Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

by Donna Leon

He looked at the body, seeing if it could give him an idea of age or physical condition. Brunetti heard his own intake of breath when he realized that the body looked frighteningly like his own: the same general build, a slight thickening around the waist, and the scar from a childhood appendectomy. The only difference seemed to be a general hairlessness, and he leaned down closer to study the chest, brutally bisected by the long incision of the autopsy. Instead of the wiry, grizzled hair that grew on his own chest, he saw faint stubble. ‘Did the pathologist shave his chest before the autopsy?’ Brunetti asked the attendant.

  ‘No, sir. It’s not heart surgery he did on him, only an autopsy.’

  ‘But his chest has been shaved.’

  ‘His legs, too, if you look.’

  Brunetti did. They were.

  ‘Did the pathologist say anything about that?’

  ‘Not while he was working, sir. Might be something in his report. You had enough?’

  Brunetti nodded and stepped back from the corpse. The attendant flung the sheet out in front of him, waved it in the air as though it were a tablecloth, and floated it perfectly in place over the body. He slid the body back inside, closed the door, and quietly turned the handle.

  As they started back towards the desk, the attendant said, ‘He didn’t deserve that, whoever he was. The word here is that he was on the street, one of those fellows who dress up as women.’

  For a moment, Brunetti thought the man was being sarcastic, but then he heard the tone under the words and realized he was serious.

  ‘You the one who’s going to try to find out who killed him, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I hope you do. I suppose I can understand if you want to kill someone, but I can’t understand killing him like that.’ He stopped and looked up inquisitively at Brunetti. ‘Can you, sir?’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘As I said, sir, I hope you get the man who did it. Whore or no whore, no one deserves to die like that.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘You saw him?’ Gallo asked when Brunetti returned to the Questura.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not at all pretty, is it?’

  ‘You saw him, too?’

  ‘I always try to see them,’ Gallo said, voice uninflected. ‘It makes me more willing to work to get the person who killed them.’

  ‘What do you think, Sergeant?’ Brunetti asked, lowering himself into the chair at the side of the sergeant’s desk and laying down the blue folder as if he meant it to serve as a physical sign of the murder.

  Gallo thought for almost a full minute before he answered. ‘I think it could have been done in the midst of tremendous rage.’ Brunetti nodded at this possibility. ‘Or, as you suggested earlier, Dottore, in an attempt to disguise his identity.’ After a second, Gallo amended this, perhaps recalling what he had seen in the morgue, ‘Or to destroy it.’

  ‘That’s pretty impossible in today’s world, wouldn’t you say, Sergeant?’

  ‘Impossible?’

  ‘Unless a person is entirely alien to a place or lives without any family or friends, their disappearance will be noticed in a few days – a few hours in most cases. Nobody manages to disappear any more.’

  ‘Then perhaps rage makes more sense,’ Gallo said. ‘He could have said something to a client, done something that set him off. I don’t know much about the men in the file I gave you yesterday. I’m not a psychologist or anything like that, so I don’t know what drives them, but my guess is that the men who, ah, who pay them are far less stable than the men they pay. So rage?’

  ‘What about carrying him out to a part of the city where whores are known to work?’ Brunetti asked. ‘That suggests intelligence and planning rather than rage.’

  Gallo responded quickly to the testing that was being given him by this new commissario. ‘Well, after he did it, he could have come to his senses. Maybe he killed him in his own place or a place where one of them was known, so he’d have to move the body. And if he’s the sort of man – the killer, I mean – if he’s the sort of man who uses these transvestites, then he’d know where the whores go. So maybe that would seem the logical place to leave him, so other people who use them would be suspected.’

  ‘Yes…’ Brunetti agreed slowly, and Gallo waited for the ‘but’ that the commissario’s tone made inevitable. ‘But that’s to suggest that whores are the same as whores.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir.’

