Fatal Remedies

by Donna Leon

  ‘Because of this?’ Brunetti asked, waving a hand at the bleak sterility of the room in which they sat and all it represented.

  Sandi nodded.

  ‘What about Mitri?’ Brunetti asked.

  Sandi contracted his eyebrows in an expression of feigned confusion.

  ‘Was he involved in the factory?’

  ‘Which one?’

  Brunetti raised his hand and brought his fist smashing down on the table just in front of Sandi, who jumped as if Brunetti had struck him. ‘Don’t waste my time, Signor Sandi,’ Brunetti shouted. ‘Don’t waste my time with stupid questions.’ When Sandi didn’t answer, he leaned towards him and demanded, ‘Do you understand me?’

  Sandi nodded.

  ‘Good,’ Brunetti said. ‘What about the factory? Did Mitri have a part in it?’

  ‘He must have.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He came up here sometimes to prepare a formula or to tell his brother-in-law how something had to look. He’d have to make sure that what went into the packages looked right.’ He glanced up at Brunetti and added, ‘I didn’t understand all of that, but I think that’s why he came.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘Maybe once a month, sometimes more often than that.’

  ‘How did they get on?’ Brunetti asked, then, to prevent Sandi from asking who, he added, ‘Bonaventura and Mitri?’

  Sandi considered this for a while before he answered, ‘Not well. Mitri was married to his sister, so they had to get along somehow, but I don’t think either of them liked it.’

  ‘What about Mitri’s murder? What do you know?’

  Sandi shook his head repeatedly. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

  Brunetti let a long moment pass before he asked, ‘And here at the factory, was there any talk?’

  ‘There’s always talk.’

  ‘About the murder, Signor Sandi. Was there talk about the murder?’

  Sandi remained silent, either trying to remember or weighing possibilities. Finally he mumbled, ‘There was talk that Mitri wanted to buy the factory.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why was there talk or why did he want to buy it?’

  Brunetti took a deep breath and spoke calmly. ‘Why did he want to buy it?’

  ‘Because he was much better at it than Bonaventura. It was a mess with him running it. No one ever got paid on time. The records were hopeless. I never knew when the shipments were going to be ready to go out.’ As Brunetti watched him, Sandi shook his head in tight-lipped disapproval, the perfect picture of a conscientious accountant, pushed beyond all patience by fiscal irresponsibility.

  ‘You say you’re foreman of the factory, Signor Sandi.’ Sandi nodded. ‘It sounds like you knew more about the running of it than the owner did.’

  Sandi nodded again, as if not at all displeased to hear that someone would recognize this.

  Suddenly there was a knock on the door and when it opened a crack Brunetti saw della Corte in the hall, signalling to him to come outside. As he stepped into the corridor, della Corte said, ‘His wife’s here.’

  ‘Bonaventura’s?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘No, Mitri’s.’

  * * * *

  25

  ‘How did she get here?’ Brunetti asked. Seeing the confusion his question caused della Corte, he explained, ‘I mean, how did she know to come here?’

  ‘She said she was staying with his wife - Bonaventura’s - and came up here when she heard he had been arrested.’

  Brunetti’s sense of time had been distorted by the events of the morning, and he was surprised when he glanced down at his watch and saw that it was almost two o’clock in the afternoon; hours had passed since they’d brought the two men to the police station, but he’d been too intent to notice. Suddenly he was overcome with hunger and felt a faint ringing through his entire body, as though he had been plugged into a mild electric current.

  His impulse was to go and talk to her immediately, but he knew nothing good would come of it until he had eaten something or somehow stopped the tremors in his body. Was it age or stress that was doing this to him and should he be alarmed at the possibility that it might mean something else, some sickness that was looming over him? ‘I have to eat something,’ he said to della Corte, who was too surprised at what he heard to hide it.

  ‘There’s a bar on the corner. You can get a sandwich there.’ He led Brunetti to the door of the building and pointed it out, then, saying he had to call Padova, he went back inside. Brunetti walked the half-block to the bar, where he had a sandwich he didn’t taste and two glasses of mineral water that left him still feeling thirsty. At least it put an end to the tremors and he felt more in control of himself, but still worried that his physical response to the morning should have been so strong.

  He walked back to the Questura, where he asked to be given the number of Palmieri’s telefonino. When he had it, he rang Signorina Elettra, told her to drop whatever she was doing and get a list of all the calls made to and from Palmieri’s phone in the last two weeks, as well as for the offices and homes of both Mitri and Bonaventura. He requested her to hold the line and asked the officer whose phone he was using where Palmieri’s body had been taken. When he was told it was in the morgue of the local hospital, he instructed Signorina Elettra to tell Rizzardi and to get someone up there immediately to take tissue samples. He wanted them checked with the traces found under Mitri’s nails.

