Authors: Donna Leon
‘I know he wrote a letter, reminding him about the contract and asking him to explain the sort of tours your wife protested against.’
‘Did he send this letter?’
‘He faxed Signor Dorandi a copy and sent another by registered mail.’
Brunetti thought about this. If Paola’s ideals were going to be considered a valid reason for murder, then the loss of the lease on a very lucrative business was just as good. ‘I’m still puzzled by the fact that he hired you, Avvocato.’
‘People do strange things, Commissario.’ The lawyer smiled. ‘Especially when they are forced to deal with the law.’
‘Businessmen seldom do expensive things, if you will excuse my vulgarity, unnecessarily.’ And before Zambino could take exception to that, Brunetti added, ‘Because it hardly seems a case where a lawyer would be necessary at all. He merely had to make his conditions known to the Vice-Questore, either with a phone call or a letter. No one opposed those conditions. Yet he hired a lawyer.’
‘At considerable expense, I will add,’ Zambino offered.
‘Exactly. Do you understand it?’
Zambino leaned back in his chair and latched his hands behind his head. In so doing he exposed a considerable breadth of stomach. ‘I think it was what the Americans call “overkill”.’ Still looking at the ceiling, he continued, ‘I think he wanted there to be no question that his demands be met, that your wife accept his conditions and the thing be ended there.’
‘Ended?’
‘Yes.’ The lawyer brought his body forward, rested his arms on the desk and said, ‘I had a very strong sense that he wanted this episode to cause him absolutely no trouble and no publicity whatsoever. Perhaps the second was even more important than the first. At one point I asked him what he was prepared to do if your wife, who seemed to be acting out of principle, refused to pay the damages; whether he would then consider initiating a civil case. He said no. He was quite insistent on this. I told him there would be no chance of his losing this case, but he still said he wouldn’t do it, or even consider it.’
‘So if my wife had refused to pay, he would not have taken any legal steps against her?’
‘Precisely.’
‘You tell me this, knowing that she could still change her mind and refuse to pay?’
Zambino, for the first time, looked surprised. ‘Of course.’
‘Even knowing that I could tell her what Mitri had decided and thus influence her decision?’
Zambino smiled again. ‘Commissario, I imagine you spent a good deal of time before you came here in finding out all you could about me and about my reputation in the city.’ Before Brunetti could admit or deny this, the lawyer went on, ‘I did the same thing, as any of us would. And what I learned suggests to me that I am entirely safe in telling you this and that there is no danger of any kind that you would tell your wife or, because of this information, attempt to influence her decision in any way.’
Embarrassment prevented Brunetti from acknowledging the truth of this. He merely nodded and went on to inquire, ‘Did you ever ask him why it was so important to avoid bad publicity?’
Zambino shook his head. ‘It interested me, I’ll admit, but it wasn’t part of my responsibility to discover that. There was no way it could be of use to me as his lawyer and that’s what he hired me to be.’
‘But did you speculate on it?’ Brunetti wondered.
Again that smile. ‘Of course I speculated, Commissario. It seemed so out of keeping with the man as I understood him to be: wealthy, well-connected, if you will, powerful. Such men can usually get anything at all hushed up, no matter how bad. And this was hardly his responsibility, was it?’
Brunetti shook his head in negative agreement and waited for the lawyer to continue.
‘So that meant either that he had a sensibility or sense of ethics which viewed the agency’s involvement as wrong - and I’d already excluded that possibility - or there was some reason, personal or business, why he wanted or needed to avoid any sort of bad publicity or the scrutiny it would cause.’
This had been Brunetti’s conclusion, and he was glad to have it confirmed by someone who had known Mitri. ‘And did you speculate on what that might be?’ he asked.
This time Zambino laughed outright, now caught up in the game and enjoying it. ‘If we lived in a different century, I’d say he was afraid for his good name. But since that is now a commodity anyone at all can buy on the open market, I’d say it was because that scrutiny might bring to light something he didn’t want examined.’
Again his thoughts had mirrored Brunetti’s. ‘Any ideas?’
Zambino hesitated a long time before he answered. ‘I’m afraid this is a complicated point for me, Commissario. Even though the man is dead, I still have a professional responsibility to him, so I cannot allow myself to alert the police to anything I might know or indeed might only suspect about him.’
Immediately curious, Brunetti wondered what Zambino knew and how he could get it from him. But before he could begin to formulate a question, the other proceeded, ‘If it will save you time, I will tell you, and this is quite unofficially, that I have no idea at all of what he might have been concerned about. He told me nothing of his other involvements, only about this case. So I’ve no ideas at all, though I repeat that if I had, I wouldn’t tell you about them.’
Brunetti smiled his most open smile while he considered how much of what he had just heard was the truth. Saying, ‘You’ve been very generous with your time, Avvocato, and I’ll take no more of it from you,’ he got to his feet and made for the door.
Zambino came along behind him. ‘I hope you can resolve this, Commissario,’ he said on their way out of the office. He extended his hand and Brunetti took it with every sign of warmth, while he contemplated whether the lawyer was an honest man or a very skilled liar.
‘As do I, Avvocato,’ he said, took his leave and headed back towards his home and his wife.