  ‘That male whores are the same as female whores, or that, at least, they work in the same place. From what I heard and saw yesterday, it looks like that area out by the slaughterhouse is a place the female whores use.’ Gallo considered this, and Brunetti added, prodding, ‘But this is your city, so you’d know more about that than I would, coming in as something of a foreigner.’ Complimenting, as well.

  Gallo nodded. ‘It’s usually the girls who work those fields out by the factories. But we’re getting more and more boys – a lot of them are Slavs and North Africans – so maybe they’ve been forced to move into new territory.’

  ‘Have you heard any rumours about this?’

  ‘I haven’t personally, sir. But I usually don’t have much to do with the whores, not unless they’re involved in violent crimes.’

  ‘Does that happen very often?’

  Gallo shook his head. ‘Usually, if it does happen, the women are afraid to tell us about it, afraid they’ll end up in jail, no matter who’s responsible for the violence. A lot of them are illegals, so they’re afraid of coming to us, afraid of being deported if they get in any sort of trouble. And there are a lot of men who like to beat them up. I guess they learn how to spot those, or the other girls pass the word and they try to avoid them.

  ‘I’d guess that the men are better able to protect themselves. If you read that file, you saw how big some of them are. Pretty, even beautiful, some of them, but they’re still men. I’d imagine they’d have less of that sort of trouble. Or if they had it, they’d at least know how to defend themselves.’

  ‘Have you got the autopsy report yet?’ Brunetti asked.

  Gallo picked up a few pieces of paper and handed them to him. ‘It came in while you were at the hospital.’

  Brunetti began to read through it quickly, familiar with the jargon and technical terms. No puncture wounds on the body, so the deceased wasn’t an intravenous drug user. Height, weight, general physical condition: all those things that Brunetti had seen were listed here, but in exact, measured detail. Mention was made of the make-up the attendant had talked about but no more than to say that there had been significant traces of lipstick and eyeliner. There was no evidence of recent sexual activity, either active or passive. Examination of the hands suggested a sedentary occupation; the nails were trimmed bluntly, and there was no callousing on the palms. Patterns of bruising on the body confirmed the supposition that he had been killed somewhere else and carried to the place where he was found, but the intense heat in which he had lain made it impossible to determine how much time had elapsed between his murder and his discovery, more than to say it could have been anywhere from twelve to twenty hours.

  Brunetti looked up at Gallo and asked, ‘Have you read this?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘We still have to decide between rage and cunning, I suppose.’

  ‘But first we have to find out who he is,’ Brunetti said. ‘How many men have been detailed to this?’

  ‘There’s Scarpa.’

  ‘The man who was out in the sun yesterday?’

  Gallo’s calm ‘Yes, sir,’ told Brunetti that he had heard about the incident, and the way he said it suggested that he didn’t like it. ‘He’s the only officer who’s been assigned. The death of a prostitute isn’t a high priority, especially during the summer when we’re short-staffed.’

  ‘No one else?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘I was assigned the case provisorily because I was here when the call came in, so I sent t
he Squadra Mobile to the scene. The Vice-Questore has suggested that it be handed over to Sergeant Buffo, since he’s the one who answered the original call.’

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said, considering this. ‘Is there an alternative?’

  ‘Do you mean, is there an alternative to Sergeant Buffo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You could request that, as your original contact was with me, and we have discussed the case at great length…’ Here Gallo paused, as if to make that length even greater, then continued, ‘It might save time if I were to continue to be assigned to the case.’

  ‘Who is the vice-questore in charge of this?’

  ‘Nasci.’

  ‘Is she liable to… I mean, will she think this a good idea?’

  ‘I’m sure that if the request came from a commissario, she’d agree, sir. Especially as you’re coming out here to give us a hand.’

  ‘Good. Get someone to write up a request, and I’ll sign it before lunch.’ Gallo nodded, made a note on a piece of paper in front of him, then looked up at Brunetti and nodded again. ‘And get your people working on the clothing and shoes he was wearing.’ Gallo made another note.

