by Donna Leon
'The Vice-Questore would like to see you’ Signorina Elettra said when she called his office. Nothing more, a sure sign of trouble at hand.
I'll be right down,' he said, deciding to take with him the folder into which he had put all of the information he had accumulated since first being sucked into the wake of Giorgio Tassini.
Patta's door was open when he got there, so Brunetti could do no more than smile at Signo-rina Elettra, who surprised him by holding up her right hand, fingers lifted in a wide V. Vittoria? Brunetti wondered. More likely vittima. Equally possible, vendetta.
'Shut the door, Brunetti’ Patta said in greeting.
He did as he was told and went and sat, unasked, in the chair in front of Patta's desk. How like being back at school this always was, Brunetti reflected.
'This article’ Patta said, tapping a well-manicured forefinger on the first page of the second section of the Gazzettino. 'Is it yours?'
What could Patta do to him? Expel him? Send him home to get a note from his parents? His father was dead, and his mother was an empty shell, her mind filled with the tiny filaments of Alzheimer's. No one to write a note for Guido.
'If you mean in the sense that I'm responsible for it’ Brunetti said, suddenly tired, 'yes.'
Patta was obviously taken aback by Brunetti's response. He drew the newspaper towards him and, forgetting to put on the reading glasses he kept on his desk for effect, read through it again. 'Fasano, I assume?' he asked.
'He seems to be involved’ Brunetti said.
'In what?' Patta asked with real curiosity.
It took Brunetti almost half an hour to explain, starting with his trip to Mestre to speak on Marco Ribetti's behalf—he left Patta to conclude that they were old friends—and finishing with the phone records and a drawing of the sedimentation tanks in Fasano's factory.
'You think Fasano killed him?' Patta asked when Brunetti finished.
Becoming evasive, Brunetti answered, 'I think a case could be made from what I've just told you that he did.'
Patta sighed. 'That's not what I asked you, Brunetti: do you think he killed him?'
'Yes.'
'Why not the other one, what's his name?' he asked, looking down at the papers and shifting them around until he found it. 'De Cal?'
'He had no contact with Tassini’ Brunetti said, 'other than as his employer, and he barely knew who he was.'
'What else?' Patta asked.
'What would it cost him to be convicted of environmental pollution? A fine? A few thousand Euros? Besides, he's a sick man; no judge is going to send him to jail. He has nothing to lose.'
'Not like Fasano, eh?' Patta asked with what sounded to Brunetti like satisfaction.
Brunetti was uncertain whether Patta referred to the fact that Fasano had a lot to lose or that he was a healthy man. 'He does have everything to lose. He's President of the glassmakers on Murano, but I've been told that's just a stepping-stone’ Brunetti said.
Patta nodded. 'And where do you think he intends to go?'
'Who knows? First higher in the city, as mayor, and then Europe, as a deputy. It's the path they usually take. Or perhaps he'll do both, and continue to run the factory, as well.' Brunetti turned his thoughts away from the shoals of politicians who managed to hold two, three, even four full-time jobs. 'He's hitched himself to the environmental movement, but he's still a businessman interested in making a profit. What better combination for our times?' Brunetti asked, thinking it was unusual for him to speak so openly to Patta, of all people.
Patta looked at the papers again. 'You mentioned samples. Sent to Bocchese. Have you got his results yet?'
'I called when I got in, but the tests weren't finished’ Brunetti said.
Patta took his phone and asked Signorina Elettra to connect him with the laboratory. Almost at once Patta said, 'Good morning, Bocchese. Yes, it's me. I'm calling for Commissario Brunetti, about those samples he sent you.'
Patta looked over at Brunetti, his face as smooth as he tried to make his voice. After a moment, he said, 'Excuse me? Yes, he is.' Patta's eyes took on a stunned look, as though perhaps Bocchese had told him the samples contained plague or botulism. 'Yes’ he repeated, 'he is. One moment.' He held the phone across his desk, saying, 'He wants to talk to you.'
