Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death Read online

  ‘That’s right,’ Brunetti said, deciding to admit to half of what he knew, ‘he’s Crespo’s lawyer.’ If Patta chose to believe that a commissario of police found nothing strange in the fact that a lawyer of the stature of Giancarlo Santomauro was the lawyer of a transvestite whore, then it was best to allow him that belief. ‘What has he told you, sir?’

  ‘He said you harassed and terrified his client, that you were, to use his words, “unnecessarily brutal” in trying to force him to divulge information.’ Patta ran one hand down the side of his jaw, and Brunetti realized it looked as though the vice-questore had not shaved that day.

  ‘I told him, of course, that I would not listen to this sort of criticism of a commissario of police, that he could come in and file an official complaint if he wanted to.’ Ordinarily a complaint of this sort, from a man of Santomauro’s importance, would have Patta promising to have the offending officer disciplined, if not demoted and transferred to Palermo for three years. And Patta would usually have done this even before asking for details. Patta continued in his role as defender of the principle that all men are equal before the law. ‘I will not tolerate civilian interference with the workings of the agencies of the state.’ That, Brunetti was sure, could loosely be translated to read that Patta had a private axe to grind with Santomauro and would be a willing partner to any attempt to see the other man lose face.

  ‘Then do you think I ought to go ahead and question Crespo again, sir?’

  No matter how great his immediate anger at Santomauro might be, it was too much to expect Patta to overcome the habit of decades and order a policeman to perform an action that opposed the will of a man with important political connections. ‘Do whatever you think is necessary, Brunetti.’

  ‘Is there anything else, sir?’

  Patta didn’t answer, so Brunetti got to his feet. ‘There is one other thing, Commissario,’ Patta said before Brunetti had turned to walk away.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘You have friends in the publishing world, don’t you?’ Oh, good lord, was Patta going to ask him to help? Brunetti looked past his superior’s head and nodded vaguely. ‘I wonder if you would mind getting in touch with them.’ Brunetti cleared his throat and looked at his shoes. ‘I find myself in an embarrassing situation at the moment, Brunetti, and I would prefer that it go no further than it has already.’ Patta said no more than that.

  ‘I’ll do what I can, sir,’ Brunetti said lamely, thinking of his ‘friends in the publishing world’, two writers on financial affairs and one political columnist.

  ‘Good,’ Patta said and paused. ‘I’ve asked that new secretary to try to get some information on his taxes.’ It was not necessary for Patta to explain whose taxes he meant. ‘I’ve asked her to give you anything she finds.’ Brunetti was too surprised by this to do anything but nod.

  Patta bent his head over the papers and Brunetti, reading this as a dismissal, left the office. Signorina Elettra was no longer at her desk, so Brunetti wrote a note and left it on her desk. ‘Could you see what your computer tells you about the dealings of Avvocato Giancarlo Santomauro?’

  He went back upstairs to his office, conscious of the heat, which he felt expanding, seeking out every corner and crevice of the building, ignoring the thick walls and the marble floors, bringing thick humidity with it, the sort that caused sheets of paper to turn up at the corners and cling to any hand that touched them. His windows were open, and he went to stand by them, but they did no more than bring new heat and humidity into the room, and, now that the tide was at its lowest, the penetrating stench of corruption that always lurked beneath the water, even here, close to the broad expanse of open water in front of San Marco. He stood by the window, sweat soaking through his slacks and shirt to his belt, and he thought of the mountains above Bolzano and of the thick down comforters under which they slept during August nights.

  He went to his desk and called down to the main office, told the officer who answered to ask Vianello to come up. A few minutes later, the older man came into the office. Usually tanned by this time of year to the ruddy brown of bresaola, the air-dried beef fillet that Chiara loved so much, Vianello was still his normal pale, winter self. Like most Italians of his age and background, Vianello had always believed himself immune to statistical probability. Other people died from smoking, other people’s cholesterol rose from eating rich food, and it was only they who died of heart attacks because of it. He had, every Monday for years, read the ‘Health’ section in the Corriere della Sera, even though he knew that all those horrors were consequent upon the behaviour of other people only.

