Acqua Alta cgb-5

by Donna Leon

  They came in together a few minutes later, Vianello holding the door open to allow her to pass in before him. As soon as they were inside, Brunetti closed the window, and the sergeant, ever gruff and bear-like Vianello, pulled a chair up to Brunetti’s desk and held it while Signorina Elettra took her place on it. Vianello?

  As she sat down, Signorina Elettra slipped a single sheet of paper on to Brunetti’s desk. ‘This came in from Rome, sir.’ In response to his unspoken question, she added, ‘They’ve traced the fingerprints.’

  Under the letterhead of the Carabinieri, the letter, bearing an indecipherable signature, stated that fingerprints taken from Semenzato s telephone corresponded to those of Salvatore La Capra, age twenty-three, resident in Palermo. Despite his youth, La Capra had amassed a significant number of arrests and charges: extortion, rape, assault, attempted murder, and association with known members of the Mafia. All of these charges, at various times during the long legal processes that led from arrest to trial, had been dropped. Three witnesses in the extortion case had disappeared; the woman who brought the charge of rape had retracted her denuncia. The only conviction that stood against La Capra s name was for speeding, for which infraction he had paid a four-hundred-and-twenty-thousand-lire fine. The report went on to state that La Capra, who was not employed, lived with his father.

  When he finished reading the report, Brunetti looked up at Vianello. ‘Have you seen this?’

  Vianello nodded.

  ‘Why does the name sound familiar?’ Brunetti asked, addressing them both with the question.

  Signorina Elettra and Vianello started to speak at the same time, but Vianello, when he heard her, stopped and waved at her to proceed.

  When she did not, Brunetti prodded, ‘Well?’ impatient for an answer in the midst of all of this chivalry.

  ‘The architect?’ Signorina Elettra asked, and Vianello nodded in agreement.

  It was enough to remind Brunetti. Five months ago, the architect in charge of extensive restorations to a palazzo on the Grand Canal had sworn out a complaint against the son of the owner of the palazzo, claiming that the son had threatened him with violence if there were any more delays to the restoration project, already in its eighth month. The architects attempt to explain about the difficulty in obtaining building permits was brushed aside by the son, who warned him that his father was not a man who was accustomed to being kept waiting and that bad things often happened to people who displeased him or his father. The following day, and before there had been a chance for the police to act on the complaint, the architect was back in the Questura, claiming that the whole thing bad been a misunderstanding and no actual threats had been made. The charges had been withdrawn, but the report of the original denuncia had been made out and read by all three of them, and all of them now remembered that it had been made against Salvatore La Capra.

  ‘I think we should see if Signorino La Capra or his father is at home,’ Brunetti suggested. ‘And, signorina,’ he added, turning to her, ‘perhaps you could see what you can find out about his father, if you’re not busy with anything.’

  ‘Of course, Dottore,’ she said. ‘I’ve already made the Vice-Questore’s dinner reservation, so I’ll begin on this immediately.’ Smiling, she stood, and Vianello, shadow-like, drifted to the door in front of her. He held it for her while she left the office, then came back to his seat.

  ‘I’ve seen the wife, sir. The widow, that is.’

  ‘Yes. I read your report. It seemed very brief.’

  ‘It was brief, sir,’ Vianello said, voice level. ‘There wasn’t much to say. She was sick with grief for him, could barely talk. I asked her a few questions, but she cried through all of it, so I had to stop. I’m not sure she understood why I was there or why I was asking her the questions.’

  ‘Was it real grief?’ Brunetti asked. Both policemen for many years, they had seen more than enough of both kinds, real and feigned, to last many lifetimes.

  ‘I think so, sir.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘She’s about forty, ten years younger than he was. There weren’t any children, so he was all she had. I don’t think she fitted in here very well.’

  ‘Why not?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Semenzato was Venetian, but she’s from the South. Sicily. And she’s never liked it here. She said she wanted to go home after all of this was over.’

  How many threads in this were going to pull towards the South, Brunetti wondered. Surely, the place of the woman’s birth shouldn’t cause him to suspect her of criminal involvement. Telling himself this, he said, ‘I want to get a tap on her phone.’

  ‘On Signora Semenzato’s?’ Vianello’s surprise was audible.

  ‘Who else have we been talking about, Vianello?’

  ‘But I just talked to her, and she’s hardly capable of standing up by herself. She’s not faking that grief, sir. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Her grief isn’t in question, Vianello. It’s her husband.’ Brunetti was also curious about what the widow might have known of her husband’s behaviour, but with Vianello in an uncharacteristically gallant mood, this was best left unsaid.

  Vianello’s assent was grudging. ‘Even if that’s the reason—’

  Brunetti cut him off. ‘What about the staff at the museum?’

