by Donna Leon
He would have spoken, not to his father, but to his cousin, the boy who had shared youth and innocence with him. And Maurizio would certainly have come quickly to suspect what Roberto was describing, would have recognized the symptoms for what they were: Roberto's death sentence.
For a long time, Brunetti sat at his desk and looked at the door to his office, thinking about moral goodness and beginning to understand the relationships between one phenomenon and another and the consequences of each. What he did not understand, not yet, was how the Count had come to learn of this.
Cicero advised that the passions be restrained. If someone murdered Raffi, his own son, in cold blood, Brunetti knew he would not be able to restrain his passions, that he would be savage, relentless, ruthless, would forget all policeman, be only father, and hunt them down and destroy them. He would seek vengeance at any cost. Cicero allowed no exceptions to his rules concerning moral goodness, but surely a crime like this would free a father from the injunction to behave considerately and understandingly and would give him the human right to seek vengeance.
Brunetti pondered all of this as the sun set, taking with it what little light filtered into his office. When it was almost fully dark in the room, Brunetti switched on the light. He went back to his desk, pulled out the folder from the bottom drawer, and read through it again, very slowly. He took no notes, though he often glanced up from it and across at the now-darkened windows, as if he could see reflected therein the new shapes and patterns that his reading was creating. It took him a half hour to read it all, and when it was finished, he placed it back in the drawer, closed the drawer softly, with his hand, not his foot. Then he left the Questura, heading towards Rialto and the Lorenzoni palazzo.
The maid who answered the door said that the Count was not receiving visitors. Brunetti asked her to carry up his name. When she came back, her face tight with irritation at this interruption upon familial grief, she said the Count had repeated his message: he was not receiving visitors.
Brunetti asked, then told, the maid to carry up the message that he was now in possession of important information concerning Roberto's murder and wanted to speak to the Count before reopening the official investigation of his death which, if the Count still refused to speak to him, would begin the following morning.
As he expected, this time the maid, when she returned, told him to follow her, and she led him, an Ariadne without a string, up the staircases and through the corridors to a new part of the palazzo, a part Brunetti had never seen before.
The Count was alone in what must have been an office, perhaps Maurizio's, for it was filled with computer terminals, a photocopier, and four telephones.
The clear plastic tables on which all of these machines stood seemed out of place with the velvet curtains, with the view from the ogival windows and the rooftops that lay beyond those windows.
The Count sat behind one of the desks, a computer terminal to his left. He looked up when Brunetti came in and asked, 'What is it?' not bothering to stand or offer Brunetti a seat.
‘I’ve come to discuss some new information with you’ Brunetti answered.
The Count sat rigid, hands before him. 'There is no new information. My son is dead. My nephew killed him. And now he's dead. After that, nothing follows. There's nothing more I want to know’
Brunetti gave him a long look, making no attempt to disguise his scepticism at what he'd just heard. 'The information I have might shed light on why all of this happened.'
'I don't care why any of it happened’ the Count shot back. 'For me and my wife, it is enough that it did happen. I want nothing more to do with it’
‘I’m afraid that’s no longer possible’ Brunetti said.
'What do you mean, not possible?'
'There's evidence that something far more complicated than kidnapping was going on.'
Suddenly remembering his duties as host, the Count waved Brunetti to a seat and switched off the soft purr of the computer. Then he asked, 'What information?'
'Your company, or companies, have a great deal to do with Eastern Europe’
'Is that a statement or a question?' the Count asked.
‘I think it’s both. I know you have dealings there, but I don't know how extensive they are.' Brunetti waited a moment, just until the Count was going to speak, and then added, 'Or just what sort of dealings they might be.'
'Signor ... I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name,' the Count began.
'Brunetti.'
'Signor Brunetti, the police have been investigating my family for almost two years. Surely, that’s enough time for them, even the police, to have discovered everything about the nature and extent of my dealings in Eastern Europe.' When Brunetti didn't respond to his provocation, the Count asked, 'Well, isn't that true?'
'We've discovered a great deal about your dealings there, yes, but I've learned something else, something that was never mentioned in any of the information you, or your nephew, supplied to us.'
'And what is that?' the Count demanded, dismissing with his tone any interest he might have in what this policeman could have to say.
Traffic in nuclear arms,' Brunetti said calmly, and only as he heard himself say the words did he realize just how paltry was his evidence and how impulsive the haste with which he had come halfway across the city to confront this man. Sergio was not a doctor, Brunetti had not bothered to check either Roberto's remains or the place where they were found to see if there were traces of nuclear contamination, nor had he tried to learn more about the Lorenzonis' involvement in the East. No, he had jumped up, like a child at the sound of the bells of the ice cream truck in the street, and had come bustling across the city to posture and play policeman in front of this man.
The Count's chin shot up, his mouth tightened, and he started to speak, but then his eyes shifted away from Brunetti and to the left, to the door to the room, where his wife had suddenly and silently appeared. He stood and went towards her, and Brunetti got to his feet to acknowledge her presence. But when Brunetti looked more closely at the woman who stood in the door, he was not certain that this was the Countess, this bent, curved, frail old woman who supported herself with a wooden cane which she clutched in a hand that seemed a paw, or a claw. Brunetti could see that her eyes had gone cloudy, as if the sudden onslaught of grief had blown smoke into them.