'Good morning, Bocchese’ Brunetti said.
'Is it all right if I tell him?'
'Yes.'
'Pass me back, then’ Bocchese said.
Expressionless, Brunetti handed the phone back to Patta.
Patta put it to his ear again, and said, 'Well?' making his voice brusque and authoritative. Brunetti could hear Bocchese's voice, but he couldn't make out what he was saying. Patta pulled a sheet of paper towards him and started to write. 'Say that again, please,' he said.
As Brunetti watched, the letters started to appear upside down: 'Manganese, arsenic, cadmium, potassium, lead.' More followed below, all sounding harmful, if not lethal.
Patta set the pen down and listened for some time. 'Above the limits?' Bocchese answered this at some length, and then Patta said, 'Thank you, Bocchese’ and hung up. He turned the paper so that Brunetti could more easily read it. 'Quite a cocktail’ he said.
'What was Bocchese's answer when you asked if they were above the limits?' Brunetti asked.
'He said he'd have to go out there to take a larger sample, but that, if this is an indication, then the place is dangerous.'
Brunetti knew that was a relative term. Dangerous to whom, to what sort of creature, and after how long an exposure? But he had no desire to jeopardize his truce with Patta, so he said only, 'He'll need a judge to authorize him to go out and take samples.'
'I know that’ Patta snapped.
Brunetti said nothing.
Patta reached over and tapped the newspaper again. "Then this is all lies? There's no investigation?'
'No.'
He watched Patta weigh this information. Brunetti's answer had destroyed Patta's hopes of following in the wake of some other investigation, leaving the Vice-Questore no choice but to be a shark and not a scavenger. He looked at Brunetti, placed his open palm on the papers Brunetti had shown him, and asked, 'You think you've got enough to link him to this dumping?'
The dumping, Brunetti knew, could have served as a motive for Fasano to eliminate Tassini. Prove that it had been going on and that Tassini knew about it, and there was a chance that they would find some other link between Fasano and Tassini, perhaps some physical evidence—perhaps someone who remembered seeing Fasano near the factory on the night Tassini died? Brunetti no sooner considered this possibility than he asked himself what could be considered strange about an owner's presence near his own factory? He decided to answer the question as asked. 'Yes. If he's not personally responsible, his factory is. Someone used that pipe, and perhaps three other pipes, to get rid of the sediment from the molatura.'
'Just like in the good old days,' Patta said with no indication that he spoke ironically, then asked, 'How much would this save him?'
'I don't know.'
'Find out. Find out how much it costs for each pick-up.' Patta paused, gave Brunetti a long, evaluating look, then said, 'I know him from the Lions Club, and he's never been seen to pick up a bill. I wouldn't be surprised if the cheap bastard did it to save a couple of hundred Euros. Maybe less.'
Brunetti could have been no more startled had he heard an English lady-in-waiting call the Queen a slut. Fasano was both wealthy and powerful, and had he just heard Patta refer to him as a 'cheap bastard'?
'What else, sir?' Brunetti asked, stunned to monosyllables.
'Nothing for the moment. I'll take care of getting a judge to sign the order to send Bocchese out there to take more samples. In fact, you'd better tell him to get rid of the samples he has. This is a new investigation, and I don't want there to be any evidence that we looked into this before.'
'Yes, sir,' Brunetti said, getting to his feet.
'And I want you to talk to those plumbers
again, but I want you to do it here, with a video camera running.' Brunetti nodded, and Patta said, 'Make sure he describes that pipe in the back, and if he knows, ask him what minerals are in the stuff he hauls away and how dangerous they are. And ask him again when he thinks that cover was put on the pipe.'
'Yes, sir,' Brunetti said.
'I'll have the order for you after lunch, and as soon as you have it, I want Bocchese out there,' said Patta with increasing urgency. Then he added, 'And I want him to take people from the Environmental Agency with him. I don't want there to be any question about those samples, that they've been contaminated in any way. In fact, maybe the environmental people can take their own samples and do their own tests, along with Bocchese.'