  When he had finished, he asked to be taken to Signora Mitri. After speaking to her that one time, Brunetti’s instinct had been to believe that she knew nothing about her husband’s death, so he had not sought to question her again. The fact that she had turned up here made him doubt the wisdom of that decision.

  A uniformed officer met him at the door and took him down a corridor. He stopped in front of the room next to the one where Bonaventura was being held. ‘His lawyer’s in there with him,’ he said to Brunetti, pointing towards the adjacent door. ‘The woman’s in here,’ he added.

  ‘Did they come together?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘No, sir. He came in a little after she did, but they didn’t recognize one another.’

  Brunetti thanked him and stepped over to take a look through the one-way glass. A man sat facing Bonaventura, but all Brunetti could see was the back of his head and shoulders. He moved to the next door and stood a moment, studying the woman sitting inside.

  He was struck, again, by her stoutness. Today she wore a woollen suit with a box-cut skirt that made no concession to fashion or style. It was the sort of suit women of her size, age and class had worn for decades, and it would probably be worn by them, or women like them, for decades to come. She wore little make-up and whatever lipstick she might have applied had been chewed away during the day. Her cheeks were rounded, as though she were puffing them up to make a funny face at a child.

  She sat with her hands folded in her lap, knees tightly together, looking across at the window in the top of the door. She looked older than she had the last time, but Brunetti didn’t know why that was so. His eyes met hers and he was disconcerted by the feeling that she was looking at him, though he knew very well that all she could see was a pane of seemingly black glass. Her eyes did not waver from his and he turned his away first.

  He opened the door and went in. ‘Good-afternoon, Signora.’ He approached her and held out his hand.

  She studied him, face neutral, eyes busy. She did not stand but extended her hand and shook his, neither lightly nor limply.

  Brunetti sat opposite her. ‘You’ve come to see your brother, Signora?’

  Her eyes were childlike and filled with a confusion Brunetti believed was genuine. Her mouth opened and her tongue protruded nervously, licked at her lips, then retreated. ‘I wanted to ask him . . .’ she began, but did not complete the sentence.

  ‘Ask him what, Signora?’ Brunetti prompted.

  ‘I don’t know if I should be saying this to a policeman.’

  ‘And why is
that?’ Brunetti leaned towards her a bit.

  ‘Because,’ she began, then paused for a moment. Then, as if she’d explained something and he’d understood, she said, ‘I need to know.’

  ‘What is it you need to know, Signora?’ Brunetti nudged.

  She pulled her lips tightly together and, as Brunetti watched, she turned herself into a toothless old woman. ‘I need to know if he did it,’ she finally said. Then, considering other possibilities, she added, ‘Or had it done.’

  ‘Are you speaking of your husband’s death, Signora?’

  She nodded.

  For the hidden microphones and the tape that was recording all that was said in this room, Brunetti asked again, ‘Do you think he might be responsible for his death?’

  ‘I don’t . . .’ she began, then changed her mind and whispered, ‘Yes,’ so low that the microphones might not have caught it.

  ‘Why do you think he was involved?’ Brunetti asked.

  She moved awkwardly in her chair and he saw her make a motion that he’d been watching women make for more than four decades: she half stood and pulled at the underside of her skirt, yanking out the wrinkles. Then she sat down again and pressed her ankles and knees together.

  It seemed for a moment as though she hoped the gesture would suffice by way of answer, so Brunetti repeated, ‘Why do you think he’s involved, Signora?’

  ‘They fought,’ she measured out by way of response.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Business.’

  ‘Can you be more specific than that, Signora? What business?’

  She shook her head a few times, insistent on displaying her ignorance. Finally she said, ‘My husband never told me anything about his businesses. He said I didn’t need to know.’

  Again, Brunetti asked himself how many times he had heard this, and how many times it had been an answer structured to turn away guilt. But he believed this heavy-set woman was telling him the truth, found it entirely credible that her husband had not seen fit to share his professional life with her. He recalled the man he’d met in Patta’s office: elegant, well-spoken, one might even say sleek. How odd to pair him with this little woman with her dyed hair and tight-fitting suit. He glanced down at her feet and saw that she was wearing a pair of stout-heeled pumps, their toes narrowed to a painful point. On her left foot, a large bunion had pushed its way into the leather and sat there like a section of an egg, the leather stretched tight across it. Was marriage the ultimate mystery?

  ‘When did they fight, Signora?’

  ‘All the time. Especially during the last month. I think something happened that made Paolo angry. They’d never got on well, not really, but because of the family and because of business, well, they rubbed along somehow.’

  ‘Did anything particular happen during the last month?’ he asked.

  ‘I think there was an argument,’ she said, her voice so soft that Brunetti again thought of future listeners to the tape.

