Dressed for Death (17 page)

He pushed his way through a gaggle
of Japanese tourists until he got to the edge of the canal. The boat sailed
past him, and he ran his eyes over the passengers standing on deck and those
sitting inside. The boat was crowded, and most of the people on it wore casual
clothing. Finally Brunetti saw, on the other side of the deck, a man in a dark
suit and white shirt. He was just lighting a cigarette and turned aside to flip
the match into the canal. The back of his head looked the same, but Brunetti
knew he couldn’t be certain about this. When the man turned back, Brunetti
stared at his profile, trying to memorize it. And then the boat slipped under
the Rialto Bridge, and the man was gone.

* * * *

Chapter Fourteen

Brunetti
did what any sensible man will do when he has known defeat: he went home and
called his wife. When he was put through to Paola’s room, Chiara answered the
phone.

‘Oh,
ciao,
Papà; you
should have been on the train. We got stuck outside Vicenza and had to sit
there for almost two hours. No one knew what happened, but then the conductor
told us that a woman had thrown herself under a train between Vicenza and
Verona, so we had to wait and wait. I guess they had to clean it up, eh? When
we finally got going, I stayed right at the window all the way to Verona, but I
didn’t see anything. You think they got it cleaned up so fast?’

‘I suppose so,
cara.
Is
your mother there?’

‘Yes, she is, Papà. But maybe I
was looking out the wrong side of the train and all the mess was on the other
side. Do you think that might be it?’

‘Perhaps, Chiara. Could I talk to
Mamma?’

‘Oh, sure, Papà. She’s right
here. Why do you think someone would do that, throw themselves under a train?’

‘Probably because someone wouldn’t
let them talk to the person they wanted to, Chiara.’

‘Oh, Papà, you’re always so
silly. Here she is.’

Silly? Silly? He thought he had
sounded entirely serious.

‘Ciao,
Guido,’ Paola said. ‘You’ve just
heard? Our child is a ghoul.’

‘When did you get there?’

‘About half an hour ago. We had
to have lunch on the train. Disgusting. What have you been doing? Did you find
the
insalata di calamari?’

‘No, I just got in.’

‘From Mestre? Did you have lunch?’

‘No, there was something I had to
do.’

‘Well, there’s
insalata di
calamari
in the refrigerator. Eat it today or tomorrow; it won’t keep very
long in this heat.’ He heard Chiara’s voice in the background, and then Paola
asked, ‘Are you coming up tomorrow?’

‘No, I can’t. We’ve identified
his body.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Mascari, Leonardo. He’s the
director of the Banca di Verona here. Do you know him?’

‘No, never heard of him. Is he
Venetian?’

‘I think so. The wife is.’

Again, he heard Chiara’s voice.
It went on for a long time. Then Paola was back. ‘Sorry, Guido. Chiara’s going
for a walk and couldn’t find her sweater.’ The very word made Brunetti more
conscious of the heat that simmered in the apartment, even with all the windows
open.

‘Paola, do you have Padovani’s
number? I looked in the phone book here, but it’s not listed.’ He knew she wouldn’t
ask why he wanted the number, so he explained, ‘He’s the only person I could
think of to answer questions about the gay world here.’

‘He’s been in Rome for years,
Guido.’

‘I know, I know, Paola, but he’s
got a house here for when he comes up every couple of months to review art
shows, and his family’s still here.’

‘Well, maybe,’ she said, managing
to sound not at all convinced. ‘Wait a second while I get my address book.’ She
set down the phone and was gone long enough to convince Brunetti that the
address book was in another room, perhaps another building. Finally she was
back. ‘Guido, his Venice number is 5224404. If you talk to him, please say
hello for me.’

‘Yes, I will. Where’s Raffi?’

‘Oh, he was gone the minute we
set down the bags. I don’t expect to see him until dinner-time.’

‘Give him my love. I’ll call you
this week.’ With mutual promises of calls and another admonition about the
insalata di calamari,
they hung up, and Brunetti thought about how strange
it was for a man to go away for a week and not call his wife. Perhaps if there
were no children, it made a difference, but he thought not.

He rang Padovani’s number and
got, as was increasingly the case in Italy these days, a machine telling him
that Professore Padovani was not able to come to the phone at the moment but
would return the call as soon as possible. Brunetti left a message asking
Padovani to ring, and hung up.

He went into the kitchen and
pulled the now-famous
insalata
from the refrigerator. He peeled back the
plastic wrap from the top and picked out a piece of squid with his fingers.
Chewing on it, he pulled a bottle of Soave from the refrigerator and poured
himself a glass. Wine in one hand,
insalata
in the other, he went out on
to the terrace and set them both down on the low glass table. He remembered
bread, went back into the kitchen to grab a
panino,
and while there,
remembering civilization, he took a fork from the top drawer.

Back on the terrace, he broke off
a piece of the bread, put another piece of squid on top of it, and popped them
into his mouth. Certainly, banks had work to be done on Saturday - no holiday
for money. And certainly whoever was working on the weekend wouldn’t want to be
disturbed by a phone call, so he’d say it was a wrong number and then not
answer the next call. So as not to be disturbed.

