A Venetian Reckoning

  He crossed the room and took his usual seat. 'Yes, sir?' Brunetti asked, taking his notebook from his pocket, hoping thus to display the seriousness with which he wanted Patta to believe he treated this meeting.

  'I'd like you to tell me what you know about the death of Rino Favero.' 'Favero, sir?'

  'Yes, an accountant in Padua who was found dead in his garage last week.' Patta waited a length of time he would consider a pregnant pause and added, 'A suicide.'

  'Ah, yes, Favero. I was told that he had Carlo Trevisan's phone number written in his address book.'

  'I'm sure he had many phone numbers written in his address book,' Patta said.

  Trevisan's was listed without a name.'

  'I see. Anything else?'

  'There were some other numbers. We're trying to check them.'

  'We, commissario? We?' Patta's voice was rilled with nothing more than polite curiosity. A person less familiar with the Vice-Questore would hear only that, not the implied menace.

  "The police in Padua, that is.'

  'And have you found out what these numbers are?'

  'No, sir.'

  'Are you investigating Favero's death?'

  'No, sir,' Brunetti replied honestly.

  'Good.' Patta looked down at his desk and placed a telephone memo to one side, then looked at the paper below it. 'And Trevisan? What have you to report there?'

  'There's been another killing,' Brunetti said.

  'Lotto? Yes, I know. You think they're related?’

  Brunetti took a long breath before answering. The two men were business partners and were killed in the same way, perhaps with the same weapon, and Patta asked if the crimes were related. 'Yes, sir. I do.'

  'I think, then, that you had best devote your time and energies to investigating their deaths and leave this business of Favero to the people in Padua, where it belongs.' Patta moved a second piece of paper to the side of his desk and glanced down at a third.

  'Is there anything else, sir?' Brunetti asked.

  'No, I think that will be all,' Patta said, not bothering to look up.

  Brunetti put the notebook in his pocket, got up, and left the office, unsettled by Patta s civility. Outside, he stopped at Signorina Elettra's desk. 'You have any idea who he's been talking to?'

  'No, I don't, but he's having lunch at Do Forni,' she said, naming a restaurant once famous for its food, now for its prices.

  'Did you make the reservation for him?'

  'No, I didn't. In fact, one of those phone calls must have contained a better invitation because he asked me to cancel his own reservation at Corte Sconto,’ she said, naming a restaurant of similar cost. Before Brunetti could muster the bravado to ask an employee of the police to compromise her principles, Signorina Elettra suggested, 'Perhaps I could call this afternoon and ask if they've found the Vice-Questore's notebook. Since he never carries one, that's unlikely. But I'm sure they'll tell me who he was sitting with if I explain I'd like to call whoever he was with and ask if they found it'

  'I'd be very grateful’ Brunetti said. He had no idea if this information would be important in any way, but he had, over the years, found it useful to have an idea of what Patta was doing and whom he was seeing, especially during those rare periods when Patta chose to treat him politely.

  20

  An hour after Brunetti returned to his office, he received a phone call from della Corte, at a phone booth in Padua. At least that's what it sounded like to Brunetti, who at times had difficulty hearing what the other man said, so loud was the noise of horns and traffic that followed his voice down the line.

  'We've found the restaurant where he had dinner the night he died,' della Corte said, and Brunetti needed no explanation to know that the pronoun referred to Favero.

  Brunetti jumped over questions of where and how the police had found out and asked the only question that had bearing on the case: '"was he alone?'

  'No,' della Corte said eagerly. 'He was with a woman, about ten years younger than himself. Very well dressed and, from what the waiter said, very attractive.'

  'And?' Brunetti insisted, realizing how little help that description would be in recognizing her.

  'One second,' della Corte said. 'Here, I've got it. She was about thirty-five, blonde hair, cut neither short nor long. Just about Favero's height.' Remembering the description of Favero on the autopsy report, Brunetti realized that this would make her tall for a woman. 'The waiter said she was very well dressed, very expensively. He didn't hear her say much, but she sounded as expensive as the clothing - at least that's how he described her.'

