by Donna Leon
"They'd be in the box,' Paola answered, leaving it to Brunetti to go and hunt out the battered old wooden box in which the family kept their maps.
He was back with it in a few minutes, handed her half of the pile and started sorting through the others. After a few minutes Paola said, holding it up, 'Here's the big one of the laguna.'
It was a relic of the summer they had spent exploring the laguna in a battered old boat a friend had let them use. It must have been more than twenty years ago, before either of the kids was born. He remembered one star-scattered night when they had been trapped in a canal by the withdrawing tide.
"Those mosquitoes’ Paola said, her memory, too, drawn to that night and what they had done after spreading insect repellent on one another.
Brunetti dropped the maps he held on the floor and spread hers across the table. Unasked, she read him out the latitudinal coordinate of the first number while he ran his finger down the side of the map, stopping when he found the proper place. With his knees he pushed the table back to allow the entire map to fit flat on it. She read out the longitude, and he brought his finger slowly across the top of the map until he found that number, as well. He ran his left index finger down one of the vertical lines on the map; then the right followed a horizontal line until his fingers met at the point of intersection. The second point appeared to be little more than a few metres from the first.
"They're all on Sacca Serenella,' he said.
'You don't sound surprised.'
'I'm not.'
'Why?'
It took Brunetti almost half an hour to tell her, glossing over the precise circumstances of Tassini's death, to arrive at their search of the dead man's room, a room located not far from the point where those lines intersected, and then the grim meeting with his wife and mother-in-law.
When he finished, Paola went into the kitchen and returned holding the bottle of grappa. She handed it to Brunetti and sat next to him, then folded the map and dropped it on top of the others on the floor. She took back the bottle and poured them each another small glass.
'Did he really believe all that about having been contaminated and passing it on to his daughter?' Paola asked.
'I think so, yes.'
'Even in the face of the medical evidence?' Paola asked.
Brunetti shrugged, as if to show how unimportant medical evidence was to a person who chose not to believe it. 'It's what he thought happened.'
'But how would he be contaminated?' she asked. 'I'd believe it if he worked at Marghera, but I've never heard any talk that Murano is at risk, well, that the people who work there are.'
Brunetti thought back to his conversation with Tassini. 'He believed that there was a conspiracy to prevent him from getting accurate test results, so there would never be sufficient genetic evidence.' He read her scepticism and said, 'He believed it.'
'But what did he believe?' Paola demanded.
Brunetti opened his hands in a gesture of futility. 'That's what I couldn't get him to tell me: what he thought his problem was or how it would have affected the baby. All he'd tell me was that De Cal wasn't the only person involved in whatever was going on’ and before she could ask again, he added, 'and no, he didn't say what that was.'
'You think he was crazy?' Paola asked in a softer voice.
'I don't know about things like that,' Brunetti answered after considering the question. 'He believed in something for which there seems to be no evidence and for which he appeared to have no proof. I'm not ready to call that crazy'
He waited to see if Paola would remark that he had just described religious belief, but she was taking no easy shots that evening, it seemed, and said only, 'But he believed it enough to write down these numbers, whatever they are.'
'Yes’ Brunetti admitted. 'Doesn't mean that what he believed is true, just because he wrote some numbers down.'
'What about these other numbers?' she said, taking the other two sheets from the floor and placing them on the table.
'No idea’ Brunetti said. I've been staring at them all afternoon and they don't make any sense to me.'
'No clues?' she asked. 'Wasn't there anything else in his room?'
'No, nothing’ Brunetti said, and then he remembered the books. 'Just Industrial Illness and Dante.'
'Don't be cute, Guido,' she snapped.
He got up and went over to his jacket again; this time he brought back the two books.
Her reaction to Industrial Illness was the same as his, though she tossed it on the floor, not on the table. 'Dante’ she said, reaching for the book. He handed it to her and watched as she examined it: she opened to the title page, then turned to the publication information, then opened it in the middle and flipped through to the end.