  Brunetti flipped open the blue file that he had studied the night before and pointed to the list of names and addresses stapled to the inside cover. ‘I think the best thing we can do is to begin asking these men questions about the victim, if they know who he is or if they recognize him or know anyone who might have known him. The pathologist said he must be in his early forties. None of the men in the file are that old, few of them are even in their thirties, so if he’s a local, he’d stand out because of his age, and people would certainly know about him.’

  ‘How do you want to do this, sir?’

  ‘I think we should divide the list into three, and then you and I and Scarpa can start showing them the picture and asking them what they know.’

  ‘They aren’t the sort of people who are willing to talk to the police, sir.’

  ‘Then I suggest we take along a second picture, one of the photos of what he looked like when we found him out in the field. I think if we convince these men that the same thing could happen to them, they might be less reluctant to talk to us.’

  ‘I’ll get Scarpa up here,’ Gallo said and reached for the phone.

  Chapter Seven

  They decided, even though it was still morning – probably more like the middle of the night to the men on the list – to talk to them now. Brunetti asked the other men, because they were familiar with Mestre, to arrange the addresses into some sort of geographic order, so they wouldn’t have to traverse the city repeatedly as they went through the names.

  When this was done, Brunetti took the list he was given and went downstairs to find his driver. He doubted the wisdom of arriving to question the men on this particular list in a blue and white police car with a uniformed policeman at the wheel, but he had only to step out into the mid-morning air of Mestre to decide that mere survival overrode any consideration of caution.

  The heat wrapped itself around him, and the air seemed to nibble at his eyes. There was no breeze, not the slightest current; the day lay like a filthy blanket upon the city. Cars snaked past the Questura, their horns bleating in futile protest against changing lights or crossing pedestrians. Whirls of dirt and cigarette packages flying back and forth across the street marked their passing. Brunetti, seeing it, hearing it, and breathing it, felt as though someone had come from behind and wrapped tight arms around his chest. How did human beings live like this?

  Brunetti fled into the cool cocoon of the police car and emerged from it a quarter of an hour later in front of an eight-storey apartment building on the western edge of the city. He looked up and saw that lines of washing hung extended between it and the building on the opposite side of the street. A faint breeze blew here, so the particoloured strata of sheets, towels, and underwear undulated above him and, for a moment, raised his spirits.

  Inside, the portiere sat in his cage-like office, arranging papers and envelopes on a desk, sorting the mail that must just have been delivered for the inhabitants of the building. He was an old man with a thin beard and silver-framed reading glasses hovering on the end of his nose. He raised his eyes over the tops of the lenses and said good morning. The humidity intensified the sour smell of the room, and a fan on the floor, blowing across the old man’s legs, did no more than shove the smell around the room.

  Brunetti said good-morning and asked where he could find Giovanni Feltrinelli.

  At the mention of the name, the portiere shoved his chair back and got to his feet. ‘I’ve warned him not to have any more of you come to this building. If he wants to do his job, then he can go do it in your cars or in the open fields, with the other animals, but he’s not going to do his filthy work here, or I’ll call the police.’ As he said it, his right hand reached out for the telephone on the wall behind him, his fiery eyes running up and down Brunetti with disgust he did nothing to disguise.

  ‘I am the police,’ Brunetti said softly and pulled his warrant card from his wallet, holding it out for the old man to see. He took it roughly from Brunetti, as if to suggest that he, too, knew where these things could be faked, and pushed his glasses up on his nose to read it.

  ‘It looks real,’ he finally admitted and handed it back to Brunetti. He took a dirty handkerchief from his pocket, removed his glasses, and began to rub at the lenses, first one and then the other, carefully, as though he had spent his life doing this. He put them back on, careful to hook them behind each ear, put the handkerchief back in his pocket, and asked Brunetti, in a different voice, ‘What’s he done now?’

  ‘Nothing. We need to question him about someone else.’

  ‘One of his faggot friends?’ the old man asked, returning to his aggressive tone.

