Uniform Justice cgb-12

by Donna Leon

  ago.

  As with any superior, Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta was often the

  subject of speculation among those under his command. His motives for

  action or inertia were usually transparent: power, its maintenance and

  aggrandizement. In

  9i the past, however, he had proven capable of great weakness, had even

  been deflected from his headlong pursuit of power, but only when he

  acted in defence of his family. Brunetti, though often suspicious of

  Patta and usually deeply contemptuous of his motives, felt nothing but

  respect for this weakness.

  Brunetti had told himself that decency demanded he wait at least two

  days before attempting to speak again to either of the boy's parents.

  That time had passed, and he arrived at the Questura that morning with

  the intention of interviewing one or both of them. Dottor Moro's home

  phone was answered by a machine. The phone at his practice said that,

  until further notice, the doctor's patients would be seen by Doctor D.

  Biasi, whose office hours and phone number were given. Brunetti re

  dialled the first number and left his name and his direct number at the

  Questura, requesting that the doctor call him.

  That left the mother. Signorina Elettra had provided a brief

  biography. Venetian, like her husband, she had met Moro in liceo, then

  both had gone on to the University of Padova, where Moro opted for

  medicine, Federica for child psychology. They married when her studies

  were completed but didn't return to Venice until Moro was offered a

  place at the Ospedale Civile, when she had opened a private practice in

  the city.

  Their legal separation, which took place with unseemly haste after her

  accident, had been a surprise to their friends. They had not divorced,

  and neither appeared to be involved with another person. There was no

  evidence that they had contact with one another, and any communication

  they had seemed to take place through their lawyers.

  Signorina Elettra had clipped the article about Ernesto's death that

  had appeared in La Nuova to the outside of the folder. He chose not to

  read it, though he did read the caption under the photo of the family,

  'in happier times'.

  Federica Moro's smile was the centre of the photo: she stood with her

  right arm wrapped around the back of her husband, her head leaning on

  his chest, her other hand ruffling her son's hair. The photo showed

  them on a beach, in shorts and T-shirts, tanned and bursting with

  happiness and health; behind them the head of a swimmer bobbed just to

  her husband's right. The picture must have been taken years ago, for

  Ernesto was still a boy, not a young man. Federica looked away from

  the camera, and the other two looked at her, Ernesto's glance open and

  proud, as who would not be proud to have such an attractive woman as a

  mother? Fernando's look was calmer, yet no less proud.

  One of them, Brunetti thought, must just have said something funny, or

  perhaps they'd seen something on the beach that made them laugh. Or

  was it the photographer, perhaps, who had been the clown of the moment?

  Brunetti was struck by the fact that, of the three of them, Federica

  had the shortest hair: boyish, only a few centimetres long. It stood

  in sharp contrast to the fullness of her body and the natural ease with

  which she embraced her husband.

  Who would dare to publish such a photo, and who could have given it to

  the paper, surely knowing how it would be used? He slipped the

  clipping free and stuck it inside the folder. The same number Signora

  Ferro had given him was written on the outside; he dialled, forgetting

  what she had told him about letting it ring once and hanging up.

  On the fourth ring, a woman's voice answered, saying only "SIT

  "Signora Moro?" Brunetti asked.

  "Si."

  "Signora, this is Commissario Guido Brunetti. Of the police. I'd be

  very grateful if you would find the time to speak to me." He waited

  for her to reply, then added, "About your son."

  "Aah," she said. Then nothing for a long time.

  "Why have you waited?" she finally asked, and he sensed that having to

  ask the question made her angry.

  "I didn't want to intrude on your grief, Signora." When she was

  silent, he added, "I'm sorry."

  "Do you have children?" she surprised him by asking.

  "Yes, I do."

  "How old?"

  "I have a daughter he began, then said the rest quickly, "My son is the

  same age as yours."

  "You didn't say that at the beginning," she said, sounding surprised

  that he should have failed to use such an emotive tool.

  Unable to think of anything suitable to say, Brunetti asked "May I come

  and speak to you, Signora?"

  "Any time you want she said, and he had a vision of days, months,

  years, an entire lifetime stretching away from her.

  "May I come now?" he asked.

  "It's all the same, isn't it?" she asked; it was a real request for

  information, not a sarcastic or self-pitying pose.

  "It should take me about twenty minutes to get there he said.

  "I'll be here she replied.

