Death and Judgment

by Donna Leon

  She pulled off to the side of the road and waited for a car behind them to pass. When it did, she made a U-turn and headed back the way they had come.

  “I told him he could be sure that there was nothing to fear from his sister. He seemed relieved to hear that. I don’t remember how many times I shot him. Then I got back in my own car and drove back to Piazzale Roma.”

  “The gun?” he asked.

  “It’s still in my apartment. I didn’t want to throw it away until I’d finished with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She glanced at him. “The others.”

  “What others?”

  She didn’t answer, shook her head in a negation he sensed was absolute.

  “Didn’t you think that, sooner or later, you’d be found?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think about that. But then you came to the agency and I told you I didn’t drive, and then I started to think about all the other things, aside from the glasses, I had done that were wrong. I suppose people saw me on the train, and the man in the garage knew I was out in my car the night Lotto died. And then tonight, I knew it was over. I thought I could get away. Well,” she added, “I don’t know if I thought it so much as I hoped it.”

  Some time passed, and then Brunetti was aware of passing the first villa he had seen, though it was on his side of the road now. Suddenly she broke the silence. “They’ll kill me, you know.”

  He had been half-asleep in the warmth of the car and the unaccustomed motion. “What?” he asked, shaking his head and sitting up straight in his seat.

  “Once they know I’ve been arrested, once they know I killed them, they’ll have no choice but to eliminate me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Brunetti said.

  “I know who they are, at least some of them, the ones I didn’t kill. And they’ll make sure I don’t talk.”

  “Who?”

  “The men who make the tapes—Trevisan wasn’t the only one—and run the prostitutes. No, not the little men on the street, the ones who push them around and collect the money. I know the men who run the whole thing, the import-export in women. Only there’s not a lot of export, is there, aside from the tapes? I don’t know who they all are, but I know enough of them.”

  “Who are they?” Brunetti asked, thinking of the Mafia and men with mustaches and Southern accents.

  She named the mayor of a large town in Lombardy and the president of a large pharmaceutical company. When he whipped his head around to stare at her, she smiled a grim smile and added the name of one of the assistant ministers of justice. “This is a multinational business, Commissario. We’re not talking about two old men who sit in a bar drinking cheap wine and talking about whores; we’re talking about boardrooms and yachts and private planes and orders that go back and forth by fax and cellular phone. These are men who have real power. How do you think they managed to get rid of the notes of Favero’s autopsy?”

  “How do you know that?” Brunetti demanded.

  “Lotto told me. They didn’t want anyone looking into Favero’s death. Too many people are involved. I don’t know all their names, but I know enough of them.” Her smile disappeared. “That’s why they’ll kill me.”

  “We’ll put you in protective custody,” Brunetti said, brain leaping ahead to the details.

  “Like Sindona?” she asked sarcastically. “How many guards did he have in prison, and video cameras on him twenty-four hours a day. And still they got the poison into his coffee. How long do you think I’ll last?”

  “That won’t happen,” Brunetti said hotly, and then it occurred to him that he had no reason to believe this. He knew that she had killed the three men, yes, but all the rest remained to be proven, especially all this talk of danger and plots to kill her.

  Some sort of emotional radar passed the change in his mood to her, and she stopped talking. They drove on through the night, and Brunetti turned to watch the lights reflected on the canal on his right.

  The next thing he knew, she was shaking him by the shoulder, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a wall directly in front of him. Instinctively, he raised his arms to cover his face and pulled his head down onto his chest. But there was no impact, no sound. The car was motionless, the motor silent.

  “We’re back in Venice,” she said.

  He pulled his hands away and looked around him. The wall in front of him was the wall of the parking garage; on either side of him were parked cars.

  She reached down between the seats and released her safety belt. “I suppose you’ll want to take me to the Questura.”

  When they arrived at the embarcadero, Brunetti saw a number one just pulling away. He looked at his watch and was amazed to discover that it was after three. He hadn’t called Paola, hadn’t called the Questura to tell them what he was doing.

  Signora Ceroni stood in front of the boat schedule and peered at it. Unable to read the list of times, she pulled out her glasses and put them on. When she had read through them, she turned to Brunetti and said, “Not for forty minutes.”

  “Would you like to walk?” he asked. It was too cold to sit in the open embarcadero, and at least walking would keep them warm. He knew he could call the Questura and have a boat sent to get them, but it would probably be faster to walk.

  “Yes, I would,” she answered. “I won’t get to see the city again.”

  Brunetti found this melodramatic but said nothing. He turned to the right and started along the embankment. When they got to the first bridge, she said, “Do you mind if we walk over the Rialto? I’ve never much liked Strada Nuova.”

  Saying nothing, Brunetti continued along the embankment until they came to the bridge that led to the Tolentini and the way through the backstreets of the city toward the Rialto. She walked at a moderate pace and appeared to pay no special attention to the buildings they passed. Occasionally, Brunetti’s quicker pace carried him ahead of her, but then he would stop at a corner or the foot of a bridge and wait for her. They came out beside the fish market and went down toward the Rialto. At the top, she paused for only a moment, looked both to the right and the left at the Grand Canal, empty now of all boat traffic. They came down off the bridge and headed through Campo San Bartolomeo. A night watchman went past them, leading a German shepherd on a leash, but no one spoke.

