A Venetian Reckoning (36 page)

'The men who make the tapes -
Trevisan wasn't the only one - and run the prostitutes. No, not the little men
on the street, the ones who push them around and collect the money. I know the
men who run the whole thing, the import-export in women. Only there's not a lot
of export, is there, aside from the tapes? I don't know who they all are, but I
know enough of them.'

'Who are they?' Brunetti asked,
thinking of the Mafia and men with moustaches and southern accents.

She named the Mayor of a large town
in Lombardy and the President of a large pharmaceutical company. When he
whipped his head around to stare at her, she smiled a grim smile and added the
name of one of the Assistant Ministers of Justice. This is a multinational
business, commissario. We're not talking about two old men who sit in a bar,
drinking cheap wine and talking about whores; we're talking about boardrooms
and yachts and private planes and orders that go back and form by fax and
cellular phone. These are men who have real power. How do you think they
managed to get rid of the notes of Favero's autopsy?'

'How do you know that?' Brunetti
demanded.

'Lotto told me. They didn't want
anyone looking into Favero's death. Too many people are involved. I don't know
all their names, but I know enough of them.' Her smile disappeared.
"That's why they'll kill me.'

'We'll put you in protective
custody,' Brunetti said, brain leaping ahead to the details.

'Like Sindona?' she asked
sarcastically. 'How many guards did he have in prison, and video cameras on him
twenty-four hours a day? And still they got poison into his coffee. How long do
you think I’ll last?'

That won't happen,' Brunetd said
hody, and then it occurred to him that he had no reason to believe this. He
knew that she had killed the three men; yes, but all the rest remained to be
proven, especially all this talk of danger and plots to kill her.

Some sort of emotional radar passed
the change in his mood to her, and she stopped talking. They drove on through
the night, and Bruhetti turned to watch the lights reflected on the canal on
his right.

The next thing he knew, she was
shaking him by the shoulder, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a wall direcdy
in front of him. Instinctively, he raised his arms to cover his face and pulled
his head down on to his chest. But there was no impact, no sound. The car was
motionless, the motor silent.

'We're back in Venice,’ she said.

He pulled his hands away and looked
around him. The wall in front of him was the wall of the parking garage; on
either side of him were parked cars.

She reached down between the seats
and released her seat-belt. 'I suppose you'll want to take me to the Questura.'

When they arrived at the
embarcadero,
Brunetti
saw a No. 1 just pulling away. He looked at his watch and was amazed to
discover that it was after three. He hadn't called Paola, hadn't called the
Questura to tell them what he was doing.

Signora Ceroni stood in front of the
boat schedule and peered at it Unable to read the list of times, she pulled out
her glasses and put them on. When she had read through them, she turned to
Brunetti and said, 'Not for forty minutes.'

"Would you like to walk?' he
asked. It was too cold to sit in the open
embarcadero,
and
at least walking would keep them warm. He knew he could call the Questura and
have a boat sent to get them, but it would probably be faster to walk.

'Yes, I would,' she answered, ‘I
won't get to see the city again.’

Brunetti found this melodramatic but
said nothing. He turned to the right and started along the embankment. When
they got to the first bridge, she said, 'Do you mind if we walk over the
Rialto? I've never much liked Strada Nuova.'

Saying nothing, Brunetti continued
along the embankment until they came to the bridge that led to the Tolentini
and the way through the back streets of the city towards the Rialto. She walked
at a moderate pace and appeared to pay no special attention to the buildings
they passed. Occasionally, Brunetti's quicker pace carried him ahead of her,
but then he would stop at a corner or the foot of a bridge and wait for her.
They came out beside the fish market and went down towards the Rialto. At the
top, she paused for only a moment looked both to right and left at the Grand
Canal, empty now of all boat traffic They came down off the bridge and headed
through Campo San Bartolo-meo. A nightwatchman went past them, leading a German
shepherd on a leash, but no one spoke.

It was almost four when they got to the
Questura.

When Brunetti pounded on the heavy
glass door, a light came on in the guard room to the right of the door. A
guard, rubbing sleep from his eyes, came out and peered through the glass. Recognizing
Brunetti, he opened the door and saluted.

‘Buon
giomo,
commissario’
he said and then looked at the woman who stood
beside his superior.

Brunetti thanked him and asked if
there was a woman officer on duty that night. When the guard said that there was
not, Brunetti told him to call who-ever's name was first on the roster and tell
her to come to the Questura immediately. He dismissed the guard and led Signora
Ceroni across the entrance and up the stairs towards his office. The heat had
been turned down, so the building was cold, the air damp. At the top of the
fourth flight, Brunetti opened the door to his office and held it for her,
allowing her to pass inside in front of him.

‘I’d like to use the bathroom,' she
said.

'Sorry. Not until a female officer
gets here.'

She smiled. 'Afraid I'll kill myself,
commissario?' When he didn't answer, she said, 'Believe me, I'm not the one
who's going to do that'

He offered her a chair and went to
stand behind his desk, looking down at its surface, shuffling through some
papers. Neither of them bothered to speak during the quarter-hour it took for
the officer to show up, a middle-aged woman who had been on the force for
years.

