by Donna Leon
‘Are you serious?’
‘I do not joke about the Vice-Questore.’
‘But why make him wait?’
‘Why not?’
Brunetti wondered what minor indignities Patta had heaped on this woman’s head during the last week to have made him be so soon repaid in this way. ‘And what about Santomauro?’ he asked.
‘Ah, the Avvocato is an entirely different case. His finances couldn’t possibly be in better condition. He’s got a portfolio of stocks and bonds that must be worth more than half a billion lire. His yearly income is declared at two hundred million lire, which is at least double what a man in his position would normally declare.’
‘What about taxes?’
‘That’s what’s so strange. It seems that he declares it all. There’s no evidence that he’s cheating in any way.’
‘You sound like you don’t believe it,’ Brunetti said.
‘Please, Commissario,’ she said, giving him another reproachful look, though less fierce than the last. ‘You know better than to believe that anyone tells the truth on their taxes. That’s what’s so strange. If he’s declaring everything he earns, then he’s got to have another source of money that makes his declared income so insignificant he doesn’t have to cheat on it.’
Brunetti thought about it for a moment. Given the tax laws, no other interpretation was possible. ‘Does your computer give you any indication of where that money might be coming from?’
‘No, but it does tell me that he’s the president of the Lega della Moralità. So that would seem the logical place to look.’
‘Can you,’ he asked, speaking in the plural and nodding at the screen in front of her, ‘see what you can find out about the Lega?’
‘Oh, I’ve already begun that, Commissario. But the Lega, so far, has been even more elusive than have Signor Burrasca’s tax returns.’
‘I have confidence you’ll see your way clear of every obstacle, Signorina.’
She bowed her head, taking it as no more than her due.
He decided to ask, ‘How is it that you’re so familiar with the computer network?’
‘Which one?’ she asked, looking up.
‘Financial.’
‘Oh, I worked with it at my last job,’ she said and glanced back down at the screen.
‘And where was that, if I might ask?’ he said, thinking of insurance agencies, perhaps an accountant’s office.
‘For the Banca d’ltalia,’ she said, as much to the screen as to Brunetti.
He raised his eyebrows. She glanced up and, seeing his expression, explained. ‘I was an assistant to the president.’
One didn’t have to be a banker or a mathematician to work out the drop in salary that a change like this meant. Further, for most Italians, a job in a bank represented absolute security; people waited years to be accepted on the staff of a bank, any bank, and Banca d’ltalia was certainly the most desirable. And she was now working as a secretary for the police? Even with flowers twice a week from Fantin, it made no sense. Given the fact that she would work, not just for the police, but for Patta, it seemed an act of sovereign madness.
‘I see,’ he said, though he didn’t. ‘I hope you’ll be happy with us.’
‘I’m sure I will be, Commissario,’ Signorina Elettra said. ‘Is there any other information you’d like me to find?’
‘No, not at the moment, thank you,’ Brunetti said and left her to go back to his office. Using the outside line, he dialled the number of the hotel in Bolzano and asked to speak to Signora Brunetti.
Signora Brunetti, he was told, had gone for a walk and was not expected to be back at the hotel before dinner. He left no message, merely identified himself and hung up.
The phone rang almost immediately. It was Padovani, calling from Rome, apologetic about the fact that he had succeeded in learning nothing further about Santomauro. He had called friends, both in Rome and in Venice, but everyone seemed to be away on vacation, and he had done no more than leave a series of messages on answering machines, requesting that his friends call him but not explaining why he wanted to speak to them. Brunetti thanked him and asked him to call if he did learn anything further.
After he hung up, Brunetti pushed the papers on his desk around until he found the one he wanted, the autopsy report on Mascari, and read through it carefully again. On the fourth page he found what he was looking for. ‘Some scratches and cuts on the legs, no sign of epidermal bleeding. Scratches no doubt caused by the sharp edges on – ‘ and here the pathologist had done a bit of showing off by giving the Latin name of the grass in which Mascari’s body had been hidden.