  This spring, however, five precancerous melanomas had been dug out from his back and shoulders, and he had been warned to stay out of the sun. Like Saul on the road to Damascus, Vianello had experienced conversion, and, like Paul, he had tried to spread his particular gospel. Vianello had not, however, counted on one of the qualities basic to the Italian character: omniscience. Everyone he spoke to knew more than he did about this issue, knew more about the ozone layer, about chlorofluorocarbons and their effects upon the atmosphere. What is more, all of them, and this to a man, knew that this talk of danger from the sun was just another bidonata, another swindle, another trick, though no one was quite certain just what this swindle was in aid of.

  When Vianello, still filled with Pauline zeal, had attempted to argue from the scars on his back, he was told his particular case proved nothing, that all of the statistics were false; besides, it wouldn’t happen to them. And he had then come to realize that most remarkable of truths about Italians: no truth existed beyond personal experience, and all evidence that contradicted personal belief was to be dismissed. And so Vianello had, unlike Paul, abandoned his mission, and had, instead, bought a tube of Protection 30, which he wore on his face all year long.

  ‘Yes, Dottore?’ he asked when he came into the office. Vianello had left his tie and jacket downstairs and wore a short-sleeved white shirt and his dark blue uniform pants. He had lost weight since the birth of his third child last year and had told Brunetti that he was trying to lose more weight and get into better shape. A man in his late forties with a new baby, he explained, had to be careful, take better care of himself. In this heat and this humidity, with the memory of those down comforters fresh in his mind, Brunetti didn’t want to think about health in any way, not his own and not Vianello’s.

  ‘Have a seat, Vianello.’ The officer took his usual chair, and Brunetti went around to sit behind his desk.

  ‘What do you know about this Lega della Moralità?’ Brunetti asked.

  Vianello looked up at Brunetti, narrowed his eyes in an inquisitive glance but, getting no further information, sat and thought about the question for a moment, then answered.

  ‘I don’t know all that much about them. I think they meet at one of the churches: Santi Apostoli? No, that’s the catecumeni, those people who have guitars and too many babies. La Lega meets in private homes, I think, and in some of the parish houses and meeting rooms. They’re not political, so far as I’ve heard. I’m not sure what they do, but from their name, it sounds like they probably sit around and talk about how good they are and how bad everyone else is.’ His tone was dismissive, indicative of the contempt he would have for such foolishness.

  ‘Do you know anyone who’s a member, Vianello?’

  ‘Me, sir? I should certainly hope not.’ He smiled at this, then saw Brunetti’s face. ‘Oh, you’re serious, eh, sir? Well, then, let me think for a minute.’ He did this for the minute he named, hands clasped around one knee and face raised towards the ceiling.

  ‘There’s one person, sir, a woman in the bank. Nadia knows her better than I do. That is, she has more to do with her than I do since she takes care of the banking. But I remember one day Nadia said that she thought it was strange that such a nice woman would have anything to do with something like that.’

  ‘Why do you think she said that?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘What?’
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  ‘Assume that they weren’t good people?’

  ‘Well, just think about the name, sir. Lega della Moralità, as if they’d invented the stuff. They’ve got to be a bunch of basibanchi if you ask me.’ With that word, Veneziano at its most pure, scoffing at people who knelt in church, bowed so low as to kiss the pew in front of them, Vianello gave yet more proof of their dialect’s genius and his own good sense.

  ‘Do you have any idea of how long she’s been a member or how she came to join?’

  ‘No, sir, but I could ask Nadia to find out. Why?’

  Brunetti quickly explained about Santomauro’s presence at Crespo’s apartment and his subsequent phone calls to Patta.

  ‘Interesting, isn’t it, sir?’ Vianello asked.

