was there anything else in the wallet?’

  ‘There was some money, sir, and some cards. I brought it all back here and put it in an evidence bag. I think that’s listed in the report.’

  Brunetti turned to the second page of the report and saw that mention of the wallet was made.

  Looking up, he asked Franchi, ‘Did you notice anything else while you were there?’

  ‘What sort of thing, sir?’

  ‘Anything at all that seemed unusual or out of place in any way?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing at all.’

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said. ‘Thank you, Officer Franchi.’ Before anyone else could speak, Brunetti asked him, ‘Could you go and get that wallet for me?’

  Franchi looked toward the lieutenant, who nodded.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Franchi said and turned sharply on his heel and left the office.

  ‘He seems an eager young man,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Yes,’ the lieutenant said, ‘he’s one of my best men.’ He gave a brief account of how well Franchi had done in his training classes, but before he could finish, the young officer was back with the plastic evidence bag. Inside was a brown leather wallet.

  Franchi stood at the door, uncertain to whom to give the bag.

  ‘Give it to the Commissario,’ Lieutenant Turcati said, and Franchi couldn’t disguise his start of astonishment at learning the rank of the man who had questioned him. He walked over to Brunetti, handed him the bag, and saluted.

  ‘Thank you, officer,’ Brunetti said, taking the bag by one corner. He took out his handkerchief and carefully wrapped the bag in it. Then, turning to the lieutenant, he said, ‘I’ll sign a receipt for this if you like.’

  The lieutenant passed a sheet of paper across his desk, and Brunetti wrote the date, his name, and a description of the wallet. He signed it at the bottom and passed it back toward Turcati, before leaving the office with Vianello.

  When they emerged into the broad calle, it had started to rain.

  9

  THEY MADE THEIR way through the increasing rain back toward the boat, glad that Montisi had insisted on waiting for them. When they climbed on board, Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that it was well after five, which meant it was high time to go back to the Questura. They emerged into the Grand Canal; Montisi turned right and into the long S that would take them up past the Basilica and Bell Tower, down toward the Ponte della Pietà and the Questura.

  Down in the cabin, Brunetti pulled his handkerchief and the wallet it contained from his pocket and handed them to Vianello. ‘When we get back, could you take this to the lab and have it dusted for prints?’ As Vianello took them, Brunetti added, ‘Any prints on the plastic bag will be Franchi’s, I’d guess, so they can exclude those. And you better send someone over to the hospital to get a set of Rossi’s.’

  ‘Anything else, sir?’

  ‘When they’ve finished, send the wallet up to me. I’d like to have a look at what’s in it. And could you tell them it’s urgent,’ he said.

  Vianello looked across at him and asked, ‘And when isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Well, tell Bocchese that there’s a dead person involved. That might make him work a little faster.’

  ‘Bocchese would be the first person to say that’s proof there’s no need for hurry,’ remarked Vianello.

  Brunetti chose to ignore this.

  Vianello slipped the handkerchief into the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and asked, ‘What else, sir?’

  ‘I want Signorina Elettra to check the records to see if there’s anything about Rossi.’ He doubted that there would be, couldn’t conceive of Rossi as ever having been involved in anything criminal, but life had given him larger surprises than that, so it would be best to check.

  Vianello raised the fingers of one hand. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to interrupt you, but does this mean we’re going to treat it as a murder investigation?’

  Both of them knew the difficulty of this. Until a magistrate had been assigned, neither of them could begin an official investigation, but before a magistrate would take it on and begin to treat it as a case of murder, there had to be persuasive evidence of a crime. Brunetti doubted that his impression of Rossi as a man terrified of heights would count as persuasive evidence of anything: not crime and certainly not murder.

  ‘I’ll have to try to persuade the Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Yes,’ Vianello answered.

  ‘You sound sceptical.’

  Vianello raised an eyebrow. It sufficed.

  ‘He won’t like this, will he?’ Brunetti volunteered. Again, Vianello didn’t respond. Patta allowed the police to accept crime when it was, in a sense, thrust upon them and could not be ignored. There was little chance that he would permit an investigation of something that so clearly appeared to be an accident. Until such time as it could not be ignored, until such time as evidence could be presented that would convince even the most sceptical that Rossi had not fallen to his death, it was destined to remain an accident in the eyes of the authorities.

  Brunetti was blessed, or cursed, with a psychological double vision that forced him to see at least two points of view in any situation, and so he knew how absurd his suspicions must seem and could be made to seem by someone who did not share them. Good sense declared that he abandon all of this and accept the obvious: Franco Rossi had died after an accidental fall from scaffolding. ‘Tomorrow morning, get his keys from the hospital and have a look at his apartment.’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Brunetti answered. ‘See if you can find an address book, letters, names of friends or relatives.’

