'Not on the phone?' Pucetti asked, unable to disguise his surprise.
Brunetti spoke before Vianello had time to answer, conscious of what sort of information might be in those files. 'The first contact, yes, to see if there is reason to talk to them, and then in person.' He pointed at the folders. 'Is any of it criminal?'
Vianello put his hand out horizontally and waggled it a few times. 'There are two who are taking an awful lot of tranquillizers, but that's the doctors' fault, not theirs, I'd say.'
It sounded pretty tame to Brunetti. 'Nothing better?' he asked, struck by how strange the word sounded.
'I've got one that might be,' Pucetti said diffidently.
Both men turned to look at the young officer, who rooted around in the files on his desk and finally pulled one out. If s an American woman’ he began.
Shoplifting, was Brunetti's immediate unspoken thought, but then he realized that a pharmacist was unlikely to have information about that.
'Well,' temporized Pucetti, 'it's really maybe her husband.'
Vianello sighed audibly, and Pucetti said, 'She's been into the Pronto Soccorso five times in the last two years.'
Neither of them said anything.
'The first time was a broken nose’ said Pucetti, opening the file and running his finger down the first page. He flipped it over and started down the second. 'Then, three months later, she was back with a very bad cut on her wrist. She said she cut it on a wine glass that fell into the sink.'
'Uh huh,' Vianello muttered.
'Six months passed, and then she was back with two broken ribs.'
'Fell down the stairs, I suppose?' Vianello offered.
'Exactly,' answered Pucetti. He flipped over another page and said, 'Then her knee: torn ligaments: tripped on a bridge.'
Neither Brunetti nor Vianello said anything. The sound of the next page turning was loud in the silence from the two men.
'And then, last month, she dislocated her shoulder.'
'Falling down the stairs again?' asked Vianello.
Pucetti closed the file. It doesn't say’
'Are they residents?'' Brunetti asked.
They have an apartment, but they come as tourists,' Pucetti answered. 'She pays her hospital bills in cash’
'Then how'd she get on his computer?' Brunetti asked.
'She went into the pharmacy to get painkillers the first time’ Pucetti said.
'Quite a lot of them, it would seem’ Vianello muttered.
Ignoring Vianello's remark, Pucetti completed his explanation, 'And so she's in his computer’
Brunetti considered the wisdom of pursuing this but decided against. 'Let's begin with Venetians or, at least, Italians, and see if we can get anyone to speak to us. If they realize we know whatever it is he's been blackmailing them about, then they might tell us. And we might find out who broke into his pharmacy, as well’
'There's the blood samples’ Vianello said, reminding them but not sounding at all optimistic that any results would be ready yet. 'It might be easier if we could match that sample with the blood type of someone in the files. They've been with Bocchese since the break-in.'
'Or in some lab’ Brunetti said. He grabbed the phone and dialled Bocchese's number. The technician answered.
'Those blood samples?' Brunetti said.
'Thank you, Dottore, for asking. I'm fine. Glad to hear you are, too’
'Sorry, Bocchese, but we're in something of a hurry here.'
'You're always in a hurry, Commissario. We scientific types know how to take life more easily. For example, we have to wait for specimens to come back from laboratories, and that teaches us the virtue of patience.'
'When will they be back?'
'The results should have been here yesterday’ Bocchese said.
'Can you call them?'
'And ask them what?'
To tell you whatever they found in the blood.'
'If I call them and they have it, they can just as easily send me the information by email.'
'Would you call them’ Brunetti said in a voice he struggled to keep as placid and polite as he could, 'and ask them if they'd send you the results?'
'Of course. I'd be delighted. Shall I call you back if I get anything?'
'You are kindness itself’ Brunetti said.
Bocchese snorted and hung up.
Neither of the others bothered to ask, both aware of the sovereign truth that Bocchese worked at a rhythm set by and known only to himself.
Brunetti replaced the phone with studied patience. 'The ways of the Lord are infinite’ was the only thing he could think of to say.
'How shall we do this?' Vianello asked, displaying no apparent interest in the ways of the Lord.
'Do you know any of the people on the list?' Brunetti asked.
Vianello nodded and picked up one of the files. Pucetti searched until he found the file he was looking for.
'Let me have a look’ Brunetti said. He took the list of names and read through it, recognizing two, a young woman colleague of Paola's he had met once and a surgeon at the hospital who had operated on the mother of a friend of his.
Given the time, they agreed that the best thing they could do now was for each of them to call the people they knew and arrange appointments for the following day. Brunetti went up to his office and read through the files. Dottor Malapiero had first been prescribed L-dopa three years before. Even Brunetti recognized this as the drug most commonly used against the first symptoms of Parkinson's.
As for Paola's colleague, Brunetti had met Daniela Carlon once, a chance meeting, when he and Paola had joined her for a coffee and a conversation that had turned out to be far more pleasant than he had anticipated. The immediate prospect of listening to a professor of English literature and a professor of Persian was not one that had at first thrilled Brunetti, but the discovery that Daniela had spent years in the Middle East with her husband, an archaeologist still working in Syria, had changed that. Soon, they were talking about Arrian and Quintus Curtius, while Paola looked on silently, upstaged for once in the discussion of books but not at all troubled by that fact.
According to her records, Daniela Carlon had been hospitalized for an abortion two months before, the foetus in its third month. And according to what Brunetti remembered of their conversation, which had taken place shortly before, her husband had been in Syria for the previous eight months.
Brunetti chose to do the easy call first and learned from the doctor's wife that Dottor Malapiero was in Milano and would not be back for two days. He left no message and said that he would call again.
Daniela answered the phone and, after her initial confusion that Brunetti had called, and not Paola, asked, 'What is it, Guido?'
'I'd like to talk to you’
The pause that followed stretched out until it was too long and embarrassingly significant.
‘It’s about work’ Brunetti added awkwardly.
‘Your work or mine?'
'Mine, unfortunately’
'Why unfortunately?' she asked.
This was exactly the situation Brunetti had wanted to avoid, having the conversation on the telephone, where he could not observe her responses or weigh her expressions as they spoke.
'Because it has to do with an investigation.'
'A police investigation?' she asked, making no attempt to disguise her astonishment. 'What have I got to do
