‘Very,’ Brunetti answered.
‘And those are our three kids. Joshua’s ten, Melissa’s six, and Jessica is only one.’
‘It’s a very handsome family,’ Brunetti volunteered.
‘Yes, they are. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have them. I often told Mike that’s what he needed, to marry and settle down.’
‘Did he need to settle down?’ Brunetti asked, interested in the fact that it was always married men with numerous children who wished this on single men.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Wolf said, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his desk. ‘He was twenty-five, after all. Time to start a family.’
‘Did he have a girlfriend to start it with?’ Brunetti asked cordially.
Wolf looked across at him, then down at his desk. ‘Not that I knew about.’
‘Did he like women?’ If Wolf understood that the corollary of this was whether he liked men, he gave no sign.
‘I suppose so. I really didn’t know him all that well Just here at work.’
‘Was anyone here a special friend?’ When Wolf shook his head, Brunetti added, ‘Doctor Peters was very upset when she saw the body.’
‘Well, they’d worked together for a half a year or so. Don’t you think it’s normal she’d be upset to see him?’
‘Yes, I suppose,’ Brunetti answered, offering no explanation. ‘Anyone else?’
‘No, not that I can think of.’
‘Perhaps I could ask Mr Dostie when he gets back.’
‘Sergeant Dostie,’ Wolf corrected automatically.
‘Did he know Sergeant Foster well?’
‘I really don’t know, Commissario.’ It seemed to Brunetti that this man didn’t know very much at all, not about a man who had worked for him for . . . ‘How long did Sergeant Foster work for you?’ he asked.
Wolf pushed himself back in his chair, glanced at the picture, as if his wife would tell him, then answered, ‘Three years, ever since he got here.’
‘I see. And how long has Sergeant Dostie been here?’
‘About four years.’
‘What kind of man was he, Sergeant Wolf?’ Brunetti asked, turning the conversation back to the dead man.
This time, Wolf checked with his children before he answered, ‘He was an excellent troop. His record will tell you that. He tended pretty much to keep to himself, but that might be because he was going to school, and he was very serious about that.’ Wolf paused, as if looking for something more profound to say. ‘He was a very caring individual.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Brunetti asked, utterly lost. Caring? What did Foster care about? ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
Wolf was glad to explain. ‘You know, what you Italians call
‘Oh,’ Brunetti muttered. What a strange language these people spoke. More directly, he asked, ‘Did you like him?’
The soldier was clearly surprised by the question. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I did. I mean, like, we weren’t friends or anything, but he was a nice guy.’
‘What were his exact duties?’ Brunetti asked, taking his notebook from his pocket.
‘Well,’ Sergeant Wolf began, latching his hands behind his head and sitting back more comfortably in his chair, ‘he had to see about housing, that landlords kept up standards. You know, enough hot water, enough heat in the winter. And he had to see that, when we were tenants, we didn’t do any damage to the apartments or the houses. If a landlord calls us and tells us his tenants are creating a health hazard, we go out and investigate it.’
‘What sort of a health hazard?’ Brunetti asked, honestly curious. ‘Oh, lots of things. Not taking the garbage out, or putting the garbage too near the house. Or not cleaning up after their animals. There’s a lot of that.’
‘What do you do?’
‘We have permission to, no, we have the right to go into their houses.’
‘Even if they object?’
‘Especially if they object,’ Wolf said with an easy laugh. That’s generally a sure sign the place will be a mess.’
‘Then what do you do?’
‘We inspect the house to see if there’s any danger to health.’
‘Does this happen often?’
Wolf started to answer, then checked himself, and Brunetti realized that the man was weighing up how much of this he could tell an Italian, what his response would be to such tales regarding Americans. ‘We get a few,’ he said neutrally.
