Uniform Justice cgb-12

by Donna Leon

pastel paper. As he knew she had a

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

  wondered if he'd got things wrong in thinking today was Tuesday or if

  he'd somehow invented the events of the previous day.

  "Are those from Biancat?" he asked.

  She ripped two of the packages open and began to place dwarf sunflowers

  in a green vase. "No, they're from Rialto." She stepped back from the

  desk, studied the arrangement, then added three more sunflowers.

  "Then it's really Tuesday?"

  She gave him a strange look and answered, "Of course."

  "Don't the flowers usually arrive on Monday?"

  She smiled, lifted the vase, and placed it on the other side of her

  computer. "Yes, they usually do. But the Vice-Questore has begun to

  cause quite a fuss about office expenses, so, because they're so much

  cheaper there, I thought I'd get them from Rialto for a while, until

  something diverts him."

  "Did you bring them all yourself?" he asked, trying to calculate

  whether they'd fit in her arms.

  "No, I called for a launch when I realized how many of them I'd

  bought."

  "A police launch?"

  "Of course. It would be difficult to justify taking a taxi," she said,

  snapping off the stem of a carnation.

  "What with the economy drive and all," Brunetti suggested.

  "Exactly."

  Three of the other bouquets ended up together in an enormous ceramic

  vase, and the last, asters, went into a narrow crystal vase Brunetti

  could not remember ever having seen. When all three vases were placed

  to her satisfaction and the papers neatly folded and placed in the

  basket she kept for paper to be recycled, she said, "Yes,

  Commissario?"

  "Have you managed to find out anything about the daughter?"

  Signorina Elettra pulled a notebook from the side of her

  /

  desk and flipped it open. Reading from it, she began, "She was taken

  out of school two years ago, and there's been no j trace of her, at

  least no bureaucratic trace, since."

  Taken out by whom?" 5

  "Her father, apparently." |

  "How did that happen?"

  The school records show that her last day of school was the sixteenth

  of November."

  She looked at him, neither of them having to remind the other that

  Signora Moro had been shot one week before.

  "And?" he asked.

  "And that's all. The forms on file say that the parents had decided to

  place her in a private school."

  "Where?" Brunetti asked.

  "It's not necessary to mention that, I was told."

  "And didn't they ask?" he demanded, his irritation clear. "Don't they

  need to know where a child's going?"

  The woman I spoke to said that all that's required is that the parents

  complete and sign the proper forms, in duplicate Signorina Elettra

  recited in what Brunetti assumed was the mechanical voice of whoever

  she had spoken to.

  "And a child's allowed to disappear and no questions asked?"

  "I was told that the school's responsibility ends once the parents have

  filled in the forms and the child's been taken from the school by one

  of them."

  "Just like that?" he asked.

  Signorina Elettra opened her hands in a gesture meant to show her own

  lack of responsibility. This woman said she wasn't working there when

  the girl was withdrawn, so the best she could do was try to explain the

  regulations to me." ,

  "So where is she? A little girl can't just disappear," Brunetti *

  insisted.

  "She could be anywhere, I suppose," Signorina Elettra said, then added,

  "But she's not in Siena."

  Brunetti shot her an inquiring glance.

  "I called the police there, and then I had a look through the records

  of the school system. There's no record for her, nor for any child of

  the Ferros."

  "The mother's missing now, too Brunetti said and then went on to tell

  her of his visit to her apartment and the inferences he had drawn from

  the presence of the shirt.

  Signorina Elettra's face paled and just as suddenly flushed. "His

  shirt?" she asked then, before he could answer, repeated the question,

  "His shirt?"

  "Yes/ Brunetti answered. He started to ask her what she thought of

  this, but when he took a closer look at her face, he realized there was

  only one man this could cause her to think of, and he spoke to fill the

  painful silence that the memory of his loss brought into the room. "Can

  you think of a way to trace the child?" he finally said. When she

  seemed not to hear him, he said, "There's got to be a way to find her.

  Some central register of children enrolled in schools, perhaps?"

  As if returning from a long distance, Signorina Elettra said in a very

  soft voice, "Perhaps her medical records, or if she's in the Girl

  Scouts."

  Before she could suggest anything else, Brunetti cut her off by saying,

  There are her grandparents. They've got to have some idea of where she

  is."

  "Do you know where they are?" Signorina Elettra asked with returning

  interest.

