Uniform Justice

  did, she wheeled her chair around until it was facing him. She might

  have been in her late twenties, though the flecking of grey in her hair

  made her seem older, as did the vertical lines between her eyebrows.

  Her eyes were a light amber, her nose a bit too large for the rest of

  her face, her mouth so soft and relaxed that it seemed out of place on

  a face so marked with what Brunetti thought was a history of pain.

  "You said you were interested in Signora Moro?" she prompted.

  "Yes, I'd like to speak to her. I've been phoning but she's never

  home. The last time I spoke to her, she ..."

  The woman cut him off. "When was that?"

  "Some days ago. She didn't say anything about leaving the city."

  "No, she wouldn't. Say anything, I mean."

  Brunetti registered the remark and said, The didn't get the feeling

  that .. ." He paused, not certain how to express it. "I didn't have

  the feeling that she had anywhere to go."

  Signora or Signorina Delia Vedova looked at him with fresh interest.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "I don't know. I just had a very strong feeling that the city was

  where she belonged and that she had no interest in going anywhere. Or

  desire."

  When it seemed that Brunetti had no more to say, she replied, "She

  didn't. Have anywhere to go, that is."

  "Do you know her well?"

  "No, not really. She's been here for less than two years."

  "Since the accident?" Brunetti asked.

  She looked at Brunetti, and all pleasantness disappeared from her face.

  This," she said, flipping the fingers of her right hand across her lap

  to indicate the legs that rested uselessly below it, 'was an accident.

  What happened to Federica was not."

  Brunetti stifled any response he might have made to this and asked,

  calmly, "Are you so sure of that?"

  "Of course not," she said, her voice calm again. "I wasn't there and I

  didn't see what happened. But Federica, the two times she spoke to me

  about it, said, "When they shot me..." People who are in accidents

  don't talk about it that way."

  Brunetti had no doubt that this woman knew full well how people who

  were in accidents speak. "She said this twice?"

  "Yes, so far as I can remember. But simply by way of description, not

  complaint. I never asked her what happened, didn't want to pry. I've

  had enough of that myself. And I figured she'd tell me what she wanted

  to when she was ready."

  "And has she?"

  She shook her head. "No, only those two references."

  "Have you seen her often?"

  "Perhaps every week or so. She stops in and has a coffee or simply

  comes down and talks for a while."

  "Did you know her before she moved into this apartment?"

  "No. I knew about her husband, of course. But I suppose everyone

  does. Because of his report, I mean." Brunetti nodded. "I met her

  because of Gastone she said.

  "Gastone?"

  The cat. She found him outside the front door one day and when she

  opened the door, he came in. When he came up and

  stood outside my door, she knocked and asked me if he were mine. He

  gets out of here sometimes and then lurks out in the calle until

  someone opens the door, or rings my bell and asks me to open the street

  door so they can let him in. People who know he's mine, that is." Her

  face warmed in a smile. "Good thing they do. It's not as if it's easy

  for me to go down and let him in." She said this simply, and Brunetti

  did not hear in it an unspoken prompting to strangers to ask questions,

  nor did he hear an unconscious appeal for pity.

  "When did you see her last?"

  She had to think about this. The day before yesterday, and I didn't

  really see her, just heard her on the stairs. I'm sure of that. I'd

  read about the boy's death, and then, when she came in, I recognized

  her steps outside. I went over to the door, and I was going to open

  it, but then I didn't know what I could say to her, so I didn't. I

  just sat here and listened to her go up the stairs. Then, about an

  hour later, I heard her come down again."

  "And since then?"

  "Nothing." Before he could speak, she added, "But I sleep in the back

  of the apartment, and I sleep very deeply because of the pills I take,

  so she could have come in or gone out and I wouldn't have heard her."

  "Has she called you?"

  "No."

  "Is it like her to be away for two days?"

  Her answer was immediate, "No, not at all. In fact, she's almost

  always here, but I haven't heard her on the steps and I haven't heard

  her moving around in her apartment." She said this last with a gesture

  towards the ceiling.

  "Do you have any idea where she might have gone?"

  "No. None. We didn't talk to one another like that." When he looked

  puzzled, she tried to clarify things. "I mean, we weren't friends,

  just lonely women who talked to one another once in a while."

  There was no hidden message in that, either, so far as Brunetti could

  tell: merely the truth, and the truth told clear. "And she lived

  alone?"

