Friends in High Places

Brunetti.

‘Please, come with me,’ he said, turning back toward a door that stood open halfway down the corridor, just opposite the stairs that led to the upper floors of the building.

Brunetti paused at the door to allow the man to enter before him, then followed him in. There was a small entrance, little more than a metre wide, up from which rose two steps, further evidence of the Venetians’ eternal confidence that they could outwit the tides that gnawed away perpetually at the foundations of the city. The room to which the steps led was clean and neat and surprisingly well lit for an apartment located on a piano rialzato. Brunetti noticed that at the back of the apartment a row of four tall windows looked across to a large garden on the other side of a wide canal.

‘I’m sorry. I was eating,’ the man said, tossing his napkin on to the table.

‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Brunetti insisted.

‘No, I was just finishing,’ the man said. A large helping of pasta still lay on his plate, an open newspaper spread out to its left. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he insisted and gestured Brunetti into the centre of the room, to a sofa that stood facing the windows. He asked, ‘May I offer you something? Un’ ombra?’

There was nothing Brunetti would have liked better than a small glass of wine, but he refused. Instead, he put out his hand and introduced himself.

‘Marco Caberlotto,’ the man answered, taking his hand.

Brunetti sat on the sofa, and Caberlotto sat opposite him. ‘What about Franco?’ he asked.

‘You know he was in the hospital?’ Brunetti asked by way of answer.

‘Yes. I read the article in the Gazzettino this morning. I’m going to see him as soon as I finish,’ he said, waving toward the table, where his lunch sat, slowly growing cold. ‘How is he?’

‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you,’ Brunetti began, using the formulaic introduction he’d become so familiar with in the last decades. When he saw that Caberlotto understood, he continued, ‘He never came out of the coma and died this morning.’

Caberlotto murmured something and put one hand to his mouth, pressing his fingers against his lips. ‘I didn’t know. The poor boy.’

Brunetti paused for a moment, then asked softly, ‘Did you know him well?’

Ignoring the question, Caberlotto asked, ‘Is it true that he fell? That he fell and hit his head?’

Brunetti nodded.

‘He fell?’ Caberlotto insisted.

‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

Again, Caberlotto did not respond directly. ‘Ah, the poor boy,’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘I never would have believed something like this could have happened. He was always so cautious.’

‘On the job, do you mean?’

Caberlotto looked across at Brunetti and said, ‘No, about everything. He was just… well, he was just like that: cautious. He worked in that office, and part of their job means they have to go out and keep an eye on what’s being done, but he preferred to stay in the office and work with the plans and projects, seeing how buildings were put together, or how they would be when they were put back together after a restoration. It’s what he loved, that part of the job. He said that.’

Remembering the visit Rossi had made to his own home, Brunetti said, ‘But I thought part of his job was to visit sites, to inspect houses that had building violations.’

Caber lotto shrugged. ‘I know he had to go to houses sometimes, but the impression I got was that he did that only to be able to explain things to the owners so that they’d understand what was happening.’ Caberlotto paused, perhaps trying to recall conversations with Rossi, but then went on. ‘I didn’t know him all that well. We were neighbours, so we’d talk on the street sometimes or have a drink together. That was when he told me about liking to study the plans.’

‘You said he was always so cautious,’ Brunetti prompted.

‘About everything,’ Caberlotto said and seemed almost to smile at the memory. ‘I used to joke with him about it. He’d never carry a box downstairs. He said he needed to see both feet when he walked.’ He paused, as though considering whether to continue, and then did. ‘One time he had a light bulb blow up on him, and he called me to get the name of an electrician. I asked him what it was, and when he told me, I told him to change the bulb himself. All you’ve got to do is wrap some tape backwards around a piece of cardboard and stick it in the base of the bulb and unscrew it. But he said he was afraid to touch it.’ Caberlotto stopped.

‘What happened?’ Brunetti prodded.

‘It was a Sunday, so it would have been impossible to get someone, anyway. So I went up and did it for him. I just turned off the current and took the broken bulb out.’ He looked across at Brunetti and made a turning gesture with his right hand. ‘I did it just like I’d told him, with the tape, and it came right out. It took about five seconds, but there was no way he could have done it himself. He wouldn’t have used that room until he could find an electrician, just would have let it stay dark.’ He smiled and glanced across at Brunetti. ‘It’s not really that he was afraid, you see. It’s just the way he was.’

‘Was he married?’ Brunetti asked.

Caberlotto shook his head.

‘A girlfriend?’

‘No, not that either.’

Had he known Caberlotto better, Brunetti would have asked about a boyfriend. ‘Parents?’

‘I don’t know. If he still has them, I don’t think they’re in Venice. He never spoke of them, and he was always here on holidays.’

‘Friends?’

Caberlotto gave this some thought and then said, ‘I’d see him on the street with people occasionally. Or having a drink. You know the way it is. But I don’t remember anyone in particular or seeing him with the same person.’ Brunetti made no answer to this, so Caberlotto tried to explain. ‘We weren’t really friends, you know, so I guess I would see him and not really pay much attention, just recognize him.’

Brunetti asked, ‘Did people come here?’

‘I suppose so. I don’t have much of an idea of who comes in and out. I hear people going up and down, but I never know who they are.’ Suddenly he asked, ‘But why are you here?’

‘I knew him, too,’ Brunetti answered. ‘So when I found out he was dead, I came to talk to his family, but I came as a friend, nothing more than that.’ Caberlotto didn’t think to question why Brunetti, if he was a friend of Rossi’s, should know so little about him.

Brunetti got to his feet. ‘I’ll leave you to finish your lunch, Signor Caberlotto,’ he said, extending his hand.

Caberlotto took it and returned the pressure. He went with Brunetti down the hall to the outer door and pulled it open. There, standing on the higher step and looking down at Brunetti, he said, ‘He was a good man. I didn’t know him well, but I liked him. He always said kind things about people.’ He leaned forward and placed his hand on Brunetti’s sleeve, as if to impress him with the importance of what he had just said, and then he closed the door.

8

On the way back to the Questura, Brunetti stopped to call Paola and tell her he wouldn’t be home for lunch, then went into a small trattoria and ate a plate of pasta he didn’t taste and a few pieces of chicken that served only as fuel to propel him into the afternoon. When he returned to work, he found a note on his desk, saying that Vice-Questore Patta wanted to see him in his office at four.

He called the hospital and left a message with Dottor Rizzardi’s secretary, asking the pathologist if he’d perform the autopsy on Francesco Rossi himself, then made another call that set in motion the bureaucratic process that would order that autopsy to be performed. He went down to the officers’ room to see if his assistant, Sergeant Vianello, was there. He was, at his desk, a thick file open before him. Though he wasn’t much taller than his superior, Vianello seemed somehow to take up much more space.

He looked up when Brunetti came in and started to get to his feet, but Brunetti waved him back to his seat.