Dead people can’t bleed; there is no pressure to carry the blood to the surface. This was one of the simple truths of pathology that Brunetti had learned. If those scratches had been caused by, and here he repeated out loud the orotund syllables of the Latin name, then they would not have bled, for Mascari was dead when his body was shoved under those leaves. But if his legs had been shaved by someone else, after he was dead, then they would not have bled, either.
Brunetti had never shaved any part of his body except his face, but he had, for years, been witness to this process as performed by Paola, as she attempted to run a razor over calf, ankle, knee. He had lost count of the times that he had heard muttered curses from the bathroom, only to see Paola emerge with a piece of toilet paper sticking to some segment of her limb. Paola had been shaving her legs regularly since he knew her; she still cut herself when she did it. It seemed unlikely that a middle-aged man could achieve this feat with greater success than Paola and shave his legs without cutting them. He tended to believe that, to a certain degree, most marriages were pretty similar. Hence, if Brunetti were suddenly to begin to shave his legs, Paola would know it immediately. It seemed to Brunetti unlikely that Mascari could have shaved his legs and not have his wife notice, even if he didn’t call her while away on business trips.
He glanced at the autopsy report again: ‘No evidence of bleeding on any of the cuts on victim’s legs or traces of wax.’ No, Signor Mascari, regardless of the red dress and the red shoes, regardless of the make-up and the underwear, had not shaved or waxed his own legs before he died. And so that must mean that someone had done it for him after he was dead.
Chapter Nineteen
He sat in his office, hoping that a late afternoon breeze would spring up and bring some relief, but the hope proved to be as futile as his hope that he would begin to see some connection between all the random factors of the case. It was clear to him that the whole business of the transvestism was an elaborate posthumous charade, designed to pull attention away from whatever the real motive had been for Mascari’s death. That meant that Ravanello, the only person to have heard Mascari’s ‘confession’, was lying and probably knew something about the murder. But, though Brunetti found no difficulty in believing that bankers did, in fact, kill people, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that they would do it merely as a short cut to promotion.
Ravanello had been in no way reluctant to admit to having been in the bank’s office that weekend; in fact, he had volunteered the information. And with Mascari just identified, his reason made sense – what any good friend would do. Moreover, what any loyal employee would do.
Still, why hadn’t he identified himself on the phone on Saturday, why kept secret, even from some unknown caller, that he was in the bank that afternoon?
His phone rang and, still musing on this, still dulled with the heat, he gave his name. ‘Brunetti.’
‘I need to talk to you,’ a man’s voice said. ‘In person.’
‘Who is this?’ Brunetti asked calmly.
‘I’d rather not say over the phone,’ answered the voice.
‘Then I’d rather not talk to you,’ Brunetti said and hung up.
This response usually stunned callers so much that they felt they had no option but to call back. Within minutes, the phone rang again, and Brunetti answered in the same way.
; ‘It’s very important,’ the same voice said.
‘So is it that I know who I’m talking to,’ Brunetti said quite conversationally.
‘We talked last week.’
‘I talked to a lot of people last week, Signor Crespo, but very few of them have called me and said they wanted to see me.’
Crespo was silent for a long time, and Brunetti feared for a moment that it might be his turn to be hung up on, but instead, the young man said, ‘I want to meet you and talk to you.’
‘We are talking, Signor Crespo.’
‘No, I have some things I want to give you, some photos and some papers.’
‘What sort of papers and what sort of photos?’
‘You’ll know when you see them.’
‘What does this have to do with, Signor Crespo?’
‘With Mascari. The police got it all wrong about him.’
Brunetti was of the opinion that Crespo was correct about this, but he thought he’d keep that opinion to himself.
‘What have we got wrong?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
Brunetti could tell from Crespo’s voice that he was running out of courage or whatever other emotion had led him to make the call. ‘Where do you want to meet me?’
