A smile of pure delight bubbled up into Viscardi’s eyes. He tried to suppress it but failed. ‘No, Commissario. It’s not in Venice. It’s in Vicenza.’
Brunetti took his rage home with him, and it sat between him and his family as they ate. He tried to respond to their questions, tried to pay attention to what they said, but in the midst of Chiara’s account of something that happened in class that morning, he saw Viscardi’s sly smile of gleeful triumph; when Raffi smiled at something his mother said, Brunetti remembered only Ruffolo’s goofy, apologetic smile, two years ago, when he had taken the scissors from his mother’s upraised hand and begged her to understand that the Commissario was only doing his job.
Ruffolo’s body, he knew, would be turned over to her this afternoon, when the autopsy was completed and the cause of death determined. Brunetti was in no doubt as to what that would be: the marks of the blow to Ruffolo’s head would match exactly the configuration of the rock found beside his body on the small beach; who to determine whether the blow was struck in a fall or in some other way? And who, since Ruffolo’s death resolved everything so neatly, to care? Perhaps, as in the case of Doctor Peters, signs of alcohol would be found in Ruffolo’s blood, and that surely would account even more for the fall. Brunetti’s case was solved. Both, in fact, were solved, for the murderer of the American had turned out to be, most fortuitously, the thief of Viscardi’s paintings. With that thought, he pushed his chair back from the table, ignoring the six eyes that followed his progress from the room. Giving no explanation, he left the house and started towards the Civil Hospital, where he knew Ruffolo’s body would be.
When he got to Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, familiar, too familiar, with where he had to go, he walked towards the back part of the hospital, not really seeing the people around him. When he passed the radiology department and started down the narrow corridor that led to pathology, he could no longer ignore the people, so many seemed crowded into the narrow hallway. They weren’t going anywhere, just standing around in small groups, heads together, talking. Some, clearly patients, wore pyjamas and dressing-gowns; others wore suits; some the white jackets of orderlies. Just outside the door to the pathology department, he saw a uniform he was more familiar with: Rossi stood in front of the closed door, one hand held up in a gesture meant to keep the crowd from coming any closer.
‘What is it, Rossi?’ Brunetti asked, pushing himself through the front row of bystanders.
‘I’m not sure, sir. We got a call about half an hour ago. Whoever called said one of the old women from the rest home next door had gone mad and was breaking up the place. I came over here with Vianello and Miotti. They went inside, and I stayed out here to try to keep these people from going in.’
Brunetti moved around Rossi and pushed open the door to the pathology department. Inside, the scene was remarkably like that outside: people stood in small groups and talked, heads close together. All of these people, however, were dressed in the white jackets of the hospital staff. Words and phrases floated across the room to him.
He started towards the door that led back into the examining rooms. Seeing this, one of the orderlies broke away from the people he was talking to and moved in front of him. ‘You can’t go in there. The police are here.’
‘I’m police,’ Brunetti said and moved around him.
‘Not until you show me some identification,’ the man said, putting a restraining hand on Brunetti’s chest.
The man’s opposition reignited all of the rage Brunetti had felt at Viscardi; he pulled his hand back, fingers closing in an involuntary fist. The man moved back a step from him, and this slight motion was enough to bring Brunetti back to his senses. He forced his fingers open, reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and showed his warrant card to the orderly. The man was just doing his job.
‘I’m just doing my job, sir,’ he said and turned to open the door for Brunetti.
‘Thank you,’ Brunetti told him as he walked past, but without meeting his eyes,
Inside, he saw Vianello and Miotti on the other side of the room. They were both leaning over a short man who was sitting on a chair, holding a white towel to his head. Vianello had his notebook in his hand and appeared to be questioning him. When Brunetti approached, all three looked at him. He recognized the third man then, Doctor Ottavio Bonaventura, Rizzardi’s assistant. The young doctor nodded in greeting, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back, pressing the towel to his forehead.
‘What’s going on?’ Brunetti asked.
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out, sir,’ Vianello answered, nodding down at Bonaventura. ‘We got a call about half an hour ago, from the nurse at the desk out there,’ he said, apparently meaning the outer office. ‘She said that a mad-woman had attacked one of the doctors, so we came over here as fast as we could. Apparently, the orderlies couldn’t restrain her, even though there were two of them.’
‘Three,’ Bonaventura said, eyes still closed.
‘What happened?’
‘We don’t know, sir. That’s what we’re trying to find out. She was gone by the time we got here, but we don’t know if the orderlies took her away. We don’t know anything,’ he said, making no attempt to disguise his exasperation. Three men and they couldn’t restrain a woman.
‘Dottor Bonaventura,’ Brunetti said, ‘could you tell us what happened here? Are you all right?’
Bonaventura gave a small nod. He pulled the towel away from his head, and Brunetti saw a deep, bloody gouge that ran from his eyebrow and disappeared into his hairline just above his ear. The doctor turned the towel to expose a fresh clean place and pressed it against the wound.
‘I was at the desk over there,’ he began, not bothering to point to the only desk in the room, ‘doing some paperwork, and suddenly this old woman was in the room, screaming, out of her mind. She came at me with something in her hand. I don’t know what it was; it might just have been her purse. She was screaming, but I don’t know what she said. I couldn’t understand her, or maybe I was too surprised. Or frightened.’ He turned the towel again; the bleeding refused to stop.
‘She came up to the desk, and she hit me, then she started tearing at all the papers on the desk. That was when the orderlies came in, but she was wild, hysterical. She knocked one of them down, and then another one of them tripped over him. I don’t know what happened then because I had blood in my eye. But when I wiped it away, she was gone. Two of the orderlies were still here, on the floor, but she was gone.’
Brunetti looked at Vianello, who answered, ‘No, sir. She’s not outside. She just disappeared. I spoke to two of
