by Donna Leon
Fontana shook his head. ‘No. Nothing. Araldo would have thought that was wrong.’ He waited for them to ask him about that, and when they did not, he continued. ‘It was all right for him to talk about his own life, but he never said anything about anyone else: no names, not even ages. Nothing.’
‘Just that he couldn’t love them?’ asked Vianello in a sad voice.
Fontana nodded, then whispered, ‘Or shouldn’t.’
After that, the information Fontana provided was routine: his cousin had never introduced him to anyone who was other than a friend from school or a colleague at work, nor had he ever spoken with particular affection of anyone except Renato Penzo, whom he had praised as a good friend. He had always gone on vacation with his mother and had once joked that it was more work than going to work.
In recent months he had seemed nervous and preoccupied, and when Giorgio commented on this, his cousin had told him only that he was having trouble at work and at home.
‘Many of the people I’ve spoken to,’ Brunetti began, ‘have told me he was a good man. And you used the term yourself. Could you tell me what you mean by it?’
A look of real confusion spread across Fontana’s face. ‘But everyone knows what that means.’ He looked towards Vianello for confirmation, but the Inspector remained silent.
Finally Brunetti allowed himself to say it. ‘There are many people who would not think he was good once they learned he was homosexual.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Fontana snapped. ‘I told you: he was a good man. For the last year he’d been collecting clothing for that woman – that servant – what’s her name?’
‘Zinka?’ Brunetti suggested.
‘Yes. He’d been collecting clothing for her family in Romania and mailing it to them. And I know his friend Penzo is trying to get her a permesso di soggiorno. And he had the patience of a saint with his mother. He’d have done anything to keep her happy. And he really was incapable of dishonesty. Of any sort.’ Then, as the memory came back, he said, ‘Ah, I’d forgotten. He told me, about two months ago, that he was thinking about moving, but he couldn’t bear the thought of how much it would upset his mother.’
‘Did he say why?’
Fontana shook his head. ‘Nothing I could understand. Something about work and its not being right that they lived in that palazzo. But he didn’t really explain it.’
‘Do you think he would have moved?’ Brunetti asked.
Fontana closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows. When he opened his eyes, he met Brunetti’s gaze and said, ‘If it meant disturbing his mother . . .’ before his voice trailed away.
‘You really think that apartment is so important to her?’ Brunetti asked with surprise he could not hide.
‘You’ve spoken to my aunt?’
‘Yes.’
‘You saw her little red cheeks and her stylish hair?’
‘Yes.’
Fontana leaned forward so quickly in his chair that Vianello moved aside hurriedly to get away from him. ‘My aunt is a harpy,’ Fontana said with a violence that astonished Brunetti and left Vianello with his mouth ajar. ‘If she doesn’t get what she wants, other people have to pay for it, and she wants that apartment. Like she has never wanted anything in her life.’
No one in the room found the proper thing to say for some time, until Brunetti asked, ‘And was that enough to stop your cousin from doing what he wanted to do?’
‘I don’t know, but when I think about it now, I think that’s what made him so nervous the last few times I saw him or spoke to him.’
‘Did your cousin ever mention a Judge Coltellini?’ Brunetti asked suddenly.
Fontana could not disguise his surprise. ‘Yes. He did. For the last few years, well, maybe two. He was very taken with her. She was always very pleasant to him, seemed to appreciate his work.’ Fontana paused and then added, ‘Araldo would get crushes on women every once in a while, especially women where he worked who had more power or responsibility than he did.’
‘What would happen with these women?’
‘Oh, he got tired of them, sooner or later. Or they’d do something he didn’t approve of, and then they’d sink back under the waves and be treated just like anyone else.’
‘Did that happen with Judge Coltellini?’ As he asked the question, Brunetti was aware of how much this man, and their dealings with him, had changed since he had come into his office. The meekness was gone; so was the timidity. In place of the appearance of uncertainty, Brunetti saw both intelligence and sensitivity. His initial nervousness, then, could be attributed to the fear that any involvement with the forces of order brought to the average citizen.