‘How well do you know Mestre?’
‘Well enough.’ Besides, he could always ask Gallo or Vianello.
‘Do you know the parking lot at the other side of the tunnel to the train station?’
It was one of the few places where someone could park for free in the vicinity of Venice. All anyone had to do was park in the lot or along the tree-lined street that led to the tunnel and then duck into the entrance and up on to the platforms for the trains to Venice. Ten minutes by train, no parking fee, and no waiting in line to park or pay at Tronchetto.
‘Yes, I know it.’
I’ll meet you there, tonight.’
‘What time?’
‘Not until late. I’ve got something to do first, and I don’t know when I’ll be finished.’
‘What time?’
‘I’ll be there by one this morning.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘When you come up out of the tunnel, go down to the first street and turn left. I’ll be parked on the right side in a light blue Panda.’
‘Why did you ask about the parking lot?’
‘Nothing. I just wanted to know if you knew about it. I don’t want to be in the parking lot. It’s too well lit.’
‘All right, Signor Crespo, I’ll meet you.’
‘Good,’ Crespo said and hung up before Brunetti could say anything more.
Well, Brunetti wondered, who had put Signor Crespo up to making that particular call? He did not for an instant believe that Crespo had made the call for his own purposes or designs – someone like Crespo would never have called back – but that in no way diminished his curiosity to know what the call had really been about. The most likely conclusion was that someone wanted to deliver a threat, or perhaps something stronger, and what better way to do that than to lure him out on to a public street at one in the morning?
He phoned the Mestre Questura and asked to speak to Sergeant Gallo, only to be told that the sergeant had been sent to Milan for a few days to give evidence in a court case. Did he want to speak to Sergeant Buffo, who was handling Sergeant Gallo’s work? Brunetti said no and hung up.
He called Vianello and asked him to come up to his office. When the sergeant came in, Brunetti asked him to sit down and told him about Crespo’s call and his own to Gallo. ‘What do you think?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I’d say they’re, well, somebody’s trying to get you out of Venice and into an open space where you’re not well protected. And if there’s any protecting to be done, it’s going to have to be done by our boys.’
‘What means would they use?’
‘Well, it could be someone sitting in a car, but they’d know we’ll have people there. Or it could be a car or a motorcycle that came by, either to run you down or to take a shot at you.’
‘Bomb?’ Brunetti asked, shivering involuntarily at the memory of the photos he’d seen of the wreckage left by the bombs that had destroyed politicians and judges.
‘No, I don’t think you’re that important,’ Vianello said. Cold comfort, but comfort nevertheless.
‘Thanks. I’d say it will probably be someone who will drive by.’
‘So what do you want to do?’
‘I’d like people in at least two of the houses, one at the beginning and one at the end of the street. And, if you can get someone to volunteer for it, someone in the back seat of a car. It’ll be hell, being inside a closed car in this heat. That’s already three people. I don’t think I can assign more than that.’
‘Well, I won’t fit in a back seat, and I don’t think I’d much like just sitting in a house and having to watch, but I think I might park around the corner, if I can get one of the women officers to come with me, and make love for a while.’
‘Perhaps Signora Elettra would be willing to volunteer,’ Brunetti said and laughed.
Vianello’s voice was sharp, as sharp as it had ever been. ‘I’m not joking, Commissario. I know that street; my aunt from Treviso always leaves her car there when she comes to visit, and I always take her back. I often see people in cars there, so one or two more won’t make any difference.’
Brunetti had it on his lips to ask how Nadia would view this, but he thought better of it and, instead, said, ‘All right, but she has to be a volunteer for this. If there’s any danger, I don’t like the idea of a woman being involved.’ Before Vianello could object, Brunetti added, ‘Even if she is a police officer.’
Did Vianello raise his eyes to the ceiling at that? Brunetti thought so but didn’t ask. ‘Anything else, Sergeant?’
