Fatal Remedies Part 14

He looked up at her and smiled.

'I beg your pardon, Commissario?'

'That's why he was killed, Signorina. s.e.x or money.'

She understood instantly. 'Always in good taste, those two,' she said and placed the file on his desk. 'This one is about the second.'

'Whose?'

'Both of theirs.' A look of dissatisfaction crossed her face. 'I can't make any sense out of the numbers there, those for Dottor Mitri.'

'In what way?' Brunetti asked, knowing that if Signorina Elettra found numbers confusing there was little chance that he would have any idea what they meant.

'He was very rich.'

Brunetti, who had been inside his home, nodded.

'But the factories and businesses he owned don't make very much money.'

This was a common enough phenomenon, Brunetti knew. To go by their tax returns, no one in Italy made enough to live on; they were a nation of paupers, sc.r.a.ping by only by turning collars, wearing shoes until they could be worn no more and, for all he knew, surviving on chaff and nettles. And yet the restaurants were full of well-dressed people, everyone seemed to have a new car, and the airports never ceased sending off planeloads of happy tourists. Go figure, as an American friend of his was much in the habit of saying.

'I can't imagine you'd be surprised by that,' Brunetti said.

'No, I'm not. We all cheat on our taxes. But I've studied all the records for his companies, and it looks like they're correct. That is, none of them makes him much more than twenty million or so a year.'

'For a total of what?'

'About two hundred million a year.'

'Profit?'

'That's what he declared,' she answered. 'After his taxes he was left with less than half of that.'

It was considerably more than Brunetti earned per year and hardly meant a life of poverty. 'But why are you so sure?' he asked.

'Because I've also checked his credit card expenses.' She nodded down at the folder. 'And they are not the expenses of a man who earns that little.'

Not at all sure how to react to that dismissive 'little', Brunetti said, 'How much did he spend?' He waved her to a seat.

She tucked her long skirt under her and sat on the front of the chair, her spine not even flirting with its back, and waved her right hand in front of her. 'I don't remember the exact sum. More than fifty million, I think. So if you add to that the costs of running his home, just running his life, there's no way to explain how he could have almost a billion lire in savings and stocks.'

'Maybe he won the lottery,' Brunetti suggested with a smile.

'No one wins the lottery,' Signorina Elettra answered without one.

'Why would he keep so much money in the bank?' Brunetti asked.

'No one expects to die, I suppose. But he's been moving it around. During the last year, quite a bit of it disappeared.'

'Where?'

She shrugged. 'To the places money disappears to, I suppose: Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Channel Islands.'

'How much?'

'About half a billion.'

Brunetti gazed down at the folder, but didn't open it. He glanced up. 'Can you find out?'

'I haven't really begun to look, Commissario. That is, I've begun, but I've just been glancing around, as it were. I haven't really started to pry open drawers or rifle through his private papers.'

'Do you think you could find time to do that?'

Brunetti could not remember the last time he had offered candy to a baby, but he had a vague memory of a smile much like the one Signorina Elettra gave him. 'There's nothing that would give me greater joy,' she said, surprising him only by her rhetoric, not by her response. She got to her feet, eager to be off.

'And Zambino?'

'Nothing at all. I've never found anyone whose records are so clear and so ...' She paused here, seeking the proper term. 'So clear and so honest,' she said, unable to restrain her wonder at the sound of the last word. 'Never.'

'Do you know anything about him?'

'Personally?' Brunetti nodded, but instead of answering she enquired, 'Why do you want to know?'

'No reason,' he answered and then, made curious by her apparent reluctance, asked, 'Do you?'

'He's a patient of Barbara's.'

He considered this. He knew Signorina Elettra well enough to be aware that she would never reveal something she thought came under the seal of family, and her sister to realize she would always be bound by her oath as a doctor. He let it drop. 'Professionally?'

'Friends of mine have used him.'

'As a lawyer?'

'Yes.'

'Why? I mean for what sort of cases?'

'Remember when Lily was attacked?' she asked.

Brunetti recalled the case, one that had reduced him to speechless rage. Three years ago, Lily Vitale, an architect, had been attacked on her way home from the opera, in what might have begun as a mugging, but which ended in a much more violent attack, when her face had been repeatedly punched and her nose broken. No attempt had been made to rob her; her bag was found, untouched, beside her by the people who came out from their homes in answer to her screams.

Her attacker was arrested that night and quickly identified as the same man who had attempted to rape at least three other women in the city. But he had never stolen anything and he was actually incapable of rape, so he was given three months of house arrest, but not before his mother and girlfriend had stepped forward at the trial to praise his virtue, loyalty, and integrity.

