Drawing Conclusions (16 page)

He looked up and saw Lieutenant Scarpa at his door. Brunetti did his best to disguise his surprise and said, ‘Good morning, Lieutenant.’ He could never look at the Lieutenant without the word ‘reptile’ coming into his mind. It had nothing to do with the Lieutenant’s appearance, for indeed he was a handsome man: tall and slender, with a prominent nose and broad-spaced eyes over high cheekbones. Perhaps it had to do with a certain sinuosity in the way he moved, a failure to pick his feet up fully when he walked, which caused an undulant liquidity in his knees. Brunetti was reluctant to admit that he attributed it to his own belief that inside the man there was nothing but the icy chill found in reptiles and the far reaches of space.

‘Have a seat, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti said and folded his hands on his desk in a gesture of polite expectation.

The Lieutenant did as he was requested. ‘I’ve come to ask your advice, Commissario,’ he said, smoothing out the consonants in his Sicilian way.

‘Yes?’ Brunetti asked with rigorous neutrality.

‘It’s about two of the men in my squad.’

‘Yes?’

‘Alvise and Riverre,’ Scarpa said, and Brunetti’s sense of danger could have been no stronger had the man hissed.

Brunetti put a look of mild interest on his face, wondering what those two clowns had done now, and repeated, ‘Yes?’

‘They’re impossible, Commissario. Riverre can be trusted to answer the phone, but Alvise isn’t even capable of that.’ Scarpa bent forward and placed his palm on Brunetti’s desk, a gesture he had no doubt taught himself to make when he wanted to imitate sincerity and concern.

Brunetti could not have more strongly agreed with this assessment of the two men. Riverre, however, had a certain knack in getting adolescents to talk: no doubt by dint of fellow feeling. But Alvise was, in a word, hopeless. Or in two, hopelessly stupid. He recalled that Alvise had spent months working on a special project with Scarpa a few years ago: had the poor fool stumbled on something that might compromise the Lieutenant? If so, he had been too stupid to realize it, or surely the entire Questura would have known about it the same day.

‘I’m not sure I agree with you, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti lied. ‘Nor that I know why you’ve chosen to come to me about this.’ If the Lieutenant wanted something, Brunetti would oppose it. It was as simple as that.

‘I’d hoped that your concern for the safety of the city and the reputation of the force would encourage you to try to do something about them. That’s why I’ve come to ask your advice,’ he said, and then, the echo arriving with its usual tantalizing delay, ‘ … sir.’

‘I certainly appreciate your concern, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti said in his blandest voice. Then, getting to his feet, he added, trying to sound sorry about the fact, ‘But, unfortunately, I’m late for an appointment and must leave now. But I’ll certainly consider your comments and…’ he began and then – to show that he was equally capable of making use of the echo – paused before adding, ‘and the spirit that animates them.’

Brunetti came around his desk and paused beside the Lieutenant, who had no choice but to get to his feet. Brunetti guided Scarpa out of his office, turned to close the door, something he seldom did, and then led the way downstairs. Brunetti nodded to the Lieutenant and crossed the lobby, not bothering to stop and talk to the guard. Outside, he decided to continue to Bragora and see if he could speak to any of the old people Signora Altavilla had befriended, convinced that listening to old people talk about their pasts, no matter how exaggerated their memories, would be vastly preferable to hearing the truth – especially from the likes of Lieutenant Scarpa – about Alvise and Riverre.

He thought he would take the longer route to Bragora and crossed the bridge into Campo San Lorenzo. Up close, Brunetti saw that the sign stating the date when the restoration of the church had begun had been bleached clean by the sun. He could no longer remember when they were supposed to begin – surely it was decades ago. People at the Questura said the work had actually started, but that was before Brunetti’s time, and so he had only rumour to rely upon. During the years he had stood at his window and studied the
campo
, he had seen the restoration of the
casa di cura
begin, continue, and even finish. Perhaps that was of greater importance than the restoration of a church.

He turned right and left a few times and found himself again passing the church of San Antonin. Then down the
Salizada and out into the
campo
, where the trees still invited passers-by to sit for a while in their shade.