'It's his school text, isn't it?' she said. 'Was he a reader?'
'There were a lot of books in his house.'
'What sort of books?' Like Brunetti, she believed that books served as a mirror of the person who accumulated them.
'I don't know’ he said. 'They were in a shelf against the back wall, and I never got close enough to read the titles.' He hadn't been conscious of examining them at the time, but now, recalling the room, he saw the rows of books, the backs of some of what might well have been the standard editions of the poets, and the gold-ribbed backs of the same editions of the great novelists Paola had in her study.
'He was a real reader, though’ Brunetti finally said.
Paola had the Dante open and was already lost in it. He watched her for a few minutes, until she turned a page, looked across at him with an expression of blank astonishment, and asked, 'How is it that I forget how perfect he is?'
Brunetti picked up the maps and put them back in the box. He closed it and left it on the floor.
Suddenly the accumulated weight of the day's events bore down on him. 'I think I have to go to bed’ he said, offering no explanation. She acknowledged his words with a nod and plunged back into Hell.
Brunetti sank immediately into a heavy sleep and was not aware of Paola when she came to bed. If she turned on the light, if she made any noise, if she stayed awake reading: Brunetti had no idea. But as the bells of San Marco rolled past their window at five the following morning, he woke up, saying, 'Laws.'
He turned on the light, raised himself onto his shoulder to see if he had woken Paola, and saw that he had not. He pushed back the covers and went out into the hallway, one side of which was lined with the books he thought of as his: the Greek and Roman historians as well as those who had followed them for the next two thousand years. On the other side were art books and travel books and, on the top shelf, some of the textbooks he had used at university as well as some current volumes on civil and criminal law.
In the living room he found Tassini's papers still on the table alongside Industrial Illness. He had a degree in law, had spent years reading and memorizing them: why had he not recognized the notation? If the first six digits were read as a date, the first came out as 20 September 1973 and the second as 10 September 1982. The last three numbers would then be the number of the law. He knew he had the volumes of the Gazzetta Ufficiale in his office and not here, but still he looked for them. His feet got cold so he took the papers and Tassini's book with him to the bedroom.
He climbed into bed, slapped his pillow into submission behind him, but then cursed under his breath and went back into the living room to get his glasses. Coming back into the room, he grabbed his new sweater and tied it around his shoulders, and got into bed again.
He let the sheets of paper drift into the valley between himself and his apparently comatose wife and opened Industrial Illness at the index.
He read until nearly six, when he set down the book and went into the kitchen, made himself caffe latte, and took it back into the bedroom. He sat, sipping at his coffee and watching the light on the paintings on the far wall.
'Paola’ he said soon after the bells had rung seven. And then again, ‘Paola.'
She must have
responded to something in his voice rather than to her name, for she replied in an entirely natural voice. 'If you bring me coffee, I'll listen to you.'
For the fourth time, he got out of bed. He made a larger pot of coffee and brought two cups back to the bedroom with him. He found her sitting up, her glasses slipped down to the end of her nose, Tassini's book open on her knees.
He handed her a cup. She took it, sipped, and smiled her thanks. She patted the bed beside her and he sat. They drank some coffee. After a time, she pushed her glasses up onto her head. She said, 'I have no idea what you're doing, Guido. Reading something like this half the night.' With her free hand, she shut the book and tossed it on to the bed.
'I think I know what the numbers mean,' he said. 'He knew the laws that deal with pollution and he listed them in the proper legal way, only without the spaces between the dates and numbers.'
He expected Paola to ask what the laws were, but she surprised him by saying, 'How would he know the numbers of the laws?' In her tone, he detected more than a little of the scorn the educated reserve for those who aspire to their knowledge.
'I have no idea,' Brunetti confessed.
'Did he study law?'
'I don't know,' Brunetti said, realizing how little he knew about Tassini's past; the man had passed too quickly from suspect to victim.