  'Where were they?’

  ‘In a restaurant over near the university.' 'How'd you find out?'

  'None of the people who work there reads the Gazzettino, so they didn't see Favero's picture when the story appeared. The waiter didn't see it until this morning, when he went to get his hair cut and found it on a pile of old newspapers. He recognized Favero from the photo and called us. I just spoke to them but haven't gone over to speak to him yet. I thought you might like to come with me when I do.'

  'When?'

  ‘It's a restaurant. Lunch?'

  Brunetti glanced down at his watch. It was twenty to eleven, it'll take me half an hour to get to the railway station,' he said, ‘I’ll get the first train leaving after that. Can you meet me?'

  'I'll be there,' della Corte said and hung up.

  And so he was, waiting on the platform when the train pulled in. Brunetti pushed his way through the crowd of university students who milled around on the platform, trying to push their way up on to the train the instant its doors opened.

  The two men shook hands and left the platform, heading down the stairs that would carry them under the tracks and up out of the station to the police car that stood, motor running and driver in place, at the curb.

  As the car crawled through the gagging traffic of Padua, Brunetti asked, 'Has anyone from your place been in touch with my boss?'

  'Patta?' della Corte asked, pronouncing the name with a soft explosion of breath that could mean anything. Or nothing.

  'Yes.'

  'Not that I know of. Why?'

  'He's suggested that I leave the investigation of Favero's death to you. Of his suicide. I wondered if the suggestion came from the people here.'

  'Could have,' della Corte said.

  'Have you had any more trouble?'

  'No, not really. Everyone's treating it like it was a suicide. Anything I do is on my own time.'

  'Like this?' Brunetti asked, waving a hand to encompass the car.

  'Yes. I'm still free to eat lunch wherever I please.'

  'And invite a friend from Venice?' asked Brunetti.

  'Exactly,' della Corte agreed just as the car pulled up to the curb in front of the restaurant. The uniformed driver sprang out and opened the door, held it while the two men got out. 'Go and have some lunch, Rinaldi,' della Corte said. 'Be back at three.'

  The young man saluted and climbed back into the car.

  Two miniature Norfolk pines in large terracotta pots flanked the door to the restaurant, which opened as they drew near. 'Good afternoon, gentlemen,' a dark-suited man with a long race and basset eyes said as they came inside.

  'Good afternoon' the captain said. 'Delia Corte. I called to reserve a table for two.'

  'Your table is ready, if you'd like to come this way.'

  The man paused to pick up two long menus from a desk near the door before leading them into a room so small it held no more than six or seven tables, all but one of which were taken. Through a high arch, Brunetti saw a second room, it too filled with what looked like businessmen. Because the high windows allowed so little light, both rooms were softly lit from lighting hidden in the oak beams that ran across the ceiling. They walked past a round table covered with antipasti of all types: salami, shellfish, prosciutto, octopus. The man led them to a table in a corner, held Brunetti's chair for him, and then placed the menus in front of them. 'May I off
er you a Prosecco, gentlemen?' he asked.

  Both nodded, and he left them. 'He the owner?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Yes.’

  'What's he so worried about?’

  'Everyone's worried when the police come to ask questions,’ della Corte said, picking up the menu and turning his attention to it. He held it at arm's length and read through it, then put it down, saying, 'I'm told the duck is very good here.'

  Brunetti studied the menu long enough to see that nothing sounded better. He closed it and set it down beside his plate just as the owner returned with a bottle of Prosecco. He filled the two narrow glasses chat stood to the right of their plates and then passed the bottle to a waiter who came up behind him.

  'Have you decided, capitano?' he asked.

  ‘I'd like the fettuccine with truffles,' della Corte said. Brunetti nodded to the owner. 'And then the duck.' Brunetti nodded again.

  'I suggest the Merlot del Piave,' the owner said. When della Corte nodded, the owner gave the most minimal of bows and backed away from their table.