  ‘An argument between them, between your husband and your brother?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded repeatedly as she spoke.

  ‘Why do you think that, Signora?’

  ‘Paolo and he had a meeting at our apartment. It was two nights before it happened.’

  ‘Before what happened, Signora?’

  ‘Before my husband was ... before he was killed.’

  ‘I see. And why do you think there was an argument? Did you hear them?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she answered quickly, looking up at him as if surprised at the suggestion that there could ever be raised voices in the house of Mitri. ‘I could tell it from the way Paolo behaved when he came upstairs after they had talked.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘Only that he was incompetent.’

  ‘Was he talking about your brother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He said that Sandro was ruining the factory, ruining the business.’

  ‘Do you know what factory he was talking about, Signora?’

  ‘I thought he was talking about the one up here, in Castelfranco.’

  ‘And why would your husband be interested in that?’

  ‘There was money invested in it.’

  ‘His money?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Whose money, Signora?’

  She paused, considering how best to answer this. ‘It was my money,’ she finally said.

  ‘Yours, Signora?’

  ‘Yes. I brought a lot of money to the marriage. But it remained in my name, you see. Our father’s will,’ she added, gesturing vaguely with her right hand. ‘Paolo always helped me decide what to do with it. And when Sandro said he wanted to buy the factory, they both suggested I invest in it. This was a year ago. Or perhaps two.’ She broke off when she saw Brunetti’s response to her vagueness. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t pay much attention to these things. Paolo asked me to sign papers and the man at the bank told me what was happening. But I don’t think I ever understood, not really, what the money was for.’ She stopped and brushed at her skirt. ‘It went to Sandro’s factory, but because it was mine, Paolo always thought it belonged to him as well.’

  ‘Do you have any idea of how much you invested in this factory, Signora?’ She looked to Brunetti like a schoolgirl about to burst into tears because she couldn’t remember the capital of Canada, so he added, ‘If you have an idea, that is. We really don’t need to know the exact amount.’ This was true; it would all be found out later.

  ‘I think it was three or four hundred million lire,’ she answered.

  ‘I see. Thank you,’ Brunetti said, then asked, ‘Did your husband say anything else that night, after he spoke to your brother?’

  ‘Well.’ She paused and, Brunetti thought, tried to remember. ‘He said the factory was losing money. From the way he spoke, I think Paolo might have had money invested in it privately.’

  ‘Aside from yours?’

  ‘Yes. With just a note from Paolo. Nothing official.’ When Brunetti was silent, she continued, ‘I think Paolo wanted to have more control over the way they did things.’

  ‘Did your husband give you any idea of what he was going to do?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ She was clearly surprised by the question. ‘He never told me about things like that.’ Brunetti wondered what sort of things he did tell her about but thought it best not to ask. ‘Afterwards he went to his room and the next day he didn’t mention it, so I thought, or I hoped, that he and Sandro had settled things.’

  Brunetti responded instantly to her reference to ‘his room’, surely not the stuff of happy marriages. He worked his voice into a lower tone: ‘Please forgive me for asking you this, Signora, but could you tell me what sort of terms you and your husband were on?’

  ‘Terms?’

  ‘You said he went to “his room”, Signora,’ Brunetti replied in a soft voice.

  ‘Ah.’ The quiet sound escaped her entirely involuntarily.

  Brunetti waited. Finally he said, ‘He’s gone now, Signora, so I think you can tell me.’

  She looked across at him and he saw the tears form in her eyes. ‘There were other women,’ she whispered. ‘For years, other women. Once I followed him and waited outside her house, in the rain, for him to come out.’ Tears flowed down her face, but she ignored them. They began to drop on to the front of her blouse, leaving long oval marks on the fabric. ‘Once I had him followed by a detective. And I started to listen to his phone calls. Sometimes I’d play them back, hear him talking to other women. The same things he used to say to me.’ Tears cut her off and she paused a long time, but Brunetti forced himself not to speak. Finally she went on, ‘I loved him with my whole heart. From the first day I saw him. If Sandro did this . . .’ Her eyes filled with tears again, but she brushed them away with both palms. ‘Then I want you to know it and I want him to be punished. That’s why I want to talk to Sandro.’ She stopped, looking down.

  ‘Will you come an
d tell me what he says?’ she asked, eyes still on her hands, which lay quite still in her lap.

  ‘I don’t think I can do that until it’s all over, Signora. But then I will.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, looking up, then down again. Suddenly she got to her feet and walked towards the door. Brunetti was there before her and opened it. He stepped back to allow her to pass through ahead of him. ‘I’ll go home, then,’ she said and, before he could say anything, she walked out of the door, down the corridor and towards the entrance hall of the police station.