  "No, but both of the Moros are Venetian, so they should be here in the

  city."

  Till see what I can find out was the only remark she permitted herself.

  Then: "By the way, sir, I found out about the girl who was supposedly

  raped at the Academy."

  "Yes? How?"

  "Friends from the past was the only explanation she provided. When she

  saw that she had Brunetti's attention, Signorina Elettra went on. "The

  girl was thefidanzata of one of

  the students, and he brought her back to his room one night. Somehow,

  the captain of his class found out about it and went to the room. She

  started screaming when he came in, and then someone called the police.

  But there were never any charges and, from what I make of reading the

  original report, probably no need for any."

  "I see," he said, not bothering to ask her how she had found that

  report so quickly. "Tantofumo, poco arrosto." As soon as he spoke he

  was aware how his dismissal of the story would seem to her, and so

  hastened to add, "But thank God for the girl."

  Sounding not at all convinced by his piety, Signorina Elettra said

  merely, "Indeed," and turned back to her computer.

  Brunetti called down to the officers' room and asked where Pucetti was,

  only to be told that he was out on patrol and wouldn't be back until

  the following morning. After he hung up, he sat and wondered how long

  it would take before his appreciation of Pucetti's intelligence would

  begin to work to the young man's disadvantage. Most of the others,

  even those arch-fools, Alvise and Riverre, were unlikely to turn

  against him: the uniformed officers were pretty much devoid of

  jealousy, as least so far as Brunetti could discern. Perhaps Vianello,

  closer to them in rank and age, would have a better sense of this.

  Someone like Scarpa, however, was bound to regard Pucetti with the same

  suspicion with which he viewed Vianello. Even though Vianello had for

  years kept his own counsel, it had been obviou
s to Brunetti that the

  antipathy between the two men had been instant and fierce, on both

  sides. Possible motives abounded: dislike between a southerner and a

  northerner, between a single man and one so happily married, between

  one who delighted in the

  imposition of his will upon those around him and another |

  who cared only to live peacefully. Brunetti had never been able to

  make more sense of it than that the men felt a visceral antipathy for

  one another.

  He felt a flash of resentment that his professional life should be so

  hampered by the complications of personal ,

  animosity: why couldn't those who enforced the law be 4

  above such things? He shook his head at his own crazy |

  utopianism: next he would be longing for a philosopher-king. f

  He had only to think of the current leader of government, >

  however, for all hopes of the philosopher-king's arrival to wither and

  die.

  Further reflection was made impossible by the arrival of Alvise with

  the latest tabulations of crime statistics, which he placed on

  Brunetti's desk, saying that the Vice-Questore needed the finished

  report by the end of the day and that he wanted figures he could

  present to the press without embarrassment.

  "What do you think that means, Alvise?" Brunetti allowed himself to

  ask.

  "That he solved them all, I'd guess, sir," Alvise answered

  straight-faced. He saluted and left, leaving Brunetti with the

  lingering suspicion that Lear was not the only man who had a wise fool

  in his following.

  He worked through lunch and well into the late afternoon juggling

  figures and inventing new categories until he had something that would

  both supply the truth and satisfy Patta. When he finally glanced at

  his watch, he saw that it was after seven, surely time for him to

  abandon these concerns and go home. On an impulse, he called Paola and

  asked her if she felt like going out to dinner. She hesitated not an

  instant, said only that she'd have to prepare something for the kids

  and would meet him wherever he chose.

  "Sommariva?" he asked.

  "Oh my," she answered. "What brings this on?"

  "I need a treat he said.

  "Maria's cooking?" she asked.

  "Your company he answered. Till meet you there at eight."

  Almost three hours later, a lobster-filled Brunetti and his

  champagne-filled consort climbed the stairs to their apartment, his

  steps slowed by satisfying fullness, hers by the grappa she'd drunk

  after dinner. Their arms linked, they were looking forward to bed, and

  then to sleep.

  The phone was ringing as he opened the door, and Brunetti for an

  instant thought of not answering it, of leaving whatever it was until

  the next morning. Had there been time to see that the children were in

  their rooms and thus the call unrelated to their safety, he would have

  let it ring on unanswered, but paternity asserted itself, and he

  answered it on the fourth ring.

  "It's me, sir Vianello said.

  "What's wrong?" came Brunetti's instinctive response to Vianello's

  voice.

  "Moro's mother's been hurt."

  "What?"