'Ludovico?' she said in a tremulous voice.
'Yes, my dear?' he said, taking one arm and leading her a few steps into the room.
'Ludovico?' she said again.
'What is it, dear?' he asked, bending down over her, bending down more now that she seemed to have grown so small.
She paused, placed both hands on the top of the cane, and looked up at him. She glanced away, then back. ‘I forget,' she said, started to smile, but then forgot about that, too. Suddenly her expression changed, and she looked at her husband as though he were a strange, ominous presence in the room. She raised one arm in front of her, her palm splayed open towards him as if to protect herself from a blow. But then she seemed to forget about that, as well, turned and, cane finding the way for her, left the room. Both men listened to the tap of the cane as it disappeared down the corridor. Then a door closed and they were conscious of being alone again.
The Count went back to his seat behind the desk, but, when he sat down and faced Brunetti, it seemed that the Countess had somehow managed to infect him with her age, for his eyes had grown duller, his mouth less firm than when she came in.
'She knows,' the Count said, voice black with despair. 'But how did you learn?' he asked Brunetti in a voice as tired as his wife's had been.
Brunetti sat down again and dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. 'It doesn't matter.'
'I told you that,' the Count said. When he saw Brunetti's puzzled expression, he said, 'Nothing matters.'
'Why Roberto died matters,' Brunetti said. The only response he got for this was a quick shrug of one shoulder, but he continued, 'Why he died matters bec
ause then we can find the people who did it.'
'You know who did it,' the Count said.
'Yes, I know who sent them. We both know that. But I want them,' Brunetti said, half rising from his chair and surprising himself with the passion with which he spoke but unable to restrain it. ‘I want their names.' Again that fervent tone. He lowered himself back into his chair and looked down, embarrassed at his own anger.
'Paolo Frasetti and Elvio Mascarini,' the Count said simply.
For a moment, Brunetti didn't know what he was hearing, and then when he understood, he didn't believe; and then when he believed, the entire pattern of the Lorenzoni killings that had started to form with the discovery of those tattered remains in a ditch shifted again and came into a strange new focus, one far more grotesque and horrible than those rotting fragments of his son. Brunetti reacted instantly, but instead of staring up at the Count in astonishment, he pulled his notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket and made a note of the names. 'Where can we find them?' He forced his voice to remain calm, entirely casual, while his mind raced ahead to all the questions he had to ask before the Count realized how fatal his misunderstanding had been.
‘Frasetti lives over near Santa Marta. I don't know about the other one.'
Brunetti had sufficient control over his emotions and his face, and so he looked up and across at the Count. 'How did you find them?'
'They did a job for me four years ago. I used them again.'
This was not the time to ask about that other job; he had only to find out about the kidnapping, about Roberto. 'When did you learn about the contamination?' There could be no other reason.
'Soon after he got back from Belorussia.'
'How did it happen?'
The Count folded his hands in front of him and looked down at them. In a hotel. It was raining, and Roberto didn't want to go out. He couldn't understand the television: it was all in Russian or German. And this hotel couldn't - or wouldn't -find him a woman. So he had nothing to do, and so he started to think about what we had sent him for.'
He glanced across at Brunetti. 'Do I have to tell you all of this?'
'I think I need to know about it’ Brunetti said.
The Count nodded, but really not in acknowledgement of what Brunetti said. He cleared his throat. He said - he told Maurizio this later — he said that he got curious, wondered why we'd bothered to sent him halfway across Europe to bring back a suitcase and that he wanted to see what was in it. He thought it might be gold or precious stones. Because it was so heavy.' He paused, then said, 'It was lined with lead.' He stopped again, and Brunetti wondered what would make him continue.
‘Did he want to steal them?' Brunetti asked.
The Count looked up. 'Oh, no, Roberto would never steal anything, and certainly not from me.'
"Then why?'
'He was curious. And I suppose he was jealous, thinking that I would trust Maurizio to know what was in the suitcase, but not him.'
'And so he opened it?'
The Count nodded. 'He said, he used the old-fashioned sort of can opener they had in the hotel, you know, the sort with the triangular point, the kind we used to use for opening beer.'
Brunetti nodded.
'If it hadn't been in the room, he wouldn't have been able to open the suitcase, and then none of this would ever have happened. But it was Belorussia, and that's the kind they have. So he forced the lock and opened the suitcase.'
'What was inside?'
The Count looked across at him, surprised. ‘You just told me what was in it’
'I know, but I want to know how it was being shipped. What form was it in?'
'Small blue pellets. They look like rabbit droppings, only smaller’ The Count held up the first two fingers of his right hand to indicate the correct size to Brunetti and repeated, 'Rabbit droppings.'
Brunetti said nothing; experience had taught him that there was a time when people had to be left alone to go ahead on their own, at their own pace, or they would simply stop.
