Doctored Evidence (23 page)

‘You are Graziella Simionato, aren't you?' he asked.

The sound of her name appeared to make some impression, for she nodded in assent.

‘The niece of Maria Grazia Battestini?' he asked.

That summoned both her attention and her eyes back to him. ‘Yes,' she muttered. When she opened her mouth to speak, he saw that her two front teeth were outsized and jutted forward over the lower teeth.

‘It is my understanding that you are her heir, Signorina.'

‘Her heir. Yes,' she affirmed. ‘I was supposed to get everything.'

Sounding concerned and puzzled, Brunetti asked, ‘Didn't you, Signorina?'

As he watched her, he was struck by the way she kept reminding him of different animals. An owl. Then a caged rodent. And at this question something feral and secretive entered her expression.

She turned those magnified eyes towards him and asked, ‘What do you want?'

‘I'd like to talk about your aunt's estate, Signorina.'

‘What do you want to know?'

‘I'd like to know if you have any idea where her money came from.'

The instinct to hide all evidence of wealth overcame her. ‘She didn't have much money,' she insisted.

‘But she had bank accounts,' Brunetti said.

‘I don't know about that.'

‘At the Uni Credit and at four other banks.'

‘I don't know.' Her voice was as stolid as her expression.

Brunetti shot a glance at Vianello, who raised his brows to show that he too recognized the mule-like obstinacy with which peasants have always resisted danger. Brunetti had quickly seen that sweet reason would do no more than shatter itself against the armour of her stupidity, and so he said, injecting an unpleasant severity into his voice, ‘Signorina, you have two choices.'

Her eyes floated up towards his face, her attention caught by his tone.

‘We can talk about the source of your aunt's wealth or we can talk about dogs.'

Her lips pulled back over her outsized teeth, and she started to speak, but Brunetti interrupted her. ‘I don't think anyone who runs a business where there is food would want to continue to employ a person accused of using
poison, do you, Signorina?' He watched this register and asked, his voice entirely conversational, ‘And your employer doesn't seem like the kind of person who would be very patient with an employee who had to take time off to stand trial, does she? That is,' he asked, having given her a moment to reflect upon these two questions, ‘if that employee still had a lawyer to help with the trial.'

Signorina Simionato took her left hand in the fingers of her right and began to rub it, as if trying to bring it back to life. Her lenses moved to Vianello's face, then back to Brunetti's. Still caressing her hand, she started to say, ‘I don't . . .' but Brunetti interrupted her in a loud voice and said, ‘Vianello, tell the owner we're taking her with us. And tell her why.'

Acting as if this were a command he was really expected to carry out, Vianello said, ‘Yes, Commissario,' and turned towards the door that led to the shop.

He had not taken a step before she said, her voice high-pitched with terror, ‘No, wait, don't do that. I'll tell you, I'll tell you.' Her speech was sloppy, as though the consonants could be produced only with the aid of large amounts of saliva.

Vianello turned back but stayed at least a metre from her, reluctant to add the threat of his size to that in Brunetti's words. Both men regarded her, saying nothing.

‘It was Paolo,' she said. ‘He did it. He got it for her, but I don't know how. She would never tell
me that, only how proud she was of him. She said he always thought of her first.' She stopped, as if she thought this sufficient to answer their questions and counter the threat to her.

‘What, exactly, did she tell you?' asked a relentless Brunetti.

‘What I just told you,' she answered belligerently.

Brunetti turned away from her. ‘Go out and tell her, Vianello,' he said.

Signorina Simionato looked from one to the other, seeking mercy. When she saw none, she put her head back and began to wail like an animal, howling as if wounded.

Fearful of what would happen, Brunetti took a step towards her, but stopped himself and moved back, not wanting to be seen near her when anyone came to investigate. In an instant, the owner appeared at the door and shouted, ‘Graziella. Stop it. Stop it or you're gone from here today.'

Instantly, as quickly as it had begun, the noise ceased, but Signorina Simionato continued to sob. The owner looked at Brunetti and Vianello, made a disgusted noise, and left, closing the door on them.