When the policewoman came into his
office, Brunetti looked across at Ceroni and asked, 'Would you like to make a
statement? Officer Di Censo can witness it.'

Ceroni shook her head.

'Would you like to call your lawyer?'

Again, that silent negation.

Brunetti waited a moment and then
turned to the policewoman, 'Officer, I'd like you to take Signora Ceroni to a
cell. If she changes her mind, she may call her lawyer and her family.' He
looked at Ceroni when he said this, but she shook her head again.

Turning his attention back to the
policewoman, he said, 'She is to have no other contact, either with anyone in
the Ouestura or with anyone outside. Do you understand?'

'Yes, sir,' Di Censo said and then
asked, 'Am I to stay with her, sir?'

'Yes, until someone relieves you.'
And then to Ceroni, Brunetti said, 'I'll see you later this morning, signora.'

She nodded but said nothing, stood
and followed Di Censo from the office, and he listened to their heels
disappearing down the stairs: the officer's steady and strong, Signora Ceroni's
those same sharp clicking sounds that had led him to Piazzale Roma and then to
the killer of the three men.

He wrote a short report, giving the
substance of his conversation with Signora Ceroni, her refusal to call her
lawyer or to give a formal confession. He left it with the officer at the door
with orders for him to give it to Vice-Questore Patta or to Lieutenant Scarpa
when either of them arrived at the Questura.

It was almost five when he slipped
into bed beside Paola. She stirred, turned towards him, draped an arm over his
face, and muttered something he couldn't understand. As he drifted off to
sleep, his memory played back for him not the image of the dying woman but
instead that of Chiara holding up her dog, Bark. Dumb name for a dog, he
thought, and then he slept.

28

When Brunetti woke the following
morning, Paola was already gone but had left him a note saying that Chiara
seemed all right and had gone off to school normally enough. Though he took
some comfort in this, it was not enough to quell his abiding grief for his
child's pain. He had coffee, a long shower, more coffee, but he was unable to
shake off the dullness of body and spirit that lingered from the events of the
night before. He remembered a time when he could spring back from sleepless
nights, or from horror, with no effort, could push himself for days when in
pursuit of truth or what he thought of as justice. No more. If anything, the
spirit that drove him now was fiercer, but there was no denying the diminishing
powers of his body.

He turned away from these thoughts
and left the apartment, glad of the biting air and busy streets. As he walked
past a news-stand, even though he knew it was impossible, he glanced at the
headlines for mention of last night's arrest.

It was almost eleven by the time he
got to the Questura, where he was greeted by the usual salutes and nods, and if
he was surprised that no one came up to congratulate him for having,
single-handedly, brought in the killer of Trevisan, Favero and Lotto, he gave
no sign of it.

On his desk he found two notes from
Signorina Elettra, both telling him that the Vice-Questore wanted to speak to
him. He went immediately downstairs and found Signorina Elettra at her desk.

'Is he in?'

'Yes,' she said, looking up but not
smiling. 'And he's not in a good mood.'

Brunetti stopped himself from asking
if Patta was ever in a good mood and, instead, asked, 'What about?'

"The transfer.'

'The what?' Brunetti asked, not
really interested but always willing to delay having to speak to Patta; a few
minutes with Signorina Elettra was, to date, the most pleasant way he had
discovered of doing that,

'The transfer,' she repeated. 'Of
that prisoner you brought in last night' She turned aside to answer her phone. ‘Si?'
she asked, and then, quickly, 'No, I can't' Saying nothing further, she hung up
and glanced back up at Brunetd.

'What happened?' he asked quietly,
wondering if Signorina Elettra could hear the pounding of his heart

There was a call earlier this
morning. From the Ministry of Justice, saying she belonged in Padua and they
wanted her taken there.'

Brunetti leaned forward and spread
bom hands on her desk, supporting his weight with them.

‘Who took the call?'

‘I don't know. One of the men
downstairs. It happened before I got in. Then about eight, some men from
Special Branch showed up with some papers.'

'And did they take her?'

'Yes. To Padua.’

Horrified, Signorina Elettra watched
as Brunetti drew his hands into fists, his nails leaving eight long scratches
on the polished surface of her desk.

'What's wrong, commissario?'

'Has she got there?' he asked.

'I don't know,' she said and looked
down at her watch. "They've been gone three’ hours, a littie more. They
should be there.'

'Call them,' Brunetti said, voice
hoarse.

When she did nothing, merely stared
up at him, astonished at the change, he repeated, voice louder now, 'Call them.
Call della Corte.' Before she could do anything, he grabbed her phone and
punched out the numbers.

Delia Corte picked it up on the third
ring. 'It's Guido. Is she there?' Brunetti began with no explanation.

'Ciao,
Guido?
della Corte answered 'Is who where? I don't know
what you're talking about.'

‘I brought in a woman last night. She
killed all three of them’

'She confessed?' della Corte asked.

'Yes. All three.’

Della Corte's whisde of appreciation
came down the line. 'I don't know anything about it,' he finally said. 'Why are
you calling me? Where'd you arrest her?’

'Here. In Venice. But some men from
Special Branch came and picked her up this morning. Someone in the Ministry of
Justice sent them to get her. They said she had to be held in Padua.'