  Della Corte picked up his glass and sipped at the sparkling wine. Brunetti did the same. Until their first course came, the men talked of much and nothing, della Corte explaining that the recent elections would probably result in a complete upheaval of the police in Padua, at least at the highest levels.

  Brunetti remembered his own poor behaviour in the last mayoral election in Venice and said nothing. He had found both candidates unappealing - the philosopher with no government experience proposed by the ex-Communists and the businessman put up by the Lega - and so he had emerged from the voting booth without having been able to vote, something he had never confessed to Paola, who was so happy at the victory of the philosopher that she never bothered to ask him whom he had voted for. Maybe all of these new elections would force things to begin to change. Brunetti doubted it, had been around government and the people who ran it too long to think that any changes would ever be more than cosmetic.

  He brought his attention back to the table, and their places of fettuccine, fastening with the sheen of butter. The owner came back, carrying a small truffle on a white plate in one hand, a metal grater in the other. He bent over della Corte's plate and shaved at the truffle, rose, and bent over Brunetti's plate and did the same. The woody, musty odour wafted up from the still-steaming fettuccine, enveloping not only the three men, but the entire area around them. Brunetti twiried the first forkful and began to eat, giving in wholeheartedly to the sensual delight of the butter, the perfectly cooked noodles, and the savoury, heady taste of the truffles.

  Delia Corte was obviously a man who refused to spoil food with talk, and so they said little until the meal was finished, the duck almost as good as the truffles - for Brunetti, nothing was as good as truffles — and they sat with small glasses of calvados in front of them.

  It was at that point that a short, happily stout man approached their table. He wore the white jacket and black cummerbund that their own waiter had worn. 'Signor Germani said you'd like to speak to me, capitano.'

  ‘Was it you I spoke to this morning?' della Corte asked, pushing out a chair and waving the man into it.

  The waiter pulled the chair out a bit more in order to accommodate his substantial paunch and sat. 'Yes, sir, it was.'

  ‘I'd like you to repeat what you told me for my colleague here,' he said, nodding in Brunetti's direction.

  Looking at della Corte, he began. 'As I told you on the phone, sir, I didn't recognize him when I first saw his picture in the paper. But men, when the barber was cutting my hair, it just came to me who he was, right out of the blue. So I called the police’

  Delia Corte smiled and nodded as if to compliment the waiter on his sense of civic responsibility. 'Go on’ he said.

  ‘I don't think I can tell you much more than I told you this morning, sir. He was with a woman. I described her to you on the phone.'

  Delia Corte asked him, 'Could you repeat what you told me?'

  'She was tall, as tall as he was. Light eyes and skin, and light hair, not blonde, but almost. She was the same one he was here with before’

  'When were they here before?' della Corte asked.

  'Once about a month ago, and once back in the summer, I forget when. I just remember that it was hot, and she wore a yellow dress.'

  'How did they behave?' della Corte asked.

  'Behave? You mean their manners?'

  'No, I mean how they behaved towards one another.'

  'Oh, do you mean was there anything between them?'

  'Yes’ della Corte said and nodded.

  1 don't think so’ the waiter said and paused to consider the question. After a moment's pause, he continued, it was obvious that they weren't married’ Even before della Corte could ask, the waiter explained, ‘I don't know what it is that makes me say that, but I've watched a million couples here over the years, and there's just a way people who are married behave with one another. I mean, whether it's a good marriage or a bad one, even if they hate one another, they're always comfortable with one another.' He waved the subject away as too complex to explain. Brunetti knew exactly what he meant but, like him, could never hope to explain it.

  'And these people didn't give you that idea?' Brunetti asked, speaking for the first time.

  The waiter shook his head.

  'Do you know what they talked about?'

  'No,' the waiter said, 'but whatever it was, they both seemed very happy about it. At one point during the meal, he showed her some papers. She looked at them for a while. That's when she put on her glasses.'

  'Do you have any idea what the papers were?’ della Corte asked.