Remorseless, Brunetti turned to the sobbing woman and said, ‘You heard her, Graziella. She's not going to be very patient with you if I have to tell her about Poppi and about the poison, is she?'

Graziella pulled off her hat and wiped at her mouth and nose with it, but she seemed
incapable of stopping her sobs. She took off her glasses and set them on the surface of a stove and wiped at her face, then looked at Brunetti with her naked eyes, which were crossed and virtually sightless.

He fought back pity and said, ‘What else did she tell you, Graziella? About the money.'

The sobbing stopped, and she took a final wipe at her face. Blindly, she put her hand out and began to feel around for the glasses. Brunetti watched her hand come close, move away, come close; he resisted the desire to help her. Finally her hand landed on the glasses and, careful to use both hands, she replaced them.

‘What did she tell you, Graziella?' Brunetti repeated. ‘Where did Paolo get the money?'

‘From someone at work,' she said. ‘She was so proud of him. She said it was a bonus he got for being so clever. But she was nasty when she said that, like she didn't mean it and like Paolo had done something bad to get it. But I didn't care about that because she said the money was going to be mine some day. So it didn't matter how he got it. Besides, she said everything he did was under the protection of the Madonna, so it wasn't wrong, was it?'

Brunetti ignored her question and asked, ‘Did you know where it was, in which banks?'

She hung her head, looking down at the floor between their feet, and nodded.

‘Do you know how it got there?'

Silence. She kept her head lowered, and he wondered what sluggish assessment she was
making of his question and how much of the truth she would decide to tell him.

She surprised him by answering his question literally. ‘I put it there.'

This made no immediate sense to him but, displaying no confusion, he asked, ‘How?'

‘After Paolo died, I went to see her every month and she gave me the money, and I took it to the banks.' Of course, of course, he had never thought to ask or to wonder about the precise physical details of how the deposits were made, thinking that they had to be arcane transfers discoverable only by Signorina Elettra's arts.

‘And the receipts?'

‘I took them back to her. Every month.'

‘Where are they now?'

Silence.

Raising his voice, he repeated, ‘Where are they now?'

Her voice was low, but by bending down he could make it out. ‘She told me to burn them.'

‘Who?' he asked, though he had a good idea.

‘She did.'

‘Who?'

‘The lawyer,' she finally said, refusing to give Marieschi's name.

‘And did you do this?' he asked, wondering if she realized that she would have thus destroyed proof that the money had ever existed.

She looked up at him, and he saw that the lenses were soaked with the tears that had fallen while her head was lowered, and her eyes were even more out of focus.

‘Did you burn them, Signorina?' he asked, no softness in his voice.

‘She said it was the only way I could be sure I'd get the money because the police might be suspicious if they came and found the receipts,' she said, her sense of loss audible in every word.

‘And then afterwards, Signorina, what happened when you went to the banks to try to get it?' Brunetti asked.

‘The people at the banks – I knew them all – told me that the accounts had been closed.'

‘And why did you think Avvocatessa Marieschi took it?' he asked, introducing the name for the first time.

‘Because
Zia
Maria told me she was the only other person who knew about the money. And that I could trust her.' She said this with audible disgust. ‘Who else could it be?'

Brunetti looked across at the silent Vianello and raised his chin in interrogation. Vianello closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head: that was it; there was nothing else to be learned from her.

Brunetti didn't bother to say anything to her but turned away and started towards the door.

Behind him, however, he heard Vianello's voice. ‘Why did you kill the dog, Signorina?' Brunetti stopped but didn't turn around.

Such a long time passed that anyone but the stolid Vianello would have abandoned the wait and left. Finally, consonants wetter than ever, she spat out, ‘Because people love dogs.' After a
short pause, Brunetti heard Vianello's steps behind him and he continued walking towards the door to the shop.

‘WELL,' BRUNETTI ASKED
as they stepped out into Calle Lunga San Barnaba, ‘what did you think?'

‘I'd say she's what my kids are being taught at school to call “differently abled”.'

‘Retarded, you mean?' Brunetti asked.