'Lily brought a civil suit against him for damages. Zambino was her lawyer.'

Brunetti knew nothing of this. 'And?'

'She lost.'

'Why?'

'Because he never tried to rob her. All he did was break her nose, and the judge didn't think that was as serious as stealing her purse. So he didn't even award damages. He said that the house arrest was sufficient punishment.'

'And Lily?'

Signorina Elettra shrugged. 'She doesn't go out alone any more, so she gets around less.'

The young man was currently in jail for having stabbed his girlfriend, but Brunetti didn't think that would matter to Lily, nor would it change anything.

'How did he react to losing the case?'

'I don't know. Lily never said.' She didn't offer anything after this and got to her feet. 'I'll go and have a look,' she said, reminding him that they were here about Mitri and not about a woman whose courage had been broken.

'Yes, thank you. I think I'll have a word with Awocato Zambino.'

'As you will, Commissario.' She turned to the door. 'But, believe me, if anyone is clean, he is.' As the person named was a lawyer, Brunetti gave this the attention he devoted to the mutterings of the lunatics in front of Palazzo Boldu.

17.

He decided not to take Vianello with him, hoping that his visit to the lawyer would thus appear a more casual thing, though he hardly believed a man as exposed to the law in all its workings as Zambino would be much affected by the sight of a uniform. A quotation Paola often used slipped into his mind, the description of one of Chaucer's pilgrims, the Man of Law: 'He seemed busier than he was.' Brunetti thus thought it might be wise to call ahead and let the avvocato know that he was coming and thus avoid being kept waiting while he did lawyerly things. His secretary, or whoever it was that answered the phone, said that he would be free in about half an hour and would be able then to speak to the commissario.

The office was in Campo San Polo, so Brunetti could end his morning close to home and would have plenty of time for lunch. He called Paola to tell her this. Neither of them discussed anything but time and menu.

As soon as he'd finished talking to her, Brunetti went downstairs into the officers' room, where he found Vianello at his desk, reading the morning paper. When he heard Brunetti approach, the sergeant looked up and closed the paper.

'Anything today?' Brunetti asked. 'I haven't had time to read them.'

'No, it's tapering off, probably because there's not much to say. Not until we arrest someone.'

Vianello started to get to his feet, but Brunetti said, 'No, don't bother, Sergeant. I'm going to go and see Zambino. Alone.' Before the other could say anything to this, Brunetti added, 'Signorina Elettra said she's going to take a closer look at Mitri's finances and I thought you might like to see how she does it.'

Recently, Vianello had become absorbed in the manner in which Signorina Elettra discovered things with the help of her computer and the scores of friends, some of whom she'd never met, it linked her to. No barriers of nation or language seemed any longer to impede the free exchange of information, much of it very interesting to the police. Brunetti's attempt to follow along had met with failure, so he was pleased at Vianello's enthusiasm. He wanted someone else to be able to do what Signorina Elettra did, or at least understand how she did it, in case they ever had to work without her. Even as the thought came, he breathed a silent incantation against its possibility.

Vianello finished folding up the paper and let it drop on his desk. 'Gladly. She's shown me a lot, but there's always something she thinks of when the regular paths don't work. The kids are amazed,' he went on. 'They used to kid me about how little I understood of what they brought home from school or what they talked about, but now they come and ask me if they have trouble or can't access someone.' Unconsciously, he used the English verb, the language in which he and Signorina Elettra pursued most of their information.

Strangely unsettled by this brief conversation, Brunetti took his leave of the sergeant and left the Questura. A single cameraman stood outside, but his back was to the entrance as he faced away from the wind and lit a cigarette, so Brunetti walked away unnoticed. When he arrived at the Grand Ca.n.a.l, the wind made him decide not to take the traghetto traghetto and, instead, he crossed the Rialto. As he walked, he ignored the glory that surrounded him on all sides and, instead, thought about what he wanted to ask Avvocato Zambino. He was distracted from this only once when he saw what he was sure were porcini mushrooms on one of the vegetable stalls and was filled with a momentary hope that Paola would see them too and serve them with polenta for lunch. and, instead, he crossed the Rialto. As he walked, he ignored the glory that surrounded him on all sides and, instead, thought about what he wanted to ask Avvocato Zambino. He was distracted from this only once when he saw what he was sure were porcini mushrooms on one of the vegetable stalls and was filled with a momentary hope that Paola would see them too and serve them with polenta for lunch.

He walked quickly along Rughetta, past his own calle, calle, through the underpa.s.s, and out into the through the underpa.s.s, and out into the campo. campo. The leaves had long since fallen from the trees, so the broad expanse seemed curiously naked and exposed. The leaves had long since fallen from the trees, so the broad expanse seemed curiously naked and exposed.