  'No. When I brought their pasta, she gave them back to him.’

  'And what did he do with them?’

  'He must have put them in his pocket. I didn't notice.' Brunetti glanced across at della Corte, who shook his head, signalling that no papers had been found on Favero.

  'Could you tell us a bit more about what she looked like?' della Corte asked.

  'Well, as I told you, she was somewhere in her thirties. Tall, light hair, but not natural. She had the colouring for it, light eyes, so maybe she was just helping it a little.'

  'Anything else?' Brunetti asked, smiling and then sipping at his carvados to suggest that the question had no special importance.

  'Well, now that I know he's dead, and by his own hand, I don't know whether I noticed it at the time. Or, I started to think it after I found out what happened to him.' Neither Brunetti nor della Corte asked anything. ‘Well, something wasn't right between them.’ He reached forward and brushed some crumbs from the table, caught them in his hand, and then, seeing no place to put them, slipped them into the pocket of his jacket

  In the face of the silence of the two policemen, he continued, speaking slowly, thinking this out for the first time. 'It was about halfway through the meal, when she was looking at the papers. She glanced up from them and gave him a look.'

  ‘What kind of look?' della Corte finally asked after a long silence.

  ‘I don't know. It wasn't angry or anything like that. She just looked at him like he was in a zoo or something, like she'd never seen anything like him. You know, like he was of a different species or had stepped out of a spaceship. I don't know if I'm making the idea clear,’ he said, letting his voice trail off inconclusively.

  ‘Did it seem like the look was threatening in any way?'

  'Oh, no, not at all,' he shook his head in an effort to convince them. 'That's what was so strange about it, that there was no anger in it There was just nothing in it' He stuffed his hands in his pockets and gave an awkward grin. 'I'm sorry. I'm not explaining this well.'

  'Did he notice it?' Brunetti asked.

  'No, he was pouring some more wine. But I saw it.'

  'What about the other times?' Brunetti asked. 'Did they get on well?’

  'Oh, yes. They always got on well. I don't mean to suggest that they didn't get on well that night, either. They were always
very friendly but in a sort of semi-formal way.'

  'Were there any papers the other times?'

  'No, nothing like that. They seemed like friends, no, like business associates having a meal together. That's what it was like, the way two men who have to meet for business meet. Maybe that's why I always found it so strange, such an attractive woman, and he was a handsome man, but there was none of that tension that you like to see between a man and a woman, none of that at all. Yes, now that I think about it, that's what was so strange.' He smiled now, having finally figured it out.

  'Do you remember what wine they drank?’ Brunetti asked. Both the waiter and della Corte gave him puzzled glances.

  The waiter thought about it for a while. 'Barolo,' he finally answered. 'A good, hearty red. Went well with the bistecche. And then Vin Santo with the dessert.'

  'Did he leave the table at any time?' Brunetti asked, thinking about just how hearty those wines were and about how easy it is to drop something in a glass.

  ‘I don't remember. He might have.'

  'Do you remember if he paid with a credit card?' Brunetti asked.

  'No, he paid with cash this time, and I have it in my mind that he paid with cash those other times, too.'

  'Do you know if he's come other times? Other than when you saw them?'

  'I asked the other waiters, but no one remembers them. But it's not likely. We're closed Tuesday and Wednesday, and I'm here all of the other days. Haven't missed a day of work in thirteen years. So if they came, I was here, and I don't remember seeing them except for last week and those two other times. She's a woman I'd remember.'

  Delia Corte glanced across the table at Brunetti, but he shook his head. He had no more questions, not for now. Della Corte reached into his pocket and took out a small visiting card. 'If you think of anything else, you can reach me at the Questura,' della Corte said, handing him the card. Then, in a voice he made casually neutral, he added, 'Be sure to ask for me specifically.'

  The waiter pocketed it, stood, and started to walk away from their table. Suddenly he stopped and came back towards them. 'Do you want her glasses?' he asked without preamble.