  "Yes, so far as I know."

  "No one ever visited her?"

  "Not that I know of, no."

  "You never heard a child?"

  "Do you mean her son?"

  "No, her daughter."

  "Daughter?" she asked, her surprise answering the question for him.

  She shook her head.

  "Never?"

  Again she shook her head, as though the idea of a mother never

  mentioning one of her children was something too shocking to bear

  comment.

  "Did she ever mention her husband?"

  "Seldom."

  "And how? That is, how did she speak about him? With rancour?

  Anger?"

  She thought for a moment and then answered, "No, she mentioned him in a

  normal way."

  "Affectionately?"

  She gave him a quick glance, rich in unspoken curiosity, then answered,

  "No, I couldn't say that. She simply mentioned him, quite

  neutrally."

  "Could you give me an example?" Brunetti asked, wanting to get a feel

  of it.

  "Once, we were talking about the hospital." She stopped here, then

  sighed, and continued. "We were talking about the mistakes they make,

  and she said that her husband's report had put an end to that, but only

  for a short time."

  He waited for her to clarify, but it seemed that she had said enough.

  Brunetti could think of nothing else to ask her. He got to his feet.

  "Thank you, Signora/ he said, leaning down to shake her hand.

  She smiled in response and turned her wheelchair towards the door.

  Brunetti got there first and was reaching for the handle when she

  called out, "Wait." Thinking she had remembered something that might

  be important, Brunetti turned, then looked down when he felt a sudden

  pressure against his left calf. It was Gastone, serpentining his way

  back and forth, suddenly friendly with this person who had the power to

  open the door. Brunetti picked him up, amazed at the sheer mass of

  him. Smiling, he placed him in the woman's lap, said goodbye, and let

&
nbsp; himself out of the apartment, though he did not pull the door closed

  until he made sure that there was no sign of Gastone between the door

  and the jamb.

  As he had known he would do ever since Signora Delia Vedova told him

  that there had been no sign of Signora Moro for two days, Brunetti went

  up the stairs to her apartment. The door was a simple one: whoever

  owned the apartment had no concern that his tenants should be safe from

  burglars. Brunetti took out his wallet and slid out a thin plastic

  card. Some years ago, Vianello had taken it from a burglar so

  successful he had become careless. Vianello had used it on more than

  one occasion, always in flagrant violation of the law, and upon his

  promotion from Sergeant to Inspector, he had given it to Brunetti in

  token of his realization that the promotion was due primarily to

  Brunetti's insistence and support. At the time, Brunetti had

  entertained the possibility that Vianello was merely freeing himself of

  an occasion of sin, but the card had since then proven so useful that

  Brunetti had come to appreciate it as the gift it was.

  He slipped it between the door and the jamb, just at the height of the

  lock, and the door swung open at a turn of the handle. Long habit made

  him stop just inside the door and sniff the air, hunting for the scent

  of death. He smelled dust and old cigarette smoke and the memory of

  some sharp

  cleaning agent, but there was no scent of rotting flesh. Relieved, he

  closed the door behind him and walked into the sitting room. He found

  it exactly as he had left it: the furniture in the same position, the

  single book that had been lying face down on the arm of a sofa still

  there, still at the same page, for all he knew.

  The kitchen was in order: no dishes in the sink, and when he pried the

  door open with the toe of his shoe, he found no perishable food in the

  refrigerator. He took a pen from the inner pocket of his jacket and

  opened all of the cabinets: the only thing he found was an open tin of

  coffee.

  In the bathroom, he opened the medicine cabinet with the back of a

  knuckle and found nothing more than a bottle of aspirin, a used shower

  cap, an unopened bottle of shampoo, and a package of emery boards. The

  towels on the rack were dry.

  The only room left was the bedroom, and Brunetti entered it uneasily:

  he disliked this part of his job as much as anything about it. On the

  nightstand beside the bed a thin rectangle of clear space stood

  outlined in the dust: she had removed a photo from there. Two more had

  been taken from the dresser. Drawers and closet, however, seemed full

  as far as he could tell, and two suitcases lay under the bed.

  Shameless now, he pulled back the covers on the side of the bed closest

  to the door and lifted the pillow. Under it, neatly folded, lay a

  man's white dress shirt. Brunetti pulled it out and let it fall open.