He crossed and rang the bell at the
casa di cura
. He announced himself and said he had come to speak to Madre Rosa. This time, a different nun, even older than Madre Rosa, waited for him at the door at the top of the stairs. Brunetti gave his name, entered, and turned to close the door himself. The nun smiled her thanks and led him to the room where he had already spoken to the Mother Superior.

Today Madre Rosa was sitting in one of the armchairs, a book open on her lap. She nodded when he came in and closed her book. ‘What may I do for you today, Commissario?’ she asked. She gave no indication that he should sit, and so Brunetti, though he approached her, remained standing.

‘I’d like to speak to some of the people who knew Signora Altavilla best,’ he said.

‘You must realize that your desire makes little sense to me,’ she said. When Brunetti did not respond, she added, ‘Nor does your curiosity about her.’

‘It makes sense to me, Madre,’ he said.

‘Why?’

It was out before he thought about it. ‘I’m curious about the cause of her heart attack.’ Before the nun could ask him anything, Brunetti said, ‘There’s no question that she died of a heart attack, and the doctor assures me it was very fast.’ He saw her close her eyes and nod, as if in thanks for having been given something she desired. ‘But I’d like to be sure that the heart attack was … was not brought on by anything. Anything unpleasant, that is.’

‘Sit down, Commissario,’ she said. When he did, she said, ‘You realize what you’ve just said, of course.’

‘Yes.’

‘If the cause of her heart attack – may she rest in peace – was, as you say,’ she began, pausing a moment before allowing herself to repeat his word, ‘unpleasant, then there must be a reason for that. And if you’ve come here to look for that reason, then it’s possible you think you’ll find it in something one of the people she worked with told her.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, impressed by her quickness.

‘And if that
is
true, then that person might equally be at risk.’

‘That’s certainly possible, as well, but I think it would depend on what it is they told her. Madre,’ he continued, deciding he had no choice but to trust her, ‘I’ve no idea what happened, and I feel foolish saying that all I have is a strange feeling that something is wrong about her death.’ Conscious of having said nothing about the marks on her body, Brunetti wondered if it were worse to lie to a nun than to any other sort of person: he decided it was not.

‘Does that mean you are not here … how to say this? That you are not here officially?’ She seemed pleased to have found the word.

‘Not at all,’ he had to admit. ‘I want only to bring some peace of mind to her son,’ he added. It was the truth, but it was not the whole truth.

‘I see,’ she said. She surprised him by opening the book in her lap and returning her attention to it. Brunetti sat quietly for a time that spread out and became minutes, and then more minutes.

At last, she held the book closer to her face, then appeared
to read aloud: ‘“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”’ She lowered the book and
looked at him above the pages. ‘Do you believe that, Commissario?’

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t, Madre,’ he said without hesitation.

She set the book on her lap, leaving the pages open, and surprised him again, this time by saying, ‘Good.’

‘Good that I said it or that I don’t believe it?’ Brunetti asked.

‘That you said it, of course. It’s tragic that you don’t believe it. But if you had said you do, you would have been a liar, and that’s worse.’

Like Pascal, she knew the truth not by reason, but by the heart. But he made no mention of this, merely asked, ‘How do you know I don’t believe it?’ he asked.

She smiled more warmly than he had seen her do so far. ‘I might be a dried-up old stick, Commissario, and from the South, as well, but I’m not a fool,’ she said.

‘And the fact that I’m not a liar, what bearing does that have on this conversation?’

‘It makes me believe that you are really interested in finding out if anything unpleasant – as you put it – might have been involved in Costanza’s death. And since she was a friend, I am interested in that, as well.’

‘Which means you’ll help?’ he asked.

‘Which means I will give you the names of the people she spent most time with. And then you are on your own, Commissario.’

She gave him not only their names but their room numbers as well. Two women, one man, all in their eighties and one of them in indifferent mental health; that was the word she used: ‘indifferent’. Brunetti had the feeling that she would not choose to elucidate that last remark, so he let it pass. He thanked her, asking if he could speak to them now.