'All right’ Brunetti said.
'Good.' Patta gave a particularly eager smile. 'That should be enough.'
'To do what, sir? Show there was a reason why he murdered Tassini?'
Patta could not have been more astonished had Brunetti's hair suddenly burst into flames. 'Who said anything about murder, Brunetti?' He tilted his head and looked at Brunetti as though he had doubts as to whether they had been in the same room together all this time, talking about the same thing. 'I want him stopped. If he gets into office and brings a new junta into power with him, then what happens to the connections I've spent ten years building up?' Patta demanded aggressively. 'Have you thought about that?'
He saw Brunetti's expression and went on, And don't you for an instant believe he's using this environmental nonsense for political ends, Brunetti. He really believes it.' Patta threw up his hands at the very thought. 'I've listened to him talk: he's like all converts, all fanatics. It's all he cares about, so if he's elected mayor, you can say goodbye to the idea of the subway in from the airport or the dikes in the laguna or licences for more hotels. He'll turn this city back fifty years. And then where will we all be?'
Stunned beyond speech, Brunetti could do nothing more than say, 'I don't know, sir.'
Patta's phone rang, and he answered it. When he heard the voice on the other end, he waved a hand at Brunetti, as if to flick him out of the room. Brunetti left.
27
Brunetti was a wide reader and so was familiar with the Juggernaut, the idol of Krishna carried on a monstrous carriage in a Hindu procession, under the wheels of whose passage the overly pious would hurl themselves and the careless often be crushed. This image came to Brunetti as he observed Patta's investigation of Fasano's environmental crimes, watching as all questions that might lead to an investigation of Tassini's death, one by one, fell or were tossed under the wheels.
From the moment that Bocchese, accompanied by chem-suited inspectors from the Environmental Agency, arrived at Fasano's factory, armed with a warrant signed by the most fiercely environmental of the local judges, Fasano fought a rearguard action. Accompanied by his lawyer and no doubt alerted by the article in the Gazzettino, he met Bocchese in the field behind his factory. At first he attempted to prevent the inspectors from setting foot on his land, but when Bocchese showed his lawyer the judge's order, Fasano had no option but to relent.
As the technicians began to dig and collect, label and store, Fasano pointed out that they were working along the line that divided his property from De Cal's, and so whatever they were looking for—he made a great display of confusion and astonishment here—must have been put there by his neighbour. The technicians ignored him and left his questions unanswered until he and his lawyer went back inside his factory, leaving them to their task.
Brunetti thought of Juggernaut again two days later, when the Gazzettino published a photo of the giant digger that was systematically following the line of pipe that led from the abandoned field, discovered to be highly contaminated, back towards the vetrerie. As it drew closer to the factories, the accompanying article revealed, it had uncovered a joint where two smaller pipes met, one running from De Cal's factory and one from Fasano's.
Brunetti studied the photo, aware that those thick Caterpillar treads, so hot in their pursuit of Fasano's political destruction, buried all hope that Patta would take an interest in Tassini's death. Always one to seize the main chance, Patta gave himself up to his desire to prove Fasano's involvement in the very crime he had based his political career on condemning: the environmental degradation of the laguna. A conviction for an environmental crime would put paid to Fasano's political aspirations, and that was enough to satisfy Patta as well as whatever powerful interests he hoped to please with Fasano's destruction. In contrast to that certain goal, a solution to the mystery of Tassini's death was no sure thing, only a long and complicated investigation that was not certain to lead to a conviction. So let it go, forget it, call it accidental death and file the papers away.
Brunetti followed the case from a distance, and was able—with the help of Signorina Elettra - to read the transcripts of the videotaped sessions during which Fasano, and then De Cal, were questioned by a magistrate and Lieutenant Scarpa.