  Vianello allowed himself to be herded back into line. ‘They seemed to like Semenzato. He was efficient, dealt well with the unions, and he was apparently very good at delegating authority, at least to the extent that the Ministry would let him.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘He let the curators decide which paintings needed to go to restoration, let them decide what techniques to use, when to call in outside experts. From what I gathered from the people I talked to, the man who had the job before he did insisted on keeping everything under his control, and that meant things got slowed down, since he wanted to know all the details. Most of them preferred Semenzato.’

  ‘Anything eke?’

  ‘I went back up to the hallway where Semenzato’s office is and took another look around in the daylight. There’s a door that leads into that corridor from the left wing, but it’s nailed shut. And there’s no way anyone could have come across the roof. So they went up the stairs.’

  ‘Right past the guards’ office,’ Brunetti finished for him.

  ‘And past it again on the way down,’ Vianello added, not kindly.

  ‘What was on television that night?’

  Vianello answered, ‘Reruns of Colpo Grosso,’ with an immediacy that forced Brunetti to wonder if the sergeant had been at home that night, with half of Italy, watching demi-celebrities remove their clothing piece by piece to the excited shrieks of a studio audience. If the breasts had been big enough, thieves could probably have gone into the Piazza and removed the Basilica, and no one would have noticed until the following morning.

  This seemed a wise point to change the subject. ‘All right, Vianello, see what you can do about getting her phone taken care of.’ His tone couldn’t be described as dismissive, not quite.

  By mutual assent, the conversation was over. Vianello stood, still not pleased with this further invasion of the grief of the widow Semenzato, but agreed to see that it was done. ‘Anything else, sir?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Ordinarily, Brunetti would ask to be informed when the tap was in place, but he left it to Vianello. The sergeant moved his chair a few centimetres forward and placed it squarely in front of Brunetti’s desk, waved a vague salute, and left the office without another word. Brunetti thought it was enough that he had one prima donna to deal with over in Cannaregio. He didn’t need another one here at the Questura.

  * * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Brunetti left the Questura fifteen minutes later, he wore his boots and carried his umbrella. He cut back to his left, heading in the general direction of Rialto, but then turned to the right, suddenly to the left, and soon found himself coming down off the bri
dge that led into Campo Santa Maria Formosa. Directly in front of him, on the other side of the campo, stood Palazzo Priuli, abandoned for as long as he could remember, the central prize of vicious litigation over a contested will. As the heirs and presumptive heirs fought over whose it was or should be, the palazzo went about its business of deteriorating with a single-mindedness that ignored heirs, claims and legality. Long smears of rust trickled down the stone walls from the iron gratings that tried to protect it from unlawful entry, and the roof pitched and sagged, opening up fissures here and there, allowing the curious sun to peek into the attic, closed up these many years. Brunetti the dreamer had often considered that Palazzo Priuli would be the ideal place to imprison a mad aunt, a recalcitrant wife or a reluctant heiress at the same time as his more sober and practical Venetian self viewed it as a prime piece of real estate and studied the windows, dividing the space beyond into apartments, offices and studios.

  Murino’s shop, he had the vague semi-memory, stood on the north side, between a pizzeria and a mask shop. The pizzeria was closed for the season, awaiting the return of the tourists, but both the mask shop and the antique shop were open, their lights burning brightly through the late winter rain.

  As Brunetti pushed open the door to the shop, a bell sounded in a room somewhere off behind a pair of damasked velvet curtains that hung in a doorway that led to the back. The room radiated the subdued glow of wealth, the wealth of ages and stability. There were, surprisingly, few pieces on display, yet each called for the complete attention of the viewer. At the back stood a walnut credenza with a row of five drawers down the leftside, the wood aglow with centuries of attentive care. Just beneath his hand stood a long oak table, probably taken from the refectory of some religious house. It, too, had been polished to a shimmering glow, but no attempt had been made to disguise or remove the chips and stains of long use. At his feet crouched a pair of marble lions, teeth bared in a threat which had perhaps once been terrifying. But age had worn away their teeth and softened their features until now they faced their enemies with a yawn rather than a growl.

  ‘C’ è qualcuno?’ Brunetti called towards the back. He looked down and noticed that his folded umbrella had already left a large puddle on the parquet floor of the shop. Signor Murino must surely be an optimist, as well as a non-Venetian, to have covered a floor in this part of the city with parquet, for the zone lay low, and the first serious acqua alta was sure to flow in here, destroying the wood and sweeping out both glue and varnish when the tide changed.

  ‘Buon giorno?’ he called again, taking a few steps towards the doorway and leaving a trail of raindrops on the floor behind him.