‘You can try to,’ she said. ‘It’s lunchtime, and for many of our guests, that’s the most important event of their day; it might be difficult to get them to concentrate on anything you ask, at least until after they’ve eaten.’ Hearing her, he remembered a period in his mother’s decline when she had become obsessively interested in food and eating, though she had continued to grow thinner, no matter what she ate. But soon enough she had simply forgotten what food was and had to be reminded, then almost forced, to eat.

She heard him sigh and said, ‘We do it for love of the Lord and for love of our fellow man.’

He nodded, temporarily unable to speak. When Brunetti looked across at her, she said, ‘I don’t know how helpful
they’ll be if they know you’re a policemen. It might be sufficient to say that you’re a friend of Costanza’s.’

‘And leave it at that?’ he asked with a smile.

‘It would be enough.’ She did not smile in return but said, ‘After all, it’s true, in a sense, isn’t it?’

Brunetti got to his feet without answering her question. He leaned down and extended his hand. She squeezed it briefly, then said, ‘If you go out the door here, turn left and at the end of the corridor, right, you’ll be in the dining room.’

‘Thank you, Madre,’ he said.

She nodded and returned her attention to her book. At the door, he was tempted to turn and see if she was watching him, but he did not.

Brunetti did not have to use his professional skills to know that lunch was roast pork and potatoes: he had smelled them when he entered the building. As he passed by what must have been the door to the kitchen, he realized just how good roast pork and potatoes could be.

Six or seven tables, half of them small and set for only one or two persons, sat in front of the windows that looked out on the
campo
. There were a dozen or so people, some sitting in couples, one quartet, some alone. No table was empty. There were bottles of wine and mineral water on all of the tables, and the plates looked like porcelain. Heads turned as he entered the room, but soon two dark-skinned young women appeared behind him, dressed in a simplified version of the habit worn by Madre Rosa and the other sister. Hidden in the midst of the headcloth and veil of the first one were the almond eyes and long-arched nose of a Toltec statue. The lips carved into her mahogany face were surrounded by a thin line of lighter skin which exaggerated their natural redness. Brunetti stared at her until she turned in his direction; then he did what he did when a suspect gazed his way: he changed the focus of his eyes to long vision and panned around the room, as though she were not there or were not worthy of his attention.

The two novices went quickly around the tables, stacking the dishes in which pasta had been served. As they went past on the way to the kitchen, Brunetti saw deep green traces of pesto, a sauce he had never liked. The novices were quickly back, each carrying three plates that held pork, sliced carrots, and roasted potatoes. They served the people at the nearest tables, disappeared, then returned with more plates.

The hum of conversation that had broken off at the sight of him resumed, and the heads – most of them white but some defiantly not – bent over their lunch. Forks clicked against china, bottles against glass; the usual sounds of a communal meal.

The nun who had opened the main door suddenly appeared at his side and asked, ‘Would you like me to tell you who they are, Signore?’

Assuming that she had been sent by the Mother Superior, Brunetti said, ‘That would be very kind of you, Suora.’

‘Dottor Grandesso is having lunch in his room today, Signora Sartori is over there, at the second table, in the black dress, and Signora Cannata is with the other people at the table next to her. She’s the one with the red hair.’

Brunetti looked across the room and singled out the two women. Signora Sartori was hunched over her food, her left arm encircling her plate, almost as if she were trying to protect her dish from someone who wanted to snatch it from her. He saw her in profile: one high cheekbone with little flesh covering it, but with a plump pouch of skin hanging under her chin. Her lipstick was a violent red and veered beyond the line of her lips. Her skin, like the skin of old people who no longer see the light of day, had a slightly greenish cast, an effect intensified by the inky blackness of her shoulder-length hair.

She held her fork in her gnarled fist and shovelled up the potatoes. Brunetti noticed that her meat had arrived pre-cut in smallish pieces. While he watched, she finished her potatoes and then, just as quickly, the carrots. She took a piece of bread, broke it in half, and proceeded to wipe half of her plate clean, then the other side with the remaining piece of bread. As he watched, she went on to finish two more slices of bread, and when there was no more, she stopped and sat immobile. One of the novices took her empty plate away and received a sharp, angry look for doing so.