by Donna Leon
“So keeping quiet about the murder of someone who said he wasn’t in love with you anymore, especially if he wasn’t graceful about it . . . it makes complete sense to me. So does saying something that might protect the murderer.”
“Then you doubt her account? That she saw Steffani kill him?”
“Is that what she says? That she saw him do it?”
Caterina had to pause and think back over the precise wording in Tina’s friend’s email. “Something about his having received blood money,” she said.
“I’m not sure that’s the same thing as saying she saw him commit the murder,” Andrea said, and then, just as she was about to make the same suggestion, added, “Maybe we could talk about something else?”
What a relief his suggestion was. He paid the bill and moved over to the door to hold it open for her.
He led them to a small trattoria behind the Pietà, a place that held no more than half a dozen tables, the stout-legged sort she remembered from her youth, with surfaces scarred and carved and edges hollowed out by countless forgotten cigarettes. Bottles stood on mirrored shelves behind the zinc-covered bar; a rectangular space with a sliding door opened into the kitchen.
Two of the tables were already taken. The waiter recognized Moretti and showed them to a table in the far corner. He handed them menus and disappeared through a pair of swinging doors.
“I hope you don’t mind eating in a simple place,” he said.
“I’d rather,” she said. “My parents keep telling me how hard it’s become to find a place where the food’s good and you don’t have to take out a mortgage to pay the bill.”
“That’s not the case here,” he said, then laughed and said, “I mean, the food’s good, not that it’s cheap.” And, hearing that, he added, “That’s the reason I come, that is, because the food’s good.” Hearing what a pass he had talked himself into, he shrugged and opened his menu.
Conversation was general: families, school, travel, reading, music. Much of his life was completely at one with the persona he presented: father a lawyer, mother a housewife; two brothers, the surgeon he had already mentioned and the other a notary; school, university, first job, partnership. But then came the odd bits: a case of encephalitis seven years ago that had left him in bed for six months, during which he had read the Fathers of the Church, in Latin. When these facts were painted into the picture she was attempting to form of the man, everything went out of focus for a moment. A brush with death; she knew little about encephalitis save that it was bad, quite often fatal, and just as often left people gaga. Perhaps that last explained six months reading the Fathers of the Church, her cynical self remarked, but her better self limited her to asking, “Encephalitis?”
He bit into a shrimp and said, “I went for a hike in the mountains above Belluno. Two days later I found a tick on the back of my knee, and a week later I was in the hospital with a temperature of forty.”
“Near Belluno?” It was only two hours from Venice, a beautiful city where nothing happened.
“It’s common. There are more and more cases every year,” he said, then smiled and added, “More evidence of the wisdom of living in cities.”
She decided not to ask about the Fathers of the Church. The evening continued, and conversation remained general and friendly. The absence of reference to Steffani or Königsmarck came as a great relief to Caterina. How pleasant to spend a few hours in this century, in this city, and, she added to herself, in this company.
They shared a branzino baked in salt, drank most of a bottle of Ribolla Gialla, and both turned down dessert. When the coffee came, Andrea grew suddenly serious and said, with no preparation at all, “I’m afraid I have to confess I haven’t told you the complete truth.”
There being nothing she could think of to say, Caterina remained silent.
“About the cousins.”
Better than about himself, she thought, but she said nothing to him, certainly not this. If he was confessing he lied, she had no obligation to make it easy for him, so she remained silent; in order to appear to be doing something, she poured sugar into her coffee and stirred it round.
“The story of how the trunks got here,” he said, then drew one hand into a fist and placed it on the table.
“Ah,” she permitted herself to say.
“They didn’t track them down. The trunks turned up during an inventory, and the researcher did find Steffani’s name on them, and he did do the research and locate the descendants.”
He paused and gave her a quizzical glance, but Caterina kept her face impassive. “Descendants,” he had said. Not “heirs.”
She stifled her curiosity and drank her coffee. He must have realized she was not going to be cooperatively inquisitive, so he said, his voice a mixture of the pedantic and the apologetic, “They have no claim to ownership. You studied law, so you probably know that it reverts to the State.”
Caterina kept her eyes on her coffee cup, even lifted the spoon and ran it around the empty bottom a few times. Then she carefully spooned up the mixture of melted sugar and froth from the bottom and licked the spoon before replacing it on the saucer.
She raised her eyes and looked across the table at him, with his lovely, expensive jacket and his moderate tie. He met her eyes with his own steady glance and said, “I apologize.”
“Why did you tell me a different story?” she asked, consciously avoiding the use of the word lie.
“They asked me to.”
“Why?”
He looked down at his own empty coffee cup but did not busy himself with his spoon. Eyes still lowered, he said, “They said they didn’t want to have to explain how the trunks got here. The real way, I mean. Or I presume.” Even in his explanation, she noticed, he still strove for clarity.
