bothers with that, you know. They try on ten, fifteen pairs of shoes, and then they walk out without even saying thank you. So to have somebody who treated me like a real person, well, it was very nice.’
‘Did he give you his name?’
‘No.’
‘Or say anything about himself that you remember?’
She smiled at this. ‘He said he liked animals.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Brunetti said.
‘Yes, that’s what he said. When I was helping him, a woman came in, one of our regulars. She’s very rich: you can tell it by looking at her – the way she dresses and all, and the way she talks. But she has this really sweet old dog that she got from the shelter. I asked her about it once, and she said she always gets her dogs from the shelter, and she asks for old ones. You’d expect a woman like that to have an, oh, I don’t know, one of those disgusting little things that sits on your lap, or a poodle or something. But she’s got this silly little mutt; maybe it’s part beagle, but you’d never know what the other part is. And she adores it, and the dog loves her. So I guess it’s all right that she’s so rich,’ she said, causing Brunetti to wonder if the revolution was closer to hand than he thought.
‘And why did he say he likes animals?’ Vianello asked.
‘Because when he saw the dog, he asked the woman how old it was, and when she said it was eleven, he asked her if she’d had it checked for arthritis.
‘She said she hadn’t, and he said that, from the way the dog walked, he’d guess it had it. Arthritis.’
‘What did the woman say?’ the Inspector asked.
‘Oh, she thanked him. I told you: she’s very nice. And then, after she left, I asked him, and he said he liked animals, especially dogs, and knew a bit about them.’
‘Anything else?’ Brunetti asked, realizing that this was precious little to be going ahead with.
‘No, only that he was a nice man. People who like animals usually are, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Vianello said. Brunetti limited himself to a nod.
The manager was still busy with the two women, the three of them surrounded by expanding waves of boxes, shoes littering the floor in front of them. ‘Did your colleague speak to him?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Oh, no. She took care of Signora Persilli.’ At their blank looks, she said, ‘The lady with the dog.’
Brunetti took out his wallet and gave her his card. ‘If you think of anything else, Signorina, please call me.’
They turned towards the door, but she called from behind them. ‘Is he really the dead man? In Venice?’
Surprising himself with his frankness, Brunetti turned back and said, ‘I think so.’ Her mouth contracted in a small grimace and she shook her head at the news. ‘So if you think of anything, please call us; it might help,’ he said, not specifying how this might be possible.
‘I’d like to help,’ she said.
Brunetti thanked her again, and he and Vianello left the shop.
14
‘A MAN WITH Madelung who likes animals and knows something about dogs,’ Vianello said as they walked towards the car.
More practically, Brunetti said, ‘We’ll talk to Vezzani. He should be back from Treviso by now.’ He had gone to the shoe shop in the full hope, even expectation, of discovering the man’s name and identity. He felt not a little embarrassed, now, at how he had looked forward to being able to walk into Vezzani’s office with the dead man’s name in his possession. Now, that possibility gone, he accepted the fact that there was nothing to do save what both of them now knew they should have done before: go to the Mestre Questura and ask for their cooperation.
He got into the front seat of the car and asked the driver to take him to the Questura. The driver reminded him about the seat belt, and Brunetti, thinking it foolish to use it for what would prove such a short trip, put it on nevertheless. It was well past four, and the traffic seemed heavy, though Brunetti was hardly an expert on traffic.
Inside the building, he showed his warrant card and said he had an appointment with Commissario Vezzani. They had worked as part of the team investigating the baggage handlers at the airport some years ago – the investigation Pucetti was still involved with – had passed through those fires together and emerged, both of them wiser and more pessimistic, but with a far clearer understanding of the limits to which a clever lawyer could push the rights of the accused.
The officer on duty pointed to the elevator and told them the Commissario’s office was on the third floor. Vezzani was from Livorno originally, but he had lived in the Veneto so long that his speech had taken on the sing- song cadence, and he had once told Brunetti, during a break in the endless interrogation of two men accused of armed robbery, that his children spoke to their friends in the Mestre version of Veneziano.
He rose when they entered, a tall, thin man with prematurely grey hair, cut close to his skull in a vain attempt, perhaps, to disguise the colour. He shook hands with Brunetti, clapped him on the arm in greeting, and extended his hand to Vianello, with whom he had also worked.
‘You find out who he is?’ he asked when they were seated.
‘No. We spoke to the women in the shoe shop, but they couldn’t tell us who he was. All one of them said was that he liked dogs and knew something about animals.’
If Vezzani found this an odd piece of information to divulge during the purchase of a pair of shoes, he did not remark on it and merely asked, ‘And this disease you say he had?’
‘Madelung. It happens to alcoholics or addicts, but Rizzardi said there were no signs this guy was a drinker or used drugs.’
‘So it just happened to him?’
Brunetti nodded, recalling the thick neck and the arching torso of the dead man.
‘Could I see the photo?’ Vezzani asked.
Brunetti gave it to him.
‘You said Pucetti did this?’ Vezzani asked, picking up the photo to take a closer look.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve heard about him,’ Vezzani said; then, in a different tone, ‘God, I’d like to have a few like him around here.’
‘That bad?’
Vezzani shrugged.
‘Or you don’t want to say?’ Brunetti asked.
Vezzani gave a humourless laugh. ‘If I saw a job opening for a street patrolman in Caltanissetta, I’d be tempted, I tell you.’
‘Why?’
Vezzani rubbed at his right cheek with the palm of his hand: his beard was so heavy that, by this time of day, Brunetti could hear a grating noise. ‘Because so little happens, combined with the fact that, when it does, there’s so little we can do.’ Then, as if the subject were too annoying, Vezzani got quickly to his feet, taking the photo with him. ‘Let me take this downstairs and show it to the boys. See if anyone recognizes him.’ At Brunetti’s nod, he left the room.
Brunetti got to his feet and walked over to a bulletin board on which were pinned notices bearing the seal of the Ministry of the Interior. He read a few of them and found they were the same memos and reports that flowed into and out of his own office. Perhaps he should put theirs in suitcases, take them to the railway station, and leave them unattended for a few minutes or until they were stolen. There seemed no other way they would ever be disposed of effectively. Should he propose it to Patta? he wondered. He stood and looked at them, inventing his conversation with Patta.
Vezzani came quickly into the room. ‘He’s a veterinarian,’ he said.
As if he were channelling the voice of the young woman in the shoe shop, Brunetti said, ‘Likes animals and knows something about dogs.’ Then he asked, ‘Who told you that?’