  He had located her address on the map and so knew which way to walk. He

  could have taken the boat up towards San Marco, but he chose to walk up

  the Riva, cutting through the Piazza and in front of the Museo Correr.

  He entered Frezzerie and turned left at the first cafe on his left. It

  was the second door on the right, the top bell. He rang it, and with

  no question asked through the intercom, the door snapped open and he

  went in.

  The entrance hall was damp and dark, though no canal was nearby. He

  climbed to the third floor and found, directly opposite him, an open

  door. He paused, called, "Signora Moro?" and heard a voice say

  something from inside, so he went in and closed the door behind him. He

  went down a

  narrow corridor with a cheap machine-made carpet on the floor, towards

  what seemed to be a source of light.

  A door stood open on his right and he stepped inside. A woman was

  sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, and light filtered in

  from two curtained windows that stood behind her. The room smelled of

  cigarette smoke and, he thought, mothballs.

  "Commissario?" she asked, raising her face to look in his direction.

  "Yes/ he answered. Thank you for letting me come."

  She waved his words away with her right hand, then returned the

  cigarette it held to her mouth and inhaled deeply. There's a chair

  over there she said, exhaling and pointing to a cane-seated chair that

  stood against the wall.

  He brought it over and set it facing her, but not very close and a

  short distance to one side. He sat and waited for her to say

  something. He didn't want to seem to stare at her and so he directed

  his attention to the windows, beyond which he saw, just on the other

  side of the narrow calle, the windows of another house. Little light

  could get in that way. He turned his attention back to her and, even

  in this strange penumbra, recognized the woman in the photo. She

  looked as though she'
d been on a crash diet that had drawn the flesh

  tight on her face and honed the bones of her jaw until they were so

  sharp that they would soon come slicing through the skin. The same

  process seemed to have pared her body down to the bare essentials of

  shoulders, arms, and legs contained in a heavy sweater and dark slacks

  that accentuated her body's frailty.

  It became evident that she was not going to speak, was simply going to

  sit with him and smoke her cigarette. "I'd like to ask you some

  questions, Signora/ he began, and exploded in a sudden fit of nervous

  coughing.

  "Is it the cigarette?" she asked, turning to the table on her right

  and making to put it out.

  He raised a reassuring hand. "No, not at all he gasped but was gripped

  by another coughing fit.

  She stabbed out the cigarette and got to her feet. He started to get

  to his, doubled over by his coughing, but she waved him back and left

  the room. Brunetti lowered himself into the chair and continued to

  cough, tears streaming from his eyes. In a moment, she was back,

  handing him a glass of water. "Drink it slowly," she said. Take small

  sips."

  Still shaking with the attempt to control himself, he took the glass

  with a nod of thanks and put it to his lips. He waited for the spasms

  to subside and took a small sip, and then another and another until all

  of the water was gone and he could breathe freely again. Occasionally,

  puffs of air rushed from his lungs, but the worst was over. He leaned

  down and set the glass on the floor. "Thank you," he said.

  "It's nothing," she answered, taking her place in the chair opposite

  him. He saw her reach instinctively to the right, towards the pack of

  cigarettes that lay on the table, and then lower her hand to her lap.

  She looked over at him and asked, "Nerves?"

  He smiled. "I think so, though I don't think I'm supposed to say

  so."

  "Why not?" she asked, sounding interested.

  "Because I'm the policeman, and we're not supposed to be weak or

  nervous."

  That's ridiculous, isn't it?"

  He nodded, and in that instant recalled that she was a psychologist.

  He cleared his throat and asked, "Could we begin again, Signora?"

  Her smile was minimal, a ghost of the one on her face in the photo that

  still lay on his desk. "I suppose we have to. What is it you'd like

  to know?"

  "I'd like to ask you about your accident, Signora/

  Her confusion was visible, and he could understand its

  cause. Her son was recently dead in circumstances that had yet to be

  officially determined, and he was asking her about something that had

  happened more than two years ago. "Do you mean in Siena?" she finally

  asked.

  "Yes."

  "Why do you want to know about that?"

  "Because no one seemed curious about it at the time."

  She tilted her head to one side as she considered his answer. "I see

  she finally said, then added, "Should they have been?"

  That's what I'm hoping to learn, Signora."

