‘What did he do when you said you couldn’t remember?’
‘Heck, he wanted me to go up there with him, drive all the way up there with him some Saturday and look for the place, see if I could remember where it was we parked the car.’
‘And did you go back with him.’
‘Not on your life. I’ve got three kids, a wife, and, if I’m lucky, one day off a week. I’m not going to go spend one of them running around the mountains, looking for some place I once had a picnic in. Besides, that was the time when Danny was in the hospital, and I wasn’t about to leave my wife alone all day, just to go on some wild- goose chase.’
‘How did he behave when you told him?’
‘Well, I could see that he was pretty angry, but I just told him I couldn’t do it, and he seemed to quiet down He stopped asking me to go with him, but I think he went up there, looking, by himself, or maybe with Doctor Peters.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, he went and talked to a friend of mine who works in the dental clinic. He’s the X-ray technician, and he told me that, one Friday afternoon, Foster went into the lab and asked him to lend him his tab for the weekend.’
‘His what?’
‘His tab. At least that’s what he calls it. You know, that little card thing they all have to wear, the people who work with X-rays. You get overexposed, it turns a different colour. I don’t know what you call it.’ Brunetti nodded his head, knowing what it was. ‘Well, this guy lent it to him for the weekend, and he had it back to him on Monday morning, in time for work. Good as his word.’
‘And the sensor?’
‘Wasn’t changed at all. Same colour it was when he gave it to him.’
‘Why do you think that was why he borrowed it?’
‘You didn’t know him, did you?’ he asked Brunetti, who shook his head. ‘He was a funny guy. Real serious. Real serious about his work, well, about just about everything. I think he was religious, too, but not like those crazy born-agains. When he decided that something was right, there was no stopping him from doing it. And he had it in his head that...’ He paused here. ‘I’m not sure what he had in his head, but he wanted to find out where it was Danny touched that stuff he’s allergic to.’
‘Is that what it was? An allergy?’
‘That’s what they told me when he came down from Germany. His arm’s an awful mess, but the doctors up there said it would heal up pretty good. Might take a year or so, but the scar’ll go away, or at least it’ll fade a fair bit.’
Ambrogiani spoke for the first time. ‘Did they tell you what he was allergic to?’
‘No, they couldn’t find out. Said it was probably sap from some sort of tree that grows up in those mountains. They did all sorts of tests on the boy.’ Here his face softened and his eyes lit up with real pride. ‘Never complained, not once, that boy. Got the makings of a real man. I’m not half proud of him.’
‘But they didn’t tell you what he was allergic to?’ the Carabiniere repeated.
‘Nope. And then the dang fools went and lost Danny’s medical records, leastwise the records from Germany.’
At this, Brunetti and Ambrogiani exchanged a look, and Brunetti asked, ‘Do you know if Foster ever found the place?’
‘Couldn’t say. He got killed two weeks after he borrowed that sensor thing, and I never had occasion to talk to him again. So I don’t know. I’m sorry that happened to him. He was an OK guy, and I’m sorry his doctor friend had to take it so hard. I didn’t know they were that. . .’ Here he failed to find the right word, so he stopped.
‘Is that what people here believe, that Doctor Peters gave herself that overdose because of Foster?’
This time, it was the soldier who was surprised. ‘Doesn’t make sense any other way, does it? She was a doctor, wasn’t she? If anybody knew how much of that stuff to put in a needle, it should have been her.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Brunetti said, feeling his disloyalty even as he spoke.
‘Funny thing, though,’ began the American. ‘If I hadn’t ’ve been so bothered with worryin’ about Danny, I maybe would have thought of something to tell Foster. Might have helped him find the place he was looking for.’
‘What’s that?’ Brunetti asked, making the question casual.
‘While we were up there that day, I saw two of the trucks that come here, saw them turning into a dirt road off down the hill a ways from where we were. Just didn’t think of it when Foster asked me. Wish I had. Could have saved him a lot of trouble. All he’d have to do is go ask Mr Gamberetto where his trucks were that day, and he would have found the place.’
‘Mr Gamberetto?’ Brunetti inquired politely.
‘Yeah, he’s the fellow’s got the haulage contract from the post. His trucks pull in, here twice a week and take away the restricted stuff. You know, the medical waste from the hospital, and from the dental clinic. I think he picks up stuff from the motor pool, too. The oil they take out of the transformers and from the oil changes they do. The trucks don’t have his name on them or anything, but they have this red stripe down the side, and that’s the kind of trucks I saw up by Lake Barcis that day.’ He paused and grew reflective. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it that day, when Foster asked me. But Danny had just gone up to Germany, and I guess I wasn’t thinking all that clear.’
‘You work in the contracting office, don’t you, Sergeant?’ Ambrogiani asked.
If the American found it strange that Ambrogiani would know this, he gave no sign of it. ‘Yes, I do.’