De Cal admitted everything from the beginning, said he had been doing what any sensible businessman would do: using the cheapest means to solve a production problem. The pipes had been there in his father's time, and he had continued to use them. When the judge ordered that his sediment tanks be drained, they were all shown to have a second set of very narrow drainpipes leading into the wall, each about forty centimetres down. Each pipe had a simple disc soldered into place beside it, just as had the pipes in Fasano's factory: rotating the disc back and forth over the end of the pipe would open or close it, thus regulating the flow of water that carried the residue under the field and out to the laguna. The swampy area in the field had been caused by a leak in the century-old pipe: the digger followed it all the way down to the water's edge, where the water trickled into the laguna from beneath an abandoned dock.
When told that he would be fined, De Cal remained entirely untroubled, no doubt aware of how derisory such a fine would be. When asked by the magistrate if he knew whether Signor Fasano had been using the same system, De Cal laughed out loud and said that he would have to put that question to Signor Fasano.
Fasano's response to the magistrate's questions was entirely different. He explained that he had taken over the running of his factory only six years before and that he knew nothing about the pipes. They must have been put there by his father, a man who—though Fasano revered his memory—was a man of his time and thus not concerned with the ecological problems of Venice. Of course Fasano had been told about the leak in the sedimentation tank and about the plumber's visit. His manager had dealt with the problem while Fasano was on a business trip to Prague and had told him about it when he returned. It was his manager's job, Fasano said, to deal with all of the minor details of running the vetreria. That was why he employed him.
Scarpa, no doubt resentful of Fasano's highhanded attitude, interrupted to ask—Brunetti, reading the report, could hear the sarcasm in the lieutenant's voice—if it was his manager who had dealt with the death of one of his employees.
'Poor devil’ ran the transcript. 'I came back from my place in the country that morning and learned about it when I got to the factory. But, no, Lieutenant, I did not leave it to my manager to deal with. Even though I barely knew the man, I went over to see what I could do, but his body had already been taken away.'
Apparently stung by Fasano's tone, Scarpa asked no further questions and the magistrate returned to the sedimentation tanks and the set of swinging discs over the openings to the pipes. All of them had been shut when Bocchese's men discovered them, and Fasano continued to maintain that he knew nothing about them. It was as Brunetti read this interchange that he first began to suspect that Fasano might get away with it. His revered father, or perhaps his no doubt equally revered grandfather, would have been responsible for those pipes, and they would have been used when it was still legal to empty into the laguna. There was no clear evidence that they had been in use recently, and so Fasano's ecological commitment was in no way compromised.
/> The magistrate asked nothing about Fasano's connection with Tassini and presented no evidence that he and Tassini knew one another as anything other than employer and employee. The magistrate made no mention of the phone calls between Tassini and Fasano: haf| he done so, Brunetti could easily imagine Fasano protesting that he could not be asked to recall every conversation he had with his employees. Neither Patta nor any judge in the city would authorize an investigation based on such an absence of evidence.
To what extent the investigation of the contamination of the laguna would affect Fasano's political ambitions, Brunetti had no idea. It had been some time since criminal association or the evidence of criminal behaviour had served as an impediment to political office, and so it was entirely possible that enough of the voting public would be prepared to elect Fasano mayor. Should this happen, then Brunetti would be best advised to take what small comfort he could from Patta's discomfiture and, for the rest, follow the advice Paola had passed on from her recent rereading of one of Jane Austen's novels: to save his breath to cool his tea. Besides, Patta would far rather see Fasano elected mayor than have to deal with the scandal and clamour of a murder investigation involving a rich and powerful man who was connected to men of far greater wealth and power.
His mind filled with these prospects, Brunetti felt a desire to leave the Questura, an urge so strong that it propelled him to his feet and down the stairs. Even if he did nothing more than go down to the corner to get a coffee, at least he would feel the sun on his face and perhaps catch a whiff of the lilacs from across the canal. So much seemed to have happened, and yet it was still springtime.
Indeed it was lilac he encountered, though he did so while still inside the Questura. Signorina Elettra met him on the steps, wearing a blouse he did not remember seeing before: on a field of creme silk, pink and magenta panicles vied with one another, though the victory was won by her taste.
