Doctored Evidence

by Donna Leon

  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?’ 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 calli 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 her 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.’

  ‘And she trusted everyone, so anyone could have given it to her.’

  ‘Do you mean poisoned her?’ Brunetti asked.

  She nodded. Before he could ask how this could happen, she said, ‘There’s a garden out in the back, and I leave her there all day, even when I go to lunch. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘Everyone in the neighbourhood or all of your clients?’ he asked.

  She ignored the question and said, ‘When I got back, I went to get her to bring her up here. But I could tell when I saw her. There was . . . there was vomit all over the grass, and she couldn’t walk. I had to carry her up here.’ She looked around the office, saw the stain on the wall but appeared not to notice those on her skirt nor the one on her left shoe, and said, ‘I put her down in here, and then she was sick again. So I took her inside and tried to call the vet, but he wasn’t there. But then she got sick again. And then she was dead.’ Neither of them spoke until Signora Marieschi said, ‘So I called you. But you weren’t there, either.’ She said it so that he would sense the same futile reproach she felt towards the vet.

  Ignoring her tone, Brunetti said, leaning slightly towards her, ‘The officer who gave me the message said you said someone killed her, Signora. Can you tell me who you think did it?’

  She clasped her hands together and, leaning forward, pushed them between her knees. He saw only the top of her head and her shoulders.

  Both of them remained like that for a long time.

  When she spoke, her voice was so soft that Brunetti had to lean even closer to her to hear what she said. ‘Her niece,’ she said, and then again, ‘Graziella.’

  Brunetti removed some of the sympathy from his voice and asked, ‘Why would she do that?’

  Her shrug was so strong that Brunetti felt pushed away by it. He waited for further clarification, and when it was not forthcoming, he asked, ‘Was it about anything concerning the estate, Signora?’ unwilling to let her know that he was aware of the bank accounts.

  ‘Perhaps,’ the lawyer answered, and his practised ear detected the first traces of equivocation, as though the shock of the dog’s death was beginning to wear off.

  ‘What is it she thinks you did, Signora?’ he asked.

  He was prepared for her to shrug this off, but he was not prepared for her to look him in the face and lie. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  This, he realized, was the crucial point. If he allowed the lie to pass, then there would be no more truth from her, no matter how long he questioned her or how many times he questioned her again. Casually then, as though he were a trusted old friend asked in to sit at the fireside and talk of familiar things, he said, ‘We’d have very little trouble proving that you moved her money out of the country, Avvocatessa, and even if we failed to get a conviction because you do have the power of attorney, your reputation as a lawyer would be compromised.’ Then, as if it had just occurred to him, as a friend, to warn her of further consequences, he added, ‘And I suspect the Finanza would also want to talk to you about the money.’

  Her astonishment was total. All her lawyerly skills fell from her and she blurted out, ‘How did you know about that?’

  ‘It’s sufficient that we do know,’ he said, all compassion absent from his voice. She registered the change in his tone and sat up straight, even moved her chair a bit away from his. As he studied her, he saw her harden in much the same way he had.

  ‘I think we had better talk about this honestly.’ He watched her begin to object and cut her off. ‘I don’t care in the least about the money or what you did with it: all I want to know is where it came from.’ Again, he saw her getting ready to speak, and he knew she would lie to him unless he managed to frighten her sufficiently. ‘If I’m not satisfied with what you tell me about the money, I will file an official report about the bank accounts, the power of attorney, and the dates and destinations of the transfers.’

  ‘How did you find out?’ she asked in a voice he had not heard her use before.

  ‘As I said before, that’s irrelevant. My only interest is in finding out where the money came from.’

  ‘She killed my dog,’ she said with sudden savagery.

  Brunetti lost his patience and answered, ‘Then you better hope she didn’t kill her aunt, too, because if she did, you’re probably next on her list.’

  Her eyes widened as this hit home. She shook her head once, twice, three times, as though she wanted to eradicate the possibility. ‘No, she couldn’t have,’ she said. ‘Never.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I know her. She wouldn’t do it.’ There was no questioning the certainty with which she spoke.

  ‘And Poppi? Didn’t she kill her?’ He had no idea if this was the truth, but it sufficed that she believed it.

  ‘She hates dogs, hates animals.’

  ‘How well do you know her?’

  ‘Well enough to know that.’