The lawyer's office was on the first floor of Palazzo Soranzo, and when he arrived Brunetti was surprised to have the door opened by Zambino himself.

'Ah, Commissario Brunetti, this is a pleasure,' the lawyer said, extending his hand and shaking Brunetti's firmly. 'I can't say it's a pleasure to meet you, since we've already met, but it's a pleasure to have you come here to speak to me.' At their first meeting Brunetti had paid most attention to Mitri, so the lawyer had pa.s.sed all but un.o.bserved. He was short, stocky, with a body that showed signs of a lot of good living and not much exercise. Brunetti thought he was wearing the same suit he'd had on in Patta's office, though he wasn't sure. Thinning hair covered a head that was disconcertingly round; the face was the same and the cheeks as well. His eyes were those of a woman: thick-lashed, almond-shaped, cobalt-blue and strikingly beautiful.

'Thank you,' Brunetti said, looking away from the lawyer and around the office. It was, he saw to his considerable surprise, humble, the sort of room he'd expect to find in the ambulatorio ambulatorio of a doctor just graduated from medical school who had recently set up his first practice. The chairs were metal, with seats and backs made from formica that was disguised, badly, to look like wood. A single low table stood in the centre of the room and on it lay a few copies of outdated magazines. of a doctor just graduated from medical school who had recently set up his first practice. The chairs were metal, with seats and backs made from formica that was disguised, badly, to look like wood. A single low table stood in the centre of the room and on it lay a few copies of outdated magazines.

The lawyer led him to an open door and into what must be his office. The walls were covered with books Brunetti recognized instantly as law texts, case studies, and the codes of law, both civil and criminal, of the State of Italy. They filled each wall from floor to ceiling. Four or five of them lay open on Zambino's desk.

As Brunetti took his place in one of the three chairs that faced the lawyer's, Zambino went around to his own chair and closed the books, carefully slipping small pieces of paper into the open pages of all of them, before setting them aside in a little pile.

'I'll waste no time and say that I a.s.sume you're here to talk about Dottor Mitri,' Zambino began. Brunetti nodded. 'Good, then if you'll tell me what you'd like to know, I'll try to give you what help I can.'

'That's very kind of you, Avvocato,' Brunetti began with formulaic politeness.

'There's no kindness in it, Commissario. It's my duty as a citizen and my desire as a lawyer to a.s.sist you in any way that might in turn help you to find Dottor Mitri's murderer.'

'You don't call him Paolo, Avvocato?'

'Who, Mitri?' the lawyer asked. When Brunetti nodded, he said, 'No. Dottor Mitri was a client, not a friend.'

'Is there any reason why he wasn't a friend?'

Zambino had been a lawyer far too long to show surprise at anything he was asked, so he answered calmly, 'No, no reason at all, except that we never came in contact before he called me for advice about the incident at the travel agency.'

'Do you think he would have become a friend?' Brunetti asked.

'I can't speculate about that, Commissario. I spoke to him on the phone, met him here in the office once, then went to the Vice-Questore's office with him. That is the only contact I had with him, so I have no idea if I would have become a friend of his or not.'

'I see,' Brunetti said. 'Could you tell me what he had decided to do about what you call the incident at the travel agency?'

'About pressing charges?'

'Yes.'

'After speaking to you and then to the Vice-Questore, I suggested he submit a claim for damages for the window and the lost business he thought it would cost the agency - he was ent.i.tled to his percentage of that, though the window was entirely his responsibility, as he was the owner of the physical s.p.a.ce occupied by the agency.'

'Was it difficult for you to persuade him, Avvocato?'

'No, not at all,' he answered, almost as if he'd been expecting this question. 'In fact, I'd say that he had already made up his mind to this course even before he spoke to me and wanted only to confirm his opinion with a lawyer.'

'Have you any idea why he selected you?' Brunetti asked.

A man less certain of his position would surely have paused here and feigned surprise at anyone's daring to question why he would have been chosen to work as someone's lawyer. Instead, Zambino said, 'No, none at all. There was certainly no need for him to come to someone like me.'

'By that do you mean someone who works primarily in business law or someone who has a reputation as high as your own?'

Zambino smiled here, and Brunetti warmed to it and to the man.

'That's very gracefully put, Commissario. You give me little chance but to sing my own praises.' When he saw Brunetti's answering smile, he continued, 'I've no idea, as I said. I might have been recommended to him by someone he knew. For all I know, he might have picked my name at random out of the phone book.' Before Brunetti could say it, Zambino added, 'Though I hardly think Dottor Mitri was the sort of man to make a decision that way.'