  It would have fitted Brunetti, but the shoulders would have fallen from

  Signora Moro's, and the sleeves would have come far down over her

  hands. Just over the heart of the man who would wear the shirt he saw

  the initials "FM' embroidered in thread so fine it could only have been

  silk.

  He folded the shirt and replaced it under the pillow, then pulled the

  covers up and tucked them neatly in place. He went back through the

  living room and let himself out of the

  apartment. As he passed the door to the Delia Vedova apartment, he

  wondered if she was sitting inside, holding her cat, listening for the

  footsteps that carried life back and forth outside her door.

  i8

  It was not until after the kids had gone to bed that night, when he and

  Paola sat alone in the living room, she reading Persuasion for the

  hundred and twenty-seventh time, and he contemplating Anna Comnena's

  admonition that, "Whenever one assumes the role of historian,

  friendship and enmities have to be forgotten', that Brunetti returned

  to his visit to Signora Moro's apartment, though he did so indirectly.

  "Paola," he began. She peered at him over the top of her book, eyes

  vague and inattentive. "What would you do if I asked you for a

  separation?"

  Her eyes had drifted back to the page before he spoke, but they shot

  back to his face now, and Anne Elliot was left to her own romantic

  problems. "If you what?"

  "Asked for a separation."

  Voice level, she inquired, "Before I go into the kitchen to get the

  bread knife, could you tell me if this is a theoretical question?"

  "Absolutely/ he said, embarrassed by how happy her threat of violence

  had made him. "What would you do?"

  She placed the book by her side, face down. "Why do you want to

  know?"

  Till tell you that as soon as you answer my question. What would you

  do?"

  Her look was discomfiting. "Well?" he prodded.

  "If it were a real separation, I'd throw you out of the house and after

  you I'd throw everything you own."

  His smile was positively beatific. "Everything?"

  "Yes. Everything. Even the things I like."

  "Would you use one of my shirts to sleep in?"

  "Are you out of your mind?"

  "And if it were a fake separation?"

  "Fake?"

  "Done so that it would look as if we were separated when in reality we

  weren't but just needed to look as if we were."

  "I'd still throw you out, but I'd keep all the things I like."

  "And the shirt? Would you sleep in it?"

  She gave him a long look. "Do you want a serious answer or more

  foolishness?"

  "I think I want a real answer he confessed.

  Then yes, I'd sleep in your shirt or I'd put it on my pillow so that I

  could have at least the smell of you with me."

  Brunetti believed in the solidity of his marriage with the same faith

  he invested in the periodic table of the elements, indeed, rather more;

  nevertheless, occasional reinforcement did no harm. He found himself

  equally assured of the solidity of the Moros' marriage, though he had

  no idea what that meant.

  "Signora Moro," he began, 'is living apart from her husband." Paola

  nodded, acknowledging that he had already told her this. "But one of

  his dress shirts is under the pillow of the bed in which she is

  sleeping alone."

  Paola looked off to the left, to where an occasional light could still

  be seen burning in the top floor window of the apartment opposite.

  After a long time, she said, "Ah."

  *55

  "Yes/ he agreed," "Ah," indeed

  "Why do they have to look as if they're separated?"

  "So whoever shot her won't come back and do a better job of it, I'd

  guess."

  "Yes, that makes sense." She thought about this, then asked, "And who

  could they be?"

  "If I knew that, I'd probably understand everything."

  Automatically, not really thinking about what she said but asserting

  truth by habit, she said, "We never know everything."

  "Then at least I'd know more than I know now. And I'd probably know

  who killed the boy

  "You won't let that go, will you?"
she asked entirely without

  reproof.

  "No/

  "Probably wise not to she agreed.

  "So you think he was murdered, too?"

  "I always did

  "Why?"

  "Because I trust your feelings and because your feeling about it was so

  strong

  "And if I'm wrong?"

  Then we're wrong together she said. She picked up her book, slipped a

  bookmark between the pages, and closed it. Setting it down, she said,

  "I can't read any more

  The neither he said, setting Anna Comnena on the table in front of

  him.

  She looked across at him and asked, "Is it all right if I don't wear

  one of your shirts?"

  He laughed out loud and they went to bed.

  The first thing he did the next morning was to go see Signorina

  Elettra, whom he found in her office. Her desk was covered with at

  least six bouquets of flowers, each wrapped separately in a cone of

  pastel paper. As he knew she had a

  standing order for flowers to be delivered on Monday from Biancat, he