Making herself sound the very voice of moderation, she asked, “Why wouldn’t they want anyone to know?”
He tried to shrug but abandoned the gesture halfway, with one shoulder higher than the other. “My guess is that they bribed someone to have the trunks sent here.” When her gaze remained level on his, he actually blushed and said, “In fact, it’s the only way it could have happened.”
“The researcher?” she asked, knowing this was impossible. He would have no power over where the trunks went.
Andrea smiled at her question and said, “Not likely.”
“Then who?” she asked, doing her best to look very confused.
“It would have to be someone at the Propaganda Fide, I’d guess. Or someone at the warehouse.”
“Then why me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why me? Why spend money on a researcher when they could just get the trunks here, open them up, and have a look themselves?”
“They needed a researcher,” he said, holding up his thumb to count the first reason. “He was a cleric and worked in Germany, so they needed someone who could read different languages.” He held up a second finger. “And that person would also have to be able to have some understanding of the historical, perhaps even the musical, background.” His third finger shot up.
“That’s absurd,” she snapped, finally out of patience with the role she had decided to play. “I just told you, all they had to do was open them, take out any musical scores that might be inside, do a minimum of research on what Steffani’s autograph scores are worth, and sell them. Split the money and hire someone at the university to read through the other papers. Sooner or later, they’d know whether there was a treasure hidden somewhere or not.”
Andrea tried to smile, reached a hand halfway across the table, as if to place it on her arm, but then pulled it back when he saw her expression.
He picked up his coffee cup, but it was still empty, so he set it back in the saucer. “There was a . . . a falling out, I suppose you could say.”
“Of thieves?”
Her directness obviously distressed him. He had to think about a response before he said, “Yes, you might describe it that way. Once they had the trunks here, they both realized how little they trusted the other one.”
“And I suppose they began to add up the sums,” she said angrily.
“I don’t understand,” though she thought perhaps he did.
“They’d have to pay by the page or by the hour if they hired a freelance translator, and they didn’t know what was in the trunks or what the papers—if there were papers—would say. Or what they would be worth.” As she spoke, Caterina remembered an old folk tale about three thieves who discover some sort of treasure. One went off to town to get enough food and drink to keep them going while the three of them decided what it was worth and how to divide it up. While he was gone, the two who remained behind planned his murder, and when he came back, they killed him. They ate and drank to celebrate their victory, but the dead man had poisoned the wine he brought back, so they, too, paid the price of the Jewels of Paradise.
She looked across at him, her face neutral, waiting for him to speak.
“Neither of them trusted the other not to cheat,” he finally said. “Even though they had no idea what was in the trunks, they still believed the other would be clever enough to cheat him out of his share. Or to see that the division wasn’t equal.” He saw that he had her interest and went on. “Nothing can shake them loose from their belief in a treasure.”
“Have you tried?”
“Yes.” He shook his head to show the hopelessness of that endeavor.
“So they agreed to pay my salary?”
This question made him visibly uncomfortable.
“What is it?” she asked.
“For the first month, yes,” he said.
“What?”
“It was in the contract.” She thought it embarrassed him to say this, and that surprised her. She suppressed her own embarrassment at not having bothered to read the contract.
“You told me my position was good until I’d read through all of the papers,” she said in a cool, firm voice. “I left my job to come here.”
“I know,” he said, his eyes on his plate. Could it be that he was ashamed of the part he had played? She had no doubt that he had played it.
She said nothing.
Forced to continue, Moretti finally said, “I thought at the beginning that they’d continue to pay you until you had a definite answer to give them—yes there is a treasure or no there is not.” He made that half move with his hand across the table, but again he stopped. “I thought they were serious. That’s why I worked to convince them you could do the research in the library.” She thought it best not to tell him she’d realized the futility of that research.
“They’ve changed their minds, I assume?”
“Stievani called me this afternoon. One month. That’s all. If they don’t have an answer by the end of one month, they’ll figure out a way to do it by themselves.”
“Good luck to them, the fools,” she couldn’t stop herself from saying.
“I agree.” Then, in a calmer tone, he said, “If you want, I can try to persuade them.”
She smiled. “That’s kind of you, Andrea. I’d appreciate it if you could try.” Suddenly, she opened her mouth in an enormous yawn. “Sorry,” she said, looking at her watch.
He imitated her gesture and said, “It’s after eleven.”
From the way he said it, she wondered if he had to be home before midnight. He signaled the waiter with a writing gesture. In a very short time, he was there, with the sort of receipt that indicates the owner would have to pay taxes. “You always do that?” she asked, pointing to the bill as he set a few notes on top of it.
