But Wellauer’s death, Brunetti knew, was different. He was a famous man, no doubt the most famous conductor of the age, and he had been killed in Venice’s little jewel of an opera house. Because it was Brunetti’s case, the vice-questore would find him directly responsible for any bad publicity that might attach to the police.
He knocked on the door and waited to be told to enter. When the shout came, Brunetti pushed open the door and saw Patta where he knew he would be seated, poised as he knew he would find him, sitting behind his enormous desk, bent over a paper that was made important by the scrutiny he gave it. Even in a country of handsome men, Patta was shockingly handsome, with a chiseled Roman profile, wide-spaced and piercing eyes, and the body of an athlete, though he was well into his fifties. He preferred, when photographed for the papers, to be taken in left profile.
‘So you’ve finally come,’ Patta said, suggesting that Brunetti was hours late rather than on time. ‘I thought I’d have to wait all morning for you,’ he added, which Brunetti thought was overplaying the role. When Brunetti made no response to either remark, Patta demanded, ‘What have you got?’
Brunetti pulled that morning’s
Patta kept his voice level but dismissed the paper with a wave. ‘I’ve already read that. I meant what have you found out?’
Brunetti reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his notebook. There was nothing written in it except for the name, address, and phone number of the American woman, but so long as he was kept standing in front of the seated Patta, there was no way the other man could see that the pages were virtually empty. Pointedly, he wet the finger of one hand and leafed slowly through the pages. ‘The room was unlocked, and there was no key in the door. That means that anyone could have gone in or out at any time during the performance.’
‘Where was the poison?’
‘In the coffee, I think. But I won’t know until after the autopsy and the lab report.’
‘When’s the autopsy?’
‘This morning, I think. At eleven.’
‘Good. What else?’
Brunetti turned a page, exposing fresh emptiness. ‘I spoke to the singers at the theater. The baritone saw him, but only to say hello. The tenor says he didn’t see him, and the soprano says she saw him only when she came into the theater.’ He glanced down at Patta, who waited. ‘The tenor’s telling the truth. The soprano’s lying.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Patta snapped.
‘Because I think it’s true, sir.’
With exaggerated patience, as if he were speaking to an especially slow child, Patta asked, ‘And why, Commissario, do you think it’s true?’
‘Because she was seen going into his dressing room after the first act.’ Brunetti didn’t bother to clarify that this was only a suggestion from a witness, not yet confirmed. His interview had suggested she wasn’t telling the truth, perhaps about that, perhaps about something else.
‘I also spoke to the director,’ Brunetti continued. ‘He had an argument with the conductor before the performance began. But he didn’t see him again during the performance. I think he’s telling the truth.’ Patta didn’t bother to ask him why he thought this.
‘Anything else?’
‘I sent a message to the police in Berlin last night.’ He made a business of leafing through his notebook. ‘The message went out at—’
‘Never mind.’ Patta cut him off. ‘What did they say?’
‘They’ll fax down a full report today, any information they have on Wellauer or his wife.’
‘What about the wife? Did you speak to her?’
‘Not more than a few words. She was very upset. I don’t think anyone could have talked to her.’
‘Where was she?’
‘When I spoke to her?’
‘No, during the performance.’
‘She was sitting in the audience, in the orchestra. She said she went back to see him after the second act but got there too late to speak to him, that they never spoke.’
‘You mean she was backstage when he died?’ Patta asked with an eagerness so strong Brunetti almost believed the man would need little more to arrest her for the crime.
‘Yes, but I don’t know whether she saw him, whether she went into the dressing room.’
‘Well, make it your business to find out.’ Even Patta realized that his tone had been too harsh. He added, ‘Sit down, Brunetti.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, closing his notebook and slipping it into his pocket before taking a seat opposite his superior. Patta’s chair, he knew, was a few centimeters higher than this one, something the vice-questore undoubtedly regarded as a delicate psychological advantage.
‘How long was she back there?’
‘I don’t know, sir. She was very upset when I spoke to her, so her story wasn’t very clear.’
‘Could she have gone into the dressing room?’ Patta asked.
‘She might have. I don’t know.’
‘It sounds like you’re making excuses for her,’ said Patta, then added, ‘Is she pretty?’ Brunetti realized Patta must have found out about the difference in age between the dead man and his widow.
‘If you like tall blonds,’ Brunetti said.
‘Don’t you?’
‘My wife doesn’t permit me to, sir.’
Patta thrust around for a way to pull the conversation back together. ‘Did anyone else go into the dressing room during the performance? Where did the coffee come from?’
‘There’s a bar on the ground floor of the theater. Probably from there.’
‘Find out.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Now pay attention, Brunetti.’ Brunetti nodded. ‘I want the name of anyone who was in the dressing room, or near it, last night. And I want to find out more about the wife. How long they’ve been married, where she comes from, that sort of thing.’ Brunetti nodded.
‘Brunetti?’ Patta suddenly asked.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Why aren’t you taking notes?’
Brunetti permitted himself the smallest of smiles. ‘Oh, I never forget anything you say, sir.’
Patta chose, for reasons of his own, to give this a literal reading. ‘I don’t believe what she told you about not seeing him. People don’t start to do things and then change their minds. I’m sure there’s something here. It probably has something to do with the difference in their ages.’ It was rumored that Patta had spent two years studying psychology at the University of Palermo before changing to the law. But it was unblemished fact that, after an undistinguished career as a student, he had taken his degree and, soon thereafter, as a direct result of his father’s very distinguished career in the Christian Democratic party, had been appointed a vice-commissario of police. And now, after more than twenty years, he was vice-questore of the police of Venice.
Patta having apparently finished with his orders, Brunetti prepared himself for what was coming, the speech about the honor of the city. As night the day, the thought gave birth to Patta’s words. ‘You might not understand this, Commissario, but this is one of the most famous artists of our era. And he was killed here in our city, Venice’—which name never failed to sound faintly ridiculous coming from Patta, with his Sicilian accent. ‘We have to do everything in our power to see that this crime is solved; we cannot allow this crime to blot the reputation, the very honor, of our city.’ There were times when Brunetti was tempted to take notes of what the man said.
As Patta continued in this vein, Brunetti decided that if something was said about the glorious musical history of the city, he’d take Paola flowers that afternoon. ‘This is the city of Vivaldi. Mozart was here. We have a debt to pay to the world of music.’ Irises, he thought; she liked them best of all. And she’d put them in the tall blue Murano vase.