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Santomauro?’ Vianello asked, unnecessarily. Crespo was hardly someone he’d be likely to know.

  Brunetti nodded.

  ‘He used to be my cousin’s lawyer, before he became famous. And expensive.’

  ‘What did your cousin say about him?’

  ‘Not all that much. He was a good lawyer, but he was always willing to push the law, to make it do what he wanted it to do.’ A common enough type in Italy, Brunetti thought, where law was often written but was seldom clear.

  ‘Anything else?’ Brunetti asked.

  Vianello shook his head. ‘Nothing I can remember. It was years ago.’ Before Brunetti could ask him to do it, Vianello said, ‘I’ll call my cousin and ask. He might know other people Santomauro worked for.’

  Brunetti nodded his thanks. ‘I’d also like to see what we can find out about this Lega: where they meet, how many of them there are, who they are, and what it is they do.’ When he stopped to think about it, Brunetti found it strange that an organization so well known that it had become a common reference point for humour should, in truth, have managed to reveal so little about itself. People knew about the Lega, but if Brunetti’s own experience was anything to go by, no one had a clear idea what the Lega did.

  Vianello had his notebook in his hand now and took this all down. ‘Do you want me to ask questions about Signora Santomauro, as well?’

  ‘Yes, anything you can find.’

  ‘I think she’s from Verona originally. A banking family.’ He looked across at Brunetti. ‘Anything else, sir?’

  ‘Yes, that transvestite in Mestre, Francesco Crespo. I’d like you to put the word out here and see if anyone knows him or if the name means anything.’

  ‘What has Mestre got on him, sir?’

  ‘Nothing more than that he was arrested twice for drugs, trying to make a sale. The boys in Vice have him on their list, but he lives in an apartment on Viale Ronconi now, a very nice apartment, and I suppose that means he’s moved beyond Via Cappuccina and the public gardens. And see if Gallo has come up with names for the manufacturers of the dress and the shoes.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ Vianello said, making notes for himself. ‘Anything else, sir?’

  ‘Yes. I’d like you to keep an eye on any missing person reports that come in for a man in his early forties, same description as the dead man. It’s in the file. Maybe the new secretary can do something about it on her computer.’

  ‘From what region, sir?’ Vianello asked, pen poised over the page. The fact that he didn’t ask about the secretary was enough to tell Brunetti that word of her arrival had already spread.

  ‘If she can do it, for the entire country. Also missing tourists.’

  ‘You don’t like the idea of a prostitute, sir?’

  Brunetti remembered that naked body, so terribly like his own. ‘No, it’s not a body anyone would pay to use.’

  Chapter Twelve

  On Saturday morning, Brunetti accompanied his family to the train station, but it was a subdued group that got on to the Number One vaporetto at the San Silvestro stop: Paola was angry that Brunetti would not leave what she had taken to calling ‘his transvestite’ to come up to Bolzano at least for the first weekend of the vacation; Brunetti was angry that she wouldn’t understand; Raffaele regretted leaving the virginal charms of Sara Paganuzzi behind, though he took some comfort from the fact that they would be reunited in one week’s time – besides, until then, there would be fresh mushrooms to hunt for in the woods; Chiara, as was so often the case, was entirely unselfish in her regret, for she wished that her father, who always worked too hard, could get away and have a real vacation.

  Family etiquette dictated that everyone carry their own bag, but since Brunetti would be going only as far as Mestre, and hence had no bag, Paola took advantage of him to carry her large suitcase while she carried only her handbag and The Collected Letters of Henry James, a volume so formidable in size as to convince Brunetti that she wouldn’t have had time for him, anyway. Because Brunetti carried Paola’s suitcase, the domino theory was immediately made manifest, and Chiara stuffed some of her books into her mother’s suitcase, thus leaving space in her own for Raffi’s second pair of mountain boots. Whereupon his mother insisted that he use that space to carry her copy of The Sacred Fount, having decided that this was the year she would finally have enough time to read it.