  A hand appeared at the curtain and pushed it aside. The man who stepped into the room was the same one Brunetti remembered having seen in the city and who had been pointed out to him — he could no longer remember by whom — as the antique dealer from Santa Maria Formosa. Murino was short, as were many Southerners, with lustrous black hair which he wore in a crown of loose ringlets hanging down to his collar. His colouring was dark, his skin smooth, his features small and well proportioned. What was disconcerting, in the midst of this cliché of Mediterranean good looks, were the eyes, a clear opaline green. Though they gazed out at the world from behind round gold-framed glasses which partially obscured them and were shadowed by lashes as long as they were black, they remained the dominant feature of his face. The French, Brunetti knew, had conquered Naples centuries ago, but the usual genetic souvenir of their long occupation was the red hair sometimes seen in the city, not these clear, Nordic eyes.

  ‘Signor Murino?’ he asked, extending his hand.

  ‘Si,’ the antique dealer answered, taking Brunetti’s hand and returning his grip firmly.

  ‘I’m Guido Brunetti, Commissario of Police. I’d like to have a few words with you.’

  Murino’s expression remained one of polite curiosity.

  ‘I’d like to ask you some questions about your partner. Or should I say, your late partner?’

  Brunetti watched as Murino absorbed this information, then waited as the other man began to consider what his visible response should be. All of this took only seconds, but Brunetti had been observing the process for decades and was familiar with it. The people to whom he presented himself had a drawer of responses which they thought appropriate, and part of his job was to watch them as they sifted through them one at a time, seeking the right fit. Surprise? Fear? Innocence? Curiosity? He watched Murino flip through them, studied his face as he considered, then discarded, various possibilities. He decided, apparently, on the last.

  ‘Yes? And what would you like to know, Commissario?’ His smile was polite, his tone friendly. He looked down and noticed Brunetti’s umbrella. ‘Here, let me take that, please,’ he said, managing to sound more concerned with Brunetti’s inconvenience than with any damage the dripping water might be doing to his floor. He carried the umbrella over to a flower-painted porcelain umbrella stand that stood next to the door. He slipped it in and turned back to Brunetti. ‘May I take your coat?’

  Brunetti realized that Murino was attempting to set the tone of their interview, and the tone he aimed for was friendly and relaxed, the verbal manifestation of his own innocence. ‘Thank you, don’t bother,’ Brunetti answered, and with his response grabbed the tone back into his own command. ‘Could you tell me how long he was a partner in your business?’

  Murino gave no sign that he had registered the struggle for dominance of the conversation. ‘Five years,’ he answered, ‘from when I opened this shop.’

  ‘And what about your shop in Milan? Did his partnership extend to that?’

  ‘Oh, no. They’re kept as separate businesses. His partnership pertained only to this one.’

  ‘And how is it that he became a partner?’

  ‘You know how it is. Word travels.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t know how it is, Signor Murino. How did he become your partner?’

  Murino’s smile was consistently relaxed; he was willing to ignore Brunetti’s rudeness. ‘When I was given the opportunity to rent this space, I contacted some friends of mine here in the city and tried to borrow money from them. I had most of my capital tied up in the stock in the Milan shop, and the market for antiques was very slow at that time.’

  ‘But still you wanted to open a second shop?’

  Murino’s smile was cherubic. ‘I had hope in the future. People might stop buying for a period, but that always comes to an end, and people will always return to buying beautiful things.’

  If Murino had been a woman, Brunetti would have said he was fishing for a compliment and nudging Brunetti to admire the pieces in the shop and, with that, relax the tension created by the questions.

  ‘And was your optimism rewarded, Signor Murino?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t complain.’

  ‘And your partner? How was it that he found out about your interest in borrowing money?’

  ‘Oh, voices travel. Word spreads.’ That, apparently, was as much of an explanation as Signor Murino was prepared to give.

  ‘And so he appeared, money in hand, asking to become a partner?’

  Murino walked over to a Renaissance wedding chest and wiped at a fingerprint with his handkerchief. He bent down to get his eyes horizontal with the surface of the chest and wiped repeatedly at the smear until it was gone. He folded his handkerchief into a neat rectangle, put it back into the pocket of his jacket, and leaned back against the edge of the chest. ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that.’

  ‘And what did he get in return for his investment?’

  ‘Fifty per cent of the profits for ten years.’

  ‘And who kept the books?’

  ‘We have un contabile who takes care of all that for us.’

  ‘Who does the buying for the shop?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And the selling?’

  ‘I. Or my daughter. She works here two days a week.’

  ‘So it’s you and your
daughter who know what gets bought, and at what price, and what gets sold, and at what price?’

  ‘I have receipts for all purchases and sales, Dottor Brunetti,’ Murino said, voice just short of indignation.

  Brunetti considered for a moment the option of telling Murino that everyone in Italy had receipts for everything and that all of those receipts were utterly meaningless as anything other than evidence faked to avoid paying taxes. But one did not point out that rain fell from the sky to the earth below or that it was in the spring that trees blossomed. Just so, one did not have to point out the existence of tax fraud, especially not to an antique dealer, and most especially not to a Neapolitan antique dealer.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you have, Signor Murino,’ Brunetti said, and changed the subject. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’