“Pay the bill when I invite a woman to dinner?” he asked, but with a grin.
“No. Ask for a ricevuta fiscale in a restaurant where you come often.”
“You mean because of the taxes they’ll have to pay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We all have to pay taxes.”
“Does that mean you pay yours? All of them?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
She believed him.
They got to their feet. He opened the door for her and they walked together, talking of things other than Agostino Steffani and the cousins, toward the apartment where she was staying. At her door, he kissed her on both cheeks, said good night, and turned away.
Caterina went up the stairs to her apartment, unlocked the door, and let herself in.
She looked at her watch and saw that it was almost midnight. Cristina did not have a telefonino, which meant she could not leave her an SMS and ask her to call if she was awake. There was a phone in the apartment, with a meter that counted the elapsed units for calls. It would be much cheaper to call Germany on that.
She took her telefonino from her pocket and dialed Cristina’s number. It rang six times before a groggy voice answered with “Ja?”
“Ciao, Tina,” she said. “Sorry to wake you up.”
After a long pause, Tina said, “It’s okay, I was reading.”
“Lying’s still a sin, dear.”
“Not really, if it’s in a good cause.”
“You rewriting the commandments now?”
“I’m awake, so tell me what’s wrong—I can hear it in your voice—and I’ll leave the rewriting of the others till tomorrow morning.”
“You know that lawyer I told you about?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a coldhearted bastard like the others.”
“Why do you say that?” Tina said, sounding sad.
“Because he’s been reading my emails.”
Twenty-three
“Which emails?” Cristina demanded, her voice fully awake.
“The ones I’ve been writing on the computer he so generously gave me to use in the office. He said his company wasn’t using it, so he had one of his tech people work on it . . .” Here she had to stop and take a few deep breaths before going on. “And he brought it to me, and I’ve been using it ever since.” Two more deep breaths. Her knees were shaking. She sat down on the sofa.
“How do you know he’s reading them, Cati?”
“At dinner tonight, he told me I’d understand something because I’d studied law.”
“Well, you did. Two years, if I remember correctly.”
“I never told him.”
“Then maybe he read it on your CV.”
“It’s not there,” Caterina said with fierce energy. “I never talk about it, and I did not include it in the CV.”
“But how do you cover over a gap of two years?”
“I added a year to the things I did before and after. I figured they wouldn’t check, no one ever does. And if it wasn’t in the CV, and I never said anything to him about it, then the only way he knows is from your mail.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I just told you, Tina,” she said. Hearing the anger in her voice, she moderated her tone. “He knew I studied law, and the only way he could have known that was from reading your email, where you mentioned it.” How many times would the sleep-sodden Cristina have to hear this before she understood?
“But why would he say that to you?”
“He was telling me that things revert to the State after a certain period if no heir makes a claim, and I suppose he meant to be complimentary or inclusive, make me feel like one of the pack, and said something about how I should know that because I studied law.”
“Did you react?”
“I hope not. I acted as if it didn’t register with me. He probably thinks he read it in my CV. After all, who wouldn’t mention something like that?”
“You, apparently,” Tina br
oke in to suggest. Her laugh restored the usual warmth of their conversation.
“What’s he up to?” Caterina asked, aware of a vague sense that the documents in the storeroom had been moved or tampered with.
“That’s not the question to ask.”
“What is, then?”
“What to do? If he didn’t realize you know he’s reading them, then you and I can just continue to write back and forth. We have to. If we suddenly stopped, he’d suspect something.”
“What is this, James Bond?” Caterina asked.
“Only if you want it to be, Cati,” Cristina said calmly. “If not, then you continue to do your job, read the papers, and tell them what they say, let them find their treasure or not, and take the money and run.”
“That’s very worldly advice.”
Tina said nothing in return, which probably meant she didn’t want to begin a discussion like this, not at this hour.
Thinking out loud, Cristina said, “I wonder if the cousins put him up to this?”
“Who else would he be doing it for?” Tina asked.
It certainly sounded like something the cousins would do to be sure she didn’t try to cheat them in some way. Her only question was whether Dottor Moretti—Andrea—would be party to such a thing. The fact that she believed he might saddened her immeasurably.
Neither of the sisters said anything for a long time. Caterina ran through the jumbled memories of her conversations with Avvocato Moretti. For a moment, she thought of encephalitis and its effect on the brain, but she dismissed that. “He spent six months recovering from encephalitis by reading the Fathers of the Church in Latin,” she said aloud. Hearing herself say it, she asked, “Is your computer on?”
“Like the love of the Holy Spirit, my computer is always on.”
“Put in his name and see what comes up.”
“Should I call you back?”
“No, just do it,” Caterina said briskly.
She heard the footsteps, the sound of a chair scraping the floor, and then a long silence.