  Brunetti had been so immersed in his speculations that he had not noticed them turning into the canal, and it was only the gentle thump of the boat against the Questura landing that told him they had arrived.

  Together, they climbed up to the deck. Brunetti waved his thanks to Montisi, who was busy mooring the ropes that held the boat to the quay. He and Vianello walked through the rain to the front door of the Questura, which was pulled open before them by a uniformed officer. Before Brunetti co
uld thank him, the young man said, ‘The Vice-Questore wants to see you, Commissario.’

  ‘He’s still here?’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘Yes, sir. He said I was to tell you as soon as you got here.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, and to Vianello, ‘I better go up, then.’

  They went up the first flight of stairs together, neither willing to speculate on what Patta might want. At the first floor, Vianello headed down the corridor that led to the back stairs to the laboratory where Bocchese, the technician, reigned, unquestioned, unhurried, and unwilling to defer to rank.

  Brunetti made his silent way toward Patta’s office. Signorina Elettra sat at her desk and looked up when he came in. She waved him toward her at the same time as she picked up her phone and pressed a button. After a moment she said, ‘Commissario Brunetti’s here, Dottore.’ She listened to Patta, replied, ‘Of course, Dottore,’ and replaced the receiver.

  ‘He must want to ask you a favour. It’s the only reason he hasn’t been screaming for your blood all afternoon,’ she had time to say before the door opened and Patta appeared.

  His grey suit, Brunetti observed, had to be cashmere, and the tie was what passed in Italy for an English club tie. Though it had been a rainy, cool spring, Patta’s handsome face was taut and tanned. He wore a pair of thin-rimmed oval glasses. This was the fifth pair of glasses Brunetti had seen Patta wear in the years he’d been at the Questura, the style always a few months ahead of what everyone else would soon be wearing. Brunetti had once, caught without his own reading glasses, picked up Patta’s from his desk and held them up to take a closer look at a photograph, only to discover that the lenses were clear glass.

  ‘I was just telling the Commissario to go in, Vice-Questore,’ Signorina Elettra said. Brunetti noticed that there were two files and three pieces of paper on her desk that he was sure had not been there a moment ago.

  ‘Yes, do come in, Dottor Brunetti,’ Patta said, extending a hand in a gesture that Brunetti found unsettlingly similar to that with which he imagined Clytemnestra had lured Agamemnon down from his chariot. He had time only to cast one last glance at Signorina Elettra before his arm was taken by Patta and he was pulled gently into the office.

  Patta closed the door and walked across the room toward the two armchairs he’d had placed in front of the windows. He waited for Brunetti to join him. When he did, Patta gestured him to sit, then himself sat down; an interior decorator would have called the placement of the chairs a ‘conversation angle’.

  ‘I’m glad you could spare me the time, Commissario,’ Patta said. Hearing the tinge of angry sarcasm in the words, Brunetti felt himself on easier ground.

  ‘I had to go out,’ he explained.

  ‘I thought that was this morning,’ Patta said but then remembered to smile.

  ‘Yes, but then I had to go out this afternoon, too. It was so sudden I didn’t have time to get word to you.’

  ‘Don’t you have a telefonino, Dottore?’

  Brunetti, who loathed them and refused to carry one out of what he realized was stupid, Luddite prejudice, said only, ‘I didn’t have it with me, sir.’

  He wanted to ask Patta why he was there, but Signorina Elettra’s warning was enough to keep him silent, a neutral expression on his face, as though they were two strangers waiting for the same train.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you, Commissario,’ Patta began. He cleared his throat and continued, ‘It’s about something . . . well, it’s about something personal.’

  Brunetti worked hard to keep his face motionless, with an expression of passive interest in what he was hearing.

  Patta sat back in his chair, stretched his feet out in front of him, and crossed his ankles. For a moment, he contemplated the gleaming shine on his wingtips; then he uncrossed his feet, pulled them back, and leaned forward. In the few seconds it took him to do this, Brunetti was astonished to realize, Patta seemed to have aged years.

  ‘It’s my son,’ he said.

  Brunetti knew that he had two, Roberto and Salvatore. ‘Which one, sir?’

  ‘Roberto, the baby.’

  Roberto, Brunetti quickly calculated, must be at least twenty-three. Well, his own daughter Chiara, though she was fifteen, was still his baby and would surely always be. ‘Isn’t he studying at the university, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Economia Commerciale,’ Patta answered but then stopped and looked down at his feet. ‘He’s been there a few years,’ he explained as he lifted his gaze towards Brunetti.

  Brunetti again worked hard at keeping his face absolutely immobile. He did not want to appear overly curious about what might be a family problem, nor did he want to seem uninterested in whatever Patta chose to tell him. He nodded in what he thought was an encouraging way, the same gesture he used with nervous witnesses.