  ‘That’s different from knowing she wouldn’t kill her aunt.’

  Provoked by his scepticism, she said, ‘If she did kill her, she would have taken the money before. Or the day after.’

  Realizing that she must then have known about the niece’s power of attorney, perhaps even prepared it herself, he asked, ‘But you worked more quickly?’

  If she was insulted, she gave no sign of it and answered only, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you might be the one who killed her,’ he suggested, thinking it unlikely but curious as to how she would react to the suggestion.

  ‘I wouldn’t kill anyone for so little,’ she said; he found himself unable to comment.

  Instead, he returned to the bank accounts. ‘Where did the money come from?’ She gave no sign that she was willing to answer, so he went on, ‘You were her lawyer, and she trusted you with a power of attorney, so you know something.’ When she still resisted, he said, ‘Whoever killed her was someone she trusted enough to let into her apartment. Perhaps they knew about the money, or perhaps this was the person who had been giving her the money all those years.’ He watched her mind run ahead of his words and saw it register certain possibilities. Without naming the worst of them, he said, ‘It might be in your best interests that we find this person, Avvocatessa.’

  Her voice tight, she asked, ‘Could that be who killed her?’ When he didn’t answer, she added, ‘Poppi?’

  He nodded, though he thought that the person capable of such savagery against Signora Battestini was not someone who would bother to send a warning by killing someone’s dog.

  All resistance disappeared as she shrank back from the awareness of her own mortality. ‘I don’t know who it was,’ she said. ‘Really, I never knew. She never told me.’

  Brunetti waited almost a full minute for her to continue, but when she remained silent, he asked, ‘What did she tell you?’

  ‘Nothing. Just that the money was deposited every month.’

  ‘Did she say what she wanted the money for or what she wanted done with it?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, never, just that it was there.’ She thought about this for some time, then could not hide her own bewilderment when she said, ‘I don’t think it was important to her, spending it or being able to spend it. She just liked having it, knowing it was there.’ She looked up and around the room, as if seeking some explanation for behaviour as strange as this. Then she looked back at Brunetti and said, ‘She didn’t tell me about it until three years ago, when she started to talk about making a will.’

  ‘And what did she tell you?’ he asked again.

  ‘Only that it was there.’

  ‘Did she tell you who she wanted it to go to?’

  The lawyer feigned
confusion, and he repeated, ‘Did she tell you where she wanted it to go? You were there to talk about her will, so she must have mentioned the money to some purpose.’

  ‘No,’ she said, obviously lying.

  ‘Why did she give you power of attorney?’ he asked.

  Her pause was a long one, no doubt allowing her time to construct an answer he might believe. ‘She wanted me to take care of things for her.’ It was vague, but it appeared to be all she was willing to divulge.

  ‘Such as?’ he asked.

  ‘Finding the women who went in to help her. Paying them. We thought it would be easier if I didn’t have to keep asking her to sign cheques. By then, she wasn’t leaving the house any more, so she couldn’t get to the bank.’ She waited to see how he would react to this, and when he said nothing, she added, ‘It was easier.’

  She must consider him a fool, to think he would believe a person like Signora Battestini would trust anyone with all of her money. He wondered how Marieschi had persuaded the old woman to sign the power of attorney or what it was she thought she was signing. He wondered who had been there to witness the document. As he had told her, he cared little about where the money went, wanting only to know where it had come from. ‘So you used the money to pay the expenses of the women who helped her?’

  ‘Yes. Her utility bills were paid automatically by the bank.’

  ‘They were all illegal, weren’t they?’ he asked abruptly.

  She feigned confusion and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I confess to being amazed, Avvocatessa, that a lawyer in this country wouldn’t be familiar with the idea of illegal workers.’

  Forgetting herself entirely, she said, ‘You can’t prove I knew that.’

  He went on with studied calm, ‘I think it’s time for me to explain a few things to you. Whatever business it is you’re running with illegal workers and fake passports is of no interest to me, not during a murder investigation. But if you continue to lie to me or evade my questions, I will see that a complete report of your activities, as well as the addresses of the women in Trieste and Milano who are also using the false papers of Florinda Ghiorghiu, goes to the Immigration Police tomorrow as well as details about your handling of Signora Battestini’s bank accounts, which will go to the Guardia di Finanza.’