Eventually the Count continued. 'He closed the suitcase again after that, but he had left it open long enough’ It wasn't necessary for the Count to explain long enough for what. Brunetti had read the symptoms of what that exposure had done to him.
'When did you find out that he had opened it?'
'When we sent the material on, to our buyer. He called me to tell me that the lock had been tampered with. But that didn't happen for almost two weeks. It went by ship.'
Brunetti let that go for now. 'And how soon did he begin to have trouble?'
Trouble?'
'Symptoms’
The Count nodded. 'Ah’ After a short pause, he continued, 'About a week. At first I thought it was influenza or something like that. We still hadn't heard from our buyer. But then he got worse. And then I found out that the suitcase had been opened. There was only one thing that could have happened.'
'Did you ask him?'
'No, ho. There was no need for that.' 'Did he tell anyone?'
'Yes, he told Maurizio, but not until he was very bad.' 'And then?'
The Count looked down at his hands, measured a small distance with the fingers of his right, as if again measuring out the size of the pellets that had killed his son, or that had led to the killing of his son. He looked up. 'And then I decided what I had to do.'
'Had to do?' Brunetti asked before he could stop himself.
'Yes.' At first, he thought the Count wouldn't explain this, but he went on. 'If it had come out, what was wrong with him, then all the rest would have come out, too, about the shipments.'
'I see,' Brunetti said, nodding.
It would have ruined us, and it would have disgraced us. I couldn't let that happen. Not after all these years. These centuries.'
'Ah, yes,' Brunetti whispered.
'So I decided what had to be done, and I spoke to those men, Frasetti and Mascarini’
'Whose idea was it about how it should be done?'
The Count shook this aside as unimportant. ‘I told them what to do. But the important thing was that my wife not be made to suffer. If she had learned what Roberto was doing, what had caused his death ... I don't know what would have happened to her.' He looked at Brunetti, then down at his hands. 'But now she knows.'
'How?'
'She saw me with Maurizio.'
Brunetti thought of the curved bird-woman, her tiny hands grasped around the handle of her cane. The Count wanted to spare her from suffering, spare her from shame. Ah, yes.
'And the kidnapping? Why didn't they send a third note?'
'He died,' the Count said in a barren voice.
'Roberto? He died?'
That’s what they told me.'
Brunetti nodded, as if he understood this and as if he were following with sympathy the twisted path the Count was taking him down. 'And so?' he asked.
'And so I told them they had to shoot him, to make it look like that's what killed him.' As the Count continued to explain all of this, Brunetti began to understand that the man was persuaded of the inner logic of everything that had been done, of the rightness of it. There was no doubt in that voice, no uncertainty.
'But why did they bury him there, near Belluno?'
'One of them has a small house in the woods, for the hunting season. They kept Roberto there, and when he died, I told them to bury him up there.' The Count's face softened momentarily. 'But I told them to bury him in a shallow grave. With his ring.' Seeing Brunetti's confusion, he explained, 'So that he would be found, and for his mother. She would have to know. I couldn't think of her not knowing, of never knowing whether he was alive or dead. It would have killed her.'
'Yes,I See’ Brunetti whispered, and in a lunatic way he did. 'And Maurizio?'
The Count cocked his head to one side, perhaps recalling that other young man, dead now too. 'He didn't know any of it. But then when it all began again, when you started asking questions:... well, he began to ask questions about Roberto and about the ki
dnapping. He wanted to go to the police and tell what had happened.' The Count shook his head here at the young man's weakness and folly. 'But then my wife would know. If he went to the police, she'd know what had happened, what was going on’
'And you couldn't permit that?' Brunetti asked levelly.
'No, of course not. It would have been too much for her’ ‘I see’
The Count stretched out one hand towards Brunetti, the same hand that had measured out those small balls of radium, or plutonium, or uranium.
If he had turned a dial and adjusted the clarity of a television screen, or suddenly removed some sort of static interference from a radio reception, the change could have been no more apparent, for it was at this point that the Count began to lie. There was no change in his voice as it went seamlessly from his agitation at the thought of his wife's pain to what he next began to explain, but it was as audible and evident to Brunetti as if the Count had suddenly jumped on the desk and begun to tear off his clothing.
'He came to me that night and said he understood what I'd done. He threatened me. With the shotgun’ The Count couldn't keep himself from looking over towards Brunetti to see how he received this, but Brunetti gave no indication that he was at all aware of what was happening.
'He came in with the shotgun’ the Count continued. 'And he pointed it at me and told me he was going to go to the police. I tried to reason with him, but men he came closer and put the gun up against my face. And I think, then, that I did go a little bit crazy because I don't remember what happened. Just that the gun went off.'
Brunetti nodded, but what he nodded at was the correctness of his belief that anything the Count said from now on would be a lie.
'And your client?' he asked. 'The person who bought the materials?'
The Count's hesitation was infinitesimal. 'Only Maurizio knew who he was. He arranged everything.'
Brunetti got to his feet. ‘I think that’s enough, Signore. If you'd like; you can call your lawyer. But then I'd like you to come to the Questura with me.'