  Silence settled in between them and Brunetti, having no option, sat and

  waited to see if she would tell him what had happened. In the minutes

  that passed, she glanced aside at the cigarettes twice, and the second

  time he almost told her to go ahead and smoke, that it wouldn't bother

  him, but he said nothing. As the silence lengthened, he studied the

  few objects he could see in the room: her chair, the table, the

  curtains at the window. All spoke of a taste far different from the

  casual wealth he had observed in Moro's home. There was no attempt to

  suit style to style or do anything more than provide furniture that

  would meet the most basic needs.

  "I'd gone down to our friends on the Friday morning," she said,

  surprising him when she finally began to speak. "Fernando was supposed

  to get there on the last train, at about ten that night. It was a

  beautiful day, late autumn but still very warm, so I decided to go for

  a walk in the afternoon. I was about a half a kilo metre from the

  house when I heard a loud noise it could have been a bomb for all I

  knew and then I felt a pain in my leg, and I fell down. It wasn't as

  if anyone had pushed me or anything: I just fell down."

  She glanced across at him, as if to establish whether he could possibly

  find any of this interesting. He nodded and she went on. "I lay

  there, too stunned to do anything. It didn't even hurt all that much

  then. I heard noises from the woods

  that I had been walking towards. Well, not really woods, perhaps an

  acre or two of trees. I heard something moving around in there and I

  wanted to shout for help, but then I didn't. I don't know why, but I

  didn't. I just lay there.

  "A minute or two must have passed, and then, over from where I'd come

  from, two dogs came running toward me, barking their heads off, came

  right up to me and started jumping around, barking all the time. I

  shouted at them to shut up. My leg had started to hurt then, and when

  I looked at it, I realized I'd been shot, so I knew I had to do

  something. And then there were these hunting dogs, barking and dancing

  around me like crazy things."

  She stopped talking for so long that Brunetti was forced to ask, "What

  happened then?"

  The hunters came. The men whose dogs they were, that is. They saw the

  dogs and they saw me on the ground and they thought the dogs had

  attacked me, so they came running and when they got to us they started

  kicking the dogs away and hitting at them with the ends of their guns,

  but the dogs weren't doing anything. They probably saved my life,

  those dogs."

  She stopped and looked directly at him, as if to ask if he had any

  questions, and when he said nothing, she went on, "One of them used his

  handkerchief and made a tourniquet, and then they carried me to their

  Jeep, which was just at the edge of the woods. And they took me to the

  hospital. The doctors there are used to this kind of thing: hunters

  are always shooting themselves or other hunters down there, it seems."

  She paused and then said softly, "Poor things," in a voice so filled

  with real sympathy that he was struck by how vulgar and cheap his

  conversation with Signorina Elettra sounded in comparison.

  "Did they ask you at the hospital how it happened, Signora?"

  The men who found me told them what had happened, so

  all I did, when I came out from surgery, was confirm what they'd

  said."

  That it was an accident?" he asked.

  "Yes." She said the word with no special tone.

  "Do you think it was?" he asked.

  Again, there was a long delay before she spoke. "At the time, I didn't

  think it could have been anything else. But since then I've started to

  wonder why whoever it was that shot me didn't come to see what they'd

  done. If they thought I was some sort of an animal, they would have

  come to check that they'd killed me, wouldn't they?"

  That was what had troubled Brunetti ever since he'd first heard the

  story.

  "And when they heard the dogs and then the
other hunters, they would

  have come to see what all that was about, if they thought someone else

  was going to take the animal they'd killed." She let some time pass

  and then said, "As I said, I didn't think about any of this at the

  time."

  "And what do you think now?"

  She started to speak, stopped herself, and then said, "I don't mean to

  be melodramatic, but I have other things to think about now."

  So did Brunetti. He was wondering if a police report had been filed of

  the incident, if the two hunters who found her had noticed anyone in

  the area.

  Brunetti could no longer keep her from her cigarettes, so he said, "I

  have only one more question, Signora."

  She didn't wait for him to ask it. "No, Ernesto didn't kill himself.

  I'm his mother, and I know that to be true. That's another reason why

  I think it wasn't an accident." She prised herself from her chair,

  said, "If that was your last question ..." and started towards the

  door of the room. Her limp was slight, the merest favouring of her

  right leg when she walked, and as she wore slacks, he had no idea of

  the damage that had been done to her leg.

  He let her lead him to the door of the apartment. He thanked her but

  didn't offer his hand. Outside, it had grown marginally warmer, and as

  it was already after noon, Brunetti decided to go directly home for