Fatal Remedies

Rizzardi’s final report was on his desk. The double mark on Mitri’s neck was, he had determined, a ‘hesitation mark’ on the part of the murderer, who had probably loosened the cord momentarily to tighten his grip, shifting it and thus leaving a second indentation in Mitri’s flesh. The material under the nails of Mitri’s left hand was indeed human skin, as well as a few fibres of dark-brown wool, probably from a jacket or overcoat and in all likelihood the result of Mitri’s wild, and futile, attempt to fight off his attacker. ‘Find me a suspect and I’ll give you a match,’ Rizzardi had pencilled in the margin.

At nine o’clock Brunetti decided it was not too early to call his father-in-law, Count Orazio Falier. He dialled the number of the Count’s office, gave his name, and was immediately connected.

‘Buon di, Guido,’ the Count said. ‘Che pasticcio, eh?’

Yes, it was a mess and more than that. ‘That’s what I’m calling about.’ Brunetti paused, but the Count said nothing, so he went on. ‘Have you heard anything or has your lawyer heard anything?’ He broke off here for a moment, then continued. ‘I don’t even know if your lawyer is involved in this.’

‘No, not yet,’ the Count answered. ‘I’m waiting to see what the judge does. Also, I don’t know what Paola will want to do. Do you have any idea?’

‘We talked about it last night,’ Brunetti began and heard his father-in-law’s whispered, ‘Good.’

Brunetti continued, ‘She said she’d pay the fine and whatever it costs to replace the window.’

‘What about any other charges?’

‘I didn’t ask her about that. I thought it was enough to get her to agree to pay the fine and the damages, at least in principle. That way, if it’s more than just the window, she might go along and pay that, too.’

‘Yes, good. Good. That might work.’

Brunetti was irritated by the Count’s assumption that he and Brunetti were united in some plan to outwit or manipulate Paola. However good their motives might be and however strongly both of them might believe they were doing what was best for her, Brunetti didn’t like the Count’s casual assumption that Brunetti was willing to deceive his wife.

He didn’t want to continue with this. ‘That’s not why I called. I’d like you to tell me anything you might know about Mitri or about Awocato Zambino.’

‘Giuliano?’

‘Yes.’

‘Zambino’s straight as a die.’

‘He represented Manolo,’ Brunetti shot back, naming a Mafia killer Zambino had successfully defended three years before.

‘Manolo was kidnapped in France and brought back illegally for trial.’

Interpretations differed: Manolo had been in a small town just across the French border, living in a hotel, driving each night to Monaco to gamble in the Casino. A young woman he met at the baccarat table had suggested they drive back into Italy to her place for a drink. Manolo had been arrested as they crossed the border, by the woman herself, who was a colonel of the Carabinieri. Zambino had argued, successfully, that his client had been the victim of police entrapment and kidnapping.

Brunetti let it drop. ‘Has he ever worked for you?’ he asked the Count.

‘Once or twice. So I know. And I know from friends of mine for whom he’s handled things. He’s good. He’ll work like a ferret on a case to defend his client. But he’s straight.’ The Count paused for a long time, as if debating whether to trust Brunetti with the next piece of information, then added, ‘There was a rumour going around last year that he didn’t cheat on his taxes. I heard from someone that he declared an income of five hundred million lire or something like that.’

‘You think that’s what he earned?’

‘Yes, I do,’ the Count answered in a voice usually reserved for the recounting of miracles.

‘What do the other lawyers think of this?’

‘Well, you can figure that out, Guido. It makes things hard for all of them, if someone like Zambino declares such an income and the rest of them are saying they earned two hundred million, or even less. It can only cause suspicion about their tax declarations.’

‘That must be hard for them.’

‘Yes. He’s…’ the Count began, but then his mind registered the tone as well as the words and he stopped. ‘About Mitri,’ he said with no preamble. ‘I think you might take a closer look at him. There could be something there.’

‘About what, the travel agencies?’

‘I don’t know. In fact, I don’t know anything at all about him except what a few people have said since he died. You know, the sort of things that get talked about when someone’s the victim of a violent crime.’

Brunetti did know. He’d heard rumours of that kind about people killed in the cross-fire during bank robberies and about the victims of kidnap murders. Always, there was someone to raise the question of why they were there at precisely that moment, to ask why it was they died instead of someone else and just what their involvement was with the criminals. Nothing could ever be, here in Italy, simply what it appeared. Always, no matter how innocent the circumstances, how blameless the victim, there was someone to raise the spectre of dietrologia and insist that there must be something behind it all, that everyone had his price or got his part and nothing was what it seemed. ‘What have you heard?’ he asked.

‘Nothing outright or specific. Everyone’s been very careful to express surprise at what happened. But there’s an undertone in what some of them say that suggests they feel differently about it or about him.’

‘Who?’

‘Guido,’ the Count said, his voice going a few degrees cooler, ‘if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. But it so happens I don’t remember. It was really nothing any one person said, not so much that as an unspoken suggestion that what happened to him wasn’t a complete surprise. I can’t be any clearer than that.’

‘There was the note,’ Brunetti said. That could certainly have been enough to lead people to assume Mitri was somehow involved in the violence that had claimed his life.

‘Yes, I know.’ The Count paused for a moment, then added, ‘That might be enough to explain it. What do you think?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because I don’t want my daughter to go through the rest of her life thinking that something she did led to a man’s murder.’

This was a hope in which Brunetti joined him with all his spirit.

‘What has she said about it?’ the Count asked.

‘She said last night that she was sorry about it, about starting it all.’

‘Do you think she did? Start it, that is?’

‘I don’t know,’ Brunetti admitted. ‘There are a lot of crazy people running around today.’

‘You’d have to be crazy to kill someone because he owned a travel agency that arranged tours.’

‘Sex-tours,’ Brunetti clarified.

‘Sex-tours. Tours to the pyramids,’ the Count fired back. ‘People don’t go around murdering others because of that, whichever it was.’

Brunetti stopped himself from responding that people normally didn’t go around throwing rocks through plate- glass windows, either. Instead, he said, ‘People do lots of things for crazy reasons, so I don’t think we can exclude it as a possibility.’

‘But do you believe it?’ the Count insisted and Brunetti could hear from the tension in his voice just how much it cost him to ask this of his son-in-law.

‘I told you, I don’t want to believe it,’ Brunetti said. ‘I’m not sure it’s the same thing, but it means I’m not prepared to believe it unless we can find very good reasons to do so.’

‘What would they be?’

‘A suspect.’ He was himself married to the only suspect and he knew she’d been sitting beside him at the time of the murder, so that left either a person who killed because of sex-tourism or someone who did it for some other reason. He was entirely willing to find either, just so long as he could find someone. ‘Will you let me know if you hear anything more definite?’ he asked. Before the Count could state conditions, he added, ‘You don’t have to tell me who said it, just tell me what he or she said.’

‘All right,’ the Count agreed. ‘And will you let me know how Paola is?’