  They all climbed into the same compartment of the 8.35, a train that would get Brunetti to Mestre in ten minutes and themselves to Bolzano in time for lunch. No one had much to say during the short trip across the laguna: Paola made sure he had the phone number of the hotel in his wallet, and Raffaele reminded him that this was the same train Sara was to take next Saturday, leaving Brunetti to wonder if he was supposed to carry her bag, too.

  At Mestre, he kissed the children, and Paola walked down the corridor to the door with him. ‘I hope you can come up next weekend, Guido. Even better, that you get this settled and can come up even sooner.’

  He smiled, but he didn’t want to tell her how unlikely that was: after all, they didn’t even know who the dead man was yet. He kissed her on both cheeks, got down from the train, and walked back towards the compartment where the children were. Chiara was already eating a peach. As he stood on the platform, gazing at them through the window, he saw Paola come back into the compartment and, almost without glancing at her, pull out a handkerchief and hand it to Chiara. The train began to move just as Chiara turned to wipe her mouth and, turning, saw him on the platform. Her face, half of it still gleaming with peach juice, lit up with pure delight and she leaped to the window. ‘Ciao, Papà, ciao, ciao,’ she shouted over the sound of the engine. She stood on the seat of the train and leaned out, waving Paola’s handkerchief at him madly. He stood on the platform and waved until the tiny white flag of love disappeared in the distance.

  When he got to Gallo’s office at the Mestre Questura, the sergeant met him at the door. ‘We’ve got someone coming out to take a look at the body,’ he said with no prelude.

  ‘Who? Why?’

  ‘Your people had a call this morning. From a,’ and here he looked down at a piece of paper in his hand, ‘from a Signora Mascari. Her husband is the director of the Venice office of the Bank of Verona. He’s been gone since Saturday.’

  ‘That’s a week ago,’ Brunetti said. ‘What’s taken her this long to notice he’s missing?’

  ‘He was supposed to go on a business trip. To Messina. He left Sunday afternoon, and that’s the last she heard of him.’

  ‘A week? She let a week go before she called us?’

  ‘I didn’t speak to her,’ Gallo said, almost as if Brunetti had been accusing him of negligence.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘I don’t know. All I have is a piece of paper that was put on my desk, telling me that she’s going to Umberto Primo this morning to take a look at him and hoped to get there by nine.’

  The men exchanged a look; Gallo pushed up his sleeve and glanced at his watch.

  ‘Yes,’ Brunetti said. ‘Let’s go.’

  There ensued a muddle that was almost cinematic in its idiocy. Their car found itself in heavy early-morning traffic; the driver
decided to cut round it and come at the hospital from the rear, only to meet even heavier traffic, which got them to the hospital after Signora Mascari had not only identified the body as that of her husband, Leonardo, but had left in the same taxi that had brought her out from Venice, heading towards the Mestre Questura, where, she was told, the police would answer her questions.

  All of this meant that Brunetti and Gallo got back to the Questura to find that Signora Mascari had been waiting for them for more than quarter of an hour. She sat, upright and entirely alone, on a wooden bench in the corridor outside Gallo’s office. She was a woman whose dress and manner suggested, not that her youth had fled, but that it had never existed. Her suit, a midnight-blue raw silk, was conservative in cut, the skirt a bit longer than was then fashionable. The colour of the cloth contrasted sharply with her pallid skin.

  She looked up as the two men approached, and Brunetti noticed that her hair was that standard red so popular to women of Paola’s age. She wore little makeup, and so he was able to see the small lines at the corners of the eyes and mouth, lines brought on either by age or worry, Brunetti couldn’t tell which. She stood and took a step towards them. Brunetti stopped in front of her and held out his hand. ‘Signora Mascari, I’m Commissario Brunetti from the Venice police.’

  She took his hand and gave it no more than the quickest of light touches. He noticed that her eyes seemed very bright, but he couldn’t tell if this was caused by unshed tears or the reflection from the glasses she wore.