The salad had rather more celery
than he liked, so he pushed the tiny cubes to the side of the bowl with his
fork. He poured himself more wine, and he thought of the Bible. Somewhere, he
thought it was in
Mark,
there was a passage about Jesus’ disappearance
when he was going back to Nazareth after he’d first been taken up to Jerusalem.
Mary thought he was with Joseph, travelling with the men, and that sainted man
believed the boy to be with his mother and the women. It wasn’t until their
caravan stopped for the night that they spoke to one another and discovered
that Jesus was nowhere to be found: he turned out to be back in Jerusalem,
teaching in the Temple. The Bank of Verona believed Mascari to be in Messina;
hence, the office in Messina must have believed him to be somewhere else, or
they surely would have called to check.

He went back into the living-room
and found one of Chiara’s notebooks on the table, left there in a muddle of
pens and pencils. He flipped through the notebook; finding it empty and liking
the picture of Mickey Mouse on the cover, he took it and one of the pens out to
the terrace.

He began to jot down a list of
things to do on Monday morning. Check the Bank of Verona to see where Mascari
was supposed to go and then call that bank to see what reason they’d been given
for his failure to arrive. Find out why there had been no progress on finding
where the shoes and dress came from. Start digging into Mascari’s past, both
personal and financial. And take another look at the autopsy report for any
mention of those shaved legs. He also had to see what Vianello had managed to
learn about the Lega and about Avvocato Santomauro.

He heard the phone ring and,
hoping it would be Paola but knowing it couldn’t be, he went inside to answer
it.

‘Ciao,
Guido, it’s Damiano. I got your
message.’

‘What are you a professor of?’
Brunetti asked.

‘Oh, that,’ the journalist
answered dismissively. ‘I liked the sound of it, so I’m trying it on my message
machine this week. Why? Don’t you like it?’

‘Of course I like it,’ Brunetti
found himself saying. ‘It sounds wonderful. But what are you a professor of?’

A long silence emanated from
Padovani’s end of the phone. ‘I once gave a series of classes in painting in a
girls’ school, back in the seventies. Do you think that counts?’

‘I suppose so,’ Brunetti
admitted.

‘Well, perhaps it’s time to
change the message. How do you think Commendatore would sound? Commendatore
Padovani? Yes, I think I like that. Would you like me to change the message,
and you call me back?’

‘No, I don’t think so, Damiano. I’d
like to talk to you about something else.’

‘Just as well. It takes me
forever to change the message. So many buttons to push. The first time I did
it, I recorded myself swearing at the machine. No one left a message for a
week, until I thought the thing wasn’t working and called myself from a phone
booth. Shocking, the language the machine used. I dashed home and changed the
message immediately. But it’s still very confusing. Are you sure you don’t want
to call me back in twenty minutes?’

‘No, I don’t think so, Damiano.
Do you have time to talk to me now?’

‘For you, Guido, I am, as an
English poet says in an entirely different context, “as free as the road, as
loose as the wind”.’

Brunetti knew he was supposed to
ask, but he didn’t. ‘It might take a long time. Would you be willing to meet me
for dinner?’

‘What about Paola?’

‘She’s taken the kids up to the
mountains.’

There was a moment’s silence from
Padovani, a silence which Brunetti could not help but interpret as entirely
speculative. ‘I’ve got a murder case here, and the hotel’s been reserved for
months, so Paola and the kids have gone up to Bolzano. If I get through with
this on time, I’ll go up, as well. That’s why I called you. I thought you might
be able to help me.’

‘With a murder case? Oh, how very
exciting. Since this AIDS business, I’ve had so little to do with the criminal
classes.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Brunetti said,
momentarily at a loss for a suitable rejoinder. ‘Would you like to meet for
dinner? Any place you like.’

Padovani considered this for a
minute then said, ‘Guido, I’m leaving to go back to Rome tomorrow, and I’ve got
a house full of food. Would you mind coming here to help me finish it up? It
won’t be anything fancy, just pasta and whatever else I find.’

‘That would be fine. Tell me
where you live.’

‘I’m down in Dorsoduro. Do you
know the Ramo degli Incurabili?’

It was a small
campo
with
a running fountain, just back from the Zattere. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Stand with your back to the
fountain looking at the little canal, and it’s the first door on the right.’
Far clearer than giving a number or street name, this would get any Venetian to
the house with no difficulty.

‘Good, what time?’

‘Eight.’

‘Can I bring anything?’

‘Absolutely not. Anything you
bring, we just have to eat, and I’ve already got enough here for a football
team. Nothing. Please.’

‘All right. I’ll see you at
eight. And thanks, Damiano.’

‘My pleasure. What is it you want
to ask me about? Or would I say, “whom”? This way, I can sort through my
memory, or I might even have time to make a few phone calls.’

‘Two men. Leonardo Mascari—’

‘Never heard of him,’ Padovani
interrupted.

‘And Giancarlo Santomauro.’

Padovani whistled. ‘So you people
finally tumbled to the saintly Avvocato, eh?’