'His mother-in-law said he wanted to be a night-watchman so he could sit there and read all night’ he told Paola.
With a smile, she said, 'I wouldn't be surprised if there was a time when my mother might have said the same thing about you, Guido,' but she leaned over and squeezed his hand to show she was only kidding. He hoped.
He got to his feet and took her empty cup. 'I think I'll go to the Questura’ he said, thinking that he would pick up the newspapers on the way and see how the story was being reported.
She nodded and reached for the book she kept on her night table. She put on her glasses and opened it. Brunetti picked up Tassini's book and went back out to the kitchen to put their cups in the sink.
On his way to the Questura, Brunetti bought the Corriere and the Gazzettino and unfolded them on his desk as soon as he got to his office. The death had taken place early enough the previous day for reporters to have had a full day to sniff around the factory, the hospital, and then around Tassini's home. There was a photo of Tassini, taken years ago, and one of the De Cal factory with three carabinieri standing in front of it: Brunetti had no idea that they had become involved. According to the accounts in both papers, Tassini's body had been discovered by a co-worker when he arrived at the factory to adjust the temperature of the new gettate that had spent the night in the furnaces. The man's body was lying in front of one of the furnaces, in a temperature estimated to be in excess of one hundred degrees.
The police had questioned Tassini's co-workers and family, but an official investigation would begin only after the results of the autopsy. Tassini, who was thirty-six, had worked at De Cal's factory for six years and left a wife and two children.
As soon as Brunetti finished reading the article, he dialled the telefonino of the medico legate, Ettore Rizzardi. The doctor answered with a laconic 'Si.'
'It's Guido,' Brunetti began.
Before he could continue, Rizzardi said, 'You are not going to believe this, but he died of a heart attack.'
'What? He wasn't forty yet.'
'Well, it wasn't that kind of a heart attack’ Rizzardi said, surprising Brunetti, who had not known there was more than one type.
"Then what kind was it?'
'From dehydration,' Rizzardi said and went on, 'He was lying there most of the night. The temperature did it. That idiot Venturi didn't bother to measure it, but the men at the fornace told me when I called. That is, they told me what it would have been if the temperature inside was about 1,400 and the door was open.'
'How much is that?' Brunetti asked.
'One hundred and fifty-seven’ Rizzardi answered, 'but that's just outside the door. Down on the floor, it wouldn't be as hot, but still hot enough to kill him.'
'What happens?'
'You sweat. It's worse than any sauna you can think of, Guido. You sweat and sweat until there's no more sweat to come out. And while it's coming out, it takes all the minerals with it. And once there are no more minerals, especially sodium and potassium, the heart goes into arrhythmia, and then you have a heart attack.'
'And then you die’ Brunetti completed.
'That's right. And then you die.'
'Any signs of violence?' Brunetti asked.
'There was a mark on his head, a bruise. The skin was broken, but there was no dirt in it and no traces of what he might have hit.'
'Or of what might have hit him?' Brunetti suggested.
'Or of what he came into contact with, Guido’ Rizzardi said in a firm voice. 'It bled for a while, until he died.'
Brunetti had already had Bocchese tell him that any sign of human tissue on the door to the furnace would have been destroyed by the fire, so he did not bother to ask.
'Anything else?' Brunetti asked.
'No’ Rizzardi said, 'nothing that you could think was suspicious.'
'Did you do it?' Brunetti asked, suddenly curious as to why Rizzardi knew so much about the state of Tassini's body.
'I offered to help my colleague, Dottor Venturi, with the autopsy. I told him I was curious because I'd never seen anything like this’ Rizzardi said in his dispassionate, professional voice.
But then his tone changed and he said, 'You know, it's true, Guido. I'd never seen anything like this: just read about it. You should have seen his lungs. I couldn't have imagined. Breathing in that heat: it made them produce so much liquid. I've seen it with smoke, of course,, but I had no idea that heat itself could do the same thing.'