Brunetti tuned into Fontana’s answer in mid-sentence. ‘. . . that made things change. When he didn’t talk about her – I noticed the change because he had been so taken with her – I asked about her, and he said he had been mistaken about her. And that was that. He refused to say anything else.’
‘Have you seen your aunt since his death?’
Fontana shook his head. He sat quietly for a while, and then said, ‘The funeral’s tomorrow. I’ll see her there. Then I hope I never have to see her again. Ever.’
Brunetti and Vianello waited.
‘She ruined his life. He should have gone to live with Renato when he had the chance.’
‘When was that?’ Brunetti asked.
When Fontana looked at him, Brunetti saw that his eyes had grown sadder still. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it? He could have, and should have, but he didn’t, and now he’s dead.’
Fontana got to his feet, reached across the desk and shook Brunetti’s hand, then Vianello’s. He didn’t bother to say anything else but walked to the door and let himself out of the office.
26
The silence in the room remained after Fontana left, neither Brunetti nor Vianello willing to disturb it. After some time, Brunetti got up from his desk and went over to the window, but he found no puff of air to ward off the sodden weight of the day or of Fontana’s words. ‘My family is sleeping under eiderdowns, and we have to go to a funeral tomorrow,’ he said, looking out the window.
‘Nothing better for me to do with Nadia and the kids gone,’ Vianello said wistfully. ‘I’ll probably start talking to myself soon. Or eating at McDonald’s.’
‘Probably less harmful to talk to yourself,’ Brunetti observed. Then, more seriously, ‘You listen while I talk, all right?’
Vianello folded his arms across his chest, and slid down in his chair with his feet stuck out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
Brunetti leaned back against the windowsill, propped his hands beside him, and said, ‘The DNA sample that Rizzardi took from Fontana’s body’s no use unless we can match it to someone. Penzo and Fontana weren’t lovers, for whatever that’s worth. The mother may have known he was gay, but she seems to have cared more about keeping the apartment. Fontana had some sort of crush on Judge Coltellini, and then it ended for reasons yet to be discovered. Fontana liked anonymous sex. Someone at the Tribunale is saying he liked dangerous sex. He argued with both neighbours; we don’t know about what. Some cases brought before Judge Coltellini have had inordinately long delays. Fontana wouldn’t talk about her. He wanted to move out of the apartment but probably lacked the courage to do it.’
Vianello crossed his ankles the other way. Brunetti went back to his desk and sat. ‘It’s a jigsaw puzzle: we’ve got lots of pieces, but we don’t have any idea how they fit together.’
‘Maybe they don’t,’ observed Vianello.
‘What?’
‘Maybe they don’t fit together. Maybe he picked someone up and brought him back to the courtyard. And things got out of control.’
Brunetti propped his head on one hand and said, ‘I’m hoping this suggestion doesn’t result from some idea that gay sex always has to be dangerous.’ His voice was neutral, but his intention was not.
‘Guido,’ Vianello said in an exasperated way, ‘give me some credit, all ri
ght? We’ve got lots of little facts and even more inferences, but we also have someone whose head was bashed against a marble statue three times, and that’s not something that happens to a good man, not unless he’s doing something very rash.’
‘Or dealing with a man who is not good and who is rash,’ Brunetti added quickly.
‘I think we . . .’ Vianello began but was interrupted by Pucetti, who catapulted through the door, his momentum carrying him almost up against Vianello’s chair. ‘The Ospedale,’ he managed to blurt out, then leaned over to take two deep breaths. ‘We had a call,’ he said, but even as he spoke, Brunetti’s phone rang.
‘Commissario,’ a voice Brunetti did not recognize said, ‘the Ospedale called. Something’s going on in the lab.’
‘What?’
‘It sounds like a hostage situation, sir.’
‘A what?’ Brunetti asked, wondering if everyone there had been watching too much television.
‘It sounds like there’s someone locked in the lab, making threats.’
