Dressed for Death (42 page)

‘That’s the man, Commissario. I’m
sure of it.’

‘Well, Avvocato Santomauro?’
Brunetti asked and signalled with his hand for Gravi to remain silent.

‘It was Ravanello,’ Santomauro
said, his voice high and tight and close to tears. ‘It was his idea, all of it.
About the apartments and the rents. He came to me with the idea. I didn’t want
to do it, but he threatened me. He knew about the boys. He said he’d tell my
wife and children. And then Mascari found out about the rents.’ ,

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. Records at the
bank. Something in the computer. Ravanello told me. It was his idea to get rid
of him.’ None of this made any sense to two of the people in the room, but
neither of them said anything, riveted by Santomauro’s terror.

‘I didn’t want to do anything.
But Ravanello said we had no choice. We had to do it.’ His voice had grown
softer as he spoke, and then he stopped and looked up at Brunetti.

‘What did you have to do, Signor
Santomauro?’

Santomauro stared at Brunetti and
then shook his head, as if to clear it after a heavy blow. Then he shook it
again but this time in clear negation. Brunetti knew these signs, as well. ‘I
am placing you under arrest, Signor Santomauro, for the murder of Leonardo
Mascari.’

At the mention of that name, both
Gravi and the secretary stared at Santomauro, as though seeing him for the
first time. Brunetti leaned over the secretary’s desk and, using her phone,
called the Questura and asked that three men be sent to Campo San Luca to pick
up a suspect and escort him back to the Questura for questioning.

Brunetti and Vianello questioned
Santomauro for two hours, and gradually the story came out. It was likely that
Santomauro was telling the truth about the details of the scheme to profit from
the Lega apartments; it was unlikely that he was telling the truth about whose
idea it was. He continued to maintain that it was all Ravanello’s doing, that
the banker had approached him with all of the details worked out, that it was
Ravanello who had introduced Malfatti to the scheme. All of the ideas, in fact,
had been Ravanello’s: the original plan, the need to get rid of the honourable
Mascari, to run Brunetti’s car into the
laguna.
All of this had come
from Ravanello, the product of his consuming greed.

And Santomauro? He presented
himself as a weak man, a man made prisoner to the evil designs of another
because of the banker’s power to ruin his reputation, his family, his life. He
insisted that he had not taken part in Mascari’s murder, had not known what was
going to happen that fatal night in Crespo’s apartment. When he was reminded of
the shoes, he said at first that he had bought them to wear during Carnevale,
but when he was told that they had been identified as the shoes that were found
with Mascari’s body, he said that he had bought them because Ravanello had told
him to and that he had never known what the shoes were going to be used for.

Yes, he had taken his share of
the rents from the Lega apartments, but he had not wanted the money; he had
wanted only to protect his good name. Yes, he had been in Crespo’s apartment
the night that Mascari was killed, but it had been Malfatti who did the
killing; he and Ravanello had then had no choice but to help in disposing of
the body. The plan? Ravanello’s. Malfatti’s. As to Crespo’s murder, he knew
nothing about it and insisted that the murderer must have been some dangerous
client that Crespo took back to his apartment with him.

He unfailingly presented the
picture of a man much like many others, led astray by his lusts, then dominated
by fear. Who could fail to feel some sympathy or compassion for a man such as
this?

And so it went for two hours,
Santomauro maintaining his innocent complicity in these crimes, insisting that
his only motivation had been concern for his family and a desire to spare them
from the shame and scandal of his secret life. As Brunetti listened, he heard
Santomauro become more and more convinced of the truth of what he was saying.
And at that, Brunetti called off the questioning, sickened by the man and his
posturing.

By the evening, Santomauro’s
lawyer was with him, and the next morning, bail was set and he was released,
though Malfatti, a confessed killer, remained in jail. Santomauro resigned his
presidency of the Lega della Moralità that same day, and the remaining members
of the board of directors called for a thorough investigation of his
mismanagement and misconduct. So it was at a certain level of society, Brunetti
mused: sodomy became misconduct, and murder mismanagement.

That afternoon, Brunetti walked
down to Via Garibaldi and rang the bell of the Mascari apartment. The widow
asked who it was, and he gave his name and rank.

The apartment was unchanged. The
shutters still kept out the sun, though they seemed to trap the heat inside.
Signora Mascari was thinner, her attention more withdrawn.

‘It’s very kind of you to see me,
Signora,’ Brunetti began when they were seated, facing one another. ‘I’ve come
to tell you that all suspicion has been removed from your husband. He was not
involved in any wrongdoing; he was a blameless victim of a vicious crime.’

‘I knew that, Commissario. I knew
that from the beginning.’

‘I’m sorry there had to exist
even a minute’s suspicion about your husband.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, Commissario.’

‘I still regret it. But the men
responsible for his death have been found.’

‘Yes, I know. I read it in the
papers,’ she said, paused, and then added, ‘I don’t think it makes any
difference.’

‘They will be punished, Signora.
I can promise you that.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not going to
be of any help. Not to me and not to Leonardo.’ When Brunetti began to object,
she cut him off and said, ‘Commissario, the papers can print as much as they
want about what really happened, but all people are ever going to remember
about Leonardo is the story that appeared when his body was first discovered,
that he was found wearing a dress and was believed to be a transvestite. And a
whore.’

‘But it will become clear that
was not true, Signora.’

‘Once mud has been thrown,
Commissario, it cannot ever be fully washed off. People like to think badly of
other people; the worse it is, the happier it makes them. Years from now, when
people hear Leonardo’s name, they will remember the dress, and they will think
whatever dirty thoughts they want to think.’

Brunetti knew she was right. ‘I’m
sorry, Signora.’ There was nothing else he could say.

She leaned forward and touched
the back of his hand. ‘No one can apologize for human nature, Commissario. But
I thank you for your sympathy.’ She took her hand away. ‘Is there anything
else?’

Knowing dismissal when he heard
it, Brunetti said there was not and took his leave of her there, leaving her in
the darkened house.

* * * *

That
night, a tremendous thunderstorm swept across the city, tearing off roof tiles,
hurling pots of geraniums to the ground, uprooting trees in the public gardens.
It rained down wildly for three solid hours, filling storm gutters and sweeping
bags of garbage into the canals. When the rain stopped, a sudden chill swept
behind it, creeping into bedrooms and forcing sleepers to huddle together for
warmth. Brunetti, alone, was forced to get up at about four and pull a blanket
from the closet. He slept until almost nine, decided then that he would not go
to the Questura until after lunch, and forced himself to go back to sleep. He
got up well after ten, made himself coffee, and took a long shower, glad of the
hot water for the first time in months. He was standing on the terrace,
dressed, hair still damp, with a second coffee in his hand when he heard a
sound from the apartment behind him. He turned, cup to his lips, and saw Paola.
And then Chiara, and then Raffaele.

‘
Ciao
, Papà,’ Chiara cried
with wild glee, hurling herself towards him.

‘What happened?’ he asked,
holding her close but seeing only her mother.

Chiara pulled herself back and
grinned up at him. ‘Look at my face, Papà.’

He did, and had never seen a
lovelier. He noticed that she had been out in the sun.

‘Oh, Papà, don’t you see?’

‘Don’t I see what, darling?’

‘I’ve got measles and they threw
us out.’

Though the chill of early autumn
remained in the city, that night Brunetti needed no blanket.