  ‘Do you know anyone in Jesolo?’ Patta asked, confusing Brunetti.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘In Jesolo, on the police there. Do you know anyone?’

  Brunetti thought about it for a moment. He had contacts with some police on the mainland, but none out there on the Adriatic coast among the nightclubs, hotels, discos, and the scores of daytripping tourists who stayed in Jesolo and came across the Laguna by boat every morning. A woman he’d studied with at university was on the police in Grado, but he knew no one in the nearer city. ‘No, sir, I don’t.’

  Patta failed to disguise his disappointment. ‘I had hoped you would,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Brunetti considered his options, studying the motionless Patta, who had gone back to looking at his feet, and decided to risk it. ‘Why do you ask, sir?’

  Patta looked up at him, away, and then back. Finally he said, ‘The police there called me last night. They have someone working for them, you know how it is.’ This must mean an informer of some sort. ‘This person told them a few weeks ago that Roberto was selling drugs.’ Patta stopped.

  When it was obvious that the Vice-Questore was not going to say anything more, Brunetti asked, ‘Why did they call you, sir?’

  Patta went on as though Brunetti had not asked the question. ‘I thought perhaps you might know someone there who could give us a clearer idea of what was happening, who this person is, how far along their investigation is.’ Again, the word ‘informer’ sprang to Brunetti’s mind, but he kept his own counsel. Responding to his silence, Patta added, ‘That sort of thing.’

  ‘No, sir, I’m sorry to tell you, but I really don’t know anyone there.’ After a pause, he volunteered, ‘I could ask Vianello, sir.’ Before Patta could respond, Brunetti added, ‘He’s discreet, sir. There’s nothing to worry about there.’

  Still Patta just sat and looked away from Brunetti. Then he shook his head in a firm negative, dismissing the possibility of accepting help from a uniformed man.

  ‘Will that be all, sir?’ Brunetti said and put his hands on the arms of his chair to show his readiness to leave.

  Seeing Brunetti’s gesture, Patta said, his voice now lower, ‘They arrested him.’ He glanced at Brunetti, but seeing that he had no questions, Patta continued: ‘Last night. They called me at about one. There was a fight at one of the discos, and when they got there to break it up, they stopped a couple of people and searched them. It must have been because of what this person had told them that they searched Roberto.’

  Brunetti remained silent. Once witnesses had gone this far, he knew from long experience, there was no stopping them: it would all come out.

  ‘In the pocket of his jacket, they found a plastic envelope with Ecstasy in it.’ He bent towards Brunetti and asked, ‘You know what that is, don’t you, Commissario?’

  Brunetti nodded, amazed that Patta could believe it possible for a policeman not to know. He knew that any word from him could break the momentum. He relaxed his posture as best he could, took one hand from the arm of the chair, and settled into what he hoped would appear to be a more comfortable position.

  ‘Roberto told them that someone m
ust have put it into the pocket of his jacket when they saw the police arrive. That sort of thing often happens.’ Brunetti knew that. He also knew that, just as often, it didn’t happen.

  ‘They called me, and I went out there. They knew who Roberto was, so they suggested I go. When I got there, they gave him into my custody. On the way back, he told me about the envelope.’ Patta stopped, and it seemed a final stop.

  ‘Did they keep it as evidence?’

  ‘Yes, and they took his fingerprints to match against any they found on the envelope.’

  ‘If he took it out and gave it to them, then his fingerprints were bound to be on it,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Patta said. ‘So I wasn’t worried about that. I didn’t even bother to call my lawyer. There was no proof, even if the prints were there. What Roberto said could have been true.’

  Brunetti nodded in silent agreement, waiting to learn why Patta spoke of it as no more than a possibility.

  Patta leaned back in the chair and gazed out the window. ‘They called me this morning, after you’d gone out.’

  ‘Is that why you wanted to see me, sir?’

  ‘No, this morning I wanted to ask you about something else. It isn’t important now.’

  ‘What did they tell you, sir?’ Brunetti finally asked.

  Patta returned his gaze from whatever he could see beyond the window. ‘That inside the large envelope, they found forty-seven smaller ones, each of them with an Ecstasy tablet inside.’

  Brunetti tried to calculate the weight and value of the drugs in order to work out the seriousness with which a judge was likely to view their possession. Well, it didn’t sound as if he had an enormous amount of the stuff, and if Roberto stuck to his story that someone else had put them into his jacket, he could see no serious legal danger for the boy.

  ‘His fingerprints were on the small envelopes, too,’ Patta dropped into the silence. ‘On all of them.’

  Brunetti resisted the impulse to reach across and place his hand on Patta’s arm. Instead, he waited a few moments and then said, ‘I’m sorry, sir.’