* * * *
18
Bubbling in the back of his mind all day had been the knowledge that he and Paola had to go out to dinner that evening. Ever since what Brunetti refused to call her arrest, he and Paola had avoided accepting or issuing any invitations, but this was a date that had been made months ago, the celebration of the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary of Paola’s best friend and closest ally at the university, Giovanni Morosini, and there was no way they could gracefully avoid it. It was Giovanni who had, upon two occasions, saved Paola’s professional life: once by destroying a letter Paola had written to the Magnifico Rettore in which she called him a power-hungry incompetent, the second time by persuading her not to submit a letter of resignation to the same Rector.
Giovanni taught Italian literature at the university, his wife Art History at the Accademia di Belle Arti, and the four of them had, over the course of years, become close friends. Because the other three lived the major part of their professional lives inside books, Brunetti sometimes found their company unsettling, convinced as he was that they found art more real than everyday life. But there was no question about the Morosinis’ affection for Paola, so Brunetti had agreed to accept the invitation, especially when Clara called to make it clear they would not go to a restaurant, but would eat at home. The public eye was not a place where Brunetti wanted to spend any time, at least not until Paola’s legal situation was resolved.
Paola saw no reason not to continue teaching her classes at the university, so got home at five. That gave her time to begin to prepare dinner for the children, take a bath, and get ready before Brunetti arrived.
‘You’re already dressed?’ he asked, when he came into the apartment and saw her there, wearing a short dress that looked as though it was made out of gold to airy thinness beat. ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ he added, hanging up his coat.
‘And?’ she asked.
‘And I like it,’ he finished, ‘especially the apron.’
Surprised, she looked down, but before she could register displeasure at having been fooled, he turned and walked down the corridor to their room. She went back into the kitchen, where she did put on the apron and he, in their bedroom, put on his dark-blue suit.
Pulling the collar of his shirt straight under the jacket, he walked into the kitchen. ‘What time are we supposed to be there?’
‘Eight.’
Brunetti pushed back his sleeve and looked at his watch. ‘Leave in ten minutes?’ Paola answered with a grunt, head bent over a pot. Brunetti regretted that there was barely time for a glass of wine. ‘Any idea who else is going to be there?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Hm,’ Brunetti said. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Pinot Grigio, poured himself half a glass, and took a sip.
Paola put the lid back on to the pot and turned off the flame. ‘That’s good enough,’ she said. ‘They won’t starve.’ Then, to him, ‘Worrying, isn’t it?’
‘When we don’t know who else is invited?’
Instead of answering, she asked, ‘Remember the Americans?’
Brunetti sighed and put the glass into the sink. Their eyes met and both laughed. The Americans had been a pair of visiting professors from Harvard the Morosinis had invited to dinner two years before, Assyriologists who had spoken to no one except each other during the entire evening and who had, during the course of the meal, proceeded to get falling-down drunk and thus had to be sent home in a taxi, a bill for which had been put through the Morosinis’ mailbox the next morning.
‘Did you ask?’ Brunetti wanted to know.
‘Who’d be there?’
‘Yes.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Paola answered and, when she saw that he wasn’t convinced, added, ‘You can’t, Guido. Or I can’t. And what am I supposed to do if it’s someone dreadful, say I’m sick?’
He shrugged, thinking of the evenings he’d spent, prisoner to the Morosinis’ catholic tastes and variegated friendships.
Paola got her coat and put it on before he could help her. Together, they left the apartment and headed down towards San Polo. They crossed the
campo,
went over a bridge, and turned into a narrow
calle
on the right. Just beyond it, they walked right and rang the Morosinis’ bell. The door snapped open almost instantly and they ascended to the
piano nobile,
where Giovanni Morosini stood at the open door to their apartment, the sound of voices flowing out and down the steps from behind him.
A large man, Morosini still wore the beard he’d first grown as a student caught up in the violent protests of sixty-eight. It had turned grey and grizzled with the passing of the years, and he often joked that the same thing had happened to his ideals and principles. A bit taller and considerably wider than Brunetti, he seemed to fill up the entire space of the doorway. He greeted Paola with a double kiss and gave Brunetti a warm handshake.
‘Welcome, welcome. Come in and have something to drink,’ he said as he took their coats and hung them in the cupboard beside the door. ‘Clara’s in the kitchen, but I have some people I’d like you to meet.’ As always, Brunetti was struck by the disparity in the man’s size and the softness of his voice, barely more than a whisper, as if he were perpetually afraid of being overheard.
He stepped back to let them enter and preceded them down the central hallway that led to the large
salotto,
off which all the other rooms in the house opened. Four people stood in one corner of the room, and Brunetti was instantly struck by how much two of them appeared to be a couple and how little the other two did.
Hearing them, the people in the room turned and Brunetti saw the eyes of the non-coupled woman light up when she saw Paola. It was not a pleasant sight.
Morosini led them round a low sofa and over to the others. ‘Paola and Guido Brunetti,’ he began, ‘I’d like to present Dottor Klaus Rotgeiger, a friend of ours who lives on the other side of the
campo,
and his wife Bettina.’ The two who formed a couple put down their glasses on the table behind them and turned to extend their hands in grips as warm and tight as had been Morosini’s. The usual compliments fell from their lips in lightly accented Italian. Brunetti was struck by a shared ranginess of build and clarity of eye.