‘Who called you?’ Brunetti demanded.
‘The portiere. He said people escaped from the lab. One of them called him.’
‘What do you mean, “escaped”?’ Brunetti demanded. He covered the mouthpiece and told Vianello, ‘Go down and get Foa. I want a launch.’ Vianello nodded and was gone. Pucetti went out with him.
Brunetti returned his attention to the phone just in time to hear the explanation. ‘The portiere said that’s what the person who called him told him.’
‘What else did he say, the person who called him?’
‘I don’t know, sir. The portiere called 113, but there was no answer, so he called us. That’s all.’
‘Call him back and tell him we’re on the way,’ Brunetti said.
Outside, as he crossed the pavement to get to the launch, Brunetti realized he had left his jacket in his office, and thus his sunglasses. The morning light stunned him, and he jumped on to the boat half-blind. Vianello grabbed his arm to steady him and led him down into the cabin to escape the light. Even though they left the doors open, and Vianello slid open the windows, the heat battered them.
Foa did a three-point turn and took them up towards Rio di Santa Marina. He flicked the siren on and off to warn approaching boats that a police boat was coming the wrong way. He slowed to turn into Rio dei Mendicanti and pulled them up at the ambulance landing of the Ospedale. Brunetti and Vianello jumped on to the dock, Brunetti turned to Foa to tell him to wait for them, and they walked quickly into the Ospedale, trying to look like men in a hurry for medical reasons. The trip couldn’t have taken them five minutes.
Brunetti led the way, along the side of the cloister, then to the left and up the stairs towards the laboratory. The door to the lab stood at the end of a corridor, and in front of the door to the corridor stood five people, three of them wearing white lab jackets and two the blue uniforms of guards. Brunetti recognized one of Rizzardi’s assistants, Comei.
‘What’s going on?’ Brunetti asked him.
The young man’s staring blue eyes stood out alarmingly in his bronzed face. Vacation time was over.
It took him a moment to recognize Brunetti, but when he did, some of the tension disappeared from his face. ‘Ah, Commissario.’ He clutched Brunetti’s arm as if he were drowning and only Brunetti could save him.
‘What happened, Comei?’ Brunetti said, hoping to calm him with his voice.
‘I was in there, and suddenly she started to shout, and then she threw something. Then she knocked everything off her desk: there was glass and chemicals and blood samples. All over the place.’ He stared down at his feet, grabbed Brunetti’s arm, and said, ‘Oddio. Look, look what she did.’
Brunetti followed his pointing finger and saw a red stain on the front of the technician’s green plastic clog.
‘She’s gone mad,’ Comei said, and a sudden scream that carried down the corridor from the lab gave evidence of that.
‘Who is it?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Elvira, the technician.’
‘Montini?’ asked Brunetti.
Comei nodded absently, as if the name did not matter, and bent down. Gingerly, holding the cloth at the knee, he lifted the cuff of his trousers and exposed his ankle and the top of his naked foot. Four long splashes of blood trailed across the arch of his foot.
The technician leaned heavily against Brunetti. ‘Oddio, oddio,’ he whispered, then he pulled himself away from Brunetti and stood motionless, eyes still on the blood.
Brunetti was about to say something when Comei turned and walked quickly towards the central part of the hospital.
Another noise, of something heavy being dropped, came down the corridor.
A woman in a white jacket approached Brunetti. ‘You’re the police?’ she asked them.
Brunetti nodded. ‘Can you tell us what happened?’
She was tall and slender and had an air of competence. ‘I’m Dottoressa Zeno,’ she said, not bothering to extend her hand. ‘I’m in charge of the lab.’
Again Brunetti nodded.
‘About half an hour ago, I asked Signora Montini about a blood sample she tested last week. The results didn’t correspond with results from the same tests done in the hospital in Mestre three days ago, and the patient’s doctor called to find out if the first test had been done correctly because the sudden difference didn’t make any sense to him.’
She paused, then continued.