‘Yes. There's the look of her, the way she howled when she couldn't get her way, and an almost total lack of normal human reactions or feelings.'

‘Sounds like half the Questura,' Brunetti said.

It took a second for this to register, but then Vianello laughed so hard he had to stop walking and lean against the wall of a building until he stopped. Feeling not a little proud of the remark, Brunetti made a note to tell Paola and wondered if Vianello would tell Signorina Elettra.

When Vianello had regained control of himself, Brunetti continued down towards the Ca' Rezzonico vaporetto stop. ‘You think she could have had anything to do with her aunt's death?'

Vianello's answer was immediate. ‘I don't think so. She started to scream when you asked her about the accounts and threatened to have her fired if she didn't answer. She didn't seem at all troubled when you talked about her aunt.'

Brunetti was of the same opinion, but he was nonetheless glad to have it confirmed by the inspector. ‘We'll have to get a list of everyone who worked with him while he was at the school board,' he said, then corrected himself, ‘at least who was working there when the payments started.'

‘If the records have been computerized,' Vianello said, ‘it ought to be easy.'

‘I'm surprised she isn't giving you homework to do every night,' Brunetti said with a smile. When Vianello failed to respond, he demanded, ‘She isn't, is she?'

They reached the
imbarcadero
and stepped inside, glad of the shade. Vianello scratched his head. ‘Not exactly, sir. But you know she's given me a computer. That is, the Department has given me a computer. And occasionally she suggests I try certain things on it.'

‘Would I understand?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello gazed across at Palazzo Grassi, where more long lines of tourists waited in front of another temple to art. ‘I doubt it, sir,' the
inspector finally admitted. ‘She says you have to learn these things by trying different ways of doing them or different ways of thinking about them. So you really need a computer to work with all the time.' He looked at Brunetti, then dared to add, ‘And you have to have a sort of feeling for computers, too.'

Brunetti wanted to defend himself by saying that his children had a computer and his wife used one, but he thought this beneath his dignity and so made no response. He contented himself with asking, ‘When can we have the names?'

‘At the latest by tomorrow afternoon,' Vianello said. ‘I'm not sure I would be able to get them, and Signorina Elettra said she had an appointment this afternoon.'

‘Did she say where she had this appointment?'

‘No.'

‘Then let's leave it until tomorrow,' Brunetti suggested, looking at his watch. There was no purpose to be served by returning to the Questura, and he found himself suddenly exhausted by the events of the day. He wanted nothing more than to go home, have a meal with his family, and think of things other than death and greed. Vianello was more than willing to agree and stepped on to the Number One that was going towards the Lido, leaving his superior to wait for the one that would be along in two minutes to take him to his own home.

But when the vaporetto pulled up at his
normal stop, San Silvestro, Brunetti remained on board and got off at the next, Rialto. It was only a few steps back along the canal to the city hall at Ca' Farsetti and then down the
calle
beside it to the building where the school board had its offices. Brunetti showed his warrant card to the
portiere
and was told that the main office of the Ufficio di Pubblica Istruzione was on the third floor. Never comfortable in elevators, he chose to take the stairs. On the third floor, a sign directed him to the right and along a narrow corridor, at the end of which stood the glass-doored offices of the school board. Inside he found himself in a large open space, four times the size of his own office. Orange plastic chairs lined the walls on either side of him; facing the door stood a battered wooden desk, and behind the desk sat an equally battered-looking woman, though something told him that her look was the result of choice, rather than chance.

There was no one else in the room, so Brunetti approached her. She could have been any age between thirty and fifty: her make-up was applied with sufficient abandon to disguise the evidence that would have allowed him to make that distinction. Though lipstick had enlarged her mouth, it had also managed to seep into and spread out from the many thin wrinkles under her lower lip, giving her mouth the suggestion of youthful promise at the same time that it gave evidence of years of heavy smoking. Her eyes were dark green, a mysterious emerald, but they glittered so brightly as to suggest either contact
lenses or drugs. She had no eyebrows, nothing more than a pair of thin brown lines arching across her forehead in steep curves seemingly chosen at random.