  It was almost four when they got to the Questura. When Brunetti pounded on the heavy glass door, a light came on in the guardroom to the right of the door. A guard, rubbing sleep from his eyes, came out and peered through the glass. Recognizing Brunetti, he opened the door and saluted.

  “Buon giorno, Commissario,” he said and then looked at the woman who stood beside his superior.

  Brunetti thanked him and asked if there was a woman officer on duty that night. When the guard said that there was not, Brunetti told him to call whoever’s name was first on the roster and tell her to come to the Questura immediately. He dismissed the guard and led Signora Ceroni across the entrance and up the stairs toward his office. The heat had been turned down, so the building was cold, the air damp. At the top of the fourth flight, Brunetti opened the door to his office and held it for her, allowing her to pass inside in front of him.

  “I’d like to use the bathroom,” she said.

  “Sorry. Not until a female officer gets here.”

  She smiled. “Afraid I’ll kill myself, Commissario?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Believe me, I’m not the one who’s going to do that.”

  He offered her a chair and went to stand behind his desk, looking down at its surface, shuffling through some papers. Neither of them bothered to speak during the quarter hour it took for the officer to show up, a middle-aged woman who had been on the force for years.

  When the policewoman came into his office, Brunetti looked across at Signora Ceroni and asked, “Would you like to make a statement? Officer Di Censo can witness it.”

  Signora Ceroni shook her head.

  “Would you like to call your lawyer?”<
br />
  Again, that silent negation.

  Brunetti waited a moment and then turned to the policewoman. “Officer, I’d like you to take Signora Ceroni to a cell. Number four. It’s heated. If she changes her mind, she may call her lawyer and her family.” He looked at Signora Ceroni when he said this, but she shook her head again.

  Turning his attention back to the policewoman, he said, “She is to have no other contact, either with anyone in the Questura or with anyone outside. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Di Censo said and then asked, “Am I to stay with her, sir?”

  “Yes, until someone relieves you.” And then to Signora Ceroni, Brunetti said, “I’ll see you later this morning, Signora.”

  She nodded but said nothing, stood and followed Di Censo from the office, and he listened to their heels disappearing down the stairs: the officer’s steady and strong, Signora Ceroni’s those same sharp, clicking sounds that had led him to Piazzale Roma and then to the killer of the three men.

  He wrote a short report, giving the substance of his conversation with Signora Ceroni, including her refusal to call her lawyer or make a formal confession. He left it with the officer at the door with orders for him to give it to Vice-Questore Patta or to Lieutenant Scarpa when either of them arrived at the Questura.

  It was almost five when he slipped into bed beside Paola. She stirred, turned toward him, draped an arm over his face, and muttered something he couldn’t understand. As he drifted off to sleep, his memory played back for him not the image of the dying woman but instead that of Chiara holding up her dog, Bark. Dumb name for a dog, he thought, and then he slept.

  28

  When Brunetti woke the following morning, Paola was already gone but had left him a note saying that Chiara seemed all right and had gone off to school normally enough. Though he took some comfort in this, it was not enough to quell his abiding grief for his child’s pain. He had coffee, a long shower, more coffee, but he was unable to shake off the dullness of body and spirit that lingered from the events of the night before. He remembered a time when he could spring back from sleepless nights, or from horror, with no effort, could push himself for days when in pursuit of truth or what he thought of as justice. No more. If anything, the spirit that drove him now was fiercer, but there was no denying the diminishing powers of his body.

  He turned away from these thoughts and left the apartment, glad of the biting air and busy streets. As he walked past a newsstand, even though he knew it was impossible, he glanced at the headlines for a mention of last night’s arrest.

  It was almost eleven by the time he got to the Questura, where he was greeted by the usual salutes and nods, and if he was surprised that no one came up to congratulate him for having, single-handedly, brought in the killer of Trevisan, Favero, and Lotto, he gave no sign of it.

  On his desk he found two notes from Signorina Elettra, both telling him that the Vice-Questore wanted to speak to him. He went immediately downstairs and found Signorina Elettra at her desk.

  “Is he in?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking up but not smiling. “And he’s not in a good mood.”

  Brunetti stopped himself from asking if Patta was ever in a good mood and, instead, asked, “What about?”

  “The transfer.”

  “The what?” Brunetti asked, not really interested but always willing to delay having to speak to Patta; a few minutes with Signorina Elettra was, to date, the most pleasant way he had discovered of doing that.

  “The transfer,” she repeated. “Of that prisoner you brought in last night.” She turned aside to answer her phone. “Si?” she asked, and then, quickly, “No, I can’t.” Saying nothing further, she hung up and glanced back up at Brunetti.