  Brunetti ignored the question. ‘We’d like to speak to Signor Feltrinelli. Perhaps he can give us some information.’

  ‘Signor Feltrinelli? Signor?’ the old man asked, repeating Brunetti’s words but turning the formality into an insult. ‘You mean Nino the Pretty Boy, Nino the Cocksucker?’

  Brunetti sighed tiredly. Why couldn’t people learn to be more discriminating in whom they chose to hate, a bit more selective? Perhaps even a bit more intelligent?

  Why not hate the Christian Democrats? Or the Socialists? Or why not hate people who hated homosexuals?

  ‘Could you tell me Signor Feltrinelli’s apartment number?’

  The old man retreated behind his desk and sat back down to his task of sorting the mail. ‘Fifth floor. The name’s on the door.’

  Brunetti turned and left without saying anything further. When he was at the door, he thought he heard the old man mutter, ‘Signor,’ but it could have been only an angry noise. On the other side of the marble-floored hallway, he pushed the button for the elevator and stood waiting for it. After a few minutes, the elevator still had not come, but Brunetti refused to go back to ask the portiere if it was working. Instead, he moved over to the left, opened a door to the stairs, and climbed to the fifth floor. By the time he reached it, he had to loosen his tie and pull the cloth of his trousers away from his thighs, where it clung wetly. At the top, he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped at his face.

  As the old man had said, the name was on the door: ‘Giovanni Feltrinelli – Architeito’.

  He glanced at his watch: 11.35. He rang the bell. In immediate response, he heard quick footsteps approach the door. It was opened by a young man who bore a faint resemblance to the police photo Brunetti had studied the night before: short blond hair, a squared and masculine jaw, and soft dark eyes.

  ‘Si?’ he said, looking up at Brunetti with a friendly smile of enquiry.

  ‘Signor Giovanni Feltrinelli?’ Brunetti asked, holding out his warrant card.

  The young man barely glanced at the card, but he seemed to recognize it immediately, and that recognition wiped the smile from his face.

  ‘Yes. What do you want?’ His vo
ice was as cool as his smile had become.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you, Signor Feltrinelli. May I come in?’

  ‘Why bother to ask?’ Feltrinelli said tiredly and opened the door wider, stepping back to let Brunetti enter.

  ‘Permesso,’ Brunetti said and stepped inside. Perhaps the title on the door didn’t lie: the apartment had the symmetrical look of a living space that had been planned with skill and precision. The living-room into which Brunetti walked was painted a flat white, the floor a light herring-bone parquet. A few kelims, colours muted with age, lay on the floor, and two other woven pieces -Brunetti thought they might be Persian – hung on the walls. The sofa was long and low, set back against the far wall, and appeared to be covered in beige silk. In front of it stood a long glass-topped table with a wide ceramic platter placed on one side. One wall was covered with a bookshelf, another with framed architectural renderings of buildings and photographs of completed buildings, all of them low, spacious, and surrounded by wide expanses of rough terrain. In the far corner stood a high draughting table, surface tilted to face the room and covered with outsized sheets of tissue paper. A cigarette burned in an ashtray which perched at a crazy angle on the slanted surface of the draughting table.

  The symmetry of the room kept pulling the viewer’s eye back to its centre, to that simple ceramic platter. Brunetti sensed strongly that this was being done, but he didn’t understand how it had been achieved.

  ‘Signor Feltrinelli,’ he began, ‘I’d like to ask you to help us, if you can, in an investigation.’

  Feltrinelli said nothing.

  ‘I’d like you to look at a picture of a man and tell us if you know him or recognize him.’

  Feltrinelli walked over to the draughting table and picked up the cigarette. He drew hungrily at it, then crushed it out in the ashtray with a nervous gesture. ‘I don’t give names,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Brunetti asked, understanding him but not wanting to show that he did.

  ‘I don’t give the names of my clients. You can show me all the pictures you want, but I won’t recognize any of them, and I don’t know any names.’