‘I checked our lists and saw that Signora Montini had done the original test.’ She looked from Brunetti to Vianello. ‘This isn’t the first time something like this has happened or that I’ve had to ask her about it.’
Brunetti tried to look as if he understood.
‘I went to speak to her, but as soon as I told her about it . . .’ Her voice lost some of its control as she went on. ‘She grabbed the list of new results from me and ripped it up, then she knocked some things off her desk: vials and a microscope. Comei works beside her.’
Brunetti asked, ‘And then, Dottoressa?’
‘She pushed me away and started screaming.’ As if hearing herself say that, she quickly amended it. ‘Not really pushed me, just sort of put her hands on my arms and turned me away from her. She didn’t hurt me.’
‘Then what, Signora?’
‘Then she picked up one of those cutters we use to open boxes with and started waving it around. She told us to get out. All of us. When I tried to talk to her, she held the cutter up.’
‘Did she threaten you, Dottoressa?’
‘No, no,’ she said in notes that descended into pain. ‘She held it over her wrist and said she’d cut it if we didn’t get out.’
She took a breath and then another one. ‘We all came out here. I called security and someone went down to tell the portiere. Then someone said you were on your way, so we stayed out here, all of us.’ He thought she was finished, but then she said, ‘I called Dottor Rizzardi at home. She always worked very well with him.’
‘Is he coming?’
‘Yes.’
Brunetti exchanged a look with Vianello, told the five people to remain where they were, and pushed open the door to the corridor. It closed softly behind them, trapping them in the clinging heat of the corridor. They could hear some sort of low noise from the lab, like the buzz of a machine left running in a distant room.
‘Do we wait for Rizzardi?’ Vianello asked.
Brunetti pointed towards the door to the lab, a white wooden panel with a single porthole. ‘I want to take a look inside first, see what she’s doing.’
They walked down the corridor as quietly as they could, but as they got closer to the door of the lab the noise grew loud enough to cover any footsteps. Brunetti approached the window slowly, aware that any sudden motion might be seen from inside. A step, another, and then he was there, with a clear view into the room.
He saw the usual ordered clutter: vials held upright in wooden racks; dark apothecary jars pushed against the wall; sc
ales and computers at every work station; books and notebooks to the left of the computers. One table in the centre of the room held no equipment. On the floor surrounding it, like wreckage from a sunken ship, a computer monitor, pieces of broken glass and papers lay in small red puddles.
His eyes followed his ears to the noise. A woman in a white lab coat leaned into one of those deep sinks, her back to him. The noise and steam came from the torrent of running water that must be spilling over whatever she held in her hands. He thought of his children, the Water Police, and how they would reprove the waste of all that hot water and the energy necessary to produce it.
He stepped aside and let Vianello take his place. Though the water made it possible for him to speak in his normal voice, Vianello whispered when he asked, ’Why’s she washing her hands?’
Like the noble Romans, Brunetti thought as he shoved past Vianello and pushed open the door. As he ran by one of the desks, he ripped the receiver from a phone, and then yanked the cord from it. Just as he reached her, the woman slumped forward over the edge of the sink, and he saw the red – pink, really – swirling down into the drain.
He grabbed her, pulled her back and laid her on the floor, then used the phone cord as a tourniquet around her right arm. Vianello knelt beside him with another piece of phone cord, and tied off the left.
The face of the woman on the floor was pale, her hair shoulder length and more white than brown. She wore no makeup, but little could have been done to alleviate the plainness of those heavy features and pocked skin.
‘Get someone,’ Brunetti said, and Vianello was gone. He looked at her wrists: the cuts were deep, but they were horizontal, rather than vertical, which left some room for hope. The tourniquets had stopped the bleeding, though some blood had seeped on to the floor.
Her eyes opened. Her lashes and eyebrows were sparse, the eyes a dusty brown. ‘I didn’t want to do it,’ she said. The continuing rush of the water made it difficult to hear her.
Brunetti nodded, as if he understood. ‘We all do things we regret, Signora.’
