A Sea of Troubles

found.

Vianello tapped his finger on the final phrase and asked, 'You think this means something, sir?'

'Everything has to mean something, doesn't it, really?' Brunetti offered by way of response, though he was curious as to just what this might mean. 'You know anyone?' he asked Vianello, using the centuries-old Venetian shorthand: friend? relative? old classmate? someone who owes a favour?

'Nadia's godmother, sir,' Vianello said after a moment's reflection. 'She's married to a man who used to be a colonel.'

'They weren't invited to your anniversary dinner, were they?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello smiled at the reminder of the favour Brunetti now owed him. 'No, they weren't. He retired about three years ago, but he'd still have access to anything he wanted.'

'Is Nadia very close to them?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello's smile was sharklike. 'Like a daughter, sir.' He reached for the phone. 'I'll see what he can find out.'

Brunetti assumed from the brevity of Vianello's opening salvo that he had reached the retired Colonel directly. He heard him explain his request. When Vianello, after a short pause, said only 'June two years ago,' Brunetti assumed that the Colonel had not bothered to ask why the sergeant wanted the information. When Brunetti heard Vianello say, 'Good, then I'll call you tomorrow morning,' he left and went back to his own office.

22

The following morning, Brunetti left for work before Paola was awake, thus avoiding the need to answer any questions about the progress of the investigation. Because Signorina Elettra had not answered his call or at least had not phoned him at the Questura the day before, he could allow himself to think she had obeyed him and returned from Pellestrina. Consequently, he toyed with the idea, as he walked to work, that he might arrive at the Questura to find her at her. desk, dressed for spring, happy to be back and even happier to see him.

His thought, however, was not father to her deed, and there was no sign of her in her office. Her computer sat silent, its screen blank, but he went upstairs before that could be made to serve as an omen of any sort.

Stopping in the officers' room on the way up, he found Vianello at his desk, a disassembled pistol spread in a mess in front of him. The metal parts lay scattered on an open copy of Gazzetta dello Sport, their dull menace in sharp contrast to the pink paper, like a ballet dancer wearing brass knuckles.

'What's going on?' Brunetti asked.

The sergeant looked up and smiled. 'It's Alvise's, sir. He started to take it apart to clean it this morning, but he couldn't remember how to put it back together.'

'Where is he?' Brunetti asked, looking around.

'He went to get a coffee.'

'And left it here?'

'Yes.'

'What are you doing?'

'I thought I'd put it back together for him, sir, and just leave it on his desk.'

Brunetti gave this the thought it deserved and said, 'Yes, I think that's best.'

Ignoring the gun, Vianello said, 'The Colonel called back.'

'And?'

'And he's not saying.' 'Which means?'

'It probably means he'd say if they'd told him but they won't tell him.'

'Why do you say that?'

Vianello considered how best to begin, finally saying, 'He was a colonel, so he's used to being obeyed by almost everybody. I think what happened is that they refused to tell him why

Targhetta left, but he's ashamed to admit that, so he says that he's not allowed to reveal the information.' He paused, then added, 'It's his way of saving face, makes it sound like it's his decision.' 'You sure?'

'No,' the sergeant answered, 'but it's the explanation that makes most sense.' There was another long pause and he added, 'Besides, he owes me a number of favours. He'd do it if he could.'

Brunetti considered this for some time then, realizing that Vianello must have been thinking about it for even longer, asked, 'What do you think?'

'I'd guess they caught Targhetta at something but couldn't prove it or didn't want to risk the consequences of arresting him or charging him. So they just quietly let him go.'

'And put that in his file?'

'Uh huh,' Vianello agreed, turning his attention to the pistol. Quickly, with expert fingers, he began to pick up the scattered parts and slip them into place. Within seconds, the pistol was reassembled, returned to cold lethality.

Setting it aside, Vianello said, 'I wish she were here.'

'Who?'

'Signorina Elettra,' Vianello answered. For some reason, it pleased Brunetti that he did not speak of her familiarly.

'Yes, that would be useful, wouldn't it?' Stymied, suddenly aware of how practically dependent upon her he had become in recent years, Brunetti asked, 'Is there anyone else?'

'I've been thinking about that since he called,' Vianello said. 'There's only one person I can think of who might be able to do it.'

'Who?'

'You're not going to like it, sir,' the sergeant said.

To Brunetti, that could mean only one thing; that is, one person. 'I told you I'd prefer not to have anything to do with Galardi,' Brunetti said. Stefano Galardi, the owner and president of a software company, had gone to school with Vianello, but he had long since left behind him all memory of having grown up in Castello in a house with no heat and no hot water and had soared off into the empyrean reaches of cyber-wealth. He had scaled the social and monetary ladder and was accepted, indeed welcomed, at every table in the city, except perhaps at the table of Guido Brunetti, where he had, six years before, made very obvious and very drunken advances to Paola until told to leave by her very angry and very sober husband.

Because Galardi was persuaded that Vianello had, almost twenty years ago, saved him from drowning after a particularly riotous Redentore party, he had served, before the advent of Signorina Elettra, as a means to obtain certain kinds of electronic information. Not the least of Brunetti's pleasures in Signorina Elettra's prowess was the fact that it freed him of any obligation to Galardi.

Neither of them said anything for a long time, until Brunetti said, 'All right. Call him.' He left the room, not wanting to be present when Vianello did.

His curiosity was satisfied two hours later, when Vianello came in and, unasked, took the seat opposite his superior. 'It took him this long to find the right way in,' he said.

'And?'

'My guess was right. They caught him tampering with evidence in a case and threw him out.'

'What evidence? And what case?'

Vianello began with the first question. 'The only thing he could give me was the translation of the code.' He saw Brunetti's confusion and said, 'Remember that list of numbers and letters at the bottom of the report?'

'Yes.'

'He found out what that means.' Vianello went ahead without forcing Brunetti to ask him. 'They use it, he told me, in any case where a member of the Finanza either overlooks or hides evidence or in some way attempts to affect the outcome of an investigation.'

'By doing what?' Brunetti asked.

'The same things we do,' answered a shameless Vianello. 'Look the other way when we see our grocer not giving a ricevuta fiscale. Not remember seeing the start of any fight between a police officer and a civilian. Things like that.'

Ignoring Vianello's second example, Brunetti asked, 'In his case, what did he do? Specifically.'

'He couldn't find out. It's not in the file.' Vianello allowed Brunetti a moment to digest the significance of this and then added, 'But the case was Spadini's. The name's not there, but the code number for one of the cases Targhetta was working on then is the same as the one listed for Spadini.'