  Sudden static filled the line, drowning out Vianello. When it came to

  an end, Brunetti heard only, '.. . no idea who."

  "Who what?" Brunetti demanded.

  "Did it."

  "Did what? I didn't hear you."

  "She was hit by a car, sir. I'm in Mestre, at the hospital."

  "What happened?"

  "She was going to the train station in Mogliano, where she lives. At

  least she was walking in that direction. A car hit her, knocked her

  down and didn't stop."

  "Did anyone see it?"

  Two people. The police there talked to them, but neither was sure

  about anything other than that it was light-coloured and the driver

  might have been a woman."

  Glancing at his watch, Brunetti asked, "When did this happen?"

  "At about seven, sir. When the police saw that she was Fernando Moro's

  mother, one of them remembered the boy's death and called the Questura.

  They tried to get you, and then they called me."

  Brunetti's glance fell on the answering machine. A tiny pulsating

  light illuminated the one message that awaited him. "Has he been

  told?"

  They called him first, sir. She's a widow, and his name and address

  were in her purse."

  "And?"

  "He came out." Both men thought of what that must have been for Moro,

  but neither said anything.

  "Where is he now?" Brunetti asked.

  "In the hospital here."

  "What do the doctors say?" Brunetti asked.

  "Some cuts and bruises, but nothing broken. The car must just have

  brushed her. But she's seventy-two, so the doctors decided to keep her

  overnight." After a pause, Vianello added, "He just left."

  There was a lengthy silence. Finally, Vianello said, in response to

  Brunetti's unspoken question, "Yes, it might be a good idea. He was

  very shaken."

  Part of Brunetti's mind was aware that his instinctive desire to profit

  from Moro's weakness was no less reptilian than Vianello's

  encouragement that he do so. Neither idea stopped him. "How long

  ago?" Brunetti asked.

  "About five minutes. In a taxi."

  Familiar sounds came from the back of the apartment: Paola moving about

  in the bathroom, then going down the corridor to their bedroom.

  Brunetti's imagination soared above the city and the mainland and

  watched a taxi make its way through the empty streets of Mestre and

  across the long causeway that led to Piazzale Roma. A single man

  emerged,

  reached back inside, shoving money at the driver, then turned away and

  began to walk towards the iinbarcudero of the Number One. I'll go,"

  Brunetti said and hung up.

  Paola was already asleep when he looked into the bedroom, a stream of

  light falling across her legs. He wrote a note then couldn't decide

  where to leave it. Finally he propped the sheet of paper on the

  answering machine, where the flickering light still called for

  attention.

  As Brunetti walked through the quiet city, his imagination took flight

  again, but this time it observed a man in a dark suit and a grey

  overcoat walking from San Polo toward the Accademia Bridge. As he

  watched, the man crossed in front of the museum and made his way into

  the narrow calling of Dorsoduro. At the end of the underpass that ran

  beside the church of San Gregorio, he crossed the bridge to the broad

  Riva in front of the Salute. Moro's house, off to his right, was dark,

  though all the shutters were open. Brunetti moved along the canal and

  stopped at the foot of the bridge leading back over the small canal and

  to the door of Moro's house. From there, he would see Moro returning,

  whether he walked, came by taxi or took the Number One. He turned and

  looked across the still waters at the disorderly domes of San Marco and

  the piebald walls of Palazzo Ducale, and thought of the peace their

  beauty brought him. How strange it was: nothing more than the

  ar
rangement of lines and colours, and he felt better than he had before

  he looked at them.

  He heard the throb of the motor of the vaporetto arriving; then saw the

  prow emerge from behind the wall of a building. The noise moved into a

  different key, and the boat glided up to the imbarcadero. The crewman

  tossed out the rope with effortless accuracy and whipped it around the

  metal stanchion in the centuries-old knot. A few people got off the

  boat, none of them Moro. The metal scraped as the gate was pulled

  shut; a careless flip and the rope came free, and the boat continued.

  Another boat arrived twenty minutes later, but Moro wasn't on this one,

  either. Brunetti was beginning to think the doctor might have decided

  to go back to his mother's home in Mogliano when, off to the left, he

  heard footsteps approaching. Moro emerged from the narrow calle

  between the houses at the end of the tiny campo. Brunetti crossed the

  bridge and stood at the bottom, just short of the door to Moro's

  house.

  The doctor came toward him, hands stuffed into the pockets of his