‘You have to be there at one?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s no train that late. You’ll have to take the bus out and walk down from the station and through the tunnel.’
‘What about getting back to Venice?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Depends on what happens, I suppose.’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘I’ll see if I can find anyone who wants to be in the back of the car,’ Vianello said.
‘Who’s on night duty this week?’
‘Riverre and Alvise.’
‘Oh,’ Brunetti said simply, but the sound spoke volumes.
‘That’s who’s on the roster.’
‘I guess you better put them in the houses.’ Neither one of them wanted to say that, put in the back of a car, either one of them would simply fall asleep. Of course, there was equal possibility of that if they were put in a house, but perhaps the owners would be sufficiently curious to help keep them awake.
‘What about the others? Do you think you’ll be able to get volunteers?’
‘There’ll be no trouble,’ Vianello assured him. ‘Rallo will want to come, and I’ll ask Maria Nardi. Her husband is on some sort of training programme in Milano for a week, so she might like to do it. Besides, it’s overtime. Isn’t it?’
Brunetti nodded, then added, ‘Vianello, make it clear to them that there might be some danger involved.’
‘Danger? In Mestre?’ Vianello asked with a laugh, dismissing the idea, then added, ‘Do you want to carry a radio?’
‘No, I don’t think so, not with four of you so close.’
‘Well, two of us, at any rate,’ Vianello corrected him, saving Brunetti the embarrassment of having to speak slightingly of the lower orders.
‘If we’re going to be up all night with this, then I suppose we ought to be able to go home for a while,’ Brunetti said, looking at his watch.
‘Then I’ll see you there, sir,’ Vianello said and stood.
Just as Vianello had said, there was no train that would get Brunetti to the Mestre station at that hour, so he contented himself with taking the Number One bus and getting out, the only passenger at that hour, a
cross from the Mestre train station.
He walked up the steps into the station then down again through the tunnel that cut under the train tracks and came up on the other side. He emerged on a quiet, tree-lined street, behind him the well-lit parking lot, filled now with cars parked there for the night. The street in front of him was lined on both sides with parked cars; light filtered down on to them from the few street lights above. Brunetti stayed on the right side of the street, where there were fewer trees and, consequently, more light. He walked up to the first corner and paused, looking all round him. About four cars down, on the other side of the street, he saw a couple in a fierce embrace, but the man’s head was obscured by the woman’s, so he could not tell if it was Vianello or some other married man having a stolen hour.
He looked down the street to the left, studying the houses that lined it on both sides. At the front of one, about half-way down the block, the dim grey light of a television filtered out through the lower windows; the rest were dark. Riverre and Alvise would be at the windows of two of those houses, but he felt no desire to look up in their direction: he was afraid they might take it as a signal of some sort and come rushing to his aid.
He turned into the street, looking for a light-blue Panda on the right-hand side. He walked to the end of the street, seeing no car that fitted that description, turned, and came back. Nothing. He noticed that, up at the corner, there was a large rubbish bin, and he crossed to the other side, thinking again of those pictures he had seen of what little remained of Judge Falcone’s vehicle. A car turned into the road, coming from the roundabout, and slowed, heading towards Brunetti. He backed between the protection of two parked cars, but it drove past and went into the parking lot. The driver got out, locked his door, and disappeared into the tunnel to the station.
After ten minutes, Brunetti walked down the same street again, this time looking into each of the parked cars. One of them had a blanket on the floor in the back, and, conscious of how hot it was even out here in the open, Brunetti felt a surge of sympathy for whoever had been drafted in to he under that blanket.
Half an hour passed, at the end of which Brunetti decided that Crespo wasn’t going to show up. He went back to the road junction and turned left, down to where the couple in the front seat were still engaged in their exchange of intimacies. When he got to the car, Brunetti rapped with his knuckles on the hood, and Vianello pulled himself away from a red-faced Officer Maria Nardi and got out of the car.