'But it was a heart attack?' Brunetti asked, unwilling to hear more of Rizzardi's professional enthusiasm.
'Yes. That's what Venturi put on the death certificate.'
'What would you have put?' Brunetti asked, hoping Rizzardi would confirm his own suspicions.
'Heart attack, Guido. Heart attack. That's what the man died of, a heart attack.'
'One more thing, Ettore: is there a list of what was in his pockets?'
'Wait a minute’ the doctor said. 'I had the list here a minute ago.' Brunetti heard a click as the doctor set the phone down on his desk, then the rustling of papers. A moment later, he was back. 'A set of keys, a wallet with identification and thirty Euros, a handkerchief, and three Euros and eighty-seven cents. That's it.'
Brunetti thanked him and hung up.
20
After his conversation with Rizzardi, Brunetti decided to go down to the Archive and make copies of the laws Tassini's notes had referred to. Back in his office, Brunetti read through them. The 1973 law established limits for waste water that flowed into the laguna, the sewers, even the sea. It also established time limits within which the glass manufacturers had to install water purifiers and then established the agency that would inspect those purifiers. The law of 1982 imposed even stricter limits on the water system and addressed the acids that Assunta had mentioned. As Brunetti read of the limits and restrictions, he could not silence the small voice that asked him what had gone on before that and what had flowed into the laguna before these laws were passed?
Once he finished reading the laws, good sense urged Brunetti to go down to Patta's office and tell him about the contents of Tassini's file and what some of those numbers meant. He wanted to suggest that some sort of examination be made of the places indicated by the coordinates to see what basis Tassini's suspicions might have had, but long experience of Patta and the way he negotiated the shoals of city bureaucracy told Brunetti just how receptive his superior would be to this suggestion. If Pelusso was telling him the truth—and Brunetti saw no reason not to believe him—then Fasano had enough influence to be able to complain to Patta, and that suggested he was a man of greater influence than Brunetti had previously realized.
/> As he returned to his chair, one of Tassini's books struck the edge of his desk, once again calling Brunetti's attention to them. Where would Dante have put Patta, Brunetti found himself wondering. Among the hypocrites? The wrathful? Or perhaps he would have been merciful and placed the Vice-Questore outside the gate to Hell, among the opportunists. He opened Inferno to the title page and studied it for a moment. Canto I. Canto I. He turned a few pages, and there it was: Canto II, and then Canto III, and then Canto IV. Brunetti took a deep breath, amazed at his own blindness. He had had the book and Tassini's numbers in his hands at the same time and he had not seen it.
He took the copy he had made of Tassini's numbers, found the first, and opened Dante to Canto VII, line 103. 'L'acqua era buia assai piu che persa', 'The water was much darker than persa’ he repeated. 'What the devil is persa?' He looked at his watch, saw that Paola was likely still to be home, and dialled their number.
'Pronto,' she answered on the fifth ring.
'Paola,' he said, 'what's persa?'
'In what context?' she asked, displaying no curiosity as to the reason for his question.
'In Dante’ he said.
'I think it's a colour’ she said, 'but let me get the concordance.' In less than a minute she was back, and he heard her mumbling as she searched for the word, a habit Chiara had picked up from her. Finally she said,' "a colour between purple and black, but black predominates".' She waited for his response, and when he made none, she asked, 'Anything else?'
'Not yet. I'll call.'
Paola hung up.
Brunetti went back to the book. The stream that Dante was following eventually flowed into the Styx, but Tassini's reference was only to line 103, to the black water.
The next was no less grim: 'no green leaves but dark colours, no smooth branches, but gnarled and warped.'
He continued with Tassini's references: 'the banks were crusted over with a mould from the vapour below that sticks on them and fights with the eyes and nose.'
And the last: 'do not set your feet upon the burning sand.'