  “What happened?” he asked quietly, wondering if Signorina Elettra could hear the pounding of his heart.

  “There was a call earlier this morning. From the Ministry of Justice, saying that she belonged in Padua, so they wanted her taken there.”

  Brunetti leaned forward and spread both hands on her desk, supporting his weight with them.

  “Who took the call?”

  “I don’t know. One of the men downstairs. It happened before I got in. Then about eight, some men from Special Branch showed up with some papers.”

  “And did they take her?”

  “Yes. To Padua.”

  Horrified, Signorina Elettra watched as Brunetti drew his hands into fists, his nails leaving eight long scratches on the polished surface of her desk.

  “What’s wrong, Commissario?”

  “Has she gotten there?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said and looked down at her watch. “They’ve been gone three hours, a little more. They should be there.”

  “Call them,” Brunetti said, voice hoarse.

  When she did nothing, merely stared up at him, astonished at the change, he repeated, voice louder now, “Call them. Call della Corte.” Before she could do anything, he grabbed her phone and punched out the numbers.

  Della Corte picked it up on the third ring.

  “It’s Guido. Is she there?” Brunetti began with no explanation.

  “Ciao, Guido,” della Corte answered. “Is who where? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I brought in a woman last night. She killed all three of them.”

  “She confessed?” della Corte asked.

  “Yes. All three.”

  Della Corte’s whistle of appreciation came down the line. “I don’t know anything about it,” he finally said. “Why are you calling me? Where’d you arrest her?”

  “Here. In Venice. But some men from Special Branch came and picked her up this morning. Someone in the Ministry of Justice sent them to get her. They said she had to be held in Padua.”

  “That’s nonsense,” della Corte exclaimed. “She should be held in the place where she was arrested until she’s formally charged. Anyone knows that.” Then, after a pause, he asked, “Has she been charged?”

  “I don’t know,” Brunetti said. “I don’t think so; there’s been so little time.”

  “Let me see what I can find out,” della Corte said. “I’ll call you back as soon as I know anything. What’s her name?”

  “Ceroni, Regina Ceroni.” Before Brunetti could say anything else, della Corte was gone.

  “What’s wrong?” Signorina Elettra asked, voice deep with alarm.

  “I don’t know,” Brunetti said. Without another word, he turned and knocked on Patta’s door.

  “Avanti.”

  Brunetti pushed open the door and walked quickly into the room. He forced himself to remain silent, hoping to get an idea of Patta’s mood before he had to explain anything to the Vice-Questore.

  “What’s this I hear about that woman being transferred to Padua?” Patta demanded.

  “I don’t know anything about it. I brought her in last night. She confessed to killing all three of them: Trevisan, Favero, and Lotto.”

  “Where did she confess?” Patta asked, confusing Brunetti with the question.

  “In her car.”

  “Her car?”

  “I followed her to Piazzale Roma. I spent a lot of time with her, and then I brought her back here, to Venice. She told me how she did it. And why.”

  Patta seemed uninterested in either. “Did you get a confession from her? Was it witnessed?”

  Brunetti shook his head. “We got back here at four, and I asked her if she wanted to call her lawyer. She didn’t. I asked if she wanted to make a statement, but she refused, so I had her taken to a cell. Officer Di Censo took her down to the women’s section.”

  “Without making a confession or a statement?” Patta demanded.

  There was no sense in delaying. “No. I thought I’d get one this morning.”

  “You thought you’d get one this morning,” Patta repeated in a nasty singsong.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen, is it?” Patta asked, making
no attempt to disguise his anger. “She’s been taken to Padua.”

  “Did she get there?” Brunetti interrupted.

  Patta cast his eyes tiredly to one side. “If you’d let me finish speaking, Commissario …”

  Brunetti nodded but didn’t bother to speak.

  “As I was saying,” Patta began and paused long enough to make the point he had been trying to make when he had been interrupted, “she was taken to Padua this morning. Before you bothered to get here and without her having made a confession, a practice which, as I think you know, Commissario, is essential to the most routine police procedure. But she was taken to Padua, and I hope you know what that means.” Patta paused here, archly dramatic, waiting for Brunetti to admit to the full extent of his incompetence.

  “Then you think she’s in danger?” Brunetti asked.

  Patta squinted in confusion and pulled his head back. “Danger? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Commissario. The only danger is that Padua is going to get the credit for this arrest and for her confession. She’s killed three men, two of them men of great standing in this community, and credit for her capture is now going to be given to Padua.”

  “Then she’s there?” Brunetti asked, voice sharp with hope.

  “I have no idea where she is,” Patta began, “and, quite frankly, I don’t much care. As soon as she was taken out of our jurisdiction, she ceased to be of any interest to me. We’ll be able to halt our investigation of the murders—there is at least that—but all of the credit for her arrest is going to be given to Padua.” Patta’s anger was raw. He reached across his desk and pulled a file toward him. “I have nothing else to say to you, Commissario Brunetti. I’m sure you can find something with which to busy yourself.” He opened the file, bent his head, and began to read.